I.

Stoicism
A. Founded by Zeno of Citium
B. From the term “stoa” meaning porch
C. Advocates in Rome included
1. Cicero
2. Epictetus
3. Seneca
4. Emperor Marcus Aurelius
D. The Stoics addressed themselves in all three divisions of philosophy
formulated by Aristotle’s Lyceum
1. Logic
2. Physics
3. Ethics

II. Wisdom and Control versus Pleasure

A. Moral philosophy aimed at happiness through wisdom,
1. which to control what lay within human ability and to accept with
dignified resignation what had to be.
B. Zeno was inspired by Socrates who had faced death with serenity and
courage.
C. Stoics modeled a pattern for their lives by acknowledging death.
D. We cannot control all events, but we can control the attitude toward what
happens.
1. Useless to fear future events, for they will happen in any case.
a) We have nothing to fear but fear itself
2. Stoics said that the work is an orderly arrangement were people and
physical things behave according to principles of purpose.
a) Throughout all of nature the operation of reason a law.
3. Relied on the special idea of God to explain the view of this world
a) Thought of God as a rational substance existing not in some single
location but in all things.
b) Substantial form of reason that controls and orders the whole structure
of nature.
III. Stoic Theory and Knowledge
A. Explained in great deal how we can achieve knowledge.
B. Importance of the theory of knowledge:
1. It laid the foundation for their materialist theory of nation
a) Provided the basis for their conception of truth and uncertainty.
C. Origin of ideas
1. Words express thoughts as a result from influence of objects of the mind
a) Mind is blank at birth and builds up its store of ideas as its exposed to
objects
(1) Objects make impressions in our minds through the channel of
the senses.
2. Stoics faced a problem on how to explain or account for general ideas such
as goodness or beauty.
a) They had to show how our thinking is related to our senses.
(1) Our thinking is based on impressions that starts from within us, as
in the case of feelings. Feelings can give us knowledge.
3. Stoic logic had cast Stoic philosophy into a materialistic mold.

IV. Matter as the Basis of all Reality

A. Reality
1. This materialism provided Stoicism with an ingenious conception of the
physical world and human nature.
2. The broad picture they drew is that all that is real is material.
3. As we know it the world is not made of inert or passive matter; its dynamic
and ever changing, structured, and ordered arrangement.
a) Besides inert matter there is force or power that represents the active
shaping and ordering element in nature.
b) Active power of constant changing was known as fire that spread into
everything providing vitality.
c) This attributed rationality and since this was the highest form of being
the Stoic though it was the force of God.

V. God in Everything
A. Principal ideal of Stoicism was the notion that God was in everything.
1. Fire
2. Force
3. Rationality
 B. Permeability of matter
1. Every type of matter is mixed up together.
a) Meaning the material substance of God was mixed with what would
otherwise be motionless matter.
C. Nature law
1. Is the continued behavior of matter in accordance with its principle. Thus,
nature has his origins in God, because things continue to behave as they were
arranged to behave; Thus, developing notions of Fate and Providence.

VI. Fate and Providence

A. Providence
1. meant that events occur in the way they do because all things and people
are under control of the Logos (God)
a) Nothing rattles the universe for nothing is loose.

VII. Human Nature

A. Stoics believed that also a person is a material being who is permeated by
the very same fiery substance.
B. Famous for saying that people contain a spark of the divine in them.
1. Meaning containing part of the substance of God.
a) God is the soul of the world there for each person soul is part of God.
b) This spark of the divine is an exceptionally fine and pure material that
causes it to move and to be capable of all sensations.
C. Human personality finds its unique expression in rationality
1. However human rationality meant that a person’s nature participates in the
rational structure and order of the whole nature.
a) It represents our awareness of the actual order of things and our place in
this order.
b) It involves our awareness that all things obey law.

VIII. Ethics and the human drama

A. God is who determines what each person will be and how he or she will be
situated in history.
B. Human wisdom
1. consists in recognizing what our role is in this drama and then performing
the part well.
C. The actor,
1. which Epictetus explained we are in this world, develops great
indifference to those things it cannot control. But the actor can control the attitude
and emotions.
 a) By developing apathy, we will receive serenity and happiness that are the
mark of a wise person. It is the one who knows and accepts his/her role.

IX. The problem of freedom

A. Freedom
1. Persistent problem in Stoic moral philosophy and that is the nature of
human freedom.
a) It may be true that actors do not choose their roles, but what difference is
of choosing roles and choosing attitudes? If you are not free to choose one how
can you choose the other?
2. Only explanation is that everything in the universe behaves according to
divine law
a) Stoics built the whole moral philosophy on the conviction that if we know
the rigorous law and understand our role as inevitable, we will not strain against
the inevitable but will move cheerfully with the pace of history.
3. To Stoics happiness is not a product of choice but a quality of existence,
which follows from agreeing to what must be.
a) Freedom, therefore, is not the power to alter our destiny but rather the
absence of emotional disturbance.

X. Cosmopolitanism and Justice

A. Cosmopolitanism
1. The idea that all people are citizens of the same human community.
a) Human relations have the greatest significance for the human being are
the bearers of a dive spark.
b) Each person relates with the other because they share a common
element.
2. Stoics viewed the world not as the product of chance but as the product of
an ordering mind or reason.
a) This view involved the Stoic in a highly optimistic attitude regarding the
possibilities of human wisdom.