The Sunday Stoic

  The Cosmos, (God, Nature, the Ultimate, the One) is the source of all, and therefore worthy of reverence and study. From this study, humanity has learned that it is a conscious extension of the Cosmos. We are the consequence of, as well as component of, a web of cause and effect. From the Cosmos we briefly emerge, with a sliver of thoughtful independence, and to the Cosmos we eventually fully return. Via this cosmic connection and our own influence on the web of cause and effect, lie our immortality. We are the products of the laws of nature and as such are eternally bound by these laws. More specifically, we are beings of the Earth, related to every other known being, and yet set apart by the refinement of our ability to communicate, investigate, learn, and change. To live well in this world, I need to learn from it, this is the cultivation of Wisdom. From this knowledge it is clear that our species survives due to our ability to cooperate, we are social beings, we must live i...

  I have been reading a lot of articles on the Spiritual Naturalist Association's website. One article by Jay Forrest really stood out to me. In the article Jay updates a credo first postulated by Michel Dowd . This credo involves the use of your hand to remember 5 important concepts. You may whish to adopt it to fit your own life philosophy. Here I updated it once again for my own purposes. By reciting this each day it helps to keep me grounded and literally keep my principles "at hand". Hold up your index finger and say "Nature is my source" Hold up your middle finger and say "Evolution is my history" Hold up your ring finger and say "Evidence is my authority" Hold up your pinky finger and say "Eudaimonia is my quest" Hold out your thumb then make a fist and say "Working for a wiser, better world is my mission". Nature is my source. This reminds me that nature is my ultimate. I am a part of it and subject to its la...

T he ancient Stoics believed that everything that exists is composed of matter and only bodies exist. Bodies can cause change in other bodies. Four things were said not to exist as independent entities, but to subsist (they are depended on things that exist), these four incorporeal things are: Time Place Void Sayables (the meaning of something said) The Stoics were monists, they believed that the universe was a cohesive singular whole. However things that exist could be active or passive. They could cause change or have change inflected upon them. These things were blended together creating our physical universe. Pneuma (breath) was an active organizing principle of the Cosmos that existed in all things. The amount of Tension that Pneuma exerted on a particular object could give it various properties including life, intelligence and rational judgement. To learn about this topic in greater detail, I highly recommend Stoicism by Dr. John Sellars. The Monad a symbol used by ancie...

  In the last post we discussed the Stoic view of the universe. The ancients believed that the Cosmos (all that is) is contained within an infinite void. This Cosmos exists until the great conflagration, when the it is consumed by fire and begins again. God is the source of and the soul of the Cosmos. The Cosmos therefore is a living, intelligent being and is the source of all other intelligence. The other gods of the pantheon are extensions of this singular intelligence or a means of personifying various attributes of nature. Each of our human souls are fragments of this universal God and from this source our human intelligence arises. 147: The deity, say they, is a living being, immortal, rational, perfect or intelligent in happiness, admitting nothing evil [65] , taking providential care of the world and all that therein is, but he is not of human shape. He is, however, the artificer of the universe and, as it were, the father of all, both in general and in that particular ...

  The philosophical system of Stoicism is divided into three parts. Physics Logic Ethics As modern Stoics typically spend most of our time studying Ethics. But if we want to get the most out of reading the ancient texts we should at least have a rudimentary understanding of their views of physics and logic. I will spend a little time over the next few posts examining Stoic physics. There are two sources that I recommend if you wish to explore these topics further. One is The Lives of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius. The other is Stoicism by John Sellers. I am not an expert on the subject but will share some basics, I highly encourage you to read into these texts if you want to know more! If you want to dig deeper here is a paper by Vanessa de Harven. If we start at the grandest scale possible in the Stoic universe we will see The All (Pan). The All consists of an infinite void and the Cosmos/World (Holon) within the void. The Cosmos is considered to be a living bei...