A little over two months back, we published a what does Modern Stoicism mean?” Following up on those are several others: A little over two months back, we published a Symposium on Modern Stoicism , a piece in which seven of the members of the Modern Stoicism steering committee weighed in on several questions. The first of those is: “” Following up on those are several others:

what modern Stoicism includes

what (if anything) it excludes

how it differs from “traditional Stoicism” (if one thinks it does)

As editor, I refrained from providing my own take on these matters in the original piece, thinking that we already had quite a number of very interesting views expressed. One of the other members of the organization, someone who was involved from the start, and has made numerous contributions to contemporary understanding of Stoicism – John Sellars – also refrained from that “first round” of discussion, but later sent me a short write-up of his own thinking on the matter. In the interests of continuing the discussion of what many think to be a very important and contested question – what is “modern Stoicism” – below you will find John Sellars’ contribution to that, followed by my own.

John Sellars

I don’t particularly like the label ‘Modern Stoicism’. It’s fine as a title for this website (as an equivalent for the previous title ‘Stoicism Today’). But I find the notion of Modern Stoicism understood as an updated version of ancient Stoicism unhelpful, and in some ways quite concerning.

Why? Stoicism was a philosophy, not a religious movement. There was never, so far as I can tell, a fixed, monolithic set of Stoic beliefs to which every self-describing ancient Stoic committed themselves. To be sure, there was plenty of common ground, but one can find leading ancient Stoics rejecting many key doctrines, and yet remaining Stoics. In other words, they all thought for themselves, and didn’t feel bound by a fixed belief system.

So, in the spirit of ancient Stoicism itself, I think the last thing one should do is try to update or amend ancient Stoicism (if there ever was such a single thing) in order to come up with a set of beliefs that might be attractive to people today. I think it is, in many ways, a virtue that some aspects of ancient Stoicism now seem implausible (e.g. in physical theory), because this helps us to maintain a critical distance from the material, and encourages us to think more carefully about what we think is cogent, what is not, and how these might be related to one another.

I think that one of the attractive things about the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius is that we can see him doing this himself in his own reflections on various Stoic ideas. Unlike the much earlier Stoics in Athens, Marcus was never a member of a formal Stoic community; he simply self-identified as a Stoic after having read books by Stoic authors whom he had never met. He found the general thrust attractive, but downplayed some aspects, and questioned others.

The same could be said for much earlier Stoics who were part of a more formal community, such as Panaetius and Posidonius, who were also very clearly thinking for themselves within an ongoing tradition. That strikes me as a pretty good model for how people might approach Stoicism today: read, think, adapt, apply. It’s not eclectic or unorthodox; it’s just how it’s always been.

Given that, I don’t see much to be gained from trying to define something called ‘Modern Stoicism’ that is supposed to be in some way distinct from ancient Stoicism.

Greg Sadler

When I started seeing recurring discussions on the Facebook Stoicism group focused on the question of what “modern Stoicism” either is, or ought to be – and when I noted that thinkers central within contemporary Stoic communities were weighing in on the matter- I was reminded of a set of debates and discussions that I did a lot of research on in the first decade of the 2000s. Some of that research eventually went into my first book, Reason Fulfilled By Revelation: The 1930s Christian Philosophy Debates in France.

Now you might say: what’s that got to do with Stoicism? We might be talking about philosophy, but we’re definitely not talking about Christians or the French – so what gives? Well, what I see taking shape is a similar dynamic, having to do with self-definition within a diverse community or movement. It is also a dynamic, I should add, that I’ve seen develop in recent years in other circles. There was a very interesting set of back and forth discussions starting in the 1990s, focused on the very notion of African-American (and Africana) philosophy – just to mention one example.

In each case – “modern Stoicism,” “Christian philosophy”, “African-American philosophy,” – there are several elements that go into that dynamic. A term exists that people have employed for some time, using it to describe something they and others are engaged in. As the term gains more prominence, it gradually becomes apparent that people mean quite different things by it. They stake out differing claims within discussions about what that term can or should apply to, what it involves or excludes, and whether it is even a legitimate term to use. Typically, there will also be some people who entirely reject the term, or consider it redundant, or who regard it as applying to something they consider wrongheaded.

Once this becomes apparent, well, the debates are on – often before those involved fully realize the scope of what they’ve managed to get themselves involved in! In the case of the French debates, they drew in dozens of Francophone philosophers and theologians of major stature, generated a number of books and hundreds of articles, spurred the convening of conferences, and continued on as a major issue of discussion for about five years. They never did end up producing a universal consensus, but the participants did manage to clarify their own positions, make some cogent critiques of other positions, and move the discussion much further along.

I envision that something like that is taking place with this phrase “modern Stoicism”. I suspect that although the phrase has been around for quite some time, we are at a rather early stage in what will develop into further discussions, and quite likely some debates. I’m actually quite happy to see a variety of viewpoints articulated about just what “modern Stoicism” means, because to me that is a sign of the vitality of that contemporary community of practice and thought.