Stoa Conversations: Stoicism Applied

Want to become more Stoic? Join us and other Stoics this October: Stoicism Applied by Caleb Ontiveros and Michael Tremblay on Maven

This conversation is with Tanner Campbell., the founder of Practical Philosophy and host of the Practical Stoicism Podcast.

Tanner specializes in bringing Stoicism to a broad audience in a way that is practical and accessible. In this episode, he and Michael Tremblay how to navigate our roles and responsibilities as Stoics, Tanner's journey from being skeptical of Stoicism to a Stoic advocate, and Tanner's relationship with the Stoic God as the former host of an atheism podcast.

(01:16) Introduction

(10:40) Podcast as Practice

(22:55) The Difference That Stoicism Makes

(36:10) Virtue Signaling

(38:37) How Do You Know What Your Roles Are?

(48:14) Common Pitfalls 

(50:29) Popularizing Stoicism

(01:01:39) Traditional Stoicism

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Subscribe to The Stoa Letter for weekly meditations, actions, and links to the best Stoic resources: www.stoaletter.com/subscribe

Download the Stoa app (it’s a free download): stoameditation.com/pod

Listen to more episodes and learn more here: https://stoameditation.com/blog/stoa-conversations/

Thanks to Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music in the conversations: https://ancientlyre.com/

Want to become more Stoic? Join us and other Stoics this October: Stoicism Applied by Caleb Ontiveros and Michael Tremblay on Maven

Are you even Stoic if you don't take ice-baths, fast, or regularly underdress?

Michael and I discuss why the Stoics argued for voluntary suffering – but also what they said about how it should be practiced. We then debate whether one should show off and share how  we practice voluntary suffering in our own lives. 

(03:18) What is Voluntary Suffering?

(07:31) Why You Should Train Your Body

(19:51) Stoic Warnings

(38:59) Summarizing

(41:31) How We Practice Voluntary Suffering

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Subscribe to The Stoa Letter for weekly meditations, actions, and links to the best Stoic resources: www.stoaletter.com/subscribe

Download the Stoa app (it’s a free download): stoameditation.com/pod

Listen to more episodes and learn more here: https://stoameditation.com/blog/stoa-conversations/

Thanks to Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music in the conversations: https://ancientlyre.com/

Want to become more Stoic? Join us and other Stoics this October: Stoicism Applied by Caleb Ontiveros and Michael Tremblay on Maven

In this conversation, Michael speaks with Julia Galef, author of The Scout Mindset.

Julia is a modern advocate for what the Stoics argued: improving our reason and learning to pursue the truth. Michael and Julia discuss her arguments for the scout mindset as compared to the soldier mindset. 

(01:28) Scout Mindset

(10:25) The Case For Scout Mindset

(21:50) Sophism

(28:37) True vs Fake Scout Mindset

(38:06) Choosing Reasoning Processes

(41:15) Epistemology

(46:36) What Does This Mean For The Good Life?

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Subscribe to The Stoa Letter for weekly meditations, actions, and links to the best Stoic resources: www.stoaletter.com/subscribe

Download the Stoa app (it’s a free download): stoameditation.com/pod

Listen to more episodes and learn more here: https://stoameditation.com/blog/stoa-conversations/

Thanks to Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music in the conversations: https://ancientlyre.com/

Want to become more Stoic? Join us and other Stoics this October: Stoicism Applied by Caleb Ontiveros and Michael Tremblay on Maven

Why do you do things you know you shouldn’t?

The ancient term for doing what you knew wasn’t best for was akrasia or weakness of will. Plato and Aristotle believed in it. The Stoics did not. What this means and why it matters for us today is the subject of this episode.

(01:04) What is Weakness of Will

(11:54) Plato on Weakness of Will

(22:22) Aristotle

(28:44) The Stoics

(36:31) The Early Stoic Solution

(41:27) Epictetus and Weak Beliefs

(49:14) Nonreflective Judgments

(53:18) Practical Upshot

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Subscribe to The Stoa Letter for weekly meditations, actions, and links to the best Stoic resources: www.stoaletter.com/subscribe

Download the Stoa app (it’s a free download): stoameditation.com/pod

Listen to more episodes and learn more here: https://stoameditation.com/blog/stoa-conversations/

Thanks to Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music in the conversations: https://ancientlyre.com/

Want to become more Stoic? Join us and other Stoics this October: Stoicism Applied by Caleb Ontiveros and Michael Tremblay on Maven

In this episode, I speak with Emily Austin. Emily is the professor of philosophy at Wake Forest University and she's also the author of Living for Pleasure, which is an introduction to the ancient philosophy of Epicureanism, and that's what we'll be focusing on today.

Ancient Stoics, like Seneca, found a lot of wisdom in Stoicism’s philosophical rival, we can do the same today. We talk about Stoicism’s ancient rival, whether it makes sense as a philosophy today, and what the Epicurean life would look like.

(01:30) What is Epicureanism?

(08:11) Misinterpreting Epicureanism

(12:09) Epicureanism vs Utilitarianism

(15:52) What makes Epicureans different

(29:09) Does Epicureanism defeat itself?

(35:03) Living the Epicurean life

(40:21) Why aren't we happy all the time

(42:27) Learning how to die

(49:40) Takeaways

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Subscribe to The Stoa Letter for weekly meditations, actions, and links to the best Stoic resources: https://www.stoaletter.com/subscribe

Download the Stoa app (it’s a free download): stoameditation.com/pod

Listen to more episodes and learn more here: https://stoameditation.com/blog/stoa-conversations/

Thanks to Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music in the conversations: https://ancientlyre.com/

Want to become more Stoic? Join us and other Stoics this October: Stoicism Applied by Caleb Ontiveros and Michael Tremblay on Maven

In this episode, Michael and I speak with Chris Fisher. We discuss traditional Stoicism: its religious aspects, the role of the Stoic God, and what modern Stoics miss from the ancient philosophy.

You'll learn what Traditional Stoicism is and why it matters.

https://traditionalstoicism.com/

(01:55) Chris's Background

(09:17) What is Traditional Stoicism?

(19:45) Defending Providence

(29:00) The Stoic God

(40:14) What's the Practical Upshot

(48:50) The Problem of Evil

(57:27) Is Modern Stoicism a Bad Thing?

(01:12:00) What's Missing from Modern Stoic Epistemics?

(01:13:44) Building Habits

(01:18:40) Summing Up

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Subscribe to The Stoa Letter for weekly meditations, actions, and links to the best Stoic resources: https://www.stoaletter.com/subscribe

Download the Stoa app (it’s a free download): stoameditation.com/pod

Listen to more episodes and learn more here: https://stoameditation.com/blog/stoa-conversations/

Thanks to Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music in the conversations: https://ancientlyre.com/

Want to become more Stoic? Join us and other Stoics this October: Stoicism Applied by Caleb Ontiveros and Michael Tremblay on Maven

I speak with Scott Aikin, a philosopher at Vanderbilt University. This marks Aiken's third appearance on Stoa Conversations.

During this episode, we delve into significant philosophical challenges to Stoicism, including the foundation of virtue, the impossibility objection, and issues arising from Traditional Stoicism. These topics hold theoretical importance, but they also influence our practical lives. Especially it comes to issues like reframing obstacles and determining the degree to which Stoics should adhere to tradition. Scott, and another Stoa Conversations guest, William Stephens, are publishing Epictetus’s 'Encheiridion': A New Translation and Guide to Stoic Ethics this summer.

(02:38) What is Stoicism?

(07:13) The Stoic View of Virtue

(22:29) We Need People To Depend on Us

(27:34) Is it Possible to Be A Stoic?

(46:51) Traditional vs Modern Stoicism

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Subscribe to The Stoa Letter for weekly meditations, actions, and links to the best Stoic resources: www.stoaletter.com/subscribe

Download the Stoa app (it’s a free download): stoameditation.com/pod

Listen to more episodes and learn more here: https://stoameditation.com/blog/stoa-conversations/

Thanks to Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music in the conversations: https://ancientlyre.com/

Want to become more Stoic? Join us and other Stoics this October: Stoicism Applied by Caleb Ontiveros and Michael Tremblay on Maven

“He gives his sole attention to how he might carry out his own activities, and attends continually to his own strand in the whole web; he makes sure that his own activities are done rightly, and he is convinced that his own strand in the web is good.” Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 3.4

Caleb and Michael do a close reading of Meditations 3.2 - 3.4.

Chris Gill’s Translation: https://amzn.to/4330B8H

(04:16) Meditations 3.2

(16:17) Meditations 3.3

(27:54) Meditations 3.4

(35:46) Continuing 3.4

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Subscribe to The Stoa Letter for weekly meditations, actions, and links to the best Stoic resources: www.stoaletter.com/subscribe

Download the Stoa app (it’s a free download): stoameditation.com/pod

Listen to more episodes and learn more here: https://stoameditation.com/blog/stoa-conversations/

Thanks to Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music in the conversations: https://ancientlyre.com/

Want to become more Stoic? Join us and other Stoics this October: Stoicism Applied by Caleb Ontiveros and Michael Tremblay on Maven

"No, we have not picked all the low-hanging fruit yet."

In this conversation, Caleb Ontiveros speaks with William Eden – a recovering economist turned biotech venture capitalist. They talk about a wide range of topics: the importance of history, whether Rome is a good analogy to today, Stoicism, voluntary discomfort, negative visualization, and Covid.

Twitter

BecomingEden

(00:43) Introduction

(01:55) History

(13:23) Rome

(34:40) Will's Take on Stoicism

(58:50) Negative Actualization 

(01:07:54) Covid

(01:44:06) Lab Leak

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Subscribe to The Stoa Letter for weekly meditations, actions, and links to the best Stoic resources: www.stoaletter.com/subscribe

Download the Stoa app (it’s a free download): stoameditation.com/pod

Listen to more episodes and learn more here: https://stoameditation.com/blog/stoa-conversations/

Thanks to Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music in the conversations: https://ancientlyre.com/

Want to become more Stoic? Join us and other Stoics this October: Stoicism Applied by Caleb Ontiveros and Michael Tremblay on Maven

How can you remain Stoic when everyone around you has lost their head?

Caleb and Michael discuss the problem of Non-Stoics. Often others can’t handle the stress of life and want to share Stoic techniques with them – when is that the right play? Luckily, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius gave for this very issue.

At the end of this conversation, we summarize 8 strategies you can use to deal with non-Stoic people. Check out StoaLetter.com if you haven’t already, the Wednesday letter will summarize the eight strategies.

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Stoa Conversations is Caleb Ontiveros and Michael Tremblay’s podcast on Stoic theory and practice.

Caleb and Michael work together on the Stoa app. Stoa is designed to help you build resilience and focus on what matters. It combines the practical philosophy of Stoicism with modern techniques and meditation.

Download the Stoa app (it’s a free download): stoameditation.com/pod

Listen to more episodes and learn more here: https://stoameditation.com/blog/stoa-conversations/

Subscribe to The Stoa Letter for weekly meditations, actions, and links to the best Stoic resources: www.stoaletter.com/subscribe

Caleb Ontiveros has a background in academic philosophy (MA) and startups. His favorite Stoic is Marcus Aurelius. Follow him here: https://twitter.com/calebmontiveros

Michael Tremblay also has a background in academic philosophy (PhD) where he focused on Epictetus. He is also a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. His favorite Stoic is Epictetus. Follow him here: https://twitter.com/_MikeTremblay

Thank you to Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music in the conversations: https://ancientlyre.com/