What is Stoicism?

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Stoicism is a school of philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium in Athens around the 3rd century B.C. Its name comes from the ancient Greek “stoa poikile,” meaning "painted porch," which was a colonnade in Athens where the stoics taught philosophy.

From Athens stoicism later on moved to Rome, where it flourished through the works of Cicero (106–43 B.C.), Seneca (c. 4 B.C.–65 A.D.), Epictetus (c. 50–135), and even the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (121–180), especially through his collected writings known as the Meditations. However, it declined during the 4th century, after Christianity became the state religion. Since then, stoicism has seen revivals, especially during the Renaissance and the 21st century.

Stoicism is not a religion, but a philosophy meant to be applied to everyday living. It’s a type of eudaimonistic virtue ethics which claims that the practice of virtue is necessary and sufficient to achieve “eudaimonia” or happiness—an idea that definitely influenced religions.

3 Key Ideas

1. Living in Agreement with Nature

The Stoics believed that our end as human beings—our happiness—consists in living “in agreement with nature.” One way to do so is to live in agreement with oneself. By this the Stoics meant two things:
  1. to be free from internal division and conflict;
  2. to not be inconsistent with one’s priorities and commitments.
In short, to live in agreement with oneself is to have one harmonious reason.

Another way to live according to nature is to not engage in activities that are against what they called the “universal law,” or that rational principle that governs everything—what was for them identical to Zeus. In other words, to live in agreement with nature one needs to attune one’s thinking with that of the cosmos; that is, to think the same thoughts about one’s situation as does the universal law. To do this—to attune our minds to nature and achieve happiness—the Stoics claimed that only one thing is necessary: virtue.

2. Virtue as the Only True Good

First of all, virtue, according to the Stoics, is a form of knowledge. For example, the virtue of courage is knowledge of what should be braved and feared. Virtue, more specifically, is the “perfected condition of human reason.” That’s why the Stoics believed that a virtuous person—the “sage”—is someone who has developed her rational powers to its fullest extent, and, more importantly, lives a life that is the highest expression of human nature.

Virtue, the Stoics added, is the only true good for us human beings. It’s the only thing that truly benefits us, makes us live well, and thus is the only key to our happiness. While other things such as wealth, health, and pleasure, are called “indifferent” by the Stoics. This is because they are neither good nor bad and have no real impact to our happiness. They are—and should only be—raw materials for the virtues.

The Stoics, therefore, urged everyone to live a virtuous life instead of merely acquiring material possessions. They taught how to cultivate the virtues, especially the four cardinal virtues of prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice, in everyday life, without, of course, neglecting certain “preferred goods,” such as good health, as these are in agreement with nature.

3. The Happy Life as Emotion-free

The Stoics famously claimed that the virtuous person feels no emotion or passion and, so, that the happy life is completely passion-free. To better understand this notorious claim, we need to examine how they defined the passions.

First of all, the Stoics didn’t mean complete suppression of passions, but rather only their control through reason. This is because passions, according to them, are irrational excessive impulses that disobey reason and are contrary to the universal law. Essentially, they are wrong judgments about a thing’s value. When we experience a passion, we misjudge a thing as good or bad, as contributing to or hindering from our happiness, when in reality it is indifferent. For example, the distress I feel in knowing that I have heart disease involves me judging that this illness is bad, and thus a hindrance to my happiness.

The Stoics grouped the passions into four main types according to their object:
  • Distress, which is a present perceived as bad
  • Fear, a future perceived as bad
  • Pleasure or delight, a present perceived as good, and
  • Appetite, a future perceived as good
To attain happiness, the Stoics taught that we should control our passions using reason. One way to do so is to focus on what is within our control—on our interpretation of external events—and to choose a rational response, rather than to let our passions dictate our actions.

References

Durand, Marion, Simon Shogry, and Dirk Baltzly. "Stoicism." The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. First published Jan 20, 2023. Accessed January 24, 2025. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2023/entries/stoicism/.

Pigliucci, Massimo. “Stoicism.” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Accessed January 24, 2025. https://iep.utm.edu/stoicism/.

Saunders, J. Lewis. "Stoicism." Encyclopedia Britannica, Last modified October 28, 2024. Accessed January 24, 2025. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Stoicism.

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