Stoicism and "In Accordance With Nature" | A Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship Lecture

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This was an invited lecture at Rockford University, hosted by the Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship, provided to students during one of their Classical and Medieval Philosophy class sessions.

In the course of the lecture, we discuss the centrality of "living in accordance with nature" for classical Stoic ethics, and some of the confusions and controversies about that idea in contemporary Stoicism.

Some view this ideal as one that should simply be abandoned in the modern age. Others mix up Stoic conceptions of "nature" with conceptions of nature coming from other philosophical positions, modern sciences, or other sources. Still others reinterpret "in accordance with nature" to mean simply "rationally" or "in accordance with reason". In my own studies of the topic - which will eventually take the form of a short book - I have arrived at the view that while the third view is correct, the Stoics mean something a bit more sweeping and substantive.

During the talk, we look at the history of this idea and its development in the Stoic tradition from Zeno, through the other scholarchs (like Cleanthes and Chyrsippus). We also discuss some particular examples, drawn from Musonius Rufus, Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and from Cicero's treatments of Stoic doctrine.

#stoicism #philosophy #nature

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