2 thoughts on “A decent academic introduction to our school.”
Going by the first ten minutes, everything he says may be accurate, but he puts an awfully heavy emphasis on apatheia as *the* defining characteristic of Stoic ethics. I’m *sure* that for much of his audience, this only served to reinforce popular misconceptions about Stoicism.
IMO it’s better to introduce Stoicism by emphasizing that “virtue is the only good,” and explain that virtue means pursuing what is “honorable” w.r.t the cardinal virtues.
Then *derive* apatheia, using “virtue is the only good” and “here are the attributes of an honorable person” as a starting point. Apatheia is a lot easier to understand, I think, using virtue ethics as its motivation.
It’s true, but I think modifying our expectations when someone is a non-specialist and non-practitioner is probably the best way to go. Specifically, this fellow teaches at a Christian school, which of course colors the interpretations to some degree. Nevertheless, not a bad introduction, if not the end-all, be-all.
Mountain Stoic 
Going by the first ten minutes, everything he says may be accurate, but he puts an awfully heavy emphasis on apatheia as *the* defining characteristic of Stoic ethics. I’m *sure* that for much of his audience, this only served to reinforce popular misconceptions about Stoicism.
IMO it’s better to introduce Stoicism by emphasizing that “virtue is the only good,” and explain that virtue means pursuing what is “honorable” w.r.t the cardinal virtues.
Then *derive* apatheia, using “virtue is the only good” and “here are the attributes of an honorable person” as a starting point. Apatheia is a lot easier to understand, I think, using virtue ethics as its motivation.
It’s true, but I think modifying our expectations when someone is a non-specialist and non-practitioner is probably the best way to go. Specifically, this fellow teaches at a Christian school, which of course colors the interpretations to some degree. Nevertheless, not a bad introduction, if not the end-all, be-all.