Comment by kingmanaz | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kingmanaz | Hacker News Reader

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Personally, I would cut out the middle men. Avoid glossy-covered and over-marketed summaries of other men's work. Grab a copy of Epictetus' discourses and his Enchiridion. Read Aurelius' meditations. Get familiar with Plutarch's Lives.

This will get one started cheaply: http://www.ebay.com/itm/LUCRETIUS-EPICTETUS-12-Britannica-Gr... Be aware, this volume includes Lucretius who is not a stoic, rather, a typical reductionist Epicurian. The Enchiridion can also be found cheaply: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Enchiridion-Dover-Thrift-Editions-By... . Here's a fine translation of Plutarch's Lives: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Plutarch-Great-Books-of-the-Western-... . These works are cheap and readily available used on eBay and elsewhere. Take advantage of it if you are seriously interested in learning.

Avoid the marketing. Read Knuth or K&R rather than "How to Program in 24 hours", etc. The same goes for philosophy. There's nothing new under the sun. Seek out what's stood the test of time, incorporate it into your fundamentals, and proceed from there.

Ah, but we do know more about the world in many ways than the original Stoics did. William Irvine's book recasts the Stoic teachings a bit: we don't believe that we were created by Zeus, for example, so he talks about how to interpret Stoicism in an atheist way (if one wishes).

>Ah, but we do know more about the world

I disagree completely. The appeal to progress is just as much a fallacy as the appeal to tradition. We do know more physical minutia, ie., slates and chalk have fallen to iPhones, sandals to sports cars, and yet the essential spirit of man is the same as it ever was, and that is what the Stoics are addressing.

The descendents of Aristotle have continued reducing the world to its sub-components in the centuries since Plato and he disagreed as to whether reality is in the whole or the part. But again, this is a fundamental division found in philosophy, and ultimately nothing new.

>he talks about how to interpret Stoicism in an atheist way

...it would be better if he had taught how to interperet it in an agnostic way, rather. Atheism is a closed-minded agnosticism.

> The appeal to progress is just as much a fallacy as the appeal to tradition.

And what if the spirit of man is shaped by his technology and culture?

> Atheism is a closed-minded agnosticism.

Ouch. There are no compelling reasons to believe in a god or gods. Atheism is the rational response to this state of affairs. Agnosticism is for the weak.

>what if the spirit of man is shaped by his technology

What if it isn't? Man no longer wars with trebuchets. Does that mean that the nature of man has changed? Similarly, man will someday set aside personal computers for something else. Does that mean that the nature of man will again change? A man's tools are not his nature, rather, nature is known through man's acts. Such acts are exampled in works such as Plutarch's lives or in the Meditations of Aurelius and speak just as true today as when they were written. Epictetus and the above cited wrote for the layman and require no arbitrator to make them pertinent or safe for the present day.

Recognize that there materialistic and idealistic worldviews, and further, that the the former is ubiquitous today. Try to see beyond the coloring of the present. Man's stuff is not the stuff he's made of. Capiche?

>what if the spirit of man is shaped by his culture?

Then one would benefit by looking outside of the prejudices of the present when reading for edification. Avoid marketing forces.

>There are no compelling reasons to believe in a god or gods. Atheism is the rational response to this state of affairs. Agnosticism is for the weak.

Atheists are really just closed minded agnostics. They are believers every bit as much as theists. Both are dogmatic.

Kant rationally discusses this in his Critique of Pure Reason. We have only five senses and a handful of a priori concepts with which to understand the world. All our knowledge is heaped up upon these principles of reasoning. In other words, what we know is fundamentally limited by what is used to know things. Objective certitude is far rarer than it is generally made out to be.

Beware of dogma, whether atheistic or theistic.

We're veering pretty far off topic here, but consider that, rather than attacking atheists or agnostics, we should just be more precise:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrum_of_theistic_probabili...

Atheism isn't dogma; whereas theism is. I will show you why.

We have both argued that we should approach this rationally. My reason tells me that I have been given zero proof for the existence of any of the gods described by theists. Kant himself (who you mention) discusses various proofs and dismisses them. What we are left with is the puzzle of existence itself and this feeling (that we all have) of wonder at the majesty and mystery of the world. I am disinclined to attribute any of this to some supernatural agent. Why should I? I see no reason to. Clearly I cannot rationally know there is no god or gods but I as Douglas Adams pointed out I'm not going to take some kind of wishy-washy hedge my bets stance on the matter. When talking about the existence of some kind of objects that has the attributes that god or the gods are claimed to have the burden of proof lies with those who assert this agent's existence. Therefore I shall continue to believe in the non-existence of a god or gods. Show me my dogma: I don't assert the existence of anything without proof, I reject the proof claims of others and assert the non-existence based on lack of evidence.

> A man's tools are not his nature, rather, nature is known through man's acts.

Man's tools alter reality and alter our perception of reality. The camera changes the artist; the atomic bomb changes us all. I guess the term "[essential] spirit of man" is kind of nebulous anyway so I wouldn't argue strongly against you. I am sure we agree on many more points than we would disagree on. I have no beef with stoicism.

We do know more physical minutia, ie., slates and chalk have fallen to iPhones, sandals to sports cars, and yet the essential spirit of man is the same as it ever was, and that is what the Stoics are addressing.

Somehow we know, collectively, not to keep slaves anymore, or go to war so often. I find it difficult to label that as physical minutia.

Agreed. Stoicism is not "philosophy" as we've been taught to think of it (that is, dense, boring, confusing).

Even the old translations of Marcus Aurelius, Seneca and Epictetus are straight forward enough for anyone.

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