Stoicism

Stoicism is a Hellenistic philosophical school that holds wisdom to consist in living in accordance with reason, which it identifies with the order of nature. At its core lies the conviction that virtue is the only true good and that eudaimonia, flourishing or well-being, depends solely on the individual's judgment and will.

The name comes from the Stoa Poikile, the "painted porch" of the Athenian Agora, where Zeno of Citium began teaching around 300 BCE. The school was first called Zenonism, but the name was soon dropped, probably to prevent the doctrine from becoming a cult of its founder's personality. Zeno drew on the ideas of the Cynics, especially Crates of Thebes, though he eventually rejected their excesses. The doctrine was later developed and systematized above all by Chrysippus, who organized it into three parts: logic, physics and ethics.

For the Stoics, the universe is governed by a reason, or logos, that orders it coherently. Destructive emotions such as anger, fear or excessive ambition were thought to arise from mistaken judgments about what is up to us and what is not. From this comes their well-known distinction between what depends on us and what does not, and the idea that we should accept with equanimity the events beyond our control. Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, figures of the so-called Late Stoa, gave the doctrine an especially practical and moral emphasis.

In everyday use, a "stoic" is someone who endures pain or adversity with composure and without giving way to emotion, although this image oversimplifies a philosophy that also valued goodwill toward others and civic duty. Debates the doctrine continues to provoke include the compatibility of its determinism with human freedom and the real extent of its ideal of indifference to external things. Its influence endures in virtue ethics and in contemporary cognitive therapies.