Stoa Conversations: Stoicism Applied

Caleb

Caleb Ontiveros and Michael Tremblay discuss how to build resilience, develop virtue, and make sense of the world through Stoic philosophy. One episode a week. Get the Stoa app: www.stoameditation.com/pod [https://www.stoameditation.com/pod] Get the Stoa Letter: www.stoaletter.com/subscribe [https://www.stoaletter.com/subscribe?utm_source=podcast_description] www.stoaletter.com

  1. 3h ago

    C.S. Lewis and the Tao | The Abolition of Man Part II

    Most people who say values are just opinions don’t actually believe it. They have values. They defend them. They just save the skepticism for everyone else. That’s C.S. Lewis’s charge in the second chapter of The Abolition of Man. Caleb and Michael work through his argument: why altruism, self-interest, and instinct all fail to ground morality, and why Lewis thinks you have to appeal to what he calls the Tao, the Way — the shared moral core running through Stoicism, Confucianism, Christianity, and the rest. (03:00) Subjectivism and Selective Skepticism (09:00) Epictetus and the Flying Pot (14:00) Three Failed Groundings: Altruism, Egoism, Instinct (22:00) The Rebellious Teenager (27:00) Vegetables, Bricks, and Centipedes (32:00) Alteration From Within: The Poet and His Language (37:00) Conservatism and Moral Progress (42:00) Expanding the Circle: Kymlicka and the Utilitarian Trap (48:00) The Eight Laws of the Tao (54:00) Common Sense Morality Download the Stoa app (it’s a free download): https://stoameditation.com/pod If you try the Stoa app and find it useful, but truly cannot afford it, email us and we’ll set you up with a free account. Listen to more episodes and learn more here: https://stoameditation.com/blog/stoa-conversations/ Thanks to Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music in the conversations: https://ancientlyre.com/ Get full access to The Stoa Letter at www.stoaletter.com/subscribe

    C.S. Lewis and the Tao | The Abolition of Man Part II
  2. Aug 4

    The Odyssey Movie Review (Episode 231)

    Caleb and Michael both saw the film. This is a proper review. Caleb and Michael share what they think and work through what lands and what doesn’t. Don’t worry this is our last bit of Odyssey content for sometime. (00:00) Introduction: A Proper Review of Nolan’s Odyssey (03:30) Ranking Nolan’s Films (08:15) Zeus’s Law and Odysseus’s Guilt (13:45) An American Odyssey (19:00) A Fair Fight: Softening the Slaughter (20:50) The Horror of Circe, the Cyclops, and Scylla (23:50) Downplaying the Gods: The Naturalist Reading (27:40) The Hero Who Doesn’t Shirk Responsibility (30:40) What’s Lost: Nausicaa and the Choice of Immortality (36:20) The Calypso Problem: Therapy-Speak in the Bronze Age (40:30) Athena as a Figment (43:40) Why Zeus’s Law Doesn’t Cohere (46:20) Clean Hands, Batman, and Moral Purity (50:00) The Ending: Exile, Retirement, and the Next Generation (55:10) Where Nolan Is More Stoic Than Homer (56:00) Final Verdict: Watch It and Judge for Yourself Download the Stoa app (it’s a free download): https://stoameditation.com/pod If you try the Stoa app and find it useful, but truly cannot afford it, email us and we’ll set you up with a free account. Listen to more episodes and learn more here: https://stoameditation.com/blog/stoa-conversations/ Thanks to Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music in the conversations: https://ancientlyre.com/ Get full access to The Stoa Letter at www.stoaletter.com/subscribe

    The Odyssey Movie Review (Episode 231)
  3. Jul 7

    Men Without Chests | The Abolition of Man Part I (Episode 229)

    Can you say a waterfall is sublime? Or are you just describing your feelings? C.S. Lewis thought this question mattered more than it looks. In the first chapter of The Abolition of Man, he argues that modern education smuggles in a dangerous idea: that value judgments are just reports of emotion. Nothing to debate. Nothing to get right or wrong. Caleb and Michael work through Lewis’s argument in this first episode of a series on the book. They cover his case for objective value, what he calls the Tao, and his warning about producing “men without chests” — people with sharp intellects, strong appetites, and nothing in between. (00:00) Introduction: C.S. Lewis and The Abolition of Man (06:30) The Green Book and the Waterfall (10:10) Emotivism, Expressivism, and Subjectivism (13:40) The Fact vs Opinion Distinction (19:00) Education as Cultivating the Right Feelings (25:40) The Way, the Tao (28:50) The Head, the Belly, and the Chest (34:50) Dulce et Decorum Est (43:20) Are Aesthetic Judgments Objective? (47:50) Men Without Chests (52:00) Takeaways Download the Stoa app (it’s a free download): https://stoameditation.com/pod If you try the Stoa app and find it useful, but truly cannot afford it, email us and we’ll set you up with a free account. Listen to more episodes and learn more here: https://stoameditation.com/blog/stoa-conversations/ Thanks to Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music in the conversations: https://ancientlyre.com/ Get full access to The Stoa Letter at www.stoaletter.com/subscribe

    Men Without Chests | The Abolition of Man Part I (Episode 229)
  4. Jun 23

    Why You Should Be A Skeptic With Massimo Pigliucci (Episode 228)

    In this episode, Caleb talks with Massimo Pigliucci about his new book, How to Be a Happy Skeptic, and the thinker at its center: Cicero. They trace skepticism from Pyrrho’s radical doubt to the Academics, who found a better path. You don’t need certainty. You need to know how sure to be, then act (or not). The Stoics and skeptics argued for decades over whether truth leaves a mark you can trust. What happens when you admit you might be wrong? Read How to Be a (Happy) Skeptic. (03:00) Pyrrhonism: suspend judgment, find peace (06:50) The Academics go back to Socrates (08:40) Fallibilism: senses and reason both fail (10:20) Carneades and the degrees of probability (18:00) Skeptics versus Stoics: the cataleptic impression (22:20) Certainty, polarization, and the case for doubt (25:30) Cicero, friend and critic of the Stoics (27:00) On Divination: the first book against pseudoscience (31:40) On Ends and the gift of aporia (37:00) Virtue, friendship, and the good life (41:50) Seneca and skeptical Stoicism (44:50) Cicero’s life and death (55:40) Being useful to others Download the Stoa app (it’s a free download): https://stoameditation.com/pod If you try the Stoa app and find it useful, but truly cannot afford it, email us and we’ll set you up with a free account. Listen to more episodes and learn more here: https://stoameditation.com/blog/stoa-conversations/ Thanks to Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music in the conversations: https://ancientlyre.com/ Get full access to The Stoa Letter at www.stoaletter.com/subscribe

  5. May 19

    Excellence Is Boring (Episode 227)

    What makes some people excellent at their craft and others just average? Michael walks through a classic 1989 sociology paper on Olympic swimmers and pulls out three lessons that apply directly to Stoic practice. The answer is not what most people expect. It is not extreme effort. It is not raw talent. Excellence turns out to be mundane. It is how you do the boring things, every day, for a long time. And when the pressure is on, excellence is just doing those boring things well one more time. (00:00) Introduction: What makes someone excellent? (02:50) Lesson One: Excellence requires qualitative differentiation (06:40) Separate worlds: how levels differ in kind, not amount (07:40) Lesson Two: Talent does not lead to excellence (09:40) Talent is indistinguishable from its effects (11:00) Talent as a floor, not a ceiling (14:20) Lesson Three: Excellence is mundane (14:30) Mary Meagher: show up on time, nail the turns (17:40) Long-term motivation is boring (18:30) Excellence is doing the boring stuff under pressure (20:40) How refusing the mundane caps your ceiling (23:10) Summary of the three lessons (25:50) Takeaways for Stoic practice: making good use of impressions Download the Stoa app (it’s a free download): https://stoameditation.com/pod If you try the Stoa app and find it useful, but truly cannot afford it, email us and we’ll set you up with a free account. Listen to more episodes and learn more here: https://stoameditation.com/blog/stoa-conversations/ Thanks to Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music in the conversations: https://ancientlyre.com/ Get full access to The Stoa Letter at www.stoaletter.com/subscribe

5
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43 Ratings

About

Caleb Ontiveros and Michael Tremblay discuss how to build resilience, develop virtue, and make sense of the world through Stoic philosophy. One episode a week. Get the Stoa app: www.stoameditation.com/pod [https://www.stoameditation.com/pod] Get the Stoa Letter: www.stoaletter.com/subscribe [https://www.stoaletter.com/subscribe?utm_source=podcast_description] www.stoaletter.com

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