A quick update from the author!

Apologies for the long silence. I have been busy working with face-to-face Socratic philosophy.

The photo below is from an event at Freetown Christiania here in Copenhagen. At the 25 year jubilee for Danish grassroots organization Øko-net in late January a wide variety of participants were gathered for two days for shared reflection on various forms of activism. As the opening act philosopher and activist Di Ponti and myself facilitated a conversation about conflict and unity in activist communities. Powerful stories were told and wise things were said.

This coming Wednesday Di and I will be at it again - this time at Frederiks Bastion, Refshalevej 28, 1440 Copenhagen. This is the first of three events. The two others are at Wednesday the 15th of May and Thursday the 16th of June. All three events are from 4.30pm - 7pm and the overall theme is values and how we think about values. All thee events will be in the form of Socratic group discussions.

Come and join us if you're in Copenhagen :-)

Comments

Stoicism and Evil Governments

This article claims that a Stoic has no reason to get depressed by bad political conditions since an evil government is not really a bad thing for a Stoic - since nothing can be bad for a Stoic except his own bad choices. Even so, the article claims, a Stoic acknowledges that an evil government is capable of doing "terrible things" to people. To make this line of thinking work we have to think of ourselves as Stoics who can't be harmed by an evil government - since nothing can be bad for us as Stoics except our own bad choices - and other people as non-Stoics who will suffer terribly if they are oppressed by the evil government. In my opinion, this interpretation of Stoicism is flat out wrong. First of all, an evil government is indeed a bad thing. The Stoics distinguish between internal good/bad things such as our own good or bad choices and external good/bad things such as other people's happiness or unhappiness: "some bad things are in the sou

Aristotle on happiness and external goods

According to popular opinion both in ancient Greece and today, happiness requires things such as wealth, good health, good looks, friends, family and good reputation. In Plato's dialogue Euthydemus Socrates challenges those beliefs by claiming that none of those things are good, if they are not used wisely. In fact, Socrates claims that a person who has wisdom doesn't need any of those things at all since he or she can turn any situation into something beneficial for him- or herself. "If wisdom is present, the one for whom it is present has no need of good fortune". - Socrates in Euthydemus, 279E In other words, Socrates claims that wisdom is a sufficient requirement for happiness (and a necessary requirement too, of course). Aristotle famously challenges that claim. But what exactly does he say? Let's have a look. "we suppose happiness is enduring and definitely not prone to fluctuate, but the same person’s fortunes often turn to and fro. For clearly

A few quick notes on committing injustice vs suffering it

Let's suppose that person A is entitled to, say, one piece of cake. If person B knowingly causes person A to not have that piece of cake without the consent of person A, then person B has done person A wrong - which is what the Stoics mean by committing an injury. But it doesn't follow from this that person A has suffered an injury. If person A doesn't mind that his or her piece of cake was given to someone else or was eaten by person B, then person A hasn't suffered an injury - even though person B have commited an injury. Now, let's imagine that person A is completely wise. This would mean that he or she is completely indifferent to things like bodily harm, poverty, sickness, reputation, insults, abuse and whatever else life or other human beings can throw at us. Obviously, it would still be possible to commit an injury in relation to a person like that - since this would simply require having the intention to harm that person. However, it would be impossible to

Socrates and the Stoics

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