The Power of Stoicism by John Turner

Author:John Turner [Turner, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-07-12T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

Disciplines of Stoicism

From the very beginning, Stoicism has always placed emphasis on the categories of philosophical discourse and these categories has been divided into three themes, which are ‘Ethics,’ ‘Physics’ and ‘Logic.’ These discourses have roots and foundations into almost every possible Stoicism principle.

Before we go on, a note to say that philosophy itself was unified, to begin with, but theoretical discourse in the Stoic sense would be responsible for categorizing philosophy in this way which is why Stoicism is known for its three major elements.

So far the only Stoic teacher whose work survived in large amounts to this day is Epictetus’. You can find four volumes of Discourses still available for reference and use in our modern-day society. Unfortunately, for the other four volumes, it is lost. Modern Stoics also have a more compressed version of these teachings, which are compiled in Enchiridion. Epictetus lived four centuries after the founder of Stoicism, Zeno. By the time of Epictetus’ death, formal Stoic schools have begun ceasing to exist.

Epictetus was the only one who chiefly defined and described the three disciplines of Stoicism and this is something scholars of today cannot find in any other Stoic literature. In this chapter, we will discuss the three disciplines, which are:

“The Discipline of Desire,” relating to the acceptance of faith and fate

“The Discipline of Action,” relating to the love of mankind or philanthropy

“The Discipline of Assent,” concerning mindfulness and how we judge things

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