Three Key Stoic Ideas: Dichotomy of Control, Indifferents, and Freedom & Determinism
Special one-day intensive seminar focused on three key ideas from Stoic philosophy that many people find difficult to understand and apply well. The seminar will examine each of these ideas in one of the three 90-minute sessions devoted specifically to that topic. We will look at what Stoic thinkers have to say about the ideas, discuss examples and analogies, clarify what the Stoic position actually is, and address common confusions or criticisms of the Stoics.
The three ideas we will focus upon are: what is often called the "dichotomy of control", that is the distinction of what is up to us and what is not up to us; the doctrine of the "indifferents", that is things that can have some value but are not genuinely good or bad, and what our attitudes towards them ought to be; and finally, the seeming contradiction between the Stoic's views that we live in a causally determined and providentially arranged universe on the one hand, and also have some measure of freedom on the other
