Reddit reviews Discourses and Selected Writings (Penguin Classics)
We found 11 Reddit comments about Discourses and Selected Writings (Penguin Classics). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Penguin Classics
Stoicism and JBP's teachings go hand-in-hand from what I've seen and read.
Stoic's believe that life is fraught with suffering, which is why they detach themselves from almost everything apart from their thinking mind, including their physical body.
One of the only conflicts that I can see is that traditional stoics (Epictetus' teachings) do not advocate marriage and/or engaging with women. The die-hard stoics would rather be celibate, however they do teach with a lens that their students will have a family. E.G Marcus Aurelius is a famous Stoic who had a wife and plenty of kids.
This is one of my favourite passages from [Discourses and Selected Writings (Penguin Classics)] (https://www.amazon.com/Discourses-Selected-Writings-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140449469) which does a nice job of summing up Stoicism, and there's plenty of links to JBP's teachings:
> In the event that you are haled before someone wielding the reigns of power, remember that there is somebody else looking down from above, and you have to answer first to him. [2] So he examines you: ‘How did you categorize exile, imprisonment, chains, death and disgrace, when you were in school?’
>‘I said they were indifferent.’
>‘And what do you call them now? They haven’t changed, I presume?’
>‘No.’
>‘Well, have you changed?’
>‘No.’
>‘Then define for me now what the “indifferents” are.’
>‘Whatever things we cannot control.’
> ‘Tell me the upshot.’
> ‘They are nothing to me.’
>‘Remind me what you thought was good.’
>‘The will and the right use of impressions.’
>‘And the goal of life is what?’
>‘To follow God.’
>‘And do you stand by that now?’
>‘I say it even now.’
>‘Go, then, in confidence, holding fast to these convictions. You’ll see what it’s like to be a young person with an education, alongside people who have none. I promise that you will feel somewhat like this: “Why do we serve such a long and difficult apprenticeship – in preparation to face nonentities? Is this what ‘authority’ meant? Are the courtyards, the palace staff, the guards no more than this? Was this why I sat through so many lectures? It all amounts to nothing – and I was expecting to be overwhelmed.” ’
Personal research, mostly. I'm a big history nerd with a slant toward religion and other macabre subject matter. I'm actually not as well read as I'd like to be on these subjects, and I basically blend different sources into a knowledge smoothie and pour it out onto a page and see what works for me and what doesn't.
I'll list a few books I've read that I enjoyed. There are certainly more here and there, but these are the "big ones" I was citing when writing all the comments in this thread. I typically know more about Christianity than the other major faiths because of the culture around me.
Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years - Diarmaid MacCulloch
A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam - Karen Armstrong
The next two balance each other out quite well. Hardline anti-theism contrasted with "You know, maybe we can make this work".
The Case for God - Karen Armstrong
The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins
Lately, I have been reading the Stoics, which like Buddhism, I find to be one of the more personally palatable philosophies of mind I have come across, although I find rational contemplation a bit more accessible to my Westernized nature.
Stoic Philosophy of Seneca: Essays and Letters - Translated by Moses Hadas
Discourses and Selected Writings (of Epictetus) - Translated by Robert Dobbin
The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius - Translated by George Long
I'm still waiting on Fed Ex to deliver this one:
A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy - William B. Irvine
Also, if you're into history in general, a nice primer for what sorts of things to dive into when poking around history is this fun series on YouTube. I usually watch a video then spend a while reading more in depth about whatever subject is covered that week in order to fill the gaps. Plus, John and Hank are super awesome. The writing is superb and I think, most importantly, he presents an overall argument for why studying history is so important because of its relevance to current events.
Crash Course: World History - John Green
Discourses by Epictetus
A truly amazing book by a slave-turned-philosopher on having a mindset to face any challenges one might face.
Fun fact: The teachings of this philosopher bore a significant influence on Marcus Aurelius and his writings in The Meditations; as well as further Christian scholars down the ages as they adapted Epictetus' teachings to their own by replacing Epictetus' view of "fate" or "destiny" with one of "God".
reddit.com/r/Stoicism
The philosophy she's advocating sounds a great deal like the teachings of Epictetus the Stoic. I highly recommend his work.
First, realize that your condition is normal for any "self-aware human being". We all go through these phases. The following is based on my attempts to cope with this condition. It is a ongoing process.
The key is to understand that you have to change the mental conditioning that has led you to this stage. The mental conditioning is the sum total of experiences in the various environments that you have been in since birth.
Change your immediate social environment and the change in internal perception will follow. Next, try and change your response to environmental stimulus from the pre-learnt ones. I recently read an article which beautifully explained the relationship between external stimulus and our response to it in a given environmental context (think Pavlov's dog). The gist is that, when we encounter a new stimulus in a given environmental context our initial response is based on our reading of the context, our past experiences and inferences from those. When next we again encounter the same stimulus in the same context we often choose to use the same response. Over time pathways are laid in the brain and the tuple {environmental context, stimulus, response} becomes a conditioning. Now guess what? By just putting you in the same environmental context your brain automatically jumps to the associated response even without the stimulus. Next realize that with the power of imagination we can recreate the environmental context without being physically in it. Thus i am responding in a known way to a stimulus without the context being actually present! The same also happens to be the case when the stimulus is absent but the context is recreated! Subconsciously we pick up on the context and the preset response is triggered (bodily changes) before we notice the absence of stimulus and control ourselves. Hence the great importance of controlling thought patterns.
Start by avoiding those social situations which you know are dragging you down. Learn to be comfortable in your own company i.e. cultivate healthy solitude. Exercise and maintain health so that the body helps you to control the mind. Slow down everything so that you have a chance to regulate your perception of an event and thus modulate the response. Use imagination to play out scenarios of successful response to situations before you encounter them. This is a well-proven technique. "Faking it" is a learning mechanism, not the end goal. Thus for example if you are always walking slouched and downcast, by consciously throwing out your chest, chin up, looking people in the eyes and walking straight you are breaking the previous conditioning and reinforcing a new positive one. By imagining (i.e. currently non-existent) and asserting confidence in a subject of choice, you are building up a new neural pathway so that as you progress the real confidence substitutes the scaffolding.
Here are some books which i found useful;
I flick between Robert Dobbin's and Robin Hard's, but spend more time with Dobbin's. It feels a bit more immediate and impactful for me:
https://www.amazon.com/Discourses-Selected-Writings-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140449469
If you can afford it, get them both - they're both fantastic.
That book is such a pile of garbage. It's just poorly regurgitated highlights from Marcus' Meditations, Epictetus' Discourses, and Seneca's Letters. If anyone wants to get real stoic up in this bitch, here is a suggested reading list:
Letters
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140442103/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=dailystoic07-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0140442103&linkId=356514abc26783cd79c3131d8887a237
Discourses:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140449469/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=dailystoic07-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0140449469&linkId=cd19199bbf6d44bbbb5f053a7c4be1c3
Meditations:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FC1JAI/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=dailystoic07-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B000FC1JAI&linkId=c1e35fe3d0d0ba62fe71ddc9c42ada4f
I would highly recommend starting with Epictetus and Socrates.
Stay away from the popular marketing stoics of our age, as they teach that stoicism is not about exalted truth and virtue, but that it is about lying to gain power, fame, fortune, and money. That is the exact OPPOSITE of True Stoicism and a sign of our times.
Many good recommendations here: http://twitter.com/philocowboy
"Instead of the lying marketing stoics and foolish professors, read Epictetus who honored Socrates: https://www.amazon.com/Discourses-Selected-Writings-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140449469/ "
I’m not 100% confident in my response as I’m trying to recall from memory ... I don’t have my books with me now.
The Enchiridion is just the handbook and really good summary of his Discourses. It is a book on its own. It is included in the Penguin classics addition of Discourses and selected writings: https://www.amazon.com/Discourses-Selected-Writings-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140449469/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?keywords=epictitus&qid=1551101547&s=gateway&sr=8-2
I will add too that if you are looking to buy this book, I would suggest you go with the Oxford World Classics edition. Penguin leaves out whole chapters in Discourses, while Oxford has all of them: https://www.amazon.com/Discourses-Fragments-Handbook-Oxford-Classics/dp/0199595186/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?keywords=epictitus&qid=1551101610&s=gateway&sr=8-4
Penguin Classics is the most recommended. I finished it a few months ago and loved it.
 
https://www.amazon.com/Discourses-Selected-Writings-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140449469
I'm kind of all over the place it seems.