Stiocism Final Study Ideas

• Know why these figures are important figures for stoicism (i.e. these are short ID's but about people)
  
• Non-Stoics
  
• Socrates
• Plato
• Aristotle
  
• Arcesilaus
• Cicero
  
• Diogenes Laertius
• Stobaeus
  
• Stoics
• Zeno
• Cleanthes
• Chrysippus
• Posidonius
  
• Epictetus
• Marcus Aurelius
• Arius Didymus
• Justus Lipsius
  
• Stockdale
  
• Other Short ID possibilities (notes to student presentations will help with this)
• NOTE: THERE MAY BE ADDITIONAL ITEMS ON THE EXAM: I WILL DO MY BEST TO MAKE SURE THAT YOU AGREE THAT THE ANSWER TO "IS THIS A FAIR QUESTION?" IS YES.
• Very briefly explain the article you presented on : this need be no longer than any other short ID: make it good, but don't write an essay: you won't get more points.
  
• Explain one presentation by a fellow student on an article you DID NOT present and explain it and why it's important. You will need to take notes to be able to do this.
  
• I will offer a choice of 3 of the last 5 presentations. You will pick one of those.
  
• Stoic Eudaemonism: what is the impoverishment objection? what is the disingenuousness objection?
• Impoverishment: what they call happiness is a dull boring and limited life
• disingenuousness: they say that virtue is the only good, but they still have 'preferred' indifferents, and they still have to deal with their bodies (eat, clothe, shelter) in a minimal way, and so some 'indifferents' are necessary for a 'happy,flourishing' life: they're just kidding themselves
  
• How would a stoic reply to those objections?
• Why Becker thinks he can do without god and still be stoic
• Epictetus and Admiral Stockdale
• All-things-considered reasoning and nothing-else-considered reasoning
• oughts and requirements
  
• How facts-of-the-matter and oughts are related in humans according to Becker
  
• Becker's approach to "human nature": what does it include and how does he know whether something is or is not part of human nature?
• The Stoic's prime directive according to Becker: A stoic ought to pursue a good life as a categorical commitment that overrides all others: explain that
  
• What is "agency" and why is its exercise "human freedom" and why isn't it like digestion?
• Becker's "Argument for Virtue"
  
• The Virtuoso and those making progress according to Becker
  
• The following short quotations from Lipsius, Stockdale, Long and Sedley, or Becker illustrate the kind of quotations I will put on the exam. NOTE WELL: THE EXAM WILL HAVE MORE AND DIFFERENT QUOTATIONS ON IT THAN THE ONES BELOW
  
•  The task on the exam will be:
1. for you to paraphrase them in your own words and
   
2. to show that you understand the most important points in them and the links to the rest of the course content. 
3. In your responses, you might include some of the following, if appropriate:
   
1. Explain the central stoic ideas present in the quotations.
   
2. Think of things like examples
3. Characterize the issues as ethical, epistemological, ontological, etc.
4. Say why the issues are important for stoicism: how they relate to the overall system of stoicism.
   
5. Say what the author of the quotation is trying to do (correct a misconception? compare stoicism to Kantianism? shed a different light on a familiar topic?)

• "What lies behind Epictetus' doctrines is a multi-faceted view of human nature. The first description of our identity: we all share the same nature in being endowed with rationality...a second 'individual' identity, which shows itself in differences.... The third persona is defined in terms of external circumstances, what 'chance or events impose'.... Finally, personal choice, a fourth persona, the specific profession of life-style that we choose to adopt." Long (slightly altered to make it flow better)
• "Following nature means following the facts. It means doing ethics from facts, constructing normative propositions a posteriori. It means adjusting normative propositions to fit changes in the facts." Becker P 43.

• There will also be a couple short essay questions on the exam: that will be a surprise.
  

• How to study?
• Review all notes for the class: clearly the most recent ones are most important, but if you don't remember readily what impulse, assent, pneuma, lekta, virtue, etc. are for stoics, you will not be able to do a good enough job on the recent material, so be sure to re-familiarize yourself with the earlier notes. I'll be looking for you to show understanding of how our recent discussions connect to the basic conceptual apparatus of ancient scepticism.