Stoa Conversations: Stoicism Applied

Caleb and Michael both saw the film. This is a proper review.
Caleb and Michael share what they think and work through what lands and what doesn’t.
Don’t worry this is our last bit of Odyssey content for sometime.
(00:00) Introduction: A Proper Review of Nolan’s Odyssey
(03:30) Ranking Nolan’s Films
(08:15) Zeus’s Law and Odysseus’s Guilt
(13:45) An American Odyssey
(19:00) A Fair Fight: Softening the Slaughter
(20:50) The Horror of Circe, the Cyclops, and Scylla
(23:50) Downplaying the Gods: The Naturalist Reading
(27:40) The Hero Who Doesn’t Shirk Responsibility
(30:40) What’s Lost: Nausicaa and the Choice of Immortality
(36:20) The Calypso Problem: Therapy-Speak in the Bronze Age
(40:30) Athena as a Figment
(43:40) Why Zeus’s Law Doesn’t Cohere
(46:20) Clean Hands, Batman, and Moral Purity
(50:00) The Ending: Exile, Retirement, and the Next Generation
(55:10) Where Nolan Is More Stoic Than Homer
(56:00) Final Verdict: Watch It and Judge for Yourself
Download the Stoa app (it’s a free download): https://stoameditation.com/pod
If you try the Stoa app and find it useful, but truly cannot afford it, email us and we’ll set you up with a free account.
Listen to more episodes and learn more here: https://stoameditation.com/blog/stoa-conversations/
Thanks to Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music in the conversations:
https://ancientlyre.com/


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Is Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey more Stoic than Homer’s?
Caleb shares a quick solo take. A look at the movie through a Stoic lens.
There are “spoilers” – don’t listen yet if you don’t want to hear about Nolan’s approach.
(00:00) Introduction: A Stoic Take on Nolan’s Odyssey
(03:50) Gods as Nature, Not Beings
(07:40) Responsibility and Hard Choices
(10:10) Perseverance: Seneca on Odysseus
(11:10) The Sirens and the Drive to Know
(12:30) The Suitors: Justified Revenge?
(16:20) Exile and the Problem with Xenia
(19:40) Calypso, the Lotus, and Therapy Culture
(22:40) Final Verdict
Download the Stoa app (it’s a free download): https://stoameditation.com/pod
If you try the Stoa app and find it useful, but truly cannot afford it, email us and we’ll set you up with a free account.
Listen to more episodes and learn more here: https://stoameditation.com/blog/stoa-conversations/
Thanks to Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music in the conversations:
https://ancientlyre.com/


Get full access to The Stoa Letter at www.stoaletter.com/subscribe

Can you say a waterfall is sublime? Or are you just describing your feelings?
C.S. Lewis thought this question mattered more than it looks. In the first chapter of The Abolition of Man, he argues that modern education smuggles in a dangerous idea: that value judgments are just reports of emotion. Nothing to debate. Nothing to get right or wrong.
Caleb and Michael work through Lewis’s argument in this first episode of a series on the book. They cover his case for objective value, what he calls the Tao, and his warning about producing “men without chests” — people with sharp intellects, strong appetites, and nothing in between.
(00:00) Introduction: C.S. Lewis and The Abolition of Man
(06:30) The Green Book and the Waterfall
(10:10) Emotivism, Expressivism, and Subjectivism
(13:40) The Fact vs Opinion Distinction
(19:00) Education as Cultivating the Right Feelings
(25:40) The Way, the Tao
(28:50) The Head, the Belly, and the Chest
(34:50) Dulce et Decorum Est
(43:20) Are Aesthetic Judgments Objective?
(47:50) Men Without Chests
(52:00) Takeaways
Download the Stoa app (it’s a free download): https://stoameditation.com/pod
If you try the Stoa app and find it useful, but truly cannot afford it, email us and we’ll set you up with a free account.
Listen to more episodes and learn more here: https://stoameditation.com/blog/stoa-conversations/
Thanks to Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music in the conversations:
https://ancientlyre.com/


Get full access to The Stoa Letter at www.stoaletter.com/subscribe

In this episode, Caleb talks with Massimo Pigliucci about his new book, How to Be a Happy Skeptic, and the thinker at its center: Cicero. They trace skepticism from Pyrrho’s radical doubt to the Academics, who found a better path. You don’t need certainty. You need to know how sure to be, then act (or not).
The Stoics and skeptics argued for decades over whether truth leaves a mark you can trust. What happens when you admit you might be wrong?
Read How to Be a (Happy) Skeptic.
(03:00) Pyrrhonism: suspend judgment, find peace
(06:50) The Academics go back to Socrates
(08:40) Fallibilism: senses and reason both fail
(10:20) Carneades and the degrees of probability
(18:00) Skeptics versus Stoics: the cataleptic impression
(22:20) Certainty, polarization, and the case for doubt
(25:30) Cicero, friend and critic of the Stoics
(27:00) On Divination: the first book against pseudoscience
(31:40) On Ends and the gift of aporia
(37:00) Virtue, friendship, and the good life
(41:50) Seneca and skeptical Stoicism
(44:50) Cicero’s life and death
(55:40) Being useful to others
Download the Stoa app (it’s a free download): https://stoameditation.com/pod
If you try the Stoa app and find it useful, but truly cannot afford it, email us and we’ll set you up with a free account.
Listen to more episodes and learn more here: https://stoameditation.com/blog/stoa-conversations/
Thanks to Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music in the conversations:
https://ancientlyre.com/


Get full access to The Stoa Letter at www.stoaletter.com/subscribe

People love to pair Stoicism and Buddhism. Both blame suffering on desire. Both teach a kind of meditation. Both are about 2,500 years old. So how similar are they, really?
Michael and Caleb run a Buddhism 101 for Stoics. They start with the Buddha: a prince who had everything, saw old age, sickness, and death for the first time, and walked away from the palace to figure out why we suffer. From there it’s the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, and the Middle Way.
(00:00) Introduction
(06:28) The Buddha’s Founding Parable
(14:24) The Four Noble Truths
(19:59) The Middle Way and the Eightfold Path
(31:30) The Evolutionary Case for Buddhism
(40:09) Where Stoicism and Buddhism Overlap
(48:02) Where They Split Apart
Download the Stoa app (it’s a free download): https://stoameditation.com/pod
If you try the Stoa app and find it useful, but truly cannot afford it, email us and we’ll set you up with a free account.
Listen to more episodes and learn more here: https://stoameditation.com/blog/stoa-conversations/
Thanks to Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music in the conversations:
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Get full access to The Stoa Letter at www.stoaletter.com/subscribe