Aaron Smith & Yaron Discuss Stoic philosophy & The Modern Stoic movement | Yaron Interviews

Aaron Smith is a philosopher at the Ayn Rand Institute. He writes for New Ideal, ARI's online jounal, and is a regular speaker at ARI conferences. He is also a faculty member of the Ayn Rand University.

He received his PhD in philosophy from Johns Hopkins University where his work focused on ancient Greek philosophy. Prior to joining ARI in 2013, he was a visiting assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where he taught courses in ancient Greek philosophy, moral theory and epistemology. He is also a graduate of the Objectivist Academic Center and an alumnus of ARI’s Advanced Education Program.

00:00 Intro
01:10 Aaron Smith
01:45 Stoicism
02:50 Who were the Stoics?
07:48 Stoic school
10:27 Ideas that make them popular
15:01 How one should live?
19:59 Virtue
26:29 The Modern Stoic movement
33:10 Is it helpful?
37:13 My impression is many stoicists use it to cope with a malevolent universe premise. There is rationality used but to deal with a faulty underlying base. It’s: life-is-suffering and stoicism is how to make it less. Is this so?
38:52 Politics
41:10 Critique of the self-help Stoic movement

Live Questions:
45:18 Most of thing in life are out of control divorce, losing the loved one etc, it is part of nature. This my understanding of outside our control, how objectivism deal with these event ?
51:09 Doesn’t catering to people needs and society make us more successful? It is mark of successful product or invention is the return for the whole society
54:58 Friedrich Nietzsche was not deterministic but he too asked to love fate ,Amor Fati, it doesn’t mean we should reach our potential but there is always stuff outside control .
59:53 Great discussion Aaron! I'm wondering if the popular self help seminars called Landmark is based on Stoicism.
1:00:47 What is the stoic view of death, and how does it constrast with the Epicurean view that "death means nothing to us."
1:02:58 In the past there were plenty of things thought to be uncontrollable, e.g diseases. Turned out those things were controllable. If you just give up, you will never know.
1:04:26 In Atlas Shrugged, when Dagny says - “We never had to take it seriously did we?” - the world is crumbling. How would one maintain a benevolent universe if existentially there was evil all around?
1:08:36 Was this philosophy in Roman law? if so, how did they deal with criminals that exploited this philosophy?
1:10:45 Do you think Amish people are Stoic? They seem so.
1:13:20 Stoicism is a miserable soul-sucking philosophy without the aggression that comes with cynicism and nihilism.
1:17:03 Are totalitarian systems designed to make people stoic? Or do people adopt stoicism in order to survive totalitarian systems?
1:18:20 Do you like Gordon Ramsay because he is the opposite of a stoic? Have you ever eaten at one of his restaurants?
1:22:58 Aaron is an amazing cook. I would like to hear about how he got interested in cooking & what are some of his favorite dishes. Who are his mentors?
1:26:44 My 1 year niece was recently diagnosed with a horribly disfiguring and learning/behavioural debilitating congenital disease with no cure. A place for stoicism in her future?
1:29:57 What ancient philosophers do you enjoy or would reccomend to new Objectivists? Thoughts on Peikoff's analyses of Western Philosophy?
1:33:41 For Plato, is Atlantis a real place or fiction?
1:34:11 What led you to objectivism, and where can we find more of your work? You , Yaron and many have done so much for Objectivism over past 4 decades.

1:36:43 Outro

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#philosophy #stoicism #Morality ​ ​#Objectivism​ #AynRand #politics