The ancient Stoics took for their motto, “live according to nature.” While this motto sounds appealing, it turns out to be terrible advice. The problem is that while nature does seem to provide some guidance — we do have to eat, drink, and sleep, for example — nature’s guidance is…

Chrysippus, Zeno, and Epictetus on what it means to live according to nature One of the more perplexing ideas handed down from the ancient Stoics is the motto, “live according to nature.” It’s a nice-sounding motto, but it is less than obvious what it really means. Perhaps the ancient Stoics…

The Consequences of the Dichotomy of Control Stoicism is promoted as a way of making yourself invincible. Entire books are devoted to cultivating Stoic indifference to train Stoics to dismiss distressing things as mere “externals” that one should be indifferent to. …

Don’t believe what you think. In the Bahiya Sutta we have one of the most concise formulations given in Buddhist teachings on how to end suffering. In this sutta the respected ascetic, Bahiya, learns about the Buddha and travels to see him. When Bahiya eventually finds the Buddha he says…

Since the beginning of history, people have jumped to conclusions. Only afterward have they come up with reasons for those conclusions — all the while deluding themselves and others that the process happened in the other direction. …

Massimo Pigliucci has published a review of the book How to Keep an Open Mind: An Ancient Guide to Thinking Like a Skeptic. …

How the mistranslation of “dukkha” has mislead Western Buddhists It has become normative and conventional to translate the Buddhist term “dukkha” as “suffering.” This is a bad translation. “Suffering” is not what the Buddha meant by “dukkha.” Translating terms about concepts is always tricky because often the closest words in…

Perhaps the most enigmatic of all of the ancient texts recovered at Nag Hamadi is The Thunder, Perfect Mind. It is wholly unlike the other texts found in this cache of ancient Gnostic texts. Based on the meter of the text, it was probably composed in Greek. …

Don’t Confuse Pyrrhonism With Skepticism Pyrrhonism is the earliest form of Western philosophical skepticism; however, what we now consider to be skepticism is so greatly different from Pyrrhonism that calling Pyrrhonism “skepticism” produces severe and difficult-to-reverse misconceptions of what Pyrrhonism is. This is exacerbated by presentations of Pyrrhonism that distort…