Athena
TR
Tradition / schoolRootsc. 300 BCE

Stoicism

Zeno of CitiumChrysippusSenecaEpictetusMarcus Aurelius

This page delivers no verdict; it presents claims and evidence with their sources. No theory in science is absolute. Method

For everyone

Stoicism is a school of philosophy founded in Athens around 300 BCE by Zeno of Citium. For the Stoics virtue is the only true good, and happiness is living in agreement with nature and reason. One should distinguish what is up to us from what is not, and not be troubled by the latter. The writings of Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius still reach a wide readership.

For specialists

The Stoa divided philosophy into logic, physics and ethics. Chrysippus developed one of the first systematic forms of propositional logic. In Stoic physics the cosmos is a material whole ordered by an active rational principle (logos), and everything is determined by a chain of causes. The Stoics nevertheless held that human assent (synkatathesis) is up to us, so that determinism and responsibility are compatible. Passions (pathe) arise from false judgements.

Claims

Positions

Epicureans
The highest good is pleasure, understood as the absence of pain and anxiety; the cosmos arises from the chance motion of atoms.[2]
Founders of cognitive behavioural therapy
Albert Ellis and Aaron Beck cited Epictetus as a forerunner when developing the idea that thoughts shape emotions.[4]

Connections

Parent

Philosophy

Influenced by

The Presocratics and ancient atomism

Related

Plato, the Republic and the theory of FormsFree will

Show in tree →

Sources

  1. EncyclopediaBaltzly, D.Stoicism. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophyplato.stanford.eduarchive
  2. BookLong, A. A.; Sedley, D. N. (1987). The Hellenistic Philosophers, Vol. 1: Translations of the Principal Sources with Philosophical Commentary. Cambridge University Press
  3. BookMarcus Aurelius; Hard, R. (trans.) (2011). Meditations. Oxford World's Classics, Oxford University Press
  4. BookRobertson, D. (2010). The Philosophy of Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT): Stoic Philosophy as Rational and Cognitive Psychotherapy. Karnac, London

Search the literature

Look for scholarly work on this topic in other indexes:

Google Scholar ↗Semantic Scholar ↗BASE ↗CORE ↗PhilPapers ↗JSTOR ↗DergiPark ↗

Cite this page

APA

Athena contributors. (2026). Stoicism. Athena: The tree of human knowledge. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://latifkedi.github.io/athena/en/d/stoacilik/

BibTeX
@misc{athena_stoacilik,
  title        = {Stoicism},
  author       = {{Athena contributors}},
  year         = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://latifkedi.github.io/athena/en/d/stoacilik/}},
  note         = {Athena: The tree of human knowledge. Accessed: 2026-11-01}
}

Added: September 28, 2026 · Last changed: September 28, 2026 · Page history

✎ Suggest a correction