Beginning ~ with the only reason to study philosophy

Beginning = Introduction

The only reason to study philosophy is to become a better person.

Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius ~ by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman, 2020, mini-biographies, 352 pages

Nearly 2,300 years after a ruined merchant named Zeno first established a school on the Stoa Poikile of Athens, Stoicism has found a new audience.  The philosophy embraced self-mastery, virtue, and indifference to that which we cannot control.  This book tells us about the lives of the men and women who strove to live by the Stoic virtues of courage, temperance, justice, and wisdom.  It's organized in mini-biographies of all the well-known Stoics (and some not so well-known), letting us see what it was like for the people who lived it, so we can apply their philosophy to our own lives.

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts Book Beginnings on Fridays.