Stoicism
Representatives
- Marcus Aurelius
- Epictetus
- Seneca
Idea
- Separation between things that lie within one’s power to change and things that do not. - Suffering comes from the belief that we have power over things where we actually don't have control over. - Instead focus on what is under our control.
Problem: What is under our control?
Critic
- Nietzsche: “extraordinary stage-players and self-deluders” who choose to see things falsely. - Jean-Paul Sartre: An evasion that aims to keep both master and slave in their places.
People initiate emotions when they are confronted with obstacles they seemingly have no rational way of overcoming. They are a way of acting as if the world was other than it is. Emotions enables to reengage a situation on new terms.
Satre: “mauvaise foi”, bad faith, Unaufrichtigkeit/Arglist