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The Art of Living

The Discipline of Assent

Massimo Pigliucci tells us to stop impulsively judging.

Philosophy can be conceived as an inquiry into the nature of the world (metaphysics), the nature of knowledge (epistemology), and the nature of a number of other things (aesthetic experience, ethics, mind, science, and so forth). Alternatively, we can see philosophy as a way of life. This is the approach I adopt in this column.

One powerful example of philosophy as a way of life is presented in the so-called three disciplines of the Stoic philosopher Epictetus of Hierapolis (50-135 CE), which we’ve briefly examined in the past three columns. We studied the discipline of desire and aversion, which teaches us to rethink our values and our disgusts; we then moved on to the discipline of action, which is concerned with identifying the most appropriate way to act toward other people.

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