Why Stoics Should Not Be Indifferent to the Indifferents - Sadler's Lectures
Update: 2025-11-19
Description
my invited talk at the first Stoicon-X Brasil online conference. Due to technical issues, I provided a live presentation (translation provided by participants) to the conference. In this presentation, I briefly present the Stoic doctrine of the indifferents (adiaphoria), namely that Stoics view many things as neither good nor bad, but are indifferent. Some indifferents may be "preferred" or "rejected", which means that they have some positive or negative value, but not the sort of that makes us virtuous or vicious, happy or miserable.
The Stoics teach that we should not be entirely indifferent to the indifferents, for several important reasons. The use (khresis or usus) of indifferents is not something indifferent, and as Epictetus tells us, is something we ought to be careful about. The virtues, as Seneca and Cicero clarify, bear upon indifferents.
Texts mentioned in this talk:
Marcus Aurelius' Meditations - https://amzn.to/3osPFNF
Epictetus' Discourses and Enchiridion - https://amzn.to/37G6bE0
Seneca's Letters - https://amzn.to/3dZQrNk
Cicero's On The Ends - https://amzn.to/3mmgJMB
The Stoics teach that we should not be entirely indifferent to the indifferents, for several important reasons. The use (khresis or usus) of indifferents is not something indifferent, and as Epictetus tells us, is something we ought to be careful about. The virtues, as Seneca and Cicero clarify, bear upon indifferents.
Texts mentioned in this talk:
Marcus Aurelius' Meditations - https://amzn.to/3osPFNF
Epictetus' Discourses and Enchiridion - https://amzn.to/37G6bE0
Seneca's Letters - https://amzn.to/3dZQrNk
Cicero's On The Ends - https://amzn.to/3mmgJMB
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