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Philosophy vocabulary · Schools and Movements

Stoicism

Meaning in philosophy, with examples

/ˈstəʊɪsɪzəm/nounCommon term

In philosophy, Stoicism means: An ancient Greek and Roman school teaching that virtue is the only true good and that we should calmly accept what we cannot control.

In Turkish: Stoacılık, Stoa felsefesi

How it is used

Founded by Zeno of Citium around 300 BCE; its best-known later writers are Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. The school is written with a capital S; lowercase stoicism and stoic in everyday English mean enduring hardship without complaint.

Example sentences

  1. Stoicism teaches that our judgments, not events themselves, are what disturb us.

  2. Interest in Stoicism has grown again through popular books on resilience.

Common collocations

  • ancient Stoicism
  • Roman Stoicism
  • Stoic ethics
  • modern Stoicism
  • virtue ethicsAn approach to ethics that focuses on good character and virtues such as courage, honesty and practical wisdom, rather than on rules or consequences.
  • ethicsThe branch of philosophy that studies right and wrong, good and bad, and how we ought to live and treat one another.
  • golden meanAristotle's idea that a virtue lies between two vices, one of excess and one of deficiency, as courage lies between cowardice and rashness.
  • existentialismA philosophical movement centered on individual existence, freedom and choice, holding that people create meaning through how they live rather than finding it ready-made.

More terms: Schools and Movements

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