Summary of Massimo Pigliucci's How to Be a Stoic

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

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#1 The question of how to live is central to every culture. The various religions and philosophies that have been developed to address these issues offer answers ranging from the mystical to the hyper-rational.

#2 I have always been inclined to seek more coherent ways to understand the world and better choices for living my life. I wrote a book, Answers for Aristotle: How Science and Philosophy Can Lead Us to a More Meaningful Life, which combined ancient ideas of virtue ethics with the latest that the natural and social sciences told us about human nature.

#3 The New Atheism, with its emphasis on science and reason, is not the only way to pursue a secular life. You can also pursue a nonreligious approach by going Buddhism or secular humanism. But these two paths are somehow unsatisfying to me.

#4 I turned to Stoicism because it speaks most directly and convincingly to the inevitability of death and how to prepare for it. Life is an ongoing project, and death its natural end point. We should not fantasize about an immortality of which there is neither evidence nor reason to believe in, but we should not dismiss or avoid the issue of death either.

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