A Handbook for New Stoics

Come join the Philly Stoa as we continue our journey through A Handbook for New Stoics, focusing this session on Weeks 36, 37, and 39. These weeks fall under the Stoic discipline of assent, the practice of examining the impressions that arise in our minds before we agree to them. Together, they invite us into foundational Stoic exercises: catching our judgments before they take hold, and managing our impressions and impulses.

Week 36 takes up Epictetus's counsel to meet each impression at the door rather than letting it walk straight in. We practice noticing the snap judgments and emotional reactions that color our experience, then questioning whether they accurately reflect what is happening. This work creates a small but crucial pause between stimulus and response, the space in which freedom and reason live. Week 37 deepens this practice by asking us to engage with our impressions and impulses in more detail, tracing how a perception becomes a judgment, and how a judgment becomes an impulse to act. By slowing down this chain, we begin to see where we have leverage and where we are being carried along. Week 39 brings us back to the essentials, reminding us to keep basic Stoic concepts ever at hand. The dichotomy of control, the discipline of assent, the centrality of virtue: these ideas only help us when we can recall them in the heat of the moment, and this week's practice is about making them familiar.

You are welcome to join, whether or not you have read the material in advance. This series is part of the ongoing partnership between the Philly Stoa and the Philadelphia Ethical Society, and our aim is to create a supportive space for practicing philosophy as a lived discipline through thoughtful discussion and shared reflection.