The Individual and the Community in Stoic Pragmatism
The present paper outlines John Lachs’s idea of stoic pragmatism and develops its important part that is the relation between the individual and the community. In his project, Lachs reduces the whole tradition of Stoic philosophy to its later, Roman version and tries to link it with the philosophical tradition of American pragmatism (especially William James, John Dewey, and George Santayana, who is close to pragmatism at some points) hoping that it is possible for these two to "enrich and complete each other" so that to provide "a better attitude to life than either of the two views alone." Stoic pragmatism pursues factual improvement in the quality of life for individuals living in given …
Cultural diversity and clashing narratives about national culture: A Central European stoic pragmatist perspective
Abstract It is amazing how polarizing and, at the same time, ahistorical narratives can be heard about the problems discussed, especially in Anglophone countries in recent times, and on social media: identity policy, cultural policy, racism, patriotism, white privilege, patriarchy, sexism, gender, and others. Stoic pragmatism is not in agreement with the most recent populism and neo-tribalistic class of narratives, which highlight division and the polarization of groups of people against other groups of people as the very axis of argumentation. Even more importantly, stoic pragmatists, especially those who happen to have a Central and Eastern European sensibility, may insist on the specific…