Disrupting Anxiety with Hellenistic Philosophy

Episode 14 brings philosophy out of the classroom and into the turbulence of everyday life. Drawing on the ideas of Epicurus, Diogenes of Sinope, Zeno of Citium, and Pyrrho of Elis, the episode explores Hellenistic philosophy not as abstract theory, but as a practical art of living, designed to cultivate tranquility in times of social upheaval and uncertainty.Against contemporary narratives that frame anxiety primarily as a problem of smartphones and social media, the episode examines the deeper structures of modern distress: hyper-consumerism, status competition, political instability, burnout culture, and the erosion of meaningful communal life. Rather than treating technology as the sole cause of anxiety, the discussion argues that screens often function as symptoms, refuges within a society already marked by alienation and emotional fragmentation.Through the lenses of Cynicism, Skepticism, Stoicism, and Epicureanism, the episode investigates how ancient philosophical practices can serve as forms of psychological and ethical resistance in the algorithmic age. In doing so, the episode presents Hellenistic philosophy as a continuation of the gadfly tradition: a refusal of institutional comfort and a demand that wisdom fundamentally transform how one lives.Sources:Adamson, Peter. Philosophy in the Hellenistic and Roman worlds. Vol. 1. Oxford University Press (UK), 2015.Diogenes Laërtius. Lives of the Eminent Philosophers. Translated by R. D. Hicks, Harvard UP, 1925.Durkheim, Émile. Suicide: A Study in Sociology. Translated by John A. Spaulding and George Simpson, Free Press, 1951.Epicurus. “Letter to Menoeceus.” The Epicurus Reader: Selected Writings and Testimonia, translated by Brad Inwood and L. P. Gerson, Hackett Publishing, 1994, pp. 28–40.Haidt, Jonathan. The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. Penguin Press, 2024. Haidt, Jonathan. The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure. Co-authored by Greg Lukianoff, Penguin Press, 2018.Hadot, Pierre. Philosophy as a Way of Life. Edited by Arnold I. Davidson, translated by Michael Chase, Blackwell, 1995.Nussbaum, Martha C. The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics. Princeton UP, 1994.Odgers, Candice L. "The great rewiring: is social media really behind an epidemic of teenage mental illness." Nature 628.8006 (2024): 29-30.Pyrrho of Elis. Fragments and testimonia in The Skeptic Way: Sextus Empiricus’s Outlines of Pyrrhonism. Translated by Benson Mates, Oxford UP, 1996.Van Baar, Jeroen. "Why academics are annoyed with Jonathan Haidt, again." 3 Quarks Daily, 8 July 2024.Zeno of Citium. Fragments and testimonia in The Stoics Reader: Selected Writings and Testimonia. Edited by Brad Inwood and L. P. Gerson, Hackett Publishing, 2008. Episode CreditsProducer and Editor: Dr. Christopher C. KirbyThis work is made possible by the Jeffers W. Chertok Memorial Endowment at Eastern Washington University.**The views expressed in this program are not necessarily those of Eastern Washington University