Courses
Structured multi-part programs that translate Stoic philosophy into practical frameworks for navigating pressure, adversity, and the pursuit of a well-lived life.
Stoicism Through Adversity
A Philosophical Guide to Crisis, Loss, and Recovery
When life breaks — through illness, failure, grief, or sudden upheaval — philosophy is not a luxury. It is a necessity. This course draws on the Stoic tradition to offer a rigorous, practical framework for navigating the most difficult passages of human experience. Through eight in-depth lessons, you will examine how to respond to crisis with clarity rather than panic, how to maintain identity when circumstances strip away what you thought defined you, and how to transform adversity into the material of genuine character. Drawing on Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Seneca, and the best of modern psychology, this course is for anyone who has faced — or expects to face — the full weight of a difficult life.
The Dichotomy of Control
The Foundation of Stoic Practice
The dichotomy of control is the foundation of Stoic philosophy — and the single most powerful psychological tool available to anyone navigating a demanding life. This course takes you deep into the idea that Epictetus placed at the centre of his teaching: the distinction between what is in our power and what is not. Through eight deeply explored lessons, you will learn not only the philosophical foundations of this distinction but how to apply it in the most demanding contexts of human life: pressure, feedback, rejection, difficult relationships, and the long arc of a meaningful career.
Stoicism Under Pressure
Philosophy for Anyone Who Performs Under Pressure
Every demanding life — in work, creative endeavour, public responsibility, or personal ambition — is a philosophical laboratory. The pressures of high-stakes engagement expose our assumptions, test our character, and reveal whether our philosophy is merely theoretical or genuinely lived. This course applies Stoic principles to the specific demands of a life under pressure: how to act with integrity when the stakes are high, how to respond to failure and criticism without losing your orientation, how to sustain philosophical practice through the long arc of a demanding career. Eight lessons, each examining a specific dimension of pressure and the Stoic response to it.
Calm & Equanimity
The Stoic Path to Lasting Inner Stability
Equanimity — the stable, undisturbed orientation of a well-ordered mind — is the most practically useful achievement of Stoic philosophy. It is not passivity or indifference, but the capacity to engage fully with the demands of life without being destabilised by them. This course traces the Stoic account of equanimity from its philosophical foundations through its practical cultivation: the breath as an anchor to the present, negative visualisation as a practice of gratitude, the view from above as a corrective to distorted perspective, the management of anger and frustration, and the sustained daily practice that makes equanimity not a mood but a character trait. Eight in-depth lessons for anyone who wants to live with greater stability, clarity, and depth.
Virtue & Character
The Stoic Account of What It Means to Live Well
For the Stoics, virtue is not one value among many — it is the only genuine good, the foundation of everything that makes a human life worth living. This course examines the four cardinal virtues of the Stoic tradition — wisdom, justice, courage, and temperance — not as abstract ideals but as living disciplines that shape every decision, relationship, and moment of pressure. Eight in-depth lessons trace the philosophical foundations of each virtue, examine how they manifest in the demands of real life, and provide the practical tools to cultivate them deliberately. For anyone who wants to understand not just how to succeed, but what kind of person they are becoming in the process.
The Stoic Life
Applying Ancient Wisdom to Modern Demands
The five foundational courses of Askesis establish the philosophical architecture of Stoicism with the rigour the tradition demands. This sixth course does something different: it takes that architecture into the specific, recurring pressures of contemporary life — work, money, relationships, grief, anger, distraction, and the examined life itself. Each lesson moves between ancient text and modern situation, asking not only what the Stoics believed but how, precisely, their beliefs should change the way we live on a Tuesday afternoon. The result is a course that is both philosophically serious and immediately practical — a bridge between the tradition and the life you are actually living. Eight in-depth lessons for anyone who has studied Stoicism and now wants to live it.
The Examined Life: Reading Marcus Aurelius
A Guided Encounter with the Meditations
The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius is one of the most intimate philosophical documents ever written — a private journal kept by a Roman emperor who used philosophy not to theorise but to govern himself. This course teaches you how to read it: not as a collection of quotable aphorisms, but as a sustained philosophical practice. Over eight lessons, we move through the structure and argument of the Meditations, unpacking the Stoic ideas that underpin each book, the historical pressures Marcus was writing against, and the practical disciplines he was rehearsing. By the end, you will not merely have read Marcus Aurelius. You will understand what he was doing — and why it still works.
Memento Mori
The Stoic Practice of Mortality
The Stoics made death central to their philosophy — not because they were morbid, but because they understood that a life lived without awareness of its end is a life lived without clarity. Memento mori — remember that you will die — was not a threat but a philosophical practice: a way of cutting through distraction, dissolving trivial anxieties, and focusing attention on what actually matters. This course works through the Stoic philosophy of mortality in depth, drawing on Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus. It addresses the fear of death directly, examines what the Stoics thought happens when we die, and offers a set of practical exercises for integrating mortality awareness into daily life. This is the course for anyone who has lost someone, who is facing a serious illness, or who simply wants to live with more clarity about what their life is for.
Desire, Attachment, and the Stoic Emotions
What the Stoics Actually Thought About Feeling
The most common objection to Stoicism is that it requires the suppression of emotion — that to be Stoic is to be cold, detached, and unfeeling. This course corrects that misunderstanding entirely. The Stoics had a sophisticated and humane account of the emotional life: what emotions are, where they come from, which ones are appropriate and which are not, and how to work with them philosophically rather than against them. Drawing on Epictetus's Discourses, Seneca's On Anger, and Marcus Aurelius's Meditations, this course teaches the Stoic theory of the passions (pathē) and the good emotions (eupatheiai), explains the cognitive basis of emotional disturbance, and offers practical tools for working with desire, fear, grief, and anger in ways that are both philosophically rigorous and genuinely useful.