William Ferraiolo, A Life Worth Living: Meditations on God, Death and Stoicism. Alresford UK, O-Books, 2020, 14,1 × 21,4 cm, 192 p., ISBN 978-1-78904-304-4

William Ferraiolo’s recent book, A Life Worth Living: Meditations on God, Death and Stoicism (2020), offers a contemporary summary and exploration of Stoic philosophy, explaining the fundamental ideas and attitudes of Stoicism clearly early on, before moving on to discuss more specific aspects/situations through the lens of the Stoic mindset. This book is more accurately understood as a collected series of papers, written by the author on a number of topics, both effectively introducing the tenants of Stoic philosophy for the novice or unacquainted reader, while also discussing tangentially related topics in an interesting, thoughtful way, while constantly looking back to the Stoic principles set forth and introduced at the start of the book by such thinkers as Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and other Roman Stoics of the classical age. This review will briefly assess and summarize each chapter, evaluate the book as whole, and consider its effectiveness as an introduction to, and defense of, the principles of Stoic philosophy. Chapter 1 provides the reader with an overview of Stoicism, summarizing its main ideas, explaining and defending the efficacy of Stoic methods, and demonstrating how, some 2000 years after they were conceived, they remain effective (for, as Ferraiolo notes, human nature has not changed that much in that time) (p. 4). Ferraiolo also introduces the IDEA method, as a means of applying Stoicism’s principles: (I)dentify the problem, (D)istinguish what can be changed, (E)xert effort, and (A)ccept the rest (p. 13). Moving from general explanation of what Stoicism is to more specific applications of Stoic philosophy to everyday life, Chapter 2 focuses on the phenomenon of anxiety, a feeling experienced by many in the world today. By considering it in light of the understanding of the Roman Stoics, Ferraiolo analyzes the suffering anxiety causes and prescribes a means of treatment, based on reasonable reflection and awareness of one’s own feelings and attitudes. With the IDEA method in hand, one can relinquish “irrational attachments to any external conditions that do not conform to the dictates of the will” (p. 17). These ideas, Ferraiolo concludes, some two millennia old, remain an effective means of overcoming anxiety and refocusing one’s attitudes, up until the present day. Chapter 3, entitled “Stoic Simplicity,” narrows the focus of Chapter 1 to describe the attitude one must adopt in order to enjoy the good, undemanding life, while Chapter 4 spreads the focus further, to the world at large, and all the situations/causes which lead to the human experience of worry or anxiety: terrorism, nuclear war, (pandemics), etc. Ferraiolo reminds us of the Stoic’s reasoning that such things, being beyond our power to control, cease to be of concern to us (for what will be, will be). Therefore, the true sage “suffers no harm, and lives free of fear and perturbation” (p. 36). Chapter 5 discusses the purpose of living according to Stoic principles in light of determinism, a worldview that would render the Stoic life pointless: if we live in a predetermined world, and if the world’s events are beyond our control, then one’s actions are futile and meaningless, whether one is a Stoic or not. Ferraiolo responds by combining the points of the previous two chapters: one’s attitude towards life, and the peace one feels by accepting the world as it is. By doing each of these, the Stoic will be “unhindered and free, finding fault with nothing and no one, suffering no enemies, and coming to no harm” (p. 39). Chapter 6 then continues this discussion, but this time bearing in mind the question of the existence of God: whether the will of God, or the necessary …