The Latin cogito, ergo sum, usually translated into English as "I think, therefore I am", is the "first principle" of René Descartes's philosophy. He originally published it in French as je pense, donc je suis in his 1637 Discourse on the Method, so as to reach a wider audience than Latin would have allowed. It later appeared in Latin in his Principles of Philosophy, and a similar phrase also featured prominently in his Meditations on First Philosophy. The dictum is also sometimes referred to as the cogito. As Descartes explained in a margin note, "we cannot doubt of our existence while we doubt." In the posthumously published The Search for Truth by Natural Light, he expressed this insight as dubito, ergo sum, vel, quod idem est, cogito, ergo sum. Antoine Léonard Thomas, in a 1765 essay in honor of Descartes presented it as dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum.
Meditation is a practice in which an individual uses a technique – such as mindfulness, or focusing the mind on a particular object, thought, or activity – to train attention and awareness, and achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state.
Memento mori is an artistic or symbolic trope acting as a reminder of the inevitability of death. The concept has its roots in the philosophers of classical antiquity and Christianity, and appeared in funerary art and architecture from the medieval period onwards.
Meditations on First Philosophy, in which the existence of God and the immortality of the soul are demonstrated is a philosophical treatise by René Descartes first published in Latin in 1641. The French translation was published in 1647 as Méditations Métaphysiques. The title may contain a misreading by the printer, mistaking animae immortalitas for animae immaterialitas, as suspected by A. Baillet.
Meditations is a series of personal writings by Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor from AD 161 to 180, recording his private notes to himself and ideas on Stoic philosophy.
In philosophy, the Cartesian Self, or Cartesian subject, a concept developed by the philosopher René Descartes within his system of mind–body dualism, is the term provided for a separation between mind and body as posited by Descartes. In the simple view the self can be viewed as just the mind which is separate from the body as well as from the outside world. The simple self, the mind, also stands to be capable of thinking about itself and its existence. The self when seen as a compound is when it can be interpreted as being a whole human being - body and mind - with the body being an extension of the mind. It is distinct from the Cartesian other, anything other than the Cartesian self, yet the human-being version, union of body and mind, of the self is capable of interaction with the Cartesian Other through extension. According to Descartes, there is a divide intrinsic to consciousness such that one Individual's self is the only thing one can know to certainly exist - since one is not capable of knowing whether other minds exist or are able to think.
A spiritual practice or spiritual discipline is the regular or full-time performance of actions and activities undertaken for the purpose of inducing spiritual experiences and cultivating spiritual development. A common metaphor used in the spiritual traditions of the world's great religions is that of walking a path. Therefore, a spiritual practice moves a person along a path towards a goal. The goal is variously referred to as salvation, liberation or union. A person who walks such a path is sometimes referred to as a wayfarer or a pilgrim.
Ancient Roman philosophy is philosophy as it was practiced in the Roman Republic and its successor state, the Roman Empire. Roman philosophy includes not only philosophy written in Latin, but also philosophy written in Greek in the late Republic and Roman Empire. Important early Latin-language writers include Lucretius, Cicero, and Seneca the Younger. Greek was a popular language for writing about philosophy, so much so that the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius chose to write his Meditations in Greek.
Dhyāna in Hinduism means contemplation and meditation. Dhyana is taken up in Yoga practices, and is a means to samadhi and self-knowledge.
Meditation is a technique to train attention and awareness, achieve mental clearity, and reach an emotionally calm, stable state.
Pierre Hadot was a French philosopher and historian of philosophy specializing in ancient philosophy, particularly Epicureanism and Stoicism.
Jain meditation has been the central practice of spirituality in Jainism along with the Three Jewels. Jainism holds that emancipation can only be achieved through meditation or Shukla Dhyana. According to Sagarmal Jain, it aims to reach and remain in a state of "pure-self awareness or knowership." Meditation is also seen as realizing the self, taking the soul to complete freedom, beyond any craving, aversion and/or attachment. The 20th century saw the development and spread of new modernist forms of Jain Dhyana, mainly by monks and laypersons of Śvētāmbara Jainism.
Amor fati is a Latin phrase that may be translated as "love of fate" or "love of one's fate". It is used to describe an attitude in which one sees everything that happens in one's life, including suffering and loss, as good or, at the very least, necessary.
Neostoicism was a philosophical movement that arose in the late 16th century from the works of Justus Lipsius, and sought to combine the beliefs of Stoicism and Christianity. Lipsius was Flemish and a Renaissance humanist. The movement took on the nature of religious syncretism, although modern scholarship does not consider that it resulted in a successful synthesis. The name "neostoicism" is attributed to two Roman Catholic authors, Léontine Zanta and Julien-Eymard d'Angers.
Gaius Claudius Maximus was a Roman politician, a Stoic philosopher and a teacher of Marcus Aurelius. No works by him are known to exist; however, he is mentioned in a few prestigious works from classical literature.
Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy that flourished in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. The Stoics believed that the practice of virtue is enough to achieve eudaimonia: a well-lived life. The Stoics identified the path to achieving it with a life spent practicing the four virtues in everyday life: wisdom, courage, temperance or moderation, and justice, and living in accordance with nature. It was founded in the ancient Agora of Athens by Zeno of Citium around 300 BC.
A sage, in classical philosophy, is someone who has attained wisdom. The term has also been used interchangeably with a 'good person', and a 'virtuous person'. Among the earliest accounts of the sage begin with Empedocles' Sphairos. Horace describes the Sphairos as "Completely within itself, well-rounded and spherical, so that nothing extraneous can adhere to it, because of its smooth and polished surface." Alternatively, the sage is one who lives "according to an ideal which transcends the everyday."
Common sense is "knowledge, judgement, and taste which is more or less universal and which is held more or less without reflection or argument". As such, it is often considered to represent the basic level of sound practical judgement or knowledge of basic facts that any adult human being ought to possess. It is "common" in the sense of being shared by nearly all people. The everyday understanding of common sense is ultimately derived from historical philosophical discussions. Relevant terms from other languages used in such discussions include Latin sensus communis, Ancient Greek κοινὴ αἴσθησις, and French bon sens. However, these are not straightforward translations in all contexts, and in English different shades of meaning have developed. In philosophical and scientific contexts, since the Age of Enlightenment the term "common sense" has been used for rhetorical effect both approvingly and disapprovingly. On the one hand it has been a standard for good taste, good sense, and source of scientific and logical axioms. On the other hand it has been equated to conventional wisdom, vulgar prejudice, and superstition.
Meditative poetry combines the religious practice of meditation with verse. Buddhist and Hindu writers have developed extensive theories and phase models for meditation.
Negative visualization or futurorum malorum præmeditatio is a method of meditative praxis or askēsis by visualization of the worst-case scenario(s). The method originated with the Cyreanic philosophers and was later adopted by Stoic philosophers. The technique was made popular with publications of Seneca the Younger's Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium. It is thought to have been one of the common forms of Stoic spiritual exercises.
