Description
Active-duty Navy nuclear submarine officer William Spears explains his approach to presenting Stoicism, especially for military audiences, by distilling complex ideas without "dumbing them down." Drawing on Epictetus, he argues that the popular "dichotomy of control" is a useful entry point but a shallow, folk-wisdom-level takeaway akin to the Serenity Prayer and not uniquely Stoic, since it omits core Stoic ideas like virtue as the sole good and the sorting of impressions.
He outlines the Stoic theory of mind centered on the hegemonikon (ruling center) and its three governing processes: assent, desire, and action. He notes that his framework follows Pierre Hadot's interpretation in The Inner Citadel and that some scholarly disagreement exists. He then describes impressions (including kataleptic impressions) and how value judgments can be purified, for example by correcting the belief that bacon is "good."
He presents prohairesis (faculty of choice) as a test for impressions: what is "up to me" is a moral factor; what is not is "nothing to me." He frames this as a heuristic he calls the "Stoic knife." From this he draws two implications: first, the self is identical to the faculty of choice rather than the body, leading to what he calls "isolating or circumscribing the self" and a form of invincibility against non-moral factors; second, external people still relate to us through moral factors like duty and justice, which he offers as a rebuttal to the charge that Stoicism is self-obsessed.
Finally, he extends the idea across time: the self exists only in the present, while past and future can inform appropriate present action, but past and future outcomes are not the self.
00:00 Meet the Speaker: Navy Officer, Author, and Why He’s Here
01:16 How to Teach Stoicism Without Dumbing It Down
02:22 Beyond the ‘Dichotomy of Control’ (and the Serenity Prayer)
04:41 Stoic Theory of Mind: The Hegemonikon (Ruling Center)
07:14 Why Translations Matter: The Three Disciplines (Assent, Desire, Action)
08:49 Impressions 101: Facts, Value Judgments, and Mental Filtering
10:23 Prohairesis as a Test: The ‘Stoic Knife’ for Sorting What Matters
13:32 Isolating the Self: Choice as What You Are—and Stoic Invincibility
15:40 Others, Duty, and Justice: Stoicism Isn’t Self-Obsessed
16:07 Stoicism Over Time: Cutting Away Past and Future, Living in the Present
16:56 Closing: The Core Takeaway
About our Speaker
Commander William C. Spears is a submarine warfare officer in the U.S. Navy and author of *Stoicism as a Warrior Philosophy*, released in fall 2025. A native of Louisiana, he enlisted in the Navy's nuclear program after high school before earning admission to the Naval Academy, where he graduated in 2008.
He's served on nuclear submarines in roles including Weapons Officer of a fast-attack sub and Executive Officer of a Trident missile submarine. Currently, he works at the Pentagon and will return to sea duty this summer. Commander Spears writes on leadership, ethics, and military topics, and resides with his wife and three children wherever the Navy sends them.
More about William C. Spears:
https://williamcspears.com/
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