What If Stoicism Is Wrong?

Have you ever thought that the philosophy you’ve built your life around—Stoicism—could be wrong?

I don’t know about you,
but that’s one of my biggest fears.

(And I’ll tell you later how I overcame it.)

In last week’s email, we talked about the Four Passions—the Stoic idea that our irrational emotions (desire, fear, pleasure, and distress) come from false judgments about what’s good or evil.

That concept sounds brilliant in theory. But it left me wondering:

Do we really control our emotions and choices as much as the Stoics claimed?

What if the Stoics underestimated how powerful emotion actually is?

I needed to know. Not just for curiosity’s sake, but because I’m writing about this in my book, Resist & Persist.

So, I went full nerd mode—digging through Stoic texts, psychology papers, and neuroscience studies—to find out if modern science supports or destroys Stoicism.

And here’s what I found.

1. The Stoics were more scientific than we thought

The Stoics believed that emotions (what they called pathē) aren’t random. They’re mistakes in reasoning — false beliefs about what’s good or bad.

Anger? It’s the desire to punish someone for harming what you think is good.
Fear? Expecting an external “evil” that isn’t truly evil.
Anxiety, jealousy, depression—all the same pattern.

In short, they said emotion = bad logic.

That’s pretty wild, right?

They were claiming 2,000 years ago that emotion begins in thought—not in the body.

But is this actually true?

2. Here’s where modern neuroscience corrects them

Today we know that emotions actually begin before thought.

When sth happens—say, your boss criticizes you—your amygdala and limbic system fire instantly.

Heart rate rises. Muscles tighten. Body prepares for danger.

That’s your biological reaction.

The Stoics also talked about this. They named it (propatheiai).

Seneca said the blushing of cheeks, the sudden scare we get from a loud noise, and the like are all found in animals too.

Therefore, we shouldn’t care much about them. They are completely outside our control.

What comes next, though, is why I’m proud to be a Stoic.

3. The Stoics were right about what happens after

Once your body reacts, your prefrontal cortex (the rational brain) wakes up and starts adding meaning:

• “He disrespected me.”

• “This is unfair.”

• “I can’t let this slide.”

That’s when emotion becomes a passion.

That’s where suffering begins — when you assent to the thought.

The Stoics nailed this part perfectly.

They said:

You can’t control the first flash of emotion (propathēia), but you can control whether you agree with it or not.

Sound familiar?

That’s literally Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)—the cornerstone of modern psychology, directly inspired by Stoic thought.

And it gets crazier..

But before we look at how the Stoics said reason helps us tame our emotions, let’s look a simple examples we will all experience in our lives:

4. The breakup

When your girlfriend breaks up with you, first comes the automatic reaction.

You feel a stab in the gut. Your heart drops. Your chest tightens. Tears may come.

This is not irrational. It’s biological.

The Stoics said this first shock is beyond your control. It’s simply your nature reacting to perceived loss. They viewed it as mental pain, but they were indifferent to it. They knew it wasn’t their fault for being that way.

So, this is propathēia—the involuntary “first movement.”

Within seconds, your prefrontal cortex (the brain’s reasoning center) begins to interpret what just happened.

This is when thought starts to form:

• “This is terrible.”

• “I’ll never find someone like her again.”

• “My life is ruined.”

Yes—those are products of the prefrontal cortex (PFC), especially the medial and dorsolateral regions.

But they don’t come from reason at its best—they come from reason infected by wrong beliefs (exactly what the Stoics based passions on).

This is why the Stoics said passions are reason gone wrong—it’s the false stories we tell ourselves about what an event means.

Here’s how modern science back this up and saves Stoicism:

5. The brain agrees: reason can calm emotion

fMRI studies now show that during cognitive reappraisal (the act of reframing your thoughts), the amygdala’s activity decreases while the prefrontal cortex lights up.

Translation: Reason can quiet emotion.

It’s not instant:

Reason needs 1–3 seconds to catch up.

But that’s the space the Nazi concentration camp survivor, Viktor Frankl, talked about:

That’s not just a quote. It’s biology.

6. So what’s the truth?

The Stoics were partly wrong—emotions don’t begin in reason.

They erupt from older, non-rational systems of the brain.

But they were right about what comes next.

Emotion starts in the body.
It grows by belief.
And it’s ended by reason.

Galen (the ancient physician) described where emotion comes from.
The Stoics described what to do with it once it’s there.

7. Why this matters

All this means Stoicism isn’t a cold philosophy that denies feeling.

It’s a training system for emotional regulation—one that neuroscience now confirms works.

The sage doesn’t suppress emotion. He simply doesn’t believe the story that emotion tells him.

That’s the real superpower.

Stoicism might not explain every detail of how the brain works, but it predicted—thousands of years ago—the very mechanism behind emotional mastery.

Reason does rule emotion.
It just takes time, practice, and awareness.

See you next week, friend, for the next topic!
Ioannis Sintoris or Said the Stoic

PS. If you still have doubts about the philosophy you’ve chosen, here’s what helped me:

I learned this from William Irvine’s book The Guide To The Good Life…

Plus, don’t forget that you cannot split-test life. You cannot follow two roads, see which one’s best, and then come back and choose.

There will always be a what-if for the road you didn’t choose.

And that’s okay.

The Stoics say we shouldn’t regret.

Because if we did something immoral, we should simply learn from it.

If we didn’t do something immoral, why even regret?We shouldn’t regret things

And regretting what “could-have been” is pointless… because we can’t ever know what could-have-been could have been.

Practice the Stoic art of acquiescence and try your best to accept this as an immutable law of life.

PPS. I wrote an article about this on Reddit and it’s already getting traction. If you want, you can check it out here.