Modern Stoicism at the XXI Century University

Abstract

The Covid-2019 pandemic has already demonstrated that modern people reflect less about the border between the real and virtual worlds. Being connected to the Internet 24/7, they become a temporary vessel for information passing through. This problem of information flow is painfully reflected in university education. In the circumstances of the overabundance of information, Humboldt University functions as a metanarrative. Therefore, the key research question is; how can an educator can help a student overcome the problem of objectification and become a free reflective subject of the educational process? Stoic practices seem to be the answer. This article is devoted to the study of the application of Stoic practices at a university. Modern education provides the student with a collection of data but does not help to find answers to the questions of existential dimension as; who am I?, Where am I from? And where am I going? The first part of the article elaborates Stoic practices in the modern world, reflects the history of the issue and the specifics of modern Stoicism. We express our vision of modern university education and its problems. The university as a metanarrative turns educational actors into passive objects. In our opinion, this contradicts the very idea of education as the development and formation of a person. The second part of the article represents the research methodology and answers a practical question about the possibilities of applying Stoic practices at a university. What made it possible is the educators' orientation to the actual need of students in finding themselves, and the autonomy of their participation through the form of keeping a diary complemented by group meetings. In the third part, we analysed the study results and outlined the directions of the inner changes the students discovered. Our goal is to express the concept of “Vir bonus” as an original practice of taking care of oneself, that can be implemented by a modern student in the process of realising and overcoming the problem of objectification, in the development of critical thinking, and the virtues endowment on the way to a good life.