{"id":95487,"date":"2018-07-10T13:55:18","date_gmt":"2018-07-10T18:55:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/?p=95487"},"modified":"2026-10-02T13:40:45","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T18:40:45","slug":"podcast-421-why-you-need-a-philosophical-survival-kit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/character\/self-improvement\/podcast-421-why-you-need-a-philosophical-survival-kit\/","title":{"rendered":"Podcast #421: Why You Need a Philosophical Survival Kit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Admiral James Stockdale was a fighter pilot and POW in Vietnam for seven years. During his imprisonment, he was regularly tortured and beaten, and often held in solitary confinement.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Despite the emotional, mental, and physical trauma he faced day in and day out, Stockdale survived and came home to become an influential public figure.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">How did he do it?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">As my guest <span class=\"s2\">today<\/span> explains, Stockdale had with him a philosophical survival kit.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">His name is Thomas Gibbons, he\u2019s a retired Army colonel and a current professor at the U.S. Naval War College where he teaches a course founded by James Stockdale called Foundations of Moral Obligation. <span class=\"s2\">Today<\/span> on the show, Tom shares how a little book of Stoic philosophy helped Stockdale endure through seven grueling years of confinement and how his experience as a POW inspired the creation of a course on Western philosophy. Tom then shares why it\u2019s important for military officers and leaders of all kinds to have an understanding of philosophy and walks us through some of the topics they cover in the \u201cStockdale Course,\u201d including Aristotelian virtue ethics and Kant\u2019s duty ethics.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Admiral James Stockdale was a fighter pilot and POW in Vietnam for seven years. During his imprisonment, he was regularly tortured and beaten, and often held in solitary confinement.&nbsp; Despite the emotional, mental, and physical trauma he faced day in and day out, Stockdale survived and came home to become an influential public figure.&nbsp; How [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":195481,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[502,156,42388],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-character","category-podcast","category-self-improvement"],"featured_image_urls":{"large":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/421-538x280.png","medium_large":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/421-768x432.png","aom":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/421-372x230.png","reactor-320":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/421-320x180.png","reactor-640":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/421-640x360.png"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v28.4 (Yoast SEO v28.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Podcast #421: Why You Need a Philosophical Survival Kit | The Art of Manliness<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/character\/self-improvement\/podcast-421-why-you-need-a-philosophical-survival-kit\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Podcast #421: Why You Need a Philosophical Survival Kit | The Art of Manliness\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Admiral James Stockdale was a fighter pilot and POW in Vietnam for seven years. During his imprisonment, he was regularly tortured and beaten, and often held in solitary confinement.&nbsp; Despite the emotional, mental, and physical trauma he faced day in and day out, Stockdale survived and came home to become an influential public figure.&nbsp; How [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/character\/self-improvement\/podcast-421-why-you-need-a-philosophical-survival-kit\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Art of Manliness\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"http:\/\/facebook.com\/artofmanliness\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-07-10T18:55:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-10-02T18:40:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/421.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" 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