The Stoics Reader: Selected Writings and Testimonia

by Brad Inwood (Translator/Introduction), Lloyd P. Gerson (Translator)

This volume gathers together the most important evidence about Stoic thought surviving from the ancient world. It is an expanded version of the section on Stoicism in Inwood and Gerson's Hellenistic Philosophy, consolidating related texts into larger, more continuous selections, adding material on the skeptical attack on Stoicism, and a short section that introduces the reader to some of the more interesting texts on Stoic ethics from the Roman imperial period.

Inwood and Gerson provide lucid, accurate translations, an Introduction that sets the works included in historical and philosophical context, a glossary of terms, a glossary of philosophers and philosophical sources, an index of passages translated, and a subject index.

Genres: Philosophy, Classics, Nonfiction

256 pages, Paperback

First published September 30, 2008

About the author

Brad Inwood is a specialist in ancient philosophy with particular emphasis on Stoicism and the Presocratics. He received his BA in Classics from Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario. After an MA in Classics at the University of Toronto and a year of post-graduate research at Cambridge, he completed his doctorate in Classics at Toronto with a focus on ancient philosophy.

His career began with a Mellon postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford and he then took up a teaching post at the University of Toronto. While at Toronto he had two terms as DGS in Classics and served as chair of the Classics department and as acting chair of Philosophy, and founded Toronto’s Collaborative Program in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy (with two terms as director). He has enjoyed fellowships at the National Humanities Centre and the Centre for Advanced Study in the Behavioural Sciences and held the Canada Research Chair in Ancient Philosophy.

His research has always focused on ancient philosophy, especially in the Hellenistic and Presocratic periods. Major works include Ethics and Human Action in Early Stoicism, The Poem of Empedocles, Reading Seneca: Stoic Philosophy at Rome, Seneca: Selected Philosophical Letters, and Ethics After Aristotle. From 2007 to 2015 he was the editor of Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy and he is currently working on Later Stoicism 155 BC to AD 200: An Introduction and Collection of Sources in Translation for Cambridge University Press.

Primary appointments in both Philosophy and Classics. Ancient philosophy special interests include the Presocratics, Stoicism, moral psychology and ethics.

Reviews

[Erick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This serves as a good introduction to the Stoics. Like I said in my review to the Early Greek Philosophy collection, one has to bear in mind that the writings of the earliest Stoics only survive in fragments and/or quotations and summaries by later writers such as Diogenes Laertius and Sextus Empiricus. Only a limited perspective can be had regarding them. But one can at least become acquainted with the main points in rough outline of early Stoics like Zeno, Cleanthes, Chrysippus, etc, through these later quotations and summaries.
I certainly came away with an appreciation for the Stoics. In reading this, Cicero's treatment of the Stoics certainly stood out and it has made me rather eager to read him in more depth. I also was quite taken with the section regarding fate. It is interesting how much Calvin's predestinationism has in common with extreme Stoic fatalism. While Saint Paul may have been influenced by Stoical language in various places in his epistles, as far as Paul's idea of predestination is concerned, it is doubtful he would have aligned himself with Stoical fatalism. The Stoical notion of fate revolves around the Greek term "heimarmene", whereas Paul's notion of predestination was rooted in the Greek term "proorisas" -both being very distinctive Greek terminology with very disparate origins. Calvin was most likely more influenced by his own reading of the Stoics than Paul was by his reading. The similarities between Calvin and the fatalists is rather striking.
Another thing that struck me while reading this is what also struck me in reading Plato. It appears that pedagogy and pederasty were linked in the minds of some early Greek philosophers. In Plato, this linkage is a little more ambiguous, but in early Stoics like Zeno, it is far more explicit. This may have also been a contributing factor for his writings to have been no longer copied by later Christians and others. This aspect of Stoicism was disavowed by Epictetus; and, apparently, Musonius Rufus countered it by celebrating marriage and heterosexual relations.
I went through this collection fairly quickly and it will warrant revisiting again in the future. As it stands now, I would like to read the later Stoics seeing as how they are the only Stoics to have substantial works that have survived. The early Stoics survive mostly in commentaries, summaries, refutations, quotations etc. These are better than nothing, but it is always far better to be able to read a philosopher in the working out of their thoughts in sustained elucidation. This is not possible to any adequate degree when limited to the above context.

[Alex]

It's 3:04 am... I finally finished this. And I have decided that I'm 100% dropping this class xoxo

Brain has melted, shaking, dying ✨

[Sinta · Rating 2 out of 5]

Random thoughts
- Broadchurch - at early stages there are only a few doctrines that are truly shared, many more are disagreed upon within the school
- I don’t find their physics a compelling base for their ethics (even if the ethics standalone is of practical use)
- Their compatibilism annoys me. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
- Ethical focus is on endurance of fate as virtue, not any significant use of free will to act in the world. Entirely interior. Less useful in a stable world where you can actually influence external events
- Elements of the physics is very Christian - the cosmos created for humans, by a provident, omnipotent creator; virtuous souls continue existing after death
- Was their eternal recurrence (world cycles from this to fire, created by god who always makes it perfect, so endlessly cycles exactly the same) the inspiration for Nietzsche’s thinking?

Note to self: Did not read the Epictetus fragments as I plan to read the full discourses

[Alexander Hickey · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is great for those trying to find early stoic works but the book format is kind of confusing and probably needs a reformat but other than that the book is an essential read for those taking the deep dive into Stoicism. 6/10

[Andrew Roxby · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best scholarly anthology of early Stoic writing.

[Nilab]

assigned: [p. 58-85,pp. 195-205]

[Sam]

Texts 28-33, 138-150

[munazza · Rating 4 out of 5]

directed studies: he gave us a lecture. it was awesome. stoicism is also rly interesting and I found it one of the more compelling moral codes we dove into