Roman Stoicism

Epiktetos (yaklaşık olarak MS 50-125/130): Roma İmparatorluğu döneminin en önemli ve en meşhur filozoflarındandır. Muhtemelen çocukken Roma’ya gelmiş, kendisi de bir zamanlar köle olan özgür Epaphroditus’un kölesi olmuştur. Epiktetos dönemin en büyük Stoacı öğretmeni Musonius Rufus’un derslerine katılmış, düşüncelerinin peşinden gitmiştir. Kölelikten azat edildikten sonra, İmparator Domitianus döneminde filozofların sürgün edilmesi kararı üzerine Roma’dan ayrılmış, Kuzey Yunanistan’daki Nicopolis’te okulunu kurmuştur. Birçok soylu Romalı onun öğrencisi olmuş, bunlardan Lucius Flavius Arrianus öğretilerini Sokrates gibi kaleme almamış olan Epiktetos’tan öğrendiklerini Diatribai ve Enkheiridion adlı iki ayrı metinde toplayıp günümüze ulaşmasını sağlamıştır. Diatribai’da Stoa etiğinin temel unsurları kapsamlı bir şekilde ele alınmıştır, daha kısa olan Enkheiridion ise sözlük anlamı gibi onun “rehber” olarak kullanılabilecek bir özeti sayılır.

Piece for Stoicism as a Way of Life blog/mag. on Medium, ed. by Don Robertson, on the representation of James Comey in the recent teleseries, The Comey Rule.  I argue that Comey, as represented, exemplifies notable stoic virtues, from caution and non-precipitancy in forming beliefs, via remarkable self-control (if not apatheia) in very difficult circumstances, to the core non-consequentialist position that virtue is the only good, and its own reward--even when following it will foreseeably anger proverbial and real Democrats and Republicans.

I hope to indicate how Stoic counsel may serve just as effectively today as it did nearly two thousand years ago in Rome. With respect to fundamentals, the human condition has not changed a great deal during the millennia separating our times from Roman antiquity. We must still make our way within a world that lies almost entirely beyond our control. We must still face death, deprivation, and bodily frailty, as well as events and persons that do not to conform to our hopes and expectations. We are still relatively small, and the world is still large and mostly heedless of our concerns as we pass through. Stoic counsel provides a useful template for contending with the many vicissitudes and challenges of the human condition.

Nous pensions avoir tout lu d’Epictète, tout connu de ses maximes si profitables à la conduite de nos vies, quand dans l’expérience du chagrin elles nous servirent souvent de guide, tout entendu de ses Entretiens, ravis par leur style percutant, n’ayant d’égal que les dialogues du grand Platon. Mais s’il est bien un sort partagé par bon nombre de philosophes antiques, c’est d’être, sinon tout bonnement passés dans l’oubli, du moins résumés au titre d’un seul de leurs livres, quand la loi du marché ne les a pas déjà condamnés pas au rayon des sciences occultes ou du développement personnel. Pourtant, si grave qu’elle puisse être quand il s’agit de celui que l’on doit considérer comme le penseur antique le plus traduit, discuté et imité, cette lacune d’une partie du corpus épictétéen dans notre langue est restée inaperçue. La raison de cette négligence doit peut-être tenir au succès impressionnant du Manuel, dont on compte un nombre incalculable de traductions et d’éditions, et qui occulte déjà partiellement l’existence des Entretiens dont il est l’abrégé. Mais si ces derniers dialogues ont bien souvent été délaissés à cause d’une longueur qu’on imagine propre à décourager le chaland, il n’en sera rien pour les fragments et les sentences. Que le profane se rassure, donc, ces traits ont conservé le style épuré et concis qu’on attendait pas moins du célèbre directeur de conscience. Et c’est bien par mégarde qu’on en eut jamais proposé d’édition française, alors même que les Italiens, les Anglais, les Allemands et les Espagnols peuvent les lire depuis longtemps, tandis qu’on s’étonnera encore de la découverte d’un trésor que rien ne cachait vraiment à nos yeux, sinon le manque de volonté d’aller fouiller, interroger et dénicher dans nos données textuelles, les restes d’une parole aux ressources inépuisables pour la pensée.
Et c’est là l’objectif de la présente édition qui, proposant, pour la grande majorité des fragments, une traduction française inédite, lisible et accessible à tous, chercha à montrer l’intérêt que ceux-ci peuvent encore avoir aujourd’hui pour la réflexion et l’histoire de la philosophie, en disposant à l’usage des lecteurs les plus avancés un appareil de note élaboré. Quant aux problèmes textuels, dont nous avons fait état à la fin de l’introduction, ils ne doivent pas minorer sinon occulter la valeur des fragments. En effet, si de nombreux thèmes connus du stoïcisme d’Epictète s’y retrouvent, ils sont parfois davantage explorés et précisés qu’ils ne pouvaient l’être dans les Entretiens et le Manuel. De ces bouts retrouvés des livres perdus des Entretiens, peut-être quatre ou huit de plus que nous n’en disposons aujourd’hui, nous sommes fondés à croire que, dans l’ensemble, ils réaffirment à leur manière le stoïcisme radical du penseur, tout en proposant, pour certains du moins, des aspects novateurs qui aideront peut-être les spécialistes à approfondir quelques unes de leurs positions. On remarquera, par exemple, une présence très nette du rapport de l’homme au dieu, en ajoutant à la distinction canonique du Manuel entre ce qui dépend de nous et ce qui ne dépend pas de nous, une dimension cosmologique essentielle qui ne s’y trouvait pas explicitement dite. Nous laissons le lecteur averti, maîtrisant son Épictète, discerner les variations mélodiques introduites par cette parole parfois obscure, pourvu qu’il ne manque pas de se rappeler la teneur fondamentalement active du discours philosophique, fût-il lacunaire et corrompu.

Table of contents

1. Plato and a response to ethical scepticism; 2. Aristotle and the invention of practical philosophy; 3. Diogenes and philosophy as a form of life; 4. Epicurus and ethics as care for oneself; 5. Epictetus and ethics as therapy of the passions; 6. Philo and the reconciliation of Torah and Platonism; 7. Augustine and Christianity as Neo-Platonism; 8. Moshe ben Maimon and the reconciliation of Torah and Aristotelianism; 9. Al Farabi and the reconciliation of Islam and Platonism; 10. Aquinas and the reconciliation of Christian moral doctrine and Aristotelian ethics; 11. Francisco de Vitoria and casuistry; 12. Michel de Montaigne and the art of living
13. Pierre Nicole and neo-Augustinianism; 14. Samuel von Pufendorf and the new science of morality; 15. Richard Cumberland and consequentialist voluntarism; 16. Richard Price and intuitionism; 17. Adam Smith and sentimentalism; 18. Jeremy Bentham and utilitarianism; 19. Immanuel Kant, the practical use of reason and judgment; 20. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and a critique of Enlightenment universalism; 21. Friedrich Nietzsche against Christianity and the Enlightenment; 22. George Edward Moore and ideal utilitarianism; 23. Edmund Husserl and the a priori of action; 24. Bertrand Russell and non-cognitivism; 25. Elizabeth Anscombe and the revival of virtue ethics; 26. Richard Hare and neo-Utilitarianism; 27. Hans-Georg Gadamer and rehabilitation of practical philosophy; 28. Karl-Otto Apel and the revival of Kantian ethics; 29. John Rawls and public ethics as applied ethics; 30. Beauchamp and Childress and bioethics as applied ethics.

A new translation of Marcus Aurelius's Meditations. The hook is not just an improved translation, and a solid introduction, but copious notes, designed to increase depth of understanding mainly for lay readers (e.g. of the Modern Stoicism movement), but hopefully for scholars too.

Daha önce Cicero’dan Devlet Üzerine çevirisini yayımladığımız C. Cengiz Çevik, bu çalışmada Roma’nın cumhuriyet döneminde (İÖ 509-İÖ 27) siyaset ve felsefe ilişkisinin şekillenişini inceliyor. Alanında Türkçede bir ilk olan ve birincil kaynaklara dayanan bu inceleme Pythagorasçı öğretinin Roma’daki etkilerine dair rivayetler ile felsefeye karşı siyasi nitelikli ilk olumsuz tepkilerden başlayıp, özellikle de Scipio Çevresi’nde felsefenin siyasî açıdan kabulüne ve Cicero bağlamında siyaset ile felsefenin uzlaştırılmasına dek uzanmaktadır. Bu çerçevede cumhuriyet döneminde ilkin yabancı ve tehlikeli bir unsur olarak görülen felsefenin zamanla Roma’nın siyasi şartlarıyla nasıl uyumlu hale geldiği, siyasî ideallerle birlikte nasıl dönüştüğü, siyasi figürleri nasıl dönüştürdüğü ve en azından bu tür dönüşümlerin nasıl yorumlandığı üzerinde durulmaktadır. Tarihin en güçlü ve en uzun ömürlü devlet yapılarından birinin felsefi gelenekle ilişkisini değerlendiren Roma’da Siyaset ve Felsefe’nin geniş bir okur kitlesine hitap edeceğini düşünüyoruz.

Dr. C. Cengiz Çevik (1983) İstanbul Üniversitesi, Eskiçağ Dilleri ve Kültürleri Bölümü, Latin Dili ve Edebiyatı Anabilim Dalı’ndan 2007 yılında mezun oldu. 2011 yılında aynı bölümden “Seneca’nın Naturales Quaestiones Adlı Eserinde Doğa ve Ahlak Anlayışı” başlıklı yüksek lisans tezini tamamlayarak mezun oldu. 2018 yılında “Roma’nın Cumhuriyet Döneminde Siyaset ve Felsefe İlişkisi” başlıklı teziyle doktora derecesi kazandı. Temel çalışma alanı Roma düşünce tarihidir. Aynı zamanda antik düşünce ve felsefe geleneğini temel alarak farklı çağlarda siyaset, felsefe ve ikisi arasındaki ilişkiler üzerine yazılan metinlerle ilgili çalışmalarını sürdürmektedir. Cicero’nun Devleti: De Re Publica Yazıları başlıklı kitabın yazarıdır (YKY, 2017) ve Latinceden Türkçeye çeviriler yapmaktadır.

This article aims to explore two types of ascetic techniques of the body on which Foucault focused his attention during the 1980s: on the one hand, the techniques linked to the "use of pleasures" (that can be associated to a "traditional" aesthetics of existence) and, on the other, the techniques linked to the scandalous stripping of existence as it was practiced by the Cynics. Its goal is to show that, although they have several elements in common, these two types of techniques are radically different in their functions and objectives, as well as from the standpoint of their ethico-political value.

Seneca (MÖ 4’e doğru-MS 65): Devlet adamı ve filozofluğunun yanı sıra Roma tarihinin en önemli söylev ustalarından ve tragedya yazarlarından biridir. Babasının bir siyaset adamı ve hatip olarak yetiştirmek istediği Seneca, bir süre devlet işleriyle uğraştı ve sonunda kendisini en sevdiği işe, yani felsefeye adadı. Stoacı öğretileri içeren çok sayıda düşünce metni, mektup ve tragedya yazdı.

Bilgenin Sarsılmazlığı Üzerine’de, bilge kabul ettiği Cato’nun yaşadıklarından yol çıkarak, bilgenin haksızlığa ya da hakarete uğramasının imkânsızlığını işler. De Vita Beata isimli eserinin devamı olduğu düşünülen İnziva Üzerine’de ise Stoacı örneklerle bilgenin kendi içine çekilme ve temaşa etme mecburiyetini ortaya koyar. Bilgenin Sarsılmazlığı Üzerine Türkçede ilk kez okurla buluşuyor.

NOT: Baskıdaki bir hatadan ötürü kapakta "Bilgenin" yerine, "Bilgeliğin" yazılmış. Metin içeriğinde ise doğru olarak "bilgenin" ifadesi geçmektedir. İkinci baskıda düzeltilecek olan bu hatadan ötürü okuyuculardan özür dilerim.

The symbol of the exoteric and religious side of late Stoicism with a high moral value, issuing a naturalistic and rationalistic concept of wisdom people can get by living according to natural principles, accepting with resignation and detachment the strict law of a supernatural entity regulating events, too.

Dream of Scipio is organized around two systems of imagery: 'rings,' which extend ring composition in every sentence to human affection (complexus) and the body's encirclement of the soul, to the harmony of the spheres.  The second system is 'progress toward the divine,' which maps Aemilianus' moral progress and the statesman's merited return to the Milky Way onto the traditional Roman symbolism of the Triumphal procession to the Capitolium.

This dissertation attempts to illuminate the enigma of the Seneca whom we see in Tacitus, "Seneca politicus", and his capacity at the Palace. The project thus evaluates the three most accessible sources for both how Nero would have viewed Seneca, and how Seneca presented himself to Nero—Nero’s childhood and education, 'Apocolocyntosis', and 'De clementia'. Assessment of these sources through Nobel Laureate Michael Spence's game-theoretical model of signaling and signal games forms a model of their relationship, which itself becomes the thesis of the dissertation. The thesis contends that, post accession, Seneca engaged Nero in a didactic relationship focusing on philosophy—or, rather, on his own insights into ethical decision-making and morality in interpersonal dealings. But the details surrounding this deduction nuance its interpretation. His presentation of philosophy to Nero smacks of practicality. It is opportunistic, utilizing the philosophically propaedeutic nature of Nero’s education; and his own contribution to the imperial intellect, "clementia", is not convincingly Stoic. Seneca wished to be trusted for his ability to offer advice on interpersonal dealings, and to form acute judgments about other people and their actions.

Petit guide de philosophie pratique, le Manuel est destiné à quiconque souhaite progresser sur la voie de la sagesse. Selon Épictète, nous devons distinguer ce qui est en notre pouvoir de ce qui ne l’est pas. Ainsi, nous ne maîtrisons pas le cours des événements, mais nous sommes entièrement responsables de la façon dont nous y réagissons. Tempérer nos désirs, vivre en accord avec la Nature, comprendre le monde et le rôle que nous y jouons : tels sont les préceptes que nous exhorte à suivre Épictète, afin de connaître bonheur et vertu.

The first seven chapters of this book tell tales about Marcus’ life and character taken from the accounts of Cassius Dio, Herodian, and most of all the Historia Augusta. Robertson freely adorns these accounts with imagined dialogues and speculative details to enrich his story. He adds texts from not only the Meditations and Marcus’ correspondence with Cornelius Fronto but also Epictetus, Seneca, and other sources of Stoic ideas, interwoven with CBT psychotherapies. Though the Historia Augusta is not an impartial source, Robertson uncritically gathers every flattering characterization of Marcus in it so as to burnish his gleaming portrait of Marcus. Why did Marcus ignore his wife Faustina's infidelity? Why did he allow Commodus to succeed him as emperor despite his son's glaring defects? Robertson nowhere hints at how to reconcile the militaristic imperialism of this warrior-emperor with the ideal of cosmopolitanism inspiring this Stoic warrior of the mind. Nor does he explain why Marcus’ imperial clemency and cosmopolitan brotherhood did not extend to peoples outside the empire. Did Marcus practice tolerance towards Christians or did he see them as political subversives defying Roman law? Did he punish Christians justly or persecute them? It is odd and disappointing that Christians are nowhere mentioned in this book. These defects will annoy scholars, who are not the target audience for this lively, creative, and well-crafted book.

In his Meditations, Marcus Aurelius repeatedly presents a disjunction between two conceptions of the natural world. Either the universe is ruled by providence or there are atoms. At 4.3, we find perhaps its most succinct statement: ἀνανεωσάμενος τὸ διεζευγμένον τό⋅ ἤτοι πρόνοια ἢ ἄτομοι (recall the disjunction: either providence or atoms). The formulation of the disjunction differs; at 7.32, being composed of atoms is contrasted with a stronger sort of unity (ἕνωσις) that may survive death. In 10.6 and 11.18 Marcus simply offers φύσις (nature, construed in the Stoic manner as providentialist and causally efficacious) in opposition. On the surface, the contrast between the theory of atomism and the acceptance of providence seems to not warrant the term ‘disjunction’; it seems possible to accept both atomism and a causally determined providential universe. Yet, it is agreed on all sides, in the recent literature, that the relevant contrast for Marcus is not between the atomist and the...

Q. S. F. Tertullian was one of the most prominent writers and apologists of the early Christian Church. He had two important goals with his works: on the one hand, to introduce, according to the spirit of the age, the Christian teachings embedded in contemporary Roman culture; on the other hand, to highlight and emphasize the difference between the Christian teachings and the pagan ideas. This dichotomy is characteristic of his ethical teachings as well: while he emphasizes the importance of the Christian virtues, he does not forget about their philosophical background either. Tertullian demonstrably considered Stoic philosophy as the most acceptable philosophical thinking. Virtues have an important status in the teachings of the stoic body, just as they are a fundamental part of Christian ethics. The question arises whether Tertullian’s views on virtues could have been influenced by his pagan Roman ancestor, M. T. Cicero, who also shared stoic doctrines. This is the question the pr...

Spécialiste internationalement reconnue de Sénèque, Mireille Armisen-Marchetti a publié tout au long de sa carrière universitaire (1976-2010), outre sa thèse magistrale qui a fait date (Sapientiae facies. Etude sur les images de Sénèque, Paris, 1989), plusieurs dizaines d'études sur cet auteur ; travaux pionniers en leur temps et qui font encore autorité aujourd'hui. Le présent volume réunit trente-et-un de ses articles parmi les plus marquants regroupés en chapitres thématiques pour constituer une véritable monographie d'ensemble sur le philosophe.
Les études qu'il contient contribuent à mieux appréhender l'univers littéraire de Sénèque et sa prédilection pour les images, le fonctionnement de son système philosophique comme "direction de conscience" , et les conceptions littéraires et éthiques qui ont influencé l'écriture de son oeuvre tragique. Au croisement de l'histoire des idées et de l'histoire littéraire, cet ouvrage restitue ainsi dans toute sa cohérence et sa subtilité la personnalité intellectuelle d'un grand penseur de l'Antiquité et des plus grands écrivains de l'histoire occidentale, en nous proposant un itinéraire passionnant à travers son oeuvre, des Lettres à Lucilius à Phèdre, des Questions naturelles au traité De la clémence.

Courtney J. P. Friesen explores shifting boundaries of ancient religions by way of the reception of a popular tragedy, Euripides’ Bacchae . As a play staging political crises provoked by the arrival of the “foreign” god Dionysus and his ecstatic cult, audiences and readers found resonances with their own cultural moments. This dramatic deity became emblematic of exuberant and liberating spirituality and, at the same time, a symbol of imperial conquest. Thus, readings of the Bacchae frequently foreground conflicts between religious autonomy and political authority, and between ethnic diversity and social cohesion. This cross-disciplinary study traces appropriations and evocations of this drama ranging from the fifth century BCE through Byzantium not only among “pagans” but also Jews and Christians. Writers variously articulated their religious visions over against Dionysus, often while paradoxically adopting the god’s language and symbols. Consequently, imitation and emulation are at times indistinguishable from polemics and subversion.

Many elements would seem to reveal a conflict between the sartrian existentialist
philosophy and stoicism, however, the often made references by Sartre to the Stoics, and
the "stoic" attitude he even says he adopts at the time of the mobilization (in 1939), attest to a real influence, in regards to his moral – and this path remains to elucidate. The two unfinished
writings framing L’Être et le Néant [Being and Nothingness] can, thus, deliver important
information about two different types of links to Stoicism on the philosophical problem of
responsibility, that Sartre binds with the problem of commitment.

Recorrido crítico por la figura y la obra del filósofo estoico, gramático y rétor del s. I d.C. Cornuto, que se sirvió para su obra tanto del latín como del griego y del que nos ha llegado en esta última lengua un "Compendio de las tradiciones de la teología griega". Es conocido sobre todo como el maestro de los poetas latinos Lucano y Persio. Esquema del estudio: Bibliografía. Testimonios. Nombre. Biografía. Escritos filosóficos. Escritos gramaticales. Escritos de retórica. Atribuciones falsas o dudosas. Influencia.

In the present paper, I argue that the Stoic view of the world, based on reason (λόγος) and providence (πρόνοια) – which complement each other – had a massive influence on Epictetus' conception of fear. Thus, fear is generally treated in his works as one of the most common manifestations of errors in logic. Fear without an explicitly named agent, fear of the decay of the body or diseases, of the tyrant or the loss of property and means, as well as fear with respect to family, or friends, and especially regarding one's own death can be reduced to the lack of adequate knowledge that ultimately leads to errors of judgment.

This paper examines Michel Foucault and Hannah Arendt's interpretation of Roman Stoicism. Arendt and Foucault develop their analysis of Stoicism in the context of a similar account of modernity. Both argue that since the eighteenth century, states have crossed the threshold of political modernity: governance has become a matter of regulating life processes rather than protecting or facilitating political freedom. Yet despite sharing what we might call bio-political account of modernity, Arendt and Foucault radically diverge in their analysis of how we might overcome the breach between freedom and politics. One of their key differences comes to light in their mutually incompatible reception of Roman Stoicism. On the one hand, Arendt argues that in response to the decline of political freedom in the late Roman Empire, the Roman Stoics invented the idea of absolute freedom within oneself, and in doing so set the seal on what she sees as a strictly non-political concept of freedom. Arendt therefore deplores Stoicism as one of the seminal philosophical and popular sources that legitimates the claim that freedom resides in the self's relationship to itself rather than in the political domain. If, as she maintains, Roman Stoics developed a non-political concept of freedom, their philosophy is the very last place we should look to challenge bio-political modernity. On the other hand, drawing specifically on Roman Stoicism, Foucault argues that reconstituting the ethic of the self's relationship to itself "is an urgent, fundamental and politically indispensable task" if, as he puts it, "there is no first or final point of resistance to political power other than in the relationship one has to oneself." This paper argues that the model of Roman Stoic self-mastery does indeed have a political application and significance. We should not therefore conceive it as an anti-political flight from the world (Arendt), but nor should we treat as means of political resistance (Foucault). Rather, I argue that Stoic ethical practices aim to cultivate civic virtue rather than communicative or agonistic political action.

Ce livre étudie la théorie stoïcienne de la responsabilité morale telle qu’elle a été reprise et développée par Épictète. S’inscrivant à la suite du stoïcisme hellénistique, Épictète adopte l’intellectualisme moral et la psychologie moniste défendue par Chrysippe, et insiste à son tour sur le caractère maximal de la responsabilité de l’agent dans ses comportements et ses états mentaux. Mais là où la responsabilité constituait, dans le stoïcisme ancien, un problème moral attenant à la théorie du destin et dont la résolution était essentiellement physique, elle devient, chez Épictète, la thématique prioritaire de l’éthique et de l’éducation philosophique. Abandonnant l’idée de justification de l’imputation morale par une analyse strictement physique de la causalité psychologique et universelle, le philosophe de Nicopolis fait un usage de concepts inédits dans l’histoire du Portique, tels que celui de prohairesis et d’usage des représentations, impliquant une variation importante pour le « compatibilisme » stoïcien. Cette théorie de la responsabilité morale, fondée sur un « don divin » assurant un principe d’identité symétrique entre l’homme et le dieu, est au fondement des devoirs et des engagements sociaux et politiques dont le sage constitue la figure paradigmatique. Son accessibilité est rendue possible par la mise en place d’un dispositif éducatif mettant le progrès moral au cœur de ses préoccupations, faisant de la responsabilité l’objet d’un apprentissage aussi bien théorique que pratique.

This paper considers the Stoic definition of chance as “a cause obscure to human reasoning”. It argues that the cause invoked in the definition of chance in¬cludes a reference to the prov¬idential plan for the cosmos. This reading is supported both by the Hellenistic cult of Agathē Tuchē and the Stoic contention that chance is the object of divination, which is it¬self connected to attempts to understand divine will. The interpretation is meant to complement the standard epistemological interpretation of chance, according to which the Stoics understanding of chance is based on human ignorance of the causal outlook of the world, and not to challenge it. However, adopting my interpretation has important consequences for a better understanding of how different parts of the Stoic system are interrelated and it shows how Stoic philosophy relates to contemporary religious views.

Dans ce texte, Maël Goarzin évoque rapidement la permanence du stoïcisme de la fin de l’Antiquité à l’époque moderne, avant de s’intéresser plus précisément au stoïcisme contemporain et à l’actualité du stoïcisme conçu comme manière de vivre. En effet, l’insistance des stoïciens sur l’insuffisance de la théorie et l’importance du passage à la pratique lui permettent de rappeler à nouveau la nécessité de l’exercice et l’impact de sa mise en oeuvre dans la perspective d’un choix de vie philosophique.

Askesis in Musonius Rufus
Musonius Rufus has influenced Epictetus and Dio Chrysostomus. Due to his charismatic personality, Origen (Contra Celsum) equates him with Socrates. Twenty-one of his diatribes and some minor fragments have survived in an abridged form in the Stobaeus’ Anthology. This paper explores Rufus’s concept of askesis, which consists of Socratic inquiry and Cynic self-control and endurance. Four cardinal virtues play essential roles in the diatribes as a framework for human intellectual and moral development, in which, according to Rufus, men and women participate equally.

[Przegląd Filozoficzno-Literacki, Tom: 37, 2013, strony: 495-505]

Musonius problématise la politique stoïcienne de manière originale. Sous la direction du maître, l’individu assimile les principes de la vertu et renoue, dans l’ascèse, avec l’impulsion fondamentale de l’oikeiôsis. Le mariage, modèle de toute relation, fonde la petite comme la grande cité qu’il préfigure.

A doctoral thesis arguing that the form of the Natural Questions is in part determined by Seneca's engagement with contemporary currents of debate between Stoicism and "Middle" Platonism.

FULL ABSTRACT:
The combination of ethics and physics in Seneca's Natural Questions has frequently puzzled scholars. Although a number of studies have attempted to reconcile the work's ethical and physical parts, others maintain that there is no substantial connection between them. Both positions are problematic. The former glosses over the quite obvious ways in which these vivid accounts of vice are thematically at odds with the physics; the latter results in a bifurcation of the aims of the work. This study argues that the incongruous character of these passages plays an integral part in the work's overall goal: to defend the Stoic account of the 'the good'. This account was under attack from Platonist rivals. The Stoics argue that the good is grounded ultimately in the wellbeing of the cosmos as a whole; Platonists maintain that conceptualising the good as such is impossible because, as empiricists, the Stoics can only account for a subjective understanding of the good, grounded first and foremost in the wellbeing of the body. Seneca's engagement with this debate is indicated by the frequent allusions to Plato in the work, particularly the idea of 'separating soul from body'. Seneca suggests that a carefully structured study of nature can achieve this 'separation'. This process helps agents to overcome the subjective, body-focussed perspective that the Platonists associate with empiricism. Seneca thus demonstrates a therapeutic means through which an empiricist agent could come to conceive of the good as the Stoics envisage it. This same process of separation from one's body, however, also provides an ideal opportunity to reflect critically on the objects that we tend to misidentify as goods. It is here that the moralising passages prove useful. These arresting accounts of vice serve to jar us into critical reflection on where we ground our understanding of the good.

Aylak Adam Yayınları / Klasik Hümanizm Dizisi’nin ilk kitabı çıktı. Romalı filozof-imparator Marcus Aurelius’un Τὰ εἰς ἑαυτόν (Ta Eis Eauton) metninden derlenmiş ve çevrilmiş olan “Hayat Kısa, Mutlu Olmayı İhmal Etme” başlıklı bu çalışmada bu büyük imparator-filozofun Stoacı yaklaşımını yansıtan sözleri bir araya getirdik. Romalı perspektifinden Stoa felsefesine yumuşak bir giriş diyelim.

During plebeian tribunat of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus 133 BC, main ideological and political adviser
was Caius Blossius. He came from Cumae, campanian town and community. Caius Blossius was adherent
of radical version of stoicism, which included democratic and social ideas. After death of his friend and leader
Tiberius Gracchus, Caius Blossius left Italy for Asia Minor where he joined to movement of Aristonicus and Heliopolis.
He committed a suicide after defeat of Aristonicus movement.

Epictetus was born in the first century and was one of the three great Roman Stoics representative of the ethical-philosophical apex of ancient Roman civilization and characteristic of philosophy during the New Testament period. His extremely practical wisdom is one of the key influences on cognitive-behavioral therapy, was popular on ancient battlefields, with medieval monks, and remains a favorite among modern modern military academies. It teaches us how to find indestructible tranquility amidst any misfortune.

Stanhope’s edition brings this 2,000 year old trove of aphorisms up-to-date in plain, contemporary English. With its vibrant translation, explanatory notes drawing from leading Epictetus scholars, cryptic illustrations, and introductory material, it’s by far the most helpful edition of The Golden Sayings to date.