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List of contents
1. Introduction: Stoicism, Language, and Freedom, Kurt Lampe, University of Bristol, UK
2. Sartre, Stoicism, and the Problem of Moral Responsibility (from 1939 to 1948), Olivier D’Jeranian, Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, France
3. Sartrian Ontology and the Stoic Theory of Incorporeals, Suzanne Husson, Université Paris-Sorbonne, and Laurent Husson, Université de Lorraine, France
4. Deleuzean Exercises and the Inversion of Stoicism, Janae Sholtz, Alvernia University, USA
5. How and why did Badiou beat Deleuze with a Stoic stick (and was he right?), Thomas Bénatouïl, University of Lille, France
6. Kristeva, Stoicism, and the “True Life of Interpretations”, Kurt Lampe, University of Bristol, UK
7. Indifference and Affirmation: Michel Foucault on Stoic Fate and Providence, John Sellars, Royal Holoway, University of London, UK
8. Veridiction and Parrhesia: the Complex Case of Foucault’s Reading of Stoicism, Valery Laurand, Université Michel de Montaigne Bordeaux 3, France
9. Stoicism: Political Resistance or Retreat? Foucault and Arendt, Michael Ure, Monash University, Australia
10. Stoicism, Ambiguity, and the Decision of Sense, Barbara Cassin, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, France
11. Stoic Philosophy of Language in Giorgio Agamben’s Thought, Nicoletta Di Vita, Università degli studi di Padova, Italy
12. Making Use of Agamben’s “Stoic Providence-Fate Apparatus”: A Reading of Seneca’s Consolation to Polybius, Clifford Robinson, University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, USA
13. Pierre Hadot: Stoicism as a Way of Life, Matthew Sharpe, Deakin University, Victoria, Australia
Index
About the author
Kurt Lampe is Senior Lecturer in Classics and Ancient History, University of Bristol, UK and the author of The Birth of Hedonism: The Cyrenaic Philosophers and Pleasure as a Way of Life (2015). He is also the co-editor of German Stoicisms (forthcoming, Bloomsbury).Janae Sholtz is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Coordinator of Women’s and Gender Studies at Alvernia University, USA. She is the author of The Invention of a People: Heidegger and Deleuze on Art and the Political (2015) and co-editor of Deleuze and the Schizoanalysis of Feminism (Bloomsbury, 2019).
Summary
The importance of Stoicism for Gilles Deleuze’s Logic of Sense and Michel Foucault’s Hermeneutics of the Subject and The Care of the Self is well known. However, few students of either classics or philosophy are aware of the breadth of French and Italian receptions of Stoicism. This book firstly presents this broad field to readers, and secondly advances it by renewing dialogues with ancient Stoic texts.
The authors in this volume, who combine expertise in continental and Hellenistic philosophy, challenge our understanding of both modern and ancient concepts, arguments, exercises, and therapies. It conceives of Stoicism as a vital strand of philosophy which contributes to the life of contemporary thought. Flowing through the sustained, varied engagement with Stoicism by continental thinkers, this volume covers Jean-Paul Sartre, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, Julia Kristeva, Alain Badiou, Émile Bréhier, Barbara Cassin, Giorgio Agamben, and Pierre Hadot. Stoic sources addressed range from doxography and well-known authors like Epictetus and Seneca to more obscure authorites like Musonius Rufus and Cornutus.
Foreword
This is the first synoptic study on the philosophical importance of ancient Greek and Roman Stoicism on French and Italian continental philosophy.
Additional text
This volume breaks new ground in its close examination of French and Italian twentieth-century responses to Stoicism, especially on the topics of language and freedom. A series of thoughtful and perceptive essays open up a complex intellectual terrain that will be of interest both to students of modern Continental philosophy and Stoicism.
