An overview of the Stoic philosophers and the main elements of their system. A chronological presentation of brief biographies of the Stoics with the most notable contributions of each individual is followed by a sketch of their philosophical system divided into the branches of logic, physics, and ethics. Logic includes topics in rhetoric, dialectic, and epistemology. Physics is the account of physical reality, including ontology, cosmology, and theology. The synopsis of ethics includes the Stoics’ version of naturalism, the doctrine of oikeiōsis, the virtues, emotions, the sage, moral progress, and cosmopolitanism.

Much has been written as of late on the characteristic and influential philosophical school of thought called Stoicism which was originally founded by Zeno of Citium in Athens in the second century BCE and further fleshed out and promulgated by Cleanthes and then subsequently by his student Chrysippus, collectively referred to in modern classical studies as the Old Stoa. This work intends to try and provide a succinct overview of the philosophical tenets which were characteristic of the school in the early period as well as identify some unique contributions of the later Stoa which are represented by the Roman/Latin intellectual and politically elite such as Seneca, Cicero and the emperor Marcus Aurelius. The paper also reviews some of the earlier Hellenic philosophical traditions from which it Stoicism drew some of its primary tenets and evolved in conjunction with, as well as in the Summary provide an overview of some of the lasting contributions Stoicism has made to the development of the philosophical and theological tradition in the West. Although none of the complete writings and treatises written by the Old Stoa are extant, much of their philosophical tenets are covered by later authors and philosophers whose work is and this article draws on some of these what you might call pseudo-primary sources (in particular Plutarch and Diogenes Laertius) as well as various secondary, more contemporary sources who draw not only on these sources but also extensively from Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta which is an invaluable collection of fragments and quotations of the early Stoa composed in the early part of the 20 th century and from which much of what we know about specific tenets of at least early Stoic philosophy come from.

This article examines the reception of Stoicism in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, from Justus Lipsius to Immanuel Kant. It considers topics often associated with Stoicism during the period, notably the interconnected concepts of fate, necessity, and providence, as well as the rise and development of scholarship on Stoicism during the period. While this was an especially rich period for the reception of Stoicism, more often than not the Stoics found themselves drawn into contemporary disputes, such as the potentially atheistic conclusions of Spinoza's philosophy. At the same time, it saw a shift away from seeing Seneca as the pre-eminent Stoic and towards the systematic philosophy of Zeno and Chrysippus.

An attempt to show the way in which the idea of 'philosophical exercise 'played an important role in the understanding of philosophy in Roman Stoicism.

Stoic ethics is often characterised by its progressive feature: instead of giving specific instructions on what to do in order to achieve a happy life, it focuses on a kind of progress in which its practitioners gradually build resilience and make their soul (ψυχή) less vulnerable. Being eudaimonists, the Stoics believe that the achieving eudaimonia is equivalent to becoming an ideal Stoic Sage. The image of Stoic Sage is portrayed as one who is perfectly rational, and all of us, mere (potential) Stoic progressors always on our way to approach the ideal, have to constantly reflect on ourselves and reform our beliefs. Scholars and public readers of Stoicism have suggested that the process of a Stoic practitioner’s progress is analogous to a kind of therapy. For the most part, they tend to link this Stoic therapy with the Stoics’ idea of a transformation of irrational passions (πάθη) to rational/good feelings (ευπάθεια). This aspect attracts many readers to endorse Stoic ethics because they believe that being free from passions and emotions is desirable. Meanwhile, this aspect is also questioned and objected to by many readers because those readers don’t find such transformation desirable. Even worse, they complain that a Stoic ideal must be an “unfeeling cold fish” whose life is not worth pursuing. This paper attempts to respond, on behalf of the Stoics, to the “cold-fish” complaint. The cut-through for doing it, I suggest, does not lie in the Stoics’ view of passion and emotions, but in their claim of external things being indifferent. This is for two reasons. First, the indifference claim bridges the Stoic view of nature and Stoic therapy, making the former a cognitive ground for the latter. I will show that Stoic therapy, under proper understanding, is a cognitive reform that can be mapped onto a certain period of our natural development, which can be accounted for by a narrative derived from the Stoic view of nature. A natural constitutivist response to the initial question can then be constructed. Second, the Stoic claim on the indifferents easily leads us to think that Stoics act without the feeling of being involved in the action. By clarifying that the claim on the indifferents, in fact, entails acting with total effort and without reservation, the commonly-held misconception of Stoicism that makes it look undesirable should dissolve.

This paper will consider the thesis that there is within Stoic philosophy a distinct and interesting theory of human psychology, which entails not only a normative account of human growth and development but also a corresponding theory of psychopathology based on that account. The theory also encompasses a system of therapeutic techniques formulated to expose and correct these pathologies. In sum, there exists what can only be described as a unique and well-formulated system of Stoic Psychotherapy.1 In fact, I would assert that Stoicism does not just contain a theory of psychotherapy as part of its larger philosophical theory, but that Stoicism itself is more accurately conceptualised as primarily a psychotherapy, albeit, with an extensive philosophical underpinning. However, as this is not the major topic I wish to address, this position will go largely undefended save for the following material from Martha Nussbaum's book, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenis...