On the north side of the Agora in ancient Athens, there lay a famous colonnade – ἡ ποικίλη στοά (hē poikílē stoá), the “Painted Porch.”

This reading group will focus on Stoicism as it was originally conceived. We will study its beginnings, analyze its proliferation, and trace its lasting influence. Along the way, we will explicate its central tenets: its ethics of virtue, its submission to the order of nature, and its proposed reconciliation between free will and determinism.

A close, detailed reading of the text will be our guiding star. Through explication, discussion, and reflection, we will aim to tease out those timeless aspects of Stoic teaching that still (and perhaps especially) hold purchase today. And, in consulting the school’s foremost exponents, we will acquaint ourselves with doctrines that, in the years since their inception, have given rise to the very sort of aura – the very sort of Stoical ideal – that John Adams, in one of his most brilliant defense addresses, invokes when he says, “Do you expect that he should act like a Stoic philosopher, lost in apathy?”

The Stoicism reading group meets monthly from September 2022 till May 2023 in the Athenæum’s Bound, on the fourth Tuesday of each month from 5-7pm. (Note: the November meeting will take place on Tuesday, the 29th.)

Many of the readings are excerpts and might be provided in PDF form. Ian will email participants with more details before the first meeting.

Tues, September 27: Philosophy before Stoicism
Selections from Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy: From Thales to Aristotle, fifth edition, by S. Marc Cohen, Patricia Curd, and C.D.C. Reeve (trans.). Text available here.

Recommended reading: A History of Philosophy, Volume I: Greece and Rome, by Frederick Copleston (auth.). Text available here.

Tues, October 25: Early Stoa
Selections from The Stoics Reader: Selected Writings and Testimonia, by Brad Inwood and Lloyd P. Gerson (trans.). Text available here.

Selections from The Hellenistic Philosophers, Vol. I, by A.A. Long and David Sedley (trans.). Text available here.

Recommended reading: Hierocles the Stoic: Elements of Ethics, Fragments, and Excerpts, by Ilaria Ramelli (auth. and trans.). Text available here.

Tues, November 29: Marcus Tullius Cicero

De Officiis (On Duties), Book I, by E.M. Atkins (ed.) and M.T. Griffin (trans.). Text available here. Text also available here.

Tusculanae Disputationes (Tusculan Disputations), Books III and IV, by Margaret Graver (trans.). Text available here.

Optional:
On Moral Ends, by Julia Annas (ed.) and Raphael Woolf (trans.). Text available here.

Tues, December 27: Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger, Part I
Selections from Letters on Ethics: To Lucilius, by Margaret Graver and A.A. Long (auth., trans.). Text available here.

Anger, Mercy, Revenge, by Robert A. Kaster and Martha Nussbaum (trans.). Text available here.

Tues, January 24: Seneca, Part II & Musonius Rufus
Selections from Dialogues and Essays, by John Davie (trans.) and Tobias Reinhardt (auth.). Text available here.

That One Should Disdain Hardships: The Teachings of a Roman Stoic, by Cora E. Lutz (ed.) and Gretchen Reydams-Schils (intr.). Text available here.

THURSDAY, March 2: Epictetus (*rescheduled from 2/28 due to weather)
Discourses, Fragments, Handbook, by Robin Hard and Christopher Hill (auth.). Text available here.

Tues, March 28: Marcus Aurelius
Meditations, by Gregory Hays (trans.). Text available here.

Tues, April 25: Michel de Montaigne (“The French Seneca”)
Selections from The Complete Essays of Montaigne, by Donald Frame (trans.). Text available here.

Tues, May 23: Modern reception & reflections *Meeting OFFSITE at the First Unitarian Church*
Justus Lipsius: On Constancy, by John Stradling (trans.). Text available here.

Arthur Schopenhauer: “On the Practical Use of Our Reason and on Stoicism,” in The World as Will and Representation, Vol. II, by E.F.J. Payne (trans.) A PDF copy will be distributed.

Gilbert Murray, The Stoic Philosophy. A PDF copy will be distributed.

A.A. Long, Hellenistic Philosophy: Stoics, Epicureans, Skeptics
A.A. Long, Stoic Studies
Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy
Brad Inwood (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics
Brad Inwood and Lloyd Gerson (trans.), Hellenistic Philosophy: Introductory Readings (Hackett Classics)
Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy (volume one)
Heraclitus, Fragments (Penguin Classics)
J.M. Rist, Stoic Philosophy
John Sellars, Hellenistic Philosophy
John Sellars, Stoicism
Josiah B. Gould, The Philosophy of Chrysippus
Marcus Tullius Cicero, On the Good Life (Penguin Classics)
Margaret Graver, Stoicism and Emotion
Plutarch, Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature and Selected Essays
Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
W.K.C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy (six volumes)
W.K.C. Guthrie, Orpheus and Greek Religion: A Study of the Orphic Movement
Xenophon, Conversations of Socrates (Penguin Classics)

Ian Steller is a native Providence resident with an interest in classical philosophy. He teaches high school Latin, tutors, and enjoys running and carpentry.