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RR 2004/121 The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics Edited by Brad Inwood Cambridge University Press Cambridge 2003 ix+438 pp. ISBN 0 521 77005 X (hbck); ISBN 0 521 77985 5 (pbck) £50/$70 (hbck); £19.95/$26 (pbck) Cambridge Companions to Philosophy
Keywords Philosophy, Philosophical concepts
Review DOI 10.1108/09504120410527974
The Stoics have come down to us in the terms "stoic" and "stoical", as meaning holding firm and uncomplaining in the face of adversity. Yet there is far more to it than that as this Companion makes clear. Brad Inwood (Professor of Classics at the University of Toronto, who has written on Stoic ethics and edited a useful work on introductory readings in Hellenistic philosophy) has assembled a group of strong names here in order to reveal the complexity of Stoicism as well as its transmission and heritage. What we have as a result is a first-class introduction to the subject from a modern critical perspective, providing context, analysis, and range.
Stoic philosophy is often summarized as a mixture of the physical (matter, nature, the body), the ethical (morality, values and desires, consequences), and the logical (propositions, grammar, semantics). And again, as an examination of eudaemonism (happiness, with Aristotle hovering in the background), naturalism (virtue vis-à-vis nature), and moralism (why choose morality). These are helpful books and starting points for anyone starting their studies, and, those further advanced but wanting to get basic principles straight. They also help to shape the Companion. This begins with a history of the Stoics...