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Katerina Ierodiakonou, editor. Topics in Stoic Philosophy. Oxford.: Clarendon Press, 1999. Pp. viii + 259. Cloth, $72.00. Susanne Bobzien, Determinism and Freedom in Stoic Philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998. Pp. xii + 441. Cloth, $85.00.
These two books offer state-of-the-art scholarship on the ancient Stoa. The sophistication in these volumes helps to reveal the sophistication of the Stoics themselves, and should encourage still more careful attention to be paid to these eminently worthy philosophers.
Unsurprisingly, this is the quite self-conscious goal of Topics in Stoic Philosophy. Katerina lerodiakonou's introduction helpfully surveys the background to the recent upswing in attention to Stoicism, and encourages more work "to introduce Stoic philosophy into the curriculum of institutions of higher learning, and to deepen our understanding of Stoic philosophy further" (22).
On the first score, Topics in Stoic Philosophy is a mixed blessing. I, for one, will be wary of assigning its essays to my Greekless, Latinless students. Given that the first six of the eight essays were originally composed for a Greek journal "to present to the Greek public current work on Stoic philosophy" (v), it is unfortunate that this volume does not work more aggressively to reach a broader Anglophone public that might include philosophers and advanced students in philosophy, most of whom are, wishes aside, Greekless and Latinless. This volume could have rendered all of its Greek and Latin into English, and its contributors or editor could have provided a bit more guidance to help non-specialists to contextualize the fragmentary evidence.
As a further step toward deeper understanding of Stoic philosophy for specialists, however, Ierodiakonou's volume is unquestionably successful, and the eight papers will undoubtedly be cited often. These essays are in fact at their best when they are arguing for a more precise understanding of the history and are refusing...