Andrew S. Mason

This is a collection of 10 papers, specifically written for this volume, that discuss various aspects of Epictetus's philosophy. Epictetus was a late Stoic philosopher, and is better known for his role in teaching the Stoic philosophy, as opposed to his original contributions, as only the transcripts from his protreptic discourses survive (which were ancilliary to his formal philosophical courses).
The papers discuss various aspects of his Stoic teachings: moral theory and improvement, personhood, the self, psychology, logic, Stoic theology, the role of the philosopher, cynicism, freedom, and even parallels with Wittgenstein.
It is written mainly for an academic audience, who is interested in Stoic philosophy, but is accessible enough to be of value to someone who has not read much about Stoicism before. It would be more useful though, to encourage the reader to develop a better understanding on several of the finer points of Epictetan thought (which this volume does very well), were they already somewhat acquainted with ancient Greek philosophy. A more useful general introduction to Stoic philosophy would be Marcus Aurelius's Meditations.… (mehr)