Stoic moral philosophies: Their counsel for today

By Ben Kimpel

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• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802224725
• ISBN13: 9780802224729
• Release Date: January 1985
• Publisher: Philosophical Library
• Length: 329 Pages

Customer Reviews

Hard but good

Scholarly and comprehensive. Highly recommended for those interested in developing or perfecting personal character. But fair warning--it is densly written--long compound, complex sentences. Sometimes must be read two or three times and deconstructed to get a clear meaning. Tough sledding but still 5 stars for content. But for one who likes the challenge of puzzles, that is the attitude to have to take you through. Having said that, the book is a goldfield of incomparable nuggets hidden under the rocks of density and very much worth the time. (Nothing of value comes free?) Don't give up on this. Study it through to the very end, you will be richly rewarded. Stoic thought is the culmination of Greco/Roman moral philosophical thought, the further development and wider acceptance of which was stopped dead in its tracks by the advent of Christianity. The moral/ethical dimensions of Stoicism challenge those of Christianity, but without the mumbo-jumbo and ponderous religiosity of how Christianity has come down to us. It is arguable that Stoicism and the classical pholosophical tradition may be in many ways superior to the so called Judeo/Christian tradition and Christianity itself. Curiosly, the Christian cast of characters have what may be considered Stoic or pre-Stoic counterparts: Jesus=Socrates; Peter=Diogenes; Paul=Zeno; Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John=Cleanthus, Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Arelius. But it is unlikely, and thankfully so, that Stoic thought will calcify into a religion. But we might benefit by being "cafeteria" types and take the best from world knowledge; the best from the Stoic and the best from Jesus (as presented in the Gnostic gospels)--as well as Budhist and Taoist thought.