ABSTRACT
This volume is devoted to the reception and influence of the ancient philosophy of Stoicism in Western thought from antiquity to the present. For want of a better title and for the sake of convenience we have called it a handbook to “the Stoic tradition,” although it would be a mistake to suggest that there existed any kind of continuous tradition of Stoic thought any time after the second century CE. Instead we find a variety of appropriations and resurrections of Stoic ideas along with numerous critical engagements with the ancient Stoic texts that survived beyond the end of antiquity. While each of these encounters with Stoicism may seem isolated and limited when taken on its own, what is striking is just how many of these encounters there have been, primarily in philosophy but also in theology, political theory, and literature. Taken together they show just how widespread the influence of Stoic ideas has been on Western thought. The aim of this volume is to offer a map outlining this impact, drawing on and pointing to a wide range of existing work but also offering some new discussions along the way. The hope is that this volume really will be a handbook to the Stoic tradition, giving readers a guide with which to orientate themselves in this complex and multidisciplinary topic.1
