Determinism and Freedom in Stoic Philosophy / Edition 1

by Susanne Bobzien

Overview

Bobzien presents the definitive study of one of the most interesting intellectual legacies of the ancient Greeks: the Stoic theory of causal determinism. She explains what it was, how the Stoics justified it, and how it relates to their views on possibility, action, freedom, moral responsibility, and many other topics. She demonstrates the considerable philosophical richness and power that these ideas retain today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199247677
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	02/07/2002
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	454
Product dimensions:	9.16(w) x 6.30(h) x 0.94(d)
Lexile:	1440L (what's this?)

About the Author

Queen's College, Oxford

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. Determinism and Fate
2. Two Chrysippean Arguments for Causal Determinism
3. Modality, Determinism, and Freedom
4. Divination, Modality,and Universal Regularity
5. Fate, Action, and Motivation: The Idle Argument
6. Determinism and Moral Responsibility: Chrysippus's Compatibilism
7. Freedom and that which Depends on us: Epictetus and Early Stoics
8. A Later Stoic Theory of Compatibilism
Bibliography; Indexes

Editorial Reviews

"This is an awe-inspiring work....It is extraordinarily ambitious. It aims to recover and understand, so far as the sources allow, the entire early Stoic theory of fate, causal determinism, and responsibility. It achieves this ambition while at the same time showing how immensely more difficult the task is than anyone had appreciated before....It will most certainly be the first work that everybody interested has to get to grips with. They will have to start here both because the book is a model of scholarly method and because it is an outstanding example of lucid philosophical thinking in an area where clear thought is extremely difficult."—Miles Burnyeat, All Souls College, Oxford in

From the Publisher