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Jean-Baptiste Gourinat
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to elucidate the meaning of Stoicism today. First, it roughly sketches
Stoicism as a philosophical system, namely its logic, physics and ethics. It argues that many aspects of its
logic and physics are outdated but that the general Stoic approach to these disciplines may still be relevant
to modern philosophers. Moreover, the more persuasive part of Stoicism is ethics: Stoic ethics is naturalistic
and intellectualist. Stoics argue that virtue is the only good, and attempt to force us to give up emotions
and affections. These aspects of the Stoic approach frequently seem intolerable, but the strength of Stoicism
depends on this intellectualism. One of the distinctive features of Stoicism, as well as of most ancient phi-
losophies, is that philosophy is not only a theoretical system but a “way of Life.” In that respect, it is clear
that Stoicism is still a living philosophy, as may be shown from the celebrated figure of J. Stockdale, the
“philosophical fighter pilot.” Moreover, given its intellectualist approach, the Stoic theory of passions is
obviously opposed to the psychoanalytic approach and its emphasis on unconscious processes. The theories
known as “cognitive therapies” have close affinities with Stoicism, as they frequently proclaim. Therefore,
Stoicism in more ways than one is a living philosophy.
See D. Sedley, “The school, from Zeno to Arius Dydimus,” in B. Inwood (ed.), The Cambridge
1
Companion to the Stoics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp. 7-32, esp. pp. 24-28.
most of its texts were lost.2 The historical success of Stoicism cannot therefore be
compared with the long life of Platonism, for example, a body of thought that
was founded by Plato during the 5th century BC, developed and transformed
by his successors, and taught until the very end of Antiquity by figures like
Simplicius. Moreover, ancient Stoicism is a dead philosophy in the sense that
virtually nothing remains from the hundreds of books which were written by
its founders3 – what is left is no more than abstracts, quotations and paraphrases,
conveniently assembled in collections of what specialists call “fragments” (like
the famous collection of Hans von Arnim, the Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta4),
and, in addition, some later texts dating from the Roman period, involving
six philosophers in all: Cornutus, Seneca, Musonius Rufus, Epictetus, Marcus
Aurelius and Cleomedes, to whom we may add the partial remains of Arius
Didymus and Hierocles. Thus although some Stoic texts did survive, the most
important part of them vanished into ashes and dust nearly two millenniums
ago. From this point of view, Stoicism cannot be said to have really survived at
all. It is certainly less alive than Plato’s or Aristotle’s philosophy, or even than
Epicurus’ philosophy, all philosophers whose surviving texts have been known,
read and commented on through the ages, even if it there were certain dark
periods in the transmission and interpretation of their thought.
However, the persistence of Stoicism as an influencial trend of thought was
rather a long one, lasting more than five hundred years, and, when it was alive,
it was certainly one of the more influential philosophies of its time, and for
some centuries perhaps even the most influential. When Stoicism was at the
peak of its intellectual influence, from the time of Zeno to that of Posidonius
(Panaetius’ most distinguished pupil, active in the 1st century BC), Platonism for
instance was rather weak, and survived mainly in an attenuated, sceptical form,
and Aristotelianism barely existed at all. During this period, only Epicureanism
was strong enough to rival Stoicism, along with Academic scepticism as a
revised form of Platonism and, up to a certain point, Cynicism. It is only with
the revival of classical philosophy (Platonism and Aristotelianism) during the 1st
century BC that Stoicism lost the prominent position it had occupied for two
hundred years and finally took its place as one of the four major philosophies
of antiquity, alongside Platonism, Aristotelianism and Epicureanism. It is a sign
of this decline of influence that we find Panaetius and Posidonius dealing with
Platonic and Aristotelian ideas, even to the point that Panaetius seems to have
2
Simplicius, In Aristotelis Categorias, p. 534, ed. Kalbfleisch.
3
From Cleanthes we have a short and famous poetic text, the Hymn to Zeus, and from Chrysippus
some papyrus fragments of two of his works that amount to only a few pages. Nothing from any
other Stoic philosopher of the period has survived.
4
H. von Arnim, Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta, Leipzig, Teubner, 3 vols., 1903-1905, with indexes
compiled by A. Adler in 1924 (vol. 4). The work has been reprinted many times.
Stoicism Today 499
acted as the editor of Plato’s dialogues. However, by the time Stoicism disap-
peared, it had already exercised such a prominent influence that one might say
that it had effectively been extinguished because it had become so common that
it was completely absorbed by common culture. Examples of such success are
principally to be found in the arts and sciences of language, where Stoic ideas
were so influential that they still permeate many of the underlying concepts
of our grammar, linguistics, and logic. However, the fact that Stoic ideas were
so widespread, even if subjected to certain alterations, had a rather negative
influence on the position of Stoicism as a living philosophy: the tradition of the
“liberal arts,” for instance, had adopted many Stoic positions, and also modified
them to a certain extent, with the result that nobody had any reason to go to
the school of a Stoic teacher in order to learn logic or grammar. During the 1st
century AD a Stoic philosopher like Cornutus could still exercise an influence
in the field of grammar and rhetoric (he taught and strongly influenced two of
the major poets of the era, Lucan and Persius), but less than two decades after his
death, Epictetus, the most influential philosopher of his time, was renowned for
his moral teaching, but hardly for his expertise in grammar which was rather
disappointing.5 Nevertheless, Stoicism should be remembered for more than the
fact that it was absorbed into the common culture or effectively dominated the
ancient world for several centuries.
In the first place, “Stoicism” has become a common term, and, as such, is
still alive, and not merely because of specific influences whose Stoic origin is
unknown to most of us. In this sense Stoicism is a vivid way of life, a vivid
vision of the world and of our relationship to it. One may certainly ques-
tion what still lives on in this ordinary form of Stoicism. Is it a feeble trace
of the lost splendour of the Stoicism of Antiquity – to put it harshly, a mere
caricature of what Stoicism once really was? Or is it an existential attitude, a
constant attitude of the human mind towards life and the universe which the
ancient Stoics merely systematised and explicitly developed as a philosophy?
In either case, ordinary Stoicism is not the same as ancient Stoicism in all its
complexity. And in this sense, in fact, it is not even a philosophy: it is simply
an attitude or a psychological disposition that bears a distant and external
resemblance to a vanished philosophy of antiquity.
Despite the obviously limited character of this survival of ancient Stoicism,
it is also clear that, as a philosophy, Stoicism has known many avatars through
5
Epictetus, Discourses, III, 9,14: “Then you leave with this remark: Epictetus was nothing at all,
his language was full of solecisms and barbarisms” (Oldfather translation). At the turn of the 2nd
BC Euphrates of Tyre, another Stoic philosopher who died in AD 118 or 121, may have enjoyed
even greater respect than Epictetus, but he was not a teacher and was famous only for the perfect
conduct of his life. I shall say something more on Euphrates below.
500 Jean-Baptiste Gourinat
the centuries. The ancient Stoics used to compare the Stoic Sage to a phoenix,
the Stoic Sage seeming as rare as the phoenix. In another sense, Stoicism itself
may also be compared to a phoenix: it repeatedly rises from its own ashes and
lives another life, under a different form, one which is nonetheless recognis-
able as a new form of Stoicism.6 Some of our contemporaries still endorse
Stoicism as a philosophy and claim an intimate connection with the ideas
of Epictetus – and this itself is rather extraordinary insofar as contemporary
Sceptics do not claim, for instance, to be disciples of Pyrrho, but develop a
scepticism of their own instead. On the other hand, contemporary Stoics are
not usually “professional” philosophers,7 in contrast to the case of contempo-
rary Sceptics, such as Stanley Cavell, for instance.
One is therefore justified in raising the following questions: what is
Stoicism today? Is it still a living philosophy? Can it ever be a living philoso-
phy? And if so, in what possible form? And what is its precise relationship to
ancient Stoicism?
As far as we know from the existing sources, Stoicism was the first philoso-
phy explicitly presented as a system. Zeno was the first Stoic to divide phi-
losophy into the three parts of logic, ethics and physics, and this division of
philosophy was adopted by the Stoics in general.8 It was generally considered
impossible to remove any part of this system or even to move any proposi-
6
The most famous revival of Stoicism, of course, was that of Lipsius in the 16th century. The
Dutch scholar Joets Lipss (1547-1606), generally known under the Latinised form of his name
as Iustius Lipsius, wrote numerous books on Stoicism, including the Manuductio ad Stoicorum
philosophiam of 1604. Lipsius’ work was basically a scholarly reconstruction of the Stoic system
which was intended to serve as an introduction to his edition of Seneca. It proved enormously
influential nonetheless, and contributed significantly to the modern rebirth of Stoicism. In
contrast to Calvin, who had published a commentary on Seneca’s De clementia before he turned
against Stoicism, Lipsius was and subsequently remained a Catholic. Stoicism played an important
part in the debate on free will conducted between supporters of the Reformation (who were
hostile to the idea of free will) and Roman Catholics (who endorsed it). On Lipsius, see J. Lagrée,
Juste Lipse. La restauration du stoïcisme, Paris,Vrin, 1994.
7
In this regard we might consider the case of James Stockdale who describes himself, in
accordance with the title of one of his books, as a “philosophical fighter pilot.” See J. Stockdale,
Thoughts of a Philosophical Fighter Pilot, Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1995.
8
See P. Hadot, “Philosophie, discours philosophique et divisions de la philosophie chez les
Stoïciens,” Revue internationale de philosophie, 45 (1991), pp. 205-219; K. Ierodiakonou, “The Stoic
Division of Philosophy,” Phronesis, 38 (1993), pp. 57-74; P. Hadot, Études de philosophie ancienne,
Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1998, pp. 125-158.
Stoicism Today 501
tion or argument inside the system by changing its position in the whole.9
But this claim may well be exaggerated since the most prominent of all the
Stoics, Chrysippus, is reported to have frequently said to his master Cleanthes
that he did not care for the proofs because he was quite able to find them out
for himself.10 This may be another exaggeration, but many disagreements are
reported among the Stoics, even between Cleanthes and Chrysippus. It thus
seems clear that, up to a certain point, Stoicism allowed internal disagree-
ments, developments, and heterodoxies.11 However, if we wonder whether
Stoicism can still represent a living philosophy, one must surely ask if this is
possible for all aspects of Stoicism, and for all parts of the system.
In its fully-fledged, mature form, Stoic philosophy was the work of
Chrysippus of Soli, the third head of the Athenian school (circa 280/276-
208/204 BC). It is impossible to give a detailed account of the Stoic system
here,12 but I shall provide a rough sketch of its general character and structure.
Logic
Stoic logic was the most impressive part of Chrysippus’ work. Of the more
than 705 books he wrote, 311 of them, or nearly half, were devoted to logic.
In terms of its length,13 this was the most impressive body of logical treatises
composed in the ancient world. And in terms of its authority, it was rivalled
only by Aristotle’s smaller corpus of logical treatises, the 15 books of his so-
called Organon. As far as we know, Chrysippus’ “logic” included an episte-
mology, a rhetoric and two subdivisions of what he called “dialectic,” one on
“signifiers” and one on “signified items” (more or less corresponding to logic
in the modern sense).
9
See Cicero, De finibus, III, 74: “I have been led on by the marvellous structure of the Stoic system
and the miraculous sequence of the topics […] Where do you find a conclusion inconsistent
with its premise, or a discrepancy between an earlier and a later statement? Where is lacking such
close interconnexion of the parts that, if you alter a single letter, you shake the whole structure?
Though indeed there is nothing that it would be possible to alter” (Rackham translation).
10
Diogenes Laertius,VII, 179.
11
The most heterodox Stoic was certainly Aristo of Chios, a pupil of Zeno. See A. M. Ioppolo,
Aristone di Chio e lo Stoicismo antico, Naples: Bibliopolis, 1980.
12
See M. Isnardi Parente, Introduzione allo Stoicismo ellenistico, Rome-Bari: Laterza, 1993; A. A.
Long, Hellenistic Philosophy, London: Duckworth, 1986 (2nd ed.), pp. 107-209, or B. Inwood
(ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics; J.-B. Gourinat, Le stoïcisme, Paris: PUF, 2007.
13
Diogenes Laertius, VII, 180. In this connection the number of “books” refers not to the
number of treatises as such, but to the books into which the various treatises were divided. His
Logical Investigations, for example, comprised 39 books, and thus accounted for more than 10% of
the logical treatises, although it constituted a single treatise.
502 Jean-Baptiste Gourinat
14
Cicero, Academica, I, 41 (LS 40 B, Long/Sedley translation) [LS = A. Long and D. Sedley, The
Hellenistic Philosophers, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987, 2 vols.].
15
Diogenes Laertius,VII, 58 (LS 33 M).
16
See B. Russell, My Philosophical Development, London: Allen and Unwin, 1959, pp. 66-67.
Stoicism Today 503
As far as Stoic “logic” (in our sense of the word “logic”) is concerned, one
may say that it represented the ancient form of propositional logic – if one
scratches the surface, it turns out that this is not entirely true,17 but one may
concede that it is superficially true. From this point of view, it is certainly
not difficult to be a Stoic logician, and Stoic logic is certainly closer to con-
temporary propositional logic than Aristotelian syllogistic is to contemporary
predicate logic. Even the Stoic theory of signification, though it certainly
cannot be stated precisely in terms of modern theories, has certain similarities
with Frege’s Bedeutungslehre.
All in all, it is not difficult for a contemporary logician to feel a certain
affinity here, and Stoic logic is hardly a problem if we ask ourselves about
the relevance of Stoic philosophy. Nonetheless, despite the huge amount of
work that Chrysippus dedicated to logic and the considerable influence of
Stoic logic on ancient logic in general, one may say that one can be a Stoic
without being a Stoic logician for this was certainly the case with many of the
ancient Stoics. As I have already mentioned, Zeno does not seem to have been
a devoted logician, and “Stoic logic” does not seem to have existed before
Chrysippus. Moreover, Aristo of Chios, Zeno’s heterodox pupil, “abolished
the topics of physics and logic, saying that the former is beyond us and the
latter none of our concern.”18 Later Stoics such as Seneca and Marcus Aurelius
also show little interest in logic: Seneca emphatically mocks Zeno’s syllo-
gisms, and considers them as clumsy and useless,19 and Marcus Aurelius him-
self “abandoned the hope of being a dialectician and a physicist” (VII 67).
Physics
Stoic “physics” would of course seem to be the most outmoded part of Stoic
philosophy. But in some of its more general aspects, it can still speak and appeal
to modern philosophers: for instance, apart from the four incorporeal enti-
ties (space, time, the void, and the lekton of logic), everything is corporeal for
Stoicism. However, with regard to the two material principles of the universe,
Zeno and his Stoic followers maintain that one is prime matter and the other is
God as an active principle that gives shape and quality to this qualityless mat-
ter. This active principle manifests itself under different forms, such as breath
(spiritus in Latin or pneuma in Greek), fire or aether. In contrast to the position of
the Epicureans, who believe in the existence of material atoms separated by the
17
See J.-B. Gourinat, La dialectique des stoïciens, Paris:Vrin, 2000, pp. 294-300.
18
Diogenes Laertius,VII, 25 (LS 31 N).
19
For Seneca and logic see J. Barnes, Logic and the Imperial Stoa, Leiden: Brill, 1997, pp. 12-23.
504 Jean-Baptiste Gourinat
void, the Stoics think that the void only exists outside the world, that the world
itself is continuous, with no void within its limits, and that the coherence of
the world is sustained by its all-pervading pneuma. Pneuma both holds individ-
ual bodies together from the inside and links them with one another. Animal
soul is itself a kind of breath, the “psychic” breath which is characterised by
sense-perception and impulse (and directs bodily movements), as distinct from
“natural” breath which is common to animals and plants, but accounts only
for growth and nutrition. The world is itself a living being, whose rational soul
rules the world as God, Fate and Providence. The world periodically turns into
fire and disintegrates, while at the beginning of each new process the world is
refashioned out of this state of fire. Stoic determinism is so strict that, according
to most of the Stoics, each new world is almost exactly identical to the previous
one, down to the smallest details and to all the events of the human history.
This of course is the doctrine known since Nietzsche as that of “eternal recur-
rence.” In the Stoic version of this doctrine, the actions of human beings are
therefore as strictly determined (“co-fated”) as the universe in general.
It is evident that the details of Stoic physics – and principally the doctrine
of the all-pervading pneuma – hardly conform to the details or even the gen-
eral structure of any modern physical theory. However, once again, we see
that it is not necessary to believe in Stoic physics in order to be a Stoic. As
Marcus Aurelius puts it: “Somehow, atoms or fate; and if the universe is a god,
be all right in everything, if it is ruled by chance, be not yourself ruled by
chance” (Meditations, IX 28).20 The alternative is clear: either Epicurean phys-
ics (atoms) or Stoic physics (God and providence), but in either case, you must
be ruled by moral principles and not by chance. Even if Marcus Aurelius is not
really interested in the details of Stoic physics (as he himself acknowledges),
this does not mean that he rejects Stoic physics; it is evident from many pas-
sages of his work that he was actually committed to Stoic physics, pneuma,
providence, etc., but he thought one could still apply Stoic ethics, even if one
believed in another kind of physics.
On the other hand, and more importantly, it is clearly the moral implica-
tions and consequences of Stoic ethics that can still be considered relevant in
some respects today. However, here again, there is some uncertainty concern-
ing what should count as the ethical core of Stoic physics. The moral implica-
tions of Stoic physics are epitomised by the well-known Epictetean motto:
There are two classes of things: those that are under our control and those that are
not. Under our control are opinion, choice, desire, aversion and, in a word, every-
My translation here is based on the manuscript tradition, except for Randall’s emendation of
20
thing that is our own doing; not under our control are our body, our possessions,
our reputations, our offices and, in a word, everything that is not our doing.21
Ethics
Stoic ethics is naturalistic. According to the Stoics, the ultimate goal (or telos)
of life is to “follow nature.” Nature is rational, and man’s nature is rational.
Therefore man must follow nature in being rational. “Following nature”
means “following reason” but it also means “living virtuously” since virtue
is sufficient for happiness: virtue is the only good, and all other things, usu-
ally considered as good or bad in themselves, are ultimately indifferent, i.e.
richness and poverty, health and illness, life and death, etc. The argument
21
Epictetus, Handbook ,1.1, Boter translation.
22
Eusebius, Evangelical Preparation,VI, 8.26 (LS 62 F).
506 Jean-Baptiste Gourinat
23
See, for example, B.Williams “Stoic philosophy and the emotions,” in R. Sorabji (ed.), Aristotle
and After, “Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies,” Suppl. 68 (1997), pp. 211-213. He
concludes that Stoicism is “a philosophy which we cannot believe.”
24
Again, this is not entirely true since the Stoics assume (1) that passion may remain even when
reason has restored right judgment and (2) that there is an initial movement or propatheia that
precedes assent and is uncontrollable. But the Stoics are intellectualists in the sense that they
maintain that there is no “irrational” part of the soul at the origin of passion.
Stoicism Today 507
what the Stoics considered as an analysis or account of the emotions do not say
much […] about the infantile or other origins of the emotional structures that
characterize the psychic life of a particular individual,25
25
Williams, Stoic philosophy, p. 211.
26
L. Becker, A New Stoicism, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998, p. 6. Becker’s book
makes an interesting attempt to reconstruct Stoicism as if it had effectively survived from
antiquity and adapted itself to the evolution of contemporary sciences.
27
P. Hadot, Qu’est ce que la philosophie antique?, Paris: Gallimard, 1995, p. 413. See also Id.,
Philosophy as a Way of Life. Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault, edited and introduced by A.
Davidson, trans. M. Chase, Oxford: Blackwell, 1995.
28
Plutarch, Opinions of the Philosophers, Praef., 874 E (LS 26 A) [my translation].
508 Jean-Baptiste Gourinat
as an exercise whose aim is virtue. As Epictetus puts it, “when someone says
to me, ‘Explain Chrysippus’ work to me’, I would sooner blush when I fail
to show acts that are in accordance and harmony with Chrysippus’ lessons”
(Handbook, 49). Philosophy is a question of acting and living, not simply one
of theorizing, commenting, learning, teaching, and writing.
In this respect, it is clear that Stoicism is still a living philosophy. A rather
well known example in the USA is the late admiral James B. Stockdale,
a former naval pilot during the Vietnam War. Stockdale, after being shot
down over Vietnam, was held prisoner for seven years, and says that he
survived by sticking to Epictetus’ principles. As soon as he was shot down,
he had the feeling that he was “leaving the world of technology and enter-
ing the world of Epictetus.”29 He had discovered philosophy a few years
before when he was studying at Stanford to become a strategic planner in
the Pentagon, and had read Epictetus in detail. “Ready at hand” for him
were Epictetus’ distinction between what is “within our power” and what is
“not within our power,” the Stoic conception of good and evil as inner dis-
positions, and the notion of one’s station in life as indifferent. He adds that
he remembered “a lot of attitude-shaping remarks.”30 Stockdale’s point is
interesting not only because he explains how Epictetus helped him to resist
everyday physical and psychological pressures, but also because, conversely,
he believes that his experience allowed him to “test” Epictetus’ doctrines
and understand how they made sense in his situation. For instance, it was
as a prisoner, he writes, that he “learned what ‘Stoic harm’ means,” i.e. that
there is no greater harm than destroying the self-respect of a human being.
It was as a prisoner that he also understood what Epictetus meant when he
said that one’s status or position in life is indifferent. It was also in those
circumstances that he learned the meaning of controlling one’s emotions
and the idea that emotions are acts of free will. All this effectively shows
how one may find some strength in Stoic philosophy, and how there may be
some practical truth in Stoic philosophy. 31
29
J. B. Stockdale, “Testing Epictetus’ doctrines in a laboratory of human behaviour,” Bulletin of
the Institute of Classical Studies, 40, (1995), p. 4 (Id., Thoughts, p. 189).
30
Stockdale, Testing, pp. 4-6 (Id., Thoughts, pp. 189-192).
31
On Stockdale’s Stoicism, see N. Sherman, Stoic Warriors.The Ancient Philosophy Behind the Military
Mind, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. 1-17 (”A brave new Stoicism”). One might note
that Stockdale’s experience was part of the inspiration for Tom Wolfe’s 1998 novel, A Man in Full,
New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The two principal characters are a real estate tycoon who
is faced with ruin and a young convict who has escaped from an unjust imprisonment during
which he read Epictetus by chance.The tycoon is converted to Stoicism by the young man, gives
up his previous way of life, and finally finds success again through a TV programme entitled “The
Stoic’s Hour.”The ending of the book is obviously ironical, but the contrast between Stoicism and
the wealth and luxury of the tycoon’s life is striking and seductive.
Stoicism Today 509
Human life is a matter of banal things, getting up, eating, doing one’s work, getting
married, having children, looking after one’s family […].This is what life is about.
If there is something non-banal about it, it is the wisdom with which these banal
things are done, the understanding and the spirit from which they are done.32
32
M. Frede, “Euphrates of Tyre,” in Sorabji (ed.), Aristoteles and After, p. 6.
510 Jean-Baptiste Gourinat
from our way of seeing things and from mental structures which generally lie
within the realm of consciousness: this point of view is very close to the Stoic
theory of emotions. “In essence, the Stoic viewpoint, which stated that people
are disturbed not by things but by their view of things, became the foundation
of RET [Rational-Emotive Therapy], and this perspective […] remains at the
heart of present-day cognitive-behavioural approaches to psychotherapy.”33 Of
course, cognitive therapy is not based principally on the reading of texts by
Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, but mainly on the direct study of mental dis-
orders and on the practice of therapy, but the basic philosophical framework is
very similar to that of the Stoic psychology and therapy of passions. Such claims
as the following, for example, have a strikingly Stoic ring to them:
dysfunctional feelings and conduct are largely due to the function of certain
schemes that tend to produce consistently biased judgments and a concomitant
consistent tendency to make cognitive errors in certain types of situations.34
33
A. Ellis, The Practice of Rational-Emotive Therapy, New York: Springer, 1987, p. 2.
34
A. T. Beck, D. A. Clark, and B. Alford, Scientific Foundations of Cognitive Theory and Therapy of
Depression, New York: John Wiley, 1999, p. 55.
35
C. André, Les thérapies cognitives, Paris: Bernet-Danilo, 1999, p. 5.
36
Ibid., p. 32.
37
We should note that Sherman does not restrict her treatment of PTSD to cognitive therapy,
and also that cognitive therapy is only one amongst various methods of treating PTSD, but I
limit myself here to the points which are directly relevant to the subject of my paper.
Stoicism Today 511
Jean-Baptiste Gourinat
Centre de recherches sur la pensée antique, Paris (CNRS-Paris IV-ENS)
jean-baptiste.gourinat@paris-sorbonne.fr
38
Sherman, Stoic Warriors, p. 125.
39
Ibid., p. 127.
40
I wish to express my gratitude to Nicholas Walker and Lars Drinkrow for correcting the
roughness of my English.