The first time anyone brought the Spanish poet, novelist, playwright, and philosopher Miguel de Unamuno to my attention was more than three decades ago, when I was in college, majoring in philosophy and mathematics at Lakeland College. There were oly a few other philosophy majors, perhaps because the two professors who taught philosophy and religion classes were both on their way to retirement, and didn’t seem particularly interested in their own program. They were, however, both quite into Existentialism, and so a bit more than half of the readings in the contemporary philosophy class offered were thinkers who fit into that broad movement.

There were, as I recall, only four of us actually enrolled in that class, and we met in one of the professors’ office for class sessions once a week. Two of the students were further along in their studies than I was, and both of them had their favorite thinker who they would inevitably bring into discussions most classes. One of them was really into Victor Frankl, though I suspect he had only read and reread his most popular work, Man’s Search For Meaning. The other student was from Spain and his author of choice was Miguel de Unamuno. Neither Frankl nor Unamuno were in our list of readings, but both fit neatly into the Existentialist spectrum, so there were many opportunities to reference them.

I recall checking out of the library, and reading a bit of, Unamuno’s most well-known work, Tragic Sense of Life, mainly because David, the Spanish philosophy major, kept insisting I would really like it, given the other authors and works I was reading. I have to admit that I remember very little of my first encounter with Unamuno, other than being a bit underwhelmed. Quite possibly I didn’t adequately understand what I was reading in the work, or didn’t grasp the significance of it at the time.

Fast forward many years from those college days to the 2010s, when I was in my early 40s, long since finished with graduate school, two academic positions behind me, now teaching at Marist College, and rereading my way through a number of classic works by Existentialist authors, now with more mature eyes, decades more of experiences, and a better grasp of where they figured into the history of ideas. I was producing videos on them, teaching online courses on Existentialism, even providing a monthly lecture series to the public.

I can honestly say that I read Unamuno’s Tragic Sense Of Life for the first time in that period. Whatever “reading” I had done twenty years earlier, I hadn’t really given Unamuno and his book the attention it deserved. And what I found with that reading, as the saying goes, “spoke to me”. I realize that phrase has devolved to the level of a cliche at this point, but at times it does retain its original meaning and force, and for me Tragic Sense Of Life did produce that experience.

It is indeed an excellent work of philosophy. It presents a philosophy, which is Unamuno’s, that is well worth considering and exploring. Like that of many other great thinkers, it is not the work of some magisterial genius supposedly isolating himself and beginning philosophy anew (yet one more time!), but a thinker placing himself in conversation with the other thinkers he has read and grappled with. And it provides a genuinely philosophical way of thinking about what we’re doing (or failing to do) when we engage in philosophy, that is, using contemporary terminology, it articulates a meta-philosophy.

So, if you’d like to read a very thoughtful author, who brings together insights from a number of other thinkers whose works he has deeply engaged with for years, and who articulates an interesting and attractive (at least for some) paradigm for how one can philosophize, you probably should take the time to read through Unamuno’s Tragic Sense Of Life. If that is a prospect that you are considering, but for whatever reason, you don’t want to commit to an entire book at this point, you could confine yourself to what I have my own students read: chapters 1, 2, and 6. You’ll at least get solid ideas about some of the key themes, distinctions, arguments, and positions in the work. And perhaps that might induce you then to go back to the other chapters from the book.

What will you find in the work? I’m going to confine myself to three main themes of it that get explored in detail in those chapters.

The first is that while it is possible to philosophize just with one’s brain or intellect, and there are plenty of important philosophers who have tried to do just that, we actually do better when we philosophize in a more comprehensive, though messy, manner, one which takes the whole person into account. We can and should philosophize with our blood and bones and heart, with our will and affects, with the whole person. Unamuno goes so far as to suggest that defining the human being as the rational animal might have been a bit too onesided, and that we probably should also strive to understand ourselves as just as much been the feeling or affective animal.

Second, when it comes to a number of dichotomies that we encounter in the course of reflective philosophizing, for example those between reason and faith, the intellect and the will, science and religion, our task is not to decide once and for all to privilege one side over the other, nor to attempt to impose some harmonization, compromise or compartmentalization between them. Instead, the philosopher is called to remain in a sometimes uncomfortable and perhaps paradoxical in-between, recognizing but not reconciling the conflict, even contradiction. This is precisely what Unamuno tells us is one central aspect of the tragic sense (sentimiento) of life.

The third is that Unamuno does not claim complete originality in these insights he communicates. In fact, he is very open in telling us which earlier thinkers also grapple with the problems and paradoxes that occupy and motivate his philosophy. These include a wide array, among whom I’ll mention just Marcus Aurelius, Augustine of Hippo, Blaise Pascal, and Soren Kierkegaard. We always gain something reading what thoughtful readers have made of people they feel in some way are kindred spirits or even precursors, and you might find in reading Unamuno that you see these earlier writers in different lights.

I’ll add as a final possible inducement that, if you’re interested in Existentialism and you don’t want to just stick with a narrow canon of writers that aren’t fully representative of the movement, you will definitely want to read Miguel de Unamuno’s works (and likely those of his countryman José Ortega y Gasset). You’ll find that Unamuno’s central themes and overall approach are really at the heart of Existentialist philosophy literature, philosophy, and sensibility.

Gregory Sadler is the founder of ReasonIO, a speaker, writer, and producer of popular YouTube videos on philosophy. He is co-host of the radio show Wisdom for Life, and producer of the Sadler’s Lectures podcast. You can request short personalized videos at his Cameo page. If you’d like to take online classes with him, check out the Study With Sadler Academy.

In 1943 and 1944, Albert Camus authored a set of four open letters, “clandestinely during the Occupation” in his own words, the first two of which were published at that time in the Revue Libre and the Cahiers de Libération. They carry the title “Letters To A German Friend”, but the personage they are addressed to is imagary one, perhaps an amalgam of Germans Camus knew and had interacted with previously. After the liberation of France and the end of World War II, they were published together in a limited edition in France. It took quite some time for them to be published elsewhere in other languages, not least because Camus himself expressed a reluctance to do so.

Aside from various places online (for example here) the main place you will find them in English translation is in the volume of essays, Resistance, Rebellion, and Death, a collection selected and brought together by Camus before his untimely death and then subsequently translated into English.

I recently reread these four letters in order to work through them together with a tutorial client who was reading them for the first time. Afterwards, reflecting on how timely and important these short essays are, I decided to produce a sequence of new core concept videos, one of each of the letters, setting out their key themes, arguments, and distinctions (if you’d like to watch them, you can find them in this playlist). I’ve also produced podcast versions of these lectures (which you can find here).

I also wanted to set aside the time to write this reading recommendation piece, suggesting that — and why — my own readers ought to give some study to these pieces.

I have four main reasons to offer you why it would be well worth your time to check out these four letters.

The first is perhaps the most trivial, simply that they are a quick but worthwhile read. None of them are long, and they launch you right into the midst of the ideas and experiences immediately. You could work your way through an initial read, most likely, in under an hour, and reread and reflect upon them in the course of an afternoon. So you won’t have to invest a lot of time into them in order to get quite a lot out of them.

The second is that, after all, it’s Albert Camus. Although perhaps not for everyone (what author is?), he is certainly a master of writing, and essays like these thoughtful and dramatic open letters are perhaps one of the genres that he does best. He is a master stylist whose prose cuts like a sharp knife, and these letters, more than eight decades old, still ring not only true but fresh as well. If you enjoy other writings by Camus, you will enjoy these, and if you haven’t yet read him, these provide an excellent entry point.

A third reason has to do with a usefulness they possess for avoiding, even dispelling, some unfortunately common misunderstandings and misinterpretations of Albert Camus’ philosophical conceptions and commitments, in particular to the significance and implications of the absurd. Camus himself eschewed the title of “existentialist” (and there’s a lot more to be said elsewhere about that), but it’s a bit of a mistake to call him instead an “absurdist”, since that lumps him in with a number of other quite differently oriented authors. It is more accurate to characterize him as a thinker whose work takes the absurd very seriously and engages thoroughly with its implications.

In his later and longer work The Rebel, Camus clarifies from the beginning that his views on the absurd have evolved, particularly motivated by living through the history of World War II and its aftermath. In The Myth of Sisyphus, he claimed that the key philosophical question was that of suicide. In The Rebel, it has become the question of murder, and of responsibility. Even in the Myth of Sisyphus, Camus isn’t simply endorsing “absurdism”, claims that existence lacks any meaning, or denials that justice or happiness have any value.

If one’s understanding of Camus has been derived primarily from The Myth of Sisyphus, let alone his early novel The Stranger, it is quite likely that one has a very truncated conception of Camus’ thought and views. Reading his Letters To A German friend provides an excellent supplement to those early works. In them, you’ll see Camus talking about holding one’s country responsible to demands of justice, for example.

The fourth and final reason is that the matters Camus is discussing, ostensibly contrasting the mentalities of the French resistance against the German Nazi occupiers on a number of different issues, remains incredibly relevant to our own current times, especially for Americans who have seen a veritable takeover of the government by the nationalist MAGA movement. What love for one’s country involves and requires, how to understand the demands of justice in a world in which that is a value one can’t take for granted, the meaning of Europe itself (and we might say in our present, what it means to be an American), these are all contested matters, where it is possible to go multiple ways.

I won’t say much more about this fourth reason, both because I don’t intend to go too deep into analysis of the key themes of the letters (I did that in those videos) in this reading recommendation, and because I hope to entice you to actually check these short works out for yourself (so I’ve just given you a teaser so to speak)

But I will say that Camus is an author to whom I return over and over again, and this is one of the works that has definitely grown upon me. I have actually decided to teach these letters in one of my Fall classes, which will be centered on the themes of love, friendship, and desire.

Gregory Sadler is the president of ReasonIO, a speaker, writer, and producer of popular YouTube videos on philosophy. He is co-host of the radio show Wisdom for Life, and producer of the Sadler’s Lectures podcast. You can request short personalized videos at his Cameo page. If you’d like to take online classes with him, check out the Study With Sadler Academy.

In his much larger work, Essays Moral, Political, and Literary, David Hume included four essays, each of which is titled with the name of a representative of a philosophical school. They are, in order, The Epicurean, The Stoic, The Platonist, The Skeptic. I just recently shot, edited, and uploaded a set of four core concept videos working through the key ideas of each of these essays, and I’ll be releasing them to the public in the near future.

I had long wanted to do that set of lectures, not least because I enjoy reading and teaching David Hume’s works — though I do disagree with his views at many points — and I’ve liked this sequence of essays since I first read them in a semester-long Hume class back in graduate school. Doing the close rereading and preparation work for the videos really drove home to me how useful they might be for students and lifelong learners, which is why I’m recommending them to you here.

Before explaining the features of them that I particularly like, I should address one seeming omission in the sequence of essays that some readers might ask about. Why doesn’t Hume include an essay on The Aristotelian? After all when we refer to the major schools of antiquity, there are generally five that get mentioned, the four Hume does focus upon and Aristotle’s Lyceum. The answer is a bit of a historical curiosity.

Hume writes in the 18th century, a time in which, as he tells us in his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding:

The fame of Cicero flourishes at present; but that of Aristotle is utterly decayed.

That situation would be almost entirely reversed in the 19th century. Prior to that, however, Aristotle tended to be identified with the Scholasticism that early modern philosophy (sometimes rightly, sometimes not) tended to dismiss as dogmatic and antiquated.

There is another good reason as well for the omission of Aristotle, one which has to do with what Hume intends to do in these four essays. He writes in the first footnote to The Epicurean:

The intention of this and the three following essays is not so much to explain accurately the sentiments of the ancient sects of philosophy, as to deliver the sentiments of sects, that naturally form themselves in the world, and entertain different ideas of human life and of happiness. I have given each of them the name of the philosophical sect, to which it bears the greatest affinity.

Hume is in effect treating each of these four philosophies both as what we nowadays often call “philosophy as a way of life” and as an intentional and distinctive approach to life broader than the named philosophical school. This is reflected in the subtitles of the first three essays:

• The Epicurean, or the man of elegance and pleasure

• The Stoic, or the man of action and virtue

• The Platonist, or the man of contemplation, and philosophical devotion

The Skeptic, which is considerably longer than each of the other essays, does not bear such an explanatory subtitle, and one reason this might be is that, when you know Hume’s own philosophy well, a number of the points he makes in that fourth essay seem to be drawn directly from Hume’s philosophical arguments, ideas, and commitments.

I often teach Hume’s Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding in my Introduction to Philosophy classes. As I was preparing to record my video on The Skeptic, I started musing about the idea of assigning that essay as a sort of introductory text for my students. I think it would work quite well for that purpose, and that’s one reason to make a suggestion of it to all of you readers interested in philosophy.

A good reason for reading all four of these essays together is that they do follow in a tightly connected sequence. The Epicurean argues the claims of focusing upon pleasure in order to enjoy a happy, satisfying life. The Stoic argues for an active life oriented towards virtue and glory, but also engages in criticism of the approach of their pleasure-seeking predecessor. The Platonist in turn, advancing a positive position aiming at contemplation of the universe and God, also sets both the Epicurean and the Stoic in their proverbial crosshairs. And the Skeptic, bringing things to a close, suggests that none of those three stances can really be set forward as the answer to the problem of how to best life.

These four essays are relatively short, well-argued, and dynamic pieces of writing. Hume is an excellent stylist, but also a very thoughtful author. So you glean some real insight into his own views by seeing what he makes of these four “sects”, as he calls them, of philosophy. If what you’re looking for is expositions of precisely what it is that these ancient schools historically thought and taught, these essays aren’t going to supply precisely that. But it’s well worth seeing what he thinks is worth highlighting about the general stances, the values, the commitments, and the views involved in these philosophies.

I would say that, one could read them through with adequate consideration in a single afternoon. And they are essays that reward rereadings. So perhaps now that you’ve learned a bit about what the essays discuss and the way they do so, you’ll take the suggestion and check them out for yourself!

Gregory Sadler is the president of ReasonIO, a speaker, writer, and producer of popular YouTube videos on philosophy. He is co-host of the radio show Wisdom for Life, and producer of the Sadler’s Lectures podcast. You can request short personalized videos at his Cameo page. If you’d like to take online classes with him, check out the Study With Sadler Academy.

This may strike some readers as a strange book for me to recommend, but I have several reasons for suggesting that at least some might find Philip K Dick’s science fiction novel Ubik of some interest and value. As it so happens, I reread it for what is perhaps my seventh or eighth time just this week, because I intend to start producing a series of Speculative Fiction Studies videos on the work later on this week (which will start being released later on this month)).

I’ve been a fan of Dick’s work for several decades now, and think I’ve read all of his novels and short stories at least once at this point. Ubik isn’t my absolute favorite of his novels (at present, that would be A Scanner Darkly, which supplanted an earlier favorite The Man In The High Castle). But if you asked me about my five favorite Dick novels, Ubik would certainly be in that group. It’s quite an excellent story.

Like many of Dick’s stories, it takes place in a future (relative to Dick) somewhat advanced in terms of technological, social, and cultural developments, which happens to be in our past, in 1992. Members of humanity has developed psionic talents such as telepathy, psychokinesis, and precognition, and these are put to use in business and commercial settings, leading to the deployment of “counter-talents”, “inertials” who can dampen or cancel those talents.

The main character, Joe Chip, is a tester by trade, who can ascertain and evaluate talents and anti-talents, and he works for one of the main "prudence organizations", Runciter Associates, headed by the aged but dynamic Glen Runciter. He is called upon to evaluate a young women of significant and new talent, Pat Conley, whose parents work for a rival firm, headed by Ray Hollis.

Humankind has by this point (science fiction is often optimistic about how quickly we advance) colonized the moon and started to do so with the planets of the solar system. They also have developed something like the “internet of things” taking form in our own present, understood not so much in terms of networks but rather artificially intelligent “homeostatic machines”. They often talk back to and cast judgements upon human beings, often within the framework of payment that they demand for their services. (The always broke Joe finds himself stuck in his apartment, since the door demands a nickel before it will open for him!)

There’s another form of technology that assumes a much greater role within the setting, themes, and plots of the novel, “cold-pac”, which allows people who die to continue on in a “second life”, in which they lie dreaming (and communicating with those housed near them) as they slowly wind down. They can be resuscitated in a manner of speaking so that they can interact through voice communication with the living. That possibility will turn out to be quite important, for instance as Glen Runciter consults with his long-dead wife Ella periodically for her take on running the firm.

I won’t give away the plot or engage in any spoilers at this point, so there’s a lot I can’t tell you about the book. Suffice it to say that it is a combination of mystery, science fiction, and fantasy with Dick combining these masterfully in a story that unfolds quickly.

Dick famously defended the style of an earlier, very influential golden-age science fiction pulp writer, A.E. Van Vogt, against what might seem like rather damning criticism issued against him by Damon Knight, who accused Van Vogt of writing stories that failed on a number of counts, one of which was that they followed a “dream consistency which affects readers powerfully”, so that they lacked “ordinary consistency”, and lapsed into illogicallities. Dick countered that:

[R]eality really is a mess, and yet it's exciting. The basic thing is, how frightened are you of chaos? And how happy are you with order? Van Vogt influenced me so much because he made me appreciate a mysterious chaotic quality in the universe which is not to be feared.

That “chaotic quality” is deeply embedded in Ubik, where among other things, a spray can contains a mysterious (perhaps even divine) substance that can restore reality to people and things, and which is advertised at the beginning of each chapter. And yet, Dick’s stories, while participating in that quality, are tighter, more connected than those of Van Vogt, including this one.

I will say that if you have read other Dick novels, you will see some common themes between this one and several others, perhaps most closely connected with A Maze Of Death. A variety of closely interconnected epistemological, metaphysical, and ethical themes run throughout Dick’s works, and I’ll end this here by saying that if you are someone who enjoys studying philosophy, and you also enjoy narrative, there’s a good chance you will particularly enjoy this book.

I’ve recommended Seneca’s works a bit before here, in this piece about his letters dealing with the topic of grief. Lately, I’ve been returning to another one of his texts quite often, as I produce additional videos on it, discuss it in Understanding Anger 2.0 online events, and prepare for teaching a class on the topic at Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design next term. It is his excellent and fairly short work, On Anger.

You can find it online in a number of places providing older public domain translations:

• Seneca On Anger, Aubrey Stewart translation (Wikisource)

• Seneca On Anger, Aubrey Stewart translation (Project Gutenberg)

• Seneca On Anger, Robert Kaster translation (Archive.org)

There is also a newer translation published by University of Chicago, by Robert Caster and Martha Nussbaum, which bundles On Anger with another related text On Clemency as well as his satirical play The Pumpkification of Claudius the God. That’s the one I use for my own work, videos, and classes, so I’d recommend getting that edition if you don’t want to use a free, but older one.

Seneca’s On Anger is an important work, well worth reading, for a number of reasons, some of which have to do with its main topic, others of which stem from its significance within Seneca’s body of work and the larger body of Stoic literature.

A number of ancient thinkers from a variety of different philosophical schools grappled with the problems that the complex emotion of anger raised. Looking at the literature that we still have left and the references to literature we no longer have, it’s clear that anger was a matter of considerable interest to Plato and the Platonists, Aristotle and his followers, Epicurus and his school, the eclectic Cicero, and particularly to the Stoics.

We can credit Aristotle as being the first person to develop a preliminary but genuinely scientific account of anger, looking at it in physical, psychological, volitional, and ethical dimensions. There may have been other writers before Seneca and after Aristotle, whose works we have lost, who produced sophisticated analyses of anger. The closest thing we do currently possess would be Cicero’s short discussions about anger in his Tusculan Disputations. Seneca’s On Anger is the earliest work in western philosophy that we do have thematically focused upon, and systematically examining, the emotion of anger.

Seneca discusses what anger is, considering several different definitions of the passion. He also sets out how anger works, you could say, uncovering its psychological mechanism. This is the work in which he articulates most fully the three-step process of how emotions work in Stoic psychology. He unfolds a number of common thought processes involved or culminating in anger, and identifies incorrect assumptions or lines of reasoning involved. There are a great number of other related topics he delves into thoughtfully as well, including the moral (dis)value of anger, and why it involves one of the most problematic of the vices.

The Stoic position on anger is a rather extreme one that I often describe as “zero-tolerance”, regarding anger as always something bad. He accordingly spends a considerable amount of time considering possible objections to this position that could be raised by what people might consider the commonsense positions popular within his culture (and our own), or by one of the main rival schools to the Stoics, the Aristotelians (who thought that some anger could be virtuous). Seneca considers whether anger can be good, useful, noble, or necessary, providing arguments against all of these.

In my view, however, the best feature of Seneca’s On Anger is that in its three books he provides a number of actual practices for cutting off and lessening anger as it arises. Again, he isn’t the only or first person to do so in antiquity, but his work provides by far the most of these philosophical practices useful for dealing with one’s anger. By studying and applying his lessons, you can - if you want to - work on your own emotional dispositions bearing on anger with the many tools he provides.

I mentioned above that this work is also important within the broader context of Seneca’s other works and the yet larger scope of Stoic literature. If you are interested in either of those, this is a text you will sooner or later want to read. We have lost all of the early and middle Stoic literature, including the works that clearly focused upon the emotions. Seneca’s On Anger doesn’t fill in all those gaps of course, but it goes some way towards that, certainly with this particular troubling emotion.

As I wrap this up, I’ll add that I don’t entirely agree with Seneca or the Stoics in viewing the emotion of anger as always being something bad and problematic. Unlike Cicero on this matter (who agreed entirely with the Stoics about anger) I’m perhaps somewhere between the Stoics on the one end and the Platonists and Aristotelians on the other. But I consider this particular work highly valuable, more so each time I read it. And so, I suspect you might perhaps also find it valuable for your own study in the field of philosophy, and perhaps your own personal development.

It’s been a while since I made a reading recommendation, that is, a post where I suggest a text you might find useful or interesting to get your hands and eyes upon, and explain what I think you might get out of reading that text. So it’s a good time for me to make one, since I do have a book in mind. It’s one that I reread several times recently, prompted first by mentioning it to students in my online Nietzsche’s Genealogy class, and then by my decision to produce a new series of core concept videos on the work.

It’s a short book, with a one-word title, Ressentiment, a study by Max Scheler that plucks out one key concept from Friedrich Nietzsche’s work, that of ressentiment (a term deliberately chosen, not the same as the similar resentment). One of the main places Nietzsche explores this is in his Genealogy of Morals, and that is the text that Scheler references the most.

I should mention that the book bore two different titles in the original German. The original text published in 1912 was Über Ressentiment und moralisches Werturteil (On Ressentiment and Moral Value-Judgment). The expanded version of the text published in 1915 was called Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (Ressentiment in the Construction of Morality).

Ressentiment is a useful concept, and one that can arguably be found, generally going under different names, in other works by other authors, a prime example being the attitude of the “underground man”, who calls himself a “mouse”, in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Notes From Underground. It is an entire dynamic that develops among people who experience certain affects, like the desire for revenge, hatred, or envy, which they are not only unable to discharge or express, but eventually unable to even acknowledge or admit to themselves.

Nietzsche views ressentiment as widespread in late modern culture, but also as something that has been festering away since human prehistory, particularly among two groups of people, namely the priests and the herd. And it lies behind the transvaluation of values that in his view results ultimately in the dominance of “herd” or “slave morality” and the ascetic ideals at work not only in the priest, but also many philosophers and even people of science.

Scheler thinks that Nietzsche is indeed on to something, but that he has so to speak overplayed his hand by making too-sweeping claims in his analyses, in particular in thinking that Christian morality is from the very beginning and through its entire development driven largely by ressentiment. So in this short work, Scheler sets out to provide better philosophical analyses of the moral and psychological phenomenon than Nietzsche did in his books.

Part of what Scheler accomplishes in this respect is to qualify Nietzsche’s assertions by more thoroughly unpacking the notion of ressentiment along a variety of vectors, for example looking more closely at the range of emotions or affects involved, how and why those affects are repressed and what results are produced by this dynamic. He also expands the inquiry to considering more examples of persons, situations, and social dynamics characterized by ressentiment than Nietzsche originally did in his works.

That qualifying work on Scheler’s part is evident when it comes to considering whether or not Christian morality is necessarily connected with, or even more strongly put stems from, ressentiment, the main topic for the third part of the work, where Scheler is perfectly willing to concede that there are plenty of “Christians” who do seem filled with and motivated by ressentiment (including early Christians like Paul or Tertullian), but demonstrates persuasively that there is something very different motivating the radical divergence between Christian and earlier Greek and Roman moralities.

Modern “bourgeois morality” and “humanitarian love”, according to Scheler, are entirely different matters, and are reflective of ressentiment, as he discusses in parts 4 and 5 of the book. As with earlier parts, he makes a number of useful distinctions to flesh out and support these judgements. And he appeals to, in outline, something else that he brought up earlier in the work. Before authoring this short study, Scheler had developed a complex ethics based on the notion of value, preference, an order of love, or an objective hierarchy of values. If you’re particularly interested in that, there is a much longer book you can check out, Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values. Ressentiment draws upon some concepts from that work, such as value blindness and delusion, in ways you may find quite interesting and illuminating.

That’s probably enough said about this short book at this point. It’s quite easy to find and although technical, a fairly quick read. And I highly recommend it to readers interested in ethics, the emotions, or psychology.

If you have previously read Ressentiment, or if you come back to this recommendation post after having read it, feel free to leave a comment with your own take on the work!

As you may have noticed, my reading recommendations here tend to be shorter works. There’s a good reason for that, which perhaps I’ll write down a full discussion about at some later time. Suffice it to say, I know that for many readers in the present, time is often a precious resource, so sometimes the proverbial less really is more. I also tend to think that with less well-known authors, perhaps a short essay, work or dialogue can serve as the gateway to entice readers through, getting them interested in reading more of that author’s work.

This time around, my suggestion is a much longer work, one that runs 993 pages. It is literally heavy enough (over 5 pounds) to stop a door or crack nuts with! But that isn’t what you’ll want to do with it, if you get yourself a copy, or check one out from your local library. It’s titled The Books of Earthsea: The Complete Illustrated Edition.

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This is an omnibus volume of all of Ursula K. Leguin’s Earthsea stories and novels, along with an introduction by Leguin, her lecture “Earthsea Revisioned”, and her “Description of Earthsea”. It comes in hardcover, but is relatively inexpensive (you can get it on Amazon now for $39.99), and includes a variety of beautiful color and black-and-white sketches of scenes and characters from the stories by Charles Vess.

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about these Earthsea stories and about the late great Ursula K. Leguin’s writing, thought, and life. The spur to that has been my editing Sadler’s Lectures podcast episodes on the fourth Earthsea novel, Tehanu, which has me listening to my own lectures on the themes, characters, plot points, and worldbuilding involved in that story. There’s a reason for me doing that editing work right now as well. I teach a semester-long academic class occasionally called “Philosophy and Fantasy: Ursula K Leguin’s Earthsea”, and I’m scheduled for a section of it this fall term.

We use this very handy omnibus volume for the class, and work our way through each of the six Earthsea books contained within it. In the first few weeks, we start by looking at an essay of Leguin’s not contained in the volume, “From Elfland to Poughkeepsie”, then read the first two standalone Earthsea stories, “The Rule of Names”, and “The Word of Unbinding”. These set the stage for the works that follow next.

We then spend six weeks on the original Earthsea trilogy, the three books that introduce us to the young apprentice and then mage Sparrowhawk/Ged, then the young priestess Arha/Tenar (involved with a still youthful Ged), and then the prince Arren/Lebannen (on a quest with the old archmage Ged). These are A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan, and The Farthest Shore.

Then we spend the next six weeks working through the three later books. Tehanu is the fourth Earthsea novel, and brings an older Tenar and Ged back together, as well as their adoptive daughter Therru, in ways that involve the dragons of Earthsea considerably more (including the oldest and most powerful one). The fifth book, Tales From Earthsea isn’t a novel, but a collection of stories, spanning centuries of time from the distant past when the Isle of Roke first arose as a place to learn magic to the time of the third, fourth, and sixth book. The series comes to a definitive close with the sixth book and fifth novel, The Other Wind.

To pack all six of these books, along with several other stories and features, into one volume less than a thousand pages, you can well imagine that those six books are not all that long. And that is a function of Leguin’s writing, which carries and bears a lot in each of her paragraphs, each of the interactions, explanations, or musings narrated. She has a genuine gift for producing works that you can read through quickly, and then discover more meaning unfolding for you with each subsequent read.

Are these books of philosophy? No, not at all. Are they philosophical novels? Definitely yes. And I should note that through a lot of would-be-interpreters have taken Leguin’s interest in Daoism and commitment to a kind of anarchism as their lenses for reading philosophy into the words, actions, and choices of her characters, there’s far more going on these works than studying those two traditions would help one find.

Leguin is almost never didactic in her prose. She saves that for her essay-writing, and these are not essays, but stories woven into a tapestry that is a secondary world. But for the reader who is attentive, careful, patient, there are many philosophical themes, problems, and perspectives there within these narratives. Issues of power, of rule, of decision-making, questions of good and evil, right and wrong, musings on the nature of language, thought, metaphysics, and knowledge, relations between genders and what genuine love requires of us. And since these are fantasy novels, there are dragons, mages, wizards, witches, barbarians, kingdoms, pirates, musicians, and everyday craftpeople and workers, and the stories range over all the peoples (including, as we find out the dragons) of the archipelago of Earthsea.

For me - and this is something else I’ve been meaning to write on for a long time, but can only mention today - the stories evoke a deep emotional resonance within me. Perhaps because I read the original trilogy as a middle schooler, in dark and lonely times. I find it challenging to teach, to lecture in videos, to write, sometimes even to read these stories, because they both fill me with joy and appreciation and at the same time can bring me to tears. That’s the power of Leguin’s understated work.

So, if you are looking for a set of classic fantasy works, set within a world you can explore and be caught up within through your reading, which will provoke philosophical reflection on your part, I highly recommend The Books Of Earthsea to you.

Of course, you need not get this massive tome that bundles all the stories together. You can find and read these books separately from each other (in which case, you’d also want to check out the collection of stories The Wind’s Twelve Quarters, which contains those first two early Earthsea stories). You’ll likely find copies of all of them available at your local library, since they remain popular and in circulation. But if you do want them all together, along with the wonderful illustrations the stories inspired within Charles Vess, perhaps you’d like to get that volume. (If you do purchase it through using the Amazon affiliate link, they pay me a little bit of the price).

One last note about Leguin’s Earthsea works. Down the line, I’m planning on putting together an course or two for the general public that will cover roughly the same ground as the 15-week academic course I’ve been teaching. I’m hoping to bring that out sometime in late Fall this year.

If you have previously read any of Ursula K Leguin’s Earthsea novels or stories, or if you come back to this recommendation post after having read them, feel free to leave a comment with your own take on them!

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Responding to a desire articulated by many people, asking for expert guidance on reading their way into ancient Stoic philosophy, I worked up a set of structured recommendations some time back. I get a lot of similar requests about another important ancient school of philosophy as a way of life, the Epicureans, so I’ve decided to write another set of reading recommendations for Epicurean tests, structured in a sequential order, accompanied by brief explanations about each work. Hopefully it will prove helpful for those who would like to study this ancient philosophy as a way of life.

Start With Works Of Epicurus Himself

It’s rather unfortunate that we don’t possess more than a tiny portion of Epicurus’ works. According to Diogenes Laertes, he was one of the most prolific philosophical authors of antiquity. In fact, we have Laertes to thank for most of the bits of Epicurus’ works that have survived, since in book 10 of his Lives of the Philosophers, he copied out, word for word, three letters from Epicurus and the text translated as “Sovereign Maxims” or “Principal Doctrines”. Those texts supplemented by one additional work are the place for the beginner-level student of Epicurus and his school to start.

We have two collections of short sayings:

• the Principal Doctrines (kuriai doxai) — this set of 40 passages preserved by Diogenes Laertes articulates key ideas of Epicurus’ philosophy

• the Vatican Sayings — this is a set of 81 passages, a number of which replicate passages from the Principal Doctrines, found in a document from the Vatican Library

You can find these in a number of places online. Two particularly useful ones are the recent translation of Principal Doctrines by Peter Saint-Andre, which has Greek and English side by side, and the version of the Vatican Sayings on Epicurus.net, which notes which passages are found in both texts.

Then there are the three letters that have been preserved

• Letter to Menoecius — this is probably the most commonly read of these letters, and focuses primarily on matters of Epicurean ethics

• Letter to Herodotus — this one presents some key ideas from the Epicurean physics or natural philosophy, including discussion of atoms, natural phenomena, the human soul, and perception

• Letter to Pythocles — this one also deals with nature, particularly celestial matters and meteorological phenomena, but it also discusses why it is beneficial to human beings to study these things

At this point, it would also make good sense to mention the very short, quite literally four-line Tetrapharmikon or Fourfold Remedy. This is a distillation of the first four passages of the Principal Doctrines, found in Philodemus’ works (see below).

The Rest of Diogenes Laertes’ Lives Book 10

If you want to know more about Epicurus himself, some of the details of his life and things he said, controversies about him and his works, and the listing of books attributed to him as an author, then you will definitely want to read through the entirety of book 10 of Diogenes Laertes’ Lives of the Philosophers.

There are a number of other reasons well worth reading that that relatively short book. One of these is what Diogenes preserved of the matters from the time of Epicurus’ demise, and there are two relevant texts contained in that book.

• Letter to Idomenaeus — this letter, composed as he was dying, is very short, discusses Epicurus’ condition, and gives a brief instruction

• Epicurus’ Will — this is an important document, since it sets out his intentions and instructions about the workings of the community he established in Athens, the Garden, after his death

Another very important portion of book 10 consists in what Diogenes calls “preliminary remarks” (proeiponta) about the divisions of philosophy. This is relatively short, but quite helpful for understanding a bit of the system of Epicurean philosophy.

Within book 10, we also find some discussion of his school, companions, and particularly his friend Metrodorus (who died before Epicurus) and the books he wrote.

Lucretius’ Poem — On The Nature Of Things

After reading through the few works we have by Epicurus himself, as well as what else we can learn about Epicurus and his school from book 10 of Diogenes Laertes’ Lives of the Philosophers, the next text one would go to in order to learn more — much more — about Epicureanism would traditionally be Lucretius’ lengthy philosophical poem, On The Nature of Things (De Rerum Natura).

Within the six “books” (the length of a scroll, so if you like, “chapters”) of this work, Lucretius unpacks in significant detail, and fairly systematically, a number of key ideas, doctrines, arguments, and criticisms drawn from the Epicurean school, possibly even rearranging material from Epicurus’ own lost texts.

Interestingly, the poem also — as non-Epicureans like Albert Camus would later remark upon — frames Epicurus himself as a savior-figure, liberating human beings through his doctrines from all sorts of unnecessary fears and foolish desires, from superstition and ignorance. From the Epicurean point of view, this was one main motivation for engaging in studies of natural phenomena, to wean ourselves away from wrongheaded ideas about matters like physical death and human mortality, the relationship between soul and body, causal determinism and free will, pleasures and pains, and the nature and motivations of the gods.

So, by working your way through On The Nature Of Things, you will considerably expand your understanding of what the Epicurean school actually thought and taught about a great number of matters. There are a number of translations and editions of Lucretius available, quite a few of which you can find for free online.

Cicero’s Presentations of Epicurean Positions

Marcus Tullius Cicero was not himself an Epicurean. In fact, he is a critic of that school, its founder, and its representatives on a number of counts, sometimes fairly and sometimes not. Still, Cicero enjoyed the opportunity of studying the works of Epicurus and his followers and engaging in conversations with proponents of that school.

Given the loss of the vast majority of Epicurean literature, we are fortunate to possess (most of) the works of Cicero. Among his many projects was bringing the wealth and resources of Greek philosophy into a Latin context by producing works that critically presented and compared the doctrines, arguments, practices, and perspectives of main figures and schools of philosophy. In quite a few of these works, this takes place through proponents and critics of those schools engaging in dialogue or making lengthy and systematic presentations.

His most useful works for better understanding Epicurean philosophy are:

• On The Ends (De Finibus)— book 1 is largely devoted to the presentation of Epicurean ethics, carried out by Lucius Manlius Torquatus. Among the topics explored there are Epicurean views on friendship and the nature and importance of the four cardinal virtues — wisdom, justice, courage, and temperance.

• On The Nature Of The Gods (De Natura Deorum) — book 1 of this work presents the Epicurean views on the divine and the universe, placed in the mouth of Gaius Velleius. It also provides criticisms of the Epicurean position, articulated by the skeptic Gaius Cotta.

• On Fate (De Fato) — this unfortunately incompletely preserved short work contains some discussion of the Epicurean position on causal determinism and freedom of choice. It is to be sure, rather short, and Cicero presents it mainly in order to criticize and reject it.

A Newer Source — Philodemus’ Recovered Texts

Philodemus of Gadera was a prolific Epicurean philosopher of the Roman era. His works were, like those of many other Epicureans, lost until the discovery of a set of charred papyrus rolls at Herculaneaum. Early attempts to unroll the scrolls unfortunately damaged portions of them. But newer methods have recovered works that were otherwise lost, and Philodemus’ texts are among them. The Philodemus Project has been leading the way.

The texts that are now available in translation include:

• On Anger

• On Death

• On Frank Criticism

• On Rhetoric, books 1–2

• On Poems, book 1 and books 3–4

• The Epigrams (you can also find an online copy here at the Attalus site)

There is also a translation of the fragmentary On Hellenistic Philosophers, discussing Stoics, Skeptics, and Epicureans, also found at the Attalus site.

Some of these are quite expensive, unfortunately, and not all that easy to find in libraries. Since all the Philodemus works we have are recently translated and published, none of them are in the public domain, like nearly all of other works mentioned so far. It’s a bit of a shame, because with Philodemus’ works we get an important interpreter of Epicurean philosophy who also knows and engages other schools as well.

Diogenes of Oinoanda

One of the unfortunately fragmentary texts — or rather set of texts — we possess are by a wealthy Epicurean named Diogenes, who purchased land in Oinoanda and had inscribed a number of Epicurean doctrines on the walls of a complex there. This can be termed, straightforwardly enough, the Oinoanda Inscription.

At present, the inscribed texts are in the form of fragments, which you can read here or in somewhat fuller form here. They include a section on Epicurean physics, a section on Epicurean ethics, a set of maxims, letters to Dionysos and to Antipater, and a discussion of old age.

Work is still ongoing, carried out by the German Archeological Institute (Deutsches Archäologisches Institut), so there are reasonable hopes that additional portions of the inscriptions will be recovered and translated as time goes on.

Seneca’s Letters and Other Works

You might be a bit surprised to see the late Stoic philosopher Seneca as a recommended source for learning about Epicureanism. After all, aren’t the Stoics diametric opposites to — even opponents of — Epicureans? That is quite true for certain Stoics, like Epictetus. It definitely is not the case for Seneca, whose interlocutor, Lucilius, is someone conversant with and attracted to Epicureanism.

Seneca cites Epicurus fairly often in his Letters to Lucilius (aka Moral Letters, Letters From A Stoic), to the point where by Letter 8 he provides a justification for that seemingly incongruous practice:

It is likely that you will ask me why I quote so many of Epicurus’s noble words instead of words taken from our own school. But is there any reason why you should regard them as sayings of Epicurus and not common property?

The New Epicurean website has a very helpful and organized listing of Seneca’s letters that cite or refer to Epicurus, arranged according to topic.

You’ll find occasional and short references to Epicurus in other works by Seneca, for example:

• On The Shortness of Life

• On Benefits

• On Leisure

• On The Happy Life

In that last work, you will find Seneca writing

I myself believe, though my Stoic comrades would be unwilling to hear me say so, that the teaching of Epicurus was upright and holy, and even, if you examine it narrowly, stern: for this much talked of pleasure is reduced to a very narrow compass, and he bids pleasure submit to the same law which we bid virtue do — I mean, to obey nature

Plutarch’s Polemics Against Epicureans

This middle Platonist, who most people know about because of his many morally-focused biographies (most of which are “parallel lives”) did write a lot of broadly philosophical works. Like Cicero, he is a mainly a critic of the Epicureans, and at points is arguably a more hostile interlocutor of them. Then again, Plutarch also goes after the Stoics, and in both cases, we can learn some things about the schools he criticizes from his presentations.

Sometimes, however, he offers us tantalizing tidbits about Epicurus, for example in his work The Symposiacs, where he recounts some interesting controversies touching on matters that Epicurus reputedly advocated, criticized or explained in his own lost work, The Symposium. These have to do with sexuality, food and drink, indulgence and temperance, and a number of other matters concerned with pleasures.

The works where Plutarch does quite clearly go after Epicurus and the Epicureans are:

• That Epicurus Actually Makes a Pleasant Life Impossible

• On the Contradictions of the Epicureans

• That the Epicureans Speak More Paradoxically than the Poets

• On Free Will in Reply to Epicurus

• Reply To Colotes

You can easily tell by the titles of most of these that the motivations for writing those works is to attack the Epicurean point of view. The last one responds to a now-lost work by the Epicurean philosopher Colotes, who had claimed that it was impossible for followers of other philosophical systems to live a pleasant life. In order to levy criticisms well, however, Plutarch also has to present the point of view he is criticizing, so it can be valuable (though if one is an Epicurean, perhaps also frustrating!) to read through these works.

Lactantius’ Critical Engagements With Epicureanism

We bring this set of reading recommendations to a close with the works of yet another critic of the Epicureans, Lactantius, an early Christian philosopher who had studied rhetoric and philosophy prior to his conversion. In his works, we see him engaging not only with the Epicureans, but also the Stoics, Platonists, Aristotelians, and Skeptics, among others. He presents their doctrines, of course, in order to highlight what he argues to be their shortcomings, but he does provide us at times with additional information about their views.

One of these in particular has taken on a literary and philosophical life of its own, Epicurus’ argument articulating what will later be interpreted as the “problem of evil”.

God, he says, either wishes to take away evils, and is unable; or He is able, and is unwilling; or He is neither willing nor able, or He is both willing and able. If He is willing and is unable, He is feeble, which is not in accordance with the character of God; if He is able and unwilling, He is envious, which is equally at variance with God; if He is neither willing nor able, He is both envious and feeble, and therefore not God; if He is both willing and able, which alone is suitable to God, from what source then are evils? Or why does He not remove them?

You will find that passage in chapter 13 of Lactantius’ relatively short treatise On The Anger Of God.

The other, much longer work, of Lactantius that can be helpful to read for its presentations of Epicurus and Epicurean positions is his Divine Institutes.

Where And Who Else?

You will find more references to Epicurus and his school in other ancient and early medieval writers, but I don’t include them in this already rather long set of recommendations, mainly because I don’t see them adding much useful to the overall picture of classical Epicurean philosophy that isn’t already included in the picture so far.

There are also a great number of interesting authors who take up Epicureanism and adapt it within the context of early modernity. For those interested in those reinterpretations, I plan to write a separate set of reading recommendations about them down the line.

For now, however, if you’re someone interested in Epicurean philosophy and just getting started, this should supply more than enough reading recommendations. If you’re someone who already has some background in Epicurus and Epicurean philosophy, perhaps you’ve now found a few other interesting sources you can use to expand your knowledge about this philosophical tradition.

As I’m writing this from Wyoming Stoic Camp, where I’m on deck tonight as one of the guest speakers, to lead a discussion bearing upon some of the Stoic attitudes, assumptions, and arguments bearing on the emotion of grief, I realized that it might make some sense for my next reading recommendation to feature some of the material I’ll be referencing.

There are two letters by Seneca that will feature heavily in my presentation. I’ll also be referencing a bit of Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations, parts of Epictetus’ Enchiridion and Discourses, and some passages from Arius Didymus’ Epitome of Stoic Ethics. But Letters 63 and 99 will be the pieces that really clinch what I aim to have the participants engage with.

Both of these, like all of the letters in the collection, are addressed to his younger friend Lucilius. These two are occasioned by the type of crisis that every one of us inevitably faces, the loss of a loved one through death, and Seneca not only provides valuable advice to readers about how to deal with one’s own grief when experiencing such a loss. He both articulates in depth the Stoic position on grief as an emotion and grieving as comportment. And he also provides us with what I’ll call a well-reasoned and realistic reinterpretation of that sometimes too rigid and austere Stoic position.

The explicit occasion and application for Letter 63 is the death of a friend. The advice that Seneca provides there can also be applied to family members, romantic partners, or even (as I have done myself in the past) close animal companions. Lucilius has lost his friend Flaccus, so the wound is still quite fresh. Seneca also interestingly brings up his own earlier experience of a similar loss of a close friend, Annaeus Serenus, and openly admits that back then he fell short of the counsel he provides Lucilius in the present.

Letter 99 is a bit different. He tells Lucilius that he is including a previously written letter, addressed to someone else, Marullus, who is arguably in a tougher situation of loss than Lucilius was. Marullus had lost a child, his “little son”. The rest of Letter 99 is in fact that letter.

I won’t enumerate all of the interesting points that Seneca makes in these two letters, not least since I’m planning on doing some additional writing in the near future about this topic of Stoics’ attitudes towards and advice about grief. I’ll just close by pointing out two things that really stand out to me in Seneca’s letters concerning that emotion that might prove interesting enough to get you to read them yourself.

The first is that he doesn’t try to talk either of his correspondents out of feeling or displaying any grief over their losses at all. Seneca acknowledges that, with the exception of the legendary, perhaps never-existing, ideal sage or “wise person”, if you have a close relationship with a person who dies, you’re going to experience grief. And it is appropriate to express that grief, within certain reasonable limits. In fact, in Letter 99, he suggests that not expressing any grief would be wrong.

The second feature of these two letters, is a set of teachings bearing on memory practices (which I myself regularly engage in) that help us maintain some sort of connection with our beloved dead, one that has the potential to move beyond being bittersweet to offering occasions of joy and opportunities to continue loving.

There are many places online where you can find Seneca’s Letters. Generally, you will find them all using the same translation, an older public-domain one by Richard Gummere. Here’s one of them:

• Seneca, Moral letters to Lucilius (Wikisource)

If you’d like to read them in the original Latin, there’s also this:

• Seneca, Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales (Perseus)

If you want to purchase a copy, there’s a more recent translation by Margaret Graver and Anthony Long

• Seneca, Letters on Ethics: To Lucilius (University of Chicago)

If you have previously read these two letters, or if you come back to this recommendation post after having read them, feel free to leave a comment with your own take on them!

One text I frequently introduce my academic students to in Introduction to Philosophy classes is Plato’s Apology, which narrates the “defense speech” (if you want to call it that) of Socrates. There isn’t one single text, in my view, that one must or ought to start the study of philosophy by reading. Instead, there ware many ways one can make their way into the vast edifice that is philosophy as a literature, discipline, and activity.

That said, the Apology is a short work that, in my own practice, I have come to prefer to use as a sort of initiation or ice-breaker with my students, for a variety of reasons, which I’ll set out for you shortly.

I should mention that nearly all of my academic students are not philosophy majors. They may end up choosing to continue studying philosophy past the courses they take with me, but they generally come in with little to know background in the field. They are definitely interested in studying something else, the discipline they have selected as their major. It is up to me to make the case to them that philosophy has some relevance to their own life, that it can help them frame problems and issues in their lives, their careers, their relationships.

Plato’s Apology helps me do that, right from the start.

What Happens In The Apology

The term apologia in Classic Greek means “defense speech”, which is what Socrates was expected to make on his own account, to answer the charges brought against him: impiety and corruption of the young people of Athens. He does provide a defense of sorts, but it is an unconventional one, and at points seems intended to rankle and provoke at least some of the citizens of Athens comprising his jury.

It is listed as one of Plato’s “dialogues,” but there isn’t all that much of it that is dialogue in its format, other than Socrates’ cross-examination of one of his accusers, Meletus. The rest of it is, formally speaking, an address to an audience, a monologue. It does, however incorporate dialogue within that steady stream of speech, by telling stories, making arguments, considering alternative points of view.

You can divide the dialogue into three main parts, along the lines of the procedure at the trial

• Socrates is given the opportunity to provide a defense against the charges. He uses it to explain the difference between younger and older accusers, to tell the story of why he took up philosophy as a divine mission, and to explain why he is neither impious nor a corrupter of the young.

• Socrates, having been found guilty of the charges by the jury, is now permitted to suggest an alternative penalty to the execution. At first, he suggests meals for the rest of his life at the public expense as a suitable recompense, and then changes it to a fine that would be paid by his friends.

• The jury having imposed the death penalty, Socrates tells them that they have made a significant mistake that will cause them further problems after his death. He then explains to his friends why he thinks that death will not be the evil they take it to be

The first portion of the work is much longer than the other two. The entire dialogue is short enough to read it attentively in the space of an afternoon. It is quite rich in well-developed ideas that are worth thinking over and, if the opportunity offers, discussing with others.

Ideas, Arguments, And Paradoxes

What my students hopefully come away with in reading this particular text is what self-directed learners will also glean from it. Socrates offers us an explanation of his way of life, and why it garnered hatred and misunderstanding from some of his fellow citizens. Philosophy is a quest for wisdom, and Socrates ends up being placed in quest of it after a friend of his consults the Oracle at Delphi, asking whether anyone is wiser than Socrates, and receiving a negative answer.

This sets Socrates on a path of seeking out the wisdom that certain prominent types of people in Athens seem at first to possess. He questions them, the politicians, the poets and rhetors, the craftspeople and professionals, and discovers that, with the exception of the craftspeople who do possess knowledge of their craft, none of them actually do possess the knowledge or wisdom they purport to. And these people, who become Socrates’ “older accusers”, are not thrilled to have this lack be revealed!

Backing up just a bit in the narrative, another key aspect of it that is easy to pass over, but which certainly is worth thinking about, is one of the charges that will get made against Socrates, namely that of impiety. He will demolish Meletus in the later cross-examination, but it is worth considering the rather strange way that Socrates claims that he is following the order of the god, namely Apollo.

The oracle has declared that there is nobody wiser than Socrates. So, what does Socrates do with this information? He wonders what the god could possibly mean, and he goes around essentially trying to prove that the god has this wrong, seeing if he can indeed find someone wiser than him. Is this piety towards Apollo?

Another key idea that comes to the fore in Plato’s Apology is that Socrates is not just following out (in his own quirky way) a divine imperative. Nor is he just urging his fellow citizens to shift their attention from things that matter less - their bodies, wealth, and reputation - towards what really matters - their souls. These alone would be valuable. But he frames his philosophical activity as something that has wider, political implications as well. By doing philosophy, he serves the city of Athens.

I’ll mention just one last matter that is worth reading this dialogue for. After Socrates is condemned to death, he consoles his friends by explaining to them why he doesn’t think death is a bad thing, providing two speculative arguments or accounts. The second of them has him going down to Hades, where he can question the famous dead people of history and legend to see whether they really measure up or not. And down there, nobody can shut him up by executing him, since he’ll already be dead!

Several Matters To Keep In Mind

This dialogue doesn’t conclusively resolve most of the matters it discusses or references. Instead it provides launching points for further reflection, whether with others in a class, or as a reader engaging the text on one’s own.

One common feature to Plato’s dialogues more generally is that he often has the characters make arguments that contain flaws, rest on questionable assumptions, or which overlook important possible objections. This doesn’t just occur with characters other than Socrates. Plato will sometimes have Socrates himself make weak arguments, and one way to interpret this is thinking that Plato intends us readers to step into the dialogue and think matters through more fully.

There is additional work required of us to adapt the ideas, arguments, and distinctions of the dialogue to our own contemporary setting. When it comes to the three main classes of Socrates’ older accusers, I have my students think about who they would be in our own present times. Craftspeople are easy enough to identify, though we have many more kinds of them in our complex late modern society. Are politicians just those who we identify by that term today? Or would they include executives and managers in business settings and corporations, or administrators in academic institutions? And who would the contemporary equivalents of ancient poets and rhetors be?

To close, I’ll mention just one other interesting facet of this short Platonic work that might entice you to read (or reread) it. When it comes to western philosophy, Socrates is a massively important and influential early figure, and it is not just about what he thought and taught, but the kind of life he lived, the priorities he chose and committed to, the impact he had on other people. You can call him something analogous to a “hero”. And in the Apology, you not only get to see him near the end of a long life, but also a bit of his “origin story as well”.

You can find translations of Plato’s Apology online in a number of places, including:

• Jowett translation (Internet Classics Archive)

• Jowett translation (Wikitexts)

• Jowett translation (Internet Archive)

• Jowett translation (Project Gutenberg)

• Fowler translation (Perseus)

If you would like to purchase an anthology of Plato's writings, that's also something you might find worthwhile. There are four in particular that you might look at getting

• The Last Days of Socrates: Euthyphro; Apology; Crito; Phaedo (Penguin Classics) - Tarrant translation

• Five Dialogues: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo (Hackett) - Grube translation

• Plato: Complete Works (Hackett) - Cooper and Hutchinson editors, multiple translators

• The Collected Dialogues of Plato: Including the Letters (Princeton University Press)- Hamilton and Cairns editors, multiple translators

And, if you would like access to the original Greek text, the Perseus website is the place to go and easily read it. You can click on the words in their texts and be taken to Greek-English lexicon entries for them

• Plato’s Apology

If you have previously read the Apology, or if you come back to this recommendation post after having read it, feel free to leave a comment with your own take on the dialogue!

I should mention that you’ll find a number of video and podcast resources on this text in my main YouTube channel and in the Sadler’s Lectures podcast.

Over the last few months, I have been rereading a short, clever, and interesting work by Arthur Schopenhauer, a fairly systematic essay titled “The Wisdom of Life”. A tutorial client of mine, who for a variety of reasons I particularly enjoy meeting with, asked me if we could work our way through the text together.

The essay was originally published as one of the chapters in volume 1 of Schopenhauer’s late work Parerga and Paralipomena. I first read that work back in college, and more recently about a decade back when as a visiting scholar at the European Graduate School, I had the opportunity to take a course on Schopenhauer with Wolfgang Schirmacher. Reading just this particular essay again in the present, to discuss it with my client, a number of features of the work stood out to me more.

If you have some background knowledge about Arthur Schopenhauer, or you’ve spent time with his other works, particularly his The World As Will And Representation, you will likely - and correctly - associate Schopenhauer with a thoroughgoing and systematically worked through philosophical pessimism. So you might be surprised at my suggesting “The Wisdom Of Life” to you. After all, I’m much more about virtue ethics, philosophy as a way of life, and the pursuit of human happiness, aren’t I?

Well, this particular essay starts out in a very interesting manner:

In these pages I shall speak of “The Wisdom of Life” in the common meaning of the term, as the art, namely, of ordering our lives so as to obtain the greatest possible amount of pleasure and success; an art the theory of which may be called “Eudaemonology”, for it teaches us how to lead a happy existence. . . .

Now whether human life corresponds, or could possibly correspond, to this conception of existence, is a question to which, as is well-known, my philosophical system returns a negative answer. . . . Accordingly, in elaborating the scheme of a happy existence, I have had to make a complete surrender of the higher metaphysical and ethical standpoint to which my own theories lead; and everything I shall say here will to some extent rest upon a compromise; in so far, that is, as I take the common standpoint of everyday, and embrace the error which is at the bottom of it.

Schopenhauer doesn’t think that what he is calling an eudaemonology, or doctrine of happiness, is genuinely possible. And yet, he is willing to set out what, if it were possible, it would have to teach us. He does a pretty thorough job in seeing this project through. So that’s one interesting feature of the work: the author doesn’t believe in the project, but he strives to do a great job in working in out!

A second interesting feature to me - and doubtless to you, if you share some of my philosophical interests and values - is that Schopenhauer is effectively engaging in that broad approach we nowadays call “philosophy as a way of life”. He is setting out considerations, observations, arguments about how we can apply our rational minds and our capacity of will to improve our own lives particularly by making better-informed and thoughtful decisions, prioritizations, and commitments.

When you read through the text, you will see him engaging with many other thinkers who have approached these problems and questions. Quite a few of them are philosophers, including Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Cicero, Seneca, Epictetus, Clement of Alexandria, just to name a few of the ancients. He ranges widely in the sources of wisdom he draws upon and incorporates into the work. Like other great authors before him he both makes his own attempt at making some new contribution beyond what previous thinkers offered, but also at incorporating what useful ideas and advice they provided.

A third particularly interesting feature to me is the lines along which Schopenhauer organizes the work. He starts out by invoking a distinction between three kinds of goods that is a commonplaces of ancient ethical philosophy: goods of the soul, goods of the body, and external goods. Schopenhauer adopts a different breakdown:

Keeping nothing of this division but the number, I observe that the fundamental differences in human lot may be reduced to three distinct classes:

(1) What a man is: that is to say, personality, in the widest sense of the word; under which are included health, strength, beauty, temperament, moral character, intelligence, and education.

(2) What a man has: that is, property and possessions of every kind.

(3) How a man stands in the estimation of others: by which is to be understood, as everybody knows, what a man is in the eyes of his fellowmen, or, more strictly, the light in which they regard him. This is shown by their opinion of him; and their opinion is in its turn manifested by the honor in which he is held, and by his rank and reputation.

You notice that he effectively rolls together goods of the soul (or mind) and the body. And indeed, one fourth interesting feature of this work is the importance Schopenhauer places upon physical health as integral to human happiness. He also breaks down external goods into two main domains, that of property and possessions, and, you might say, all the other stuff, which will effectively encompass our social status, and what we think or assume others think of us.

Why does he separate wealth from honor and reputation, since they are both goods external to our minds and bodies? Schopenhauer argues that while the personality is where the real importance resides for a happy life, we do need to give some attention and space to wealth, in ways that we don’t need to for honor and reputation.

You’ll find the work, interestingly, divided into three main discussions along the lines of these divisions, but the third, and significantly longer division is further subdivided into five parts: Reputation, Pride, Rank, Honor, Fame

Schopenhauer, in my view, is a great stylist, and both enjoyable to read and provocative of thought on the matters he grapples with. That is true for his works in the original German, but I would say that this is also the case for the English translation by Saunders. Some of the examples, of course, may be a bit less relatable for a contemporary audience, and occasionally Schopenhauer’s consistent misogyny will break through, but I expect that most readers will find his thoughts on the matters discussed well-articulated and worth mulling over.

I’ll say this - which gives you a glimpse into some of the temptations I struggle with - rereading and discussing this work with my client produced a desire on my part to take this little text and produce an entire set of core concept videos delving into each of the main ideas and arguments. Since I allowed myself a similar indulgence last month with two works by Plutarch, which delayed producing core concept videos promised on other texts and authors, I’m holding myself back from that reluctantly for now!

But there’s no reason for you to deprive yourself of the opportunity to enjoy and perhaps benefit from Schopenhauer’s witty and systematic reflections on what a genuinely happy life would require, as well as traps, misconceptions, and errors we need to avoid. Because the original text and the English translation have long been in the public domain, you can easily access it in multiple places and formats online. I’ll just mention two of them for the time being (since as I write this, some of the other sites I’d normally link to appear down:

• Wikisource: The Wisdom Of Life

• Project Gutenberg: The Wisdom Of Life

If you have previously read The Wisdom Of Life, or if you come back to this recommendation post after having read it, feel free to leave a comment with your own take on the essay!

(originally published in Practical Rationality)

Many newcomers to Stoic philosophy ask me for recommendations about what books they ought to read. Sometimes they’ve already paged through one classic Stoic text —usually Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations or Epictetus’ Enchiridion — and they want to know what else they should check out.

Much more often, they’ve encountered Stoicism in some other manner, through some present-day writer, podcaster, or speaker referencing portions or passages of that ancient philosophy. They’re looking for some idea about how to study Stoicism in a fairly systematic and progressive manner.

That’s precisely what I’ve written this post to help people with. I also get to help myself out with this one as well, since I can use it as a standard response going forward when people ask me for recommendations.

Three Short Stoic Works To Start With

Often people want to know which single book they should start with. And there isn’t any one-size-fits-all answer to that. I tend to think anyone who says there is one single book to start with either isn’t far enough along in their studies to be a good guide, or they’re so irrationally committed to that one book (maybe as one that “changed their life”) that they’re a decidedly non-Stoic cheerleader for it. Anyone who really wants to learn about what Stoicism has to offer them will also want to open themselves up to the possibility of learning from multiple, complementary sources.

It is also common for many readers to want shorter works recommended to them. And that makes good sense. Time is a resource always in short supply, and so shorter works that do not require as much time for an initial reading are attractive. Some people also think a more bare-bones presentation will get straight to the heart of the matter and give them the essence of the philosophy.

The three first shorter works I’ve settled upon as recommendations each give the reader some accurate idea of what Stoicism teaches, focuses on, and has to offer. None of them should be taken as THE definitive statement of Stoicism — that is a mistake some beginners do fall into — but they do provide some of the key and core starting points. These works are:

• Cicero’s Stoic Paradoxes

• Seneca’s On The Happy Life

• Epictetus’ Enchiridion

Why those three in particular, one might ask? Isn’t Cicero an author who isn’t actually a Stoic? And why isn’t Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations in that list? Good questions. Let’s answer them in reverse order.

I do recommend Marcus’ Meditations, just not in this initial three (we’ll get to him in the very next section). It is a shorter Stoic work by comparison to some others, but it is longer than all three of these put together.

Cicero is indeed not a Stoic, and identifies specifically with a moderate sort of skepticism associated with the (formerly Platonic) Academy of his era. And yet, in another work recommended below, he tells us that if he were not a skeptic, he would be a Stoic.

Now, why these three works in particular? They’re all short enough to read through and think about in the space of an afternoon. They are all incredibly rich, rewarding rereadings you’ll want to give them (works of Stoic philosophy — like any classic works — are not a “one and done”). They all yield to the attentive reader some absolutely central Stoic doctrines. And because of that they are all likely to prove challenging and provocative — Stoicism is counter-cultural and to many counter-intuitive.

The very title of Cicero’s Stoic Paradoxes signals that. The Stoics were well-known for making claims, arguments, and suggestions for living that many people found implausible, incredible, or frankly unbelievable. Those are paradoxa — what go against the doxai, the common beliefs of the times and culture. This little work doesn’t cover all of these paradoxes, but it will introduce you to six of them, and Cicero provides some needed explanation of what the paradoxes mean, and the lines of reasoning that Stoics used to support them.

Seneca’s work, On The Happy Life is also short, but packed with key classic Stoic teachings. In it, you’ll find him covering some of the same ground as the Stoic Paradoxes, but going beyond it as well. The central topic is revealed by the title itself — the nature of human happiness, and what we need to do (and how we need to think) in order to attain it. Since Stoicism is a complex, interconnected system, Seneca understandably also references and unpacks a number of other central ideas.

I should mention here that Seneca has several other short works that you could substitute in place of On The Happy Life, because they do a lot of the same work for the beginning reader, introducing you to key Stoic ideas and terms, focusing in on a key problem for human beings, and charting out a path towards a better life. On Tranquility of Mind, On The Shortness of Life, and On The Constancy of the Wise would each fit the bill well. I just happen to like starting people off with the focus on happiness.

Then we have Epictetus’ Enchiridion or “Handbook”. While it is reflective of Epictetus’ teachings, the Enchiridion wasn’t actually written by Epictetus himself, but rather by his student Arrian. It is composed of passages drawn from the much longer Discourses (some portions of which have been lost). Think of it as Arrian’s attempt to provide us with what he thought to be the most essential teachings of Epictetus’ Stoic philosophy in the form of a little book you could keep with you and consult whenever you need to.

So those are the three short works I’d advise starting out with: Cicero’s Stoic Paradoxes, Seneca’s On The Happy Life, and Epictetus’ Enchiridion. You can read them in any order you’d like, of course.

If you’d like a bit of help as you read through them, I do have videos on each of these in my big Stoic Philosophy playlist.

A Few Words About Common Worries And About Rereading

There is one very common worry that beginner readers and students often have. Even though I’ve encountered it hundreds of times at this point. I’m happy to hear or read it expressed, because it’s easily answered when it is brought out into the light. When it just sits there in the dark, unexpressed, it often leads to inaction on the part of would-be readers. So before going on to more recommendations I’d like to address this issue.

Here’s the worry: “What edition or translation should I get and read?”

This is often framed as: “What’s the best edition or translation?” The only real honest answer is that there simply isn’t a best one for these works. It depends very much on what you, the reader, are looking for. For most of these works, there are multiple translations available, and they read differently from each other. I know which ones I prefer, but that doesn’t mean for an instant that those are automatically the “best” or “right” ones for you.

You’ll find nearly all of the works I’m recommending here available online in one place or another, if you put in the time and effort to look for them. The translations on those sites will likely use older language and terminology, because they are public domain texts, no longer in copyright. You can also buy — or check out from libraries — more recent translations. Which one you get is up to you, and you have to determine what works well for you as a reader.

The Big Three: Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius

The Stoic authors we still have full writings from are all what get called “Late” or “Roman Stoics”. Although we do know a good bit about the many Early and Middle Stoics, and we do possess fragments of their works, we don’t have any of their full writings. Fortunately, we do have books by Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, and there is a lot that can be learned from them.

If I had to pick which three books you should engage with next, this is a really straightforward selection. You want to go deeper and broader into classical Stoic philosophy, right? You’ve read those first three short works, and you’re ready for something more challenging. . . but not too difficult? You’re ready now to read the big three authors and their most central books:

• Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations

• Seneca’s Letters

• Epictetus’ Discourses

I did say we’d get to Marcus’ Meditations, didn’t I? If you like, you can start this next stage of your progress in learning about Stoicism by jumping right in there. It’s a very popular text among modern-day students or advocates of Stoicism. You should be forewarned, though, that if you’re looking for any kind of systematic exposition of Stoic philosophy, this isn’t it. Marcus isn’t actually writing to you, the reader, but to himself, over time. So he does shift from topic to topic quite a bit from one book, or even one chapter, to another. Marcus does have some excellent and profound things to say in this work, but I would say that the Meditations is the lesser of these three books.

You’ll find Seneca’s Letters called by all sorts of titles. Moral Epistles, Letters to Lucilius, Moral Letters, among others. They’re all the same text, and it’s one that you will definitely want to spend a lot of time with. Seneca is writing to his Epicurean-leaning friend Lucilius, ranging over a slew of topics, telling us all sorts of important and useful things not only about Stoicism but about other philosophical schools as well.

Epictetus’ Discourses is an absolutely central text for Stoic philosophy and practice. The key themes and teachings you find sketched in summary form in the Enchiridion get much more fully worked out in the longer text. For example the distinction between what is up to us and what is not up to us, often called the “dichotomy of control” set out in Enchiridion 1 gets a lot more needed discussion throughout the Discourses.

If you put the first three short works mentioned earlier together with these three, you’ll find yourself having covered a lot of important ground. These three, of course, also require not just reading once, but rereading multiple times. That’s going to keep you busy for a good long while!

Works of Additional Stoic Philosophers

Aside from the “Big Three,” we do still possess some remaining portions of other Stoic philosophers. Some of what we have are just sets of “fragments,” and these are derived from other writers who cite those Stoic authors. You can find these in the Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta, a multi-volume work compiled by Hans von Arnim, some bits of which have been translated.

We do have some significant portions of a few Stoic philosophers’ works. These include:

• Musonius Rufus, Lectures and Sayings

• Hierocles, Elements of Ethics, Fragments, and Excerpts

Musonius Rufus was Epictetus’ teacher in Rome, and we do have a number of his Lectures. These are quite interesting and important, adding some additional insights to the stock derived from the earlier mentioned books.

The same can be said about what we have of Hierocles, which includes the Elements of Ethics, as well as portions and fragments of his On Duties. If you’ve heard of the notion of widening concentric circles of affection, and perhaps the term oikeiosis along with it, that’s coming to us from Hierocles’ work.

Adding these two authors, we widen the scope of our study of Stoicism, taking in further viewpoints, getting a more solid conception of what it was that the Stoics taught and thought.

Summaries of Stoic Doctrine

Sometime along the way, if your goal is to understand the fuller context of Stoicism more adequately, you will want to get your hands on the two main summaries of Stoic doctrine, which tell us about key teachings of the various members of the Stoic School.

Cicero’s works — which we’ll talk about shortly — also give us a lot of invaluable summaries of Stoic positions, distinctions, claims, and arguments. But there are two other places we can turn to learn more about Stoicism in a more or less systematic manner. These are:

• Diogenes Laertes, The Lives of the Philosophers, book 7

• Arius Didymus, Epitome of Stoic Ethics

Diogenes Laertes work provides us with anecdotes, sayings, book titles, and summaries of a great many philosophers and schools. In fact, when it comes to a rival school and its founder, Epicurus and the Epicureans, Diogenes Laertes proves to be an absolutely invaluable source in book 10. He’s also quite helpful when it comes to the Stoics, who he discusses in book 7, discussing the key figures from Zeno the founder up to Chrysippus, the third scholarch of the Porch. In the Life of Zeno, he tells us: “I have decided to give a general account of all the Stoic doctrines,” and that, more or less, is what he does.

Arius Didymus actually wrote summaries of several different schools, but the one we’re most interested in is his Epitome of Stoic Ethics, where he covers a lot of the same ground as Diogenes Laertes does, but sometimes differs from him in significant ways, or provides us additional information about the positions the Stoic school holds.

Adding in these two summary works to your study will help provide additional context to the Stoic works and authors you have read up to this point.

Cicero’s Works Relevant To Stoicism

As noted earlier, Cicero himself is not a Stoic, but he does hold them in high respect, and on many matters he is in agreement with them. The Stoics play a central role in quite a few of his dialogues, in some of which Cicero will have a character present the Stoic position, and then either he or another character will then criticize the Stoic views and arguments. In addition to the Stoic Paradoxes mentioned at the start, here are some other works by Cicero you will find very helpful to read.

• On Duties

• On The Ends

• Tusculan Disputations

• On Fate

• On Divination

• On The Nature of the Gods

• Academics

He does have other works where Stoic authors or doctrines get mentioned, but this is already a long enough list, I expect!

On Duties, On The Ends, and Tusculan Disputations are all works dealing with a host of ethical matters, including duties or appropriate actions (officia), the virtues and the vices, the emotions, indifferents, human nature, and our roles. The whole of On Duties reflects Stoic teachings, some taken from the Middle Stoic Panaetius. Book 3 of On The Ends has Cato presenting the Stoic ethics, and then book 4 has Cicero criticizing it.

On Fate and On Divination bring in considerations of volitional freedom and causal determinism. In the second work, Cicero first presents the Stoic position and arguments for divination — which requires that there be a causal determinism which the gods could foresee — and then proceeds to criticize the the Stoic doctrine.

On The Nature of the Gods is a very interesting work in its own right, presenting and criticizing Epicurean, Stoic, and Skeptic viewpoints. Book 2 of that work is one of the most important presentations of what we can take to be the orthodox Stoic conception of God and the gods, the universe and its connection with the divine, human beings’ place in it, and a number of arguments for the existence of God.

Then there is the Academics. This is a work in which Cicero much more strongly takes the side of the skeptical Academy, and it is focused on questions concerning knowledge and its possibility. In the process, though, he does tell us a good bit about the Stoic epistemology (which they would place within what they called “Logic”).

You’ll find as you add in Cicero to the works you’ve read so far, that as with the summaries of Stoic doctrine, he fills in a lot of otherwise blank spaces within the map, if you like, or the jigsaw puzzle, to use another metaphor, representing the complex development of the Stoic school.

Where and Who Else?

All things must come to an end, and this advice-giving piece is already stretching out quite long! There are other authors and works you might well read, after you’ve gone through these. Seneca’s other works, for instance — perhaps I’ll write another followup specifically about them. There are also other ancient authors that do something similar to Cicero, but are a bit less receptive to the Stoics, like Plutarch or Galen — and you can get a good bit out of reading through their relevant writings.

For now, though, let’s say that you now have enough on your proverbial plate. It’s going to take you a good amount of time to work your way through these dishes, let alone to digest them! So I’ll end this here, hoping that this proves helpful for you.

Gregory Sadler is the president of ReasonIO, a speaker, writer, and producer of popular YouTube videos on philosophy. He is co-host of the radio show Wisdom for Life, and producer of the Sadler’s Lectures podcast. You can request short personalized videos at his Cameo page. If you’d like to take online classes with him, check out the Study With Sadler Academy.

St. Martin’s Press recently sent me a copy of a recently published book, titled The Essential Stoic: The Most Influential Writings From The Masters Of Stoicism. I almost said “new” book, but the only new part of it is the roughly 1 2/3 page foreward by Mark Tuitert. The book lists for US$20.00, and I’d like to save you that money by saying: simply skip this one.

If you’d like to hear the full set of reasons I recommend against purchasing this book, I produced and released a Sadler’s Honest Book Review video, which you can watch.

I’ll summarize a few of those reasons shortly. Before that, I’d like to share a few comments viewers have left that reinforce the main point I’m making: this book is not worth buying

“Thank you for the heads up, Dr. Sadler. Going from just the title I might have been tempted to buy this book.” - W. John Mauel

“This is an extremely well-timed video. This book appeared recently in my Amazon recommendations and I was hoping it was something more than yet another poorly chosen compilation of some original texts. . . . [Y]ou've saved me some money today!” - Cen Blackwell

“[T]hank you for sharing Tuitert's foreword to us. It was nice, but I'm not sure if it's worth the 20 dollars on amazon since the rest of the book is not.” - Koopsta Klicca

This book is poorly titled. It is not “essential” for studying Stoicism. Arguably two of the texts it includes (though only in selection, leaving a lot of important material out) could be viewed as “essential reading”. Those would be Seneca’s Letters and Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. But, instead of including Epictetus’ Enchiridion or at least some bits of his longer (and much more important) Discourses, whoever put this book together chose the mishmosh of Epictetus passages that got called the Golden Sayings when Hastings Crossley put them together in 1903.

Every bit of this book, except the less than two pages written by Mark Tuitert and the inaccurate summary blurb on the back, is lifted entirely from old public domain texts freely available on the internet. In fact, I suspect they might have been just lifted word for word right out of the free Project Gutenberg online texts (with the exception of the Gummere translation of Seneca, which might have been taken from Wikisource).

St. Martin’s Press bundled together several free public domain (and a bit out of date) translations of Stoic texts (and a bit of mediocre commentary about Marcus), made a weird selection of what to leave in, then tacked on a cover, came up with a title, and added a short little lifestory and recommendation by a former speed skater who says he found Stoicism helpful.

And they put it out there as “the most influential writings from the masters of Stoicism”. I think any of those Stoic authors would wonder why they chose to lie to the public. The Golden Sayings wasn’t even around 130 years ago, so how anyone who knows anything about Stoicism would claim it as “essential” is beyond me.

They want $20.00 for texts you can find in their entirety for free on multiple sites with a quick Google search. There is of course, Mark Tuitert’s contribution, and that’s not worth acquiring the book to read. In fact, if you want to know what’s in it, I read it aloud in the video. This is a big publisher trying to capitalize on the contemporary interest in Stoicism, and doing business in ways any Stoic philosopher would criticize and condemn.

I’m struggling for a good name for the kind of review I’m providing here, and perhaps some of you can help me out. What is the exact opposite of a recommendation? Because that’s what I’m giving you here! I don’t want anyone to get misled by the title and feel themselves (rightly) ripped off after they buy this book.