Video and Podcast Resources On Seneca's Letters
eighteen lectures on key explorations and expositions of Stoic philosophy
Seneca is by far one of the most prolific Stoic authors whose works we possess, and the longest of his works is the collection of letters that goes under a number of different titles, including Letters To Lucilius, Moral Letters, Letters On Ethics, and Letters From A Stoic. Whatever name a particular translator appends to them, they’re all the same, 124 letters on a variety of topics from a broadly Stoic perspective. Many of them do center on either general or particular matters of ethics, but they also range over metaphysics, history of previous philosophy, epistemology, and other areas.
I teach some of these letters as texts to my Introduction To Philosophy students, so I produced core concept videos covering them, and then afterwards converted them to Sadler’s Lectures podcast episodes. Later on down the line, I decided to come back to Seneca’s letters, and then produced more video and podcast lectures on them.
There are eighteen in the set so far, and before too long I imagine that I’ll revisit more of Seneca’s letters and give them the video and podcast treatment. For now, however, this will have to be the full set of lectures. Once I’ve produced more of them, I’ll add them here to this resource page.
Here is the set:
Letter 7 - Why We Should Distrust Crowds | watch video | listen to podcast
Letter 9 - Self-Sufficiency And Friendship | watch video | listen to podcast
Letter 23 - Feeling Joy In Right Things | watch video | listen to podcast
Letter 30 - Attitudes Towards Death | watch video | listen to podcast
Letter 33 - Stoicism, System, And Maxims | watch video | listen to podcast
Letter 47 - Treatment Of Slaves | watch video | listen to podcast
Letter 58 - Types Of Being | watch video | listen to podcast
Letter 59 - Pleasure, Joy, And Wisdom | watch video | listen to podcast
Letter 63 - Grief For Lost Friends | watch video | listen to podcast
Letter 65 - Platonic, Aristotelian, And Stoic Causes | watch video | listen to podcast
Letter 66 - Virtue And Kinds Of Goods | watch video | listen to podcast
Letter 70 - Ethics Of Choosing Death | watch video | listen to podcast
Letter 71 - The Supreme Good | watch video | listen to podcast
Letter 74 - Virtue And Goods | watch video | listen to podcast
Letter 87 - The Simple Life | watch video | listen to podcast
Letter 89 - Divisions Of Philosophy | watch video | listen to podcast
Letter 113 - Virtue, Life, And Unity Of The Mind | watch video | listen to podcast
Letter 120 - Clarifying The Virtues | watch video | listen to podcast
There you have them. Eighteen lectures on some of the most important and representative of these letters by Seneca. I hope you find them interesting and useful!