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A New Stoicism(book review)
What would Stoic ethics look like if it had undergone uninterrupted and systemic development from its foundation in antiquity to the present day? This is the question answered by the American philosopher and Stoic Lawrence C. Becker in his book A New Stoicism, first published in 1998 and revised in 2017 (the edition used for the review).
Lawrence Becker’s study is divided into two main parts. The first part gives an overview of Stoicism: its origins, its historical development, and the functioning of its philosophical system. The second part proposes to update Stoicism by retaining certain basic principles and abandoning certain metaphysical postulates in order to follow the facts. Almost all the chapters are followed by a detailed commentary on the references and arguments stated.
The aim of the book is not to propose an exhaustive ethical theory or to be a practical guide, but rather “an investigation of neglected possibilities, written by a stoic who is merely trying to show a skeptical audience that his ethical theory is philosophically viable” (p.7). One of the originalities of the study is that the author claims to be fully Stoic and therefore intends to advance the doctrine, as a theorist but also as a practitioner of Stoicism.
