German Stoicisms - by Kurt Lampe & Andrew Benjamin (Paperback)

About the Book

"Addressing the need for a synoptic study of the diverse reception that Stoicism has received in German philosophy, this volume assesses how modern German philosophers have incorporated ancient resources in the context of their philosophy. Chapters in this volume are devoted to philosophical giants such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Walter Benjamin, Hannah Arendt, and Peter Sloterdijk; amongst the Stoics, focus is on texts by Seneca and Epictetus, as well as others neglected by non-specialists. This book brings ancient texts into new dialogues with up-to-date scholarship, facilitating increased understanding, critical evaluation, and creative innovation within the continental response to Stoicism."--

Book Synopsis

Stoicism has had a diverse reception in German philosophy. This is the first interpretive study of shared themes and dialogues between late nineteenth-century and twentieth-century experts on classical antiquity and philosophers. Assessing how modern philosophers have incorporated ancient resources with the context of German philosophy, chapters in this volume are devoted to philosophical giants such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Wilhelm Dilthey, Walter Benjamin, Martin Heidegger, Hannah Arendt, Hans Jonas, Hans Blumenberg, and Peter Sloterdijk. Among the ancient Stoics, the focus is on Seneca, Epictetus, and doxography, but reference will also be made to texts that have so far been neglected by non-specialists.

Often references to Stoic texts are playful, making it hard for non-specialists to reconstruct their understanding of the sources; by illuminating and enhancing the philosophical significance of these receptions, this book argues that they can change our understanding of Greek and Roman Stoic doctrines and authors, twentieth-century continental philosophy, and the themes which coordinate their ongoing dialogues. Some of these themes are surprising for Stoicism, such as the poetics of tragic drama and the anthropological foundations of hermeneutics. Others are already central to Stoic reception, such as the constitution of the subject in relation to various ethical, ecological, and metaphysical powers and processes; among these are contemplation and knowledge; identity and plurality; temporality, facticity, and fate; and personal, social, and planetary forms of self-cultivation and self-appropriation.

Addressing the need for a synoptic vision of related continental readings of Stoicism, this book brings ancient texts into new dialogues with up-to-date scholarship, facilitating increased understanding, critical evaluation, and creative innovation within the continental response to Stoicism.

Review Quotes

German Stoicismsis an unexpected feast. Who would have guessed that the Stoics could provide so continuous a provocation to modern German philosophy from Lipsius to Sloterdijk, proving themselves not only good to think with and against, but downright indispensable? This is genuine spadework of a very high caliber.
James I. Porter, Irving Stone Professor in Literature and Professor of Rhetoric and Classics, University of California, Berkeley, USA

An admirably ambitious project by an international cast of classicists, Germanists, and scholars of modern European philosophy, exploring the impact of Stoic and neoStoic ideas in the fields of ethics, anthropology, and cosmology on the German intellectual tradition of the last two centuries.
Eric S. Downing, Gerhard L. Weinberg Distinguished Professor of German, English and Comparative Literature, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA

The role of Stoicism in nineteenth- and twentieth-century thought, this volume shows, has not been adequately appreciated. This book's ten contributions both provide a broad framework for understanding the reception of Stoicism in Germany and offer detailed case studies, demonstrating the importance of Stoic thought to major philosophical thinkers of the past two centuries. German Stoicisms is a major contribution in itself, and opens exciting paths for further research.
Joshua Billings, Professor of Classics, Princeton University, USA

About the Author

Andrew Benjamin Andrew Benjamin is Distinguished Professor of Architectural Theory at the University of Technology, Sydney and Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Monash University Melbourne. His recent publications include: Art's Philosophical Work (2015), Towards a Relational Ontology (2015) and Virtue in Being (2016).

Kurt Lampe is Senior Lecturer in Classics and Ancient History, University of Bristol, UK, and is the author of The Birth of Hedonism: The Cyrenaic Philosophers and Pleasure as a Way of Life (2015).