<![CDATA[JOHN SELLARS

Today is publication day for Stoicism Is Not What You Think.

There's a brief interview about the book posted by Plato's Academy Centre. They have also posted a short extract.

A short piece published by The Conversation touches on one of the themes covered in the book.

I also recently discussed it on The Spectator's Book Club podcast.

It's been a great pleasure to collaborate with Robin Waterfield on a new translation of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. Robin did the translation and I have contributed an Introduction and some notes. It comes out shortly but the first reviews are coming in:

"a first-class presentation of a major philosophical work from the ancient world for the benefit of modern readers. It has much to offer, both for classicists and others with a serious interest in philosophy." (Classics for All)

There is further information about the book here.

By happy coincidence, a podcast I recorded on Aristotle with Alex O'Connor has also just come out, prompted by my book Aristotle:

Next month sees the publication of a new book, The Stoic Leader, which I’ve co-written with my good friend and co-founder of the Aurelius Foundation, Justin Stead. I first met Justin in 2019 and we launched the Aurelius Foundation on 2020. Since then we’ve been discussing ideas for this book on many occasions but this year we finally got the opportunity to put it all down on paper.

We have tried to show how one might put Stoic ideas into practice in real world situations. In ancient Rome many of the key figures who were drawn to Stoicism, such as Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Musonius Rufus, and Cato, were actively engaged in politics and leadership. All of them did their best to act with integrity in often difficult situations. Speaking to a business audience, this is not a book about how to become more financially successful but instead a book that stresses the importance of good character in both personal and professional life.

A new revised edition of my 2006 book Stoicism is now coming out with Routledge; further details here.

So, what’s new about it? What has been changed? In brief, the core of the book - Chapters 2-5 - are largely the same, as I was reasonably happy with them and they had been received well. The largest revisions were to Chapters 1 and 6, which have changed quite a bit.

In the original edition I was least happy with Chapter 1. The section on the loss of Stoic texts, which was a bit too speculative, has been dropped, and the introductions to individual Stoics have been expanded, especially in the light of work I’ve done on the Roman Stoics since 2006.

The original Chapter 6 was very much my first attempt to sketch out the subsequent influence of Stoic ideas and since then I’ve done quite a bit of work on this topic (see here), as well as editing The Routledge Handbook of the Stoic Tradition. So I’ve rewritten most of this chapter in the light of all this more recent work.

Throughout the rest of the text I’ve made a few tweaks and updates here and there. I have replaced ‘non-preferred’ with ‘dis-preferred’ as a translation of apoproegmenon, as that seems better to capture the idea. I have also avoided references to apatheia in the light of recent work that has questioned how helpful this term is in relation to the Stoa (see here). I’ve also taken a more critical stance towards the idea that Epictetus’ three topoi might map onto the three parts of Stoic philosophy (see my change of mind here). In short, I’ve brought everything up to date and in line with my current thinking about Stoicism, which has developed and - I hope - improved over the last two decades. The guide to further reading has also been updated to include references to some of the most important work published since the book first came out.

As time went by I became less inclined to recommend the book because I was conscious of a few things I no longer fully agreed with; now I can comfortably say that there's nothing in it I don’t stand by today. I was also conscious that over time the price of the book had increased to a level that I thought was excessive. I’m very pleased that Routledge have managed to re-issue it at a more sensible price.

I have two new books coming out this summer. The first is an edited collection, The Cambridge Companion to Marcus Aurelius' Meditations. The second is a revised and updated edition of my 2006 book Stoicism. Click on the titles for further details or below for the publishers' websites:

This year has also seen translations of Lessons in Stoicism into Japanese and Swedish, and a translation of Stoicism into Russian. The autumn should see Hellenistic Philosophy translated into Spanish and the publication of The Stoic Leader, co-authored with Justin Stead.