The Stoic Sage. The Early Stoics on Wisdom, Sagehood and Socrates.

Overall excellent condition with minimal signs of use on back. - PREFACE--My interest in the topic of wisdom dates back to the time when I first read Plato�s Apology. I became particularly interested in how the Stoics seemed to have picked up on this Socratic theme, and it is to their treatment of wisdom that I devoted my Cambridge dissertation. After I had published one article, �Stoic Sagehood�, directly out of it, and developed sections of the dissertation into longer articles, I became convinced that I needed to present them as part of a more integrated account, which has now resulted in this book on the Stoic sage. Chapter 2 goes back to �The Early Stoic Doctrine of the Change to Wisdom�, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 33 (2007), Chapter 3 is a reworked version of �Stoic Sagehood�, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 23 (2002), and an earlier version of sections in Chapter 4 appeared in �Hellenistic Philosophers on Phaedrus 229B-230A�, Cambridge Classical Journal 55 (2008). I am grateful to the publishers for their permission to re-use this material.--In the long period of gestation that led to this book I have benefited from the help of many people. Here I wish to thank those who have been particularly important in the writing of the present book: Alice van Harten for discussing its set-up; the editors of Cambridge Classical Studies for taking the book for the series; the readers for the Press for their generous and constructive comments at various stages; David Sedley for annotating - in his inimitably careful manner - the penultimate version, and thus for making me rethink a number of passages; J�rn Mixdorf, for his proof-reading, and help throughout. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude towards Malcolm Schofield, who already as the supervisor of my PhD thesis formulated these pertinent, fundamental questions that always turned out to advance my work. He has remained supportive of it ever since, giving me valuable advice even at the very last stages of writing.--For the cover image I have chosen a painting by the seventeenth-century Dutch painter Aelbert Cuyp, Herdsmen with Cows, now in the Dulwich Picture Gallery, which I take to show some of the characteristics of the Stoics� �ordinary� ideal of living in harmony with nature, in its idyllic version. Even more than the low viewpoint, the evening light is the most striking feature of the painting. It can be seen as a reminder of the elusiveness of the ideal: if it can be attained at all, it will be only late in life, or as Cleanthes put it, �at the setting of the sun�. ISBN 9781107024212