The ancient Stoics had a well developed theory of human action and moral psychology. There were subtle differences between various Stoics in this domain, and this paper explores the differences between the views of Cleanthes (second head of the school) and Chrysippus (his successor) about the nature of voluntary action. The Stoic theory of the passions is an application of their theory of action, and the paper concludes with an examination of Galen’s criticism of Chrysippus’ theory of the passions and its significance for Stoic moral psychology generally.
About Brad Inwood
Brad Inwood is the William Lampson Professor of Philosophy and of Classics and Interim Director of Graduate Studies at Yale University's Department of Classics. He is a specialist in ancient philosophy with particular emphasis on Stoicism and the Presocratics and received his BA in Classics from Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario. After an MA in Classics at the University of Toronto and a year of post-graduate research at Cambridge, he completed his doctorate in Classics at Toronto with a focus on ancient philosophy.
His career began with a Mellon postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford and he then took up a teaching post at the University of Toronto. While at Toronto he had two terms as DGS in Classics and served as chair of the Classics department and as acting chair of Philosophy, and founded Toronto’s Collaborative Program in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy (with two terms as director). He has enjoyed fellowships at the National Humanities Centre and the Centre for Advanced Study in the Behavioural Sciences and held the Canada Research Chair in Ancient Philosophy.
His research has always focused on ancient philosophy, especially in the Hellenistic and Presocratic periods. Major works include Ethics and Human Action in Early Stoicism, The Poem of Empedocles, Reading Seneca: Stoic Philosophy at Rome, Seneca: Selected Philosophical Letters, and Ethics After Aristotle. From 2007 to 2015 he was the editor of Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy and he is currently working on Later Stoicism 155 BC to AD 200: An Introduction and Collection of Sources in Translation for Cambridge University Press.
