The secondary literature on the Cynics is not large, although it is growing. A classic study of the Cynics is Donald R. Dudley, A History of Cynicism: From Diogenes to the Sixth Century AD (London: Methuen, 1937). In the past twenty-five years, interest has picked up, as is shown by four recent monographs: Luis E. Navia, Classical Cynicism (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1996); W. D. Desmond, The Greek Praise of Poverty: The Origins of Ancient Cynicism (South Bend, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006); W. D. Desmond, Cynics (Berkeley: University of California, 2008); and Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazé, L’Ascèse cynique: Un Commentaire de Diogène Laërce VI, 70–71 (2nd ed.; Paris: Vrin, 2001).
Two fine collections of essays give a sense of the range of work currently being done in the field: Richard Goulet and Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazé, eds., Le Cynisme ancien et ses prolongements (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1993); and R. Bracht Branham and Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazé, eds., The Cynics: The Cynic Movement in Antiquity and Its Legacy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996). In the former collection, of special interest is Dmitri Gutas’s “Sayings by Diogenes Preserved in Arabic,” which provides an overview of sources for the life of Diogenes not included in most classical scholarship. Especially recommended from the latter collection is John L. Moles, “Cynic Cosmopolitanism.”
On the Stoic–Cynic relationship, see Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazé, Les “Kynica” du Stoïcisme (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2003); and R. Bracht Branham, “School for Scandal: The Cynic Origins of Stoicism,” Ancient Philosophy 26 (2004): 443–47. In two books, F. Gerald Downing has argued for important connections between Cynic asceticism and early Christianity: The Cynics and Christian Origins (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1992), and Christ and the Cynics: Jesus and Other Radical Preachers in the First Century Tradition (Sheffield, Eng.: JSOT Press, 1988).
In recent years, new impetus has been given to the study of the Cynics through the publication of two posthumous works by Michel Foucault: Fearless Speech, ed. Joseph Pearson (Los Angeles: Semiotext[e], 2001), and The Courage of Truth, trans. Graham Burchell (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). Several contemporary authors have tried to reconstruct the legacy of Cynicism in modernity and to clarify the relationship between the ancient philosophical movement and the modern habit of thought we call “cynicism”: Peter Sloterdijk, Critique of Cynical Reason, trans. Michael Eldred (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987); Heinrich Niehues-Pröbsting, Der Kynismus des Diogenes und der Begriff des Zynismus (Munich: Fink, 1979); and David Mazella, The Making of Modern Cynicism (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2007). Louisa Shea’s The Cynic Enlightenment: Diogenes in the Salon (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010) argues for the influence of Cynicism on eighteenth-century thought, especially that of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
F. Stoics
No complete work from any of the early Stoics survives. The standard edition of the fragments is Hans von Arnim, ed., Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta (4 vols.; Leipzig: Teubner, 1903–1924). For editions with text and commentary on specific figures, see: A. C. Pearson, The Fragments of Zeno and Cleanthes (London: C. J. Clay, 1891); and William W. Fortenbaugh and Stephen A. White, eds., Aristo of Ceos (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 2006). A more specialized collection that deals with the evidence for Stoic logic in greater depth than von Arnim is Karlheinz Hülser, Die Fragmente zur Dialektik der Stoiker (Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog Verlag, 1987–1988).
The Stoic movement continued to flourish and develop under the Roman Empire, and many of our best sources for Stoic thought come from later writers. (The references in this paragraph are all to volumes in the Loeb Classical Library, published in Cambridge, Mass., by Harvard University Press.) Cicero was not a Stoic, but he took an active interest in debating Stoic positions: see his On the Nature of the Gods (H. Rackham, trans.; 1933), which contains an account of Stoic cosmology and theology, as well as On Ends (H. Rackham, trans.; 1914) and Tusculan Disputations (J. E. King, trans.; 1927), both of which contain discussions of Stoic ethics. More evidence for Stoic doctrine comes from the critical reports of Plutarch: see especially his Against the Stoics on Common Conceptions and On Stoic Self-Contradictions, both in H. F. Cherniss, trans., Plutarch: Moralia, vol. 13. Three major Roman thinkers develop their own brands of Stoicism: see Seneca, Epistles and Moral Essays (3 vols.; John W. Basore, trans.; 1932); Epictetus, Discourses and Encheiridion (published in the second volume of the Discourses); and Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (C. R. Haines, trans.; 1916).
The best one-volume introduction to Stoicism is F. H. Sandbach, The Stoics (New York: Norton, 1975). Other recommended monographs are John M. Rist, Stoic Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969); and Ludwig Edelstein, The Meaning of Stoicism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1966). For more specialized treatment of various specific topics within Stoicism, see the essays by A. A. Long collected in his Stoic Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) and From Epicurus to Epictetus (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006). An orientation to the main questions in current scholarship can be had from Brad Inwood, ed., The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). Three classic collections contain many of the most influential essays for recent work on the Stoics: A. A. Long, ed., Problems in Stoicism (London: Athlone, 1971); John M. Rist, ed., The Stoics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978); and Ronald H. Epp, ed., Recovering the Stoics (supplement 23 to the Southern Journal of Philosophy, 1985). More recent essays can be found in Katerina Ierodiakonou, Topics in Stoic Philosophy (2nd ed.; New York: Oxford University Press, 2001); and Ricardo Salles, ed., God and Cosmos in Stoicism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).
On Zeno in particular, see: H. C. Baldry, “Zeno’s Ideal State,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 79 (1959): 3–15; H. A. K. Hunt, A Physical Interpretation of the Universe: The Doctrines of Zeno the Stoic (Carlton, Victoria: Melbourne University Press, 1976); and John M. Rist, “Zeno and Stoic Consistency,” Phronesis 22 (1977): 161–74. For studies of other figures in the early Stoa, see Malcolm Schofield, “Ariston of Chios and the Unity of Virtue,” Ancient Philosophy 4 (1984): 83–96; A. W. James, “The Zeus Hymns of Cleanthes and Aratus,” Antichthon 6 (1972): 28–38; and J. B. Gould, The Philosophy of Chrysippus (Leiden: Brill, 1970).
Much scholarly work on the Stoics takes the form of attempts to clarify or define a standard view for the school concerning major philosophical questions. On Stoic metaphysics, see two essays by David Sedley: “The Stoic Theory of Universals,” in Epp, ed., Recovering the Stoics, 87–92; and “The Stoic Criterion of Identity,” Phronesis 27 (1982): 255–75. On Stoic logic, see Benson Mates, Stoic Logic (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1953); and Ian Mueller, “An Introduction to Stoic Logic,” in Rist, ed., The Stoics, 1–26. On Stoic epistemology, see Gerard Watson, The Stoic Theory of Knowledge (Belfast: Queen’s University, 1966). For a study of the debate between the Stoics and Academics, see Gisela Striker, “Sceptical Strategies,” in Doubt and Dogmatism: Studies in Hellenistic Epistemology, ed. Malcolm Schofield, Myles Burnyeat, and Jonathan Barnes (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), 54–83. On Stoic physics, see David E. Hahm, The Origins of Stoic Cosmology (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1977). Attempts to reconstruct Stoic philosophy of mind can be found in A. A. Long, “Body and Soul in Stoicism,” Phronesis 27 (1982): 34–57; and Brad Inwood, Ethics and Human Action in Early Stoicism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985). For an introduction to Stoic ethics, see Gisela Striker, “Following Nature: A Study in Stoic Ethics,” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 9 (1991): 1–73; and Tad Brennan, The Stoic Life (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005). On Stoic political thought, see Andrew Erskine, The Hellenistic Stoa: Political Thought and Action (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990); and Malcolm Schofield, The Stoic Idea of the City (2nd ed.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). Regarding the difficult but central Stoic concept of the sage, see René Brouwer, “Sagehood and the Stoics,”
Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 23 (2002): 181–224. (For works discussing the relationship between Cynicism and Stoicism, see the section on the Cynics.)
G. Pyrrhonian Skepticism
Pyrrho left behind no writings, and those of Timon exist only in fragments. The standard edition of the testimonies regarding Pyrrho is Fernanda Decleva Caizzi, Pirrone testimoniaze (Naples: Bibliopolis, 1981). For the fragments of Timon, see Hugh Lloyd-Jones and Peter Parsons, Supplementum Hellenisticum: Texte und Kommentar 11, ed. Heinz-Günther Nesselrath (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1983). This edition was supplemented by new material in Hugh Lloyd-Jones, Supplementum supplementi hellenistici: Texte und Kommentar 26, ed. Marius Skempis (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2005). For an English translation of sources dealing with both Pyrrho and Timon, see A. A. Long and David N. Sedley, eds., The Hellenistic Philosophers (2 vols.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). The most substantial writings we possess by a Pyrrhonist are those of Sextus Empiricus, but he lived several centuries after Pyrrho and the relation between his work and Pyrrho’s thought remains a matter of dispute. His two surviving works are Outlines of Pyrrhonism and Against the Mathematicians; they were edited, with English translation, by R. G. Bury (4 vols.; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1955). A more up-to-date translation of Sextus’ Outlines can be found in Julia Annas and Jonathan Barnes, eds. and trans., Sextus Empiricus: Outlines of Skepticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). Despite its name, Against the Mathematicians contains detailed critiques of many forms of specialized disciplinary learning, including physics, ethics, and logic. Some of these various parts of Sextus’ polemic have recently been published separately in excellent translations by Richard Bett: Sextus Empiricus: Against the Ethicists (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997); and Sextus Empiricus: Against the Logicians (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
The most extensive recent attempt to reconstruct Pyrrho’s thought can be found in Richard Bett, Pyrrho, His Antecedents and His Legacy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). For other attempts, see T. Corey Brennan, “Pyrrho on the Criterion,” Ancient Philosophy 18 (1998): 417–34; and Jacques Brunschwig, “Pyrrho,” in The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy, ed. Keimpe Algra et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 241–50. On Timon, see A. A. Long, “Timon of Phlius: Pyrrhonist and Satirist,” in From Epicurus to Epictetus (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 70–95. On Pyrrhonism more generally, see Julia Annas and Jonathan Barnes, The Modes of Skepticism: Ancient Texts and Modern Interpretations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); and R. J. Hankinson, The Sceptics (London: Routledge, 1995). For a focused treatment of Sextus Empiricus, see Barnes, The Toils of Scepticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). On the central question of whether and in what sense the Pyrrhonian Skeptic can have beliefs, see the essays collected in Myles Burnyeat and Michael Frede, eds., The Original Skeptics: A Controversy (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997). Several of the contributions to Myles Burnyeat, ed., The Skeptical Tradition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983) take up another vexed question, namely the relation between Skepticism in antiquity and the central trope in modern philosophy that goes by the same name. On the notion of tranquillity in early Pyrrhonism, see Myles Burnyeat, “Tranquility Without a Stop: Timon Frag. 68,” Classical Quarterly 30 (1980): 86–93. The question of Pyrrho’s possible indebtedness to Indian thought is discussed in Everard Flintoff, “Pyrrho and India,” Phronesis 25 (1980): 88–108. The chapters in Richard Bett, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Skepticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010) deal with both Pyrrhonian and Academic Skepticism. On the relationship between the two, Gisela Striker’s essay in Bett’s volume, “Academics Versus Pyrrhonists, Reconsidered,” is especially recommended.
H. Epicurus and Epicureanism
Very little of Epicurus’ writing comes down to us; all that survives are a few letters, collections of maxims, and fragments. The classic collection of these materials is Hermann Usener, ed., Epicurea (Leipzig: Teubner, 1887). More up-to-date is Graziano Arrighetti, ed., Epicuro: Opere (2nd ed.; Turin: Einaudi, 1973). For an edition with English translations, see Cyril B. Bailey, Epicurus: The Extant Remains (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1926). A convenient selection of the extant texts and testimonia in translation is Brad Inwood and L. P. Gerson, eds. and trans., The Epicurus Reader (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994).
In the past thirty years, papyrus scrolls from Herculaneum containing previously unavailable portions of Epicurus’ treatise On Nature have been deciphered: see Graziano Arrighetti and Marcello Gigante, “Frammenti del libro undidesimo Della Natura di Epicuro (PHerc. 1042),” Cronache Ercolanesi 7 (1977): 5–8; Simon Laursen, “The Early Parts of Epicurus, On Nature, 25th Book,” Cronache Ercolanesi 25 (1995): 5–109; and Laursen, “The Later Parts of Epicurus, On Nature, 25th Book,” Cronache Ercolanesi 27 (1997): 5–83; see also Giuliana Leone, “Epicuro, Della Natura, Libro XIV,” Cronache Ercolanesi 14 (1984): 17–107; and Giuliana Leone, ed. and trans., Epicuro “Sulla Natura” Libro II (Naples: Bibliopolis, 2012).
In the absence of many of Epicurus’ works, readers have long relied on the writings of major followers to reconstruct Epicureanism. The most important of these is the first-century BC Roman poet Lucretius, whose epic poem De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things) presents his version of Epicurean doctrine: see On the Nature of Things, ed. M. F. Smith, with a prose translation by W. H. D. Rouse (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992). Other evidence from antiquity comes from the writings of another follower, Philodemus: see in particular Philip Howard De Lacey and Estelle Allen De Lacey, eds., Philodemus on Methods of Inference (2nd ed.; Naples: Bibliopolis, 1978); Dirk Obbink, ed., Philodemus: On Piety, Book 1 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996); and David Konstan, ed., Philodemus: On Frank Criticism (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998). Finally, scholars have also traditionally seen the writings of Cicero as an important source of evidence for Epicurean views, in particular On the Nature of the Gods, which contains an account of Epicurean theology, as well as On Ends and Tusculan Disputations, both of which deal with Epicurean ethics.
Good introductions to Epicurus and his school can be found in Tim O’Keefe, Epicureanism (Durham, Eng.: Acumen, 2010); and John Rist, Epicurus: An Introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972). David J. Furley’s Two Studies in the Greek Atomists (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1967) is an in-depth investigation of two key ideas in Epicurus: that of indivisible magnitudes or “atoms,” and the idea of a “swerve” in the atoms as the explanation for human voluntary action. An introduction to current topics in scholarship can be found in James Warren, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Epicureanism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
On aspects of Epicurus’ biography, see David N. Sedley, “Epicurus and His Professional Rivals,” in Études sur l’épicurisme antique: Cahiers de philologie, ed. Jean Bollack and André Laks (Villeneuve d’Ascq, Fr.: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 1976), 1:119–59. For debates about the precise location and nature of his philosophical retreat, see R. E. Wycherley, “The Garden of Epicurus,” Phoenix 13 (1959): 73–77; M. L. Clarke, “The Garden of Epicurus,” Phoenix 27 (1973): 386–87; and Diskin Clay, “The Athenian Garden,” in Warren, The Cambridge Companion to Epicureanism, 9–28.
On the “swerve” and Epicurean accounts of human action, see David N. Sedley, “Epicurus’ Refutation of Determinism” in Suzētēsis: Studi sull’epicureismo greco e romano offerti a Marcello Gigante (2 vols.; Naples: G. Macchiaroli, 1983), 11–51; Walter G. Englert, Epicurus on the Swerve and Voluntary Action (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987); and Julia Annas, “Epicurus on Agency,” in Jacques Brunschwig and Martha Nussbaum, eds., Passions and Perceptions: Studies in Hellenistic Philosophy of Mind (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 53–71.
On Epicurean metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of language, see A.A. Long, “Aisthēsis, prolepsis and linguistic theory in Epicurus,” Bulletin of the Insti
tute of Classical Studies 18 (1971): 114–33; Elizabeth Asmis, Epicurus’ Scientific Method (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1984); Gisela Striker, “κριτήριον τῆς ἀληθείας,” in Essays on Hellenistic Epistemology and Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 22–76; and Alexander Verlinsky, “Epicurus and His Predecessors on the Origin of Language,” in Language and Learning: Philosophy of Language in the Hellenistic Age, eds. Dorothea Frede and Brad Inwood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 56–100.
For accounts of Epicurean ethics and political philosophy, see Philip Mitsis, Epicurus’ Ethical Theory: The Pleasures of Invulnerability (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1988); Gisela Striker, “Epicurean Hedonism” in Brunschwig and Nussbaum, eds., Passions and Perceptions, 3–17; Antonina M. Alberti, “The Epicurean Theory of Law and Justice,” in André Laks and Malcolm Schofield, eds., Justice and Generosity: Studies in Hellenistic Social and Political Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 161–90; John M. Cooper, “Pleasure and Desire in Epicurus,” in Reason and Emotion: Essays on Ancient Moral Psychology and Ethical Theory (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999), 485–514; and A. A. Long, “Pleasure and Social Utility—The Virtues of Being an Epicurean,” in From Epicurus to Epictetus (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 178–201.
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