rck
5 hours ago
It's interesting that the main thinkers listed are all Roman. They're definitely the best known, but Stoicism was a Greek philosophy first and foremost, and Cleanthes, Chrysippus, etc. were more significant than any of the Romans.
Stoicism had a lot going for it, but it was also full of a lot of crazy nonsense - there's a reason you've never met a Stoic who was fully on board with Stoic natural philosophy or "physics." The logic eventually made a comeback (via Frege, possibly due to plagiarism!), and the virtue ethics got absorbed into Christian moral philosophy by about the 13th century (by way of neo-platonists who influenced Dominican philosopher theologians like Aquinas). It's not surprising that it ran out of steam.
0xmattf
5 hours ago
Yeah, because, as you said, those are the most widely-known. There's not much literature existing beyond them.
However, I did mention Zeno...
I'll probably write an update to at least mention the others. That's a good point, thank you.
wwweston
5 hours ago
The 13th century seems like a late stoic tributary to focus on — some stoicism seems present in the gospels.
rck
4 hours ago
The Stoics are explicitly mentioned in Acts of the Apostles, but I think a better way to think about it is that the framework of "Virtue" as "Conforming to your Nature" is a very useful one for understanding the gospels, as was developed extensively starting in the mid 1200s.