Workshop in Ancient Philosophy (Thursday - Week 6, MT25)

Abstract: Critics of Stoic cosmopolitanism claim that it faces a motivational gap, reflecting wider contemporary concerns about cosmopolitan ideals. According to this critique, the Stoic focus on rational detachment and the sufficiency of virtue prevents them from cultivating genuine concern for others. Yet the resources of Stoicism prove more robust than such criticisms allow. While Stoic moral psychology and the doctrine of oikeiosis are often invoked as responses to this challenge, I argue that the Stoics’ notion of political love constitutes a crucial but underexplored aspect of their cosmopolitan vision. This concept provides a distinctive framework for understanding how personal attachments can be extended and universalised, thereby fostering active benevolence and sustaining social responsibility. Far from advocating an abstract or emotionally impoverished ideal, Stoicism articulates principles capable of grounding a model of cosmopolitanism that is both rationally coherent and practically engaged, rooted in recognition of the fundamental interrelations of human life.

If you would like to go out to dinner with the speaker after the talk, then please contact the chair of the meeting (listed above) before Tuesday of this week. The meals of the chair and the speaker are covered by the faculty; others attend at their own expense.