Is There a Male Will in Stoicism?

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DC Field	Value
dc.identifier	ECF_chapter_7218
dc.contributor.author	Wildberger Jula
dc.title	Is There a Male Will in Stoicism?. The Case of Aggression
dc.type	Chapter
dc.language.iso	en
dc.description.abstract	Seneca characterises Stoicism as a philosophy for men. Stoic authors offer ample opportunities for a misogynist to feel validated, as Donna Zuckerberg (2018) shows. Focusing on Seneca’s account of anger, I argue that references to hegemonic masculinity are a therapeutic device to address a cause for weakness of assent: agents’ ignorance of their own strength and the erroneous belief that what they recognise as the right thing to do is too hard for them. However, the hypermasculine framing of this therapy is not essential. Stoic excellence is gender neutral. What is at stake is not manhood but maturity: that one comes to see one’s innate strength and assumes responsibility for oneself.
dc.relation.ispartof	Lexis Supplements
dc.relation.ispartof	Lexis Ancient Philosophy
dc.publisher	Edizioni Ca’ Foscari - Digital Publishing, Fondazione Università Ca’ Foscari
dc.issued	2021-12-13
dc.dateAccepted	2021-11-23
dc.dateSubmitted	2021-04-26
dc.identifier.uri	http://edizionicafoscari.unive.it/en/edizioni4/libri/978-88-6969-584-1/is-there-a-male-will-in-stoicism/
dc.identifier.doi	10.30687/978-88-6969-583-4/004
dc.identifier.issn	2210-8866
dc.identifier.eissn	2724-3362
dc.identifier.isbn	978-88-6969-584-1
dc.identifier.eisbn	978-88-6969-583-4
dc.rights	Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
item.fulltext	with fulltext
item.grantfulltext	open
dc.peer-review	yes
dc.subject	Anger
dc.subject	Masculinity
dc.subject	Seneca
dc.subject	Stoicism
dc.subject	Weakness of assent (asthenês sunkatathesis)

Chapter
open access peer reviewed

Is There a Male Will in Stoicism?

The Case of Aggression

Jula Wildberger The American University of Paris, France

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abstract

Seneca characterises Stoicism as a philosophy for men. Stoic authors offer ample opportunities for a misogynist to feel validated, as Donna Zuckerberg (2018) shows. Focusing on Seneca’s account of anger, I argue that references to hegemonic masculinity are a therapeutic device to address a cause for weakness of assent: agents’ ignorance of their own strength and the erroneous belief that what they recognise as the right thing to do is too hard for them. However, the hypermasculine framing of this therapy is not essential. Stoic excellence is gender neutral. What is at stake is not manhood but maturity: that one comes to see one’s innate strength and assumes responsibility for oneself.

Published

Dec. 13, 2021

Accepted

Nov. 23, 2021

Submitted

April 26, 2021

Language

EN

ISBN (PRINT)

978-88-6969-584-1

ISBN (EBOOK)

978-88-6969-583-4

Keywords: Masculinity • Seneca • Weakness of assent (asthenês sunkatathesis) • Stoicism • Anger

permalink: http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-583-4/004

Copyright: © 2021 Jula Wildberger. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.