Seneca,

I found two parts particularly interesting from you letter today.  The first ties into something I was thinking about yesterday.  Currently, there is a common conception that the common English word stoic with a little-S is the same as our own school.  While it may be inspired by it, they are not the same.  This misapprehension results in people’s believing that Stoics are trying to “repress their emotions.”

I’m reading a book by Margaret Graver, in which she note the following:

Your discussion today about the physiological responses to external stimuli as different from the passions fits well in with what Graver says above.

The second part which stuck out at me was the discussion on the nature of the soul.  For modern thinkers, the very idea of the soul has a material entity is alien.  We are all mostly dyed in the Cartesian model, and the concept that the soul could be a physical thing mixed in with the body is hard to grok.

I enjoy reading and thinking about these conceptions.  Thank you for the letter.

Farewell.

Part of Michel Daw’s Reading Plan of Seneca’s Letters.