Deleuze, A Stoic

Shows how Deleuze’s engagement with Stoicism produced many of his most singular and powerful ideas
Reveals a lasting influence on Gilles Deleuze by mapping his provocative reading of ancient Stoicism
Unearths new possibilities for bridging contemporary philosophy and classics by engaging a vital yet recently rising area of scholarship: continental philosophy’s relationship to ancient philosophy
Introduces the untranslated Stoic scholarship published by pre- and post-Deleuzian French philosophers of antiquity to the English-reading world
Deleuze dramatises the story of ancient philosophy as a rivalry of four types of thinkers: the subverting pre-Socratics, the ascending Plato, the interiorising Aristotle and the perverting Stoics. Deleuze assigns the Stoics a privileged place because they introduced a new orientation for thinking and living that turns the whole story of philosophy inside out.