Dr John Sellars

Website: http://birkbeck.academia.edu/JohnSellars/

John Sellars studied Philosophy at the University of Wales and the University of Warwick, completing his PhD in 2001. He was a Junior Research Fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford, and remains a member of Wolfson. His previous posts include Assistant Editor for the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle project at King’s College London, with which he remains involved.

Spring 2013: Birkbeck-King's Stoicism and Early Modern Philosophy Research Seminar

Summer 2013: Renaissance Philosophy Workshop, 14 June

Research Interests

Ancient Philosophy, especially Hellenistic and Late Ancient Philosophy
Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy (up to and including Cambridge Platonism)
The influence of Stoicism from late antiquity to the present day

Areas of Research Supervision

Ancient Philosophy, especially Stoicism

Publications

Books

The Art of Living: The Stoics on the Nature and Function of Philosophy, 2nd edn (Bristol Classical Press, 2009), first published by Ashgate, 2003
Stoicism (Acumen / University of California Press, 2006)
(ed.) Justus Lipsius, On Constancy (University of Exeter Press, 2006)

Selected Articles and Contributions to Books

‘Stoic Fate in Justus Lipsius’s De Constantia and Physiologia Stoicorum’, Journal of the History of Philosophy, in press
‘Plato’s Apology of Socrates, A Metaphilosophical Text’, Philosophy and Literature, in press
‘Seneca’s Philosophical Predecessors and Contemporaries’, in G. Damschen, A. Heil, eds, Brill’s Companion to Seneca (Leiden: Brill, 2013), in press
‘Renaissance Philosophy’, British Journal for the History of Philosophy 20/6 (2012), 1195-1204
‘Stoics Against Stoics in Cudworth’s A Treatise of Freewill’, British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 20/5 (2012), 935-52
‘The Meditations and the Ancient Art of Living’, in M. van Ackeren, ed., A Companion to Marcus Aurelius (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 453-64
‘Marcus Aurelius in Contemporary Philosophy’, in M. van Ackeren, ed., A Companion to Marcus Aurelius (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 532-44
‘Is God a Mindless Vegetable? Cudworth on Stoic Theology’, Intellectual History Review 21/2 (2011), 121-33
‘Stoic Ontology and Plato’s Sophist’, in V. Harte, M.M. McCabe, R.W. Sharples, A. Sheppard, eds, Aristotle and the Stoics Reading Plato, Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, Suppl. 107 (2010), 185-203
‘Marcus Aurelius: The Philosopher’, in M. Gagarin, ed., The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome, 7 vols (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), vol. 4: 345-6
‘Epictetus’, in A. Grafton, G. Most, S. Settis, eds, The Classical Tradition (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), 319-20
‘Justus Lipsius’s De Constantia: A Stoic Spiritual Exercise’, Poetics Today 28/3 (2007), 339-62
‘Stoic Practical Philosophy in the Imperial Period’, in R. Sorabji, R.W. Sharples, eds, Greek and Roman Philosophy, 100 BC-200 AD, Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, Suppl. 94/1 (2007), 115-40
‘Techne peri ton bion. Zur stoischen Konzeption von Kunst und Leben’, in W. Kersting, C. Langbehn, eds, Kritik der Lebenskunst (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2007), 91-117
‘Stoic Cosmopolitanism and Zeno’s Republic’, History of Political Thought 28/1 (2007), 1-29
‘The Aristotelian Commentators: A Bibliographical Guide’, in P. Adamson, H. Baltussen, M. Stone, eds, Philosophy, Science, and Exegesis in Greek, Arabic, and Latin Commentaries, Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, Suppl. 83/1 (2004), 239-68
‘Simon the Shoemaker and the Problem of Socrates’, Classical Philology 98/3 (2003), 207-16

Podcasts

Microphilosophy (May 2012): discussion with Julian Baggini and Antonia Macaro about Stoicism and psychotherapy
History of Philosophy Without any Gaps (Feb. 2012): discussion with Peter Adamson about Roman Stoicism
Microphilosophy (May 2010): interview by Antonia Macaro as part of a report on contemporary relevance of Stoicism