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book~41–49 CE

On Anger

Disciplines:
psychology
ethics
stoicism
stoicism/seneca

Summary

Seneca's three-book treatise De Ira (On Anger) — the most systematic ancient treatment of anger — arguing that anger is never useful, that it degrades the person who feels it, and providing practical techniques for avoiding and extinguishing it.

Core Contribution

Provides the Stoic case that anger is always self-defeating — the person who acts in anger is not more effective but less, not more just but less, and the spectacle of Roman power used in anger (Caligula, Nero) demonstrates that anger corrupts the wielder — making Stoic equanimity not just personally beneficial but politically necessary.

Historical Influences

Seneca

Intellectual Lineage

Seneca ResearchStoic tradition on passions

Allied Works

Letters to Lucilius Meditations

Contemporaries & Peers

Letters to Lucilius On Clemency

Minds Influenced

Stoic tradition Jonathan Bi

Intellectual Posterity

On Anger Seneca's anger psychologyStoic anger management

Discussing

On Anger

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