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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Seneca give advice about coping with in Letter LXXVIII?

2. What tends to either not last very long or to at least have periods of subsidence?

3. Who says there are four causes?

4. What includes the studies of literature, rhetoric and history?

5. Why does Seneca say he decided not to commit suicide?

Short Essay Questions

1. List and explain three types of people who, according to Seneca, find philosophy attractive for the wrong reasons.

2. What is the purpose of technology, according to Seneca?

3. How, according to Seneca, are life and philosophy both the gifts of the gods?

4. What is Zeno's logic that a drunk man is not a good man?

5. What is Seneca's criticism of the typical liberal arts scholar?

6. Why does Seneca believe only a philosopher can appreciate wisdom?

7. What is the concept of causation according to Aristotle?

8. Why does Seneca say the Stoic account of causation is better than both Aristotle's and Plato's?

9. What is the value of a liberal arts education, according to Seneca?

10. What advice does Seneca give Lucilius about coping with illness and the sometimes severe symptoms that accompany it?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Outline the history of Stoicism.

Essay Topic 2

What is philosophy? What are ethics and what is the importance of ethics in philosophy?

Essay Topic 3

Who was Posidonius? Discuss the issue Seneca had with one of his claims and talk about the many roles of Posidonius.

(see the answer keys)

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