ABSTRACT
Against the ordinary construal of philosophical history as the temporal succession of different doctrines or versions of truth, Hegel highlighted the implicit rationality of the very movement whereby philosophical doctrines emerge and replace one another. This chapter discusses Hegel's critique of Stoicism. It attempts to show that Stoicism is by no means a secondary stage in Hegel's global understanding of the history of philosophy, and that his views on the subject are far from irrelevant. In Hegelian terms, to ask what Stoicism means is not simply to ask what it stands for, or to go over its main theoretical principles, as though it were simply yet another philosophical opinion. Stoicism is a philosophical stage, and therefore a necessary element in the historical development of human reason. To understand Stoicism, one must first situate it within this global movement and determine whence it comes from and whither it leads.
