What Can a Soul Do? The Ancient Stoics on Corporealism and Wisdom

This paper aims to show that the Stoic physicalist conception of the soul as a specific body is original and still interesting for contemporary philosophy, as witnessed by some of its ethical consequences, which are shown to be similar to some of Deleuze's claims drawn from Spinoza. The paper focuses on the Stoic analysis of the relationships between the soul and the body and of the nature of virtue and its capacity to resist various bodily threats, like drunkenness, taking into account the disagreements between Cleanthes and Chrysippus about the physical "strength" of wisdom.