Primary texts in translation

Translations of Aristotle are from Barnes (1984), and of other texts are from Long and Sedley (1987). Citations of texts contained in Long and Sedley (1987) also include LS [text number].

• Armstrong, A.H., (trans.), 1968–88, Plotinus, 7 volumes, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press (Loeb Classical Library). (Scholar)
• Barnes, Jonathan, (ed.), 1984, The Complete Works of Aristotle. The Revised Oxford Translation, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Scholar)
• Inwood, Brad and L. P. Gerson, 1997, Hellenistic Philosophy: Introductory Readings, second edition, Indianapolis, IN: Hackett. (Scholar)
• Long, A. A. and D. N. Sedley, 1987, The Hellenistic Philosophers, 2 vols., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Scholar)
• Rackham, H. (trans.), 1942, Cicero. On the Orator: Book 3. On Fate. Stoic Paradoxes. Divisions of Oratory, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press (Loeb Classical Library). (Scholar)
• Sharples, R. W. (ed. and trans.), 1983, Alexander of Aphrodisias “On Fate”: text, translation, and commentary, London: Duckworth. (Scholar)
• Smith, Martin Ferguson (trans.), 2001, Lucretius. On the Nature of Things, Indianapolis, IN: Hackett. (Scholar)

Primary texts cited

The following ancient texts are cited (by abbreviation, where given):

• Alexander of Aphrodisias
  • On Fate
  • On Mixture
• Aristotle
  • [NE] Nicomachean Ethics
  • [Int.] De Interpretatione (On Interpretation)
• Cicero
  • Academica
  • [Fat.] De Fato (On Fate)
  • [Fin.] De Finibus (On Goals)
  • On the Nature of the Gods
  • On Divination
  • Tusculan disputations
• Clement of Alexandria, The Teacher
• Diogenes Laertius, [DL] Lives of the Philosophers
• Diogenes of Oinoanda (inscription)
• Epictetus
  • Handbook
  • Discourses
• Epicurus
  • [KD] Kuriai Doxai (Principle Doctrines)
  • [SV] Sententiae Vaticanae (Vatican Sayings)
  • [Ep. Men.] Letter to Menoeceus
  • [On Nature] Peri phuseôs
  • The Letter to Herodotus
• Gellius, Noctes Atticae
• Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies
• Lucretius, [DRN] De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things)
• Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
• Origen, On principles
• Plato
  • Gorgias
  • Laws
  • Protagoras
  • [Rep.] Republic
  • [Tim.] Timaeus
• Plotinus, [Enn.] Enneads
• Plutarch, On Stoic Self-Contradiction
• Porphyry, On Abstinence
• Seneca, On Benefits
• Stobaeus, Eclogues

Secondary sources

• Annas, Julia, 1992, Hellenistic Philosophy of Mind, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. (Scholar)
• –––, 1993, “Epicurus on Agency”, in Passions & Perceptions: Studies in Hellenistic Philosophy of Mind, Proceedings of the 5th Symposium Hellenisticum, Jacques Brunschwig and Martha C. Nussbaum (eds.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 53–71. doi:10.1017/cbo9780511470325.005 (Scholar)
• Asmis, Elizabeth, 1990, “Free Action and the Swerve”, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 8: 275–290. (Scholar)
• Bobzien, Susanne, 1998a, Determinism and Freedom in Stoic Philosophy, Oxford: Clarendon Press. (The definitive work on its subject.) (Scholar)
• –––, 1998b, “The Inadvertent Conception and Late Birth of the Free-Will Problem”, Phronesis, 43(2): 133–175. doi:10.1163/15685289860511069 (Detailed study of Alexander of Aphrodisias and the influences on his theory. Argues that Alexander was the first to advance an incompatibilist theory of free will, although O’Keefe (2005) 153–162 claims that Carneades was the first.) (Scholar)
• –––, 2000, “Did Epicurus Discover the Free Will Problem?” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 19: 287–337. (Scholar)
• –––, 2006, “Moral Responsibility and Moral Development in Epicurus’ Philosophy”, in The Virtuous Life In Greek Ethics, Burkhard Reis (ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 206–229. doi:10.1017/cbo9780511482595.012 (Scholar)
• –––, 2014, “Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics 3.5, 1113b7–8 and Free Choice”, in Destrée, Salles, and Zingano 2014: 59–74. (Scholar)
• Bown, Alexander, 2016, “Epicurus on Bivalence and the Excluded Middle”, Archiv Für Geschichte Der Philosophie, 98(3): 239–271. doi:10.1515/agph-2016-0012 (Scholar)
• Castagnoli, Luca, 2010, Ancient Self-Refutation: The Logic and History of the Self-Refutation Argument From Democritus to Augustine, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Scholar)
• Collette-Dučić, Bernard, 2014, “Plotinus on Founding Freedom in Ennead VI.8[39]”, in The Routledge Handbook of Neoplatonism, Pauliina Remes and Svetla Slaveva-Griffith (eds.), New York: Routledge, ch. 26. (Scholar)
• Coope, Ursula, 2020, Freedom and Responsibility in Neoplatonist Thought, Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Scholar)
• Destrée, Pierre, 2011, “Aristotle on Responsibility for One’s Character”, in Moral Psychology and Human Action in Aristotle, Michael Pakaluk and Giles Pearson (eds.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 285–319. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199546541.003.0012 (Scholar)
• Destrée, Pierre, Ricardo Salles, and Marco Zingano (eds.), 2014, What is up to us? Studies on Causality and Responsibility in Ancient Philosophy, Bonn: Academia Verlag. (A wide-ranging collection.) (Scholar)
• Englert, Walter G., 1987, Epicurus on the Swerve and Voluntary Action, (American Classical Studies, 16), Atlanta, GA: Scholar’s Press. (Scholar)
• Frede, Michael, 2011, A Free Will: Origins of the Notion in Ancient Thought, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. (Scholar)
• Furley, David J., 1967, Two Studies in the Greek Atomists, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Scholar)
• Gaskin, Richard, 1995, The Sea Battle and the Master Argument: Aristotle and Diodorus Cronus on the Metaphysics of the Future, Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter. (Scholar)
• Ilievski, Viktor, 2018, “Theodicy and Moral Responsibility in the Myth of Er”, Apeiron, 51(3): 259–278. doi:10.1515/apeiron-2017-0053 (Scholar)
• Inwood, Brad, 1985, Ethics and Human Action in Early Stoicism, Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Scholar)
• Johnson, Monte, 2014, “Changing Our Minds: Democritus on What is Up to Us”, in Destrée, Salles, and Zingano 2014: 1–18. (Argues that Epicurus and others are wrong to attribute to Democritus the view that human actions are necessitated.) (Scholar)
• Kane, Robert, 2014, “Acting ‘of One’s Own Free Will’: Modern Reflections on an Ancient Philosophical Problem”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 114 (1): 35–55. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9264.2014.00363.x (Scholar)
• Mackenzie, Mary Margaret, 1981, Plato on Punishment, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. (Scholar)
• Meyer, Susan Sauvé, 2011, Aristotle on Moral Responsibility: Character and Cause, Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199697427.001.0001 (Thorough and well-argued.) (Scholar)
• O’Keefe, Tim, 2005, Epicurus on Freedom, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/cbo9780511482571 (Scholar)
• –––, 2009, “Action and Responsibility”, in The Cambridge Companion to Epicureanism, James Warren (ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 142–157. doi:10.1017/ccol9780521873475.009 (Scholar)
• –––, 2017, “The Stoics on Fate and Freedom”, in The Routledge Companion to Free Will, Kevin Timpe, Meghan Griffith, and Neil Levy (eds.), New York: Routledge, 236–246. (Scholar)
• Purinton, Jeffrey, 1999, “Epicurus on ‘Free Volition’ and the Atomic Swerve”, Phronesis, 44(4): 253–299. doi:10.1163/15685289960464601 (Scholar)
• Rescher, Nicholas, 1963, “An Interpretation of Aristotle’s Doctrine of Future Contingency and Excluded Middle”, in his Studies in the History of Arabic Logic, Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 43–54. (Scholar)
• Sedley, David, 1983, “Epicurus’ refutation of determinism”, in SUZETESIS. studi sull’ epicureismo Greco e romano offerti a M Gigante, Naples: Bibliopolis, pp. 11–51. (Scholar)
• –––, 1988, “Epicurean Anti-Reductionism”, in Matter and Metaphysics: Fourth Symposium Hellenisticum, Jonathan Barnes and Mario Mignucci (eds.), Naples: Bibliopolis. pp. 295–327. (Scholar)
• Segvic, Heda, 2000, “No One Errs Willingly: the Meaning of Socratic Intellectualism”, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 19: 1–45. (Scholar)
• Sharples, R.W., 1975, “Aristotelian and Stoic Conceptions of Necessity in the De Fato of Alexander of Aphrodisias”, Phronesis, 20(3): 247–274. doi:10.1163/156852875x00111 (Scholar)
• Sorabji, Richard, 1980, Necessity, Cause and Blame: Perspectives on Aristotle’s Theory, London: Duckworth. (Scholar)
• Van Rijen, Jeroen, 1989, Aspects of Aristotle’s Logic of Modalities, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. (Scholar)