Kaicheng Fang

This dissertation proposes “detached sociability” as an interpretive framework for understanding how Seneca navigates the tension within Stoicism between self-sufficiency and the imperative to benefit others. By detached sociability, I mean a mode of social engagement anchored in self- sufficiency, in which social relationships can be cultivated without being treated as necessary conditions for flourishing. Through close readings of Seneca’s prose works, the dissertation traces how Seneca draws on the language of Roman law and everyday experience to articulate detached sociability across two social domains, friendship and family. I argue that his engagement with practical ethical difficulties constitutes a genuine philosophical contribution to the Stoic tradition.

This paper argues that Seneca’s On the Tranquility of Mind is a valuable ancient resource for thinking about “progress anxiety,” a condition characteristic of contemporary technosociety marked by compulsive self-improvement and chronic dissatisfaction with one’s pace of development. I read the work as a “clinical vignette” centered on Serenus, a reflective progressor whose anxiety is fueled by his perceived slowness in Stoic self-cultivation. In response, Seneca adopts a “mild treatment”: rather than prescribing a cure from a position of authority, he affirms Serenus’s capacity for self-assessment and seeks relief through a gradual reorientation of his underlying assumptions and values. I suggest that this therapeutic posture closely aligns with core commitments of contemporary philosophical counseling, and that bringing Seneca and present-day practice into dialogue can be mutually illuminating.