This classic essay from one of the twentieth-century’s leading historians of European philosophy was formative to twentieth-century French thought

The first English translation of a seminal text on ancient philosophy
Includes two new essays from leading scholars on historical and contemporary French thought
Unearths the overlooked influence of Bréhier’s essay on twentieth-century French thinkers
Fills in a crucial yet often overlooked chapter in Deleuze Studies
Engages one of the most provocative themes in ancient materialism: incorporeality
Expands on continental returns to antiquity that focus on metaphysics, e.g., speculative realism, new materialism, affect theory, posthumanism, Althusserian and post-Althusserian approaches

Émile Bréhier’s creative interpretations of Stoicism inspired the next generation of thinkers – from Jean-Paul Sartre to Luce Irigaray – to rethink the history of philosophy. Perhaps most of all, Bréhier’s thinking about the Stoic theory of incorporeality was pivotal to Gilles Deleuze’s understanding of Ancient Greek and Roman thinkers, especially the Stoics, and formative for his own materialistic metaphysics. To understand the metaphysics, philosophy of language, and interpretations of psychoanalysis in Deleuze’s Logic of Sense, Bréhier’s influence remains to be fully elucidated.

Yet such influence has been largely unknown in Anglophone philosophy – until now. For the first time since its publication nearly a century ago, Bréhier’s groundbreaking essay finally appears in English. To frame its history and convey its importance for the future of philosophy, two new essays by a leading French philosopher and a British-Canadian philosopher bookend the translation.