The spiritual exercise of examination of conscience in the Pythagoreans, Epictetus, & Seneca

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Ilsetraut Hadot’s discussion of the need for frank speech (parrhesia) in the philosophers of the Hellenistic and Roman eras ends with Serenus’ confession of his faults to Seneca, which opens the latter’s On Tranquility of Mind. This confession bespeaks Serenus’ practice of self-examination. And this observation leads Hadot into the…