Seneca's Ethics and the Natural Questions

Seneca is at his most powerful when he dissects human weakness and advises us on how to rise above that weakness. The claim that an ideal sage is possible was itself a rather sophisticated notion which presupposed the possibility of perfect and unfailing knowledge. Seneca is more interested in how real people who are not sages can improve themselves. He alludes to stoic determinism, but not in order to tinker with chrysippus theory of possibility and necessity. His views on ethics have had more staying power than his account of earthquakes.