Musonius Rufus belongs to a group of Roman Stoic thinkers that also includes Seneca and Marcus Aurelius. He was Epictetus's teacher. Only fragmentary accounts of his views, recorded by others, have survived (English translation in the edition by Cora Lutz).

Like other Stoics, Musonius rejects the distinction between theoretical and practical wisdom: philosophy is nothing else but to practice and put in good deeds what Stoic doctrine prescribes. All human beings have the potential to strive towards virtue. This view is anchored in a radically embedded concept of human nature: a human is a composite of soul and body and a member of the universe's community of gods and men, the so-called cosmopolis. Musonius reinforces this ontological embeddedness by emphasizing social responsibility in general, in existing communities of human beings.

Musonius is perhaps best known for his positive views on women (fragments...