STOICISM
Of all the philosophical schools active during Hellenistic times, Stoicism had the largest number of followers, and was often contrasted with Epicueanism, its closest rival. Stoicism held that the cosmos is governed by an over-arching fatalistic law, and we best achieve happiness when we resign ourselves to fate.
Zeno
The founder of Stoicism was a philosopher named Zeno (334–262 BCE) from the island of Cyprus (not to be confused with Zeno from Elea, who was the Presocratic follower of Parmenides). He was born in the city of Citium—now called Larnaca, one of Cyprus’s largest cities. At the time it was a small city with ties to both Greece and the Semitic land of Phoenicia (now Lebanon). He moved to Athens at 22, perhaps as the result of a shipwreck. Legend has it that he was at a bookseller’s stall in the market place reading Xenophon’s account of Socrates. Fascinated by the philosopher, he asked the bookseller where he could find such a person. The bookseller replied “follow that man,” pointing to a famous Cynic philosopher who happened to be walking by. Zeno became his student, then moved onto other teachers, and after about twenty years began lecturing himself. His first followers were called Zenonians, but later referred to as “Stoics” after the place where he gave his lectures, namely, on the Painted Porch (Stoa Poikile) in the marketplace of Athens.
He is described as having a slightly twisted neck and harsh personality traits. A student of his once noticed that Zeno corrected everyone around him, except that particular student himself. He asked Zeno why, and Zeno replied “Because I have no confidence in you.” Zeno had very simple living habits, eating food that didn’t require cooking, drinking mostly water, wearing thin clothes, and he was apparently insensible to rain, heat, and pain. These aspects of his personality were ridiculed in a Greek play that contained the following line: “This man adopts a new philosophy: he teaches to be hungry, and nevertheless he gets disciples. Bread is his only food, his best desert is dried figs, and water is his drink.” While this description of Zeno is entertaining in itself, it also illustrates an important philosophical point for Stoicism: happiness is best attained by denying pleasures, and not by pursuing enjoyments as Epicurus recommended.
A famous story of Zeno relates that he once whipped a slave for stealing; the slave said it was his destiny to steal, and Zeno said it was also his destiny to be whipped. Again we find a philosophical message here: according to Stoicism, there is a consistency between the destiny that is fated for us and justice for how we behave. According to one account of Zeno’s death, he strangled himself after breaking his toe, which he took to be an indication that his time was up. One of his books, called The Republic, was a work of utopian politics depicting a city that is run by rational citizens. Although the work does not survive, descriptions of its contents conform to his preference for simplicity and austerity. He recommends abolishing money, temples, law courts, marriage. Men and women should dress alike, completely covering their bodies, yet at the same time should practice free love.
Zeno divided the field of philosophy into three areas: logic, physics and ethics. Stoic philosophers offered various analogies to explain how these three parts are related, such as these:
They compare philosophy to an animal, likening logic to the bones and sinews, physics to the fleshy parts, and ethical philosophy to the soul. They also compare it to an egg, calling logic the shell, and ethics the white, and physics the yolk. [Diogenes Laertius, Lives, “Zeno,” 33]
However, the most famous analogy, which was offered by Zeno himself, is that philosophy is like a garden where logic functions as the protective fence, physics is a tree within the garden, and ethics is the fruit that grows on the trees. We will consider each of these in order.
Logic: Conviction, Connectives, Argument Forms
There are many elements to Stoic logic, but we will examine three particularly interesting ones. First is their conception of truth conviction. Zeno argued that are four degrees of conviction: perception, assent, comprehension, knowledge. For example, I might perceive an apple falling from a tree, and think nothing else of it. Then I might push the matter further and assent to—or hold a belief about—the falling apple. Then I might comprehend some implications of the falling apple, such as it would hurt if it fell on my head. Finally, I might have full knowledge about the falling apple, involving the laws of nature which made it act as it did. Zeno picturesquely explained the different degrees of conviction by slowly clenching his fist, as described here:
Zeno illustrated this by the action of his hand. For showing his hand open to view with the fingers stretched out, perception, said he, is like this. Then, closing his fingers slightly, assent is like this. Next, entirely closed together his fingers and doubling his fist, he declared this position to resemble the mental act of comprehension; from that simile he also gave a new name to that mental act, calling it “grasping”. Again when he had brought up his left hand and had tightly and powerfully closed it over the other fist, he said that knowledge was like that, and that no one was able to attain to knowledge but the wise person. [Cicero, Academics, 2.4]
Zeno also states that knowledge, which is the strongest level of conviction “takes hold of us by the hair and drags us to assent.” The message behind these metaphors is that some beliefs are dramatically more compelling than others, and we have a high level of certainty of their truth.
A second component of Stoic logic involves understanding the underlying logical structure of the statements that we make, which they called “assertibles.” Take, for example, these two simple assertible statements: “it is day” and “it is night.” Using a logical connective, they can be spliced together into a longer one such as “it is day or it is night”. In this case, the logical connective is the word “or”. Of the many logical connectives discussed by the Stoics, in recent times the following four have become an essential part of logic in philosophy:
*Conditional (if-then): “If it is day, then it is light.”
*Conjunction (and): “It is day and it is light.”
*Disjunction (or): “It is day or it is night”
*Negation (not): “It is not day”
These four connectives are also foundational to computer programming where they are better known as “Boolean operators,” named after the 19th century British mathematician George Boole.
A third aspect of Stoic logic is the underlying logical structure of arguments. Suppose, for example, that I make the following statement: “Plato is breathing, so he must be alive”. This short sentence contains an argument and, according to the Stoics, the underlying structure of it is this:
If Plato is alive then Plato must be breathing.
Plato is alive
Therefore, Plato must be breathing
Or, more abstractly,
If A then B
A
Therefore, B
Today this particular logical form goes by the name modus ponens. Note that the logic of it hinges on a conditional “if-then” statement in the first line. Another logical argument form of the Stoics, which today goes by the name disjunctive syllogism, is this:
It is night or it is day
It is not night
Therefore, it is day
Or, more abstractly,
A or B
not A
Therefore, B
Here the underlying logic involves a disjunctive “or” statement in the first line, and a negation in the second line. These two argument forms—along with several others introduced by the Stoics—are foundational to contemporary notions of logical argumentation which have dominated philosophy since the early 1900s. Prior to that, it was Aristotle’s conception of logic that reigned supreme. And, we will recall, the basis of logical argumentation for Aristotle was the categorical syllogism, the standard example of which is this:
(1) All men are mortal
(2) Socrates is a man
(3) Therefore Socrates is mortal
What is central to Aristotle’s approach is that logic focuses on categories of things: the category of all men, the category of mortal things, and the category of Socrates the person. By contrast the Stoic’s approach focuses on logical connectives such as if-then, and, or, and not.
Physics: God and Fate
Stoic theories of physics and cosmology are as detailed as any accounts offered by Epicurus, Aristotle, or the Presocratics. A short summary of the Stoic position on cosmology is this:
The Stoics teach that God is unity, and that he is called Mind, and Fate, and Jupiter, and by many other names besides. As he was in the beginning by himself, he turned into water, the whole substance which pervaded the air. Just as the seed is contained in the fruit, so too, he being the seminal principle of the world, remained behind in moisture, making matter fit to be employed by himself in the production of those things which were to come after. Then he made the four elements, fire, water, air, and earth. . . . [The Stoics] say that all things are produced by fate. Fate is the connecting cause of existing things, or the reason according to which the world is regulated. [Diogenes Laertius, Lives, Zeno, 68, 74]
The most prominent feature of their physics, as reflected in the above passage, is their notion of fate: everything in the world is determined according to the principle of divine law. Also, as the above indicates, they variously describe their notion of fate as God, fire, destiny, and, perhaps most significantly, logos—the Greek term for “order” first used by the Presocratic philosopher Heraclitus.
The Stoic concept of fate is best il
STOICISM
Of all the philosophical schools active during Hellenistic times, Stoicism had the largest number of followers, and was often contrasted with Epicueanism, its closest rival. Stoicism held that the cosmos is governed by an over-arching fatalistic law, and we best achieve happiness when we resign ourselves to fate.
Zeno
The founder of Stoicism was a philosopher named Zeno (334–262 BCE) from the island of Cyprus (not to be confused with Zeno from Elea, who was the Presocratic follower of Parmenides). He was born in the city of Citium—now called Larnaca, one of Cyprus’s largest cities. At the time it was a small city with ties to both Greece and the Semitic land of Phoenicia (now Lebanon). He moved to Athens at 22, perhaps as the result of a shipwreck. Legend has it that he was at a bookseller’s stall in the market place reading Xenophon’s account of Socrates. Fascinated by the philosopher, he asked the bookseller where he could find such a person. The bookseller replied “follow that man,” pointing to a famous Cynic philosopher who happened to be walking by. Zeno became his student, then moved onto other teachers, and after about twenty years began lecturing himself. His first followers were called Zenonians, but later referred to as “Stoics” after the place where he gave his lectures, namely, on the Painted Porch (Stoa Poikile) in the marketplace of Athens.
He is described as having a slightly twisted neck and harsh personality traits. A student of his once noticed that Zeno corrected everyone around him, except that particular student himself. He asked Zeno why, and Zeno replied “Because I have no confidence in you.” Zeno had very simple living habits, eating food that didn’t require cooking, drinking mostly water, wearing thin clothes, and he was apparently insensible to rain, heat, and pain. These aspects of his personality were ridiculed in a Greek play that contained the following line: “This man adopts a new philosophy: he teaches to be hungry, and nevertheless he gets disciples. Bread is his only food, his best desert is dried figs, and water is his drink.” While this description of Zeno is entertaining in itself, it also illustrates an important philosophical point for Stoicism: happiness is best attained by denying pleasures, and not by pursuing enjoyments as Epicurus recommended.
A famous story of Zeno relates that he once whipped a slave for stealing; the slave said it was his destiny to steal, and Zeno said it was also his destiny to be whipped. Again we find a philosophical message here: according to Stoicism, there is a consistency between the destiny that is fated for us and justice for how we behave. According to one account of Zeno’s death, he strangled himself after breaking his toe, which he took to be an indication that his time was up. One of his books, called The Republic, was a work of utopian politics depicting a city that is run by rational citizens. Although the work does not survive, descriptions of its contents conform to his preference for simplicity and austerity. He recommends abolishing money, temples, law courts, marriage. Men and women should dress alike, completely covering their bodies, yet at the same time should practice free love.
Zeno divided the field of philosophy into three areas: logic, physics and ethics. Stoic philosophers offered various analogies to explain how these three parts are related, such as these:
They compare philosophy to an animal, likening logic to the bones and sinews, physics to the fleshy parts, and ethical philosophy to the soul. They also compare it to an egg, calling logic the shell, and ethics the white, and physics the yolk. [Diogenes Laertius, Lives, “Zeno,” 33]
However, the most famous analogy, which was offered by Zeno himself, is that philosophy is like a garden where logic functions as the protective fence, physics is a tree within the garden, and ethics is the fruit that grows on the trees. We will consider each of these in order.
Logic: Conviction, Connectives, Argument Forms
There are many elements to Stoic logic, but we will examine three particularly interesting ones. First is their conception of truth conviction. Zeno argued that are four degrees of conviction: perception, assent, comprehension, knowledge. For example, I might perceive an apple falling from a tree, and think nothing else of it. Then I might push the matter further and assent to—or hold a belief about—the falling apple. Then I might comprehend some implications of the falling apple, such as it would hurt if it fell on my head. Finally, I might have full knowledge about the falling apple, involving the laws of nature which made it act as it did. Zeno picturesquely explained the different degrees of conviction by slowly clenching his fist, as described here:
Zeno illustrated this by the action of his hand. For showing his hand open to view with the fingers stretched out, perception, said he, is like this. Then, closing his fingers slightly, assent is like this. Next, entirely closed together his fingers and doubling his fist, he declared this position to resemble the mental act of comprehension; from that simile he also gave a new name to that mental act, calling it “grasping”. Again when he had brought up his left hand and had tightly and powerfully closed it over the other fist, he said that knowledge was like that, and that no one was able to attain to knowledge but the wise person. [Cicero, Academics, 2.4]
Zeno also states that knowledge, which is the strongest level of conviction “takes hold of us by the hair and drags us to assent.” The message behind these metaphors is that some beliefs are dramatically more compelling than others, and we have a high level of certainty of their truth.
A second component of Stoic logic involves understanding the underlying logical structure of the statements that we make, which they called “assertibles.” Take, for example, these two simple assertible statements: “it is day” and “it is night.” Using a logical connective, they can be spliced together into a longer one such as “it is day or it is night”. In this case, the logical connective is the word “or”. Of the many logical connectives discussed by the Stoics, in recent times the following four have become an essential part of logic in philosophy:
*Conditional (if-then): “If it is day, then it is light.”
*Conjunction (and): “It is day and it is light.”
*Disjunction (or): “It is day or it is night”
*Negation (not): “It is not day”
These four connectives are also foundational to computer programming where they are better known as “Boolean operators,” named after the 19th century British mathematician George Boole.
A third aspect of Stoic logic is the underlying logical structure of arguments. Suppose, for example, that I make the following statement: “Plato is breathing, so he must be alive”. This short sentence contains an argument and, according to the Stoics, the underlying structure of it is this:
If Plato is alive then Plato must be breathing.
Plato is alive
Therefore, Plato must be breathing
Or, more abstractly,
If A then B
A
Therefore, B
Today this particular logical form goes by the name modus ponens. Note that the logic of it hinges on a conditional “if-then” statement in the first line. Another logical argument form of the Stoics, which today goes by the name disjunctive syllogism, is this:
It is night or it is day
It is not night
Therefore, it is day
Or, more abstractly,
A or B
not A
Therefore, B
Here the underlying logic involves a disjunctive “or” statement in the first line, and a negation in the second line. These two argument forms—along with several others introduced by the Stoics—are foundational to contemporary notions of logical argumentation which have dominated philosophy since the early 1900s. Prior to that, it was Aristotle’s conception of logic that reigned supreme. And, we will recall, the basis of logical argumentation for Aristotle was the categorical syllogism, the standard example of which is this:
(1) All men are mortal
(2) Socrates is a man
(3) Therefore Socrates is mortal
What is central to Aristotle’s approach is that logic focuses on categories of things: the category of all men, the category of mortal things, and the category of Socrates the person. By contrast the Stoic’s approach focuses on logical connectives such as if-then, and, or, and not.
Physics: God and Fate
Stoic theories of physics and cosmology are as detailed as any accounts offered by Epicurus, Aristotle, or the Presocratics. A short summary of the Stoic position on cosmology is this:
The Stoics teach that God is unity, and that he is called Mind, and Fate, and Jupiter, and by many other names besides. As he was in the beginning by himself, he turned into water, the whole substance which pervaded the air. Just as the seed is contained in the fruit, so too, he being the seminal principle of the world, remained behind in moisture, making matter fit to be employed by himself in the production of those things which were to come after. Then he made the four elements, fire, water, air, and earth. . . . [The Stoics] say that all things are produced by fate. Fate is the connecting cause of existing things, or the reason according to which the world is regulated. [Diogenes Laertius, Lives, Zeno, 68, 74]
The most prominent feature of their physics, as reflected in the above passage, is their notion of fate: everything in the world is determined according to the principle of divine law. Also, as the above indicates, they variously describe their notion of fate as God, fire, destiny, and, perhaps most significantly, logos—the Greek term for “order” first used by the Presocratic philosopher Heraclitus.
The Stoic concept of fate is best il
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