Draft: comments welcome © Susan Sauvé Meyer June 2011

Affect and Impulse in the Stoic doctrine of the Passions

One of the most famous doctrines of the Ancient Stoics is that requires the extirpation of the “passions” (pathe).1 By pathe they have in mind such things as anger, fear, love, pity, spite, and hate, which they classify into four genera:2

• Appetite (epithumia) whose species include anger, yearning, love,

hatred, etc.;

• Fear (phobos) whose species include anxiety, dread;

• Delight (hedone) whose species include spite and satisfaction;

• Distress (lupe) whose species include pity and envy.

It is now widely recognized that the doctrine of (freedom from passion) does not advocate a life without emotion or affect, for the Stoics allow that the wise person will experience certain preliminaries to passions

(instinctive affective responses which, in their view, fall below the cognitive threshold to be classified as genuine passions),3 as well as three kinds of

1 , On Moral Ends 3.35; DL 7.117 2 Andronicus, On the Passions; Stobaeus, Eclogae 2.7.10-10d (Wachsmuth (=W) 2.88-92; Pomeroy 1999); Cicero TD 3.22-5, 4.11-22; DL 7.111-116. My citations of the epitome of stoic ethic in Stobaeus will be by chapter in Wachsmuth (W), and by page and line number in the 1999 edition of the Epitome by Pomeroy (P). 3 Seneca 2.1.4; Gellius Noctes Atticae 19.1; Cic TD 3.83. While it has been argued that this doctrine is a development by later Stoic writers (Sorabji 2000, pp. 70-75, cf. Inwood 1985, pp. 175-81), Graver 2007, pp. 85-108 makes an effective case for its origins in early . 2

“good feelings” (eupatheiai) which are corrected versions of the passions: instead of appetite (epithumia) the will experience “wish” (boulesis), instead of fear, caution (eulabeia), and instead of delight (hedone), joy

(chara). Thus the of emotion as we tend to understand it today includes a wide range of affective phenomena that the Stoics find unobjectionable (the propatheiai) or even normative (the eupatheiai).

The question this paper addresses is whether all the phenomena encompassed by these three categories are affective. Setting aside the propatheiai (where I think the answer is obviously yes), my focus will be on the psychological category that comprises the pathe and the eupatheiai. My concern will be to resist a tendency in the scholarly literature to suppose that only some of the impulses in this category are affective responses, while others are non-affective behavioral impulses.4

The Stoics define the pathe and eupatheiai as respectively, irrational

(alogon) and reasonable (eulogon) instances of the following four kinds of psychic motion (kineseis):5

• Reaching (orexis) in response a prospective apparent good; • Shrinking away (ekklisis) in response to a prospective apparent evil; • Swelling (eparsis)6 in response to a present apparent good; • Contraction (sustole) in response to a present apparent evil.

4 my concern especially is to resist the claim that the latter are necessarily behavioral impulses, since even those who recognize their affective status (e.g. Cooper 2005) agree with Inwood 1985 in taking these impulses to be essentially directed at producing behavior (not just affective response). 5 Arius, ch 10b/ W 2.90/ P 58.17-31; Cicero,Tusc. 4.12-14; DL 7.113; Andronicus, Peri Path 6 /SVF 3.432; Galen provides evidence that the terminology goes back to : SVF 3.463 6 alt: diachusis (, de Virt. Mor. 449d/ SVF 3.468) 3

It will be convenient in what follows to refer to this quartet of motions as the four pathetic motions of the soul (‘pathetic’ for the common root of pathe and eupatheiai). I follow Graver (2007) in taking all four pathetic motions to be kinds of affective response.7 It is tempting, however, to suppose that it is only the psychic swellings and contractions that are affective responses, arising as a result of the success or failure of orexis and ekklisis, which are more purely behavioral impulses of pursuit and avoidance.8 I myself have been so tempted, but I think the preponderance of the evidence weighs against this interpretation.

If one considers the specific types of passions and good feelings that the Stoics list, it might seem obvious that we are dealing with affective phenomena that need not be impulses to further action.9 Setting aside the species in the genera of delight, distress, and joy – whose affective status, as instances of psychic “contraction” (sustole) and “elation” (eparsis) is not here in dispute—we may note the species of orexis include the pathe anger,

7 My account here complements Graver’s by identifying the roots of the alternative interpretation, and displaying its problematic implications in the context of the stoic theory of impulse. 8 Such a view might appear to be expressed by the Roman Stoic (Diss. 3.2.14, which uses the term “” for the contractions and expansions that result from achieving or frustrating the goals of orexis and ekklisis; but the older Stoics clearly considered orexeis and ekkliseis to be among the pathe). That only the latter are affective is articulated explicitly by Inwood 1985: 144-7; criticized by Graver 2007231n38. Others implicitly: e.g. Brennan 1998 who when mentioning the “affective” side of emotions, invokes only “elations” and “depressions” or “shocks, bites, frissons, … internal thrilling and chilling….” (p. 30); similarly Lloyd (1978) writes as if sustole and eparsis alone are affective implicitly, Cooper 2005 by contrast, emphasizes the affective nature of all four pathetic movements, although he too adheres to the view, which I shall argue underlies Inwood’s, that orexis and ekklisis are impulses to bodily behavior, while sustole and eparsis are affective responses to the success or failure of those endeavors (e.g. 178, 16-7). 9 Brennan 2004: 92 notes the affective connotation of these the species pathos terms. 4 yearning, love, hatred and the eupathaiai of friendliness or good will

(eumenai); and that the species of psychic ekklisis (“shrinking away”) include anxiety and dread (both pathe) as well as shame and reverence

(eupatheiai).10 Hate, defined as wishing harm to another (DL 7.113) is not

(or not necessarily) an impulse to bring about such harm. Anger, defined as an appetite (epithumia) for revenge (ibid), experienced as the seething

(zesis) of “cardiac heat” (SVF 2.878), is clearly affective, but presumably does not always eventuate in vengeful action. Nor is it unheard of for dread to paralyze a person, rather than move him to take evasive action, or for friendly feelings to be unacted upon.

So if the specific kinds of orexis and ekklisis are what we might pre- philosophically understand to be essentially affective rather than behavioral, what might appear to recommend the view (my target in this paper) that they are primarily behavioral impulses?

Inwood’s case is not explicitly stated, but seems to proceed from the assumption that (1) psychic “contraction” (sustole) and “elation”

(eparsis/diachusis) capture what we understand as affective responses

(explicitly stated p. 145); and that (2) these motions are not attributed to cases of the genus pathe “appetite” (epithumia) and fear (pathetic orexis and ekklisis)11 But this leaves unaddressed the possibility that orexis and ekklisis themselves are kinds of affect.

10 Andronicus, Peri Path / SVF 3.41, DL 7.115. 11 Inwood 1985: 297 n 85 (cf. 146-155) – although he concedes that Arius’ report at Stob. Ecl. 2.90 that fear involves the “freshness” (to prosphaton) that we are told, a page earlier in the same account by Arius, means “stimulative of an irrational 5

It may seem, simply from the names for the four pathetic motions, that only “contraction” and “expansion” of the soul are affective.12 Indeed, the other two terms are typically translated ‘desire’ or ‘pursuit’ (for orexis) and ‘avoidance’ (for ekklisis).13 However, quite literally, orexis means

‘reaching’ (from orego, to reach or stretch out, which has a metaphorical meaning of “yearning”)14 and ekklisis means ‘leaning away’ (from ek-klino).

Thus there is no linguistic reason against construing as an orexis, or

“reaching” of the soul, my yearning for a walk on the beach, which is not simply (or even necessarily) an impulse that brings about my perambulation on the sand. And similarly, linguistic considerations allow me to construe the soul’s ekklisis (shrinking away from) the expected agony of a scheduled root canal not as an impulse that keeps me away from the dentist’s office, but rather a psychological agitation or felt aversion at that prospect.

To be sure, uses the term orexis for the genus of which epithumia and boulesis are species, and, following the Platonic tripartition of the soul, he construes these orexeis as impulses that (unless impeded) issue in action or purposive bodily movememt. It is thus not unreasonable to translate orexis as ‘desire’ in these contexts. But we should be wary of supposing that this is what the Stoics mean by an orexis of the soul,15 for

contraction or expansion” 2.89.2-3 – does attribute an affective aspect to fear. This is likely reflecting the influence of a later Stoic, he proposes (n. 85). 12 As noted by Lloyd 1978, eparsis and diachusis/ eparsis are ordinary words for emotional arousal. 13 e.g. Pomeroy 59. Inwood , Brennan. 14 LSJ sv. II 2 b. 15 As Inwood notes (1985: 113), the Stoics, in their doctrine of impulse, deliberately redefine familiar Aristotelian terms. Orexis, I would submit is one such term, 6 they are emphatic that orexis is not the genus of the psychic impulses of a rational agent; rather, they say, it is one species of such impulse.16

Just what species of practical impulse is it? Given the classification of the pathetic impulses in terms of their objects (apparent good or evil) and by time (present or future), it is tempting to suppose that the quartet of pathetic motions constitutes an exhaustive classification of practical impulse quite generally.17 On principles of theoretical parsimony one might conclude that the future-directed impulses are behavioral impulses of pursuit and avoidance (aimed at securing apparent goods and avoiding apparent evils), and that the present-directed impulses are responsive to the success or failure of the goal-directed behavior brought about by orexis and ekklisis.

Such an interpretation, however, flies in the face of a proper understanding of the eupatheiai and the ways in which they differ from the pathe.18 The pathe (inappropriate reachings, shrinkings, etc.) are directed at and what the Stoics call “indifferents” (roughly, what we might call worldly objectives: such things as health, wealth, social standing, preservation of life, etc. and their opposites). We fear death, rejoice upon recovery from danger, and are distressed upon falling into poverty. The error inherent in the pathe, the Stoics teach, is to mistake these natural objects of pursuit and avoidance for genuine goods and evils. The only genuinely good is virtue19

although Inwood’s analysis (as far as I can tell) takes it to be continuous with Aristotle’s usage. 16 Arius apud Stob ch 9, Pomeroy 52.32-53.10. 17 Thus Lactantius SVF 3.437; Nussbaum 1994: 399-401; Meyer 2008: 162-5. For criticism see Brennan 1998; sympathetic view: Cooper 2005. 18 This interpretation is argued forcefully by Graver 2007, also Brennan 1998/2004;. 19 and “not other than virtue” (Sextus) — e.g. virtuous actions). 7 and the only genuinely bad thing is vice.20 These constitute the objects at which the eupatheiai are directed.21 For example, the sage experiences joy

(chara) at the activities of temperance (a virtue), and is repelled by the of committing injustice.22

On this understanding, an orexis is “irrational, excessive, and contrary to nature” (i.e. it is a pathos) when it is directed at things other than virtue

(health, wealth, and other worldly objectives). By contrast, it is reasonable

(eulogos) and appropriate (and hence an eupatheia) when it is directed at virtue (& kindred objects). There is no appropriate version of an orexis that is directed at health and bodily integrity (for the same reason that no eupatheia can take health as its object). The sage will pursue health appropriately, selecting it as the target to aim at, and will pursue it with a reserved impulse. But this impulse cannot, for the reasons just given, be an orexis. Mutatis mutandis, the same argument shows that the appropriate aversive impulse with which the sage will, for example, take steps to avoid bodily injury or disease, is not an ekklisis. An appropriate ekklisis has only vice, not disease or any other worldly objective as its target.23

20 and “not other than vice” (Sextus– e.g. vicious activities). 21 As established decisively by Graver and Brennan (some resistance by Cooper). Inwood 1985 largely agrees, but slips in construing the eupatheiai as the “simply the impulse[s] of the fully rational man” (173). 22 Andronicus, Peri Pathon. 23 Cooper 2005, by contrast, argues that the sage’s orexis is directed both at virtue and (in an appropriately restrained way) at the targeted indifferent. He rightly points out that a general impulse towards virtue will not suffice to move the body to action; some specific impulse particular to the circumstances, and hence directed “toward” the preferred indifferent. I agree with the latter, but take it to point to the non-orextic selection proposed by Inwood and Brennan. The price, as Cooper points out (and his interpretation is largely motivated to avoid paying it) is that the sage is 8

Thus it is a mistake, as Inwood himself points out, to suppose that orexis, ekklisis, eparsis and sustole exhaust the impulses that move us to action. The reserved impulses with which the sage pursues the preferred indifferents are not among these motions.24 If then, the latter impulses (AKA

“selections”) are what move us to pursue the preferred indifferents, they would suffice to account for the external behavior of the sage. Why then suppose that orexis and ekklisis are also intended to play this behavioral role?

I suspect the impetus comes from the assumption that the Stoics, in characterizing orexis as directed at (pros) an apparent good (Arius, ch 10/

Ecl. 2.88), must mean that it is an impulse to secure an apparent good or to bring about an (apparently good) state of affairs (and, similarly, that ekklisis is an impulse directed at escaping or avoiding an apparently bad thing).25 So conceived, orexis and ekklisis would indeed be behavioral impulses. Such a construal, I will argue, conflates two very different things that may be construed as the “objects” of impulse, on the Stoic analysis. Once we have clarified these two senses, by returning to look in more detail at the doctrine of impulse, it will be overwhelming plausible that orexis and ekklisis are affective movements of the psyche, rather than impulses to purposive behaviour. w/o affect for many of the ordinary objects of human affective response. I think the Stoics do pay that price. On this, see Kamtekar 2005. 24 Thus Inwood 1985; and more emphatically Brennan 1998 and 2004. 25 Thus Inwood 1985: orexis is a “vehement but natural urge to obtain the good” (p. 119); and: epithumia and fear “are the pursuit and avoidance respectively of what is mistakenly thought to be good and bad” (p. 154). Brennan and Cooper also share this very common undertanding of the relation between orexis and the apparent good. 9

In the general account of impulse in Arius Didymus’ epitome of Stoic , we are given the generic account of impulse as “a motion (phora) of the soul towards something” or (in the case of rational animals) a “motion

(phora) of the mind (dianoia) toward something in the field of action (en to(i) prattein)”. 26 Thus the passions, introduced as kinds of impulse in chapter 10, must also be psychic motions “towards something” (epi ti).27 The distinction between the four generic passions in terms of their orientation to (pros) good and evil, present and prospective (chapter 10) might seem to indicate what that something is. We are told (P 56.8-18):

appetite: directed at (pros) an apparent good when it is in prospect.

fear: directed at (pros) an apparent evil when it is in prospect.

delight: results when we get the object of appetite or avoid the object

of fear.

distress: results when we fail to get the object of appetite or fail to

avoid the object of fear.

It is, however, a mistake to conclude that the “objects” that orexis and ekklisis, for example, are here described (in chapter 10) as “directed at”

(pros + accusative) are the things “towards” which (epi + accusative) they the general account of impulse (in chapter 9) says they must be.

26 Chapter 9/ Pomeroy 52.31, 54.4-5. The qualification of the domain in the latter case as “the field of action” (en to(i) prattein) is not as restrictive as it might appear, since a few lines later (9a/ P 54.20-21) the kind of impulse called “preparation” (paraskeue) is defined as an action before an action (praxin pro praxeos) 27 That they are motions is also made explicit in Ecl. ch 10: P 56.2 although here kinesis (a more general term for change) is used instead of the phora (movement) in the generic defintion of impulse. 10

First of all, the general account of impulse makes it clear that what an impulse is “towards” (epi + acc) is what seems appropriate () to the agent (ch 9, P 52.31 / W2.86) – and this will be an action or activity, like walking or burying a treasure.28 These activities are specified by predicates contained in the propositions to which one assents in generating the impulse: e.g. the impulse to take a walk, which generates the activity of walking, consists in assent to a proposition such as “it is appropriate that I take a walk now” where “walking” is the predicate (ch 9b/ P54.26-32). By contrast, what seems good to the agent (in the case of a wrongly pathetic impulse) are the so-called “natural objects of pursuit” or preferred indifferents (e.g., health and wealth).29 I may walk in order to maintain my health, in which case my impulse to walk may be directed at (pros) health (as the apparent good to be achieved), but what my impulse is towards (epi + acc) in the generic definition of impulse, is walking.

Indeed every impulse, even ones that move us to “aversive” activity, is towards (epi + acc) its object in this sense: The “repulsive impulse”

(aphorme) that moves me to run away from a dangerous animal is all the same, for something, that is, running.30 In such cases we might therefore say that what impulse is towards in this sense is action or activity (such

28 walking as standard Stoic example of an action: DL 7.98, 109; Stob. Ecl 2.69, 72, 96-7; Seneca Ep. 113.18-19, 23 (citations from Inwood 1985 284n221). 29 for a careful and precise account of the role prpopsitions about the good, and about the kathekon play in pathetic impulses, see Graver 2007 chapter 2: “The Pathetic Syllogism”. On the significance of the distinction between the kathekon and the good, see Vogt 2008. 30 The preferred indifferents stimulate horme (impulse) and the dispreffered indifferents (e.g. death, disease, poverty) stimulate aphorms (“repulsion”): Arius ch 7c, W 2.82/ P 46.19-25; also:______. 11 things as talking, running, fighting, chopping, stirring…), whereas what it is

“directed at” is an apparent good. Thus the impulse that is towards (epi) running (in the former sense) may be “directed at” (pros) self-preservation as a further “object”.

So far we have a distinction between what an impulse is “towards”

(epi: an action or activity) and what it is “directed at” (pros: an apparent good or evil). The latter, in the example we have been considering is a further goal or telos of intentional activity. Thus we have not ruled out the possibility that orexis, pros the apparent good, may be “towards activity” whose point is to secure an apparent good. But this cannot be how we understand the way in which of orexis and ekklisis are pros apparent goods and evils, respectively (as are told in chapter 10).

Attention to the case of the ekklisis (fear) will make this evident.

What fear is explicitly said to be “directed at” (pros) is an apparent evil.

Thus, if pros introduces the further goal of the action that the impulse is

“towards” (epi), then fear would be an impulse to (epi) behavior that secures an apparent evil (rather than, as would be the case if fear were an instance of aphorme, an impulse to behavior that escapes the apparent evil). So the object toward which (pros) fear is directed, in this case, is not the ultimate objective of its impulse.

In what sense, then, is fear directed at (pros) an apparent evil? It seems obvious that the apparent evil is its intentional object, just as the apparent good is the intentional object of appetite. Thus fear and appetite, would be structurally analogous to the other two generic passions: distress 12 and delight, which take the presence of those apparent evils and goods as their intentional objects. E.g. one is distress at losing one’s livelihood, or delighted at escaping from danger. (These intentional objects are introduced with the locution epi + dative in chapter 10b -- P 58.28).

Having secured the result that the apparent goods and evils at which these pathetic impulses are directed (pros + acc) are their intentional objects, we may now ask a further question. What are the objects that these impulses are “towards” (epi) – in the sense in which the impulse to walk is

“towards walking”? Here we may work backward from the clarification in

Chapter 9b that the impulse is “for” (epi + accusative) the predicate in the proposition assented to, and that the proposition assented to presents an action as kathekon (ch 9). Add to this the Stoic claim, specifically about the passionate movements of the soul, that it is the reachings, withdrawings, expansions, and contractions themselves that we assent to as kathêkon.31

The conclusion this urges upon us is clear: that the impulses in question are impulses for the psychic motion of stretching, withdrawing, expanding or contracting, as the case may be.

There is a slight awkwardness here, in that the pathetic impulse, strictly speaking, must be distinguished from the pathetic motion of orexis, ekklisis, sustole, etc. that it is “towards” (epi) and thus brings about. Thus the passions would be characterized by the Stoics both as impulses and as

31 Arius apud Stob. Ecl. ch 10b; P 58.17-31; it might be argued that it is only re distress and delight that the claim about kathekein is explicitly made (58.28) (thus Inwood). But it clearly has to be for all four movements, since the argument that all the passions are in our power and hence that apatheia is possible, depends on the claim that we assent to them: and assent is to a proposition about the kathekon. 13 motions caused by impulse. But it appears to be a general feature of the

Stoic doctrine of impulse that the distinction between the impulse and the action it brings about is hard in practice to maintain: for example, walking – a paradigm Stoic example of activity due to impulse32 — is described as a movement of the soul (rather than as the movement of the limbs that, strictly speaking, the psychic impulse sets in motion).33 In any case, as

Inwood notes, Chrysippus himself explicitly makes such a distinction in the case of one of these motions (distress): distinguishing between the psychic contraction and the impulse to that contraction.34 In these cases, Inwood recognizes, the psychic impulse is towards (epi) an “internal” psychic activity

(p. 100). But in the case of orexis and ekklisis, he (like most other interpreters), he takes the psychic motion of reaching (orexis) or shrinking away (ekklisis) to be the impulse, with something else (a bodily movement directed at obtaining the apparent good) as the activity that it is (epi). That is, when deciding whether the four pathetic motions of the soul are impulses

(strictly conceived) or activities that arising from impulse, he gives classifies two of them (orexis and ekklisis) as impulses, and the other two (sustole and eparsis) as activities arising from impulse. But surely, absent compelling reason to the contrary, we should give the same answer for all four pathetic motions. Chrysippus’ evident willingness to allow that some of them are the

32 As in Galen, where walking is distinguished from the impulse that causes it (SVF 3.462). 33 Seneca Epist. 113.23/ LS 53L. The alternative view, that walking is simply the soul does not make any more room for a distinction between the impulse and the action it causes that the rival view that it is the motion of the soul. See Inwood 1985: 52-3 on the intimate relation between the action and the impulse that causes it. 34 SVF 3.466 = Galen PHP 4.7.14; Cited by Inwood 1985 p. 100; translated p. 149 14 results of impulses gives us to suppose that this is how he construes all of them.

So construed, the four pathetic motions are internal psychic motions with intentional objects:

• reaching out of the soul at the prospect of an apparent good

• shrinking away of the soul at the prospect of an apparent evil

• expansion of the soul at the presence of an apparent good

• contraction of the soul at the presence of an apparent evil.

That is, we have here a four-fold classification of affective response.

15

Works cited

Brennan, T. (1998). The Old Stoic Theory of the Emotions. The Emotions in Hellenistic . J. Sihvola and T. Engberg-Pederson. Dordrecht, Kluwer: 21-70. Brennan, T. (2000). "Reservation in Stoic Ethics." Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 82: 149-177. Brennan, T. (2005). The Stoic Life: Emotions, Duties, and Fate. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Cooper, J. (2005). "The Emotional Life of the Wise." Southern Journal of Philosophy 43(Suppl): 176-218. Graver, M. (2007). Stoicism and Emotion. Chicago, University of Chicago Press. Inwood, B. (1985). Ethics and Human Action in Early Stoicism. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Kamtekar, R. (1998). "Aidôs in Epictetus." Classical Philology 93: 136-60. Kamtekar, R. (2005). "Good Feelings and Motivation: Comments on John Cooper, “The Emotional Life of the Wise”." Southern Journal of Philosophy 43 (Suppl): 219-229. Lloyd, A. C. (1978). “Emotion and Decision in Stoic Psychology” in Rist ed.The Stoics. Berkeley: U of California Press, 233-246. Meyer, S. S. (2008). Ancient Ethics. Routledge. Nussbaum, M. (1994). The Therapy of Desire. Princeton, Princeton University Press. Sorabji, R. (2000). Emotion and Peace of Mind: From Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Vogt, K. M. (2008). Law, Reason, and the Cosmic City. Oxford UP.