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The Stoic Who Valued Truth More Highly Than the Dogmas of His Own School

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The Stoic Who Valued Truth More Highly Than the Dogmas of His Own School CHAPTER FIVE POSIDONIAN PUZZLES 1. Introduction The real hero of Galen's cast of characters is Posidonius of Apamea (c.l35-55 BCE), the Stoic who valued truth more highly than the dogmas of his own school. If we may believe Galen, he abandoned the unitary conception of the intellect and returned to the 'ancient account', i.e. the Platonic tripartition. Indeed, Galen tells us, he had formally directed his On Affections (IIrpl. n:a8&v) against Chrysippus' treatise of the same title. 1 Galen moreover appeals to the authority of Posidonius in claiming that Cleanthes and Zeno had postulated permanent non-rational factors in the soul. Among the Stoics featuring in PHP 4 and 5 Chrysippus emerges as an isolated case, though an admittedly influential one. The great majority of the Stoics Galen had encountered clung to the Chrysippean model-which explains why Galen deals with Chrysippus so extensively.2 Two substantial fragments of Chrysippus' On Affections are quoted by Galen not directly from that work but from that of Posidonius (see above, pp. 8 f.). In addition we find in PHP 4-5 long stretches of text in which Galen quotes from, or at least frequently refers to, Posidonius-so much so that a great number of these passages (some several modern pages long) have found their way into Edelstein­ Kidd's Posidonius. Galen's obvious interest in playing off Posidonius and Chrysippus against each other does not entail that he is unreliable. The evidence he produces needs to be assessed bit by bit. Indeed it has convinced many modern students that the above picture of the development of 1 See PHP 5.6.45. Cooper (1998), 89-90, 101 n.10 tends to subscribe to this view but admits that it depends entirely on information supplied by Galen. Gill (1998) 129 f., too, argues that Posidonius was concerned to address real problems in Chrysippean thinking (viz. through his introduction of the concept of 'affective movements'), though this did not amount to the root-and-branch rejection of Chrysippean psychology claimed by Galen. 2 PHP4.4.38 = Posid. T 59 E.-K quoted infra, p. 207. POSIDONIAN PUZZLES 199 early Stoic psychology is broadly correct.3 Here, as elsewhere, the verbatim quotations produced by Galen have lent an irresistible plausibility to his case. PHP books 4 and 5 were influential, if not decisive, in the elevation of Posidonius to the status of the pivotal thinker, who brought about the transition between the school's founding fathers and Imperial Stoicism.4 This assumption also served to justify the periodisation in which Posidonius and his teacher Panaetius feature as the main representatives of so-called Middle Stoicism. Today, however, the picture constructed by Galen in PHP 4-5 is no longer accepted without reservations. The evidence for Zeno and Cleanthes to be found in other sources is slim, but most historians doubt whether Chrysippus differed from them to any significant degree.5 Further, the alleged 'unorthodoxy' of Posidonius has been questioned by Fillion-Lahille (1984)6 and Cooper (1998) .7 In general, other sources than Galen are brought to bear on the question. Fillion-Lahille is right in pointing out that Posidonius often defended other Stoic doctrines formulated by the first generations of Stoics.8 (I might add that sources such as Diogenes Laertius frequent­ ly list him as a witness to the Stoic position tout court, and alongside 'early Stoics' according to the modern periodisation) .9 Cooper, though accepting some form of divergence on Posidonius' part, points out some far-reaching and, for a Stoic, awkward consequences for ethical theory, if Galen's claims about his psychology are taken for 3 See supra, n. 2 and e.g. Reinhardt (1953/4) 662, Laffranque (1964) 395 ff., Kidd (1971) 203 ff., Glibert-Thierry (1977) 423ff., Long-Sedley (1987), vol. 1, 422, Mansfeld (1991) 119 ff., Gourinat (1996) 27, Boys-Stones (2001) 46. 4 Today few would subscribe to Theiler's (1935) view that Posidonius was the crucial link in the evolution ofNeoplatonism; yet Posidonius is still widely assumed to have been syncretistic in outlook. 5 As was influentially defended by Pohlenz (1933) and anew, in certain ways, by Sorabji (2000). Long-Sedley (1987) vol. 1, 321 express scepticism about the possi­ bility of tracing Chrysippean monism back to his predecessors. 6 Fillion-Lahille (1984) 153 ff. 7 A rather different line of interpretation is taken by Stevens ( 1995). Although his approach is promising insofar as he takes dialectical moves on Posidonius' part into account, I am not convinced by his thesis that Posidonius' strategy is to attribute to Chrysippus 'subtly altered representations of Carneades' views' (322), that is to say, to parody Academic attacks on the Chrysippean theories in order to strengthen the Stoic position-while at the same time adopting tripartition as more in line with common sense. 8 See Fillion-Lahille (1984) 153, 316 n. 5, pointing to F 170, 175, 187 E.-K. 9 E.g. D.L. 7.39, 40, 41, 54, 60; see further Kidd-Edelstein's Index of sources (vol. I, p. 259). .
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