PHILO OF ALEXANDRIA AND THE ORIGINS OF THE STOIC ΠΡΠΑΘΕΙΑΙ*

Margaret Graver

There has been considerable interest in the Stoic doctrine of πρ- π"ειαι or “pre-emotions.”1 Belonging to the realm of emotion and yet not counted as emotions, the πρπ"ειαι are directly relevant to two of our most pressing questions about Chrysippan emotion the- ory, namely ‘what exactly does it mean to say that emotions are vol- untary?’ and ‘what level of affective experience is it that is excluded from the ideal human condition?’ For the πρπ"ειαι are consistently defined as involuntary, rather than voluntary, responses, and the sage’s insusceptibility to emotions (π"εια) will not apply to responses which are not π"η. But reconstruction of the history and conceptual signifi- cance of the πρπ"εια doctrine is fraught with difficulty because of the scarcity of texts clearly referring to it. Our most informative account, that of Seneca in De ira, 2.1–4, presents as Stoic doctrine (nobis placet, 2.1.3) a lengthy discussion of involuntary affects, which it calls “initial responses” or, at one point, “blows to the body,” arguing that these are the effects of impressions alone, without, or prior to, the mind’s endorsement of those impressions.2 Compatible with this, though not

* This article is reprinted with minor corrections from Phronesis: A Journal for Ancient Philosophy, vol. 44 no. 4 (September 1999), 300–325. 1 The fullest recent treatments are those of B. Inwood, “Seneca and Psycholog- ical Dualism”, in J. Brunschwig–M. Nussbaum (eds.), Passions and Perceptions. Studies in Hellenistic Philosophy of Mind (Cambridge 1993), 164–181, and R. Sorabji, “Chrysippus- Posidonius-Seneca: a High-Level Debate on Emotion”, in J. Sihvola and T. Engberg- Pedersen (eds.), The Emotions in Hellenistic Philosophy (Dordrecht–Boston 1998), 149–170. Important earlier treatments include, in primis, J.M. Rist, “Seneca and Stoic Ortho- doxy”, ANRW II 36.3 (Berlin 1989), 1993–2012 and K. Abel, “Das Propatheia-Theo- rem: ein Beitrag zur stoischen Affektenlehre”, Hermes 111 (1983), 78–97. The question is also treated extensively in R. Sorabji, Emotions and Peace of Mind: from Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation (Oxford 2000). 2 Nobis placet is a regular Senecan formula for stating school doctrine. The theory presented in De ira, 2.1–5 is in my view considerably less innovative than has sometimes been claimed. Its chief novelty is in the emphasis given at 2.3.2 to the role of the body in emotion; on this point see 209 below. I differ from R. Sorabji, “Chrysippus- Posidonius-Seneca”, cit., 154, and from some other scholars (e.g. P. Donini, Le scuole, 198 margaret graver congruent in every detail, is a somewhat later account by Epictetus, which speaks of “rapid and unplanned movements antecedent to the office of intellect and reason.”3 A brief passage in Cicero’s third Tus- culan Disputation, dated to 45BCE, exhibits some similarities of termi- nology to the Epictetus fragment and is usually thought to be relevant, though it lacks most of the more distinctive features of the Senecan account. But the fragmentary texts that survive from the earlier gener- ations of Stoic writers do not provide us with any clear precedent for the material in Seneca and Epictetus. Thus while some scholars have been willing to follow Karlhans Abel in making πρπ"ειαι a compo- nent of the original Stoic position, others have treated them as a late innovation, perhaps by Posidonius or even by Seneca himself.4 An early attestation for the term πρπ"εια would in itself serve to corroborate one important feature of the Senecan account, and would, moreover, enable us to resolve a difficulty in that account. For although Seneca repeatedly speaks of “initial responses” (primi motus) and “pre- liminaries to emotion” (principia proludentia adfectibus), the examples he uses mostly concern phenomena which are in no way “preliminary” to emotions but merely stand in lieu of them, things like vertigo, stage- fright, or responses to books or music, which, whatever their status, are l’anima, l’impero. La filosofia antica da Antioco a Plotino (Turin 1982), 188–189, B. Inwood “Seneca and Psychological Dualism”, cit., 154–161) on the interpretation of 2.4.1: the tertius motus is not anger but insanity, the feritas discussed in 2.5. Compare Cic. Tusc. 3.11, distinguishing insanity from susceptibility to emotion, but indicating that strong emotion may produce insanity as commonly understood. Sen. Ep. 113.18, which is sometimes cited in connection with De ira, 2.4.1 (e.g. by E. Holler, Seneca und die Seelenteilungslehre und Affektpsychologie der Mittelstoa (Kallmünz 1934), 22) does not appear to me to be relevant to this discussion. 3 Epictetus fr. 9, reported by Aulus Gellius, NA 19.1. Translations, except from Armenian, are my own unless otherwise noted. 4 Among those who have tentatively endorsed Abel’s view are A.A. Long–D.N. Sed- l ey, The Hellenistic Philosophers (Cambridge 1987) vol. 2, 417, J.M. Rist, “Seneca and Stoic Orthodoxy”, cit. The claims of Posidonius are put forward in Holler, op. cit., 16–24 and later taken up by J. Fillion-Lahille, Le De ira de Sénèque et la philosophie stoïcienne des passions (Paris 1984), 163–169 (but cf. the objections of B. Inwood, “Seneca and Psychologi- cal Dualism”, cit., 165n.); they have recently been renewed in J. Cooper, “Posidonius on Emotions”, in J. Sihvola and T. Engberg-Pedersen (eds.), The Emotions in Hellenistic Philosophy, cit., 99 (also in J. Cooper, Reason and Emotion, Princeton 1994) and C. Gill, “Did Galen Understand Platonic and Stoic Thinking on Emotions?” in J. Sihvola and T. Engberg-Pedersen (eds.), The Emotions in Hellenistic Philosophy, cit., 129. Others have attributed the point to Sotion (M. Pohlenz, Die Stoa. Geschichte einer geistigen Bewegung (Göttingen 1949) vol. 1, 307–308) or Panaetius (P. Donini, Le scuole, l’anima, l’impero, cit., 188) or Seneca himself (I. Hadot, Seneca und die griechisch-römische Tradition der Seelenleitung (Berlin 1969), 133); cf. M. Griffin, Seneca. A Philosopher in Politics (Oxford 1976), 180–181.