Rational Empiricism: The Stoics on Reason, Experience and Katalepsis*

Ada Bronowski

Abstract In tbis paper, Stoic epistemology is analysed in terms of how to achieve a stable grasping of reality through katalepsis. The paper argues that for the Stoics, this is astate accessible to any rational being because it is the upshot of amental capacity we are necessarily bound to put into operation, namely that of experiencing and mentally ordering objects from the sensible world. The paper puts forward an original interpretation relying on a reconsidered notion of Stoic empeiria or experience. It connects the Stoic theory of the development of reason and formation of conceptions with a more fluid oscillation between belief and knowledge so as to establish a peculiar relation between reason and the Stoic notion of experience, articulating a form of rational empiricism.

Knowledge, episteme, for the Stoics is astate of mind - quite literally. For they say that knowledge is the mind (the soul or the commanding faculty, the hegemonikon) disposed in a certain way.l It is astate of mind which is characteristic of the soul of the perfectly wise. For the Stoics believe that only the wise attain such astate. 2 The epithets which describe this state are echoed from one source text to another: 3 it is astate which is "stable", "steadfast", "firm", "unshakeable", and which, moreover, no further reasoning or reason can move. 4 The last stipulation marks out episteme not so much as a static psychological state a person receives or has as a matter of individual disposition (according to which a person is more or less disposed to be wise), but rather as the culmination of a rational process. The wise man is not swayed by further reasoning because he has reached a superior stage in his capacity for argumentation and reasoning. The conclusions he puts forward have not merely got equipollent validity with respect to other argumentations. Rather, given that no further reasoning can alter them, they correspond to truths in the world which the wise man has succeeded in fully grasping. Knowledge, episteme, is thus the end state of a rational process .

• This paper was inspired by the musical works of Max Richter and can be read as a running commentary to the rationalisation over random sound-data through musical structuring which characterises Richter's distinctive musical minimalism. I am, in more practical terms, very much indebted to Prof. Jonathan Bames, Prof. Pieter Sjoerd Hasper, Prof. Justin E. H. Smith and to a very he1pfu1 anonymous reviewer for useful and perspicacious comments on a first draft of this paper. Many tharu:s also go to Prof. Katerina Ierodiakonou for giving me the opportunity to write this piece in the first p1ace. 1 S.E. PH. 11. 80 and M. 7. 39: ,,&al)( o~ tma1f)IlTJ "w; exov ta~Lv ~Y.llov()(6v. 2 S.E. M. 7. 152; Stob. Ec1. 11. 7. 11 m, 106f.; Cic. Acad, II. 145. 3 S.E. M. 7. 151; Stob. Ec1. H. 7. 51, 5-6; ps-Galen Def. Med. 19.350, 3f. 4 In the texts. the word Myo; (e. g. S.E. M. 7. 151) and ratio in the Latin translation (e. g. Cic. Acad. 1. 41) are used to refer 10 a counter-argument or reasoning which, were this state capab1e ofbeing swayed (that is, were this state mere1y belief) wou1d indeed sway it. Know1edge is thus specifically contrasted to belief (doxa) in these texts as precise1y not being susceptib1e to be altered by further reasoning: &1l.~:xe.lOV (mo Myou (S.E. ibid.). 168 Ada Bronowski

The qualifiers applied to this end state (those of strength and steadfastness) acquire proper descriptive weight in context; name1y in comparison with the different states a human soul can reach. For the Stoics, the sou1-state corresponding to know1edge is a state determined in comparison with two other sou1-states: that of doxa (belief) and that of katalepsis - the well-known peculiar Stoic coinage, prob1ematic because it is fleet• ing, though it is differentiated from belief - which indicates amental state of grasping or understanding. The term 'katalepsis' is common1y translated as 'cognition', a trans• lation which misses out however on the more idiosyncratic aspects of the Stoic notion: for a katalepsis is amental grasping, and as such has indeed something cognitive about it (but so have belief and know1edge). More crucial1y and distinctive1y, a katalepsis is characterised by its admitting of more or 1ess fleetingness re1ative1y to belief or know1- edge. The translation as 'cognition' is thus unhe1pfu1 and possib1y mis1eading, if indeed the main characteristic is a certain kind of fluctuation fixed by certain conditions which need to be exarnined. In what follows we shall keep to the transliterated form 'katalep• sis' . One of the airns of this artic1e is to articu1ate the conditions for the stabilisation of katalepsis. The tension between katalepsis being fundamentally relative and the possibility for its becoming a stab1e state reso1ves through a radica1 shift in the kind of know1edge state there is to be had, one that is determined on the basis of how to achieve katalepsis. 5 Attaining a katalepsis, name1y through deve10ping the capacity to recognise the associated kataleptic irnpressions, is brought to bear direct1y on the means for realisation of the maximal state of katalepsis which is, in effect, know1edge, episteme. The second part of the artic1e thus de1ves into what it takes to deve10p such a capacity by bringing to light the contribution of the Stoic notion of experience, empeiria, to a person's progressively increasing capacity to recognise kataleptic impressions. The more kataleptic impressions are recognised as such and the 1ess non-kataleptic impressions get acknow1edged for what they are, the more fixed the state of katalepsis is bound to become. But we are in effect, bound to gain empeiria, and, through the necessary deve10pment of reason are bound to acquire such conceptions which allow for the recognition of at least some kataleptic irnpressions. The path to a stab1e katalepsis is thus methodically traced out by the Stoic theory of the deve10pment of reason through experience. Belief and know1edge, doxa and episteme, are the two canonical opposites whose descriptions are set one against the other: the stability or steadfastness (asphaies) of episteme is gauged against the flimsiness and weakness (asthenes) of doxa. Episteme resides sole1y in the wise, doxa is the lot of the foolish. 6 But with the introduction of the intermediate state of katalepsis, the contrast is recalibrated and loses its starkness: katalepsis is defined as falling short of episteme but is more solid than mere doxa. It corresponds to a solid mental grasping which guarantees the truth of what is being grasped but lacks the utter inalterability of episteme. It thus constitutes an intermediate state which cements the re1ativity of one state to another rather than an irreducib1e opposition. For

5 The relativity which the notion of katalepsis introduces is familiar enough from the literature on the Stoics. In more recent scholarship (e. g. Meinwald 2005) emphasis has been put on how katalepsis enables the Stoics to nuance the status ofbeliefs. Here, more distinctively, we focus on the notion ofknowledge it underscores. 6 S.E. M. 7. 152: '1]v iJ.~v ir:~a,i)iJ.Yjv ev iJ.ovm, \)7tlatcxael)(~ Aiyoua~ 'aL, aorpoL" t1]v o~ 06~l)(v sv iJ.6vm, 'aL, ,!,cxuAm,.