Pneuma in Early Stoicism Robert Heller Royal
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PNEUMA IN EARLY STOICISM ROBERT HELLER ROYAL HOLLOWAY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON PhD 1 Declaration of Authorship I ………………………………… hereby declare that this thesis and the work presented in it is entirely my own. Where I have consulted the work of others, this is always clearly stated. Signed: ______________________ Date: ___________ 2 Abstract: The thesis proceeds on the supposition that there is an underlying theoretical unity between the three parts of philosophy and that the principle of coherence presupposes an element of continuity from one Stoic head to another. As such, whilst a fully- fledged theory of pneuma can only be attributed to Chrysippus, the third head of the school, the character of the theory is seen to be determined from much earlier with Zeno, who is the cause for the emergence of a pneuma with such unique characteristics in Chrysippus. Although the thesis does not pretend to be a comprehensive study of the concept of pneuma in Stoic thought, in order to trace the key characteristics of the Chrysippean concept in the earliest stages of the school and to reconstruct an outline of the underlying theory, I chart the evidence describing the mechanical processes involved in the pneuma’s variations in tension, its contraction and expansion, its growth and nourishment and the relation between the hegemonikon and the soul. These themes are discussed in chapters which are related to specific theories of the Stoics like cosmogony and cognitive process. The nature of the methodological approach means that I often use evidence from seemingly disparate parts of the Stoic system in order to better understand the processes involved and I also consider evidence from the doxographical records and extant commentaries which is largely ignored in the modern literature or is absent from von Arnim’s collection. 3 CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 6 INTRODUCTION 7 1. THE DIVISION OF PHILOSOPHY 17 Introduction 17 Origins and Development of the Tri-partite Division of Philosophy 19 Contemporary Literature 27 The Stoic System 34 Stoic Definitions of Philosophy 39 2. PNEUMA AND ITS EMERGENCE IN STOIC THOUGHT 52 Introduction 52 Zeno of Citium 53 Cleanthes of Assos 58 3. PERVADING FIRE AND THE COSMIC HEGEMONIKON 62 Introduction 62 Locating the Cosmic Hegemonikon 69 Increasing Fire? 77 Zeno and the Homogeneity of the Cosmos 84 4. PNEUMA AND NOURISHMENT 102 Introduction 102 Chrysippus on Nourishment: the evidence of Plutarch and Sextus 104 Zeno’s integration of Presentations with Soul as a Vaporous Exhalation 111 5. PNEUMATIC TEXTURE AND THE COGNITIVE PROCESS 120 Introduction 120 4 Zeno on the Acquisition of Knowledge; Yielding and Assent 122 Attacks on Stoic Theory by Alexander of Aphrodisias and Galen 129 The Distinction between Tension and Texture 134 Condition (διάθεσις), Disposition (σχέσις) and State (ἕξις) 141 6. PNEUMATIC TONOS 149 Introduction 149 Definitions of body 151 Zeno on tension 153 Cleanthes and Sphaerus on tension 156 Chrysippus on tension 165 CONCLUSION 171 BIBLIOGRAPHY 173 5 Acknowledgments Work on this thesis was made possible with the generous support of the Arts and Humanities Research Council UK. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Teun Tieleman for inviting me to Utrecht for a six month research visit. It is during this visit and with Teun’s advice that much of my methodological approach to our extant evidence was developed. In the course of my research I have received helpful comments from Keimpe Algra, Katerina Ierodiakonou, Ada Bronowski and Robert Vinkesteijn. I am indebted also to the many scholars who have worked on Stoicism and have helped me to understand the intricacies of reconstructing Stoic thought. Special mention must go to Thanasis Rinotas who has always been a stimulating force in philosophical discussion, this thesis has been enriched by his friendship. For a great part of my research I have received much love and happiness from my partner Joyce which has made the many solitary hours far more bearable. I would like to thank my mother for her lively spirit and support, my grandfather for the example he set with his sturdy character and my brother for teaching me to see things on a grander scale. Last but certainly not least, I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to Anne Sheppard, my supervisor, her understanding, encouragement and guidance throughout has, more than anything else, made this PhD possible. 6 Introduction The integration of theory is an idea which captivates the greatest of minds. When faced with diverse mechanisms and seemingly opposing explanatory approaches we may observe in ourselves an underlying intuition or proclivity which compels us to try to make sense of this diversity in a unified way. This is true of the Stoics as it is true of much of contemporary theoretical physics which seeks to integrate the laws of the fundamental physical forces with those of elementary particles. To what extent integration of theory may be expected to be a reflection of reality and to what extent it is imposed by our own intuitions is a matter that has been and remains to be up for debate. In this thesis I take the hard-line view that, for the Stoics, the integration of reality is not only contingent but it is a precondition that applies to their whole system of thought and I treat it as necessary in the study of our sources. This view, that reality and our speculation about it should be treated as coherent, has recently been challenged in relation to both Stoicism1 and also modern physics.2 The basic challenge is premised on the belief that it is an impoverished and irresponsible methodological approach that tries to impose subjective notions of beauty, elegance and simplicity on otherwise complex and varied ideas, rather than basing them on empirical data or evidence. To my mind this challenge is formulated not necessarily to deny the presence of a natural aesthetic in the universe and our understanding of it but rather to caution against stubborn adherence to and careless application of individual notions of beauty when dealing with our evidence. In my view, our natural intuition to maintain an aesthetic approach with regards to how the Stoics describe the universe, its parts and philosophy as harmonious and integrated, is, at its core, a correct one. This is moreover part of the great appeal of Stoicism. 1 Brad Inwood, “How Unified Is Stoicism Anyway?,” in Virtue and Happiness: Essays in Honour of Julia Annas (OSAP Supplementary Volume), ed. Rachana Kamtekar (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 223–44. 2 George Ellis and Joe Silk, “Scientific Method: Defend the Integrity of Physics,” Nature 516, no. 7531 (2014). 7 It is the aim of this thesis to offer a reconstruction of Stoic philosophy from the perspective of the coherence and methodological integration of the theories implemented by the early Stoics. This study does not constitute a full treatment of Stoic philosophy, after a first chapter on ancient and modern views of the tri-partite division of philosophy, the main body of the thesis focuses on how aspects of the notion of pneuma are integrated into wider Stoic theory both theoretically and diachronically between the first three heads of the school. In the main I explore how the idea emerged in Zeno and Cleanthes and only touch upon the Chrysippean theory in so far as his version of the notion of pneuma involved appropriating ideas from his predecessors. Why a study of pneuma is necesssary There have been numerous discussions of pneuma in Stoicism in the modern literature. In a seminal work dedicated to the subject Verbeke3 offers an erudite historical account in which he describes how the notion emerged in Zeno purely as a material breath and gradually undergoes a “spiritualisation” by the time it reaches Chrysippus and later St. Augustine. He conceives that Zeno had no philosophical conception of pneuma and that with Cleanthes the notion starts to shed its empirical and medical origins under the influence of Plato. The idea of a universe pervaded by pneuma is for Verbeke developed out of Stoic psychology and argued for from the part to the whole. That is to say that the Stoics extrapolated their understanding of the cosmos from their understanding of human beings, rather than conceiving of the human being as a micro-cosmic expression of the cosmos or offering a two-way description of reality from whole to part and vice versa. The state of our evidence has meant that most studies which consider pneuma in Stoicism begin with an elucidation of the scala naturae and the different degrees of pneumatic tension determining the type of pneuma that exists within the bodies. Pneuma is called ἕξις in inanimate bodies like stones and bones, φύσις in things like plants which have the capacities for nourishment and 3 Gerard Verbeke, L’évolution de La Doctrine Du Pneuma, Du Stoicisme à s. Augustin : Étude Philosophique (Paris: D. de Brouwer, 1945). 8 growth and ψυχή in animals which also have the capacities for sensation and impulse; the human pneuma has the added capacity for reason. From this description it is a natural step to take a particular interest in the role of pneuma in rational beings, which often takes the form of an examination of its role in sensation, for which we have explicit evidence. In this way the more recent scholarship follows a similar model to that of Verbeke in presenting the evidence for pneuma as a theory which is first and foremost psychological.4 Other studies present the purely physical side of our extant sources and these studies take the form of a discussion of the physical composition of pneuma as also its role as a pervasive and vitalising force in the cosmos.5 As far as I know, there is but one study which is explicitly devoted to bridging the physical and psychological descriptions of pneuma.6 The available examinations of pneuma are more often than not discussed within articles or book chapters which are focused on other aspects of Stoic theory and are not specifically directed towards the role of pneuma in Stoicism.