Durham E-Theses The stoics on nature and truth Connor, Martin J How to cite: Connor, Martin J (2000) The stoics on nature and truth, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/4346/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk THE STOICS ON NATURE AND TRUTH MARTIN J CONNOR The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published in any form, including Electronic and the Internet, without the author's prior written consent. All information derived from this thesis must be acknowledged appropriately. SUBMITTED IN FULFILMENT OF THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 1 7 SEP 2001 DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF DURHAM 2000 ABSTRACT THE STOICS ON NATURE AND TRUTH MARTIN CONNOR First, this thesis outlines part of the thought of some pre-Socratic thinkers, particularly Heraclitus. In doing this, I explore the historical provenance of certain ideas which came to be important in Stoicism. It then moves on to look at the Stoic view of 'physics', including some comparison with Epicurus and Aristotle, and with a focus on the concept of the continuum. The third chapter attempts to synthesise a common problem arising from a belief in the continuum, namely a problem of indeterminacy. In the fourth chapter, certain characterisations of Stoic epistemology are considered, along with an overview of recent interpretations of the Stoic theory of impressions. It concludes with the thought that at certain crucial points - such as whether impressions themselves are to be thought of as true and false - the Stoic position is underdetermined with respect to the evidence. Pursuing this thought into the fifth chapter, we see the evidence as being equivalently consistent with a 'two-tier' theory of perception, where impressions themselves are understood as neither true nor false in any sense, but in which 'the true' arises as a result of the transformative effect of reason. This theory is shown to connect with verbalisation through the 'rational impression'. This leads to the suggestion that the Stoics had a linguistic diagnosis for some problems in philosophy, arrived at by their reflections on ambiguity and etymology. In the final chapter, an account of intersubjectivity is explored, which preserves for the Stoics the claim that their truth has an objective character and is thus appropriate for a 'dogmatic' philosophy. f FOR MY MOTHER AND FATHER TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER ONE : THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND . 1 INTRODUCTION 1 THE PRE-SOCRATIC INHERITANCE 9 XENOPHANES 11 HERACLITUS 16 PYTHAGORAS 22 PARMENIDES 25 ANTISTHENES AND THE CYNICS 33 PLATO AND ARISTOTLE 40 CONCLUSION 42 CHAPTER TWO : THE CONTEXT OF KNOWLEDGE. 43 INTRODUCTION 43 HELLENISTIC SCIENCE 49 EPICUREAN ATOMISM AND ARGUMENTS AGAINST INFINITE DIVISIBILITY 53 THE FOUR ELEMENT THEORY: ARISTOTLE AND THE STOICS 57 PNEUMA, TONOS AND THE DYNAMIC CONTINUUM 66 CHRYSIPPUS' GLIMPSE OF THE INFINITE APPROACH TO A LIMIT 77 CONCLUSION 85 CHAPTER THREE : THE CONTINUUM AND INDETERMINACY. 87 INTRODUCTION 87 SPATIAL MAGNITUDES 88 RETRENCHABILITY AND TIME 98 CONCLUSION 107 CHAPTER FOUR : CHARACTERISING STOIC EPISTEMOLOGY. 108 INTRODUCTION 108 OLD CABBAGE AND ANCIENT THINKING: REALISM IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY 109 CONSIDERING THE EVIDENCE FOR A STOIC THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 125 THE COHERENCE INTERPRETATION. 128 THE CORRESPONDENCE INTERPRETATION 143 SUMMING UP 147 WHAT ARE WE TO THINK OF WHEN ASKED TO THINK OF THE STOIC CRITERION OF TRUTH? - 149 MUST WE LIMIT THE STOICS TO A SINGLE CRITERION OF TRUTH? 153 STOIC IMPRESSIONS 161 TWO PROBLEMS ABOUT IMPRESSIONS: CAN THEY BE TRUE OR FALSE? WHAT CONTENT DO THEY HAVE? 168 EVIDENCE IN FAVOUR OF A RESTRICTED INTERPRETATION 171 EVIDENCE AGAINST A RESTRICTED INTERPRETATION 174 PRINCIPAL EVIDENCE UNDERLYING THE DEBATE ABOUT RATIONAL/ IRRATIONAL IMPRESSIONS IN STOICISM 195 CONCLUSION 214 CHAPTER FIVE : CONSTRUCTING A TWO-TIER VIEW 216 INTRODUCTION 216 INTERPRETING ZENO'S FIST - 219 CHRYSIPPUS AND CLEANTHES: SYMBOLISM vs. MIMESIS 233 BRUNSCHW1G AND NOOUMENA J 250 THE TRUTH AND THE TRUE 261 ISOMORPHISM AND THE LEKTA . 267 AMBIGUITY AND ETYMOLOGY 272 EVIDENCE FOR JNTERSUBJECTIVITY 279 CONCLUSION 283 CHAPTER SIX : INTERSUBJECTIVITY AND OBJECTIVITY. 285 INTRODUCTION 285 ARISTOTELIAN HAPPINESS AND OKEIOSIS 287 THE SUBJECTIVE AND THE NORMATIVE 290 THE STOICS AND SELF-REFLECTION 297 INTERSUBJECnVITY AND SELF-REFLECTION - 302 CONCLUSION 311 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. - 313 ABBREVIATIONS Long and Sedley LS The Hellenistic Philosophers, (2 vols) Diogenes Laertius D.L. Lives of the Philosophers Sextus Empiricus S.E.M Against the Professors S.E.PH Outlines of Pyrrhonism Cicero Acad. - Academica ND On the nature of the gods De Fin On ends Plutarch Comm. not. = On Common Conceptions St. rep. = On Stoic self-contradictions Galen Diff. Puis. On the differences in pidses Qual. inc. = On incorporeal qualities Plac. On Hippocrates' and Plato's doctrines Alexander of Aphrodisias In Ar. An. Pr. = On Aristotle's Prior Analytics Epicurus Ep. Hdt. = Letter to Herodotus i PREFACE Stoicism emerged as the Platonic vision of transcendent forms was fading, into a philosophical milieu powerfully clear about the possibilities of logic. Into this context, we can speculate, came Zeno - a fiery philosopher himself, advocating a fiery metaphysics. In placing fire at the foundation of his view of the world, he placed something flickering, uncertain, consuming and sustaining. In chapter three, we will look at Michael White's argument constructed around the notion that the Stoics believed surfaces were fuzzy, and subject to indeterminacy and artifice. If we need to imagine the 'fuzzy regions' he mentions, we need only think of the detailed, shimmering edge of a candle flame. Perhaps, by staring at a certain flame, it occurred to Zeno that hyle was flexible in a similar way to the flame. As we see in Chapter Four, there were unquestioned presuppositions in Greek thinking, and because of these Zeno was faced with the challenge of explaining how we could speak truly of something that was, at a crucial level, indeterminate. One solution to this problem is to locate determination within human conceptualisation, rather than as a property of the world. The philosophical task then becomes not to examine our relationship as individuals to the world, but to explain our relationship as individuals to each other, where we each have determinate conceptions, secured by causation and revealed in language. This is the picture I develop in Chapter Five. We are called by the Stoics to 'live in accordance with nature', with the underlying belief that the unfolding cosmos is sentient, rational and perfect. We can detect in this injunction an imperative to philosophise that goes as follows : "Since it is our folly that stands in the way of the universe's perfection, we must philosophise ii to perfect the universe." Ultimately, what we recognise after a period reflecting on Stoic doctrines is that an attractive and inclusive image of humanity emerges. We exist collectively, in our relation to the true. What is a rational animal? For the Stoics, it is the universe's consciousness of itself. We explore one account of the way in which the logos inspires self-reflection in Chapter Six. Once self-reflection is seen as complementary to the Stoic account of impressions, it is but a small step to the conviction that wise people speaking truly express infallible knowledge about the world. From such wise people, goes the Stoic hope, we could build a city, and from such a city a new world based on citizenship of the universe. In a certain sense - in this certain sense - Stoicism was a declaration of intrinsic human value. It used its intriguing epistemology (and whoever is closest to the truth, Stoic epistemology is intriguing), and staggering command of logic to claim a universality for its doctrines that less ambitious positions could not countenance. This thesis represents a certain stage in my thinking about Stoicism. Since I am neither a classicist (in any formal sense) nor a linguist, my interpretation is not based on a 'philological' level of analysis. Rather, my method has been that of a philosophical investigation based on the Stoic texts in translation. I have where possible studied these translations against the texts in the original language to develop my readings of them. The greatest danger for the student of these texts who is not steeped in Classical Studies is that elementary philological errors will lead to confusions at the level of philosophical interpretation. As a safeguard against this danger, I have tried where possible to couch my argument in the language of others, whose relationship to the Stoic texts is expert and direct. As a result of this, the reader will notice that I often quote extensively from the scholarly literature. In doing this I can claim two ancient precedents. First, it was said of Chrysippus' writings that iii if the quotations were removed, there would be hardly anything left (D.L. 7.81). Second, we are told of a Stoic injunction to 'follow the good authors' - those who used the rules of language correctly to succinctly frame a definition or argument (D.L.