Zeno · 4

39. Philosophic doctrine, say the Stoics, falls into three parts: one physical, another ethical, and the third logical. Zeno of Citium was the first to make this division in his Exposition of Doctrine, and Chrysippus too did so in the first book of his Exposition of Doctrine and the first book of his Physics; and so too Apollodorus and Syllus in the first part of their Introductions to Stoic Doctrine, as also Eudromus in his Elementary Treatise on Ethics, Diogenes the Babylonian, and Posidonius.

These parts are called by Apollodorus “Heads of Commonplace”; by Chrysippus and Eudromus specific divisions; by others generic divisions. 40. Philosophy, they say, is like an animal, Logic corresponding to the bones and sinews, Ethics to the fleshy parts, Physics to the soul. Another simile they use is that of an egg: the shell is Logic, next comes the white, Ethics, and the yolk in the centre is Physics. Or, again, they liken Philosophy to a fertile field: Logic being the encircling fence, Ethics the crop, Physics the soil or the trees. Or, again, to a city strongly walled and governed by reason.

No single part, some Stoics declare, is independent of any other part, but all blend together. Nor was it usual to teach them separately. Others, however, start their course with Logic, go on to Physics, and finish with Ethics; and among those who so do are Zeno in his treatise On Exposition, Chrysippus, Archedemus and Eudromus.

41. Diogenes of Ptolemas, it is true, begins with Ethics; but Apollodorus puts Ethics second, while Panaetius and Posidonius begin with Physics, as stated by Phanias, the pupil of Posidonius, in the first book of his Lectures of Posidonius. Cleanthes makes not three, but six parts, Dialectic, Rhetoric, Ethics, Politics, Physics, Theology. But others say that these are divisions not of philosophic exposition, but of philosophy itself: so, for instance, Zeno of Tarsus. Some divide the logical part of the system into the two sciences of rhetoric and dialectic; while some would add that which deals with definitions and another part concerning canons or criteria: some, however, dispense with the part about definitions.

42. Now the part which deals with canons or criteria they admit as a means for the discovery of truth, since in the course of it they explain the different kinds of perceptions that we have. And similarly the part about definitions is accepted as a means of recognizing truth, inasmuch as things are apprehended by means of general notions. Further, by rhetoric they understand the science of speaking well on matters set forth by plain narrative, and by dialectic that of correctly discussing subjects by question and answer; hence their alternative definition of it as the science of statements true, false, and neither true nor false.

Rhetoric itself, they say, has three divisions: deliberative, forensic, and panegyric.

43. Rhetoric according to them may be divided into invention of arguments, their expression in words, their arrangement, and delivery; and a rhetorical speech into introduction, narrative, replies to opponents, and peroration.

Dialectic (they hold) falls under two heads: subjects of discourse and language. And the subjects fall under the following headings: presentations[26] and the various products to which they give rise, propositions enunciated and their constituent subjects and predicates, and similar terms whether direct or reversed, genera and species, arguments too, moods, syllogisms and fallacies whether due to the subject matter or to the language; 44. these including both false and true and negative arguments, sorites and the like, whether defective, insoluble, or conclusive, and the fallacies known as the Veiled, or Horned, No man, and The Mowers.

The second main head mentioned above as belonging to Dialectic is that of language, wherein are included written language and the parts of speech, with a discussion of errors in syntax and in single words, poetical diction, verbal ambiguities, euphony and music, and according to some writers chapters on terms, divisions, and style.

45. The study of syllogisms they declare to be of the greatest service, as showing us what is capable of yielding demonstration; and this contributes much to the formation of correct judgements, and their arrangement and retention in memory give a scientific character to our conception of things.

An argument is in itself a whole containing premisses and conclusion, and an inference (or syllogism) is an inferential argument composed of these. Demonstration is an argument inferring by means of what is better apprehended something less clearly apprehended.

A presentation (or mental impression) is an imprint on the soul: the name having been appropriately borrowed from the imprint made by the seal upon the wax. 46. There are two species of presentation, the one apprehending a real object, the other not. The former, which they take to be the test of reality, is defined as that which proceeds from a real object, agrees with that object itself, and has been imprinted seal-fashion and stamped upon the mind: the latter, or non-apprehending, that which does not proceed from any real object, or, if it does, fails to agree with the reality itself, not being clear or distinct.

Dialectic, they said, is indispensable and is itself a virtue, embracing other particular virtues under it.[27] Freedom from precipitancy is a knowledge when to give or withhold the mind’s assent to impressions. 47. By wariness they mean a strong presumption against what at the moment seems probable, so as not to be taken in by it. Irrefutability is strength in argument so as not to be brought over by it to the opposite side. Earnestness (or absence of frivolity) is a habit of referring presentations to right reason. Knowledge itself they define either as unerring apprehension or as a habit or state which in reception of presentations cannot be shaken by argument. Without the study of dialectic, they say, the wise man cannot guard himself in argument so as never to fall; for it enables him to distinguish between truth and falsehood, and to discriminate what is merely plausible and what is ambiguously expressed, and without it he cannot methodically put questions and give answers.

48. Overhastiness in assertion affects the actual course of events, so that, unless we have our perceptions well trained, we are liable to fall into unseemly conduct and heedlessness; and in no other way will the wise man approve himself acute, nimblewitted, and generally skilful in argument; for it belongs to the same person to converse well and to argue well, to put questions to the purpose and to respond to the questions put; and all these qualifications are qualifications belonging to the skilled dialectician.

Such is, summarily stated, the substance of their logical teaching. And in order to give it also in detail,[28] let me now cite as much of it as comes within the scope of their introductory handbook. I will quote verbatim what Diocles the Magnesian says in his Synopsis of Philosophers. These are his words:

49. “The Stoics agree to put in the forefront the doctrine of presentation and sensation, inasmuch as the standard by which the truth of things is tested is generically a presentation, and again the theory of assent and that of apprehension and thought, which precedes all the rest, cannot be stated apart from presentation. For presentation comes first; then thought, which is capable of expressing itself, puts into the form of a proposition that which the subject receives from a presentation.”

50. There is a difference between the process and the outcome of presentation. The latter is a semblance in the mind such as may occur in sleep, while the former is the act of imprinting something on the soul, that is a process of change, as is set forth by Chrysippus in the second book of his treatise Of the Soul (De anima). For, says he, we must not take “impression” in the literal sense of the stamp of a seal, because it is impossible to suppose that a number of such impressions should be in one and the same spot at one and the same time. The presentation meant is that which comes from a real object, agrees with that object, and has been stamped, imprinted and pressed seal-fashion on the soul, as would not be the case if it came from an unreal object.

51. According to them some presentations are data of sense and others are not: the former are the impressions conveyed through one or more sense-organs; while the latter, which are not data of sense, are those received through the mind itself, as is the case with incorporeal things and all the other presentations which are received by reason. Of sensuous impressions some are from real objects and are accompanied by yielding and assent on our part. But there are also presentations that are appearances and no more, purporting, as it were, to come from real objects.

Another division of presentations is into rational and irrational, the former being those of rational creatures, the latter those of the irrational. Those which are rational are processes of thought, while those which are irrational have no name. Again, some of our impressions are scientific, others unscientific: at all events a statue is viewed in a totally different way by the trained eye of a sculptor and by an ordinary man.

52. The Stoics apply the term sense or sensation (.mw-parser-output.wst-lang-grc{font-family:GentiumPlus;font-feature-settings:"cv78"on,"cv83"on}αἴσθησις) to three things: (1) the current passing from the principal part of the soul to the senses, (2) apprehension by means of the senses, (3) the apparatus of the sense-organs, in which some persons are deficient. Moreover, the activity of the sense-organs is itself also called sensation. According to them it is by sense that we apprehend black and white, rough and smooth, whereas it is by reason that we apprehend the conclusions of demonstration, for instance the existence of gods and their providence. General notions, indeed, are gained in the following ways: some by direct contact, some by resemblance, some by analogy, some by transposition, some by composition, and some by contrariety.

53. By incidence or direct contact have come our notions of sensible things; by resemblance notions whose origin is something before us, as the notion of Socrates which we get from his bust; while under notions derived from analogy come those which we get (1) by way of enlargement, like that of Tityos or the Cyclops, or (2) by way of diminution, like that of the Pygmy. And thus, too, the centre of the earth was originally conceived on the analogy of smaller spheres. Of notions obtained by transposition creatures with eyes on the chest would be an instance, while the centaur exemplifies those reached by composition, and death those due to contrariety. Furthermore, there are notions which imply a sort of transition to the realm of the imperceptible: such are those of space and of the meaning of terms. The notions of justice and goodness come by nature. Again, privation originates notions; for instance, that of the man without hands. Such are their tenets concerning presentation, sensation, and thought.

54. The standard of truth they declare to be the apprehending presentation, i.e. that which comes from a real object — according to Chrysippus in the twelfth book of his Physics and to Antipater and Apollodorus. Boethus, on the other hand, admits a plurality of standards, namely intelligence, sense-perception, appetency, and knowledge; while Chrysippus in the first book of his Exposition of Doctrine contradicts himself and declares that sensation and preconception are the only standards, preconception being a general notion which comes by the gift of nature (an innate conception of universals or general concepts). Again, certain others of the older Stoics make Right Reason the standard; so also does Posidonius in his treatise On the Standard.

55. In their theory of dialectic most of them see fit to take as their starting-point the topic of voice. Now voice is a percussion of the air or the proper object of the sense of hearing, as Diogenes the Babylonian says in his handbook On Voice. While the voice or cry of an animal is just a percussion of air brought about by natural impulse, man’s voice is articulate and, as Diogenes puts it, an utterance of reason, having the quality of coming to maturity at the age of fourteen. Furthermore, voice according to the Stoics is something corporeal: I may cite for this Archedemus in his treatise On Voice, Diogenes, Antipater and Chrysippus in the second book of his Physics. 56. For whatever produces an effect is body; and voice, as it proceeds from those who utter it to those who hear it, does produce an effect. Reduced to writing, what was voice becomes a verbal expression, as “day”; so says Diogenes. A statement or proposition is speech that issues from the mind and signifies something, e.g. “It is day.” Dialect (διάλεκτος) means a variety of speech which is stamped on one part of the Greek world as distinct from another, or on the Greeks as distinct from other races; or, again, it means a form peculiar to some particular region, that is to say, it has a certain linguistic quality; e.g. in Attic the word for “sea” is not θάλασσα but θάλαττα, and in Ionic “day” is not ἡμέρα but ἡμέρη.

Elements of language are the four-and-twenty letters. “Letter,” however, has three meanings: (1) the particular sound or element of speech; (2) its written symbol or character; (3) its name, as Alpha is the name of the sound A. 57. Seven of the letters are vowels, a, e, ē, i, o, u, ō, and six are mutes, b, g, d, k, p, t. There is a difference between voice and speech; because, while voice may include mere noise, speech is always articulate. Speech again differs from a sentence or statement, because the latter always signifies something, whereas a spoken word, as for example βλίτυρι, may be unintelligible — which a sentence never is. And to frame a sentence is more than mere utterance, for while vocal sounds are uttered, things are meant, that is, are matters of discourse.

58. There are, as stated by Diogenes[29] in his treatise on Language and by Chrysippus, five parts of speech: proper name, common noun, verb, conjunction, article. To these Antipater in his work On Words and their Meaning adds another part, the “mean.”[30]

A common noun or appellative is defined by Diogenes as part of a sentence signifying a common quality, e.g. man, horse; whereas a name is a part of speech expressing a quality peculiar to an individual, e.g. Diogenes, Socrates. A verb is, according to Diogenes, a part of speech signifying an isolated predicate, or, as others[31] define it, an un-declined part of a sentence, signifying something that can be attached to one or more subjects, e.g. “I write,” “I speak.” A conjunction is an indeclinable part of speech, binding the various parts of a statement together; and an article is a declinable part of speech, distinguishing the genders and numbers of nouns, e.g. ὁ, ἡ, τό, οἱ, αἱ, τά.[32]

59. There are five excellences of speech — pure Greek, lucidity, conciseness, appropriateness, distinction. By good Greek is meant language faultless in point of grammar and free from careless vulgarity. Lucidity is a style which presents the thought in a way easily understood; conciseness a style that employs no more words than are necessary for setting forth the subject in hand; appropriateness lies in a style akin to the subject; distinction in the avoidance of colloquialism. Among vices of style barbarism is violation of the usage of Greeks of good standing; while there is solecism when the sentence has an incongruous construction.

60. Posidonius in his treatise On Style defines a poetical phrase as one that is metrical or rhythmical, thus mechanically avoiding the character of prose; an example of such rhythmical phrase is:

O mightiest earth, O sky, God’s canopy.[33]

And if such poetical phraseology is significant and includes a portrayal or representation of things human and divine, it is poetry.