Stoicism was one of the most important
and enduring philosophies to emerge from the Greek and Roman
world. The Stoics are well known for their contributions to
moral philosophy, and more recently they have also been
recognized for their work in logic, grammar, philosophy of
language, and epistemology. This article examines the Stoics'
contributions to philosophy of mind. The Stoics constructed
one of the most advanced and philosophically interesting
theories of mind in the classical world. As in contemporary
cognitive science, the Stoics rejected the idea that the mind
is an incorporeal entity. Instead they argued that the mind
(or soul) must be something corporeal and something that obeys
the laws of physics. Moreover, they held that all mental
states and acts were states of the corporeal soul. The soul (a
concept broader than the modern concept of mind) was believed
to be a hot, fiery breath [pneuma] that infused the
physical body. As a highly sensitive substance, pneuma
pervades the body establishing a mechanism able to detect
sensory information and transmit the information to the
central commanding portion of the soul in the chest. The
information is then processed and experienced. The Stoics
analyzed the activities of the mind not only on a physical
level but also on a logical level. Cognitive experience was
evaluated in terms of its propositional structure, for thought
and language were closely connected in rational creatures. The
Stoic doctrine of perceptual and cognitive presentation
(phantasia) offered a way to coherently analyze mental
content and intentional objects. As a result of their work in
philosophy of mind the Stoics developed a rich epistemology
and a powerful philosophy of action. Finally, the Stoics
denied Plato's and Aristotle's
view that the soul has both rational and irrational faculties.
Instead, they argued that the soul is unified and that all the
faculties are rational concluding that the passions are the
result not of a distinct irrational faculty but of errors in
judgement.
Table of Contents
(Clicking on the links below will take you to those parts of
this article)
1.
Introduction
Greek and Roman philosophers did not recognize philosophy
of mind as a distinct field of study. However, topics now
considered central to philosophy of mind such as perception,
imagination, thought, intelligence, emotion, memory, identity,
and action were often discussed under the title Peri
psychęs or On the Soul. This article surveys some
of the ideas held by the ancient Stoics addressing the soul
and related topics which roughly correspond to themes
prevalent in contemporary philosophy of mind and philosophical
psychology.
a. Philosophy of Mind and the Parts of
Philosophy
The ancient Greek concept of soul differs in many ways from
the modern (post-Cartesian) idea of mind. Contemporary
thinkers tend to sharply contrast the mind and body. When we
think of mind we think primarily of cognitive faculties and
perhaps our sense of identity. The Greek concept of the soul
is much broader and more closely connected to basic bodily
functions. The soul is first and foremost the principle of
life; it is that which animates the body. Although the soul
accounts for our ability to think, perceive, imagine, and
reason, it is also responsible for biological processes such
as respiration, digestion, procreation, growth, and motion.
Perhaps the closest we come to a Cartesian concept of the soul
in ancient Greek thought would be Plato, the Pythagoreans, and
their successors. Stoic psychology represents the other end of
the spectrum: a corporeal or physicalist model of soul.
Since there is no clear subject in Stoicism corresponding
to contemporary philosophy of mind, evidence must be gleaned
from various departments of the Stoic philosophical system.
The Stoics divided philosophy into three general "parts":
Physics, Logic, and Ethics. Teachings regarding the soul can
be found in all three parts. In physics the Stoics analyzed
the substance of the soul, its relationship to God and the
cosmos, and its role in the functioning of the human body. In
logic the Stoics developed a theory of meaning and truth, both
of which are dependent upon a theory of perception, thinking,
and other psychological concepts. Here the Stoics developed a
sophisticated theory of mental content and intentionality and
wrestled with the ontological ramifications of such a theory.
Finally, in ethics the Stoics developed a complex theory of
emotion and a psychology of action that ultimately had a great
impact on their moral philosophy. The development of one's
cognitive faculties was believed to be inseparable from
ethics. In short, Stoic psychology was central to Stoicism as
a whole.
2. Philosophy of Mind and Stoic
Physics
a. The Substance of the Soul
Zeno of Citium (335-263 BCE), the founder of Stoicism, was
very interested in the nature of the soul. He and his protégé
Cleanthes
(331-232 BCE) emphasized the active nature of the mind by
identifying it as an internal fire or vital heat. It was not
until Chrysippus
(c. 280-207 BCE) that Stoic psychology reached its mature
state. According to Chrysippus,
the human soul consists of a breath-like substance called
pneuma. Cognitive faculties were identified with the
specific activities of the pneuma. In addition to being
the substance of the particular souls of living organisms,
pneuma was also held to be the organizing principle of
the cosmos, that is, the world-soul. The Stoics identified
this world-soul with God or Zeus. One source described God as
an intelligent, artistic fire that systematically creates the
cosmos as it expands; in the same passage God is called a
pneuma that pervades the whole cosmos as the human soul
pervades the mortal body. In contrast to contemporary physics
and cosmology, the Stoics saw the world as a living organism.
Stoic psychology is inseparable from Stoic physics and
cosmology. The pneuma of the human soul (pneuma
psychikon) is said to be a mixture of air and fire. Some
Stoics saw this soul as a literal mixture of fire and air,
others associated it with a refined fire (similar to
aether) or vital heat. The pneuma permeating the
body was held to be a portion of the divine pneuma
permeating and directing the cosmos. The human soul is a
portion of God within us, both animating us and endowing us
with reason and intelligence.
The Stoics argued that the soul is a bodily (corporeal)
substance. Although the soul is a body, it is best to avoid
calling Stoic psychology materialist. The Stoics contrasted
soul and matter. For this reason scholars generally prefer to
call Stoic psychology corporealist, physicalist, or vitalist.
Matter is but one of two principles underlying every bodily
substance. These two principles are the active [to
poioun] and the passive [to paschon]. Matter is
identified with the passive principle. Its complement, the
active principle, is reason [logos] or God and is held
to extend through matter providing it with motion, form, and
structure. Both principles are bodily or corporeal principles
(that is, they occupy space and are causally efficient) but
neither exists in isolation. Substances can be dominated by
either principle; the more active the substance, the more
rational and divine it is; the more passive, the more
material.
The Stoics also made a distinction between principles
[archai] and elements [stoicheia]. The basic
elements are earth, water, air, and fire. Earth and water are
heavy, passive elements, dominated by the passive principle.
Air and fire, on the other hand, are active and closely
connected with sentience and intelligence. The Stoics held
that the soul is nourished from the exhalations from the
passive elements. Biological bodies are distinguished from
non-biological bodies by the presence of a specific kind of
activity associated with the presence of the active elements
in the body.
b. Pneuma and Tension, and the Scala
naturae
Pneuma was the central theoretical tool of both
Stoic physics and Stoic psychology. In contrast to the
atomists, the Stoics argued for a continuum theory which
denied the existence of void in the cosmos. The cosmos was
seen as a single continuum of pneuma-charged substance.
Qualitative difference between individual substances, such as
between a rock and a pool of water, is determined by the
degree of the tensional motion of the pneuma pervading
the substance. Tensional motion [tonikę kinęsis] seems
to be the motion of the pneuma in a body that
simultaneously moves from the center to the surface and from
the surface back to the center. Passive elements (earth and
water) and dense bodies have a low degree of tensional
activity, while active elements (fire and air) and the soul
were seen to possess a high level of tensional motion. The
Stoics organized all natural substances into different classes
based on a hierarchy of powers or a scala naturae. The
concept of tensional motion allowed the Stoics to have a
unified physical theory based on pneuma, while at the
same time having one that distinguished and explained the
difference between organic and inorganic substances.
Consequently Stoic physics showed that there exists a physical
connection and continuity between mind and matter.
The Stoic scala naturae is a hierarchy of the powers
in nature based on the activity and organization of the
pneuma. Pneuma at its lowest level of
organization and concentration produces simple cohesion in the
matter in which it dwells; it holds together individual
unified bodies. This state of cohesion and coherence is called
hexis [cohesive state]. Bodies hold together on account
of an internal flow of pneuma that begins at the center
of the object extending to the surface and flowing back upon
itself producing a tension from a two-way motion. Hence, even
the most stable object possesses internal motion according to
the Stoics. Wood and stones are example of things which
possess hexis.
When the pneuma in a body is organized with a
greater degree of activity, there is phusis or organic
nature. Things that have phusis grow and reproduce but
do not show signs of cognitive power. The pneuma that
produces phusis also provides the stability or cohesion
of hexis. The Stoics held that each power on this
scala naturae subsumes the power below it. Plants are
obvious examples of organisms that have both hexis and
phusis but not soul.
The next tier of this hierarchy of pneumatic
activity is soul [ psuchę]. The characteristic marks of
this level of organization are the presence of impulse and
perception. Non-rational animals have hexis [cohesive
state], phusis [an organic nature], and psuchę
[soul].
Only human beings and gods possess the highest level of
pneumatic activity, reason [logos]. Reason was
defined as a collection of conceptions and preconceptions; it
is especially characterized by the use of language. In fact,
the difference between how animals think and how humans think
seems to be that human thinking is linguistic -- not that we
must vocalize thoughts (for parrots can articulate human
sounds), but that human thinking seems to follow a syntactical
and propositional structure in the manner of language. The
Stoics considered thinking in rational animals as a form of
internal speech.
The Stoic hierarchy of pneuma should not be confused
with Aristotle's
theory of the hierarchy of the soul to which there is some
resemblance. While the Stoic scala naturae explains
both organic and inorganic substances, Aristotle's
hierarchy is limited to biological organisms. Aristotle's
theory is also based on a very different idea of soul.
The physical theory underlying Stoic psychology has some
rather startling implications. For example, the Stoics held
that active substances could pervade passive substances. Hence
the soul, which is a body, is able to pervade the physical
body. The soul does not pervade the body like the water in a
sponge, that is, by occupying interstitial spaces; rather, the
Stoics held that the corporeal pneuma occupied the
exact same space as the passive matter, that is, both
substances are mutually coextended [antiparektasis].
The soul permeates the body in the same way as heat pervades
the iron rod, occupying the same space but being qualitatively
distinct. The Stoics called this sort of mixture crasis
or total blending.
Total blending should be contrasted with particulate
mixture and fusion mixture. An example of a particulate
mixture is the mixture of different kinds of seeds. Each seed
remains unaffected by the mixture, only the distribution is
altered. This is sometimes called juxtaposition. Fusion
mixture occurs when the items mixed are physically altered and
a new, single substance emerges. Once eggs, milk, yeast, and
flour are mixed together a new substance is produced (bread).
In contrast to fusion mixture, in total mixture or crasis
the blended substances (such as water and wine) were held
to retain their properties and in principle could be
separated.
A particular and highly controversial characteristic of
total blending is that for mutual coextension to occur, it is
not necessary that both bodies be of the same in quantity.
Thus Chrysippus
provocatively claimed that in total blending a drop of wine
could pervade (coextend through) the entire ocean. This is an
explicit rejection of Aristotle's
theory of mixture in De generatione et corruptione. The
pneuma in active substances seems to have great
elasticity and is able to exist in a very rarified form while
maintaining distinct properties.
c. Death
The doctrine of pneuma and total blending allowed
the Stoics to adopt Plato's definition of death as "the
separation of the soul from the body." The Stoics, however,
used this definition against Plato, arguing that since only
physical things can separate from physical things, the soul
must be corporeal. Since the soul pervades the body as a
crasis type mixture, separation is possible. The
separation seems to occur by a loosening of the tension of the
soul. Sleep is said to be a kind of mild relaxing, whereas
death is a total relaxing of the tension which results in the
departure of the soul from the body.
Dying is not the end of a person's existence, according to
the Stoics. Once the soul has separated from the body it
maintains its own cohesion for a period of time. Chrysippus
and Cleanthes
disagreed regarding the fate of the soul after death. Cleanthes
held that the souls of all men could survive until the
conflagration, a time in which the divine fire totally
consumes all matter. Chrysippus,
on the other hand, held that only the souls of the wise are
able to endure. The souls of the unwise will exist for a
limited time before they are destroyed or reabsorbed into the
cosmic pneuma. The souls of irrational beasts are
destroyed with their bodies. In no case is there any
indication that the survival of the soul after death had any
direct benefit to the individual or that the Stoics used this
as a motivator toward ethical or intellectual behavior. There
is no heaven or hell in Stoicism; the time to live one's life
and to perfect one's virtues is in the present.
d. The Parts of the Soul
The pneuma of the soul has a specific structure
which helps account for its capacities. The Stoics held that
the soul consists of eight parts which are spatially
recognized portions or streams of pneuma. The eight
parts of the soul are the five senses (sight, vision, smell,
taste, touch), the reproductive faculty, the speech faculty,
and the central commanding faculty [hęgemonikon]. All
of the parts of the soul can be seen as extensions of
pneuma originating in the hęgemonikon. Several
analogies were employed to explain the structure of the soul:
the soul is like an octopus, a tree, a spring of water, and
even a spider's web. The analogies of the octopus, tree, and
spring emphasize the unity of the soul and the idea that the
individual powers or faculties are rooted in or sprout from
the hęgemonikon in the heart. The Stoics, like Aristotle and
Praxagoras of Cos, believed that the cognitive center is in
the chest and not the head. These analogies are also
consistent with Stoic views on embryological development; for
the Stoics recognized that the heart is the first functioning
organ of the fetus and held that the pneuma of the soul
begins in the heart of the fetus and extends through the body,
refining its powers as the fetus grows. The powers of sense
perception, speech, and reproduction are extensions of the
pneuma of the hęgemonikon which reaches its
mature state as the child approaches adulthood.
Some have compared the Stoic contrast between the
commanding faculty and the distal faculties to the modern
distinction between the central and peripheral nervous
systems. This comparison can be justified by the fact that the
Stoics held that the higher cognitive functions and all
cognitive experience take place exclusively in the
hęgemonikon . While Aristotle
seemed to be comfortable with attributing the experience of
touch to the flesh and sight to the eyes, the Stoics tell us
that the senses merely report the information to the central
faculty where it is experienced and processed.
The idea of sensation as the transmission [diadosis]
of sensory information is illustrated in the final two
analogies of the soul. The first states that activity of the
soul is like a king who sends out messengers. When the
messengers acquire information they report it back to the
king. Likewise, the hęgemonikon extends its
pneuma to the sense organs, and when these in turn
acquire sensory information, the pneuma transmits the
information back to the heart. The second analogy states that
the soul is like a spider in a web. When the web is disturbed
by an insect the movement is transmitted through vibrations to
the spider sitting at the center. The human soul in a like
manner extends through the body like a sensory grid
establishing a sensory tension [tonos]. All perceptual
information is transmitted by a tensional motion [kinesis
tonikę]. In the case of the senses of hearing and sight,
the external medium between the sense organs and the sense
object operates as an extension of the soul-pneuma. Air
also contains a degree of tension which a sound disturbs like
a pebble tossed into a calm pool; the sound is transmitted
through the air and sends the auditory information in a
spherical pattern. Once the tensional motion of the sound
reaches the ears, the sound pattern is picked up by the
pneuma of the body which in turn transmits the
information to the hęgemonikon . Vision works
similarly; the pneuma from the eyes interacts with
external light to establish a cone shaped visual field. This
tensed field can detect the shapes of the objects within as
though by touch. Indeed all of the senses were thought to be
forms of touch. Color was held to be a sort of surface texture
on the object; apparently the Stoics held that each color had
its own pattern of disturbance in the visual pneuma.
These analogies capture the relationship between the
commanding faculty and the senses; they do not as effectively
capture or explain the remaining two distal faculties: speech
and reproduction. Whereas the senses are passive insofar as
they receive the tensional motion of a sense object and
communicate it to the command center, in the case of speech
and reproduction the motion goes in the opposite direction.
Speech is an expression and articulation of the tensional
motion produced by the construction of thought in the
hęgemonikon. Interestingly, it is the fact that speech
is produced in conjunction with breath that Chrysippus
used as a central argument for the location of the
hęgemonikon in the heart and not the brain. Little
survives on how the Stoics viewed the relationship between the
commanding faculty and the reproductive faculty. Sources do
tell us that seminal information which produces the child is
drawn from the entire body of both parents; this is in
contrast to the Aristotelian claim that the male parent
contributes the form and the female the matter.
In addition to the eight parts of the soul, the human
hęgemonikon itself was characterized by four basic
powers: presentation [phantasia], impulse
[hormę], assent [sugkatathesis], and reason
[logos]. Iamblicus tells us that the eight parts of the
soul differ in bodily substrata while the four powers of the
hęgemonikon must be individuated by quality in regards
to the same. In other words, the four powers of the
hęgemonikon are not individually isolated in space;
their identity seems to be characterized exclusively by their
function.
3. Philosophy of Mind and Stoic
Logic
a. Presentation (phantasia), memory, and
concept formation
The most basic power of the hęgemonikon is the
ability to form presentations [phantasiai]. Other
psychological states and activities such as mental assent,
cognition, impulse, and knowledge are all either extensions or
responses to presentations. Zeno defined a presentation as an
imprinting [tupôsis] in the commanding faculty. He
suggested that the soul is imprinted by the senses much in the
same way as a signet ring imprints its shape in soft wax. At
birth the hęgemonikon is said to be like a blank sheet
of paper which is ready to receive writing; all our cognitive
experience is drawn either directly or indirectly from sense
experience, that is, empirically. Zeno held that the term
phantasia comes from the word for light [phôs].
Like light, the presentation is said to reveal itself and its
cause. Although few agree with his etymology, the report shows
that Zeno saw the phantasia as containing two elements:
the phenomenal experience of its object and the
representational content (i.e. it represents an object in the
world). The Stoics sometimes called the phantasia an
affection [pathos] in the soul; this seems to emphasize
that there is a qualitative experience inseparable from the
representational information. When we see a red circle, we
don't just acquire information, we also experience it as a red
circle.
Chrysippus
was not comfortable with the imprint analogy that Zeno and Cleanthes
employed. Taken literally the analogy fails to capture the
complexity of mental content. What kind of imprint would a
color or sound make? How could the pneuma within the
chest maintain and store such a rich collection of patterns
and information? Chrysippus
suggested that the imprinting metaphor must be abandoned and
instead preferred to call presentations "alterations"
[alloiôsis or heteroiôsis] of the
hęgemonikon . He stated that just as the same air can
be simultaneously altered by many sounds, maintaining each, so
the hęgemonikon could retain such diverse and complex
information. Although this is a far from satisfying solution,
we should remember that contemporary philosophy of mind still
has much work to do in explaining memory and concept
retention.
The Stoics distinguished presentations drawn directly from
the senses [aisthetike phantasiai] and those which are
produced by the mind from previously experienced
phantasiai. The doctrine of presentation also provided
the foundation for a theory of memory and concept formation.
Memory was seen to be stored phantasiai. Conceptions
[ennoęmata] on the other hand seemed to be collections
or patterns of stored phantasiai. The Stoic theory is
flexible enough to account for real and fictional
(intentional) objects, thereby establishing a plausible theory
of imagination. The Stoics distinguished between phantasia,
phantaston, phantastikon, and phantasma. The
phantaston is the object producing the
phantasia. A phantastikon is a phantasia
which does not come from a real object, such as those produced
by the imagination. Imagination was explained as the
manipulation of mental content. By taking elements from stored
experience and enlarging, shrinking, transposing, or negating
parts of the phantasiai it is possible imagine
monsters; thus one can produce mental content which has no
real object. For example we can create a mermaid by
transposing a body of a fish onto a young woman's torso.
Although mermaids and monsters don't exist, we need to explain
how non-existing things can be the object of thought and even
produce desire or attraction. The Stoics did this by drawing a
distinction between the imagined object (phantasma),
i.e. the mermaid, and the mental construct
(phantastikon), the thought of the mermaid. We are not
attracted to the idea or mental image of the mermaid but to
the intentional object of the idea, namely to the mermaid
herself. Similar distinctions were pursued in the early 20th
century by philosophers such as Meninong and Russell.
The Stoics made a further distinction in their doctrine of
presentations: some presentations are rational, some are not.
Rational presentations are limited to human beings and are
said to be "thoughts" [noeseis]. Thoughts, like other
phantasiai, are physical states of the
soul-pneuma. The characteristic feature of a rational
presentation seems to be its structure or syntax. Something is
said about something, and consequently the thought now has
meaning -- and if it is a proposition, it has a truth value
associated with it. Simple thoughts, when expressed in
language, have three elements: the object (thing signified),
the sound (the signifier), and the linguistic/mental content
(what is said). For example, in the sentence "The cat is
black" the thing signified is the black cat; the signifier is
the sounds of the words uttered; and finally the thing
signified is the content of what is being said, namely, the
claim regarding the color of a specific animal. The latter,
the intelligible content of the statement, is called a
lekton which is said to subsist with the rational
presentation or thought; it is the content which is either
true or false, not the object or the sound. A lekton is
not a corporeal entity like a thought or the soul; it seems to
be a theoretical entity which loosely corresponds to the
contemporary notion of a proposition, a statement, or perhaps
even the meaning of an utterance. It is the lekton that
makes the sounds of a sentence to be more than just sounds.
The doctrine of the lekta has generated much
controversy in current scholarship and is recognized to be an
important link between Stoic theory of mind and Stoic logic.
b. Impulse, assent, and action
Although we may entertain and experience all sorts of
presentations, we do not necessarily accept or respond to them
all. Hence the Stoics held that some phantasiai receive
assent and some do not. Assent occurs when the mind accepts a
phantasia as true (or more accurately accepts the
subsisting lekton as true). Assent is also a
specifically human activity, that is, it assume the power of
reason. Although the truth value of a proposition is binary,
true or false, there are various levels of recognizing truth.
According to the Stoics, opinion (doxa) is a weak or
false belief. The sage avoids opinions by withholding assent
when conditions do not permit a clear and certain grasp of the
truth of a matter. Some presentations experienced in
perceptually ideal circumstances, however, are so clear and
distinct that they could only come from a real object; these
were said to be kataleptikę (fit to grasp). The
kataleptic presentation compels assent by its very clarity
and, according to some Stoics, represents the criterion for
truth. The mental act of apprehending the truth in this way
was called katalepsis which means having a firm
epistemic grasp.
The idea of katalepsis as a firm grasp reappears in
Zeno's famous analogy of the fist. According to Cicero, Zeno
compared the phantasia to an open hand, assent, to a
closing hand, the katalepsis, to a closed fist, and
knowledge to a closed fist grasped by the other hand. Zeno's
analogy however may be a little misleading if the reader
assumes there to be a temporal succession and a series of
discreet processes. Other evidence indicates that this is not
the point of the analogy. For example, katalepsis was
defined as a kind of assent, not as a discrete post-assent
process. A katalepsis is an assent to a kataleptic
presentation. Moreover knowledge [epistemę] was defined
as a katalepsis that is secure and unchangeable by
reason. The point of the fist analogy then seems to be that
the central powers of the commanding faculty have different
and progressively greater epistemic weight. The analogy
emphasizes the epistemic progression from simple presentations
to the systematic coherence of knowledge (it being confirmed
by and consistent with other katalepseis); the analogy
is not fundamentally about the discreteness of the
psychological powers.
The emphasis on assent in Stoic psychology and epistemology
is an important contribution to ancient philosophy. The Stoics
used assent to indicate that a phantasia had been
accepted by the mind. It also allows the agent to entertain a
cognition while at the same time reject it. Indeed,
philosophical prudence often demands that we withhold assent
in cases of doubt. The introduction of assent as a distinct
process provided a plausible way to explain how an agent may
entertain a specific thought without necessarily accepting it.
In addition to epistemology, assent plays an important role
in the Stoic theory of action. Presentational content often
provokes an inclination to act by representing something as
desirable. This kind of presentation was called phantasia
hormetikę or impulse-generating presentation and was held
to produce an impulse to act. The impulse is therefore a sort
of call to action which is manifested as a motion of
pneuma directed toward the specific organs of action.
The basic function of impulse is to initiate motion. When
we perceive an object or event in the physical world, a
phantasia or presentation is produced in the commanding
faculty which is then evaluated by the rational faculty.
Depending on the content of the presentation and the
individual's conception of what is good, the object of
perception may be classified as good, evil, or indifferent.
Thefaculty of assent in conjunction with reason will accept,
reject, or withhold judgement based on the value of the
object. If the object is deemed good, an impulse is initiated
as a kind of motion in the soul substratum. If the object is
bad, repulsion [aphormę] is produced, and the agent
withdraws from the object under consideration.
4. Philosophy of Mind and Stoic
Ethics
a. Primary Impulse and
Prolepsis
We have seen that the Stoics held that at birth the soul is
free of experiential content. The Stoics, however, did not
hold that this excluded the possibility that we are born with
innate characteristics and psychological impulses. The most
basic impulse found in new-born creatures is the impulse
toward self-preservation. This is the primary human impulse
and the starting point of Stoic ethics. This impulse is
implanted by Nature and entails a certain consciousness of
things appropriate to (or belonging to) the organism and of
things alien or hostile to the creature. In contrast to the
Epicureans, who held that the primary impulse was toward
pleasure, the Stoics argued that the innate impulse toward
self-regard and an awareness of one's own constitution was
even more elementary. This innate impulse explains how animals
naturally know how to use their limbs and defensive organs and
why it is that animals naturally recognize predators as
enemies.
Children and animals, however, are not rational; Nature
must therefore supply the primary impulse as a foundation for
behavior. In the case of animals the innate impulses explain a
range of complex behavior, which in many cases appears
intelligent. For example, the Stoics held that a spider does
not possess rationality despite the apparently intelligent use
of a web to catch insects. Primary impulses in animals are
therefore identified with complex instincts. In the case of
human beings, primary impulse is ideally a transitional
mechanism. As children mature into adults, they develop
rationality so that the impulse toward self-preservation falls
under the scrutiny of reason. Rationality permits the agent to
develop the notion of duty and virtue, which may at times take
precedence over self-preservation. As the agent progresses in
virtue and reason, children, family members, neighbors, fellow
citizens, and finally all humankind are likewise seen as
intrinsically valuable and incorporated into the agent's
sphere of concern and interest. This process is called
oikeiôsis or the doctrine of appropriation and is
central to the Stoic ethics.
Also closely associated with the doctrine of the primary
impulse is the Stoic doctrine of preconception
[prolepsis]. A preconception is an innate disposition
to form certain conceptions. The most frequently mentioned
preconceptions are the concept of the good and the concept of
God. Since the Stoics held that the soul is a blank sheet at
birth, the preconception cannot be a specific cognition but
only an innate disposition to form certain concepts.
b. Passion and Eupatheia
The final element of Stoic philosophy of mind to be
presented in this article is the doctrine of the passions.
Plato and Aristotle
held that the soul had both rational and irrational parts and
used this view to explain mental conflict. For example, the
irrational "appetitive part" of the soul may desire a steady
diet of rich and fatty foods. The rational part of the soul,
however, will resist the demands of the irrational part since
such a diet is unhealthy. The result is emotional conflict and
in somecases moral conflict. Most Stoics (Posidonius being the
most famous exception), in contrast, denied the existence of
an irrational faculty. However, in order to explain the
phenomenon of mental conflict, the Stoics developed a theory
of passion which they believed could do the same work as
Plato's or Aristotle's.
The Stoics defined passion in several ways, each
emphasizing a different facet of the term. The four most
common accounts or definitions of passion are:
- An excessive impulse.
- An impulse disobedient to (the dictates of) reason.
- A false judgement or opinion.
- A fluttering [ptoia] of the soul.
Each
definition emphasizes a different aspect of passion. The first
two definitions tell us that a passion is a kind of impulse.
The first of these focuses on force. A passion is a runaway
impulse or emotion. Chrysippus
compared a passion to a person running downhill and unable to
stop at will. The soul is carried away by the sheer force and
strength of the impulse. Passions often develop a momentum
that cannot easily be stopped. Some texts also emphasize that
there is a temporal dimension to passion. The fresher the
passion, the stronger the impulse; passions usually weaken
over time.
The second and third definitions emphasize the logical side
of passion. Passions are unruly and contrary to reason. They
are based on mistaken thinking or false opinions. The fact
that passions are irrational does not mean that they come from
an irrational faculty. They can be errors produced by the
rational faculty. Having a rational faculty does not imply
infallibility. Rather, it implies that cognitive states are
produced through an inferential process which operates with a
syntax similar to language. Mathematics operates in a similar
fashion. When we make mathematical errors, we do not appeal to
a non-mathematic part of the soul which conflicts with the
mathematical. Rather we attribute the error to a single,
though limited and fallible, rational faculty. The Stoics saw
passion in the same way. Passions are false judgements or
mistakes in regards to the value of something and are thereby
misdirected impulses. According to Stoic ethics, only virtues
are truly good, whereas externals such as wealth, honor,
power, and pleasure are indifferent to our happiness since
each can also harm us and each ultimately lies beyond our
control. These externals then are said to be morally
"indifferent" (adiaphoron). When we mistakenly value
something indifferent as though it were a genuine good, we
form a false judgement and experience passion.
The traditional Stoic passions can be broken down into four
different kinds or classes of errors in judgement. These
errors concern the good and bad (value), and the present and
the future (time):
|
Present |
Future |
| Good |
Pleasure |
Appetite |
| Bad |
Distress |
Fear |
When one identifies
something as good in the present when in fact it is not truly
a good we have the passion called pleasure and its subspecies.
When we do the same in the future we have appetite. Likewise
when we misidentify something as bad in the present, we
experience the passion called distress; when we err regarding
something in the future we call it fear.
The fourth and final definition of passion as "a fluttering
in the soul" is most likely a physical description of passion
much as Aristotle
describes anger as a boiling of blood around the heart. As
corporealists, the Stoics frequently described activities as
physical descriptions of the pneuma of the soul. The
Stoics defined the individual passions as an irrational
swelling or rising [heparsis]. When our impulses are
excessive and unruly, the pneuma in one's chest canfeel
like a fluttering. In contrast, Zeno described happiness, a
state which presupposed rationality and virtue, as a smooth
flowing soul. The fluttering may also signify the instability
of passions as judgements. Chrysippus
illustrated emotional disruption caused by the fluttering of
passion with the example of Euripides' Medea, who continually
flipped back and forth from one judgement to another.
These four definitions or descriptions of passion are in
agreement though each emphasizes a different aspect of
passion. For example, grief over lost or stolen property is
considered a passion, a species of distress. Since the object
of concern (the stolen property) is in truth of no moral worth
(indifferent), for it is only our virtuous response to the
situation that qualifies as morally good or bad, the impulse
identified with the grief is excessive (1). Since we do not
heed reason which would tell us that happiness lies in virtue
alone, it is also an impulse disobedient to reason (2).
Likewise, since the value attributed to an object does not
represent its true worth, it is a false judgement (3).
Finally, the distress which we experience in the grief
manifests itself not as a smooth calm state but as a
fluttering or disturbance in our soul (4).
If passions are excessive impulses and mistaken judgements
resulting in emotional disquietude, there must also be
appropriate impulses and correct judgements resulting in
emotional peace. It is a mistake to assume that if the Stoics
reject passion that they seek a life void of any emotion, that
is, that they seek to be emotionally flat. A better reading of
Stoicism is that the goal is not absence of emotion, but a
well-disposed emotional life. This is a life in which impulses
are rational, moderate, and held in check. It is a state in
which one's impulses are appropriate to and consistent with
the nature of things, both regarding the truth of the
judgement and the degree of the response. This view is
supported by the Stoic doctrine of the eupatheiai.
Calling positive emotions "good-passions" may have been an
attempt to rectify the misrepresentation of their school as
being void of emotion. Examples of the eupatheiai are
joy [khara], caution [eulabeia], and reasonable
wishing [boulęsis]. Joy is said to be the counterpart
of pleasure, caution is contrasted with fear, and reasonable
wishing is contrasted with appetite. The difference is that in
the eupatheiai the force of the impulse is appropriate
to the value of the object, the impulse is consistent with
rational behavior, and finally the belief or judgement
regarding the nature of the object is true.
One should note that there are only three categories for
the eupatheiai in contrast to the four for passions
[é]. There is no eupatheia corresponding to
distress. This is due to the Stoic conception of moral
invincibility. Distress was defined as an incorrect judgement
regarding a present evil. The Stoics, however, held that the
good lies not in external events or objects but in the
virtuous response of the moral agent to any situation. Since
it is always possible to respond virtuously, there is no true
evil in the present. The good is always possible here and now.
5. Sources and Suggestions for Further
Reading
a. Collections of Stoic texts
Clark, Gordon H. (ed.). 1940. Selections From
Hellenistic Philosophy. New York: Croft.
Edelstein, L. and Kidd, I. G. (eds.) 1972. Posidonius.
The Fragments, 4 vols. Cambridge: University Press.
Hülser, Karlheinz. (ed.). 1987. Die Fragmente zur
Dialektik der Stoiker. 4 vols. Stuttgart:
Frommann-Holzboog.
Inwood, Brad and Gerson, L. P. (eds.). 1997. Hellenistic
Philosophy: Introductory Readings, 2nd edition.
Indianapolis: Hackett.
Long, A.A. and Sedley, D.N. (eds.). 1987. The
Hellenistic Philosophers, 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Saunders, Jason L. (ed.). 1996. Greek and Roman
Philosophy after Aristotle. New York: Free Press.
von Arnim, Ioannes (ed.). 1903-1905. Stoicorum Veterum
Fragmenta. Leipzig: Teubner.
b. Recommended Readings on Stoic
Psychology
Algra, Keimpe, et al. (eds.) 1999. The Cambridge History
of Hellenistic Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Annas, Julia. 1992. Hellenistic Philosophy of Mind.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Arthur, E. P. 1983. "The Stoic analysis of the mind's
reaction to presentations", Hermes 111: 69-78.
Brennan, Tad. 1996. "Reasonable Impressions in Stoicism",
Phronesis 41.3: 318-334.
_____. 1998. "The Old Stoic Theory of Emotion", in Sihvola
and Engberg-Pedersen (eds.) 1998: 21-70.
Brunschwig, Jacques. 1986. "The cradle argument in
Epicureanism and Stoicism", in Schofield and Striker 1986:
113-144.
_____. 1994. Papers in Hellenistic Philosophy.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Translated by Janet
Lloyd.
Brunschwig, J. and Nussbaum, M. C. (eds.) 1993. Passions
& Perceptions: studies in Hellenistic philosophy of mind.
Proceedings of the Fifth Symposium Hellenisticum.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Caston, Victor. 1999. "Something and Nothing: The Stoics on
concepts and universals" Oxford Studies in Ancient
Philosophy 17: 145-213.
Chiesa, M. C. 1991. "Le problčme du langage intérieur chez
les Stoďciens", Revue Internationale de Philosophie 3,
301-321.
Cooper, John. 1998. "Posidonius on Emotions", in Sihvola
and Engberg-Pedersen, 1998: 71-112.
Doty, Ralph. 1992. The Criterion of Truth. American
University Studies. Series V Philosophy, vol. 108. New York:
Peter Lang.
Engberg-Pedersen, Troels. 1998. "Marcus Aurelius on
Emotions", in Sihvola and Engberg-Pedersen, 1998: 305-338.
Everson, Stephen. 1990. Epistemology. Companions to
Ancient Thought. Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
_____. 1991. Psychology. Companions to Ancient
Thought. Vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
_____. 1994. Language. Companions to Ancient
Thought. Vol. 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Frede, Michael. 1983. "Stoics and Skeptics on clear and
distinct impressions", in Essays in Ancient Philosophy.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota.: 65-93.
_____. 1994. "The Stoic notion of lekton", in Everson 1994:
109-128.
Gill, Christopher. 1991. "Is there a concept of person in
Greek philosophy?", in Everson 1991: 166-193.
_____. 1998. "Did Galen Understand Platonic and Stoic
Thinking on Emotion", in Sihvola and Engberg-Pedersen, 1998:
113-148.
Glibert-Thirry, A. 1977. "La théorie stoďcienne de la
passion chez Chrysippe et son évolution chez Posidonius",
Revue philosophique de Louvain 75: 393-435.
Gould, J. 1970. The Philosophy of Chrysippus.
Leiden: Brill.
Hahm, David E. 1977. The Origins of Stoic Cosmology.
Columbus: Ohio State University Press.
_____. 1978. "Early Hellenistic theories of vision and the
perception of color", in Machamer & Turnbull 1978: 60-95.
Imbert, Claude. 1978. "Théorie de la representation et
doctrine logique dans le stoicisme ancien", in Brunschwig
1978: 223-249.
Ingenkamp, Heinz Gerd. 1971. "Zur stoischen Lehre vom
Sehen", Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 114: 240-246.
Inwood, Brad. 1985. Ethics and Human Action in Early
Stoicism. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
_____. 1993. "Seneca and psychological dualism", in
Brunschwig and Nussbaum 1993: 150-183.
_____. 1999. "Rules and Reasoning in Stoic Ethics", in
Topics in Stoic Philosophy, Ierodikonou, Katerina
(ed.): 95-127.
Ioppolo, Anna-Maria. 1990. "Presentation and assent: A
physical and cognitive problem in early Stoicism",
Classical Quarterly 40: 433-449.
Kerferd, George B. 1978. "The search for personal identity
in Stoic thought", Bulletin of the John Ryland Library
55: 177-196.
_____. 1978. "The problem of synkathesis and katalepsis
in Stoic doctrine", in Brunschwig 1978: 251-272.
Kidd, I.G. 1971. "Posidonius on Emotions" in Long 1971:
200-215.
Lesses, Glenn. 1998. "Content, Cause, and Stoic
Impressions", Phronesis 43.1: 1-25.
Lewis, Eric. 1995. "The Stoics on identity and
individuation", Phronesis 40: 89-108.
Lloyd, A.C. 1978. "Emotion and decision in Stoic
psychology", in Rist 1978: 233-246.
Long, A. A. (ed.). 1971. Problems in Stoicism.
London: Athlone Press.
_____. 1971. "Language and thought in Stoicism", in Long
1971: 75-113.
_____. 1974. Hellenistic Philosophy. 2nd ed. London:
Duckworth.
_____. 1978. "The Stoic distinction between truth and the
true", in Brunschwig 1978: 297-315.
_____. 1982. "Soul and Body in Stoicism", Phronesis
27: 34-57.
_____. 1991. "Representation and the self in Stoicism",
102-120 in Everson 1991.
Nussbaum, Martha. 1993. "Poetry and the passions: two Stoic
views" in Brunschwig and Nussbaum 1993: 97-149.
_____. 1994. The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice
in Hellenistic Ethics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press.
Modrak, Deborah K. 1993. "Stoics, Epicureans and mental
content", Apeiron 26: 97-108.
Ostenfeld, Erik. 1987. Ancient Greek Psychology and the
Modern Mind-Body Debate. Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus
University Press.
Pembroke, S. G. 1971. "Oikeiôsis", in Long 1971: 114-149.
Reale, Giovanni. 1990. A History of Ancient Philosophy,
vol. 4. The Schools of the Imperial Age. Albany, NY: State
University of New York Press. [Edited. & translated by
John R. Catan].
Reesor, Margaret, E. 1989. The Nature of Man in Early
Stoic Philosophy. London: Duckworth.
Rist, John M. 1969. Stoic Philosophy. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
_____. 1985. "On Greek biology, Greek cosmology and some
sources of theological pneuma", Prudentia. The
Concept of Spirit. Supplementary Number 1985, 27-47.
Rist, John M. (ed.). 1978. The Stoics. Berkeley, Los
Angeles, and London: University of California Press.
Rorty, Amélie Oksenberg. 1998. "The Two Faces of Stoicism:
Rousseau and Freud", in Sihvola and Engberg-Pedersen, 1998:
243-270.
Sakezles, Priscilla. 1998. "Aristotle and
Chrysippus
on the physiology of human action", Apeiron 31.2,
127-166.
Sandbach, F. H. 1971. "phantasia kataleptike", in
Long 1971: 9-21.
Schofield, M., Burnyeat, M. and Barnes, J. (eds.). 1980.
Doubt and Dogmatism: studies in Hellenistic epistemology.
Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Schofield, M. and Striker, G. (eds.). 1986. The Norms of
Nature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sedley, David. 1993. "Chrysippus on
psychophysical causality", in Brunschwig and Nussbaum 1993:
313-331.
Sharples, R. W. 1996. Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics:
An Introduction to Hellenistic Philosophy. London:
Routledge.
Sihvola, Juha and Engberg-Pedersen, Troels (eds.) 1998.
The Emotions in Hellenistic Philosophy. Dordrecht:
Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Sorabji, Richard. 1990. "Perceptual content in the Stoics",
Phronesis 35, 301-314.
_____. Animal Minds & Human Morals. Ithaca:
Cornell University Press.
_____. 1998. "Chrysippus -
Posidonius - Seneca: A High Level Debate on Emotion", in
Sihvola and Engberg-Pedersen, 1998: 149-170.
Striker, Gisela. 1996. Essays on Hellenistic
Epistemology and Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Todd, Robert B. 1974. "'Synentasis' and the Stoic theory of
perception", Grazer Beiträge 2, 251-261.
_____. 1976. Alexander of Aphrodisias on Stoic Physics.
Leiden: Brill.
von Staden, Heinrich. 1978. "The Stoic theory of perception
and its 'Platonic' critics", 96-136 in Machamer & Turnbull
1978.
Watson, Gerard. 1988. "Discovering the imagination:
Platonists and Stoics on phantasia", 208-233 in Dillon
and Long 1988.
_____. 1994. "The concept of 'phantasia' from the
late Hellenistic period to early Neoplatonism", Aufstieg
und Niedergang der Römischen Welt (ANRW) II.36.7:
4765-4810.
Williams, Bernard. 1994. "Stoic Philosophy and the
Emotions: reply to Richard Sorabji", Aristotle and
After, 21-214.
|
