Stoic Philosophy of Mind [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]
Stoic Philosophy of Mind
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
a. Philosophy of Mind and the Parts of Philosophy
2. Philosophy of Mind and Stoic Physics
a. The Substance of the Soul
b. Pneuma and Tension, and the Scala naturae
c. Death
d. The Parts of the Soul
3. Philosophy of Mind and Stoic Logic
a. Presentation (phantasia), memory, and concept formation
b. Impulse, assent, and action
4. Philosophy of Mind and Stoic Ethics
a. Primary Impulse and Prolepsis
b. Passion and Eupatheia
5. Sources and Suggestions for Further Reading
a. Collections of Stoic texts
b. Recommended Readings on Stoic Psychology
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.
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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.
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2. Philosophy of Mind and Stoic Physics
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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3. Philosophy of Mind and Stoic Logic
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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.
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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.
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4. Philosophy of Mind and Stoic Ethics
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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.
Back to Table of Contents
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.
Back to Table of Contents
5. Sources and Suggestions for Further Reading
Back to Table of Contents
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.
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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.
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Author Information:
Scott Rubarth
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