Void is at the heart of Stoic metaphysics. As the incorporeal par excellence, being defined purely in terms of lacking body, it brings into sharp focus the Stoic commitment to non-existent Somethings. This article argues that Stoic void, far from rendering the Stoic system incoherent or merely ad hoc, in fact reflects a principled and coherent physicalism that sets the Stoics apart from their materialist predecessors and atomist neighbors.

The Stoics offer us a very puzzling conception of causation and an equally puzzling ontology. The aim of the present paper is to show that these two elements of their system elucidate each other. The Stoic conception of causation, I contend, holds the key to understanding the ontological category of incorporeals and thus Stoic ontology as a whole, and it can in turn only be understood in the light of this connection to ontology. The thesis I defend is that the (...) Stoic incorporeals are to be understood as effects, as effects of the causality of bodies. What is gained by this thesis? First, it explains how the seemingly heterogeneous item of ‘sayables’ (lekta) fits into the category of incorporeals. Second, it allows for a new interpretation of the two verbs with which the Stoics characterize the way of being of incorporeals, huphistanai and huparchein. And, third, it sheds light on the peculiar features of the Stoic conception of causation. (shrink)

The paper discusses the manner and extent to which Epicurean ethics can serve as a general philosophy of life, capable of supporting philosophical practice in the form of philosophical counseling. Unlike the modern age academic philosophy, the philosophical practice movement portrays the philosopher as a personal or corporate adviser, one who helps people make sense of their experiences and find optimum solutions within the context of their values and general preferences. Philosophical counseling may rest on almost any school of philosophy, (...) ranging — in the Western tradition from Platonism to the philosophy of language or logic. While any specialist school of philosophy may serve valuable purposes by elucidating specific aspects of one’s experiences and directing future action, the more ‘generalist’ the philosophy used as the basis for counseling is, the broader and more far-reaching its potential impact on the person undergoing counseling. Epicurean ethics is a prime example of a philosophy of life that is suitable for philosophical counseling today. Its closer examination reveals that, contrary to superficial opinion, it is not opposed to Stoicism and may in fact incorporate Stoicism and its antecedent virtues (including many Christian virtues) in a simple yet comprehensive practical system of directions for modern counseling. (shrink)

Ancient philosophy knew two main skeptical traditions: the Pyrrhonian and the Academic. In this final paper of the three‐part series devoted to ancient skepticism, I present some of the topics about Academic skepticism which have recently been much debated in the specialist literature. I will be concerned with the outlooks of Arcesilaus, Carneades, and Philo of Larissa.

The aim of this paper is to explore how the cosmic soul works and how it accomplishes its providential and demiurgic tasks in Chrysippus’ system. Drawing on (i) the analogy Chrysippus establishes between the individuum and the cosmos and (ii) biological and medical theories of respiration, digestion, and pulse, I will show that the movements of Chrysippus’ cosmic soul reproduce the processes of digestion, pulse, and respiration at a cosmic level. My claim is that Chrysippus, in addition to adopting Praxagoras’ (...) notion that inhaled air nourishes pneuma—well established in the scholarship—appropriated Aristotle’s complex mechanism of respiration and digestion based on the teleological role of cold air, crucial for preserving vital heat. So understood, Chrysippus’ application of biological notions to cosmology allows him to endow the active principle with effective causation throughout the cosmos. (shrink)

This paper intends to offer a new supplement to a corrupt passage of the Epicurean inscription of Oenoanda. Smith, in the lacuna of Fr. 6, uses the phrasal term πρῶτα σώματα to indicate the atoms. The supplement is not satisfying as it is based solely on evidence drawn from non-Epicurean texts and Lucretius, who writes in Latin and is not always reliable for reconstructing the Epicurean terminology. In this article, I will try to demonstrate that πρῶτα σώματα is in fact (...) a peripatetic – and subsequently stoic – term indicating the elements in general, which has never been used by any Epicurean author for polemical reasons. Finally, I will propose an alternative supplement. (shrink)

This essay argues the Stoics are rightly regarded as pantheists. Their view differs from many forms of pantheism by accepting the notion of a personal god who exercises divine providence. Moreover, Stoic pantheism is utterly inimical to a deep ecology ethic. I argue that these features are nonetheless consistent with the claim that they are pantheists. The essay also considers the arguments offered by the Stoics. They thought that their pantheistic conclusion was an extension of the best science of their (...) day. Some of their most interesting arguments are thusa posteriori. (shrink)

From the first century BCE onwards, philosophers started to write commentaries on those Aristotle’s treatises that were meant for the internal use of his school. Plato’s works had been commented on already earlier, the first reported commentary originates in the 300s BCE. Commentaries are treatises that follow an object text in a more or less linear fashion. The format was not unknown before the first century BCE but new in extensive philosophical use. This review essay focuses on authors who commented (...) on Aristotle’s works. The commentaries emerged when Platonists and Aristotelians observed the need to teach the philosophy of these ancient masters to their students and to systematise their philosophy to respond to rival schools. In the late ancient schools, Plato and Aristotle were considered great thinkers, whose views needed to be studied carefully when considering any matter at hand. Many also argued that, despite the initial appearance to the contrary, there is no deep disagreement between Plato and Aristotle but, rather, a division of labour; Aristotle is dominant in natural philosophy and Plato in theology. However, this harmony thesis was not universally accepted. Despite their respect for Plato and Aristotle, the commentators were not mere followers of these authors. They developed, criticised and transformed the doctrines in significant ways, not only by suggesting different answers to the same questions but also by transforming the questions themselves. (shrink)

The article analyses innovative ethno-geographical systems of the first century BC. During Hellenistic times, the science of geography made use of increasingly advanced mathematical and astronomical skills to ensure a scientific basis for the cartographical project; however, this geographical research apparently disregarded the natural and human environments. There is a paradigm change in the referred century. The Stoic Posidonius focuses on the concept of zones found in the early philosophers and finds a compromise between the ‘scientific’ and the ‘descriptive’ geographies. (...) Likewise, Vitruvius conveys a geographical system which associates climatic, somatic, and psychic features. (shrink)

The ‘Dialectical school’ denotes a group of early Hellenistic philosophers that were loosely connected by philosophizing in the — Socratic — tradition of Eubulides of Megara and by their interest in logical paradoxes, propositional logic and dialectical expertise. . Its two best known members, Diodorus Cronus and Philo the Logician, made groundbreaking contributions to the development of theories of conditionals and modal logic. Philo introduced a version of material implication; Diodorus devised a forerunner of strict implication. Each developed a system (...) of modal notions that satisfies the basic logical requirements laid down by modern standard modal theories. In antiquity, Diodorus Cronus was famous for his so called Master Argument, which aims to prove that only the actual is possible. (shrink)

Pleasure, in the inclusive usages most important in moral psychology, ethical theory, and the studies of mind, includes all joy and gladness — all our feeling good, or happy. It is often contrasted with similarly inclusive pain, or suffering, which is similarly thought of as including all our feeling bad. Contemporary psychology similarly distinguishes between positive affect and negative affect.[1..

What caused the eventual decline in later Jewish history of the vibrant historiographical tradition of the biblical period? In contrast to the plethora of historical writings composed during the biblical period, the rabbis of the early common era apparently were not interested in writing history, and when they did relate to historical events they often introduced mythical and unrealistic elements into their writings. Scholars have offered various explanations for this phenomenon; a central goal of this article is to locate these (...) explanations within both the immediate historical setting of Roman Palestine and the overarching cultural atmosphere of the Greco-Roman Near East. In particular, I suggest that the largely ahistorical approach of the rabbis functioned as a local Jewish counterpart to the widespread classicizing tendencies of a contemporary Greek intellectual movement, the Second Sophistic. In both cases, eastern communities, whose political aspirations were stifled under Roman rule, sought to express their cognitive and spiritual identities by focusing on a glorious and idealized past rather than on contemporary history. Interestingly, the apparent lack of rabbinic interest in historiography is not limited to the early rabbinic period. Throughout the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, Jews essentially did not write their political, diplomatic, or military history. Instead, Jews composed “traditional historiography” which included various types of literary genres among which the rabbinic “chain of transmission” was the most important. The chain of transmission reconstructs the links that connect later rabbinic sages with their predecessors. Robert Bonfil has noted the similarity between this rabbinic project and contemporary church histories. Adding a diachronic dimension to Bonfil’s comparison, I suggest that rabbinic chains of transmission and church histories are not similar though entirely independent phenomena, but rather their shared project actually derives from a common origin, the Hellenistic succession list. The succession list literary genre, which sketches the history of an intellectual discipline, apparently thrived during the Second Sophistic and diffused then into both rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity. Thus, even though historiography was not terribly important to the early rabbis or to most Second Sophistic intellectuals, the succession list schematic, or the history of an intellectual discipline, was evaluated differently. Rabbis and early Christians absorbed the succession list from Second Sophistic culture and then continued to employ this historiographical genre for many centuries to come. (shrink)

The only passage from Aristotle's works that seemsto discuss the paradox of the liar is within chapter 25 of Sophistici Elenchi (180a34–b7). This passage raises several questions: Is it really about the paradox of the liar? If it is, is it addressing a strong version of the paradox or some weak strain of it? If it is addressing a strong version of the paradox, what solution does it propose? The conciseness of the passage does not enable one to answer these (...) questions beyond doubt, and commentators have offered very different replies. However, a reasonable case can be made for claiming, first, that the passage in question is about the paradox of the liar, second, that it addresses a strong version of the paradox, and, third, that it attempts to solve it by assuming that someone uttering 'I am speaking falsely' (or whatever sentence-type the paradox turns on) is neither speaking truly nor speaking falsely absolutely. (shrink)