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  1. The Stoic Appeal to Expertise: Platonic Echoes in the Reply to Indistinguishability.Simon Shogry - 2021 - Apeiron 54 (2):129-159.
    One Stoic response to the skeptical indistinguishability argument is that it fails to account for expertise: the Stoics allow that while two similar objects create indistinguishable appearances in the amateur, this is not true of the expert, whose appearances succeed in discriminating the pair. This paper re-examines the motivations for this Stoic response, and argues that it reveals the Stoic claim that, in generating a kataleptic appearance, the perceiver’s mind is active, insofar as it applies concepts matching the perceptual stimulus. (...)
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  2. What do our impressions say? The Stoic theory of perceptual content and belief formation.Simon Shogry - 2019 - Apeiron 52 (1):29-63.
    Here I propose an interpretation of the ancient Stoic psychological theory on which (i) the concepts that an adult human possesses affect the content of the perceptual impressions (φαντασίαι αἰσθητικαί) she forms, and (ii) the content of such impressions is exhausted by an ‘assertible’ (ἀξίωμα) of suitable complexity. What leads the Stoics to accept (i) and (ii), I argue, is their theory of assent and belief formation, which requires that the perceptual impression communicate information suitable to serve as the content (...)
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  3. Stoic logic and multiple generality.Susanne Bobzien & Simon Shogry - 2020 - Philosophers' Imprint 20 (31):1-36.
    We argue that the extant evidence for Stoic logic provides all the elements required for a variable-free theory of multiple generality, including a number of remarkably modern features that straddle logic and semantics, such as the understanding of one- and two-place predicates as functions, the canonical formulation of universals as quantified conditionals, a straightforward relation between elements of propositional and first-order logic, and the roles of anaphora and rigid order in the regimented sentences that express multiply general propositions. We consider (...)
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  4. Epicureans and Stoics on the Rationality of Perception.Whitney Schwab & Simon Shogry - 2023 - Wiley: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 106 (1):58-83.
    This paper examines an ancient debate over the rationality of perception. What leads the Stoics to affirm, and the Epicureans to deny, that to form a sense-impression is an activity of reason? The answer, we argue, lies in a disagreement over what is required for epistemic success. For the Stoics, epistemic success consists in believing the right propositions, and only rational states, in virtue of their predicational structure, put us in touch with propositions. Since they identify some sense-impressions as criteria (...)
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  5. Creating a Mind Fit for Truth.Simon Shogry - 2018 - Ancient Philosophy 38 (2):357-381.
    This paper offers a new defense of the externalist interpretation of the kataleptic impression. My strategy is to situate the kataleptic impression within the larger context of the Stoic account of expertise. I argue that, given mastery in recognizing the limitations of her own state of mind, the subject can restrict her assent to kataleptic impressions, even if they are phenomenologically indistinguishable from those which are not kataleptic.
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  6. Seneca on Moral Improvement through Dialectical Study: A Chrysippean Reading of Letter 87.Simon Shogry - forthcoming - Ancient Philosophy.
    Does Seneca entirely reject the utility of dialectical study for moral improvement? No, I argue here. Focusing on Letter 87, I propose that Seneca raises and disarms objections to formal Stoic arguments in order to help moral progressors avoid backsliding and advance towards ethical knowledge. I trace this method back to Chrysippus and show that reading Letter 87 in this Chrysippean framework yields a satisfying explanation of its otherwise puzzling features.
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  7. Stoic Cosmopolitanism and Environmental Ethics.Simon Shogry - 2020 - In Kelly Arenson (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Hellenistic Philosophy. Routledge. pp. 397-409.
    This essay considers how ancient Stoic cosmopolitanism – roughly, the claim all human beings are members of the same “cosmopolis”, or universal city, and so are entitled to moral concern in virtue of possessing reason – informs Stoic thinking about how we ought to treat non-human entities in the environment. First, I will present the Stoic justification for the thesis that there are only rational members of the cosmopolis – and so that moral concern does not extend to any non-human (...)
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  8. Psychological disease and action-guiding impressions in early Stoicism.Simon Shogry - 2021 - British Journal for the History of Philosophy 29 (5):784-805.
    The early Stoics diagnose vicious agents with various psychological diseases, e.g. love of money and love of wine. Such diseases are characterized as false evaluative opinions that lead the agent to form emotional impulses for certain objects, e.g. money and wine. Scholars have therefore analyzed psychological diseases simply as dispositions for assent. This interpretation is incomplete, I argue, and should be augmented with the claim that psychological disease also affects what kind of action-guiding impressions are created prior to giving assent. (...)
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