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IS THERE A LACUNA IN PS.-PLUTARCH (‘AETIUS’) 4.11.1–4? TWO ACCOUNTS OF CONCEPT FORMATION IN HELLENISTIC PHILOSOPHY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2013

Henry Dyson
Henry Dyson*
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
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[email protected]
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Extract

In Ps.-Plutarch's epitome, Doctrines of the Philosophers (Plac.), lemma 4.11 bears the heading: Πῶς γίνεται ἡ αἴσθησις καὶ ἡ ἔννοια καὶ ὁ κατὰ ἐνδιάθεσιν λόγος (‘How sense perception, conception, and internal reason come to be’). The text reads:

(1) Οἱ Στωϊκοί ϕασιν· ὅταν γεννηθῇ ὁ ἄνθρωπος, ἔχει τὸ ἡγεμονικὸν μέρος τῆς ψυχῆς ὥσπερ χάρτην εὔεργον εἰς ἀπογραϕήν· εἰς τοῦτο μίαν ἑκάστην τῶν ἐννοιῶν ἐναπογράϕεται. (2) Πρῶτος δὲ [ὁ] τῆς ἀναγραϕῆς τρόπος ὁ διὰ τῶν αἰσθήσεων. αἰσθανόμενοι γάρ τινος οἷον λευκοῦ, ἀπελθόντος αὐτοῦ μνήμην ἔχουσιν· ὅταν δὲ ὁμοειδεῖς πολλαὶ μνῆμαι γένωνται, τότε ϕαμὲν ἔχειν ἐμπειρίαν· ἐμπειρία γάρ ἐστι τὸ τῶν ὁμοειδῶν ϕαντασιῶν πλῆθος. (3) Τῶν δὲ ἐννοιῶν αἱ μὲν ϕυσικῶς γίνονται κατὰ τοὺς εἰρημένους τρόπους καὶ ἀνεπιτεχνήτως, αἱ δὲ ἤδη δι’ ἡμετέρας διδασκαλίας καὶ ἐπιμελείας· αὗται μὲν οὖν ἔννοιαι καλοῦνται μόνον, ἐκεῖναι δὲ καὶ προλήψεις. (4) Ὁ δὲ λόγος, καθ’ ὅν προσαγορευόμεθα λογικοὶ ἐκ τῶν προλήψεων συμπληροῦσθαι λέγεται κατὰ τὴν πρώτην ἑβδομάδα.

(1) The Stoics say: When a human being has been born, the commanding part of his soul is like a sheet of paper in good condition for writing upon; upon this each one of his conceptions is written. (2) The first way of writing is through the senses. For when humans perceive something, e.g. something white, they have a memory of it when it goes away; and when many memories of the same kind have come to be, then we say that they have experience; for experience is a plurality of impressions of the same kind. (3) Of conceptions, some come about naturally and non-technically through the aforementioned ways, but others come about through our own learning and efforts. The latter are called ‘conceptions’, but the former are called ‘prolepses’ as well. (4) And reason, according to which we are called ‘rational’, is said to be completely filled out with prolepses at the age of seven years.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 63 , Issue 2 , December 2013 , pp. 734 - 742
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2013 

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References

1 All translations are my own, although often indebted to Inwood, B. and Gerson, L., The Stoic Reader: Selected Writings and Testimonia (Indianapolis, 2008)Google Scholar or Long, A. A. and Sedley, D., The Hellenstic Philosophers, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1987)Google Scholar. For the authorship of this epitome, cf. Mansfeld, J. and Runia, D. T., Aetiana: The Method and Intellectual Context of a Doxographer, vol. 1, Philosophia Antiqua 73 (Leiden, 1997), 121–5Google Scholar.

2 Zeller, E., Die Philosophie der Griechen in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung (Leipzig, 1865)Google Scholar, 3.1.67 n. 4.

3 Diels, H., Doxographi Graeci (Berlin, 1879)Google Scholar, 400.

4 Bonhöffer, A., Epictet und die Stoa (Stuttgart, 1890), 195Google Scholar.

5 That τὰ δὲ κατὰ μετάθεσιν should be included in this initial list is made clear by Diogenes' subsequent illustrations in 7.53 (quoted below, p. 739).

6 Cf. Diels (n. 3); Lachenaud, G., Plutarque Oeuvres Morales, vol. 12. 2 (Paris, 1993)Google Scholar; and Mau, J., Plutarchi Moralia, vol. 5.2.1 (Leipzig, 1971)Google Scholar. For the manuscript tradition of Ps.-Plutarch's text, cf. Mansfeld and Runia (n. 1), 173–81.

7 Cf. Mansfeld and Runia (n. 1), 323–7.

8 Sandbach, F.H., ‘ΕΝΝΟΙΑ and ΠΡΟΛΗΨΙΣ in the Stoic theory of knowledge’, CQ 24 (1930), 44–51 at 46Google Scholar.

9 Sandbach (n. 8), 46 n. 5.

10 One last item of Sandbach's argument deserves comment. He suggests that περίπτωσις in Diogenes' account corresponds to ἐμπειρία in Aetius' account, rather than to διὰ τῶν αἰσθήσεων as a whole as suggested by Bonhöffer (n. 4), 195. But this is a misconstrual of ἐμπειρία. As Sandbach (n. 8), 46 n. 4 correctly notes, περίπτωσις means an immediate confrontation with or ‘direct experience’ of an object. But, as the parallel passages from Aristotle (An. post. 99b31–100a19 and Met. 980a27–981a7) and Theophrastus apud Sext.Emp. (Math. 7.216–26) show, ἐμπειρία means ‘experience’ in the sense of ‘job experience’ rather than ‘sense experience.’ Cf. also τὸ κατ’ ἐμπειρίαν τῶν ϕύσει συμβαινόντων ζῆν at Diog. Laert. 7.87 which, as far as I know, is the only other use of ἐμπειρία in our extant sources for the early Stoics.

11 Cf. Dyson, H., Prolepsis and Ennoia in the Early Stoa, Sozomena vol. 5 (Berlin, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Cf. M. Pohlenz, Grundfragen der stoischen Philosophie. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen. Philologisch-Historische Klasse 3.26 (Göttingen, 1940), 82; Todd, R., ‘The Stoic common conceptions: a re-examination and reinterpretation’, SO 48 (1973), 47–75, at 52CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Long and Sedley (n. 1), 2.241; and Jackson-McCabe, M., ‘The Stoic theory of implanted preconceptions’, Phronesis 49.4 (2004), 323–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 329 n. 29. Cf. also Brittain, C., ‘Common sense: concepts, definitions, and meaning in and out of the Stoa’, in Frede, D. and Inwood, B. (edd.), Language and Learning (Cambridge, 2005), 164–209CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 172–3. Brittain regards the conjecture as a possibility worth considering, but stops short of endorsing it.

13 Long and Sedley (n. 1), 2.241.

14 Jackson-McCabe (n. 12), 329 n. 29.

15 Sandbach (n. 8), 46 n. 5.

16 Long and Sedley (n. 1), 2.241.

17 Jackson-McCabe (n. 12), 329 n. 29.

18 The similarity is noted by Sandbach (n. 8), 51–2, Lachenaud (n. 6), 152 and Scott, D., Recollection and Experience: Plato's Theory of Learning and its Successors (Cambridge, 1995), 109–10CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 The contrast with prolepses, which are ϕυσικαὶ ἔννοιαι (Diog. Laert. 7.54) and come to be ἀνεπιτεχνήτως, suggests that the proper term for the second class of conceptions is τεχνικαὶ ἔννοιαι. The term never appears in our extant sources, but cf. Diog. Laert. 7.51: καὶ αἱ μέν εἰσι τεχνικαί (sc. ϕαντασίαι), αἱ δὲ ἄτεχνοι. Epictetus makes a very similar contrast between prolepses and technical conceptions at Diss. 2.11.2–6.

20 Sandbach, F.H., Aristotle and the Stoics. Cambridge Philological Society, Suppl. Vol. 10 (Cambridge, 1988), 52Google Scholar.

21 Sandbach (n. 20), 52. Cf. also Jaeger, W., Aristoteles: Grundlegung einer Geschichte seiner Entwicklung (Berlin, 1923), 68–72Google Scholar.

22 Many technical terms associated with the Stoics can be found in this passage. It is not clear whether these terms were used by Theophrastus and are evidence of his influence on the early Stoics, or whether (and this is perhaps more likely) the account at Math. 7.216–26 has been rewritten in the lingua franca of Hellenistic philosophy which adopted much of the Stoics' technical terminology. For discussion of this issue with references to earlier scholarship, cf. Huby, P., Theophrastus of Eresus: Sources for his Life, Writings, Thought, and Influence (Leiden, 1995), 93–9Google Scholar.

23 Cf. Math. 3.42, 9.393–4 and 11.251–2, discussed below, p. 740.

24 Sextus mentions transference as part of the standard list at Math. 3.40, 9. 393–5 and 11.25–2; but his organization of these lists is somewhat different from that of Diogenes. He lists the ways except for direct experience as species of transference, or ‘analogical transference’ as he says at 11.250. Privation does not appear on any of the standard lists, but is offered as an additional supplement in Sextus' discussion at Math. 3.51ff. and 9.403ff. Natural conception does not appear on any other list. It is often suggested that this item is added to Diogenes' list to account for prolepses or for ethical conceptions that develop from ‘internal principles’ (Plut. Comm. not. 1070c). Cf. Bonhöffer (n. 4), 199–200; Pohlenz (n. 13), 88–103; Scott, D., ‘Innatism and the Stoa’, PCPhS NS 34 (1988), 123–53Google Scholar and id. (n. 18), 201–10); and Jackson-McCabe (n. 12), 330–1 and 339. But see also Sandbach's criticism (n. 8), 48.

25 Seneca (Ep. 120.4) says that the good is conceived of by analogy. The identification is accepted by most commentators.

26 Cicero presumably omits diminution because it is obvious that the good is not conceived of in this way.

27 Cf. n. 24 above.

28 Bonhöffer (n. 4), 195.

29 Cf. Brunschwig, J., ‘The Stoic theory of the supreme genus and Platonic ontology’, in id., Papers in Hellenistic Philosophy (Cambridge, 1994), 92–157CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 100–1.

30 Chrysippus does not think of the universal as an object of conception that exists (εἶναι) or even subsists (ὑϕίσταναι). Rather, when he says that prolepses are ἔννοιαι τῶν καθόλου he means that they are ἔννοιαι καθολικαί. In other words, their contents have the propositional structure, ‘if something is x, then it is y’, which is Chrysippus' analysis of the Aristotelian categorical assertion (Sext.Emp. Math. 11.8–9). Cf. Caston, V., ‘Something and nothing: the Stoics on concepts and universals’, OSAPh 17 (1999), 145–213Google Scholar.

31 Mansfeld and Runia (n. 1), 187–91.

32 Long and Sedley (n. 1), 2.241.

33 Jackson-McCabe (n. 12), 329 n. 29.