Stoicism

Wisdom and philosophy

Stoical philosophy is a coherent whole: it is a philosophy of the totality which wants to be consciously systematic, which is one of the features characteristic of the systems of thoughts antique. These doctrines carry out divisions of the philosophical speech, divisions which are used for exposed of the doctrines, and with its teaching. It thus appears natural to follow these divisions in this article.

The other hellenistic philosophers, the Stoical ones consider that the end of philosophy is ethical: for them, it is necessary “to live in agreement with nature”.

Definition S of wisdom and philosophy

The Sagesse (sophia) is, according to a definition of stoical (cf Aetius, I, Préface 2), the scientific Connaissance of the divine and human things, knowledge to which is added, according to Sénèque ( Lettres , 89,4 - 5), the knowledge of their causes.

According to the distinction of Sénèque ( Letters , 89,4 - 5), this Sagesse is the well of the human Esprit, arrived to its perfection, whereas the Philosophie is the love of the Sagesse and the aspiration towards it by the practice and the theory: “Philosophy tends where the other arrived”. It is thus the practice (askesis) of the Art (techne) of useful which is the unit and the highest degree of the Vertu.

Philosophy is divided into three parts, following in that the division of the virtues to their generic level: the Physical virtue , the ethical virtue and the Logical virtue .

Divisions of philosophy

The philosophical speech has three parts: the Physical which is a research on the world and the objects which it contains; the ethical , which relates to the action; the Logical (or Dialectique), which relates to the speech. Each one of these parts is divided in its turn into several parts (these divisions will be exposed in the corresponding sections). This general division, according to Diogène Laërce, was invented by Zénon de Kition in its treaty Of the speech , and was taken again by Chrysippe de Soli, Diogène of Babylon and Posidonius. It seems that Cléanthe deviated from this division: it gives of them six, the Dialectique, the Rhétorique, ethics, the Politique, physics, the Théologie.

These parts are called species, kinds (or kinds of theorems) or places according to the philosophers. The Stoical ones use, to describe this partition of philosophy, several comparisons which reflect dissensions within the school:

According to the first, it is the physics which constitutes the center:

philosophy is comparable with an egg: logic is the shell; the white, ethics and physics, yellow.

According to three others, it is the ethics which occupies the principal place:

philosophy is a fertile field: the ground is physics; fruits, ethics and the wall which surrounds it logic.
they compare finally philosophy with an living being, comparison which differs from the preceding ones to stress that the parts of philosophy are not separable; thus, for example, for Posidonius: the Physique is its blood and its flesh, the Logique its bones and its tendons, the ethical is its heart.
finally, for Sénèque, ethics " form the cœur" philosophy.

The image of the living being appears to suggest that the Logique is not an instrument or an additional part, only supposed protecting essence: physics and/or ethics. It is not subordinated to ethics or physics as a part is with its whole (as the shell serves the yellow, or as the wall serves the fruit, by protecting them both). It is a part first of philosophy, and not part of part.

If we follow Posidonius and the testimony of Ammonius on this point, then the three parts are at the same time distinct, and interdependent, indissociable. However, the texts are not clear on the question of knowing of what these parts are the parts: are this the parts of " the philosophie" , or be-these parts of the " speech philosophique" only - being given that beside the philosophical speech, it there with the philosophical life? If one sticks so that Sénèque pays, just as the cosmos is one, philosophy is one, and undivided in itself. It appears such with the wise one. But for the philosopher (the training), which cannot have a synoptic sight of it yet, it is good to distinguish from the parts. In this case, these parts (logic, physics, ethics) would be less parts of philosophies, than of the parts of the philosophical training.

For certain Stoical, there is no hierarchy between these kinds and they taught them together because they are mixed; but of others start with the Logique (Zénon de Kition, Chrysippe), with the ethical (Diogène de Ptolémaïs) or with the Physique (Panétius of Rhodos, Posidonius).

Sciences, instruments of the wise one

The wise one seeks and knows the causes of the natural things; the Science will be thus for him an auxiliary. But, like any auxiliary, it does not form part of that of which it is an instrument and a help (Sénèque, Lettres , 88,25 - 28). The Science is thus not, for the stoical one, part of the Sagesse. What will have to then know the wise one? If one follows Sénèque, he will know for example the system of the heavenly bodies, their capacity and their nature; but the wise stoical one deals with the general principles, not of the accumulation of the Connaissance S or the particular issues of fact. In all things, the Philosophie thus does not require anything of anybody, but gives the principles first to the others Science S (with the Mathématiques, for example): specialized sciences are to him means. The Philosophie thus only builds all its work.

Philosophy, as a science, also differs from the skill, the aptitudes that the stoical ones call “occupations” ( epitedeumata ): music, the humanities, horsemanship, etc, and which they characterize as follows: “a method which, by the means of an art or part of art, conduit with the field of the virtue” (cf Stobée, II, 67). These occupations have an instrumental value for the wise one, of which only it has the habitus virtuous .

Unit of the stoical system

According to the treaty of the destiny of Cicéron, the concept of destiny (destiny) is common to the three parts of philosophy, in the sense that it implies at the same time physics (the destiny is the principle of the cosmic order), ethics (agreement of the destiny with the moral responsibility) and logic (problem of the statements relating to the future quotas). The Fatalisme is thus a basic concept of stoicism:

“Lead me, Zeus and you Destinée, towards where you laid out it for me. Because I will follow without failing. But if I became malicious and if I did not want it, I would not follow less. ” (Cléanthe, quoted by Épictète, Manual , end).

The stoical ontology

Divisions of the to be

The supreme kind of the stoical Métaphysique is called, according to Sénèque ( Lettres , 58,13 - 15) “something”; but, according to Sextus Empiricus ( Against the professors , VIII, 32), the supreme kind would be it “existing”. Nevertheless, in spite of this divergence, one generally admits that the Stoical ones in general divide the things into existing and remaining. (Galien, Of the medical method , X)

“Something is known as” all that in the Nature exists or does not exist. The something has as an opposite the “not-some-things”, i.e., according to the Stoical ones, the universals. All what exists is bodies. To the kind of nonexisting belong the incorporeal ones and the things which are in the Esprit, wrongfully formed by the Pensée, like the centaurs and the giants, and generally all that makes impression on direct faculty without having Substance (Sénèque, Lettres , 58,13 - 15). These incorporeal is known as “remaining” - because, for example, a fiction in the spirit has reality only in the thought. This last case seems nevertheless to show the existence of an additional division of the something : what is neither body nor incorporeal. The body ones only are known as existing.

The “some things” are thus either of the body (existing), or of incorporeal (remaining).

The Stoical ones distinguish four species the body ones: the Substrate, qualified (in a common way or a particular way), laid out, laid out relatively (Simplicius de Cilicie, On the Categories of Aristote , 66).

They distinguish four species the incorporeal ones: the dicible one, the Vacuum, the place and the Time.

What exists is body individual entities which belong at the same time to the four kinds of the body one, but all “something” is an individual entity: to be something, it is thus to be a particular, body or incorporeal thing. Thus “something” is or remaining or existing; existing the prédique one only of the bodies, but “something” is also prédiqué the incorporeal ones.

Since the Existence is at the Stoical body one, and that what acts on a body is a body, the action is the property of the bodies alone: the virtue and the knowledge are thus body realities. This ontology poses some problems to explain the causal action of incorporeal on a body.

One finds some elements of this metaphysics at the XIXe century at Alexius Meinong and Bertrand Russell.

Four kinds

Substrate

In its paramount direction, the substrate not qualified is equivalent to the Matière; but, as in the philosophy of Aristote, there is a derived direction, according to which a qualified thing can have the statute of a substrate or matter compared to another thing.

Qualified things

Qualified is a Substance having certain qualities: the prudence is a quality, the careful Individu is qualified.

Things laid out of a certain manner

These things are laid out of a certain manner…

Things laid out of a certain manner in relation to something

This kind contains the things which are characterized by an extrinsic relation.

The incorporeal ones

The first incorporeal one relates to the Sémantique and the Logique (see this lower section); three others the Physical .

The dicible one (or exprimable)

In Greek, lekta . The stoical ones distinguish the vocal emissions, the Parole ( lexis ) and the Langage ( logos ). The vocal emissions are all the noises formed by the mouth; the word is a vocal emission articulated in Phonème S; the language is a meaning vocal emission by which a state of affair is expressed. They are these states of affairs which are known as dicibles . (Diogène Laërce, VII, 57). This dicible is defined:

“what remains in conformity with a rational impression” (Sextus Empiricus, Against the professors , VIII, 70).

There are two kinds of dicibles: the dicibles complete ones, and the dicibles incomplete ones (Diogène Laërce, VII, 63). The dicibles complete ones are the Proposition S and the Syllogisme S whose linguistic expression is completed; they are these dicibles which is with the bases of the stoical logical . the dicibles incomplete ones are unfinished (for example: he writes).

The rational impression is an impression whose contents are exprimable by the language. The dicibles ones apprehended by the thought following an impression are only seized by those which include/understand the language with the means of which they are expressed, whereas everyone can hear the vocal emission, even without seizing what is expressed there. There is thus different to be between meant and meaning it. This meant which is revealed in the language by the Pensée is thus incorporeal, whereas the vocal emission and what bear the name are body. Insofar as the dicible one is a thought state of affair, it defines the sphere of truth and forgery: the state of affair meant and dicible is true or false.

Sénèque gives the following example ( Lettres , 117,13): significant perception reveals me that Caton is going; by movements of the thought, I can state that Caton is going. Thus, whereas significant perception reveals me something of body, my spirit gives its approval to a proposal (in Latin Effatum , translation of the Greek axiôma ). Sénèque then underlines the basic difference which exists between to name this body and to speak about it.

The vacuum

The vacuum, according to the Stoical ones, is what can be occupied by existing but is not occupied (Sextus Empiricus, Against the professors , X, 3 - 4). According to Chrysippe (Stobée, I, 161,8 - 26), the vacuum is infinite. Indeed, nothing is a limit, and it does not have limit; it is thus one remaining (i.e incorporeal) infinite, which receives a limit only if it has suddenly been occupied.

The place

Although the world in itself is in an unlimited vacuum, it is without vacuum and form a " all continu" characterized by the " conspiracy and the syntony of the celestial things with the things terrestres" (Diogène Laërce, VII, 140). Within these limits, the place is incorporeal, without being a vacuum, being defined as an interval always occupied by a body or by another, a place is a theater always filled where bodies follow one another or compénètrent themselves (cf BROWN Jean , Stoicism, 3rd edition, 1963, p. 58). What we call today " espace" is thus characterized at the Stoical ones, not in itself, but starting from the bodies which occupy it, actually reveal it by their only presence, as what holds them and differs them at the same time. Stoical space is said relatively compared to the bodies which constitute it, as well in as they are in themselves than in the distance than they generate in their proximity.

Time

For the stoical ones (Simplicius de Cilicie, On the Categories of Aristote , 350,15 - 16), time is a dimension or an interval (in Greek diastèma ) either of the movement (according to Zénon), or of the movement of the world (according to Chrysippe). Time is “this dimension of the movement according to which one speaks about the slowness and velocity measurement. ” (definition of Chrysippe, in Stobée, I, 106).

All the things are driven and been in the time which infinite in the two directions of passed and of the future. But time has two directions: in a broad direction, only the present is there, exists really so to speak, although it is incorporeal. The past and the future are then remaining beings, because they are not there, they are not present. In a strict direction, no time is completely present, because any time is sectile ad infinitum.

Summary table

The Logical

Note on the formalization of the reasoning: in this section, certain reasoning of Stoical is formalized using modern symbols; one can recommend to the reader to read the article Calcul of the proposals for an introduction to this logic.

Certain Stoical (Diogène Laërce, VII, 41) divide logic into two parts: the Dialectical and the Rhetoric; others add to it what relates to the definitions and the criteria.

Rhetoric

The Rhétorique is the science of the good speech in the speeches. It is divided into three parts: panegyrical member of Parliament, legal and , or in invention, stating, plan and put in scene. They divide the speech rhetoric into preamble, narration, counterpart with the adversaries, epilog.

The dialectical one

Diogène Laërce (VII, 41 - 44) gives two stoical definitions of the dialectical one:

the dialectical one is the science of the correct discussion in the speeches by questions and answers;
the dialectical one is science of what is true, of what is false, and of what is neither one nor the other.

It is divided into two places: meant and vocal emissions; the place of meant is divided in its turn into impressions and dicibles derived from the impressions (this part is exposed starting from the following section). The place of the vocal emissions relates to the articulation according to the letters, distinguishes the parts of speech, draft of the Solécisme S, the Barbarisme S, etc

The dicibles ones

The concept of dicible is the base of stoical logic; it is incorporeal and, as such, it was treated in the section dicible the of this article.

Proposals

Chrysippe, in its dialectical Définitions (quoted by Diogène Laërce, VII, 65), defines the proposal as “what is true or false, or a complete state of affairs which, in so far as it itself is concerned, can be asserté. ”

Thus, so that something is true or false, it must be dicible, dicible complete, dicible complete which is a proposal. (Sextus Empiricus, Against the professors , VIII, 74). A proposal is or true or false; a proposal which is not true is thus false (Cicéron, Of the destiny , 38). The contradictory one of a proposal is a proposal which exceeds it of a negation: “It is dawning” “Not It is dawning” (formalisable in: p ~p).

A true proposal is what is, and a false proposal is what is not (Sextus Empiricus, Against the professors , VIII, 84):

“Somebody known as “it makes day” seems to propose that it is dawning. Consequently, if it is dawning, the advanced proposal appears true, and if not, it appears false. ” (Diogène Laërce, VII, 65).

The most general distinction between the proposals is that which separates simple proposals and nonsimple proposals (Sextus Empiricus, Against the professors , VIII, 93 - 98).

Simple proposals

“The proposals Are simple which are not made up starting from a stated single proposal twice; for example, “it is dawning”, “it grows dark”, “Socrate speaks”” (Sextus Empiricus, Against the professors , VIII, 93 - 98).

The Stoical ones distinguish three types of simple proposals: the definite ones, the indefinite ones, intermediaries.

the definite proposals are expressed by a ostensive reference. Example: “This one sat. ”
the indefinite proposals have as a subject an indefinite particle. Example: “Somebody sat. ”
the intermediate proposals are neither indefinite (they determine the subject), nor definite (it are not ostensives). Example: “Socrate goes”.

The Stoical ones distinguish reports/ratios of dependence as for the Vérité between these types of proposals: for example, if a definite proposal is true, the indefinite proposal which can be derived about it is also true. Example: “This one walk” is true; thus “somebody walk” is true.

Diogène Laërce gives the following distinctions (VII, 69): the simple proposals can be negative, negative assertoriquement, privative, assertorial, conclusive and indefinite.

a negative simple proposal is made up of a negation and a proposal: “Not it is dawning” (~p). The double negative is a species: “Not: Not: it is dawning” (~~p), which returns to “It makes day” (p).
a negative simple proposal assertoriquement is made up of a negative particle and a predicate: “Nobody walks”.
a privative proposal is made up of a negative particle and a proposal in power.
an assertorial proposal is made up of a personal case and a predicate. Example: “Dion goes. ”
a conclusive proposal is made up of a ostensif personal case and a predicate. Example: “This one goes. ”
an indefinite proposal is made up of one or more indefinite particles and a predicate. Example: “Somebody walks”.

Nonsimple proposals

Reasoning and demonstration

According to Diogène Laërce (VII, 76 - 81) the Stoical ones call argument (in Greek logos ) what is consisted one or more premises (in Greek lèmma ), an additional premise and a conclusion. Example:

“If it is dawning, it makes clearly; but it is dawning; thus it makes” (formalisable clearly in:

((p \ rightarrow Q) \ wedge p) \ rightarrow q

Among the arguments, some are valid, other invalids:

is invalid those whose opposite of the conclusion are not in contradiction with the conjunction of the premises;
there are two kinds of valid reasoning:

those which are simply valid;
those which are syllogistic: those are either indémontrables, or reducible with the indémontrables.

The implication

The stoical ones confer a very great role on the implication (conditional clause) invented by Diodore Cronos and its disciple Philon. Indeed, for them, it is the logical form of any definition. For them, to affirm:

" The man is a rational animal mortel" … is to affirm: " If something is a man, then this thing is rational and mortelle"

In other words, any definition is an implication, i.e. a conditional clause. (cf. Sextus Empiricus, Against the Professors , XI, 8-11)

The Theory of knowledge

Impressions

The Truth and the Certitude are in the perception most common which it is a question of systematizing. Thus the Connaissance leaves it the Représentation, or image (phantasia), impression of a real object in the heart (like the seal in wax for Zénon). It is there a first Jugement on the things to which can be or not given voluntarily an approval by the heart: if this one is in truth, it then has a comprehension, or perception (katalepsis) of the object which is immediate: a Certainty of the things as such.

The feeling is thus distinct from the image since it is an act of the Esprit. So that perception is true, the image must be faithful. The faithful image, as a criterion of the truth, is called understanding representation. It is passive, but able to produce the true approval and the Perception.

Criteria of the truth

Science will be then solid and stable perception, inébranlable by the Raison: solidity due in support of the Certainty S between them, with their rational agreements. Thus sure and total perception is the Science systematic and rational, system of perceptions gathered by the experiment aiming at a particular end useful for the Vie. Apart from these significant realities, there is not other knowledge.

However, beside the things Sensitive S, there is what one can say. Thus the Dialectique relates it to the statements which are true or false, relating to the things. These statements are said in the form of a subject and an attribute expressed by a verb: Socrat walks. It is a judgment simple which expresses a relationship between facts, this one being expressed by a complex Jugement: if it makes clearly, it is dawning. It is thus about a connection in fact between an antecedent and consequent.

Criticisms

August 1st

The Physical

Principles of stoical physics

According to Diogène Laërce (VII, 132), the Stoical ones in general divide physics into three fields: the world, elements, the investigation into the causes. But the study of nature is also divided according to specific places: bodies; principles; elements; gods; finally limits, the place and the vacuum.

The world and nature

The world is completely dominated by the Raison and consequently has at every moment the plenitude of its perfection. By there one sees that the activity of the reason is body: only exists what with the capacity to act or suffer (I. E. the body). However, the reason acts, therefore it is a body. What undergoes the domination of the reason will be also a body, the Matière. Here are two principles of physics: one is the single Cause, the other receives this causality without making resistance. These two bodies are thus linked and form the total mixture which explains the action of a material breath ( pneuma ) crossing the Matière to animate it.

Elements

August 1st

The cosmic cycle

The whole of the world has a cycle: fire, or forces activates (Zeus), absorbs and reduces in itself all the things. All starts again then with identical, after the End of the world in a conflagration where all things returned in the divine substance. This conflagration is a purification of the world: the heart of the world absorbs all the matter by restoring a perfect state by a change in conformity with nature.

Primitive fire, are born the four elements and the world is born under the action of a divine breath. Then, by the fragmentation of the breath, are born the individual beings which form the system of the world. It is this breath which makes the unit of the world, by traversing it and by maintaining its parts. This breath is a force, a Pensée and a reason which contains all and makes that under the action of its tension the being exists. This breath creates a sympathy between all the parts of the world. As for the Ground, it is in the center, in a hurry on any side by the air.

Causality and the destiny

All that arrives is in conformity with universal nature, since all acts according to a total cause, which binds all the causes between them.

Theology

Theology is what gathers and at the same time divided, stoical and epicureans. (S) God (X) exists (NT) in the Epicureans just like at the stoical ones. However, according to the epicureans, the gods live in their world, whereas for the stoical ones, they act in our world. It is the destiny, the destiny, all is played in advance. One cannot change what arrives. That is expressed by the metaphor of the Dog and the Carriage. A dog which draws a carriage is free to marry the trajectory of the carriage or to be opposed to it vainly. There is only the approval compared to the representations (events) which depends on us, and not of the gods. What depends on us, it is the attack of the ataraxie , of the absence of disorders and passions, a peace of the heart, an interior peace, which the stoical ones compare to true happiness. Thus stoical theology and ethics call the Man with a catch of distance, and a certain inactivity, or all at least indifference, which will be denounced by Spinoza and Hegel: " the being of the Man, it is his action. " (Phenomenology of the Spirit). This last associated the stoical ones with the concept of the beautiful-heart. It is the attitude of Sartre, a control of excuse, insincerely, not to face distressing it human condition: freedom. Pascal will carry out a test of it: Discussion with Madam de Sacy on Montaigne and Epictète . Thus the whole of the modern philosophy, put aside Schopenhauer and its concept of Will, tends to reject this stoical position.

Psychology

August 1st

The ethical

Stoical ethics is in agreement with this physics.

We know several divided stoical ethics:

“divides the ethical part of philosophy into several places: impulse, goods and evils, passions, virtue, end, value first and actions, clean functions, of what it is necessary to advise and what it is necessary to disadvise. ” (Diogène Laërce, VII, 84).

Diogene indicates that this division does not belong to the oldest stoicism (Zénon de Kition and Cléanthe which treated some, according to him, in a simpler way), but with Chrysippe, Apollodore, Posidonios, etc Sénèque ( Lettres , 89,14) a tripartition learns to us from stoical ethics:

“comes in first the value which you allot to each thing, as a second the impulse, ordinate and measured, that you have towards the things, in third the realization of a suitability between your impulse and your act, so that on all these occasions you would be in agreement with yourself. ”

Épictète indicates three subjects of ethics ( Entretiens , III, 2), but which refer to the exercises that one must follow to become man of good:

desires and aversions: not to miss what one wishes, not to fall on the object from the aversion;
impulses and repulsions, i.e what relates to the clean function (to act with order, reasonably and without negligence);
to avoid the error and precipitation, i.e what relates to the approval.

Clean functions

The clean expression function translates the Greek kathèkon , who means “suitable”, “duty” ( officium in Latin). This word was used for the first time in this direction by Zénon, probably in a work named Of the clean function (Diogène Laërce, VII 107). According to Diogène, this term is derived from kata tinas hêkein , “to be appropriate for some”; it defines the clean function as an activity which is appropriate to the constitutions in conformity with nature ( ibid ). This concept is the base of stoical ethics; indeed:

“Archédème said that the end consists in living by bringing the specific functions to their perfection. ” (Diogène Laërce, VII, 88).

Stobée (II, 85,13 - 86) gives this definition of the clean function:

“the consequentiality in the life, something which, once it was accomplished, has a reasonable justification. ”

The clean functions apply to the plants, with the animals as with the men. The Stoical ones distinguish two types of clean functions, those which are perfect, and those which are intermediate.

Cicéron, in Of the latest dates of the goods and the evils (III), delivers to us a detailed analysis of this concept by the mouth of Caton. We like the first objects which are adapted by nature; thus we prefer that the parts of our body are well laid out and whole rather than weakened and deformed. We thus know in a spontaneous way to distinguish what is in conformity with nature of what is contrary for him: the first leaning one of the man carries it towards the things which are in conformity with nature. From there, this distinction: what has value is in agreement with nature and, for this reason, is worthy to be selected. The opposite is deprived of value and must be rejected.

The first of the clean functions is to preserve us ourselves. Thus our body develops it by adapting its clean Faculté S.

The good

The first well S are the Santé, the Bien-être and all that can be to us Utile. But they are not goods with the direction Absolu. The absolute good is sufficed for itself, it is the supremely useful one. It is rationally discovered by our spontaneous approval with our inclinations. And it is by considering universal nature, by seizing the Volonté total nature to preserve itself which one includes/understands the good like universal Raison.

The virtue

For the Stoical ones, Virtue and well is identical. The virtue is desirable for itself and is perfect: it is thus reached of a blow, in a complete way, I. E. with all its parts. Its parts are, according to Zénon de Citium, of the aspects of a fundamental virtue, the prudence. Who has a virtue, has them all.

Passions

But the natural inclinations are perverted, under the influence of social environment, and disturb the heart: they are the Passion S. Pourtant, if the heart is rational, any inclination is not possible that if it receives the approval of the Raison. How to explain passions? Passion is an irrational reason, a Jugement which dispossesses us of our control: the Habitude and the education persuade us for example that any pain is a Mal. But to feel the physical pain and to test sorrow of it (badly moral) are two different things. Thus stoicism shows that passions are bad reasons to believe. The radical opposition between reason and passions that one allots to him is thus not exact: if passions are bad, it is not as them are different by nature from the reason, but because they are rather stray reasons; contrary, reason perhaps seen like a right passion.

Finality of ethics

The stoical Morale can thus be summarized as follows:

the base of the moral Life, it is the life of the instincts, which make us act according to the useful one;
the end of this morals, it is of living by choices in conformity with the universal reason: to live while following nature, since all arrives by the universal reason.

The wise one

The policy

In the section on divisions of philosophy, we saw that Cléanthe made of the policy a division with whole share of philosophy. We also know that Zénon de Kition wrote a book on the particularly famous and admired République in the Antiquité. Plutarque gives of it us an idea by the description of the aim set in this lost work:

“the Republic , work very admired of Zénon, tends to this single principal point, which us should not live divided into cities nor as people, each one defined by its own criteria of justice, but that should regard to us all the men as compatriots and fellow-citizens, and that there is a single lifestyle and a world, as for a herd nourished together in the same pasture under a common law. Zénon wrote that as if it had painted the picture of a dream or an image representing a good philosophical legislation and a republic. ” ( Of the fortune of Alexandre , 329 has - B).

Influence stoicism

The influence of stoicism on the cultures Greek and Roman is considerable, rare were the ancient thinkers not to criticize these doctrines.

This influence continued even after the conversion of the Occident to the Christianisme, certain monasteries having thus set up the handbook of Épictète, somewhat modified, in interior rules.

Stoicism also remained through French philosophers such Descartes, which declared that “it is better to change its desires rather than the order of the world”, Pascal and, nearer to us, Emile Bréhier.

Principal periods of stoicism

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PlotData= width: 15 fontsize: M textcolor: black align: center

# Times bar: Timeperiod color: Timeperiod shift: (0, - 3) from: start till: end color: gray # Background

from: - 400 till: 300 text: " Stoïciens" color: Timeperiod2

# authors width: 6 align: left fontsize: M shift: (5, - 5) anchor: till barset: authors from: - 335 till: - 264 text: " Zénon de Citium " color: Pinf from: - 330 till: - 232 text: " Cléanthe " color: Pinf from: - 281 till: - 205 text: " Chrysippe " color: Pinf from: - 240 till: - 152 text: " Diogène of Babylon " color: Pinf from: - 210 till: - 129 text: " Antipater de Tarse " color: Pinf from: - 180 till: - 100 text: " Panetius of Rhodos " color: Pinf from: - 140 till: - 51 text: " Posidonius d' Apamée " color: Pinf from: - 106 till: - 43 text: " Cicéron " color: Pinf from: 3 till: 65 text: " Sénèque " color: Pinf from: 55 till: 135 text: " Épictète " color: Pinf from: 121 till: 180 text: " Marc Aurèle " color: Pinf

Old stoicism (Zénon de Kition, the founder, Cléanthe, Chrysippe,…)
Average stoicism (Panétius, Posidonius…)
imperial Stoicism (Sénèque, Epictète, Marc Aurèle,…)

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