• Terms
• Impression
• not simply the English word "impression"
• Greek φαντασία phantasia
  
• refers to sense impressions
• also mental impressions
  
• examples:
  
• dogs are mean
• dogs are nice
• education is good
• the square root of 9 is 3
• the square root of 9 is 7
  
• an item of memory
• the unicorn is chasing the fireflies
  
• that's a red patch
• there's something there
  
• impressions can be of different types:
• clear v. vague
• present v. remembered
• abstract v. sensory
• there are others, but you get the idea
  
• impressions are alterations of your mind
• likened to the imprint of a signet ring on  wax
• modern equivalent might be the imprint of a wood block to make a wood block print
• many problems with this idea if it is taken literally
• Chrysippus said "don't take the analogy literally": i.e. analogies are NOT absolutely the same as what they are intended to illustrate/explain
  
• Chrysippus thought that perception is the transmission of information from a perceived object to your mind: the object is chiefly responsible for this transmission (but your mind has a definite positive role to play)
  
• impressions are physical states of your commanding faculty, your hegemonikon
  
• remember "commanding faculty" is the soul of a human being, a rational animal
• impressions are created by the interaction of your physical parts with other things (external or internal)
• impressions are closely connected to "propositions" or "propositional content" (see below). The nature of that connection seems to me mysterious, but of great importance
  
• and impressions are the (potential) object of assent
  
• Assent
• not simply the English word "assent"
• Greek word is συγκατάθεσις, sunkatathesis
• Assent is an event
• you assent to something
  
• When you assent to something you agree that it is the case and consider it right/correct/true
  
• so that seems to mean that you agree that it is true, and truth and falsity is a property of propositions, not physical states.
• but an impression is a physical state, we said above: a physical state is not true/correct/right, is it? hmm: needs more thought/explanation
  
• Assent lies at the basis of all of Stoic thought about humans
• Your different patterns of assent are what makes your behavior different from anyone else's behavior
  
• it may be that you assent routinely to your impressions, but the point is that you could stop and consider them and withhold assent: you could examine them: thus assent is a step in the process of cognizing/noticing/sensing something
  
• Proposition
  
• a philosophical term, not the ordinary English usage of the term
  
• a proposition is, roughly, a statement
  
• anything that can be claimed, assumed, denied, supposed, implied, presupposed ...
  
• a statement that can be true or false: truth and falsity are properties of propositions, just as shape is a property of matter: every proposition is either true or false (well, most people think that)
  
• Stoics referred to propositions as a kind of "sayable" (lekton)
• sayables include more than just propositions
• propositions are one type of sayable
• more on sayables later in the semester
  
• it's not about specific words: there can be more than one way to express the same proposition
• I love you
• You are loved by me
• I adore you
  
• Je t'aime
• Ich liebe Dich
• Wo ai ni
• Ya liubliu tui (my lame attempt at Russion)
• amo te
• go to hell
• I hate you
• you made pancakes?
  
• ... all can convey the content of what is usually conveyed by "I love you"
  
• all can be the same proposition
• on the other hand, the same words could express different propositions:
• something said sarcastically versus straightfacedly
• "Nice job" can mean "horrible job" or "perfectly done"
• or the same words said by different people might mean very different things: or the same words said by one person to two different people might mean very different things
  
• so this is not about words, but rather about meanings
  
• For Stoics, propositions are not material: they have no spatio-temporal location
• Sextus Empiricus Against the professors 10.218
• "They (the Stoics) say that of 'somethings' some are bodies, others incorporeals, and they list four species of incorporeals--sayable (lekton), void, place, and time." (Long and Sedley (LS27D) transl.)
• how does that work?
  

• Preliminary thoughts :
• what follows for the next few bullet points is a sort of speculation about what MIGHT be going on with the Stoics, what MIGHT have pushed them to their theories
  
• Do we assent to impressions or propositions?
• There's something to be said for both answers:
  
• We assent to Impressions, because we cannot connect with propositions, as is shown by the following argument, which uses steps the stoics should accept:
• Assent is a mental event
  
• Our mind is a physical thing
  
• Absent a good explanation of or at least some argument for or phenomenon parellel to corporeal-on-incorporeal contact, something that clearly makes it possible for corporeals to interact with incorporeals, our mind can directly contact only corporeals
• Propositions are incorporeal
  
• Therefore we, our minds, cannot contact propositions
• I can nonetheless, somehow, be aware of propositions via impressions, which are physical states
  
• Probably relevant: Stobaeus I.139.4
• "Chrysippus says that a cause is 'that because of which'; and that the cause is an existent and a body, <while that of which it is the cause is neither an existent nor a body>; and that the cause is 'because', while that of which it is the cause is 'why?'" (LS55a transl.)
• because impressions cause propositions? THIS IS NOT CLEAR ENOUGH TO ME: the stoic relation between material and immaterial things needs to be clarified for me. But we need to go on, so we'll make a mental footnote and assume it can be clarified, just as I assume so many things I can't explain.
  
• We assent to Propositions:
• Thought experiment: Think of a visual sensory image without thinking of ANY propositions either in words or thought.
• no description
• no picking out items from each other
• no captions
• just visual data
  
• Is there anything that you can "agree" with? no purely visual data can be the object of "agreement"
• For my money, there is nothing there to "agree" to. It's just not the sort of thing one "agrees" to. It doesn't "state" anything until somehow a proposition comes along.
  
• So it seems to me that we assent to propositions
• Stoics seem to want both: we assent to the propositional content (incorporeal) of impressions (corporeal)
  
• They apparently think that impressions occur to us/happen to us with propositions always already there with them
  
• Not entirely implausible, is it? 
• Did that thought experiment work? Can you really think of a sensory image without having ANY interpretation, ANY thought, ANY concept?
  
• Notice first that each impression has some sort of non-propositional content: the data
• the data is separate/separable from but connected to the interpretation, the thought about it
  
• But notice next that data often comes with a built-in proposition or set of impressions, a sort of default impression
• but only when it contacts a mind, a sensor: rocks are impervious to these built-in propositions, right?
  
• These two sides (data and propositions) of each impression make it unique from any other impression
• the data itself is not unique
  
• we can have multiple impressions from the same visual input
  
• the proposition(s) are not unique either
• the same proposition can be attached to several different impressions
  
• together, they make a unique combo: this impression with this propositional content
  

Epistemology
first, a little discussion to help those for whom such things are new: this will seem naive to some

• Epistemology is the study of how we know, understand, believe things about the world.
• these terms are meant in a philosophical way, and may not match all the everyday uses of 'know' or 'understand' or 'believe'
  
• "belief" is whenever you hold that something or other is the case
  
• e.g. that this text is in front of you.
• it does not need to be a very strong commitment, just some commitment that the world is a certain way
• it need not be profound
• knowledge is often contrasted with belief
• knowledge is usually considered a subset of beliefs: the justified true ones, or the ones that are correct, or the infallible ones
  
• they can be things like e=mc2, or they can be "there are two people in front of me" or just any old unimportant everyday thing that is the object of a belief (e.g. "this class has no porcupines in it today")
  
• beliefs that are not knowledge are called "opinions" by most Stoic translators
• there are two kinds of belief/knowledge
• ones that occur to you right now:
• I don't know what is occurring to you right now, so I can't give you examples
• maybe I can: "dogs wag their tails": think about that: now you have read that and it has occurred to you and is occurring to you.
  
• beliefs that are occurring to you are often called "occurrent" beliefs
• when you stop thinking them, they are no longer occurrent
  
• dispositional beliefs: there are also ones that you will agree to if asked, but are not occurring to you right now: think about what the status of the following statements were before you read them: were you still in a position to agree with them? you were pre-disposed to agree
  
• that ants are smaller than mammoths
• that 654 + 2 is 656
• these are often called "dispositional beliefs"
• examples are hopeless, because once I give you an example, it is no longer latent: it has been pulled onto center stage and is now "occurrent" to you
  
• We speak of a certain philosophy having an "epistemology," a theory about knowing and believing and how they come about, etc.
  

• Bailly's going out on a limb: A likely way to interpret what the Stoics are up to here:
• when we see the data that will be associated with the proposition "that is a red square", part of the content of our hegemonicon goes out to meet the data: our latent experience of the world, our concepts about shapes and colors and what is visual and what is not, our patterns of assent, our interests, etc.
• our dispositional/latent ideas of redness versus other colorednesses make us primed to associate the proposition 'that is red' with the data
  
• our dispositional/latent ideas of squareness versus other shapednesses make us primed to associate the proposition 'that is a square" with the data
  
• any other dispositional/latent ideas we have that seem relevant to the data and occur to us
  
• the data comes to the sense organ, where the hegemonikon "greets it"
• but it cannot "greet" it without "interpreting" it (perhaps as red, perhaps as a square, perhaps as a plane figure, perhaps as a colored thing, perhaps as a deceptive appearance, perhaps as...[the list is infinite, but includes certainly things that we are already primed to detect])
• this interaction between the data and the hegemonikon is what makes the propositional partner of the impression come into being
• think of it as if the hegemonicon is a giant filter with lots of different shaped holes: the hegemonicon notices which holes the data fit and get thru: squareness gets thru the square hole, and redness gets thru the red hole.
• but some things get stuck: there are no holes for them: we need to figure them out
  
• or maybe the hegemonicon brings along a huge tool bag of all our dispositional/latent experiences: then something from the tool bag "occurs" to us and our hegemonikon tries it out on the data: if it works/fits/applies, that classifies the data as square or red or whatever...
  
• in other words, when our hegemonikon "greets" data, only certain of the infinitely many propositions arise from the interaction of the data and the hegemonikon.
  
• these propositions are candidates for assent, possible beliefs
• which ones occur to us is determined by our hegemonicon's predispositions AND the thing 'out there' this appearing to it
  
• then our hegemonikon can assent (or not) to the proposition+impression combo.
• In other words, the world (and ourselves) are neither entirely objectively presented to us, nor entirely subjectively presented to us: a thing's presentation is the result of the interaction between us and the world, and we assent to the result of the interaction.
• this does NOT necessarily mean that everything is relative
  
• Is there a Stoic text to support this interpretation, or is it just a likely direction to take Stoic thoughts about the world and how we perceive it?
• I'm not sure, but it seems to fit well. Help me out if you see a text...
  

• An attempt to report and construct/explain Stoic Epistemology begins in greater earnest here:
  

• Assent, impression, and belief
• When we assent to an impression, that is a motion of our mind by which we form a belief
• Thus the definition of 'belief' is 'an assent to an impression'
• a belief is not itself an impression
• it is also not just a combination of assent and impression
• impressions cannot turn into beliefs: they remain impressions
• beliefs are motions (every assent is an event): they occur at a specific time, like all actions, but they are related to a particular impression (a physical state of the hegemonikon)
  
• Assent and will
• Our assent is up to us
• thus our beliefs are up to us
• we will discuss this much more at a later date
  
• Most of the time, we go through life assenting to impressions without much thought
  
• occasionally one arises that is "questionable/fishy," one that we need to withhold assent from
• illusions
• we can withhold our assent/take back our assent
• then we can actually assent to something incompatible with the impression created by an illusion (but what we assent to is another impression)
• undecidables
• sometimes, it is important to withhold assent until things get clearer
  
• when we do assent to something, that action of assenting is like grabbing a rope and being lifted, or like putting something in your stomach: it can have consequences (you may find yourself high up in the air with no way to get down: you may find yourself with a bellyache) that affect us strongly. We make a commitment to the impression: letting go can leave us in a difficult place (or not)
  
• When Stoics speak strictly and carefully, Stoics mean "occurrent beliefs" when they talk of "beliefs"
  
• They don't so much talk explicitly about dispositional beliefs, but rather about states of our commanding faculty which are dispositions to believe

• kinds of assents and beliefs
• If we assent to a false impression/proposition combo, then we form a false belief
• So Stoics claim there are true and false beliefs
• Stoics believed that certain impressions were clear and reliable
• They called these kataleptic impressions
• no use trying to translate this term, but it is sometimes called a "cognitive" impression.
  
• Kataleptic impressions:
• come from what is
• are formed in accordance with what is
• are of the sort of thing that could not come from what is not
• all three of those requirements go back to Zeno
  
• These things, kataleptic impressions, are the basis of how we can really know the world
  
• We will take them up again in the next set of notes, but first some important primary texts about them:
  

• Diogenes Laertius 7.35
• This text describes a cataleptic impression
  
• "Perception, again, is an impression produced on the mind, its name being appropriately borrowed from impressions on wax made by a seal; and perception they divide into comprehensible and incomprehensible: Comprehensible, which they call the criterion of facts, and which is produced by a real object, and is, therefore, at the same time conformable to that object; Incomprehensible, which has no relation to any real object, or else, if it has any such relation, does not correspond to it, being but a vague and indistinct representation."
• comprehensible seems to mean cataleptic
• incomprehensibles allow for false impressions
  
• Diogenes Laertius 7.36
• "Diocles, of Magnesia, in his Excursion of Philosophers, where he speaks as follows, and we will give his account word for word:
  The Stoics have chosen to treat, in the first place, of perception and sensation, because the criterion by which the truth of facts is ascertained is a kind of perception, and because the judgment which expresses the belief, and the comprehension, and the understanding of a thing, a judgment which precedes all others, cannot exist without perception. For perception leads the way; and then thought, finding vent in expressions, explains in words the feelings which it derives from perception. But there is a difference between phantasia and phantasma. For phantasma is a conception of the intellect, such as takes place in sleep; but phantasia is an impression, tupôsis, produced on the mind, that is to say, an alteration, alloiôsis, as Chrysippus states in the twelfth book of his treatise on the Soul. For we must not take this impression to resemble that made by a seal, since it is impossible to conceive that there should be many impressions made at the same time on the same thing. But phantasia is understood to be that which is impressed, and formed, and imprinted by a real object, according to a real object, in such a way as it could not be by any other than a real object; and, according to their ideas of the phantasiai, some are sensible, and some are not. Those they call sensible, which are derived by us from some one or more senses; and those they call not sensible, which emanate directly from the thought, as for instance, those which relate to incorporeal objects, or any others which are embraced by reason. Again, those which are sensible, are produced by a (278) real object, which imposes itself on the intelligence, and compels its acquiescence; and there are also some others, which are simply apparent, mere shadows, which resemble those which are produced by real objects. ...
• By sensation, the Stoics understand a species of breath which proceeds from the dominant portion of the soul to the senses, whether it be a sensible perception, or an organic disposition, which, according to the notions of some of them, is crippled and vicious. They also call sensation the energy, or active exercise, of the sense. According to them, it is to sensation that we owe our comprehension of white and black, and rough and smooth: from reason, that we derive the notions which result from a demonstration, those for instance which have for their object the existence of Gods, and of Divine Providence. For all our thoughts are formed either by indirect perception, or by similarity, or analogy, or transposition, or combination, or opposition. By a direct perception, we perceive those things which are the objects of sense; by similarity, those which start from some point present to our senses; as, for instance, we form an idea of Socrates from his likeness. We draw our conclusions by analogy, adopting either an increased idea of the thing, as of Tityus, or the Cyclops; or a diminished idea, as of a pigmy. So, too, the idea of the centre of the world was one derived by analogy from what we perceived to be the case of the smaller spheres. We use transposition when we fancy eyes in a man's breast; combination, when we take in the idea of a Centaur; opposition, when we turn our thoughts to death. Some ideas we also derive from comparison, for instance, from a comparison of words and places.
  
• Aetius 4.12.2-4 (in SVF 2.54)
  
• An impression is an affection occurring in the soul, which reveals itself and its cause. Thus, when through sight we observe something white, the affection is what is engendered in the soul through vision; and it is this affection which enables us to say that there is a white object which activates us. Likewise when we perceive through touch and smell. ... just as light reveals itself and whatever else it includes in its range, so impression reveals itself and its cause. The cause of an impression is an impressor: e.g. , something white or cold or everything capable of activating the soul. Imagination is an empty attraction, an affection in the soul which arises from no impressor ... (LS 39B)
  
• Epictetus Discourses 1.17:
  
• "Can any man hinder you from assenting to the truth?" "No man can." "Can any man compel you to receive what is false?" "No man can." "You see that in this matter you have the faculty of the will free from hindrance, free from compulsion, unimpeded.” Well, then, in the matter of desire and pursuit of an object, is it otherwise? And what can overcome pursuit except another pursuit? And what can overcome desire and aversion except another desire and aversion? But, you object: “If you place before me the fear of death, you do compel me.” No, it is not what is placed before you that compels, but your opinion that it is better to do so-and-so than to die. In this matter, then, it is your opinion that compelled you: that is, will compelled will. For if God had made that part of Himself, which He took from Himself and gave to us, of such a nature as to be hindered or compelled either by Himself or by another, He would not then be God nor would He be taking care of us as He ought.
• Cicero Academica 2.21
• "Those characteristics which belong to the things we describe as being cognized by the senses are equally characteristic of that further set of things said to be cognized not by the senses directly but by them in a certain respect, e.g.: 'that is white, this is sweet, that is melodious, this is fragrant, this is bitter.' Our cognition of these is secured by the mind, not the senses. Next, 'that is a horse, that is a dog.' The rest of the series then follows, connecting bigger items which virtually include complete cognition of things, like 'If it is a human being, it is a moral, rational animal.' From this class [mental perceptions in general] conceptions of things are imprinted on us, without which there can be no understanding or investigation or discussion of anything." (LS39 C)
  
• Aetius 4.11.1-4
• ...