CLAS 196/PHIL196
Stoicism
Prof. Bailly
Stoic Psychology
As usual, this lecture has so many debts to Tad Brennan's Stoic Life that it would be
pointless to pepper it with notes, not to mention cumbersome and
inappropriate for lecture notes.
- 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
- 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