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Ideas of Stoic school, by Text

[, fl. 200 BCE, General ideas attributed to the school (not individuals), c.300-40 BCE]

200BCE fragments/reports
p.3 The Stoics saw the whole world as a city [Long]
p.8 The Stoics think that soul in the narrow sense is nothing but reason [Frede,M]
p.11 Demonstration derives what is less clear from what is clear [Diog. Laertius]
p.11 Rhetoric has three types, four modes, and four sections [Diog. Laertius]
p.11 Stoics study canons, criteria and definitions, in order to find the truth [Diog. Laertius]
p.11 Dialectics is mastery of question and answer form [Diog. Laertius]
p.11 Stoics like syllogisms, for showing what is demonstrative, which corrects opinions [Diog. Laertius]
p.12 Knowledge is a secure grasp of presentations which cannot be reversed by argument [Diog. Laertius]
p.12 Dialectic is a virtue which contains other virtues [Diog. Laertius]
p.12 Non-graspable presentations are from what doesn't exist, or are not clear and distinct [Diog. Laertius]
p.13 Our conceptions arise from experience, similarity, analogy, transposition, composition and opposition [Diog. Laertius]
p.13 There are non-sensible presentations, which come to us through the intellect [Diog. Laertius]
p.13 Stoics applied bivalence to sorites situations, so everyone is either vicious or wholly virtuous [Williamson]
p.14 The nearest to ancient determinism is Stoic fate, but that is controlled by a sympathetic God [Frede,M]
p.16 Predicates are incomplete 'lekta' [Diog. Laertius]
p.18 The contradictory of a contradictory is an affirmation [Diog. Laertius]
p.19 A proposition is possible if it is true when nothing stops it being true [Diog. Laertius]
p.19 Conditionals are false if the falsehood of the conclusion does not conflict with the antecedent [Diog. Laertius]
p.23 Stoic perception is a presentation to which one voluntarily assents [Stobaeus]
p.33 Division of the soul divides a person, reducing responsibility for the nonrational part [Frede,M]
p.37 Humans have rational impressions, which are conceptual, and are true or false [Frede,M]
p.43 Earlier Stoics speak of assent, but not of choice, let alone of a will [Frede,M]
p.45 Stoics said health is an 'indifferent', but they still considered it preferable [Pormann]
p.48 Concepts are intellectual phantasms [Ps-Plutarch]
p.48 Stoics say we are born like a blank sheet of paper; the first concepts on it are sensations [Ps-Plutarch]
p.48 For Stoics, obligations are determined by social role [Taylor,R]
p.49 Stoics do not despise external goods, but subject them to reason, and not to desire [Taylor,R]
p.50 All our concepts come from experience, directly, or by expansion, reduction or compounding [Sext.Empiricus]
p.51 Stoic physics concerns cosmos, elements and causes (with six detailed divisions) [Diog. Laertius]
p.52 Early Stoics called the logos 'god', meaning not a being, but the principle of the universe
p.57 Eight parts of the soul: five senses, seeds, speech and reason [Diog. Laertius]
p.68 Stoics expanded the idea of compulsion, and contracted what counts as one's own actions [Frede,M]
p.73 The free will problem was invented by the Stoics [Berlin]
p.85 No wise man has yet been discovered [Cicero]
p.86 Platonic Forms are just our thoughts [Ps-Plutarch]
p.87 There are four basic emotions: pleasure or delight, distress, appetite, and fear [Cicero]
p.89 The truth bearers are said to be the signified, or the signifier, or the meaning of the signifier [Sext.Empiricus]
p.91 Stoics have four primary categories: substrates, qualities, dispositions, relative dispositions [Simplicius]
p.96 How is divisibility possible, if stoics say things remain united when they are divided? [Alexander]
p.96 How is separateness possible, if separated things are always said to be united? [Alexander]
p.96 The cosmos is regularly consumed and reorganised by the primary fire [Aristocles]
p.98 Virtuous souls endure till the end, foolish souls for a short time, animal souls not at all [Eusebius]
p.108 Stoics believed that rational capacity in man (logos) is embodied in the universe [Long]
p.112 Ethics studies impulse, good, passion, virtue, goals, value, action, appropriateness, encouragement [Diog. Laertius]
p.113 Stoics say pleasure is at most a byproduct of finding what is suitable for us [Diog. Laertius]
p.116 Honour is just, courageous, orderly or knowledgeable. It is praiseworthy, or functions well [Diog. Laertius]
p.116 Stoics said that correct judgement needs an invincible criterion of truth [Fogelin]
p.116 Final goods: confidence, prudence, freedom, enjoyment and no pain, good spirits, virtue [Diog. Laertius]
p.118 Prime values apply to the life in agreement; useful values apply to the natural life [Diog. Laertius]
p.118 The appraiser's value is what is set by someone experienced in the facts [Diog. Laertius]
p.118 The cosmos has two elements - passive matter, and active cause (or reason) which shapes it [Seneca]
p.118 An appropriate action is one that can be defended, perhaps by its consistency. [Diog. Laertius]
p.119 Falsehoods corrupt a mind, producing passions and instability [Diog. Laertius]
p.120 Virtuous men do not feel sexual desire, which merely focuses on physical beauty [Diog. Laertius]
p.120 Rapture is a breakdown of virtue [Diog. Laertius]
p.122 Wise men are never astonished at things which other people take to be wonders [Diog. Laertius]
p.123 Stoics say matter has qualities, and substance underlies it, with no form or qualities [Chalcidius]
p.124 The best government blends democracy, monarchy and aristocracy [Diog. Laertius]
p.124 Stoics say god is matter, or an inseparable quality of it, or is the power within it [Chalcidius]
p.124 Suicide is reasonable, for one's country or friends, or because of very bad health [Diog. Laertius]
p.125 The Stoics rejected entirely the high value that had been placed on contemplation [Taylor,C]
p.125 Man is distinguished by knowing conditional truths, because impressions are connected [Long]
p.126 Stoics say virtuous souls last till everything ends in fire, but foolish ones fade away
p.126 The health of the soul is a good blend of beliefs [Stobaeus]
p.128 Stoic morality says that one's own happiness will lead to impartiality [Annas]
p.128 Crafts like music and letters are virtuous conditions, and they accord with virtue [Stobaeus]
p.133 Happiness is the end and goal, achieved by living virtuously, in agreement, and according to nature [Stobaeus]
p.140 Wise men participate in politics, especially if it shows moral progress [Stobaeus]
p.141 Stoics avoided universals by paraphrasing 'Man is...' as 'If something is a man, then it is...' [Long]
p.145 True philosophising is not memorising ideas, but living by them [Stobaeus]
p.149 Two sorts of opinion: either poorly grounded belief, or weak belief [Stobaeus]
p.149 Stoics classify passions according to the opinion of good and bad which they imply [Taylor,C]
p.158 Stoics say the soul is a mixture of air and fire [Galen]
p.159 Stoic 'nature' is deterministic, physical and teleological [Annas]
p.161 Unlike Epicurus, Stoics distinguish the Whole from the All, with the latter including the void [Sext.Empiricus]
p.162 The goal is to live consistently with the constitution of a human being [Clement]
p.172 Stoics say wholes are more than parts, but entirely consist of parts [Sext.Empiricus]
p.233 Some facts are indispensable for an effect, and others actually necessitate the effect [Cicero]
p.238 At birth the soul is a blank sheet ready to be written on [Aetius]
p.245 Stoics use 'kalon' (beautiful) as a synonym for 'agathon' (good) [Bury]
p.254 Stoicism was an elitist option to lead a beautiful life [Foucault]
p.270 For Stoics the true self is defined by what I can be master of [Foucault]
p.276 For Stoics knowledge is an assertion which never deviates from the truth [Diog. Laertius]
p.289 If humans are citizens of the world (not just a state) then virtue is all good human habits [Mautner]
p.302 Stoics originated the concept of natural law, as agreed correct reasoning [Annas]
p.306 Stoics say a wise man will commit suicide if he has a good enough reason [Diog. Laertius]
p.307 Stoics favour a mixture of democracy, monarchy and aristocracy [Diog. Laertius]
p.327 Stoics said responsibility depends on rationality [Sorabji]
p.350 The Stoics distinguished spoken logos from logos within the mind [Plotinus]
p.399 Happiness for the Stoics was an equable flow of life [Sext.Empiricus]
p.429 Stoics say that folly alone is evil [Sext.Empiricus]