display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
3 ideas
| 3556 | Stoic 'nature' is deterministic, physical and teleological [Stoic school, by Annas] |
| Full Idea: 'The nature of things' matters for the Stoics because they hold strong theses about the way things are: they are determinists, physicalists, teleologists. | |
| From: report of Stoic school (fragments/reports [c.200 BCE]) by Julia Annas - The Morality of Happiness Ch.5 |
| 22743 | Unlike Epicurus, Stoics distinguish the Whole from the All, with the latter including the void [Stoic school, by Sext.Empiricus] |
| Full Idea: The Stoic school say that the Whole is the Cosmos, whereas the All is the external void together with the Cosmos, so the Whole is limited but the All is unlimited. (Epicurus gives the two names indifferently to both). | |
| From: report of Stoic school (fragments/reports [c.200 BCE]) by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Physicists (two books) I.332 | |
| A reaction: Epicurus needed the void as part of the Cosmos, into which the atoms can move. Presumably the Stoic void is infinite, but how far does the Stoic Cosmos extend? |
| 13296 | The cosmos has two elements - passive matter, and active cause (or reason) which shapes it [Stoic school, by Seneca] |
| Full Idea: Stoics say there are two elements in the cosmos, cause and matter. Matter lies inert and inactive, a substance of unlimited potential, but destined to remain idle if no one sets it in motion; it is cause (the same as reason) that fashions matter. | |
| From: report of Stoic school (fragments/reports [c.200 BCE]) by Seneca the Younger - Letters from a Stoic 065 | |
| A reaction: [compressed] It take this to be anti-essentialist, because the point of a scientific essence is to be the source of the activities and structures of the matter. Seneca must think matter lacks essence, in order to be moulded like this. Note 'unlimited'. |