Single Idea 20799

[catalogued under 11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 7. Knowledge First]

Full Idea

He thought that a grasp made by the senses was true and reliable, …because it left out nothing about the object that could be grasped, and because nature had provided this grasp as a standard of knowledge, and a basis for understanding nature itself.

Gist of Idea

A grasp by the senses is true, because it leaves nothing out, and so nature endorses it

Source

report of Zeno (Citium) (fragments/reports [c.294 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - Academica I.42

Book Reference

'The Stoics Reader', ed/tr. Inwood,B/Gerson,L.P. [Hackett 2008], p.40


A Reaction

Sounds like Williamson's 'knowledge first' claim - that the basic epistemic state is knowledge, which we have when everything is working normally. I like Zeno's idea that a 'grasp' leaves nothing out about the object. Compare nature with Descartes' God.