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Single Idea 22238

[filed under theme 22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / d. Health ]

Full Idea

For the Stoics bodily health belongs in the 'indifferent [adiaphoron]' category: it does not matter if one is healthy. And yet, they created a subcategory of the 'preferable indifferent [adiaphoron proegmenon]', under which health falls.

Gist of Idea

Stoics said health is an 'indifferent', but they still considered it preferable

Source

report of Stoic school (fragments/reports [c.200 BCE]) by Peter E. Pormann - Medical Conceptions of Health pre-Renaissance p.45

Book Ref

Adamson,Peter: 'Health: a history', ed/tr. Adamson,Peter [OUP 2019], p.45

A Reaction

You have to be pretty tough to consider ill-health as an indifferent. The only good may be virtue, but the platonic tradition says virtue is a sort of mental health.

The 91 ideas from 'fragments/reports'

20866 Wise men participate in politics, especially if it shows moral progress [Stoic school, by Stobaeus]
20854 Wise men are never astonished at things which other people take to be wonders [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius]
20815 No wise man has yet been discovered [Stoic school, by Cicero]
20806 Stoic physics concerns cosmos, elements and causes (with six detailed divisions) [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius]
20839 Ethics studies impulse, good, passion, virtue, goals, value, action, appropriateness, encouragement [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius]
20867 True philosophising is not memorising ideas, but living by them [Stoic school, by Stobaeus]
20849 Falsehoods corrupt a mind, producing passions and instability [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius]
21810 The Stoics distinguished spoken logos from logos within the mind [Stoic school, by Plotinus]
21675 Some facts are indispensable for an effect, and others actually necessitate the effect [Stoic school, by Cicero]
20775 Stoics study canons, criteria and definitions, in order to find the truth [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius]
21393 Stoics believed that rational capacity in man (logos) is embodied in the universe [Stoic school, by Long]
20776 Dialectics is mastery of question and answer form [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius]
20823 The truth bearers are said to be the signified, or the signifier, or the meaning of the signifier [Stoic school, by Sext.Empiricus]
20778 Stoics like syllogisms, for showing what is demonstrative, which corrects opinions [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius]
21400 Stoics avoided universals by paraphrasing 'Man is...' as 'If something is a man, then it is...' [Stoic school, by Long]
20788 The contradictory of a contradictory is an affirmation [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius]
23267 Stoics say the soul is a mixture of air and fire [Stoic school, by Galen]
20777 Rhetoric has three types, four modes, and four sections [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius]
21594 Stoics applied bivalence to sorites situations, so everyone is either vicious or wholly virtuous [Stoic school, by Williamson]
20824 Stoics have four primary categories: substrates, qualities, dispositions, relative dispositions [Stoic school, by Simplicius]
3553 Stoic morality says that one's own happiness will lead to impartiality [Stoic school, by Annas]
21384 The Stoics saw the whole world as a city [Stoic school, by Long]
20817 Platonic Forms are just our thoughts [Stoic school, by Ps-Plutarch]
20859 The best government blends democracy, monarchy and aristocracy [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius]
6037 Stoics say matter has qualities, and substance underlies it, with no form or qualities [Stoic school, by Chalcidius]
20825 How is divisibility possible, if stoics say things remain united when they are divided? [Alexander on Stoic school]
20826 How is separateness possible, if separated things are always said to be united? [Alexander on Stoic school]
20872 Stoics say wholes are more than parts, but entirely consist of parts [Stoic school, by Sext.Empiricus]
7672 The free will problem was invented by the Stoics [Stoic school, by Berlin]
20790 A proposition is possible if it is true when nothing stops it being true [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius]
20789 Conditionals are false if the falsehood of the conclusion does not conflict with the antecedent [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius]
20783 Knowledge is a secure grasp of presentations which cannot be reversed by argument [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius]
20868 Two sorts of opinion: either poorly grounded belief, or weak belief [Stoic school, by Stobaeus]
20784 There are non-sensible presentations, which come to us through the intellect [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius]
20803 Stoics say we are born like a blank sheet of paper; the first concepts on it are sensations [Stoic school, by Ps-Plutarch]
6025 At birth the soul is a blank sheet ready to be written on [Stoic school, by Aetius]
20781 Non-graspable presentations are from what doesn't exist, or are not clear and distinct [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius]
20809 Eight parts of the soul: five senses, seeds, speech and reason [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius]
20792 Stoic perception is a presentation to which one voluntarily assents [Stoic school, by Stobaeus]
20805 All our concepts come from experience, directly, or by expansion, reduction or compounding [Stoic school, by Sext.Empiricus]
20782 Dialectic is a virtue which contains other virtues [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius]
1772 For Stoics knowledge is an assertion which never deviates from the truth [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius]
20779 Demonstration derives what is less clear from what is clear [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius]
23251 The Stoics think that soul in the narrow sense is nothing but reason [Stoic school, by Frede,M]
23321 Division of the soul divides a person, reducing responsibility for the nonrational part [Stoic school, by Frede,M]
20785 Our conceptions arise from experience, similarity, analogy, transposition, composition and opposition [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius]
7502 For Stoics the true self is defined by what I can be master of [Stoic school, by Foucault]
23327 Stoics expanded the idea of compulsion, and contracted what counts as one's own actions [Stoic school, by Frede,M]
23315 The nearest to ancient determinism is Stoic fate, but that is controlled by a sympathetic God [Stoic school, by Frede,M]
4014 Stoics classify passions according to the opinion of good and bad which they imply [Stoic school, by Taylor,C]
23988 There are four basic emotions: pleasure or delight, distress, appetite, and fear [Stoic school, by Cicero]
6594 Stoics said that correct judgement needs an invincible criterion of truth [Stoic school, by Fogelin]
20804 Concepts are intellectual phantasms [Stoic school, by Ps-Plutarch]
20786 Predicates are incomplete 'lekta' [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius]
23322 Humans have rational impressions, which are conceptual, and are true or false [Stoic school, by Frede,M]
23323 Earlier Stoics speak of assent, but not of choice, let alone of a will [Stoic school, by Frede,M]
23305 Stoics said responsibility depends on rationality [Stoic school, by Sorabji]
1907 Stoics use 'kalon' (beautiful) as a synonym for 'agathon' (good) [Bury on Stoic school]
22757 Stoics say that folly alone is evil [Stoic school, by Sext.Empiricus]
20846 Prime values apply to the life in agreement; useful values apply to the natural life [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius]
20847 The appraiser's value is what is set by someone experienced in the facts [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius]
20870 The goal is to live consistently with the constitution of a human being [Stoic school, by Clement]
22238 Stoics said health is an 'indifferent', but they still considered it preferable [Stoic school, by Pormann]
20861 The health of the soul is a good blend of beliefs [Stoic school, by Stobaeus]
20851 Virtuous men do not feel sexual desire, which merely focuses on physical beauty [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius]
7499 Stoicism was an elitist option to lead a beautiful life [Stoic school, by Foucault]
20843 Final goods: confidence, prudence, freedom, enjoyment and no pain, good spirits, virtue [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius]
22753 Happiness for the Stoics was an equable flow of life [Stoic school, by Sext.Empiricus]
20865 Happiness is the end and goal, achieved by living virtuously, in agreement, and according to nature [Stoic school, by Stobaeus]
20840 Stoics say pleasure is at most a byproduct of finding what is suitable for us [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius]
20852 Rapture is a breakdown of virtue [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius]
6895 If humans are citizens of the world (not just a state) then virtue is all good human habits [Stoic school, by Mautner]
20848 An appropriate action is one that can be defended, perhaps by its consistency. [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius]
4012 The Stoics rejected entirely the high value that had been placed on contemplation [Stoic school, by Taylor,C]
20844 Honour is just, courageous, orderly or knowledgeable. It is praiseworthy, or functions well [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius]
5073 Stoics do not despise external goods, but subject them to reason, and not to desire [Taylor,R on Stoic school]
20862 Crafts like music and letters are virtuous conditions, and they accord with virtue [Stoic school, by Stobaeus]
5072 For Stoics, obligations are determined by social role [Taylor,R on Stoic school]
21396 Man is distinguished by knowing conditional truths, because impressions are connected [Stoic school, by Long]
1781 Stoics favour a mixture of democracy, monarchy and aristocracy [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius]
3561 Stoics originated the concept of natural law, as agreed correct reasoning [Stoic school, by Annas]
3046 Stoics say a wise man will commit suicide if he has a good enough reason [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius]
20858 Suicide is reasonable, for one's country or friends, or because of very bad health [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius]
3556 Stoic 'nature' is deterministic, physical and teleological [Stoic school, by Annas]
22743 Unlike Epicurus, Stoics distinguish the Whole from the All, with the latter including the void [Stoic school, by Sext.Empiricus]
13296 The cosmos has two elements - passive matter, and active cause (or reason) which shapes it [Stoic school, by Seneca]
20827 The cosmos is regularly consumed and reorganised by the primary fire [Stoic school, by Aristocles]
7815 Early Stoics called the logos 'god', meaning not a being, but the principle of the universe [Stoic school]
6038 Stoics say god is matter, or an inseparable quality of it, or is the power within it [Stoic school, by Chalcidius]
20829 Virtuous souls endure till the end, foolish souls for a short time, animal souls not at all [Stoic school, by Eusebius]
6039 Stoics say virtuous souls last till everything ends in fire, but foolish ones fade away [Stoic school, by ]