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20771
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Six parts: dialectic, rhetoric, ethics, politics, physics, theology [Cleanthes, by Diog. Laertius]
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Full Idea:
Cleanthes says there are six parts: dialectic, rhetoric, ethics, politics, physics, and theology.
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From:
report of Cleanthes (fragments/reports [c.270 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.41
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A reaction:
This was a minority view, as most stoics agreed with Zeno and Chrysippus that there are three main topics. Nowadays there is little discussion of the 'parts' of philosophy, but the recent revival of meta-philosophy should encourage it.
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23304
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The ancient Memorists said virtually all types of thinking could be done simply by memory [Sorabji]
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Full Idea:
The ancient medical Memorists said that ordinary thinking, inferring, reflecting, believing, assuming, examining, generalising and knowing can all be done simply on the basis of memory.
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From:
Richard Sorabji (Rationality [1996], 'Inference')
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A reaction:
The think there is a plausible theory that all neurons do is remember, and are mainly distinguished by the duration of their memories. We might explain these modes of thinking in terms of various combinations of the fast and the slow.
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23303
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Stoics say true memory needs reflection and assent, but animals only have perceptual recognition [Sorabji]
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Full Idea:
Stoics say memory proper involves reflection and assent. Animal memory, by contrast, is not memory proper, but mere perceptual recognition. The horse remembers the road when he is on it, but not when he is in the stable.
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From:
Richard Sorabji (Rationality [1996], 'Other')
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A reaction:
An interesting distinction. Do I remember something if I can never recall it, and yet recognise it when it reappears, such as a person I knew long ago? 'Memory' is ambiguous, between lodged in the mind, and recallable. Unfair to horses, this.
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6028
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Bodies interact with other bodies, and cuts cause pain, and shame causes blushing, so the soul is a body [Cleanthes, by Nemesius]
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Full Idea:
Cleanthes says no incorporeal interacts with a body, but one body interacts with another body; the soul interacts with the body when it is sick and being cut, and the body feels shame and fear, and turns red or pale, so the soul is a body.
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From:
report of Cleanthes (fragments/reports [c.270 BCE]) by Nemesius - De Natura Hominis 78,7
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A reaction:
This is precisely the interaction problem with dualism, or, as we might now say, the problem of mental causation. The standard Stoic view is that the soul is a sort of rarefied fire, which disperses at death.
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