Single Idea 20850

[catalogued under 20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 2. Willed Action / d. Weakness of will]

Full Idea

Chrysippus says (in his On Passions) that the passions are judgements; for greed is a supposition that money is honorable, and similarly for drunkennes and wantonness and others.

Gist of Idea

Passions are judgements; greed thinks money is honorable, and likewise drinking and lust

Source

report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.111

Book Reference

'The Stoics Reader', ed/tr. Inwood,B/Gerson,L.P. [Hackett 2008], p.119


A Reaction

This is an endorsement of Socrates's intellectualist reading of weakness of will, as against Aristotle's assigning it to overpowering passions.

Related Idea

Idea 5963 Some say emotion is a sort of reason, and others say virtue concerns emotion [Plutarch]