Roman Stoicism: being lectures on the history of the Stoic philosophy with special reference to its development within the Roman EmpireArnold, Edward Vernon
Religion
Roman Stoicism: being lectures on the history of the Stoic philosophy with special reference to its development within the Roman Empire
Arnold, Edward Vernon
Stoics
=172.= To the earlier Greek philosophers, as we have already seen, it
appeared that a single bold intuition was enough, or almost enough, to
discover a sufficient foundation upon which to construct a reasoned
account of all things. Thus the Ionic philosophers took up as such a
foundation one or more of the elements of air, fire, and water. But as
soon as these three, together with earth, were recognized as ‘elements’
existing side by side, it became necessary to dig deeper, so as to
secure a foundation for these as well. Thus Democritus resolved all
four into ‘atoms’ and ‘void’; his theory was taken over by Epicurus,
and remains to this day not only the most popular solution of the
problem, but also that which (till quite recently) was tacitly assumed
as the basis of all scientific investigation. Anaxagoras, working on
different lines, began his account of the universe with ‘mind’ on the
one hand and a primal conglomerate ‘matter’ on the other; a doctrine
evidently based upon the popular dualism of soul and body, and still
the basis of all transcendental philosophy and established religious
conceptions. This Aristotle varied by assuming rather an ‘active’ and a
‘passive’ principle, force which works and matter upon which it works.
Besides these conceptions many others need to be considered, which if
not absolutely fundamental, are nevertheless matters of discussion in
all philosophical schools, as those of motion, space, time, soul, body,
God, the universe, cause, effect, will and necessity. In this way the
original inquiry into the foundation of the universe developes into a
general study of fundamental conceptions; and it is at this stage that it
is taken over and dealt with by Stoicism, which adds to the list certain
conceptions on which it lays a special stress and to which it gives a
characteristic colour; such are those of ‘body,’ ‘spirit,’ and ‘tone.’
[Sidenote: The Stoic monism.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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