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The evidence does not really compel us to either of these interpretations. Nor, unfortunately, is it
precise on another important matter: the exact form of perceptual belief-statements. Presumably these are
the same in form as ordinary statements which we normally utter. If so, then the truth values of the
compound statements will be given by the truth conditions of the atomic statements together with the rules
for the logical constants in Stoic logic.[24] What of the truth conditions for the atomic ones? For the Stoics,
an atomic statement is true if one of two conditions is fulfilled. One is that it is a definite statement, one in
which the referring term is a singular term making direct reference, such as "He (that man) is walking."
(And, of course, that the world is as the definite statement says it is that he is in fact walking.) The other is
that there is a true corresponding definite statement. For example, "Somebody is walking" is true if "He is
walking" is true. If we are to think of our inner perceptual belief-statements on the same model, then it
would appear that the truth of our ordinary perceptual claims will depend straightforwardly on the truth of
definite statements reporting perceptual ostensions, pointings out of perceptual properties. However, no
extant Stoic text explores this aspect of the theory.
So far we have been examining standard, normal perception. The Stoics are not very interested in
abnormal perceptual experiences nor in investigating the phenomena of sleep,
[24] Stoic logic is propositional. See Frede (1974); for some texts see Long and Sedley (1987, 34 and 35).
 85 
dreams, and the like. Sleep is brusquely said to be a "slackening of the perceptive tension round the
hegemonikon ."[25] There is a difference between appearance (phantasia ) and mere appearing (phantasma
): the latter are "seemings in the mind such as happen in sleep."[26] Madmen have appearances which do
not come from any real object.[27] For the Stoics these form a collection of not very interesting facts, which
can easily be explained in a wholly naturalistic way: the sensory apparatus of sleepers and the mad is not
functioning properly, and it leads them to take as the appearance of an object what is not so. Nothing
philosophically significant hangs on it.
It is easy to see why this is so. For the Stoics, these cases are not epistemologically important. (The
sceptics think they are; but that is part of another story.)[28] The Stoics think that their naturalistic theories
give them every right to say, with Chrysippus, that the appearances of the waking just are clearer than
those of the sleeping.[29] This is not to be construed as an epistemological claim, nor is it a report on the
phenomenology of the experiences. It is at bottom a scientific claim about the unified system of pneuma and
how it works in ordinary and abnormal circumstances.
Further, the Stoics do not feel the interest in these cases for their own sake that, for example, Aristotle
does; and reasonably. Once the entire life of the mind is to be explained in terms of the operation of
pneuma, it is obvious that there is nothing to say about sleep, dreams, and so on except that they are due
to whatever turns out to be the appropriate tautening or relaxing of pneumatic tension.[30]
[25] D. L. 7. 158 (= SVF 2. 766).
[26] D. L. 7. 50.
[27] Sext. Emp. Math. 7. 249 (= SVF 2. 65).
[28] See Frede (1984); Annas (1990).
[29] Cic. Div. 2. 61.126 (= SVF 2. 62).
[30] If we take the Stoics to be gesturing toward what we see in terms of the functioning of the nervous
system, the modern analogue would be an account of these phenomena in terms of the workings of different
parts of the brain and nervous system, and the ways in which there can be interference to these. Both
accounts appeal to
(footnote continued on the next page)
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b) Thinking
39 of 151 8/6/2006 1:30 PM
Hellenistic Philosophy of Mind http://content.cdlib.org/xtf/view?docId=ft958009gj&chunk.id=0&doc.v...
The Stoics have no separate account of thinking; after perception, interest shifts to the epistemological
notions of apprehension and knowledge. From the account of perception we can see why; to understand
what perceiving is, is already to understand what thinking is. Thinking is the articulation of content in
perceiving.
This is what we would expect from thoroughgoing empiricists, and there are two important corollaries.
One is that the Stoics have no conceptual room for pure thinking, where that is taken to be thinking that is
in no way reliant on experience. In opposition to the Platonic and Aristotelian traditions, they take all
thought to be developed through experience and by reflection on experience. Such a view faces problems in
accounting for mathematical thinking; indeed for the Stoics mathematics can only be very abstract science.
They say almost nothing about it and fail to explain why most mathematicians (and philosophers influenced
by mathematics, like Plato) believe that mathematical thinking does not depend on experience. In keeping
with this, they reject, in their ethics, the Platonic view that philosophy is a peculiarly abstract kind of
thinking like mathematics, and do not think that the only appropriate life for a philosopher is the
"contemplative" life so valued by Plato and Aristotle, the life devoted to abstract study.
Another corollary is that they give a highly empiricist account of concept formation. The mind or
hegemonikon is at birth like blank paper, and experience writes on it. Single experiences build up memory,
and in the normal course of events we will naturally build up both preconceptions (prolepseis ), ways of
conceptualizing what we perceive, and concepts (ennoiai ), which are theoretical and rely on teaching.
Concept formation is explained entirely in terms of our ability
(footnote continued from the previous page)
science, though in the case of the Stoics it is a rather primitive science.
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to interpret and generalize from the particular data of sense which confront us. The Stoics here
self-consciously oppose an empiricist account to one which holds that something like Platonic Forms is
required to explain how we can employ concepts.[31]
In a brutally abbreviated passage in one of our sources we find an even more starkly empiricist picture:
Things thought of are thought of like this . . . by contact, perceptive things; by resemblance, analogous to what is present, for
example, Socrates from his picture; by analogy, either by increase, like Tityos or the Cyclops, or by lessening, like the Pygmy.
(The center of the earth was thought of by analogy from smaller spheres.) By transposition, for example, eyes on the chest; by [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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