Abstract
The present paper studies a family of Stoic proofs of the intelligence of the cosmos, i. e. of the thesis that the cosmos is intelligent in the strong sense that it is, as a whole, something that thinks. This family, ‘F2’, goes back to a proof, ‘XP’, found in Philebus 29a9–30 a8 and Xenophon Mem. 1.4.8. F2 infers the intelligence of the cosmos, as XP does, from (i) the general idea that our intelligence proceeds from the cosmos, which is the ultimate cause of why we are intelligent, and (ii) the further claim that, since this is so, the cosmos itself must be intelligent. They differ from one another, however, in how they account for (i). In this paper, I present a new reason for why the accounts are different, that complements those given by David Sedley in a recent and important study of Stoic cosmology (Sedley 2007). Based on the analogy between intelligence and the four elements, XP puts forward the idea that the intelligence currently present in us is a portion of cosmic intelligence that has separated from it at some point in the past, and that has travelled from the outside cosmos to us. In contrast, the theory used by F2 to explain the generation of human intelligence is grounded not in the notions of separation and locomotion, but in that of transmission of a state. As I argue in some detail, the separation-locomotion model and the transmission model are not only different from each other, but also logically independent from one another: in general terms, neither entails the other. This transmission model used by the Stoics in a proof of the intelligence of the cosmos, I submit, is a major innovation in ancient cosmological and metaphysical thinking.
References
Bandini, Marco and Dorion, Louise-André (2003): Xénophon. Mémorables. Introduction Générale. Livre I. Paris: Les Belles Lettres.Search in Google Scholar
Bandini, Marco and Dorion, Louise-André (2011): Xénophon. Mémorables. Livre IV. Paris: Les Belles Lettres.Search in Google Scholar
Bett, Richard (2012): Sextus Empiricus. Against the Physicists. Cambridge: CUP.10.1017/9781139048811.007Search in Google Scholar
Broadie, Sarah (2012): Nature and Divinity in Plato’s Timaeus. Cambridge: CUP.10.1017/CBO9780511997815Search in Google Scholar
Carone, Gabriela R. (2005): Plato’s Cosmology and Its Ethical Dimensions. Cambridge: CUP.10.1017/CBO9780511734915.002Search in Google Scholar
Cooper, John (1986): Reason and Human Good in Aristotle. Indianapolis: Hackett.Search in Google Scholar
Cornford, Francis M. (1935): Plato’s Theory of Knowledge. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.10.4324/9781315822884Search in Google Scholar
Cornford, Francis M. (1937): Plato’s Cosmology. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul10.4324/9781315822938Search in Google Scholar
Frede, Dorothea (1993): Plato. Philebus. Indianapolis: Hackett.Search in Google Scholar
Frede, Dorothea (1997): Platon. Philebos. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.Search in Google Scholar
Furley, David J. (1987): The Greek Cosmologists. Vol. 1: The Formation of the Atomic Theory and its Earliest Critics. Cambridge: CUP.10.1017/CBO9780511552540Search in Google Scholar
Furley, David J. (1989): Cosmic problems: Essays on Greek and Roman Philosophy of Nature. Cambridge: CUP.Search in Google Scholar
Gill, Christopher (2013): Marcus Aurelius. Meditations Books 1–6. Oxford: OUP.Search in Google Scholar
Gourinat, Jean-Baptiste (2016): “La gestation de l’animal et la perception de soi”. In: Gourinat, Jean-Baptiste (ed.), L’Éthique de Stoïcien Hiéroclès. Villeneuve d’Ascq: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, pp. 15–46.10.4000/books.septentrion.88646Search in Google Scholar
Laks, André (1983): Diogène d’Apollonie: La Dernière Cosmologie Présocratique. Lille: Presses Universitaires de Septentrion (2nd ed. 2008 in Academia Verlag).Search in Google Scholar
Lloyd, Anthony C. (1976): ‘The Principle that the Cause is Greater than its Effect’, Phronesis 21, pp. 146–156.10.1163/156852876X00101Search in Google Scholar
Long, Anthony A. (1982): “Soul and Body in Stoicism”, Phronesis 27, pp. 34–57.10.1163/156852882X00032Search in Google Scholar
Long, Anthony A. (2003): “Stoicism in the Philosophical Tradition: Spinoza, Lipsius, Butler”. In: Miller, Jon and Inwood, Brad (eds.), Hellenistic and Early Modern Philosophy. Cambridge: CUP, pp. 7–29.10.1017/CBO9780511498275.004Search in Google Scholar
Makin, Stephen (1991): “An Ancient Principle about Causation”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, NS vol. 91, pp. 135–152.10.1093/aristotelian/91.1.135Search in Google Scholar
Meijer, P. A. (2007): Stoic theology. Proofs for the existence of the cosmic god and of the traditional gods including a commentary on Cleanthes’ Hymn on Zeus. Delft: Eburon.Search in Google Scholar
Menn, Stephen (1999): “The Stoic theory of categories”, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 17, pp. 215–247.Search in Google Scholar
Powers, Nathan (2012): “The Stoic argument for the rationality of the cosmos”, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 43, pp. 245–269.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199666164.003.0009Search in Google Scholar
Reydams-Schils, Gretchen (2006): “The Roman Stoics on Divine Thinking and Human Knowledge”. In: Gersh, Stephen and Moran, Dermot (eds.), Eriugena, Berkeley, and the Idealist Tradition. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, pp. 81–94.Search in Google Scholar
Salles, Ricardo (2009): “Chrysippus on conflagration and the indestructibility of the cosmos”. In R. Salles (ed.), God and Cosmos in Stoicism. Oxford: OUP, pp. 118–34.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199556144.003.0006Search in Google Scholar
Salles, Ricardo (2013): “La razón cósmica en el estoicismo y sus raíces platónicas”, Anuario Filosófico 46.1, pp. 49–77.10.15581/009.46.1008Search in Google Scholar
Salles, Ricardo (2017): “Soul as harmony in Phaedo 85e-86d and Stoic pneumatic theory”. In: Harte, Verity and Woolf, Raphael (eds.), Rereading Ancient Philosophy: Old Chestnuts and Sacred Cows. Cambridge: CUP, pp. 221–239.10.1017/9781108163866.014Search in Google Scholar
Sambursky, Samuel (1959): Physics of the Stoics. Westport: Greenwood Press.10.1515/9781400859009Search in Google Scholar
Schofield, Malcolm (1983): “The Syllogisms of Zeno of Citium”, Phronesis 28, pp. 31–58.10.1163/156852883X00031Search in Google Scholar
Sedley, David (2005): “Les origines des preuves stoïciennes de l’existence de dieu”, Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale, issue 4 of 2005, pp. 461–487.10.3917/rmm.054.0461Search in Google Scholar
Sedley, David N. (2007): Creationism and Its Critics. Berkeley, CA: UCP.10.1525/9780520934368Search in Google Scholar
Sedley, David N. (2009): “Three kinds of Platonic immortality”. In: Frede, Dorothea and Reis, Burkhard (eds.), Body and Soul in Ancient Philosophy. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, pp. 145–62.10.1515/9783110216523.2.145Search in Google Scholar
Sedley, David (2012): “Marcus Aurelius on Physics”. In: van Ackeren, Marcel (ed.), A Companion to Marcus Aurelius. Chichester-Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 396–407.10.1002/9781118219836.ch25Search in Google Scholar
Theiler, Willy (1925): Zur Geschichte der teleologischen Naturbetrachtung bis auf Aristoteles. Zurich: O. Füssli.Search in Google Scholar
Wilberding, James (2008): Porphyry. To Gaurus On How Embryos are Ensouled and On What is in Our Power. London: Bloomsbury.Search in Google Scholar
Wilberding, James (2011): “Porphyry and Plotinus on the seed”, Phronesis 53, pp. 406–432.10.1163/156852808X338346Search in Google Scholar
© 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
