The Death of Marcus Aurelius

The Death of Marcus Aurelius

Friday, February 12, 2021

Wisdom from the Early Stoics, Zeno of Citium 28


The standard of truth they declare to be the apprehending presentation, i.e. that which comes from a real object—according to Chrysippus in the twelfth book of his Physics and to Antipater and Apollodorus.

Boethus, on the other hand, admits a plurality of standards, namely intelligence, sense-perception, appetency, and knowledge; while Chrysippus in the first book of his Exposition of Doctrine seems to contradicts himself and declares that sensation and preconception are the only standards, preconception being a general notion which comes by the gift of nature (an innate conception of universals or general concepts).

Again, certain others of the older Stoics make Right Reason the standard; so also does Posidonius in his treatise On the Standard.

—Diogenes Laërtius, 7.54





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