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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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