zeno definition of phantasia kataleptike

√ ÔÚÈÛÌfi˜ ·fi ÙÔÓ ∑‹ÓˆÓ· ÙË˜katalhptikh;" fantasiva"

DAVID SEDLEY

√ ∑‹ÓˆÓ ÂÈÛ‹Á·ÁÂ ÛÙËÓ ÂÈÛÙËÌÔÏÔÁ›· ÙÔÓ fiÚÔ fantas›a

katalhptikhv (ÁÓˆÛÙÈÎ‹ ÂÓÙ‡ˆÛË) - ¤Ó·Ó ·Ï¿Óı·ÛÙÔ Î·È ·˘Ùfi-

‚Â‚·ÈˆÙÈÎfi ÙÚfiÔ ÚÔÛ¤ÁÁÈÛË˜ Î¿ÔÈ·˜ ·Ï‹ıÂÈ·˜ ÁÈ· ÙÔÓ ÎfiÛÌÔ.

∆ÔÓ ÔÚ›˙ÂÈ ˆ˜:

(·) ajpo; uJpavrconto~

(‚) kat∆ aujto; to; uJpavrcon ejnapomemagmevnh kai;

ejnapesfragismevnh

(Á) oJpoiva oujk a]n gevnoito ajpo; mh; uJpavrconto~

∆Ô ·Ï¿ıËÙÔ ÙË˜ fantash/Jaı ˘Ô‰ËÏÒÓÂÙ·È ÛÙÔ (Á), ÌÈ· ÚfiÙ·ÛË

Ô˘ Ï¤ÁÂÙ·È ˆ˜ ÚÔÛÙ¤ıËÎÂ ·fi ÙÔ ∑‹ÓˆÓ· ˆ˜ ·¿ÓÙËÛË ÛÙÈ˜

ÂÈı¤ÛÂÈ˜ ÙË˜ ÛÎÂÙÈÎ‹˜ ∞Î·‰ËÌ›·˜. ∏ ·Ó·ÎÔ›ÓˆÛË ÂÛÙÈ¿˙ÂÙ·È ÛÙÔ

Úfi‚ÏËÌ· ÙÔ˘ ÙÈ ‰ËÏÒÓÂÈ Ô fiÚÔ˜ "apovvv", Î·È ÂÈ¯ÂÈÚËÌ·ÙÔÏÔÁÂ› fiÙÈ

‰ÂÓ ÌÔÚÂ›, fiˆ˜ Û˘Ó‹ıˆ˜ ˘ÔÙ›ıÂÙ·È, Ó· ¤¯ÂÈ ÚÔÙ·ıÂ› ·fi ÙÔ

∑‹ÓˆÓ· ˆ˜ ·ÈÙÈÔÏÔÁÈÎ‹, ·ÏÏ¿ fiÙÈ ·ÓÙ›ıÂÙ·, ı· Ú¤ÂÈ Óã

·Ó·ÁÓˆÚ›ÛÔ˘ÌÂ Â‰Ò ÌÈ· ·Ó··Ú·ÛÙ·ÙÈÎ‹ ¯Ú‹ÛË ·˘Ù‹˜ ÙË˜

ÚfiıÂÛË˜. ™˘Ó·ÎfiÏÔ˘ı·, ÙÔ (·) ‰ËÏÒÓÂÈ ÙËÓ ·Ï‹ıÂÈ· ÙË˜

fantasiva" , Î·È ÙÔ (Á) ÙËÓ ·‰˘Ó·ÙfiÙËÙ· Ó· Â›Ó·È ·˘Ù‹ „Â˘‰‹˜. √È

ÌÂÙ·ÁÂÓ¤ÛÙÂÚÔÈ ™ÙˆÈÎÔ› ‹Ù·Ó ÂÎÂ›ÓÔÈ Ô˘ ·Ú·ÓfiËÛ·Ó ÙË ¯Ú‹ÛË

ÁÈ· ·ÈÙÈÔÏÔÁÈÎ‹ Î·È ÙÚÔÔÔ›ËÛ·Ó ·Ó¿ÏÔÁ· ÙËÓ ıÂˆÚ›·.

Zeno’s definition of

phantasia kataleptike

DAVID SEDLEY

Zeno’s epistemology was probably his most radical

philosophical innovation. His critic Antiochus, who interpreted

most of Zeno’s philosophy as derivative from the work of the early

Academy, allowed that his theory of katalepsis represented a clean

break from the anti-empiricist stance of the Platonists (Cic. Ac. I 40-

2). It has been very plausibly argued by others1 that even in this case

Zeno’s meditation on a Platonic text, the Theaetetus, did in fact play

a significant part in the development of his theory. But he may well

have valued the Theaetetus less as a statement of Plato’s views than

as a guide to Socrates’ epistemology, to which, if so, he was

advocating a return.

It is amply attested that the commonly quoted three-part

definition of phantasia kataleptike is Zeno’s own. An infallible or

‘cognitive’ impression is one which is

(a) ajpo; uJpavrconto~ - ‘from what is’;

(b) kat∆ aujto; to; uJpavrcon ejnapomemagmevnh kai;

ejnapesfragismevnh - ‘moulded and stamped in accordance with

that very thing which is’;

(c) oJpoiva oujk a]n gevnoito ajpo; mh; uJpavrconto~ - ‘of a kind which

could not arise from what is not’.

I hope it is not too much of a simplification to say that the

following type of interpretation currently holds sway. Zeno’s theory

is not just empiricist, but actually identifies its fundamental criterion

of truth, the cognitive impression, with a kind of sense-perception.

1 Ioppolo (1990); Long (this volume).

Moreover, the theory of sense-perception in question is a causal

one. Our direct sense-impressions, or rather a privileged subset of

them, gain their infallible hold on the world because they are directly

caused by (ajpov - ‘from’) the external things whose impressions they

are.

There is, it is true, pretty good ancient evidence that by the time

of Chrysippus Zeno’s epistemology was being interpreted and

promoted along just these lines. In particular, Aetius2 attributes to

Chrysippus an account of phantasia as a perceptual experience

which reveals both itself and ‘that which has caused it’ (pepoihkov~ or

kinou`n). And this causal relation between the object and the

impression is associated with the same preposition, ajpov, as features

in Zeno’s definition. Thus a fantastovn or ‘impressor’ is the external

object which causes the impression, while a fantastikovn or

‘imagining’ is an empty attraction (diavkeno~ eJlkusmov~) which arises

in the soul ‘from no impressor’ (ajp∆ oujdeno;~ fantastou` ginovmenon).

While it is not explicit, most readers are likely to assume that ajpov is

functioning as a causal preposition.

However, reasonable as this interpretation may seem, it has

gone largely unnoticed that it confronts us with an enormous

exegetical problem in interpreting Zeno’s definition of

phantasia kataleptike. Let us take it that the uJpa'rcon mentioned

in that definition is indeed the external object or state-of-affairs, so

that, by the first clause, the cognitive impression must be caused by

David Sedley136

2 Aetius IV 12.1-5: Cruvsippo~ diafevrein ajllhvlwn fhsi; tevttara tauta.fantasiva me;n ou\n ejstiv pavqo~ ejn tª yucª gignovmenon, ejndeiknuvmenonauJtov te kai; to; pepoihkov~: oi|on ejpeida;n di∆ o[yew~ qewroumen to; leukovn,e[sti pavqo~ to; ejggegenhmevnon dia; th~ oJravsew~ ejn tª yucª. kai; <kata;>touto to; pavqo~ eijpein e[comen o{ti uJpovkeitai leuko;n kinou`n hJma~: oJmoivw~kai; dia; th`~ aJfh~ kai; th`~ ojsfrhvsew~. ei[rhtai de; hJ fantasiva ajpo; tou`fwtov~: kaqavper ga;r to; fw~ auJto; deivknusi kai; ta; a[lla ta; ejn aujt“periecovmena, kai; hJ fantasiva deivknusin eJauth;n kai; to; pepoihko;~ aujthvn.fantasto;n de; to; poioun th;n fantasivan: oi|on to; leuko;n kai; to; yucro;n kai;pan o{ti a]n duvnhtai kinei`n th;n yuchvn, tou`t∆ e[sti fantastovn. fantastiko;ndev ejsti diavkeno~ eJlkusmov~, pavqo~ ejn tª yucª ajp∆ oujdeno;~ fantastou`ginovmenon kaqavper ejpi; tou` skiamacou`nto~ kai; kenoi`~ ejpifevronto~ ta;~cei`ra~: tª ga;r fantasiva uJpovkeitaiv ti fantastovn, t“ de; fantastik“

oujdevn. favntasma dev ejstin ejf∆ o} eJlkovmeqa kata; to;n fantastiko;n diavkenoneJlkusmovn: tau`ta de; givnetai ejpi; tw`n melagcolwvntwn kai; memhnovtwn.

something external, and by the second it must, as we might put it,

graphically portray that external thing. So far so good. But why did

Zeno go on to stipulate, reportedly under pressure from his

Academic critic Arcesilaus (Cic. Ac. II 77-8), his third clause, that it

must also3 be an impression ‘of a kind which could not arise from

what is not’? This, according to the same line of interpretation,

would have to mean ‘of a kind which could not be caused by a non-

existent object (or state-of-affairs)’.

But that cannot be what Zeno meant, for two reasons. First,

Stoicism holds both that only bodies exist, and that only bodies can

be causes. It follows trivially that nothing whatsoever can be caused

by something non-existent. Hence, far from the cognitive

impression being distinguished by its inability to be thus caused,

nothing can be caused by something non-existent. Taken at face

value, Zeno’s third clause adds nothing that was not obvious all

along. One might respond by insisting that the clause means that the

impression cannot fail to have an externally existing cause. But then

we might expect Zeno to have written oJpoiva oujk a]n gevnoito mh; ajpo;;

uJpavrconto~, ‘of a kind which could not arise without coming fromsomething which exists externally’. To have put the same idea with

his actual formulation, ‘of a kind which could not arise ajpo; mh;

uJpavrconto~’, would be decidedly odd. Could any Greek have

understood ajpo; mh; uJpavrconto~ to mean ‘from what is not something

external? Let us assume for the moment that they could. The

solution would still leave untouched the other major difficulty, which

is as follows.

The first clause, on the reading I have been criticising, should be

expected merely to establish the correct causal relation between the

external object and the impression, and it should be left for the

second clause to establish the complete veridicality of the

impression (as well as its clarity). In principle I could have an

Zeno’s definition of phantasia kataleptike 137

3 By ‘also’ I mean no more than that this, like the other two clauses, is true ofthe phantasia kataleptike. I do not thereby mean to favour the ‘strong’ readingdistinguished and criticised by Striker (1997), 266-72. I agree with her that Zenoprobably in fact intended a ‘weak’ reading: that is, he presented his third clauseas merely making explicit something that was already in his view implicit in thefirst two clauses. But nothing in the present paper turns on this question.

impression which is caused by something external, but which is false

(in that it misrepresents one or more of that thing’s features), and a

fortiori not kataleptic. The Stoics were only too familiar with such

examples. Orestes in his madness saw Electra, i.e. had an impression

caused by her, but thought she was a Fury, i.e. had an impression

which did not accurately portray her as she was (SE M VII 170,

249). Likewise, all the familiarly cited optical illusions, such as the

straight oar seen in water as bent, satisfy the first clause but not the

second. They are ‘from what is’, in the causal sense, but fail to be

‘moulded and stamped in accordance with that very thing which is’.

Many of our sources for Stoic epistemology analyse such cases in

just this way. In our fullest account, preserved by Sextus Empiricus

at M VII 248-52, the second clause of the definition is put at the

service of such an interpretation,4 even to the extent of separating it

into two halves: the impression must be (a) in accordance with its

object, and (b) in addition moulded and stamped. Here the first half

of the second clause is unambiguously singled out as capturing the

impression’s veridicality. But the problem is as follows. If it is

correct to locate the impression’s veridicality within the second

clause of the definition, why did Zeno add in his third clause that the

impression in question is of a kind which ‘could not arise from what

is not’? This means that the cognitive impression is of such a kind

that it not only satisfies both the first and the second clause, but,

further, could not have failed to satisfy the first clause. But how

David Sedley138

4 S.E. M VII 249-51: deuvteron de; to; kai; ajpo; uJpavrconto~ ei\nai kai; kat∆aujto; to; uJpavrcon: e[niai ga;r pavlin ajpo; uJpavrconto~ mevn eijsin, oujk aujto; de;to; uJpavrcon ijndavllontai, wJ~ ejpi; tou` memhnovto~ ∆Orevstou mikr“ provteronejdeivknumen. ei|lke me;n ga;r fantasivan ajpo; uJpavrconto~, th`~ ∆Hlevktra~, oujkat∆ aujto; de; to; uJpavrcon: mivan ga;r tw`n ∆Erinuvvwn uJpelavmbanen aujth;nei\nai, kaqo; kai; prosiou`san kai; thmelei`n aujto;n spoudavzousanajpwqei`tai levgwn ÔÔmevqe~: miv∆ ou\sa tw`n ejmwn ∆Erinuvwn jjjjj jjjjj. kai; oJ JHraklh~ajpo; uJpavrconto~ me;n ejkineito twn Qhbwn, ouj kat∆ aujto; de; to; uJpavrcon: kai;ga;r kat∆ aujto; to; uJpavrcon dei` givnesqai th;n katalhptikh;n fantasivan. oujmh;n ajlla; kai; ejnapomemagmevnhn kai; ejnapesfragismevnhn tugcavnein, i{napavnta tecnikw`~ ta; ijdiwvmata tw`n fantastw`n ajnamavtthtai. (wJ~ ga;r oiJglufei`~ pa`si toi`~ mevresi sumbavllousi twn teloumevnwn, kai; o}n trovpon aiJdia; tw`n daktulivwn sfragi`de~ ajei; pavnta~ ejp∆ ajkribe;~ tou;~ carakth`ra~ejnapomavttontai t“ khr“, ou{tw kai; oiJ katavlhyin poiouvmenoi twnuJpokeimevnwn pasin ojfeivlousin aujtwn toi`~ ijdiwvmasin ejpibavllein. Cf. alsoD.L. VII 46.

would that help? Even an impression which is such that it could not

fail to be caused by something external - i.e. could not fail to satisfy

the first clause - may be one which either does, or at least could,

misrepresent that external object or state-of-affairs, i.e. fail to satisfy

the second clause. For example, on this interpretation Zeno’s third

clause would be perfectly well satisfied by a waking impression

whose quality, unlike that of a dream, guarantees that I am definitely

seeing some external object, but where I misidentify that thing, or

identify it correctly but conjecturally. Such an impression, being

fallible or even false, can hardly be kataleptic on any possible

understanding of what the Stoics meant by this term.

This difficulty is problematic enough on any interpretation of the

theory, but for Chrysippus it is quite beyond the pale. He, according

to Aetius (loc. cit., n. 2), distinguishes a phantasia from a

phantastikon or ‘imagining’, defining the phantasia as having an

external cause while the phantastikon has none. Hence from his

point of view Zeno’s third clause, instead of providing the hallmark

of a cognitive phantasia, can do no more than guarantee that the

phantasia really is a phantasia.

Chrysippus was not stupid, and given his explicitly causal reading

of the theory he must have had some credible way of explaining

Zeno’s third clause. (I say ‘explaining’, because it was Chrysippus’

practice not to contradict Zeno but to deal with any difficulties in

Zeno’s philosophy by reinterpreting his ipsissima verba; this

included, in the present context, his reinterpretation of what Zeno

must have meant by calling phantasia a ‘printing’ (tuvpwsi") in the

soul, S.E. M VII 228-31.) At least two later attempts to deal with

the problem of interpreting Zeno’s third clause are extant, and

either or both might in principle be Chrysippean in origin.

One comes from a recently published papyrus fragment5 which

names the Stoic Antipater of Tarsus, head of the school a generation

after Chrysippus; it contains a classification of false phantasiai which

may well reflect Antipater’s own work. The author classifies some


5 PBerol. Inv. 16545, published by M. Szymanski, Journal of JuristicPapyrology 20 (1990), 139-41. See now Backhouse (2000).

ã

impressions as ajpov tino~, ‘from something’, others as oujk ajpov tino~,

‘not from something’, and appears to mean by the latter those

hallucinatory impressions associated with dreams and insanity, ones

with no external impressor at all. It seems a good bet that this

expression is his attempt to make sense of Zeno’s category ajpo; mh;

uJpavrconto~: not ‘caused by a non-existent thing’, but ‘not caused by

something (i.e. by some existent thing)’. That the interpretation

carried some weight in the school is suggested by D.L. VII 46, where

it seems to lie behind a small but significant rewording of the

canonical formulation: a phantasia which fails to be kataleptic

because it is hallucinatory is there described, not as ajpo; mh;

uJpavrconto", but as mh; ajpo; uJpavrconto".

Such a rewriting of Zeno’s terminology would, if accepted, at

best deal with my first listed difficulty - the objection that the

incapacity to be caused by something non-existent is not exclusive

to cognitive impressions but equally applicable to everything. It

would, however, leave untouched my second difficulty, namely that

even an impression of a kind which could not fail to have an external

cause might still, in Stoic terms, be non-kataleptic.

This difficulty and the need to circumvent it are presumably what

lie behind an alternative exegesis of Zeno’s third clause, which is

preserved in Cicero’s Academica. Cicero’s speaker Lucullus

sometimes shows his awareness that the third clause should in effect

specify the following: a cognitive impression is such that, not only is

it true, but neither it nor any impression exactly like it could be afalse one (e.g. Ac. II 18, 34, 42, 57; cf. SE M VII 152). And it is

perhaps in order to show how the third clause could amount to this

that Lucullus paraphrases it as follows at Ac. II 18: ‘... if it [a

cognitive impression] was such as Zeno defined it, ... an impression

stamped and moulded from what it was from, of a kind which couldnot be from what it was not from’ (‘impressum effictumque ex eo

unde esset, quale esse non posset ex eo unde non esset’).6 Thus

Zeno’s third clause, ‘of a kind which could not arise ajpo; mh;

David Sedley140

6 It is important to note that this is in part an interpretation, not a straighttranslation. Cicero had at his disposal a perfectly good translation of ajpo; mh;uJpavrconto~ as ‘ab eo quod non est’ (Ac. II 77).

uJpavrconto~’, is being read as if it meant ‘of a kind which could not

have been from anything other than the specific existing thing that it

is in fact from’. This way of reading the clause has, in Cicero’s wake,

won widespread support among modern interpreters of Stoicism.

This interpretation of the cognitive impression can be summed

up as follows. If you have an impression that the thing before you is

X (where X may be either a type or a token), that impression is a

cognitive one if and only if (i) the impression is being caused by X,

(ii) the impression accurately and graphically portrays X as X, and

(iii) neither this impression nor any impression exactly like it could

have been caused by Y, Z, or any other object apart from X.

Naturally enough, the normal propositional content for such an

impression would typically be of the form ‘This is X’ - since it is the

actual recognition of X as X which one allegedly cannot be wrong

about - rather than some more complex proposition concerning X.

This is likely enough to represent Chrysippus’ explication of

Zeno’s definition, and I see nothing philosophically incoherent

about it. Note, for example, that it succeeds in shifting veridicality

back into the first clause, where it belongs if the third clause is to

make adequate sense. And it points towards the characteristic use of

the theory as we meet it in Stoic-Academic debate, in which the

successful identification of one or more individuals is indeed the

standard type of example invoked - distinguishing between

individual eggs, snakes or twins, Admetus’ failure to recognise his

own wife Alcestis, and so on.7 But at the same time, I cannot believe


7 See esp. SE M VII 401-10 and Cic. Ac. II 83-90, where the arguments of theCarneadean Academy against (presumably Chrysippean) Stoicism turn oneither (a) dreams and hallunications, or (b) misidentifications of individuals,with no obvious cases of (c) misdescriptions. No doubt ajpo; mh; uJpavrconto~ isbeing assumed to amount to ‘caused by no external object’ in (a), and to‘caused by what is not that external object’ in (b). Cf. Rist (1969), 136-8.Striker, (1997) mainly uses the Ciceronian identificatory formulation ‘such ascould not arise from what is not that existing thing’ (pp. 265-70), but also ‘suchthat it could not arise from what is not so’ (p. 260). The words which I haveemphasised - whether taken to mean (a) ‘from what is not as described’, orsimply (b) ‘from what is not the case’ - would clearly extend katalepticimpressions beyond identificatory cases, but would bring us back to one orother of my original difficulties. (a) would not very naturally be expressed by

that it captures what Zeno himself intended by his third clause. If he

had meant ‘of a kind that could not be caused by any object (or state-

of-affairs) other than the one in fact causing it’, he could easily have

said so, but his actual choice of words, ‘of a kind which could not

come ajpo; mh; uJpavrconto~’, is not at all a plausible way of saying it.8

There is, I believe, a better alternative, to which I now turn.

It has as far as I know gone unnoticed that in Hellenisticepistemology there is another, non-causal sense of ajpov. WhenOrestes misperceived Electra as a Fury, his impression is in ourStoic sources described as being ‘from Electra’ (SE M VII 170). Buton other occasions it is treated as an outright hallucination, not amisperception of Electra, and in that case it is described as ‘from theFuries’ (ib. VIII 67). This latter use of ajpov is clearly not causal, sincethere were no Furies to do the causing. Rather it is what I would liketo call a ‘representational’ use of the preposition ajpov. Theimpression was one which represented the Furies. It is on this non-

causal use of ajpov to mean ‘representing’ that I wish to focusattention.

Here is a further Stoic example (SE M VII 244-5):

Impressions which are true and false are like the one whichbefell Orestes, in his madness, from (ajpov) Electra. In so far asit befell him as from something existing (wJ~ ajpo; uJpavrcontov~tino~) it was true, since Electra did exist, but in so far as itbefell him as from a Fury (wJ" ajpo; ∆Erivnuo"), it was false, sinceshe was not a Fury. Another example is if someone dreaming,from Dion who is alive (ajpo; Divwno~ zwnto~) dreams a falseand empty attraction [yeudh` kai; diavkenon eJlkusmovn - theStoic technical expression for a delusion] as from onestanding beside him.

David Sedley142

ajpo; mh; uJpavrconto~; and on (b), what would it mean for any impression to becaused ‘by what is not the case’?8 The best attempt to explain it that I have come across is Frede (1983/1987) p.165 (in the reprint), ‘In what sense could such an impression be said to have itsorigin in what is not? The answer seems to be that the impression does not as awhole have its origin in what is; part of it ... is made up by the mind and is notdue to the object... [I] t is characteristic of perceptual impressions that all theirrepresentational features are due to the object.’ This still, in my view, suggeststhat Zeno would have done better to write mh; ajpo; uJpavrconto~.

The contrast between the two cases discussed is instructive. The

first, that of Orestes, follows the version of the story where he saw

Electra as a Fury. Hence its use of ajpov is causal, as we can see by

means of the following paraphrase. The impression was caused byElectra. In so far as it seemed to be caused by something existing (wJ~

ajpo; uJpavrcontov~ tino~), it was a true impression. But in so far as it

seemed to be caused by a Fury (wJ~ ajpo; ∆Erivnuo~), it was false. In this

series of locutions, ajpov functions as a causal term, and the

representational content of the impression is supplied instead by the

conjunction wJ~.

Now contrast the second case. Dion - whom, we may surmise, I

believed to be dead - is in fact alive. I dream, however, not merely

that he is alive, but also that he is standing beside me. Is my dream

impression true or false? It is both, according to the Stoic

classification, since it implies both the true proposition that Dion is

alive and the false one that he is standing beside me. The impression

that Dion is alive is expressed as ‘from Dion who is alive’. This time

the ‘from’ cannot possibly be causal, since the Stoic dream-theory

differs from the Epicurean one precisely in classing dreams among

empty delusions, which, like the hallucinations of the insane, are

devoid of any external causation by their putative objects.9 Thus in

terms of its causal origins the dream impression of Dion is directly

comparable to the version of the Orestes story, which I considered

slightly earlier, where Orestes’ impression of the Furies was an

outright hallucination (as distinct from the version where he saw

Electra as a Fury). Here too, then, as in the case of Orestes’

delusion, the preposition ‘from’ in ‘from Dion who is alive’ means

not that the impression is caused by the living Dion, but that it

represents the living Dion, or perhaps rather, more explicitly, that it

represents the living Dion as living.

The impression ‘from Dion who is alive’ is further described as

being ‘as from one standing beside’ the dreamer. The apparent

symmetry with the preceding part of the passage may mislead.


9 For the technical significance of yeudh` kai; diavkenon eJlkusmovn as ahallucinatory impression with no external cause, see Aetius, loc cit. n. 2 above;cf. Diog. Oen. fr. 10 Smith, S.E. M VII 241, VIII 67.

There, as we saw, ajpov indicated the causal origin of the impression,

and wJ~ ajpov added the representational content, some of it true, some

of it false. In the Dion case, however, ajpov already in itself introduces

the true representational content – otherwise the true content would

fail to be mentioned at all - and the wJ~ ajpov locution adds the further,

false representational content.

This discrepancy is awkward, and must probably remain so on

any interpretation of the passage. But I think we can at least see how

it has come about. If the dream impression had merely been

described as ajpo; Divwno~, that would have allowed the possibility that

this representational content was false - Dion might have been a

purely imaginary figure, like the Furies of Orestes’ hallucination.

But the expression chosen, ajpo; Divwno~ zwnto~, somehow serves to

inform us that the informational content of the impression is true,

thus leaving the further wJ~ ajpov locution to add merely the false ‘as

if’ content of the impression. And if we ask how the words ajpo;

Divwno~ zw`nto~ convey the truth of the impression, the answer must

surely be that they have been formulated as a specific application of

the generic concept ajpo; uJpavrconto~. That is, an impression ajpo;

Divwno" zw`nto~ is one specific member of that class of impressions

which are ajpo; uJpavrconto".

The representational usage of ajpov, though rare, occurs too often

to be dismissed as mere carelessness. What we have to appreciate, it

seems, is that in Hellenistic Greek an impression from something

functions much as an impression of something does in (as far as I

know) most modern European languages. If we say that Orestes had

an impression of Electra (namely as a Fury), this is a causal ‘of’, but

if we describe a complete hallucination by saying that he had an

impression of a Fury, that is a representational ‘of’. Greek ajpov

seems to function with the same flexibility, sometimes varying even

from one sentence to the next. The rule appears to be as follows. If

I perceive X as Y, my impression will normally be described as

‘from X’, in a fundamentally causal sense. If, on the other hand, I get

an impression of Y, where no attention is being paid to the direct

cause of the impression but merely to its phenomenology, then it is

perfectly acceptable to call this an impression ‘from Y’. Thus if I

hear a bell ringing, it would be normal to call my impression one

‘from’ a bell. But if I simply hear a ringing sound, my auditory

David Sedley144

impression is properly described as ‘from’ something ringing,

regardless of whether the actual cause is a bell, a medical condition,

or a state of dreaming.

Here is a further example of representational ajpov, this time anon-Stoic one. The Cyrenaics, as reported by Sextus, defend theprivacy of our sensations by making a distinction between ourhaving common names for sensibles and our having common pathe.From the fact that you and I both use the name ‘white’ it need notfollow that my sensory experience, that prompts me to use the word,is the same as the one which prompts you to use the word. Thus weread (M VII 196-7):

For everybody in common calls something ‘white’ and‘sweet’, but they do not have something white or sweet incommon. For each person grasps his own experience, butwhether this experience arises in him and in his neighbourfrom (what is) white (ajpo; leukou), neither he himself can tell,since he does not register his neighbour’s experience, nor canthe neighbour tell, since he does not register that person’sexperience. And since no common experience occurs in us,it is rash to say that what appears thus to me appears thus tomy neighbour too. For perhaps I am so constituted as to bewhitened by the object affecting me from outside, whilesomeone else has his sensory equipment so structured as tobe in a different condition.

If we were to insist on the causal interpretation of ajpov, the wordswhich I have emphasised would mean that I cannot tell whether theexternal object causing the experience to which I apply the word‘white’, and also causing the experience to which my neighbourapplies the word ‘white’, is itself white. But that question is entirelybeside the point in this paragraph, having already been fully dealtwith earlier (ib. 191-5), with a different vocabulary for theexperience’s causal relation to the external object (uJpov plusgenitive, and to; ejmpoihtikovn / poihtiko;n tou pavqou~, but not ajpov).10

In the present context, the point made is that, despite the fact that


10 In the sequel (198), on the other hand, the causal ajpov does put in anappearance. Once again this illustrates the ease with which Greek movesbetween the two uses of this preposition.

you and I both agree verbally that (e.g.) snow is white, we have nocriterion for establishing that when we look at snow we are bothexperiencing the same thing, whiteness - or, in the characteristicCyrenaic parlance which emerges in the last sentence, that we areboth being ‘whitened’ by it. It is the unverifiable situation of ourboth experiencing it as white that is conveyed by the ajpov locution.A shared experience ‘from what is white’ means a shared experiencewhich represents the thing as white.11

These non-causal uses of ajpov, to mean roughly ‘representing’,

may well echo a usage which had some currency in the early third

century BC, a time when Zeno was forging the Stoic theory of

cognition and when Cyrenaic epistemology was enjoying its final

phase before the school’s disappearance. For surely this is the sense

of ajpov which we need to recognise in Zeno’s definition of phantasiakataleptike.

Let us return to the three clauses of that definition. A cognitive

impression is, first, ajpo; uJpavrconto~. That is, on the proposed

reinterpretation, it represents what uJpavrcei. What does this mean?

As has often been noted, the verb uJpavrcein is not used in our Stoic

sources as a mere synonym for ei\nai, the ‘being’ or ‘existence’

which bodies alone possess. Even incorporeal predicates are said to

uJpavrcein, merely because they are actually instantiated in

something, and the present is said to uJpavrcein, not because it is a

body, but because unlike the past and the future it is actual (SVF II

509). Thus uJpavrcein conveys the kind of actuality which can belong

not just to bodies which currently exist, but also to currently actual

predications and states-of-affairs. If a cognitive impression

represents what is actual, this may in different cases mean that it

conveys an object which actually exists (e.g. Dion), or a complete

state of affairs which actually obtains in the world, consisting of one

or more objects’ actualisation of specified predicates (e.g. the

complex fact that Dion is walking and Theon is sitting).

If we add the representational sense of ajpov, and thus take ajpo;

uJpavrconto~ to mean ‘representing what is actual’, it gains a far

David Sedley146

11 For a close examination of this passage (incorporating my current suggestionas to how ajpov is to be interpreted), see now Tsouna (1998), ch. 7.

richer meaning than on the causal reading. An impression which

satisfies this description is not necessarily one caused by an external

object or state-of-affairs (although usually it will be thus caused), but

one which represents how it is, and thus already counts as true.12 We

have already encountered an example of such an impression. An

impression ‘from Dion who is alive’, although not even caused by

Dion, represents a uJpavrcon, namely the fact that Dion actually is

alive.

Why, if so, did Zeno’s first clause not simply specify that the

cognitive impression must be ‘true’? Because ‘truth’ is, according to

Stoicism, primarily a property of propositions, one which is at best

no more than derivatively or loosely applicable to the impressions

which convey those propositions (cf. SE M VIII 10). Strictly

speaking, what an impression has, or aspires to, in its own right

should not be ‘truth’, but correspondence to reality. There is

evidence (S.E. M VII 154) that Arcesilaus in his debates with Zeno

especially insisted on this restriction of truth to propositions, and

Zeno’s cautious phrasing may to some extent reflect that adversarial

context.

I shall nevertheless for convenience, if a little loosely, continue

to use the term ‘veridicality’ to describe this correspondence to the

way things are.

If, as I am arguing, the first clause already establishes the

cognitive impression’s veridicality, its representation of the way

things are, what is added by the second clause, which should now be

translated ‘moulded and stamped in accordance with that very thing

which is actual’? We should no longer expect to locate in this clause

the impression’s veridicality. Rather, it limits itself to describing the

graphic qualities with which the cognitive impression’s

representation of how things are is carried out. It does not just

convey in barest outline how things are, but vividly portrays the


12 Frede (1983/1987) rightly takes the first clause already to specify truth; myreinterpretation of ajpov may, I hope, help to show how it can, and also whysome Stoic texts nevertheless located truth either exclusively (S.E. M VII 248-

52, quoted in n. 4 above) or partially (the Berlin papyrus, cited in n. 5 above) inthe second clause.

thing or situation in panoramic detail. Zeno is trying to capture the

richness and absolute clarity which distinguish a totally reliable

impression from an indistinct and therefore unreliable one.

So far I have simply assumed the representational sense of ajpov,

in order to display its results in the reinterpretation of Zeno’s first

two clauses. But it is its application to the third clause which, I think,

confirms that it has every chance of being the meaning that Zeno

intended. We have seen already the severe difficulties that the causal

sense of ajpov generates in the interpretation of the third clause. By

contrast, the representational sense is readily and unproblematically

intelligible there. The clause ‘of a kind which could not arise ajpo; mh;

uJpavrconto~’ will, on this account, mean simply ‘of a kind which

could not represent what is not actual’. If the first clause already

stipulates that the impression should be veridical, the third adds that

it should be the kind of impression that could not fail to be veridical.

There is excellent evidence that this is exactly how Zeno was

understood in his own day. His contemporary critic Arcesilaus

reported the phantasia kataleptike to be one which was not only

true but also ‘of a kind which could not turn out false’ (toiauvth oi{a

oujk a]n gevnoito yeudhv~, SE M VII 152). Or, to express this

infallibility requirement more accurately (in accordance with

Arcesilaus’ own insistence that truth and falsity should belong to

propositions, not to phantasiai): if I have a cognitive impression that

Dion is walking, the stipulation in the third clause is that it must be

an impression such that its representational content, namely that

Dion is walking, could not fail to correspond to an actual state-of-

affairs in which Dion is walking.

There remains an obvious difficulty for this interpretation. If

Zeno intended his ajpov to mean ‘representing’, why did he not find a

less misleading locution to express the idea? I confess that I can

think of no credible antecedent for his representational usage of the

term, and that even his own followers in the school tended to

mistake it for a causal usage. I can offer no more than a guess.

Cicero (Ac. II 76-8) seems to believe that Zeno’s definition

originally consisted of just the first two clauses, and that the

third was added only when he came under pressure from

Arcesilaus. Arcesilaus did not become head of the Academy until

David Sedley148

a few years before Zeno’s own death (somewhere in the years 268-

4; Zeno died in 262/1). There is no need to doubt that the debate in

question could have preceded Arcesilaus’ headship, perhaps by

many years, but their respective ages, with Zeno the senior by some

18 years, still make it plausible that Zeno’s original two-clause

formulation was in circulation for some time before he encountered

Arcesilaus and was forced to refine it by adding the third clause.

It may then well be the case that in his original formulation he

did intend the ajpov in a primarily causal sense, much as it was indeed

to be understood by later Stoics, who could no doubt call on the

evidence of his own writings. If Zeno was drawing his ideas partly

from the Theaetetus, it is very likely both that he, like Plato’s

Socrates, focused on perceptual cases of cognition, and that he took

the wax-impression model which he was borrowing as an obviously

causal one, according to which the form of the external object is,

more or less literally, imprinted on the soul.13

If so, we must conclude that, at any rate by the time that he was

challenged by Arcesilaus and decided to add the third clause, Zeno

had shifted to a primarily representational sense of ajpov, and that it

was this sense which in consequence he assumed in his formulation

of the third clause. Of course, even when still functioning causally,

ajpov must have already carried some representational connotations,

since the external object ‘from’ which the phantasia arises was being

assumed to cause it not in just any way (e.g. in the way that the

person pushing the doorbell is the cause of my hearing it ring), but

specifically by transmitting its own perceptible properties to the

phantasia. Viewed in this light, Zeno’s new move was to not to

introduce these representational properties, but rather to emphasise

them at the expense of the causal ones.14


13 Actually the Theaetetus model does include purely conceptual imprints in thewax (191d5), but neither Socrates in the dialogue nor Plato’s interpreters (cf.already Alcinous, Didaskalikos 154.40-155.13 Whittaker-Louis) seem to makemuch of them.14 I exclude the alternative of letting the revised use of ajpov retain both thecausal and the representational senses. If that were so, the third clause wouldmean ‘of a kind which could not (a) be caused by and (b) represent a non-actualthing or state of affairs’, and that would leave untouched the original difficulty:

Just what might have impelled him to such a shift would thenbecome an urgent question. An attractive possibility is that, havingoriginally conceived the cognitive impression as directly andexclusively perceptual (cf. Cic. Ac. I 40-1), he came in time to see anindispensable role for non-perceptual cognitive impressions.

God’s existence and providence - doctrines to which Zeno

devoted many of his own arguments - are explicitly said in Diogenes

Laertius’ report of Stoic epistemology (VII 52) to be objects of non-

sensory katalepsis. We must not jump too hastily to the assumption

that the cognitions in question are the outcome of non-perceptual

phantasiai kataleptikai. They might, it has been suggested, be

considered by the Stoics to be adequately grounded by earlier

perceptual cognitive impressions of the world’s functioning, and to

acquire their status as cognitions in that way.15 However, Zeno’s

recorded arguments on this theme16 can hardly be said to invite such

an analysis, and it is hard to believe that he considered their

conclusions ‘cognitive’ without assigning the same status to such

salient premises as ‘The rational is superior to the irrational’, and

‘Nothing lacking sensation can have a sentient part’17- premises

which are not easily reducible to, or even derivable from, direct data

of sensory experience.

Again, Zeno defined a tevcnh as a ‘system of cognitions

(katalhvyei~) unified by practice for some goal advantageous in life’

(Olymp. In Gorg. 12.1), and these cognitions were themselves

standardly identified with the theorems constituting the art. Zeno

can hardly have meant to insist on the exclusively perceptual

content of the theorems. Once again there is the possible reply that

he nevertheless saw them as fully grounded by past perceptual

phantasiai kataleptikai. But we have no reason for attributing to him

so impoverished a conception of techne, especially when we bear in

David Sedley150

thanks to the inclusion of (a), the clause would be satisfied by any phantasiawhatsoever.15 See especially Striker (1974). Contra, see Brennan (1996) 324-5.16 For Zeno’s theological and other syllogisms, see esp. Schofield (1983) and K.Ierodiakonou (this volume).17 SE M IX 104; Cic. ND II 22.

mind that at least some virtues are technai, and that their ‘theorems’

must be or include moral principles.18 Zeno is well known to have

argued syllogistically for moral principles, and clearly did not think

that they were founded exclusively in sense-perception.

Finally, what about the cognition of fundamental laws of

thought? Consider such cognitions - ones fundamental to Stoicism -

as that every event has a cause, and that every magnitude is infinitely

divisible. Cognitions like these could hardly be thought either to be

caused by the facts which they record, or for that matter to be

adequately derived from a past series of directly sensory phantasiaikataleptikai.

Later Stoics, at any rate from the time of Chrysippus, would no

doubt have sought to present these and similar intuitions as the

content of ‘common conceptions’ (often treated as equivalent to

prolepseis), which came to function as an independent criterion of

truth alongside phantasia kataleptike; but the identification of these

as criteria of truth is associated explicitly with Chrysippus in our

sources,19 and I know of no evidence that would justify our tracing

that theory back to Zeno’s generation. When the sources attribute a

criterion of truth to Zeno and his generation, they speak exclusively

of katalepsis.20

There is, then, reason to think that Zeno assumed katalepsis to

include a variety of fundamentally non-sensory cognitions. Does it

follow that there are also, corresponding to these, non-sensory

phantasiai kataleptikai? It probably does. Although we have no

formal record of the Stoic definition of katalepsis, Arcesilaus

reported it as ‘assent to a phantasia kataleptike’ (SE M VII 151-3).

Whether or not this ever became a canonical definition,21 Arcesilaus


18 Cf. SVF III 280.19 D.L. VII 54; Alex Mixt. 216.14-218.6 Bruns = SVF II 473.20 S.E. M VII 152; Cic. Ac. I 42, where katalepsis is ‘norma scientiae’, whileconceptions (which must include prolepseis) have a different, apparentlyderivative, status.21 Striker (1974) is probably wise to treat with caution the other passages wherethis equivalence is attributed to the Stoics. However, if I am right, analternative to her way of accounting for those passages may lie in Zeno’s ownwritings.

at the very least provides strong evidence as to how a contemporarycritic understood Zeno himself to be using the term. And if he isright, it is hard to see how the phantasia kataleptike to which a non-

sensory katalepsis is an assent can itself be anything other than anon-sensory one. It is, indeed, well-established Stoic usage to speakof a class of non-sensory phantasiai, and of phantasiai which are ofincorporeals despite the fact that they cannot be caused by thoseincorporeals.22 There is no reason to doubt that these could includekataleptic phantasiai.

If this reconstruction is right, Zeno must have come to accept

that philosophical understanding relies at least in part on non-

sensory phantasiai kataleptikai. Assuming further that by this time

at least the first two clauses of his famous definition of phantasia

kataleptike were already established, perhaps even the subject of

inter-school debate, he had good reason to present that definition as

one not intended to be interpreted in a narrowly causal or

perceptual sense: the ajpov relation is one expressing accurate

representation of reality, without necessarily in every case also

implying causal derivation from that reality.

My suggestion, then, is that it was in the course of his theory’s

evolution beyond the crude model offered by the Theaetetus that

Zeno found himself treating the ajpov relation less as a causal

derivation than as a representational one. In so far as he was

conscious of this semantic shift, he may be imagined as justifying it

by reflecting that the ajpov element present in his second clause,

ejnapomemagmevnhn kai; ajnapesfragismevnhn, already served to

convey this aspect of the impression: it is so moulded and stamped

in the mental wax as to represent its object accurately. Be that as it

may, a result of this new realisation was that the first clause, rather

than the second, came in Zeno's own usage to be the chief one for

conveying the cognitive impression’s basic representational

David Sedley152

22 See D.L. VII 51 on non-sensory phantasiai. They explicitly include those ofincorporeals, and S.E. M VIII 409 attests a Stoic attempt to show that thesecould involve non-causal representation. Chrysippus’ narrower, causaldefinition of phantasia (Aetius loc. cit. n. 2 above) should perhaps be regardedas adding a specific sense of phantasia to this generic one.

accuracy - its veridicality. When, consequently, the debate with

Arcesilaus finally came to a head, it was natural that Zeno’s newly

specified infallibility clause should borrow its materials from this

first clause.

If this suggestion is right, Zeno’s successors, reading his writings

as a single corpus rather than diachronically, must have failed to

recognise his drift away from a causal account of cognition.

Consequently, they were impelled to emphasise those cognitive

impressions whose derivation did indeed lie in the direct causal

action of the object upon the perceiving subject. That, at all events,

is what the Stoic theory of phantasia kataleptike eventually became.

But we should not be too confident that the theory’s thoroughgoing

empiricism fully captures Zeno’s own mature intentions.23

________________________

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ñ Backhouse, T. ‘Antipater of Tarsus on false “phantasiai” (P Berol inv.

16545)’, in Studi e testi per il Corpus dei papiri filosofici greci e latini10, Papiri filosofici, Miscellanea di Studi III (Florence 2000) 7-31.

ñ Brennan, T. ‘Reasonable impressions in Stoicism’, Phronesis 41

(1996), 318-34.


23 The basic thesis of this paper, concerning the meaning of Zeno’s threeclauses, is one which I have already sketched briefly in my (1998), p. 152. Indeveloping it further, I have benefited from the comments of ThamerBackhouse, Gisela Striker and Michael Frede, and from discussion withparticipants at the September 1998 Larnaca conference ‘Zeno and his Legacy’(especially Malcolm Schofield), at a Florence seminar in December 1998, and atthe Séminaire Léon Robin, Paris, in February 1999. It should not be assumedthat they all endorse my conclusions.

ñ Frede, M. ‘Stoics and Skeptics on clear and distinct impressions’, in

M.F. Burnyeat (ed.), The Skeptical Tradition (1983) 65-93; repr. in M.

Frede, Essays in Ancient Philosophy (Minneapolis 1987), 151-76:

ñ Ierodiakonou, K. 'Zeno's Arguments.' (this volume).

ñ Ioppolo, A.M. ‘Presentation and assent: a physical and cognitive

problem in early Stoicism’, CQ 40 (1990), 433-49.

ñ Long, A.A. 'Zeno's epistemology and Plato's Theaetetus' (this

volume).

ñ Rist, J.M. Stoic Philosophy (Cambridge 1969).

ñ Schofield, M. ‘The syllogisms of Zeno of Citium’, Phronesis 28 (1983),

31-58.

ñ Sedley, D. Article ‘Stoicism’ in E. Craig (ed.), The RoutledgeEncyclopedia of Philosophy (London 1998), vol. 9, 141-61.

ñ Striker, G. Appendix to ‘Krithvrion th`~ ajlhqeiva~’ (original German

version Göttingen 1974; repr. in English in her Essays on HellenisticEpistemology and Ethics, 22-76).

ñ Striker, G. ‘Academics fighting Academics’ in B. Inwood, J. Mansfeld

(eds), Assent and Argument: Studies in Cicero’s Academic Books(Leiden 1997) 257-76.

ñ Tsouna, V. The Epistemology of the Cyrenaic School (Cambridge

1998).

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