Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

According to Diogenes Laertius' Lives of Eminent Philosophers , an unbroken chain of teachers and pupils links Socrates to the earliest Stoics (1.15). The founder of Stoicism, Zeno of Citium, is said to have studied with Crates (6.105 and 7.2), who is supposed to have absorbed Cynicism from Diogenes of Sinope (6.85 and 87), and Diogenes, in turn, reportedly earned the label “Cynic” under the influence of Antisthenes (6.21), who is called a follower of Socrates (6.2). Ancient philosophical biographies show a fondness for teacher-pupil successions of this sort, and historical facts did not always get in the way. Nevertheless, there is no doubt about the point that motivates this particular succession: Socrates influenced Stoicism profoundly. Stoics manifested their debt to Socrates in two distinctive ways. First, Stoics embrace paradoxical doctrines in the style of Socrates, and indeed, they embrace many of Socrates' own paradoxes. Cicero saw this clearly, averring that “most of the surprising so-called paradoxa of the Stoics are Socratic” ( Academics 2.136). When Cicero wrote Stoic Paradoxes to show how his rhetorical skill could make the paradoxes of the Stoa plausible to a general audience, he concentrated on six of the “most Socratic” (4) theses: only the fine is good, virtue suffices for happiness, vicious actions are equal and virtuous actions are equal, everyone who is ... log in or subscribe to read full text