128 //-9 to //-13
presentations to exist in the leading part [of the soul] since different
impressions are conceived in it at different times. Therefore, an impres-
sion, strictly conceived, is not a presentation.
Sextus M 8.56-58 (SVF 2.88) [11-10]
56 .... For every thought comes from sense-perception or not without
sense-perception and either from direct experience or not without direct
experience. 57. Hence, we shall find that not even the so-called false
presentations (for example, those occurring in sleep or madness) are
independent of things known to us through sense-perception by direct
experience .... 58. And in general one can find nothing in our conceptions
which is not known to oneself in direct experience. For it is grasped
either by similarity to what is revealed in direct experience or by expansion
or reduction or compounding.
Sextus M 8.27 5-6 [11-11]
- But if the sign is neither sensible, as we have shown, nor intelligi-
ble, as we have established, and there is no third possibility beyond these,
one must say that the sign is not a something. The dogmatists are silenced
by each of these arguments and in their effort to prove the opposite they
say that man differs from the irrational animals not in virtue of verbalized
reason (since crows and parrots and jays verbalize articulate utterances)
but in virtue of internal reason; 276. and not in virtue of just a simple
presentation (since they too receive presentations) but in virtue of a
presentation which is based on transference and composition. And that
is why, having a conception of logical consequence, man immediately
derives a conception of a sign as a result of the logical consequence. For
the sign itself is something like this: "if this, this". Therefore, the existence
of a sign follows on the nature and constitution of man.
Aetius 4.11.1-5 (= Dox. Gr. pp. 400-401;
SVF 2.83) The origin of sense-perception,
conceptions and internal reason.
[11-12]- The Stoics say: When man is born, the leading part of his soul is
like a sheet of paper in good condition for being written on. On this he
inscribes each and every one of his conceptions. - The first manner of writing on it is through the senses. For when
one perceives something, white, for example, one retains a memory after
it goes away. When there are many memories similar in kind then we