Hellenistic Philosophy Introductory

(Marvins-Underground-K-12) #1

168 l/-38 to l/-43
Is space what is such as to be occupied by what is, only bigger, and,
as it were, a larger container for a body, or is it what has space for a
larger body? Anyway, the void is said to be unlimited. For what is outside
the cosmos is like this and place is limited because no body is unlimited.
Just as the bodily is limited, so the incorporeal is unlimited, for time is
unlimited and so is void. For just as the nothing is no limit, so [there is
no limit] of the nothing, which is what the void is like. For it is unlimited
in its own substance. And again, this is limited by being filled. If what
fills it is removed, it is not possible to conceive of a limit for it.


Sextus M 7.38-45 (SVF 2.132) [11-39]



  1. Some, and especially the Stoics, think that truth differs from the
    true [or what is true] in three ways: in substance, composition and power.
    In substance, in that truth is corporeal and the true is incorporeal. And
    reasonably so, they say; for the true is a proposition and a proposition
    is a thing said [lekton ]; a thing said is incorporeal. And again truth is a
    body in that it seems to be knowledge which declares all which is true;

  2. and all knowledge is the leading part of the soul in a certain state
    (as the hand in a certain state is thought of as a fist). And the leading
    part of the soul, according to them, is a body. Therefore, truth too is
    corporeal in kind. 40. In composition, in that the true is conceived of as
    something single and simple in nature, such as "it is day" and "I am
    speaking"; and truth is conceived thought of in the opposite way as
    systematic and a collection of several things, in that it is knowledge ....

  3. In power, these things differ from one another since the true is not
    always connected to truth (for a fool and an idiot and a madman sometimes
    say something true but do not have knowledge of the true) and truth is
    contemplated in knowledge. Hence, he who has this is a wise man (for
    he has knowledge of true things) and never lies even if he says something
    false since he utters it not from a bad disposition but from a good one.
    ... 44 .... In this way the wise man, i.e., the man who has knowledge
    of the true, will sometimes say what is false but will never lie since his
    mind will not assent to a falsehood.. .. 45.... Saying a falsehood is
    very different from lying in that the former comes from good intention,
    whereas lying comes from bad intention.


Sextus M 8.11-12 (SVF 2.166) [11-40]
11 .... And there was yet another quarrel among the dogmatists; for
some located the true and false in the thing signified, some located it in
the utterance and some in the motion of the intellect. And the Stoics
championed the first view, saying that three things are linked with one
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