166
Alexander of Aphrodisias Comm. on
Arisotle's Topics 121a10, 127a26 (CIAG 2.2,
p. 301.19-25, 359.12-16 = SVF 2.329)
l/-33 to l/-38
[11-33]301.19 In this way you might show that the Stoics do not properly
posit the something as a genus of 'that which is'; for obviously, if it is
a something, it is something which is. And if it is something which is, then
the definition of being would apply to it. But they made an idiosyncratic
stipulation to the effect that 'that which is' applies only to bodies and
so tried to evade the paradox. For thus they say that the 'something' is
its highest genus and is predicated not just of bodies but also of incorpore-
als .... 359.12 In this way it will be shown that the something is not
the genus of everything. For it will also be the genus of the one, which
is either co-extensive with it or of even wider extent, if indeed the one
also applies to the concept; but the something applies only to bodies and
incorporeals, while the concept, according to the proponents of this
theory, is neither of these.Sextus M 10.218 (SVF 2.331) [11-34]
The Stoics, though, thought that time is incorporeal. For they say
that of "somethings" some are bodies and some are incorporeals and they
listed four kinds of incorporeals: lekton [thing said] and void and place
and time. From which it is clear that in addition to supposing that time
is incorporeal they also believe that it is a thing conceived of as existing
on its own.Plutarch Common Conceptions 1081c-1082a
(SVF 2.518, 2.519)[11-35](1081c) It is paradoxical for the future and past time to exist and for
present time not to exist, but for the recent and more remote past to
subsist and for the "now" not to exist at all. But this result does obtain
for the Stoics, who do not allow a minimal time to exist and do not want
to have a partless "now"; but they say that whatever one thinks one has
grasped and conceived as present is in part future and in part past.
Consequently there neither remains nor is left in the "now" any part of
present time (1081d), if the time which is called present is divided up,
some of it being future and some past ....
(1081£) ... Chrysippus wishing to be subtle about the division [of
time] says in his On Void and in some other writings, that the past part
of time and the future part do not exist but subsist and only the present
exists. But in the third, fourth and fifth books of On Parts he posits that