thinker who framed his project as a preservation and elaboration of Z’s ideas. It is
difficult now to determine to what extent he faithfully followed Ze ̄no ̄n and to what extent he
was critical. Although some ancient sources seem to indicate considerable divergence, solid
evidence of a sharp break is not always obvious. In any case, Chrysippus’ Stoicism was to
become the standard orthodoxy for the whole early period of the school. Chrysippus was a
prolific author, with over 700 books attributed to him. D L (7.181) relates
that Chrysippus is supposed to have written 500 lines a day, though his books are said to be
padded with unnecessarily long quotations from other authors.
He was a considerable logician, and Diogene ̄s Laërtios (7.180) reports a “common”
saying that “if there were dialectic among the gods, it would be Chrysippean.” It is certainly
true that much of the logic among the Stoics, at least, was Chrysippean. He divided logic
into dialectic and rhetoric. Under dialectic, he contributed to the theory of meaning, the
logic of signs, and modal logic, among other subjects. Rhetoric he defined as “the science of
speaking correctly” (Quintilian, Inst. 2.15.34).
For Chrysippus, the kosmos is a finite and unified sphere, containing no void within, but
surrounded by void. It is subject to periodic conflagration and eternal recurrence. It consists
of the four Aristotelian elements, of which the primary element is fire. Pneuma, composed
of fire and air, sustains and unifies the kosmos and is the source of the tension (tonos) that
keeps the kosmos together both as a whole and in all of its parts, through the dynamic
interaction of necessarily inherent heat and cold. Pneuma also provides the “tenor” or
character (hexis) of what we might now be tempted to call natural kinds. Only bodies exist.
All causes are bodies, and the causal agent is that “because of which” a state of affairs comes
about. The kosmos is reducible, at one level of description, to two coextensive bodily
principles: matter (passive) and god (active, shaping and structuring matter). Chrysippus put
forth a complex theory of mixtures (best preserved in A A’
De mixtione) to understand the nature of the co-extensiveness of these two bodies. That an
eternal self-mover (god) permeates the kosmos means that the kosmos itself must be
both rational and divine.
Chrysippus argued for strict determinism still allowing for individual moral responsibility.
The important inter-relations between physics and ethics are shown by Chrysippus’ posi-
tion that ethics is best grounded in “universal nature and the governance of the world”
(P, St. rep. 1035C–D), an important landmark in the development of natural-law
theories of ethics.
G and others report that Chrysippus situated the controlling part of the human soul
in the heart. Like all Stoics, Chrysippus argued for the corporeality of the soul, and he
claimed the soul of individuals to be mortal, though the souls of the wise survive the deaths
of individuals and persist until the conflagration (this in contrast to Kleanthe ̄s: D.L., 7.157).
Several stories are told of his death: one that he died after falling dizzy while drinking.
Another story has him dying in a fit of laughter after seeing a donkey eat some figs. He
called out to an old woman to give the donkey some wine to wash them down, and then
laughed himself to death.
Ed.: SVF v.2.
E. Brehier, Chrysippe et l’ancien stoicisme (1951); J.B. Gould, The Philosophy of Chrysippus (1970); S. Bobzien,
Determinism and Freedom in Stoic Philosophy (1998); B. Inwood, ed., Cambridge Companion to the Stoics
(2003).
Daryn Lehoux
CHRYSIPPUS OF SOLOI