a kind of species contained in them, are magnanimity, continence, endurance,
presence of mind, wisdom in council. And the Stoics define prudence as a know-
ledge of what is good, and bad, and indifferent; justice as a knowledge of what
ought to be chosen, what ought to be avoided, and what is indifferent; [93]
magnanimity as a knowledge of engendering a lofty habit, superior to all such
accidents as happen to all men indifferently, whether they be good or bad;
continence they consider a disposition which never abandons right reason, or a
habit which never yields to pleasure; endurance they call a knowledge or habit by
which we understand what we ought to endure, what we ought not, and what is
indifferent; presence of mind they define as a habit which is prompt at finding out
what is suitable on a sudden emergency; and wisdom in counsel they think a
knowledge which leads us to judge what we are to do, and how we are to do it, in
order to act becomingly.
(Diogenes Laertes, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, 7, 92–93)To acquire this knowledge and these habits, and to maintain them, is a constant
endeavour. Stoicism is an active creed and a way of life. Despite the ascetic tendency
of their philosophy, Stoics were not required to withdraw from social or public life;
engagement was encouraged. And a cosmopolitanism strain in Stoicism encouraged
the notion of the brotherhood of man, which extended to slaves. There is no
equivalent in Stoic thought of Aristotle’s doctrine of natural slavery.
Stoic epistemology, the belief that knowledge could be attained through reason,
was challenged in mid-century by Arcesileus of Pitane in Aetolia who was head of
the Academy from about 268. Arcesileus used the Socratic elenchus, the system of
question and answer, to demonstrate the uncertainty of knowledge, since reason is
dependent upon the world of sense impression and cannot therefore have reliable
access to truth. This state of affairs requires a suspension of judgement, thus
undermining the basis of Stoic certainty. He was not the first Sceptic and may have
been following the lead of an elder contemporary Pyrrhon of Elis. Carneades of
Cyrene (c.241–129), a successor of Arcesileus as head of the Academy extended
scepticism to any form of dogmatic assertion or belief and also meliorated its effect
by his doctrine of probability as the basis for knowledge and action.
However, the chief opposition to Stoicism came from the school of Epicurus of
Samos (341–271), who settled in Athens in 307 where he bought a home with a
garden, the latter giving its name, the Garden, to the philosophical school which he
set up in it. Here he lived with his followers in an ascetic seclusion detached from the
world and quite unthinkable in Classical Athens. He identified pleasure (the absence
of pain) with the good and aspired to ataraxia,freedom from disturbance. In one of
his letters he is careful to distinguish the true pleasures of the Epicurean from those
vulgarly attributed to his school.
212 THE GREEKS