The Stoic Account of Apprehension
Philosophers' Imprint 14:1-21 (2014)
Abstract
This paper examines the Stoic account of apprehension (κατάληψις) (a cognitive achievement similar to how we typically view knowledge). Following a seminal article by Michael Frede (1983), it is widely thought that the Stoics maintained a purely externalist causal account of apprehension wherein one may apprehend only if one stands in an appropriate causal relation to the object apprehended. An important but unanswered challenge to this view has been offered by David Sedley (2002) who offers reasons to suppose that the Stoics (or at least Zeno, the founder of the Stoa) did not make such a causal stipulation. I offer a defence of the traditional, causal reading against the challenges raised by Sedley but also argue, against the traditional view, that the Stoic account incorporated an internalist element. On the hybrid account defended here, in order to apprehend not only must the agent stand in an appropriate causal relation to the object apprehended but the agent’s appearance of the object must also be clear (a feature which is accessible to the epistemic agent). The traditional scholarly view rejects internalist interpretations because it is thought that such interpretations cannot make sense of the Stoics’ discussion of the ‘automatic assent’ produced by kataleptic appearances and a purely externalist view is taken to be charitable insofar as it saves the Stoics from a vicious regress which they would otherwise face (were they internalists). I spell out how the regress might be taken to function and defend an internalist interpretation against both these charges. The internalist element embraced by the Stoics does not lead to the problems it is often thought to and the account defended here not only does justice to the textual evidence but also sheds light on the Stoic debates with their sceptical opponents and grants the Stoics an epistemic account fit for purposeAuthor's Profile
My notes
Similar books and articles
The Stoics Reader: Selected Writings and Testimonia.Brad Inwood & Lloyd P. Gerson (eds.) - 2008 - Hackett Pub. Co..
Sócrates y Aristóteles en el examen estoico de la incontinencia.Marcelo D. Boeri - 1999 - Anuario Filosófico 32 (63):193-224.
Duhem’s theory of mixture in the light of the Stoic challenge to the Aristotelian conception.Paul Needham - 2002 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 33 (4):685-708.
Loneliness and belonging: Is stoic cosmopolitanism still defensible ?Sandrine Berges - 2005 - Res Publica 11 (1):3-25.
Stoic Cosmopolitanism and Zeno's Republic.John Sellars - 2007 - History of Political Thought 28 (1):1-29.
Stoic Virtues: Chrysippus and the Religious Character of Stoic Ethics.Christoph Jedan - 2009 - Continuum.
Sons of the earth: Are the stoics metaphysical brutes?Katja Maria Vogt - 2009 - Phronesis 54 (2):136-154.
Stoic Conceptions of Freedom and their Relation to Ethics.Susanne Bobzien - 1997 - Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 41 (S68):71-89.
Two Long-running Stoic Myths: A Centralized Orthodox Stoic School and Stoic Scholarchs.Ivor Ludlam - 2003 - Elenchos 24 (1):33-55.
Analytics
Added to PP
2014-10-28
Downloads
1,185 (#5,634)
6 months
56 (#22,924)
2014-10-28
Downloads
1,185 (#5,634)
6 months
56 (#22,924)
Historical graph of downloads
Author's Profile
Citations of this work
The Stoic Appeal to Expertise: Platonic Echoes in the Reply to Indistinguishability.Simon Shogry - 2021 - Apeiron 54 (2):129-159.
Rational Impressions and the Stoic Philosophy of Mind.Vanessa de Harven - 2018 - In John Sisko, Rebecca Copenhaver & Christopher Shileds (eds.), The History of Philosophy of Mind: Pre-Socratics to Augustine, ed. John Sisko, Vol. 1 of six-volume series The History of the Philosophy of Mind, ed. Rebecca Copenhaver and Christopher Shields. Routledge Publishing. pp. 215-35.
Clear and Distinct Perception in the Stoics, Augustine, and William of Ockham.Tamer Nawar - 2022 - Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 96 (1):185-207.
References found in this work
Theory of Knowledge.Roderick Chisholm - 1966 - Englewood Cliffs, NJ, USA: Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall.
Internalism Explained.Ralph Wedgwood - 2002 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 65 (2):349-369.