The early Greek Stoics were the first philosophers to recognize the object of normal human perception as predicative or propositional in nature. Fundamentally we do not perceive qualities or things, but situations and things happening, facts. To mark their difference from Plato and Aristotle, the Stoics adopted phantasia as their word for perception.

This chapter contains sections titled: Pre‐Socratics and Sophists Socrates Socrates and Plato Aristotle Hellenistic Philosophy Conclusion Bibliography.