Thinker · TH-0106
Chrysippus
Chrysippus of Soli succeeded Cleanthes as head of the Stoic school in Athens and gave Stoicism its systematic form. He developed a logic of…
Χρύσιππος
Also known as Chrysippus of Soli
c. 280 – 207 BCE · Soli (Cilicia); Athens
Traditions: Greek & Roman
Schools: Stoicism
Chrysippus of Soli succeeded Cleanthes as head of the Stoic school in Athens and gave Stoicism its systematic form. He developed a logic of propositions centred on conditionals and the indemonstrable argument forms, and defended a doctrine of fate with room for responsibility, illustrated by a rolling cylinder, in a view modern commentators often call compatibilist. His many writings are lost and survive only in fragments and reports.
Key ideas
- Everything happens by fate, yet our assent depends on our own character, as a cylinder's rolling depends on its shape once it is pushed.
- Valid reasoning can be built from a small set of basic argument forms about propositions.
- Passions are mistaken judgements about what is good or bad.
- Virtue is the only good, and living according to nature is living according to reason.
Major works
- Writings lost; fragments in Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta (ed. H. von Arnim, 1903–1905)
- Reported in Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Book VII
- Reported in Cicero, De fato, and Galen, On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato
In the conversation
- Discussion Found the Master Argument in Epictetus, between two bus stops
- Question I know the spider is harmless and I’m still terrified. Is my fear wrong, or just irrational?
- Reading group Reading group: Epictetus, Discourses II.19, where the Master Argument meets a bus driver
- Question Epictetus says some things are up to us. What did that depend on for him?
- Discussion Can I keep Stoic advice and leave Stoic determinism behind?
- Discussion Orí and the Stoic cylinder: does a destiny you chose make you more free or less?
- Debate Take away the rational cosmos and Stoic ethics becomes a coping technique
- Reading group Reading group: Nussbaum’s Upheavals of Thought, Part One, over four weeks
- Debate Kasb is a real distinction, not a verbal escape: the Ash’ari answer deserves a hearing
- Reading group Reading group: Stoic logic in Diogenes Laertius, Lives Book VII