Book contents
- Frontmatter
- PART I INTRODUCTION
- PART II LOGIC AND LANGUAGE
- 4 Introduction
- 5 Logic
- 6 Language
- PART III EPISTEMOLOGY
- PART IV PHYSICS AND METAPHYSICS
- PART V ETHICS AND POLITICS
- Synopsis of principal events
- Editions of sources and fragments
- List of abbreviations
- Bibliography
- Index locorum
- General Index
- References
4 - Introduction
from PART II - LOGIC AND LANGUAGE
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
- Frontmatter
- PART I INTRODUCTION
- PART II LOGIC AND LANGUAGE
- 4 Introduction
- 5 Logic
- 6 Language
- PART III EPISTEMOLOGY
- PART IV PHYSICS AND METAPHYSICS
- PART V ETHICS AND POLITICS
- Synopsis of principal events
- Editions of sources and fragments
- List of abbreviations
- Bibliography
- Index locorum
- General Index
- References
Summary
A map of logic
The Stoics were the innovative logicians of the Hellenistic period; and the leading logician of the school was its third scholarch, Chrysippus. Most of this section of the History will therefore describe Stoic ideas and Stoic theories. Its hero will be Chrysippus.
Logic is the study of inference, and hence of the items upon which inference depends – of propositional structure (or ‘grammar’), of meaning and reference. That part of their subject which the Hellenistic philosophers called γoλiκη (logikē) was a larger discipline; for logikē was the science which studies γóλoς in all its manifestations, and logic is included in logikē as a part. Indeed as a part of a part. For the Stoics divided logikē into two subparts, rhetoric and dialectic; and logic is a part of dialectic.
The founder famously distinguished rhetoric from dialectic by a gesture:
When Zeno of Citium was asked how rhetoric differed from dialectic, he closed his hand and then opened it again, saying ‘Thus’. With the closing he aligned the rounded and brief character of dialectic, and by opening and extending his fingers he hinted at the breadth of rhetorical power.
M II.6–7)The gesture is picturesque, and it caught the imagination; but the thought behind it was neither original nor enlightening.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy , pp. 63 - 76Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1999