Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Home
  • Home

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Send to Kindle
  • Send to Dropbox
  • Send to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

1 results

  • Chapter 6 - Soul, Pneuma, and Blood: The Stoic Conception of the Soul
  • Edited by Brad Inwood, Yale University, Connecticut, James Warren, University of Cambridge
  • Book: Body and Soul in Hellenistic Philosophy
  • Published online: 20 May 2020
  • Print publication: 11 June 2020, pp 145-170
  • View extract

    Summary

    Throughout its long history, Stoic philosophy was subjected to much criticism, from inside the school as well as from outside. This is particularly true when it comes to psychology. Roughly speaking, the Stoic soul is characterised by two main features: first, it is defined as a single and entirely rational substance which has no parts, in particular no irrational parts as is the case in Platonic and Aristotelian theories; this psychological monism is the ground for what I will call the ‘Stoic pledge’, namely that the moral agent is absolutely responsible for all his mental acts: impressions (phantasiai) and assents (sunkatatheseis), and also passions, virtues and vices, sensations, and so on. All of these are in our power, because we always have the ability to avoid them, to have second thoughts about them, and to put them right if they are wrong.