Table Of ContentTHE STOIC THEORY OF
OIKEIOSIS
STUDIES IN
HELLENISTIC CIVILIZATION
Edited by
Per Bi/de, Troe/s Engberg-Pedersen,
Lise Hannestad, and Jan Zahle
II
Troels Engberg-Pedersen
THE STOIC THEORY OF
OIKEIOSIS
Moral Development and Social Interaction
in Early Stoic Philosophy
AARHUS UNIVERSITY PRESS
Copyright: Aarhus University Press, 1990
Printed in Denmark by Rosendahls Bogtrykkeri, Esbjerg
ISBN 87 7288 323 5
AARHUS UNIVERSITY PRESS
Aarhus University, DK-8000 Aarhus C
CONTENTS
Preface 7
Part I
I The Aristotelian Background and the Stoic Notion of the Telos / 6
II Nature's Role 36
III Oikeiosis I 64
IV Oikeiosis II 80
V Apatheia / 0 I
VI Morality and Action 116
Part II
VII Belief: From Rudimentary Consciousness to Knowledge 142
VIIl Intention and Passion: Desire as Belief J 70
IX Freedom 207
Notes 236
Select Bibliography 264
General Index 2 7/
Index Locorum 275
PREFACE
The aim of this book is to determine the logical content and wider systematic
role within Stoicism of the Stoic theory of moral development and social
interaction: the doctrine of oikeiosis. Fifty years ago Max Pohlenz placed
oikeiosis firmly on the map as the centre-piece of Stoic ethics, but he did not
go very far in determining its exact sense (Pohlenz 1940). With the
rejuvenation of the study of Hellenistic philosophy from around 1970
onwards, steps have been taken to make up for this deficiency (Long 1970-1,
Pembroke 1971, Kerferd 1972, Graeser 1972, White 1979, again Long 1983).
But doubts have also been expressed whether the concept was actually meant
to carry the weight that Pohlenz had given it (Striker 1983). Indeed, the
overall view of most of the scholars referred to seems, in effect if not in
intent, to have been on the same, fairly skeptical side. I believe, however,
and this belief has been a major impulse behind writing the book, that
Pohlenz' insight was basically right and thus that there is a need for a
renewed consideration of the question of the exact sense and doctrinal
implications of the concept of oikeiosis within Stoicism as a whole.
The question I am addressing is twofold. The first element concerns the
logical content of the process of oikeiosis itself and the role it plays in
relation to the question of the foundation of Stoic ethics. One important issue
is that of the role of the Stoic teleological and pantheistic understanding of
nature for the question of foundations. I aim to show that the doctrine of
oikeiosis locates the foundation of ethics elsewhere than in teleology and
pantheism. This whole issue forms the topic of chapters I-IV. in which I
first (chapter I) discuss the exact meaning of the Stoic notion of the telos (in
relation to Aristotle's starting-point in ethics, his concept of eudaimonia), then
(chapter II) the classic passage in Diogenes Laertius (VII 85-89) that is
almost always taken to locate Stoic ethics squarely within a framework of
natural teleology. and then ( in chapters III and IV) attempt to show that
another classic passage (Cicero, De Finibus III 16-21) unfolds the doctrine
of oikeiosis in a way that relativizes crucially the role of natural teleology in
8 Preface
Stoic ethics. Indeed, the latter comes out as an altogether different theory
from how it is normally taken.
The second element in the question I am addressing concerns the role of
oikeiosis in relation to certain other central topics within, or on the borderline
of, Stoic ethics: the question of the wise man's relation to "natural goods",
the determination of the telos as not just knowledge but also virtue. the unity
of the virtues, the distinction between kathekonta and katorthomata, the
analysis of horme and passion, the explanation of passion and the doctrine
of its cure, and finally the notion of freedom. The directly ethical among
these topics are discussed in the remaining chapters of part I of the book
(chapters V-VI), those belonging rather in the psychology of action (and
hence in Stoic terms under "natural philosophy") in part II (chapters VIII-IX;
chapter VII provides a bridge between the two parts, as I explain in the
introduction to that chapter). All these topics are well known and have been
intensely discussed since antiquity. It is my contention, however, that the
doctrine of oikeiosis provides answers to at least some important issues that
have been raised in relation to them once it is understood in the sharpened
way that I have argued for in the first chapters.
It has been my aim all through to stick rigorously to the twofold question
that I have just identified, with a sharp focus on the doctrine of oikeiosis. At
present there is no lack of in themselves excellent general accounts of Stoic
ethics (e.g. Long I 974, Forschner 1981. Inwood 1985 and most recently
Reesor 1989). But there is a certain danger, as I see it, in the study of Stoic
ethics that has not always been completely evaded. It is a danger that is due
both, one suspects, to the poor state of the evidence for Stoic philosophy
and also, I believe, to certain characteristics of that philosophy itself. The
danger is this: From antiquity we have received a great amount of highly
fragmentary and extremely variegated material bearing on Stoic philosophy.
We also have the information that the Stoics considered all parts of their
philosophy to hang together tightly in a single, coherent system. But then
it becomes tempting, in attempts to provide the necessary reconstruction of
any given part of their philosophy, to bring in as much of the transmitted
material as is at all possible and to see the success of the enterprise in the
extent to which it can point to "systematic" connections, almost no matter
which, between the various items that are stitched together. This temptation
should be resisted, however. It is of course true that any attempt at a
reconstruction must be systematic in intent. But the aim of the interpreter
should be to focus on a single, and hopefully central, issue and let that issue
determine what material should be included in the treatment and what
Preface 9
excluded, which systematic connections should be deemed to be relevant and
which irrelevant.
This is what I have attempted to do. And that is why I spend some time
(in chapter I) on the question of the starting-point of an inquiry into Stoic
ethics, and why there are also plenty of problems and topics that might well
be thought relevant to my overall topic but which receive no treatment here,
even in relation to oikeiosis itself ( e.g. questions concerning the meaning of
the term itself, the historical parentage of the doctrine and the like: some of
these questions have been adequately dealt with by others, others are
irrelevant to the line I am pursuing). And that is also why I concentrate
heavily on certain basic texts instead of moving more or less elegantly from
one text to another. (Thus, e.g., chapters III-VI may be read as a kind of
commentary on the relatively tightly argued account of Stoic ethics provided
by Cicero in De Finibus Ill.)
The risk that I have mentioned concerns not only the question of approach
and formal strategy in the interpretation of Stoic ethics, but also that of
content. I have already expressed my doubts about the role that scholars tend
to ascribe to the Stoic teleological, pantheistic image of nature in relation to
their ethics. Similarly. I am doubtful about the way in which Stoic materi
alism is often brought into the analysis of their ethics and psychology. These
are examples, I believe, of scholars overstepping conceptual limits which the
Stoics themselves were keen to maintain in spite of their talk of the one,
overall system. Rather, we should approach Stoic ethics and psychology as
precisely that, ethics and psychology.
There is a third, but as we shall see closely connected, characteristic of
much modem study of Stoic ethics and psychology with which I am in dis
agreement. This is a pervasive reluctance on the part of scholars to taJce the
Stoic psychological monism (what is often referred to as their "intellec
tualism") quite seriously. Scholars know, of course, that the Stoics (at least
Chrysippus) were explicit in their affirmation of this point. but one often has
the feeling that they are not able to follow the Stoics sufficiently to see what
they were trying to say: that they actually wanted to analyse any form of
desiderative or evaluative attitude as a purely cognitive phenomenon.
The three points that I see as characteristic of much recent study of Stoic
ethics and psychology-moving away from ethics and psychology proper to
natural philosophy (the teleological, pantheistic image of nature and the ma
terialistic ontology) and moving away from the Stoic psychological monism
in a way which does not quite take it seriously as the philosophical theory
it purports to be-are closely connected in that they tum our attention away
JO Preface
from the one basic insight which, as I shall argue, constitutes the core of
Stoic philosophy in the area of ethics and psychology. This core is made up
of a specific understanding of human identity, including the capacity of
human beings to grasp that identity, in short a specific understanding of hu
man rationality: rationality as found in the human individual. It is my belief
that all the Stoic doctrines that I discuss in the second part of my investi
gation can be derived from, and find their meaning in, this specific under
standing of human rationality. And it is the essence, I believe, of the theory
of oikeiosis itself, which I discuss in the first part of my account, to bring
out precisely that core. Thus, by concentrating on this specifically anthropo
logical, in the sense of philosophical anthropological, theme I hope to be able
to elucidate first the kind of theory that Stoic ethics is, in terms of founda
tions, and secondly the interconnection of some of its basic ideas.
Stoic philosophy, and Stoic ethics in particular, has suffered from an
acutely bad press not just in the last 150 years, but right back to antiquity.
"It is a weird theory" was David Furley 's concise summary of his overall
impression of Stoic ethics a few years ago. More tentatively optimistically,
however, and with a view to Stoic ethics too, George Kerferd has expressed
his general feeling that "we are, and ought to see ourselves as, still at a fairly
early stage in the detailed interpretation of Stoic doctrines". In line with this,
scholars have recently come to appreciate the need for adopting an approach
to Stoicism which starts out from being just as sympathetic to them as the
attitude with which anybody will approach, e.g., Plato or Aristotle (partly
Long 1983, splendidly Campbell I 985, explicitly Nussbaum 1987 and Gosling
1987 and partly Long and Sedley 1987). This change is of the utmost import
ance, I believe, for the sheer ability of interpreters to come to grips with
what the Stoics were actually wanting to say. Indeed, it is probably a neces
sary condition of this. But it also fits into a pattern of growing interest both
in some of the ideas that received their first clear articulation in Stoic
philosophy and also in the historical role of Stoicism in European culture. As
a representative of the first one may think of Thomas Nagers recent book
The View from Nowhere (New York 1986), which focusses on an exploration
of two viewpoints (the objective and the subjective), the interplay of which
is central, on the account presented here, to Stoic ethics. (But I had reached
my own understanding of the Stoics before reading Nagel's book.) The
second increase of interest is evidenced by Charles Taylor's latest book on
Sources of the Self, The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge 1989),
which clearly shows the crucial importance of Stoicism in the formation of
the modem identity in the 17th and 18th centuries. (However, Taylor's case
