1. Heraclitus of Ephesus, Fragments, b125, b50, b54, b123 (6th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
|
2. Plato, Cratylus, 402a (5th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE)
| 402a. Socrates. It sounds absurd, but I think there is some probability in it. Hermogenes. What is this probability? Socrates. I seem to have a vision of Heracleitus saying some ancient words of wisdom as old as the reign of Cronus and Rhea, which Homer said too. Hermogenes. What do you mean by that? Socrates. Heracleitus says, you know, that all things move and nothing remains still, and he likens the universe to the current of a river, saying that you cannot step twice into the same stream. Hermogenes. True. |
|
3. Plato, Theaetetus, 153a, 152e (5th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE)
| 152e. 0ceanus the origin of the gods, and Tethys their mother, Hom. Il. 14.201, 302 has said that all things are the offspring of flow and motion; or don’t you think he means that? THEAET. I think he does. SOC. Then who could still contend with such a great host |
|
4. Cicero, On The Ends of Good And Evil, 2.2 (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)
2.2. sed et illum, quem nominavi, et ceteros sophistas, ut e Platone intellegi potest, lusos videmus a Socrate. is enim percontando percontando A 2 percun- tando NV percunctando A 1 BE per cunctando R atque interrogando elicere solebat eorum opiniones, quibuscum disserebat, ut ad ea, ea haec R quae ii ii hi BER hii A hij NV respondissent, si quid videretur, diceret. qui mos cum a posterioribus non esset retentus, Arcesilas archesilas A acesilaos N achesilas V eum revocavit instituitque ut ii, qui se audire vellent, non de se quaererent, sed ipsi dicerent, quid sentirent; quod cum dixissent, ille contra. sed eum eum om. RNV qui audiebant, quoad poterant, defendebant sententiam suam. apud ceteros autem philosophos, qui quaesivit aliquid, tacet; quod quidem iam fit etiam etiam om. BER in Academia. ubi enim is, qui audire vult, ita dixit: 'Voluptas mihi videtur esse summum bonum', perpetua oratione contra disputatur, ut facile intellegi possit eos, qui aliquid sibi videri sibi aliquid (aliquit E) videri BE aliquid videri sibi V dicant, non ipsos in ea sententia esse, sed audire velle contraria. Nos commodius agimus. | 2.2. But we read how Socrates made fun of the aforesaid Gorgias, and the rest of the Sophists also, as we can learn from Plato. His own way was to question his interlocutors and by a process of cross-examination to elicit their opinions, so that he might express his own views by way of rejoinder to their answers. This practice was abandoned by his successors, but was afterwards revived by Arcesilas, who made it a rule that those who wished to hear him should not ask him questions but should state their own opinions; and when they had done so he argued against them. But whereas the pupils of Arcesilas did their best to defend their own position, with the rest of the philosophers the student who has put a question is then silent; and indeed this is nowadays the custom even in the Academy. The wouldâbe learner says, for example, 'The Chief Good in my opinion is pleasure,' and the contrary is then maintained in a formal discourse; so that it is not hard to realize that those who say they are of a certain opinion do not actually hold the view they profess, but want to hear what can be argued against it. |
|
5. Cicero, On The Nature of The Gods, 1.11 (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)
| 1.11. To those again who are surprised at my choice of a system to which to give my allegiance, I think that a sufficient answer has been given in the four books of my Academica. Nor is it the case that I have come forward as the champion of a lost cause and of a position now abandoned. When men die, their doctrines do not perish with them, though perhaps they suffer from the loss of their authoritative exponent. Take for example the philosophical method referred to, that of a purely negative dialectic which refrains from pronouncing any positive judgement. This, after being originated by Socrates, revived by Arcesilas, and reinforced by Carneades, has flourished right down to our own period; though I understand that in Greece itself it is now almost bereft of adherents. But this I ascribe not to the fault of the Academy but to the dullness of mankind. If it is a considerable matter to understand any one of the systems of philosophy singly, how much harder is it to master them all! Yet this is the task that confronts those whose principle is to discover the truth by the method of arguing both for and against all the schools. |
|
6. Plutarch, On Common Conceptions Against The Stoics, 1085a (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
|
7. Plutarch, On Stoic Self-Contradictions, 1034d (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
|
8. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of The Philosophers, 7.2, 7.31, 7.157, 7.175 (3rd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
| 7.2. He was a pupil of Crates, as stated above. Next they say he attended the lectures of Stilpo and Xenocrates for ten years – so Timocrates says in his Dion – and Polemo as well. It is stated by Hecato and by Apollonius of Tyre in his first book on Zeno that he consulted the oracle to know what he should do to attain the best life, and that the god's response was that he should take on the complexion of the dead. Whereupon, perceiving what this meant, he studied ancient authors. Now the way he came across Crates was this. He was shipwrecked on a voyage from Phoenicia to Peiraeus with a cargo of purple. He went up into Athens and sat down in a bookseller's shop, being then a man of thirty. 7.31. We have ourselves mentioned the manner of Zeno's death in the Pammetros (a collection of poems in various metres):The story goes that Zeno of Citium after enduring many hardships by reason of old age was set free, some say by ceasing to take food; others say that once when he had tripped he beat with his hand upon the earth and cried, I come of my own accord; why then call me?For there are some who hold this to have been the manner of his death.So much then concerning his death.Demetrius the Magnesian, in his work on Men of the Same Name, says of him: his father, Mnaseas, being a merchant often went to Athens and brought away many books about Socrates for Zeno while still a boy. 7.157. Zeno of Citium and Antipater, in their treatises De anima, and Posidonius define the soul as a warm breath; for by this we become animate and this enables us to move. Cleanthes indeed holds that all souls continue to exist until the general conflagration; but Chrysippus says that only the souls of the wise do so.They count eight parts of the soul: the five senses, the generative power in us, our power of speech, and that of reasoning. They hold that we see when the light between the visual organ and the object stretches in the form of a cone: so Chrysippus in the second book of his Physics and Apollodorus. The apex of the cone in the air is at the eye, the base at the object seen. Thus the thing seen is reported to us by the medium of the air stretching out towards it, as if by a stick. 7.175. Antiquities.of the Gods.of Giants.of Marriage.On Homer.of Duty, three books.of Good Counsel.of Gratitude.An Exhortation.of the Virtues.of Natural Ability.of Gorgippus.of Envy.of Love.of Freedom.The Art of Love.of Honour.of Fame.The Statesman.of Deliberation.of Laws.of Litigation.of Education.of Logic, three books.of the End.of Beauty.of Conduct.of Knowledge.of Kingship.of Friendship.On the Banquet.On the Thesis that Virtue is the same in Man and in Woman.On the Wise Man turning Sophist.of Usages.Lectures, two books.of Pleasure.On Properties.On Insoluble Problems.of Dialectic.of Moods or Tropes.of Predicates.This, then, is the list of his works. |
|
9. Eusebius of Caesarea, Preparation For The Gospel, 15.20.2 (3rd cent. CE - 4th cent. CE)
|
10. Arius Didymus, Fragments, 39
|
11. Stoic School, Stoicor. Veter. Fragm., 1.6, 1.135, 1.140-1.141
|