Intuitions in Stoic philosophy

ABSTRACT

There is no single ancient Greek word in the surviving fragments and testimonies of Hellenistic philosophy that is directly translatable by the term ‘intuition’. But if we are in search of intuitions in the context of Hellenistic epistemology, it could be said that both the Stoics and the sceptics made use of them in their philosophical debates; for intuitions seem to be closely connected with the formation of conceptions, which were abundantly used by all Hellenistic philosophers. It is important to understand, though, that the Stoics’ and the sceptics’ attitude towards the epistemic status of intuitions would greatly differ: The Stoics would explain intuitions by invoking a rational capacity of human beings, which based on experience would put them in touch with the reality of things, so that their intuitions could be thought of as somehow rationally admissible. The sceptics, on the other hand, would suggest that intuitions guide our everyday life merely on the basis of our previous experiences, and thus their intuitions could be regarded as empirically justified, although they would not guarantee any access to how things actually are.

KEYWORDS:

• Intuitions
• Stoics
• sceptics
• preconceptions
• common conceptions

There is no single ancient Greek word in the surviving fragments and testimonies of Hellenistic philosophy that is directly translatable by the term ‘intuition’, meaning either the capacity to apprehend something without the need of discursive reasoning, or the immediate apprehension resulting from such a capacity. But did the Hellenistic philosophers make allowances in their theories of knowledge for the epistemic role that is usually ascribed to intuition, namely as the primary evidential basis of a philosophical inquiry? Our ancient sources on Epicurean and Stoic epistemology are extremely scarce and difficult to interpret, since they are often unreliable and sometimes contradictory. In addition, the possibility of substantial developments in the doctrines of Hellenistic philosophers further complicates the situation and leaves ample space for doubtful speculations. Still, it is worth examining, I think, whether intuitions played a significant role at the foundations of Epicurean and Stoic dogmatic theories, and whether the ancient sceptics questioned the soundness of the knowledge these intuitions were supposed to provide.

My aim in this article is more modest. I want to focus on what we find among the limited Stoic sources that can be said to come close to our contemporary use of intuitions, and merely touch upon the Epicurean origins and the subsequent sceptical objections. The thesis I intend to argue for claims that the Stoics’ conceptions (ennoiai) fulfil the role intuitions play in recent epistemological discussions, even if the conceptions of the Stoic wise person do not have the pre-rational immediacy that characterizes our present sense of intuitions.

Let me start with a Hellenistic thought experiment, which is reported by Cicero on two occasions (Off. 3.90; Rep. 3.30 = Lactantius, Inst. Div. 5.16.10). The sceptics challenged the Stoic notion of justice, by asking what would happen if after a shipwreck there were two survivors with just one plank that could carry only one person. The Stoics replied that, if the two survivors were indeed wise, and hence just, they would naturally leave the plank to the person whose life most mattered for her own sake and for that of her city. The sceptics, on the other hand, pointed out that if the wise person tried to save herself, as a wise person would do, she would act unjustly, and if she left the plank to the other wise person, as a just person would do, she would die and this would be foolish; so, justice and wisdom do not seem to concur, at least not according to the way the Stoics conceived of these notions.

Focusing on the Stoics: On what grounds did they support their reply? The Stoics’ scenario of this imaginary problem case presupposes their depiction of the wise person as someone who has all virtues and, in particular, the virtue of justice. The fact that the wise person is just means, according to Stoic ethics, that she possesses the notion of justice and applies it without exception to all her everyday deeds, including unexpected situations like the one described in the thought experiment with the two shipwrecked survivors. Thus, being motivated by her notion of justice, the wise person leaves the plank to the other wise person, whose life most matters for her immediate family and for her entire city. For the wise person has a natural impulse for her own survival, but she is also perfectly aware of the fact that she constitutes one small part of the rational Stoic universe and may have to perish for the common well-being:¹

[T 1] What are you? A human being. Now, if you regard yourself as a thing detached, it is natural for you to live to old age, to be rich, to enjoy health. But if you regard yourself as a human being and as a part of some whole, on account of the whole it is fitting for you now to be sick, and now to make a voyage and run risks, and now to be in want, and on occasion to die before your time. Why, then, are you vexed? Do you not know that as the foot, if detached, will no longer be a foot, so you too, if detached, will no longer be a human being? For what is a human being? A part of a state; first of that state which is made up of gods and human beings, and then of that which is said to be very close to the other, the state that is a small copy of the universal state.

(Epictetus, Diss. 2.5.25–7; trans. W. A. Oldfather, modified)

But how has the wise person acquired this notion of justice, which accordingly guides her behaviour? The Stoic theory about the way rational human beings form their general notions or conceptions (ennoiai) has been studied systematically and extensively by contemporary scholars.² The Stoics defined conceptions as ‘stored thoughts’ (enapokeimenai noêseis),³ that is, as rational impressions (logikai phantasiai) that are formed and retained in the human soul on the basis of the experience we accumulate from memories of repeated sense impressions:⁴

[T 2] When a human being is born, the Stoics say, she has the commanding part of her soul like a sheet of paper ready for writing upon. On this she inscribes each one of her conceptions. The first method of inscription is through the senses. For by perceiving something, e.g. white, they have a memory of it when it has departed. And when many memories of a similar kind have occurred, we then say we have experience. For the plurality of similar impressions is experience. Some conceptions arise naturally in the aforesaid ways and undesignedly, others through our own instruction and attention. The latter are called ‘conceptions’ only, the former are called ‘preconceptions’ as well. Reason, for which we are called ‘rational’, is said to be completed from our preconceptions during our first seven years.

(Aëtius 4.11.1–4; trans. LS 39E, modified)

The Stoics thus distinguished two kinds of conceptions (ennoiai), namely preconceptions (prolêpseis) and conceptions in the narrow sense.⁵ In fact, it was the Epicureans who first introduced preconceptions as the general notions human beings acquire empirically,⁶ but the Stoics later presented a more elaborate account of conceptions by drawing the distinction between preconceptions and conceptions in the narrow sense: Stoic preconceptions are said to be acquired naturally (phusikôs) and undesignedly (anepitechnêtôs),⁷ whereas conceptions in the narrow sense are formed through instruction (didaskalia) and attention (epimeleia).

Hence, the Stoics used the term ‘ennoiai’ in two different senses, namely as the genus of which preconceptions are a species and as a distinct species of conceptions, i.e. conceptions in the narrow sense. And it seems, on the basis of the scanty textual evidence we have, that the inchoate preconceptions initially formed in the human soul can subsequently be developed and transformed, by virtue of some guided or concentrated intellectual effort, into articulated conceptions, i.e. conceptions in the narrow sense; this transformation of preconceptions into conceptions in the narrow sense is called by the Stoics ‘articulation’ (diarthrôsis):⁸

[T 3] [The Stoics say that from the senses] the mind forms conceptions (notiones) – ennoiai, as they call them – of those things, that is, which they articulate by definition. The entire method of learning and teaching, they say, stems and spreads from here.

(Augustine, CD 8.7; trans. LS 32F)

Indeed, it is such refined conceptions, rather than rough preconceptions, that the wise person possesses and rational human beings should use in their arguments, according to the Stoics, if they want to achieve certain knowledge and understanding:⁹

[T 4] Who among us has not upon his lips the words ‘good’ and ‘bad’, ‘advantageous’ and ‘disadvantageous’? For who among us does not have a preconception of each of these terms? Very well, is it properly articulated (diêrthômenên) and complete? Prove that it is. ‘How shall I prove it?’ Apply it properly to specific facts. To start with, Plato classifies definitions under the preconception ‘the useful’, but you classify them under that of ‘the useless’. Is it, then, possible for both of you to be right? How can that be? Does not one person apply his preconception of ‘the good’ to the fact of wealth, while another does not? And another to that of pleasure, and yet another to that of health? Indeed, to sum up the whole matter, if all of us who have these terms upon our lips possess no mere empty knowledge of each one severally, and do not need to devote any attention (mêdemias epimeleias) to the articulation (diarthrôsin) of our preconceptions, why do we disagree, why fight, why blame one another?

(Epictetus, Diss. 2.17.10–13; trans. W. A. Oldfather, modified)

Moreover, the Stoics further subdivided conceptions in the narrow sense into common conceptions (koinai ennoiai), i.e. the articulated preconceptions that are accessible to all rational human beings,¹⁰ and those conceptions in the narrow sense that are rather technical and accessible only to a few experts (Diogenes Laertius 7.51.10–12).¹¹ For instance, artists tend to form conceptions that are not acquired by others through their specialized training, whereas ethical conceptions and, in particular, the conception of god as a living being are treated by the Stoics as common conceptions shared by all people:

[T 5] Well then, if there are gods, they are living beings; and one can use the same argument by which the Stoics taught that the world is a living being to establish that god too is a living being. For a living being is superior to a non-living being, and nothing is superior to god; therefore, god is a living being – and people’s common conception comes to the aid of this argument, since ordinary life and the poets and the majority of the best philosophers testify to the fact that god is a living being.

(Sextus Empiricus, M 9.138; trans. R. Bett, modified)

This passage is, in fact, one of the few texts exemplifying the actual use of conceptions in argumentation; and the following passage offers us another similar instance, although it is again unclear to what extent such arguments reflect accurately the Stoics’ own way of reasoning:

[T 6] Again, if there are not gods, piety, which is a sort of justice towards the gods, is non-existent; but according to the common conceptions and preconceptions of all human beings there is piety, in so far as there is in fact something pious; therefore, there is also the divine.

(Sextus Empiricus, M 9.124; trans. R. Bett, modified)

Note that the conception of piety is described, here, both as a common conception and as a preconception. For even if the Stoics drew a precise distinction between preconceptions and common conceptions, what matters in this passage is to stress that both kinds of conceptions are accessible to all people; the preconceptions thanks to our sense impressions and the common conceptions thanks to some articulation of our initial preconceptions.

There are, however, some puzzling passages in our ancient sources that refer to Stoic preconceptions as ‘innate’ or ‘implanted’ (emphutoi), and such a characterization seems, at least at first sight, to be in direct conflict with the Stoic empiricist account of the formation of conceptions as presented above in [T 2]:¹²

[T 7] He [i.e. Chrysippus] says that the theory of good and bad things introduced and approved by himself is most in harmony with life and connects best with the innate preconceptions.

(Plutarch, Stoic. Rep. 1041E; trans. LS 60B)

Since such passages are found mainly in later sources,¹³ contemporary scholars have suggested that it was the late Stoics who introduced an innatist distortion of the empiricist early Stoic theory, either because they were influenced by Plato or because they were trying to defend their views from sceptical challenges.¹⁴

But there is enough evidence to argue that the late Stoics did not deviate considerably from the standard Stoic view on this subject; the members of the early Stoa claimed, too, that human beings are naturally predisposed to the formation of preconceptions, and especially to the formation of ethical preconceptions.¹⁵ To take those of good and bad things, for instance, the Stoics were in agreement that they derive ultimately from the natural tendency, innate in all animals, to distinguish what is beneficial for themselves from what is harmful; and this natural tendency is the much discussed early Stoic notion of appropriation (oikeiôsis), which was translated into Latin as commendatio or conciliatio:¹⁶

[T 8] They [i.e. the Stoics] say that an animal has self-preservation as the object of its first impulse, since nature from the beginning appropriates it, as Chrysippus says in his On Ends book 1. The first thing appropriate (oikeion) to every animal, he says, is its own constitution and the consciousness of this. For nature was not likely either to alienate (oikeiôsai) the animal itself, or to make it and then neither alienate it nor appropriate it. So it remains to say that in constituting the animal, nature appropriated it to itself. This is why the animal rejects what is harmful and accepts what is appropriate.

(Diogenes Laertius 7.85; trans. LS 57A)

This innate disposition of all animals is thus responsible, in the case of human beings, for generating simple mental processes that result in the formation of preconceptions, which are meant to ensure the preservation of rational animals and contribute to their well-being. In other words, when Chrysippus talked of innate preconceptions he did not imply that human beings were born with them, but that they had the natural inclination to register and assess their sense impressions, so as to form in the early stages of childhood preconceptions fit for their life of rational animals.

Furthermore, the Stoic notion of oikeiôsis did not concern only the relation one has to oneself but also the relation one has to others, that is, it had, in addition, a social dimension. Indeed, this social oikeiôsis seems to have been responsible, according to the Stoics, for the formation of the conception of justice that all people share:¹⁷

[T 9] We have an appropriate relationship to members of the same species. But a person’s relationship to her own citizens is more appropriate. For appropriation varies in its intensification. So those people [i.e. the Stoics] who derive justice from appropriation, if on the one hand they are saying that a person’s appropriation in relation to herself is equal to her appropriation in relation to the most distant Mysian, their assumption preserves justice; on the other hand no one agrees with them that the appropriation is equal. That is contrary to plain fact and one’s self-awareness. For appropriation in relation to oneself is natural and irrational, whereas appropriation in relation to one’s neighbours, while also natural, is not independent of reason. If, at any rate, we charge people with misbehaviour, we not only criticise them but we are also alienated from them, whereas they themselves, having done wrong, although they do not welcome the criticisms, cannot hate themselves. So appropriation in relation to oneself is not equal to appropriation to anyone else, given that our relationship to our own parts is not one of equal appropriation. For we are not disposed in just the same way relative to our eyes and our fingers, let alone to our nails and hair, seeing that we are not alienated from their loss equally either, but to a greater or lesser extent. If on the other hand they themselves should say that appropriation can be intensified, we may grant the existence of philanthropy, but the predicaments of shipwrecked sailors will refute them, where it is inevitable that only one of two survive. Even apart from circumstances, they themselves are in a position to be refuted. Hence, the members of the Academy use arguments of the following kind as well … [text breaks off].

(Anonymous commentary on Plato’s Theaetetus, 5.18–6.31; trans. LS 57H, modified)

Interestingly enough, this passage not only presents oikeiôsis as the foundation of justice, it also refers explicitly to the thought experiment with the two shipwrecked survivors we have started with. Moreover, it clearly suggests that it was the Academic sceptics who challenged the Stoics’ claim that the conception of justice instilled by oikeiôsis in the survivors’ souls would urge them to leave the only plank at hand to the person whose life most mattered for her own sake and for that of her city. Unfortunately, the text breaks off and we do not know the counter-arguments used by the Academic sceptics.

Therefore, the Stoics’ dispositional innatism does not seem to be in conflict with their empiricist doctrine concerning the formation of conceptions. Preconceptions occur naturally in the human soul on the basis of empirical experience and constitute the building blocks of human rationality; it is thanks to them that we subsequently articulate common or expert conceptions, so that we further develop our reason and ultimately attain certain knowledge.¹⁸ Most importantly, for our present purposes, it becomes clear that the acquisition of preconceptions originates from cognitive processes that do not require any conscious inferential thought. In fact, it is exactly the way these preconceptions are acquired that guarantees, according to the Stoics, their correctness and trustworthiness; for all preconceptions are characterized by the Stoics as clear or self-evident (enargeis):¹⁹

[T 10] To meet sophistic arguments we must have the processes of logic and the exercise and the familiarity with these; against convincing appearances of things we must have our preconceptions clear, polished like weapons, and ready at hand.

(Epictetus, Diss. 1.27.6; trans. W. A. Oldfather, modified)

Due to their clarity or self-evidentness (enargeia) preconceptions are listed by the Stoics, just as they were by the Epicureans before them, among their criteria of truth (kritêria tês alêtheias), that is, among the fundamental truths upon which the rest of human knowledge securely rests.²⁰

The conception of justice that urges one of the two shipwrecked survivors to leave the plank to the other is the articulation of such a clear or self-evident preconception; no discursive reasoning leads to it, but it is rather formed in the wise person’s soul simply on the basis of her empirical experience and by virtue of a natural disposition of her intellect, that is, by virtue of some kind of intuitive insight. It is in this sense, then, that Stoic conceptions could be considered as intuitions. The question that immediately arises, of course, is how the Stoics further explained the clarity or self-evidentness of the wise person’s conception of what is just, which is meant to support her intuitive belief in its correctness and trustworthiness. More generally, it needs to become clear how enargeia, according to the Stoics, gives a priviledged epistemic status to the conceptions of rational beings as criteria of truth; for it is not only that their conceptions are true, they are also guaranteed to be true.²¹ So, it is crucial to understand the Stoics’ justification for claiming that the conceptions, which are naturally formed in the human soul, actually correspond to the way things occur in reality, and are thus duly regarded as foundations of knowledge.

To settle this issue, a brief recourse is needed to some basic doctrines of Stoic physics. The Stoics believed that the world we live in is a living organism endowed with reason (logos), which implies that the coming into being and passing away of all things is regulated by a rational order governed by a perfect intellect (nous). In other words, Stoic cosmology postulates a providential arrangement of the universe organized by an active principle that is identified in our sources, among other things, as god.²² Adult human beings share to some degree the reason that characterizes god, because they have an innate rational capacity to form conceptions and obtain wisdom:²³

[T 11] Do you not see how working craftspersons, while deferring to laypersons up to a point, nevertheless stick to the principle of their craft and will not bear to desert it? Is it not strange, then, that the architect and the doctor will show greater respect for the guiding principle of their craft than human beings will for their own guiding principle, the reason they have in common with the gods?

(Marcus Aurelius 6.35; trans. R. Hammond, modified)

The Stoics, consequently, were epistemological optimists; they defended the view that in principle human beings have the rationality required to acquire knowledge and become wise, since they partake of the reason that governs the cosmos. In fact, our sources talk of a Stoic doctrine of ‘common reason’ (koinos logos) in the sense both of the reason characterizing the universe and of the reason shared by all people.²⁴

In the case of human beings, in particular, common reason is constituted by the conceptions that are naturally imprinted in all human souls; this is actually what Epictetus called ‘common intellect’ (koinos nous):²⁵

[T 12] When someone asked him [i.e. Epictetus] what ‘common intellect’ was, he replied: Just as a sense of hearing which distinguishes between sounds would be called ‘common’ (koinê), but that which distinguishes between articulated sounds is no longer ‘common’ but ‘expert’ (technikê), so there are certain things which those people who are not altogether corrupted see by virtue of their common starting points (koinas aphormas). Such a mental consitution is called ‘common intellect’.

(Epictetus, Diss. 3.6.8, trans. W. A. Oldfather, modified)

The common intellect becomes in this way the principle from which all arts and virtues arise, as is suggested by one of the headers in Diogenes Laertius’ list of Chrysippus’ list of ethical books (Diogenes Laertius 7.201). But the Stoics’ view on the common intellect presupposes, of course, that the common starting points given to us by nature are not corrupted (Diogenes Laertius 7.89). Hence, although all people are by nature able to form conceptions and develop their reason, it is only the conceptions of those who are wise, or at least of those who are not altogether corrupted, that constitute what the Stoics regarded as common intellect; and it is precisely on this common intellect that the universal agreement among citizens is supposed to be based, so that it appropriately becomes the common law:

[T 13] If mind (to noeron) is common to us all, then we have reason also in common – that which makes us rational beings. If so, then common too is the reason which dictates what we should or should not do. If so, then law too is common to us all. If so, then we are citizens. If so, we share in a constitution. If so, the universe is a kind of community. In what else could one say that the whole human race shares a common constitution?

(Marcus Aurelius 4.4; trans. M. Hammond)

Of course, the Stoics were well aware of the fact that in reality not all people share the same conceptions. In fact, they explained this by claiming that human reason is often distorted, that is, people are often corrupted either because they have not sufficiently advanced their rationality or because they have been misled by the doctrines of other philosophical schools:²⁶

[T 14] In On Lives book 4 he [i.e. Chrysippus] writes as follows: ‘The opposite arguments and the plausibilities of the opposite case must not be produced in a casual way but cautiously, lest people be diverted by them and give up their cognitions through not being able to understand the solutions adequately and through the instability of their cognitions; for those who base their cognitions on common sense (kata sunêtheian) and sense objects and the other things that derive from the senses easily let these go when diverted by puzzles of the Megarians and by a good many others which are more effective’.

(Plutarch, Stoic. Rep. 1036D-E; trans. LS 31P)

So, when Chrysippus presented arguments in favour and against the common sense (sunêtheia), as two titles of his books clearly attest,²⁷ his intention seems to have been first to list arguments against the ordinary people’s use of empirical experience, just as the other ancient philosophers often did, and then to defend the wise person’s use of empirical experience, since this constituted for him the foundation of certain knowledge.²⁸ For, according to Chrysippus, the common sense that represents the views of ordinary people may be corrupt, whereas the common sense that lies at the basis of the wise person’s judgements is correct and secure.

Hence, there is no conflict in Stoicism between the common sense and the wise person’s reason. The Stoics understood the common sense not as encompassing the opinions of the many, but as denoting the cognitive capacity human beings possess when their rationality functions properly. Indeed, strictly speaking, it is only those who are wise that can be said to possess the common sense, by virtue of which they possess conceptions that are rationally admissible without being the product of discursive reasoning. And it is exactly this common sense or the common intellect that explains why all wise persons would give the same intuitive verdict in cases like the scenario with the two shipwrecked survivors.

It is also worth pointing out that the Stoic notion of the common intellect appears again in the writings of the Aristotelian commentators and, in particular, in Alexander of Aphrodisias.²⁹ Alexander distinguishes between the intellect that arises through learning in the various branches of knowledge and the natural (phusikos) or material (hulikos) intellect with which all people are endowed, although some are naturally more gifted than others in this respect; it is the natural or material intellect that Alexander also calls ‘common intellect’ (koinos nous):

[T 15] Alternatively, all who are not disabled have a share of this intellect up to a point as well, being guided by their own nature to a comprehension of the universal and a composite knowledge of things. This is more properly called the ‘common intellect’.

(Alexander, De an. 82.12–15; trans. V. Caston, modified)

To assume that there is a Stoic influence in the terminology Alexander uses here is quite reasonable. Besides, in several passages, Alexander talks of the common conceptions (koinai ennoiai) of those whose intellect is not corrupted, just as the Stoics previously did, although he himself treats them as the starting points (archai) of the Aristotelian process for the acquisition of human knowledge:³⁰

[T 16] It is in Aristotle’s practice, in every inquiry, to use the common and natural preconceptions of human beings as starting points for what he himself is proving; [thus] he confirms that cognition and the desire for knowledge are natural to human beings from the fact too that we have been endowed by nature with these starting points, for these are the common conceptions.

(Alexander, in Met. 9.19–23; trans. W. E. Dooley, modified)

To recapitulate, the Stoics justified their position with regard to the behaviour of the shipwrecked survivors by appealing to the wise person’s conception of justice, a conception that she naturally acquired simply on the basis of her empirical experience without recourse to discursive reasoning; her conception of justice is, according to the Stoics, part of the common sense and the common intellect. On the other hand, the sceptics objected that the endless disagreements between philosophers about certain conceptions, like for instance the conception of gods,³¹ set seriously in doubt the Stoics’ presumptions concerning their natural formation and their self-evidentness:³²

[T 17] If the unclear object is said to have made an immediate and self-evident impression on them in itself and so to have been apprehended, then in this case it will not in fact be unclear – rather, it will be equally apparent to everyone and agreed upon and not disputed. (On everything unclear there has been an interminable dispute among them.) Thus Dogmatists who make affirmations and assertions about the reality of something unclear will not have apprehended it as a result of its having made a self-evident impression on them in itself.

(Sextus Empiricus PH 2.8; trans. J. Annas and J. Barnes, modified)

This does not mean, of course, that the sceptics did not make use of conceptions. On the contrary, both the Academic sceptics after Carneades as well as the Pyrrhonists had no qualms about possessing and using conceptions, like for instance the conception of piety,³³ but at the same time it was made clear that they were not committed to the reality of the items falling under such conceptions:³⁴

[T 18] If they say they mean that it is not apprehension of this sort but rather mere thinking that ought to precede investigation, then investigation is not impossible for those who suspend judgement about the reality of what is unclear. For the sceptics are not, I think, barred from having thoughts (noêseôs), if they arise from things that give them a passive impression and appear self-evidently (kat’ enargeian phainomenôn) to them, and do not at all imply the reality of what is being thought of – for we can think, as they say, not only of real things but also of unreal things.

(Sextus Empiricus PH 2.10; trans. J. Annas and J. Barnes, modified)

So, the sceptics often appealed to the testimony of the appearances (phainomena) and their conceptions were supposed to be acquired by practice, formed customs, and established laws:³⁵

[T 19] Thus, attending to what is apparent, we live in accordance with everyday observances (kata tên biôtikên têrêsin), without holding opinions – for we are not able to be utterly inactive. These everyday observances seem to be fourfold, and to consist in guidance by nature, necessitation by feelings, handing down of laws and customs, and teaching of kinds of expertise. By nature’s guidance we are naturally capable of perceiving and thinking. By the necessitation of feelings, hunger conducts us to food and thirst to drink. By the handling down of customs and laws, we accept, from an everyday point of view, that piety is good and impiety bad. By teaching of kinds of expertise we are not inactive in those which we accept. And we say all these without holding any opinions.

(Sextus Empiricus PH 1.23–4; trans. J. Annas and J. Barnes)

In the case of the hypothetical scenario of the shipwreck, in particular, the sceptics would have argued that the survivors’ reaction to keep or not to keep the plank to themselves has nothing to do with the wise person’s conception of justice. Rather, the survivors would behave, in each particular case, according to their intuitive conception of justice and, in general, according to the intuitions resulting from the fourfold observances of everyday life. After all, these constitute the sceptic criteria of life that simply guide the sceptics’ actions, and thus differ considerably from the Stoic criteria of truth that claim to give access to the reality of things.³⁶

To conclude, if we are in search of intuitions in the context of Hellenistic epistemology, it could be said that both the Stoics and the sceptics made use of them in their philosophical debates; for intuitions seem to be closely connected with the formation of conceptions, which were abundantly used by all Hellenistic philosophers. Nevertheless, the Stoics’ and the sceptics’ attitude towards the epistemic status of intuitions would greatly differ: The Stoics would explain intuitions by invoking a rational capacity of human beings, which based on experience would put them in touch with the reality of things, so that their intuitions could be thought of as somehow rationally admissible. The sceptics, on the other hand, would suggest that intuitions guide our everyday life merely on the basis of our previous experiences, and thus their intuitions could be regarded as empirically justified, although they would not guarantee any access to how things actually are. According to the sceptics, therefore, intuitions may differ from one person to another and from one culture to another, and hence it would be highly problematic to appeal to them as primary evidence for dogmatic claims such as those on which the Stoics built their philosophical system.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Maria Rosa Antognazza, Marco Segala, Anna Tigani, and the two anonymous referees for their insightful and very helpful comments on an earlier version of this article.

Notes

1 See also, Epictetus, Diss. 2.6.9–10, in which Chrysippus is reported to have said that he would seek to be ill, if he knew that he was fated to be ill, and also his foot would seek to be covered with mud, if it were intelligent and knew that it was beneficial to step into the mud. I would like to thank one of the anonymous referees for bringing this passage to my attention.

2 For a more detailed survey and discussion of the ancient sources and secondary literature concerning the Stoics’ theory of conceptions, see Ierodiakonou, “Stoics on Conceptions”.

3 Plutarch, Comm. Not. 1084F–1085A; Soll. Anim. 961C–D; [Galen], Def. Med. 19.381.12 K.; Porphyry, Abst. 3.22.17–18.

4 It should be noted that there is a clear similarity between the Stoic account of the formation of conceptions and what we find in the relevant passages of Aristotle’s Metaphysics A (980a27–981a12) and Posterior Analytics 2.19 (99b32–100b5).

5 The Greek terms translated here as ‘conceptions’ and ‘preconceptions’, ‘ennoai’ and ‘prolêpseis’ respectively, are not cognate: the term ‘ennoai’ stems from the verb ‘en-noein’, meaning ‘to have in one’s thought or intellect (nous)’, whereas the term ‘prolêpseis’ stems from the verb ‘pro-lambanein’, meaning ‘to grasp in advance or to anticipate’.

6 On Epicurean preconceptions, see e.g. Morel, “Method and Evidence”; Fischer, “Epictetus on the Epistemology”, 24–8; Tsouna, “Epicurean Preconceptions”; Németh, Epicurus on the Self, 27–48.

7 See also, the characterisation of preconceptions as ‘natural’ (phusikai prolêpseis: e.g. Epictetus, Diss. 1.22.9; phusikai ennoiai: e.g. Epictetus, Diss. 2.17.7; Clemens, Strom. 1.19) or ‘common’ (koinai prolêpseis: e.g. Epictetus, Diss. 1.22.1; 4.1.41–3). For a survey of all occurrences of Stoic terms referring to conceptions, see Dyson, Prolepsis and Ennoia, 155–62.

8 For a closer study of the textual evidence and the different scholarly accounts concerning the Stoic classification of conceptions as well as the process of diarthrôsis, see Gourinat, La dialectique, 46–51; Brittain, “Common Sense”, 179–81; Crivelli, “Stoics on Definition”, 383–7; Ierodiakonou, “Stoics on Conceptions”.

9 See also, Cicero, Acad. 1.42; 2.21.

10 Different interpretations have been proposed with regard to the sense in which common conceptions are said to be ‘common’ (see Ierodiakonou, “Stoics on Conceptions”): Robert Todd (“Stoic Common Notions”, 60–3) claims that sometimes it has the standard meaning ‘shared by all’, while at other times it means ‘basic’, especially when common conceptions are used by the Stoics in order to justify doctrines in all three parts of their philosophy. Dirk Obbink (“What All Men Believe”, 225–7) defends the view that Stoic common conceptions should be understood as basic underlying notions for agreement in inquiry, and are thus comparable to Aristotle’s koinai doxai and endoxa. However, there are several passages in our ancient sources explicitly stating that common conceptions, just like preconceptions, are actually shared by all, or at least that all human beings have potential access to them (e.g. Plutarch, Comm. Not. 1059F; Sextus Empiricus, M 9.124; 199; 11.22). Besides, there seems to be no real tension between the two senses of the term ‘koinai’; for since the common conceptions shared by all were also shared by the Stoics and the wise, they were meant to be at the basis of Stoic doctrines in all three parts of their philosophy (see Brittain, “Common Sense”, 177; Dyson, Prolepsis and Ennoia, 48–53).

11 To be more precise, Diogenes Laertius reports in this passage a Stoic division of rational impressions into those of an expert (technikai) and those that are not of an expert (atechnoi). In Epictetus (Diss. 3.6.8 = [T 12]), too, we find a distinction between the hearing of ordinary people (koinê akoê) and that of experts (technikê), e.g. musicians. On expert and non-expert impressions, see Shogry, “What Do Our Impressions Say”, 38–45.

12 Interestingly enough, there are also ancient sources that characterise Epicurean preconceptions as emphutoi, although Epicurus’ empiricism does not differ from that of the Stoics with regard to the formation of conceptions; on the different scholarly opinions concerning Epicurean innatism, see Tsouna, “Epicurean Preconcenptions”, 174–85.

13 E.g. Cicero, ND 2.12–15; Seneca, Ep. 117.6; Plutarch, Stoic. Rep. 1070C–D; Epictetus, Diss. 2.11.1–7. See also, Plutarch, Stoic. Rep. 1060A; Diogenes Laertius 7.54.

14 Sandbach, “Ennoia and Prolepsis”; Long, Epictetus, 80–3.

15 Scott, “Innatism”; Jackson-McCabe, “Implanted Preconceptions”.

16 See also, Cicero, Fin. 3.16–23; Off. 1.53–8; 3.27; Seneca, Ep. 121.6–15; Plutarch, Stoic. Rep. 1038A–C; Epictetus, Diss. 1.19.11–15; Hierocles 1.34–2.9.

17 See also, Cicero, Leg. 1.15.43; Fin. 3.62–8; Off. 1.12; Plutarch, Soll. Anim. 962A; Porphyry, Abst. 3.19.12–13; Stobaeus 4.671.7-673.11. On oikeiôsis and the conception of justice, see e.g. Pembroke, “Oikeiôsis”, 121–32; Engberg-Petersen, Stoic Oikeiôsis, 122–6; Striker, “Role of oikeiôsis”, 146 and 161–5. On the relation between personal and social oikeiôsis, see e.g. Inwood, “Comments”, 193–9.

18 On the role of conceptions as the building blocks of rationality, see e.g. Dyson, Prolepsis and Ennoia, chs. 4–5; Frede, “Stoic Reason”, 51–5; Shogry, “What Do Our Impressions Say”, n. 51; Ierodiakonou, “Stoics on Conceptions”.

19 See also, Cicero, Acad. 1.42; Epictetus, Diss. 1.28.2–3; 2.11.7–12; 2.12.6; Alexander, Mixt. 217.2–4; 218.11–13.

20 Diogenes Laertius (7.54) accuses Chrysippus of inconsistency, because sometimes he regarded as criteria of truth only the so-called ‘cognitive impressions’ (katalêptikai phantasiai), while on other occasions he also added sense perception and preconceptions. Michael Frede (“Stoic Epistemology”, 316–8) convincingly argues that this inconsistency is merely apparent and we should rather assume a shift in the use of the term ‘kritêrion’, depending on the context in which it is mentioned; when the Stoics discussed the attainability of human knowledge, they simply talked of cognitive impressions as criteria of truth, whereas when they were interested in presenting the details of their epistemology, they also invoked sense perception and preconceptions.

21 On the notion of enargeia in Hellenistic philosophy, see Ierodiakonou, “Notion of Enargeia”.

22 E.g. Cicero, ND 1.39; Diogenes Laertius 7.87–9; 142–3; 147.

23 E.g. Cicero, Leg. 1.23; Philo, Leg. Alleg. 2.23.2-5; Epictetus, Diss. 1.3.1–3.

24 E.g. Cleanthes, Hymn to Zeus 1.12; Arius Didymus, Epit. Phys. fr. 37 Diels = SVF 2.599; Plutarch, Stoic. Rep. 1050A–B.

25 [T 12] is the only passage in Epictetus in which we find the so-called koinos nous.

26 See also, Cicero, Leg. 1.31–2; 47; Seneca, Ep. 94.53.

27 Diogenes Laertius 7.198: Against Common Sense, to Metrodorus, in six books; In Defense of Common Sense, to Gorgippides, in seven books.

28 See also, Plutarch, Stoic. Rep. 1036C; 1037A; Cicero, Acad. 2.75; 87.

29 Themistius, too, in his paraphrase of Aristotle’s De anima (101.7; 22; 102.7; 108.30), talks of the common intellect, but interprets it in a different way; he identifies it with the passive intellect, which is inseparable from the human body and thus perishable.

30 See also, Alexander, in Met. 8.25; 9.27; in Top. 18.20; 558.25; De fato 172.17; Eth. Prob. 129.11.

31 On the Stoic account about the formation of the conception of gods, see e.g. Schofield, “Preconception”.

32 See also, Sextus Empiricus, PH 2.182; 3.254; 266.

33 See e.g. Sextus Empiricus, PH 3.2; M 9.49.

34 On the Philonian/Metrodorian use of conceptions, see Brittain, Philo, 118–28. On the Pyrrhonist attitude towards conceptions, see Fine, “Concepts”; Tigani, “New Answer”, 197–200.

35 See also, Sextus Empiricus, PH 1.17; 231; 237.

36 On the fourfold observances of everyday life, see e.g. Vogt. “Scepticism and Action”, 172–7; Bett, “Skeptic”, 176–8.