Diseases of soul in Stoic psychology.

A LATE AS 1952 W. W. Tarn could write that in the Hellenistic period "Aristotle's school loses all importance."1 As for philosophical influences, he says, the Stoics and Epicureans went back behind Plato and Aristotle to Socrates.2 In the subsequent three decades, however, historians of philosophy have gained new insights into the nature of Hellenistic philosophy by studying the direct influence of Aristotle upon the later schools.3 Today, few would disagree with John Rist that the phrase 'postAristotelian philosophy' most truly refers to philosophy that is dominated by Aristotle and not merely posterior to him.4 In this paper I wish to analyze the Stoics' notion of a disease of soul and suggest that an apparent contradiction in their theory may best be resolved by proper attention to Aristotelian precedents and possible influences. The problem to be considered here may be simply put: the Stoics sometimes identify diseases of soul with the pathe (passions, affections, emotions); at other times they seem to deny that diseases are pathe and insist rather that they are hexeis (dispositions). Commentators have not taken note of the full extent of the problem and generally designate either pathe or hexeis as psychic diseases. For example, Paul Barth says only: "So mit ist der Affekt als iibermassiger Trieb eine Storung und Krankheit des Seelenlebens .... "5 Rist, Graeser, and Kidd all take the same position and refer to Cicero's De finibus 3.10.35 in support of the proposition that in Greek pathos may mean 'disease'.6 An example of such a disease-passion would be anger, which the Stoics characterized as the desire to punish an apparent wrongdoer (SVF III 397, 398 [pp.96f]). Emile Brehier, on the other hand, argues that