Aristotle vs the Stoics: part I, metaphysics and logic
Were the Stoics just copying Aristotle? Spoiler alert: not really.
[Cato] “I admit that some parts [of Stoic teachings] are obscure, yet the Stoics do not affect an obscure style on purpose; the obscurity is inherent in the doctrines themselves.”
[Cicero] “How is it, then, that when the same doctrines are expounded by the Peripatetics, every word is intelligible?”
[Cato] “The same doctrines? Have I not said enough to show that the disagreement between the Stoics and Peripatetics is not a matter of words, but concerns the entire substance of their whole system?”
[Cicero] “O well, Cato, if you can prove that, you are welcome to claim me as a whole-hearted convert.”
The above exchange comes from the beginning of the fourth book of Cicero’s On the Ends of Good and Evil, one of my favorite books from antiquity, with a stupendous title to boot. In book three Cicero had given Cato the Younger, the archenemy of Julius Caesar and a famous Stoic role model, the floor to expound Stoic ideas. In book four Cicero puts on his skeptical cap and challenges Cato on a number of points.
From the get go the major challenge is not that the Stoics are wrong, but that they differ only in (more or less…
