The Stoic Creed - College of Stoic Philosophers

CONCEPTION OF PHILOSOPHY 45
necessary introduction or propaedeutic to philosophy.
44
For this reason," says Epictetus (Diss. i. 17), "I
think the logical arts are placed first, just
as in the
measuring of corn we place first the examination of the
measure. But if we do not first determine what is a
modius, nor first determine what is a balance, how shall
we still be able to measure or to weigh anything? In
this case, then, if we have not learned thoroughly and
investigated accurately the criterion of all other things,
and that through which they are understood, shall we
be able to accurately investigate and thoroughly under
stand anything else ? ... It is enough that Logic has
the power of distinguishing and examining other things,
and, as one may say, of measuring and weighing
them."
Now, Logic, in the view of the Stoics, consisted of
three parts not, however, of co-ordinate value. As
they did, in all probability,
*
themselves coin the name
logic," they had quite a right to give
it whatever
meaning they chose ;
and they used it to designate a
wide area. Not only did it cover to them what has
been regarded by many as alone Logic, namely,
"the
science and art of reasoning" or of "thought,"
but it
included also Rhetoric (or the art of style) and Epistemology
(or Theory of Knowledge).
In the sphere of Rhetoric there is no great Stoical
accomplishment to record. Although there were Stoics
for example, Panastius and Seneca who were profici
ents in literary composition, and could express them
selves with elegance, and although there were among
the Stoics rhetoricians of the ornate stamp, such as
Posidonius of Apamea in Syria, 1 the whole tendency
1 "
Inspired with hyperboles," as Strabo puts it.