The Stoic Creed - College of Stoic Philosophers

LOGIC: THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 6?
II
For Logic in its stricter signification, the earlier
Stoics, like most of the other early Greek sects, had a
distinct enthusiasm ;
they devoted much attention to it.
They
and, under the lead of Chrysippus,
cherished it,
however, not so much because of the positive results it
yielded, as because it was a powerful instrument for
testing theories and exposing fallacies and preparing
the way for truth. In one of the various similes which
Diogenes Laertius (vii. 40) tells us they applied to
philosophy, namely, that of "an all-productive field,"
they likened Logic
to the fence that surrounds the
field, while ethics is the fruit, and physics
is the soil
or the trees. As a fence, it was greatly used by them.
Nevertheless, they did not contribute much of any
permanent value towards perfecting it. They did,
indeed, make some alterations on the doctrine of
Aristotle and additions to it, but these were not of
high importance. Their fame as dialecticians is
associated chiefly with their zeal for definition, with
a certain treatment of the categories, and with a
special and original handling of hypothetical inferences,
still more, perhaps, with a love for trivial intellectual
puzzles and
1
an inordinate use of the syllogism, and
of Sorites, and a tendency to defiant argumentation.
Their spirit in this respect is typified by Chrysippus,
who is said to have requested of his master Cleanthes,
"Give me the principles, and the proofs
I will find for
myself" (Diog. Lae rt. vii. 7).
1
Hence the point in Lucian s caricature of Chrysippus in The
Auction of Lives or The Sale of Philosophers (Bluv