The Stoic Creed - College of Stoic Philosophers

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LOGIC: THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 67
perception, thereby leading us to mistake one object
for another. We have the first case exemplified in the
visions or hallucinations of madmen ;
Orestes mistak
ing his sister for a fury exemplifies
the second. It is
characteristic of true impressions that they come from
objects and conform to them ; they lay
hold on the
mind, and are the means whereby the mind lays hold
on reality. Hence, the Stoics denominated them
In
grasping impressions" or apprehending representa
1 (
tions
(<avra(7iai KaraA^TTTt/cat). a definition which
very probably emanated from Zeno, they are set down
by Sextus Empiricus (Adv. Math. vii. 248) as repre
sentations proceeding from the object and agreeing
with
it
(KO.T
O.VTO TO inrdpxov), stamped and sealed
upon the soul, such as could have no existence but for
the existence of the object."
A similar definition is
given in Diogenes Laertius (vii.
ing representation
35), where "apprehend
is distinguished from what is non-
"
apprehensible (dKaTaA^TTToi/) by the circumstance
that the former proceeds from a real object and
conforms to it ;
not so the latter, which either has no
relation to the object at all, or, if it has a relation, it
does not conform to it, "inasmuch as a clear impres
sion is wanting."
These apprehending representations
are, according to an image of Zeno, the closed hand or
fist, only needing the determinate and strenuous grasp
of the other hand (i.e., only needing to be connected
and systematized) to make them absolutely complete
and sure knowledge (Cicero, Acad. ii.
47). Their
distinguishing feature is, that they are clear, dis
tinct, perspicuous (evapycts) ; thereby revealing both
themselves and the object that produced them, just as