Stoicism and Emotion by Margaret Graver

Author:Margaret Graver
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Chicago Press

The most basic distinction here is the one between mental conditions generally, all of which are long-term properties or states, and mental events, which Stoics call either activities or ‘movements’ (kinēseis). The activity is that event which actualizes some capacity, the thing one is disposed to do or undergo, as riding a horse actualizes the skill of horsemanship. What actualizes a good or bad condition is itself good or bad accordingly. But there is also room for a further distinction among the conditions, between the nonscalar diatheseis and other conditions which are called simply hexeis. By exclusion, the latter must be scalar conditions.

The passage lists a number of examples of scalar conditions: on the good side ‘habitudes’ (epitēdeumata). and on the bad side ‘proclivities,’ ‘sicknesses, ’ and ‘infirmities.’ The items on this list, I contend, are our best candidates in Stoicism for bona fide traits of character. They are lasting attributes of persons that help to explain feelings and behavior, and they are also variable from one individual to the next: they can be present in one person and not present, or only very little present, in another.10 Let us therefore examine some further evidence about what these traits consist in and how they determine our behavior.

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