The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Philosophy, History & Surveys, Ancient & Classical
ISBN: 9780521250283
Google: 9lRD6feR3hEC
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 1999-12-08T18:30:00+00:00

We have some idea now of how the Stoics described and accounted for the unforced motions of the elements in the region of the earth. But centripetal motion in the geocentric cosmos could not by itself explain the motion of the heavenly bodies. If the earth stands still, as they assumed, then the heavens go round in circles. In early Greek speculation this circular movement was held to be a survival from the original vortex from which the cosmos was formed. Aristotle found it necessary to posit a special element, endowed with the natural property of circular motion, to account for it. What was the Stoic solution?

It is clear that they did not take up Aristotle’s fifth element. The Stoics were more impressed than Aristotle was with the importance of the heat of the sun. Later Peripatetics found this a great problem with Aristotle’s theory: if the sun was separated from the element of fire by lunar spheres of non-fiery aether, how were they to explain the sun’s heat, and its e◊ects on the earth? The Stoics accepted heat as the predominant characteristic of the sun, and declared that the element of the heavens is predominantly fire. They called it ‘aether’, but they meant something quite di◊erent from what the Peripatetics meant. They drew parallels between the life-giving heat of the sun, and the heat that is a sign of life in animals. It was another indication that the cosmos as a whole is a living being.

A few of the fragments suggest that the Stoics followed Aristotle in assuming a natural circular motion in the heavens, even though they Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008

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rejected the idea of a special element endowed with this motion; but this is probably wrong.73 The disappointing truth is that they fell back upon the mythical notion that the heavenly bodies are living beings who choose to move in circles. Cleomedes distinguishes between the movement of the fixed stars, which he explains only by saying that it is ‘providential, for the maintenance and durability of the whole’, and the movement of the ‘wan-derers’, which is due to choice (i.2.1–9 Todd). The teleological description of the whole is often repeated in the fragments: the cosmos is ‘girdled’ by the sphere of the stars, which protects it and holds it together. The animistic imagery is sometimes carried to great lengths: there is even a theory, attributed to Cleanthes, that the solstices are due to the fact that the sun needs food, his food comes from the ocean, and so he turns back when he reaches the northern and southern limits of the ocean (Macr. Sat. i 32.2; cf. Cic. ND iii.37). The conclusion is inescapable that although the Stoics came quite close to a theory of gravity, they were nowhere near to seeing its application to the motions of the heavenly bodies.

6. Teleology, providence and fate

It is useful to distinguish two kinds of teleology, which we will for the present designate ‘Platonic’ and ‘Aristotelian’.

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