Susanne Bobzien

ABSTRACT: In contemporary discussions of freedom in Stoic philosophy we often encounter the following assumptions: (i) the Stoics discussed the problem of free will and determinis; (ii) since in Stoic philosophy freedom of the will is in the end just an illusion, the Stoics took the freedom of the sage as a substitute for it and as the only true freedom; (iii) in the c. 500 years of live Stoic philosophical debate, the Stoics were largely concerned with the same philosophical problems of freedom. In this paper I argue that (i) can be upheld only in a very restricted way; (ii) is altogether untenable; and regarding (iii), that, although there may have occurred little change in the Stoic philosophical position on freedom over the centuries, we can detect more than one transformation of the philosophical problems that were at the forefront of the discussion. Moreover, that all the conceptions and problems of freedom were linked to Stoic ethics, and that the differences between them become transparent when one considers their various roles in this context.

ABSTRACT: For the most part, this paper is not a philosophical paper in any strict sense. Rather, it focuses on the numerous exegetical puzzles in Sextus Empiricus’ two main passages on time (M X.l69-247 and PH III.l36-50), which, once sorted, help to explain how Sextus works and what the views are which he examines. Thus the paper provides an improved base from which to put more specifically philosophical questions to the text. The paper has two main sections, which can, by and large, be read independently. Each is about a topic which, to my knowledge, has so far not been treated in detail. The first section is concemed with the argument structures of the two main passages on time in Sextus, pointing out various irregularities in the overall argument in both passages, as well as parallels and differences, and asks the question what kinds of scepticism and sceptical methods we find in the various parts of each passage. The second section focuses on the doxographical accounts of time in the two passages: what they are, how they compare with surviving parallels, to what philosophers we can attribute those accounts for which Sextus himself provides either no, or more than one, possible ascriptions, and how Sextus treats the doxographical material. This discussion is inspired by the contributions Michael Frede offered on this topic the day before his untimely death.

ABSTRACT: A systematic reconstruction of Chrysippus’ theory of causes, grounded on the Stoic tenets that causes are bodies, that they are relative, and that all causation can ultimately be traced back to the one ‘active principle’ which pervades all things. I argue that Chrysippus neither developed a finished taxonomy of causes, nor intended to do so, and that he did not have a set of technical terms for mutually exclusive classes of causes. Rather, the various adjectives which he used for causes had the function of describing or explaining particular features of certain causes in particular philosophical contexts. I challenge the sometimes assumed close connection of Chrysippus’ notion of causation with explanation. I show that the standard view that the distinction between proximate and auxiliary causes and perfect and principal causes corresponds to the distinction between internal and external determining factors is not born out by the evidence, and argue that causes of the two types were not thought to co-operate, but rather conceived of as alternatives.

In this paper I present the text, a translation, and a commentary of a long anonymous scholium to Aristotle’s Analytics which is a Greek parallel to Boethius’ De Hypotheticis Syllogismis, but has so far not been recognized as such. The scholium discusses hypothetical syllogisms of the types modus ponens and modus tollens and hypothetical syllogisms constructed from three conditionals (‘wholly hypothetical syllogisms’). It is Peripatetic, and not Stoic, in its theoretical approach as well as its terminology. There are several elements of early Peripatetic hypothetical syllogistic preserved in it, and there is a large number of close parallels to Boethius’ De Hypotheticis Syllogismis which we find in no other source. It is very likely that there was a Greek source from which both the scholium and large parts of Boethius’ De Hypotheticis Syllogismis are ultimately derived.