ABSTRACT

After Aristotle the two dominant schools for many years were the Epicureans and the Stoics. While it is arguable that the Epicureans ought to have had problems about deliberate wrong-doing, there is no sign that they considered it a problem. The Stoics, however, did. The school was founded by Zeno of Citium in the generation after Aristotle and was to be influential for some 500 years. While the early leaders of the school, Zeno, Cleanthes and Chrysippus wrote a great deal-especially Chrysippus-no complete works have survived. The quotations we have are brief and the descriptions of their views are often derived from hostile critics such as Plutarch and Galen, or ones not altogether sympathetic, as Cicero, for instance, in de Finibus. Those from whom we have more extensive writings, such as Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, are more interested in moral exhortation than the psychological theory that underpins it. Even when they are interested in the theory, it is always open to question whether they are reflecting the views of Chrysippus or Zeno.