Desire and Impulse in Epictetus and the Older Stoics
Abstract
This article argues that Epictetus employs the terms orexis and hormê in the same manner as the older Stoics. It then shows, on the basis of this claim, that the older Stoics recognized a distinction between dispositional and occurrent forms of motivation. On this account of Stoic theory, intentional action is in each instance the product of two forms of cognition: a value ascription that attributes goodness or badness to some object, conceiving of its possession as beneficial or harmful to the agent, together with a situational judgment about appropriate action. The resulting interpretation suggests that the Stoic theory of motivation as a whole — and not merely the Stoic analysis of the pathê — has the basic shape of a practical syllogism, with more psychological depth than commentators have recognized.
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Articles in the same Issue
- Titelseiten
- Articles
- Das Thothbuch: eine ägyptische Vorlage der platonischen Schriftkritik im Phaidros?
- Desire and Impulse in Epictetus and the Older Stoics
- Ideas and Explanation in Early Modern Philosophy
- Spinoza’s Analysis of his Imagined Readers’ Axiology
- Kant and Consequentialism in Context: The Second Critique’s Response to Pistorius
- Nietzsche’s English Genealogy of Truthfulness
- Book Reviews
- Karbowski, Joseph, Aristotle’s Method in Ethics: Philosophy in Practice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019, xii + 275 pp.
- Sommer, Andreas Urs, Kommentar zu Nietzsches Zur Genealogie der Moral. Historischer und kritischer Kommentar zu Friedrich Nietzsches Werken. Band 5/2. Hrsg. von der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter 2019, xvii + 723 pp.
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelseiten
- Articles
- Das Thothbuch: eine ägyptische Vorlage der platonischen Schriftkritik im Phaidros?
- Desire and Impulse in Epictetus and the Older Stoics
- Ideas and Explanation in Early Modern Philosophy
- Spinoza’s Analysis of his Imagined Readers’ Axiology
- Kant and Consequentialism in Context: The Second Critique’s Response to Pistorius
- Nietzsche’s English Genealogy of Truthfulness
- Book Reviews
- Karbowski, Joseph, Aristotle’s Method in Ethics: Philosophy in Practice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019, xii + 275 pp.
- Sommer, Andreas Urs, Kommentar zu Nietzsches Zur Genealogie der Moral. Historischer und kritischer Kommentar zu Friedrich Nietzsches Werken. Band 5/2. Hrsg. von der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter 2019, xvii + 723 pp.
