Passion, Impulse, and Action in Stoicism
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Susan Sauvé Meyer
Abstract
A familiar interpretation of the Stoic doctrine of the πάθη runs as follows:
The Stoics claim the πάθη are impulses (ὁρμαί).
The Stoics take impulses to be causes of action.
So, the Stoics think the πάθη are causes of action
Premise (1) is uncontroversial, but the evidence for (2) needs to be reconsidered. I argue that the Stoics have two distinct but related conceptions of ὁρμή – a psychological construal and a behavioural construal. On the psychological construal (2) is true, but there is strong evidence that (1) is true only on the behavioural construal. That is, when the Stoics classify πάθη as impulses they are thinking of them not as impulses to act, but as cases of action in their own right.
Article note: I have benefited from feedback on various versions of this paper presented at the New York Colloqium in Ancient Philosophy, The University of Chicago, The University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Faculty of Philosophy at Oxford University, The University of Texas at Austin, Corpus Christi College, the University of Lausanne, The University of Utrecht, The American Philosophical Association, The University of Toronto, The University of California at Riverside, and New York University. I am grateful to Brad Inwood, Rachana Kamtekar, and Tad Brennan for written comments and to Katja Vogt, Jessica Moss, and Jacob Klein for excellent advice in the final stages of the project.
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