Vitae philosophorum

Diogenes Laertius

Diogenes Laertius. Hicks, R. D., editor. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1925.

Again: If anyone is in Megara, he is not in Athens: now there is a man in Megara,

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therefore there is not a man in Athens. Again: If you say something, it passes through your lips: now you say wagon, consequently a wagon passes through your lips. And further: If you never lost something, you have it still; but you never lost horns, ergo you have horns. Others attribute this to Eubulides.

There are people who run Chrysippus down as having written much in a tone that is gross and indecent. For in his work On the ancient Natural Philosophers at line 600 or thereabouts he interprets the story of Hera and Zeus coarsely, with details which no one would soil his lips by repeating.

Indeed, his interpretation of the story is condemned as most indecent. He may be commending physical doctrine; but the language used is more appropriate to street-walkers than to deities; and it is moreover not even mentioned by bibliographers, who wrote on the titles of books. What Chrysippus makes of it is not to be found in Polemo nor Hypsicrates, no, nor even in Antigonus. It is his own invention. Again, in his Republic he permits marriage with mothers and daughters and sons. He says the same in his work On Things for their own Sake not Desirable, right at the outset. In the third book of his treatise On Justice, at about line 1000, he permits eating of the corpses of the dead. And in the second book of his On the Means of Livelihood, where he professes to be considering a priori how the wise man is to get his living, occur the words:

And yet what reason is there that he should provide a living? For if it be to support life, life itself is after all a thing indifferent. If it be for pleasure, pleasure too is a thing indifferent. While if it be for virtue, virtue in itself is sufficient

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to constitute happiness. The modes of getting a livelihood are also ludicrous, as e.g. maintenance by a king; for he will have to be humoured: or by friends; for friendship will then be purchasable for money: or living by wisdom; for so wisdom will become mercenary. These are the objections urged against him.

As the reputation of his writings stands so high, I have decided to make a separate catalogue of them, arranged according to the class of subject treated. And they are as follows:

I. Logic.

Logical Theses.

The Philosopher’s Inquiries.

Dialectical Definitions addressed to Metrodorus, six books.

On the Terms used in Dialectic, addressed to Zeno, one book.

Art of Dialectic, addressed to Aristagoras, one book.

Probable Hypothetical Judgements, addressed to Dioscurides, four books.

II. Logic dealing with the subject matter.

First series:

Of Judgements, one book.

Of Judgements which are not Simple, one book.

Of the Complex Judgement, addressed to Athenades, two books.

Of Negative Judgements, addressed to Aristagoras, three books.

Of Affirmative Judgements, addressed to Athenodorus, one book.

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Of Judgements expressed by means of Privation, addressed to Thearus, one book.

Of Indefinite Judgements, addressed to Dion, three books.

On the Variety of Indefinite Judgements, four books.

On Temporal Judgements, two books.

On Judgements in the Perfect Tense, two books.

Second series:

Of a True Disjunctive Judgement, addressed to Gorgippides, one book.

Of a True Hypothetical Judgement, addressed to Gorgippides, four books.