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What Would Stoics Do

St. George Stock (modern guide) · 1850–1922

A Guide to Stoicism 3 ¶9 — St. George Stock (modern guide)

From “Logic”

Original English text (1908)

St. George Stock (modern guide), A Guide to Stoicism 3 ¶9

So far we have used "phantasy" only of real or imaginary impressions of sense. But the term was not thus restricted by the Stoics, who divided phantasies into sensible and not sensible. The latter came through the understanding and were of bodiless things which could only be grasped by reason. The ideas of Plato they declared existed only in our minds. Horse, man, and animal had no substantial existence but were phantasms of the soul. The Stoics were thus what we should call Conceptualists.
— St. George Stock (modern guide), A Guide to Stoicism 3 ¶9 (1908)Read in context →

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St. George Stock (modern guide), A Guide to Stoicism 3 ¶9 (1908)

https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/a-guide-to-stoicism/3.9

St. George Stock, Stoicism (1908), text of the Haldeman-Julius reprint “A Guide to Stoicism”. Text: Project Gutenberg #7514. Sources and licences

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In plain English

AI-written notes

Impressions came in two kinds, those from the senses and those grasped by reason alone about non-physical things. The Stoics denied that general ideas like horse or man exist independently, treating them as constructs of the mind.

Older wording

“Conceptualists”
— thinkers who hold that general ideas exist only as concepts in the mind
“phantasms”
— mental appearances with no independent reality

Themes and situations

  • Judgements and impressions

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