Cicero (on the Stoics) · 106–43 BCE
Tusculan Disputations 4 ¶16–19 — Cicero (on the Stoics)
From “On Other Perturbations of the Mind”
Translation by C. D. Yonge (1853)
Cicero (on the Stoics), Tusculan Disputations 4 ¶16–19
M. Because Chrysippus and the Stoics, when they discuss the perturbations of the mind, make great part of their debate to consist in definitions and distinctions, while they employ but few words on the subject of curing the mind, and preventing it from being disordered. Whereas the Peripatetics bring a great many things to promote the cure of it, but have no regard to their thorny partitions and definitions. My question, then, was whether I should instantly unfold the sails of my eloquence, or be content for a while to make less way with the oars of logic? A. Let it be so. For by the employment of both these means the subject of our inquiry will be more thoroughly discussed. M. It is certainly the better way. And should anything be too obscure, you may examine that afterward. A. I will do so. But those very obscure points you will, as usual, deliver with more clearness than the Greeks.
Cite this passage
Cicero (on the Stoics), Tusculan Disputations 4 ¶16–19, tr. C. D. Yonge (1853)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/tusculan-disputations/4.16
Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, tr. C. D. Yonge (1853). Text: Standard Ebooks (CC0). Sources and licences
In plain English
AI-written notesA dialogue aside about method: the Stoics spend most of their effort defining and dividing the emotional disturbances and little on curing them, while the Aristotelians offer many cures but few definitions, so the speaker proposes to blend eloquence with logic.
Older wording
- “perturbations”
- — disturbing emotions
- “Peripatetics”
- — followers of Aristotle
- “partitions”
- — divisions and classifications
Themes and situations
- Emotions and the passions
- Learning and progress
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