Diogenes Laërtius · fl. 3rd century CE
Lives of Eminent Philosophers 7.132 — Diogenes Laërtius on the Stoics
Translation by R. D. Hicks (1925)
Diogenes Laërtius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers 7.132
Reported speech · Diogenes Laërtius on the Stoics
Their physical doctrine they divide into sections (1) about bodies; (2) about principles; (3) about elements; (4) about the gods; (5) about bounding surfaces and space whether filled or empty. This is a division into species; but the generic division is into three parts, dealing with (i.) the universe; (ii.) the elements; (iii.) the subject of causation. The part dealing with the universe admits, they say, of division into two: for with one aspect of it the mathematicians also are concerned, in so far as they treat questions relating to the fixed stars and the planets, e.g. whether the sun is or is not just so large as it appears to be, and the same about the moon, the question of their revolutions, and other inquiries of the same sort. But there is another aspect or field of cosmological inquiry, which belongs to the physicists alone:
Cite this passage
Diogenes Laërtius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers 7.132 (on the Stoics), tr. R. D. Hicks (1925)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/lives-of-the-stoics/7.132
Diogenes Laërtius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Book VII, tr. R. D. Hicks (Loeb, 1925). Text: Perseus Digital Library (CC BY-SA 4.0). Sources and licences
In plain English
AI-written notesAn outline of how Stoic physics is organised, covering bodies, principles, elements, the gods and space, or more broadly the universe, the elements and causation. Questions about the stars and planets, such as how big the sun and moon are, are shared with the mathematicians.
Older wording
- “fixed stars”
- — the stars that keep fixed positions relative to each other
- “cosmological”
- — about the universe as a whole
Themes and situations
- Nature and the cosmos
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