Diogenes Laërtius · fl. 3rd century CE
Lives of Eminent Philosophers 7.180 — Diogenes Laërtius on Chrysippus
Translation by R. D. Hicks (1925)
Diogenes Laërtius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers 7.180
Reported speech · Diogenes Laërtius on Chrysippus
So renowned was he for dialectic that most people thought, if the gods took to dialectic, they would adopt no other system than that of Chrysippus. He had abundance of matter, but in style he was not successful. In industry he surpassed every one, as the list of his writings shows; for there are more than 705 of them. He increased their number by arguing repeatedly on the same subject, setting down anything that occurred to him, making many corrections and citing numerous authorities. So much so that in one of his treatises he copied out nearly the whole of Euripides’ Medea, and some one who had taken up the volume, being asked what he was reading, replied, “The Medea of Chrysippus.”
Cite this passage
Diogenes Laërtius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers 7.180 (on Chrysippus), tr. R. D. Hicks (1925)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/lives-of-the-stoics/7.180
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 notesChrysippus was so famed for logic that people thought the gods would use his system, but his style was weak. He produced over 705 works, by arguing the same topic repeatedly and quoting heavily, even copying out most of a whole play.
Older wording
- “dialectic”
- — the art of logical argument
Themes and situations
- Learning and progress
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