Cleanthes Socraticus I: The Textual Background to SVF I.558-562 and Their Meaning

Abstract

Re-examining Cleanthes’ SVF I.557-62 by means of establishing textual relations of them to their sources, I show that: (i) I.557-8, unlike how H. von Arnim construed them, have nothing to do with moral philosophy, but are simply two versions of exhortation to “philosophy”, taken as freedom of thought and application of reason to practical life, and (ii) Fr. I.558- 62 are directly and verbatim traceable back to Socrates’ moral thought as known via the corpus Platonicum plus Xenophon (1.558) and via bare Plato (1.559-62) as well as to Aristotle’s Protrepticus (Düring B53).