Ennoia and Πpoahψiσ in the Stoic Theory of Knowledge

Abstract

The starting-point of Plutarch's dialogue de communibus notitiis is a claim made by the Stoics that Providence sent Chrysippus to remove the confusion surrounding the ideas of ἔννοια (conception) and πρόληψισ (preconception) before the subtleties of Carneades were brought into play. Unfortunately our surviving information on the subject is so much less full than could be desired that it has again returned to an obscurity from which there are only two really detailed modern attempts to remove it. The one, by L. Stein (Erkenntnistheorie der Stoa, pp. 228–276), is most unsatisfactory; the other, by A. Bonhöffer (Epiktet und die Stoa, pp. 187–232), though of the greatest value in many ways, is vitiated by the fact that it constructs a system from the use of the words by Epictetus and then attempts to attach this system to the old Stoa in the face of the evidence of the doxographers, which is emended or violently interpreted to suit Epictetus. Even if Epictetus were in general a good authority for the technicalities of Chrysippus—and in the opinion of H. von Arnim he is not— this would not be a sound method of procedure. The only safe way is to take first the statements which can be attached to the Old Stoa, and having obtained our results from these, to see whether Epictetus does in fact agree.