Why is the Cosmos Intelligent? (1)

Abstract

Abstract The present paper studies a family of Stoic proofs of the intelligence of the cosmos, i. e. of the thesis that the cosmos is intelligent in the strong sense that it is, as a whole, something that thinks. This family, ‘F2’, goes back to a proof, ‘XP’, found in Philebus 29a9–30 a8 and Xenophon Mem. 1.4.8. F2 infers the intelligence of the cosmos, as XP does, from (i) the general idea that our intelligence proceeds from the cosmos, which is the ultimate cause of why we are intelligent, and (ii) the further claim that, since this is so, the cosmos itself must be intelligent. They differ from one another, however, in how they account for (i). In this paper, I present a new reason for why the accounts are different, that complements those given by David Sedley in a recent and important study of Stoic cosmology (Sedley 2007). Based on the analogy between intelligence and the four elements, XP puts forward the idea that the intelligence currently present in us is a portion of cosmic intelligence that has separated from it at some point in the past, and that has travelled from the outside cosmos to us. In contrast, the theory used by F2 to explain the generation of human intelligence is grounded not in the notions of separation and locomotion, but in that of transmission of a state. As I argue in some detail, the separation-locomotion model and the transmission model are not only different from each other, but also logically independent from one another: in general terms, neither entails the other. This transmission model used by the Stoics in a proof of the intelligence of the cosmos, I submit, is a major innovation in ancient cosmological and metaphysical thinking.