SVF I.202

Original — Ancient Greek

κοινῶς δὲ ἅπαντες οὗτοι τὴν ἀρετὴν τοῦ ἡγεμονικοῦ τῆς ψυχῆς διάθεσίν τινα καὶ δύναμιν γεγενημένην ὑπὸ λόγου, μᾶλλον δὲ λόγον οὖσαν αὐτὴν ὁμολογούμενον καὶ βέβαιον καὶ ἀμετάπτωτον ὑποτίθενται· καὶ νομίζουσιν οὐκ εἶναι τὸ παθητικὸν καὶ ἄλογον διαφορᾷ τινι καὶ φύσει ψυχῆς τοῦ λογικοῦ διακεκριμένον, ἀλλὰ τὸ αὐτὸ τῆς ψυχῆς μέρος, ὃ δὴ καλοῦσι διάνοιαν καὶ ἡγεμονικόν, διόλου τρεπόμενον καὶ μεταβάλλον ἔν τε τοῖς πάθεσι καὶ ταῖς κατὰ ἕξιν ἢ διάθεσιν μεταβολαῖς, κακίαν τε γίνεσθαι καὶ ἀρετήν, καὶ μηδὲν ἔχειν ἄλογον ἐν ἑαυτῷ· λέγεσθαι δὲ ἄλογον, ὅταν τῷ πλεονάζοντι τῆς ὁρμῆς ἰσχυρῷ γενομένῳ καὶ κρατήσαντι πρός τι τῶν ἀτόπων παρὰ τὸν αἱροῦντα λόγον ἐκφέρηται· καὶ γὰρ τὸ πάθος εἶναι λόγον πονηρὸν καὶ ἀκόλαστον, ἐκ φαύλης καὶ διημαρτημένης κρίσεως σφοδρότητα καὶ ῥώμην προσλαβόντα.

StoicOs Translation

In common, all these men suppose virtue to be a certain disposition and power of the ruling part of the soul, brought into being by reason — or rather, to be itself reason, consistent, firm and unshakeable. And they hold that the passionate and irrational is not distinguished from the rational by any difference or nature of soul, but that the same part of the soul — which they call understanding and ruling part — turning and changing through and through in the passions and in the alterations of state or disposition, becomes vice and becomes virtue, and has nothing irrational in itself; it is called irrational when, by the excess of impulse grown strong and mastering, it is carried toward something amiss, against the reason that chooses. For the passion, too, is reason — wicked and unbridled reason, which from a base and erring judgment has taken on vehemence and force.

Context

Plutarch, a Platonist defending the divided soul, summarizes the psychology he means to attack: the monism shared by “all these” — Menedemus, Aristo, Zeno and Chrysippus — in which one and the same ruling part becomes virtue or vice.

Source notes:Text verified against von Arnim, SVF I (1903), no. 202, pp. 49–50 (OCR of the scanned edition; the chapter number is garbled in the OCR — Stephanus page 441c lies in chapter 3). “All these” refers, per von Arnim's gloss, to Menedemus, Aristo, Zeno and Chrysippus, named by Plutarch just before.

What the source actually tells us

A hostile but careful summary that includes Zeno by name in its scope. It attests the core of early Stoic moral psychology: virtue as the firm disposition of the hēgemonikon, no irrational soul-part, and passion as corrupted reason itself — agreeing with the Zenonian definitions of SVF I.202's neighbours (I.200, I.205, I.206).

Philosophical meaning

There is no war between two souls within us: one mind becomes what it judges. Passion is not a beast to be chained but reason itself gone wrong — a bad judgment that has gathered momentum. Hence the Stoic cure is not suppression but re-judging: change the judgment, and the storm loses its source. Virtue, on the same ground, is nothing but reason grown consistent, firm and unshakeable.

Scholarly uncertainty

The attribution is collective (“all these”), so Zeno's personal share cannot be isolated from Aristo's or Chrysippus'; the wording is Plutarch's paraphrase, made for polemical purposes. That Zeno himself held the monistic view is supported by his definitions of passion as a movement of the (one) soul (SVF I.205–206) and grief as fresh opinion (SVF I.212).

Go deeper

• Read SVF I.201 — the virtues as one practical wisdom →
• Read SVF I.205 — Zeno's definition of passion →