SVF I.59

Original — Latin

Visum impressum effictumque ex eo, unde esset, quale esse non posset ex eo, unde non esset.

StoicOs Translation

An impression stamped and moulded from that which is, of such a kind as it could not be from that which is not.

Context

Cicero writes about 250 years after Zeno, translating Greek Stoic epistemology into Latin for a Roman audience. In the Lucullus he stages the debate between Stoics and Academic sceptics; here he reports the definition the whole debate turned on, and explicitly credits it to Zeno.

Source notes:Latin text as transmitted in Cicero's Lucullus 77 (= H. von Arnim, SVF I, no. 59). Cicero states there that this definition was given by Zeno (“a Zenone definitum”). Minor textual variants exist between editions.

What the source actually tells us

This is Cicero's Latin rendering of Zeno's definition of the cognitive impression (καταληπτικὴ φαντασία, katalēptikē phantasia) — not Zeno's Greek wording. The testimony indicates that Zeno defined a class of impressions guaranteed by their causal origin in what is real; we cannot recover his exact Greek phrasing from this witness alone.

Philosophical meaning

This definition is the foundation of Stoic epistemology: knowledge is possible because some impressions carry the mark of their true origin. The entire Hellenistic debate about certainty — Stoics against Academic sceptics — was fought over exactly this clause.

Scholarly uncertainty

The final qualifying clause (“such as it could not be from what is not”) was, according to Cicero himself, added by Zeno in response to Academic criticism — ancient testimony thus already shows the definition evolving. Editions also vary slightly in the Latin wording.

Go deeper

• Study impressions and assent in Stoic Logic →
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