SVF I.60
Stoic: Zeno of Citium · Ancient source: Cicero, Academica posteriora, Book I — Acad. post. 1.41–42 · Source language: Latin · Source status: Later report
Original — Latin
Visis non omnibus adiungebat fidem (scil. Zeno), sed iis solum, quae propriam quandam haberent declarationem earum rerum quae viderentur; id autem visum cum ipsum per se cerneretur, comprehendibile — (feretis hoc? Nos vero, inquam; quonam enim alio modo καταληπτὸν diceres?) — sed cum acceptum iam et approbatum esset, comprehensionem appellabat, similem iis rebus, quae manu prehenderentur; ex quo etiam nomen hoc duxerat, cum eo verbo antea nemo tali in re usus esset; plurimisque idem novis verbis (nova enim dicebat) usus est. Quod autem erat sensu comprehensum, id ipsum sensum appellabat, et, si ita erat comprehensum, ut convelli ratione non posset, scientiam, sin aliter, inscientiam nominabat; ex qua exsisteret etiam opinio, quae esset imbecilla et cum falso incognitoque communis. — Sed inter scientiam et inscientiam comprehensionem illam quam dixi, collocabat, eamque neque in rectis neque in pravis numerabat, sed soli credendum esse dicebat.
StoicOs Translation
Not to all impressions did he (Zeno) attach trust, but only to those which carry a distinctive disclosure of the things seen; such an impression, when discerned in and by itself, he called graspable — (will you bear this word? We shall indeed, I said; for how else would you render katalēpton?) — but once received and approved, he called it a grasp (comprehensio), like things grasped by the hand; from this he drew the very name, no one having used that word for such a matter before, and he used many new words besides (for he said new things). What was grasped by sense he called a sensation, and if it was so grasped that it could not be dislodged by reasoning, he called it knowledge; otherwise, ignorance — from which arises also opinion, which is weak and shares in what is false and unknown. — But between knowledge and ignorance he placed that grasp of which I spoke, counting it neither among the right nor among the wrong, and said that it alone is to be trusted.
Context
In the Academica, written some 250 years after Zeno, Cicero lets Varro expound the Stoic founder's epistemology sympathetically and systematically. This is the fullest connected Latin account of Zeno's ladder of knowledge: impression → assent → grasp (katalēpsis/comprehensio) → knowledge. The famous hand-gesture illustration of the same ladder is preserved separately (see SVF I.66).
Latin text verified against H. von Arnim, SVF I (1903), no. 60, p. 18 (scanned page). The speaker in Cicero's dialogue is Varro, giving a sympathetic, systematic survey of Zeno's innovations. The parenthesis “(nova enim dicebat)” and the aside “(feretis hoc? ...)” are Cicero's own dialogue, not editorial. Apparatus (von Arnim): 18 hoc Davisus, hec libri; 21 cum Manutius; 35 aperirentur Davisus. Thematic slices of this passage recur under SVF I.61–63 and I.68–69 — this record is the mother text.
What the source actually tells us
A later report in Cicero's Latin, with explicit and repeated attribution to Zeno, including the linguistic claim that Zeno coined the term katalēpsis. The asides in parentheses are Cicero's own dialogue. Von Arnim prints thematic slices of this same passage, with Greek parallels, under separate numbers — see SVF I.68 (the definitions of knowledge) and SVF I.69 (the grasp between knowledge and opinion); this record presents the connected mother text.
Philosophical meaning
Here Zeno builds the first complete Stoic theory of knowledge. Trust is not owed to every appearance, but assent — which lies in our power — turns a self-certifying impression into a grasp, and grasps hardened against every counter-argument become knowledge. Between knowledge and ignorance stands the honest middle: the reliable grasp available even to those not yet wise. Epistemology and ethics meet in a single act: what you assent to is up to you.
Scholarly uncertainty
Cicero translates Greek terminology into Latin coinages of his own (comprehensio for katalēpsis), so the passage is a rendering, not Zeno's wording. The phrase “that it alone is to be trusted” (soli credendum) is compressed and its precise scope debated. Von Arnim's apparatus records emendations by Davisus and Manutius at three points.
Go deeper
- Read SVF I.68 — the Greek definitions of knowledge
- Read SVF I.69 — the grasp between knowledge and opinion
- Read SVF I.66 — Zeno's hand-gesture simile
About this edition
StoicOs Ancient Library is a developing multilingual digital study edition of surviving early Stoic material. The Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta assembled by Hans von Arnim provides the traditional reference framework. StoicOs distinguishes carefully between fragments, testimonia, later reports and interpretation. StoicOs translations are prepared from the surviving ancient-language sources where available.