Ignorance and Opinion in Stoic Epistemology

Author(s): Constance Meinwald

Source: Phronesis, Vol. 50, No. 3 (2005), pp. 215-231
Published by: Brill
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 Ignorance and Opinion in Stoic Epistemology
CONSTANCE MEINWALD

ABSTRACT
This paper argues for a view that maximizes in the Stoics' epistemology the
starknessand clarity characteristicof other parts of their philosophy. I reconsider
our evidence concerning doxa (opinion/belief): should we really take the Stoics
to define it as assent to the incognitive, so that it does not include the assent of
ordinary people to their kataleptic impressions, and is thus actually inferior to
agnoia (ignorance)?I argue against this, and for the simple view that in Stoicism
assent is either, in the case of the fool, doxa = agnoia, or alternatively, in that
of the sage, episteme (knowledge). This view, together with reflection on the
appropriatesense of "between"in the relevant reports of SE and Cicero, yields
a sympathetic reading of an otherwise problematic challenge Sextus reports
Arcesilaus as having preparedfor the Stoic claim that kataletpsis,which is the
criterion of truth, is between knowledge and opinion; on my view each side is
proceeding in a philosophically legitimate way.

Stoic epistemologypresentsits main charactersclearly and distinctly,so

that standardscholarshipagreeson the following tenets.The sage is wise:
he has episteime (knowledge/scientificknowledge/wisdom/understanding)
and never errs. The fool in contrastis ignorant:though underfavorable
conditions from time to time he has normal impressionsthat cannot be
wrong (Stoic kataleptic/cognitiveimpressions),the flaws in his overall
system vitiate even these attachments,so that his ignoranceis compre-
hensive. Whoeveris not a sage is a fool.
In this set-up, the fool is not a figure of so to speak idealized igno-
rance.That is, the fool and the sage are not symmetricallycounterpoised,
not equally abstractedfigures representingpractically unattainableex-
tremeswith real humanbeings falling somewhereon a continuumbetween
them. Rather,the fool is the complementof the sage in such a way that
to him is assigned all parts of "cognitiveachievementspace" except the
region that representsthe certain,systematic,unshakeable,and unerring
dispositionthat is wisdom, i.e. to the fool is assigned all partsof cogni-
tive achievementspace that we regulartypes occupy.
This is a view that wants to make success - and even adequacy - an
all-or-nothingmatter.It has been seen as a continuationof the program

? KoninklijkeBrill NV, Leiden, 2005 Phronesis L13

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216 CONSTANCE MEINWALD

of Socrates,' who considered as discredited anyone who failed his

elenchus though,for all that this showed, some of such a person's indi-
vidual opinionscould be perfectlytrue.The importantthingwas thatsince
such a person'soverall set of commitments(concerningrelevantmatters)
was contradictory,no individualplank in his platformwas reliably safe.
Thereis also a certainkinship2with the low assessmentthe DividedLine
and Cave passages made of people at the lower levels - that assessment
did not depend on saying that each of their particularopinions was or
could be false.
This all-or-nothing approach manifests itself in Stoic ethics in the
famous image:
.' ^
"vai",
v t
(paaiv, "X4 o itiixuv
.fi Tepaveia;
'niE ., . o;
aionep &XiExwv'v Oaax6tc rtii
oI5ev
T1TTOV icVIyrETXl Toi) K0aata)KoTO; 0p'yuia; 7zEvtaKoaiag, otW4 ol8s Oi n?Ex-
tOvrc; aLpet1j T&)VJAiKpaXv OVTO)V flTTOV etotv eV KaWtt

"Yes," they [the Stoics] say, "but just as in the sea the man an arm's length from
the surface is drowning no less than the one who has sunk five hundred fathoms,
so even those who are getting close to virtue are no less in a state of vice than
those who are far from it." (LS3 61T = SVF III. 539, from Plutarch, On Common
Conceptions)

In the case of Stoic ethics, the rest of the view is as clear-cutand strik-
ing as these characterizations.Thus the austerityinherentin the point that
everyone below the surface is equally drowningalso characterizessuch
tenets as that only virtue mattersor that only the sage can do anything
properly.It is naturalto expect an analogous situationin Stoic episte-
mology, andthis is just whatwe findin a treatmentof it like Tad Brennan's
when he is summarizingwhat he representsas uncontroversialbasics
before going on to controversialwork on the emotions.4Yet when we
look at detailedworkon Stoic epistemologyitself, we findthatinterpreters
are not in agreementand that their reconstructions,even taken individu-
ally, tend to lose the starknessand claritynative to Stoicism.

Accepted November 2004

1 Michael Frede, "Stoics and Skeptics on Clear and Distinct Impressions,"in Myles
Burnyeat (ed.), The Skeptical Tradition (Berkeley, 1983), 65; A. A. Long & D. N.
Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers hereafter"LS" (Cambridge, 1987) 1, 259.
2 See Julia Annas, "Stoic Epistemology" in Stephen Everson (ed.), Epistemology

(Cambridge, 1990), 188 on the relationshipof Stoicism to Plato's Republic.

I I reunite text and translationfrom LS vol. II and vol. I respectively, citing them
by their (common) boldface LS numbers.
I Tad Brennan, "The Old Stoic Theory of Emotions," in Juha Sihvola and Troels
Engberg-Pedersen(eds.), The Emotions in Hellenistic Philosophy (Dordrecht, 1998),
27, 34.

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 IGNORANCE AND OPINION IN STOIC EPISTEMOLOGY 217

An extremeexample is Julia Annas, who providesa particularlyinclu-

sive exposition of the basics of Stoic epistemology.'Since this is in the
context of a paper largely devoted to the debate between the Stoics and
the Skeptics concerningkatalepsisas the criterionof truth,her treatment
of our issues does not answer all the questions it may prompt.For my
purposes,the fascinatingpartis the series she presentsof forms of accep-
tance by a mind of an appearance:assent, doxa (opinion/belief),6katalep-
sis (apprehension),knowledge.While she does not say explicitly how she
derives this ordering,it seems to be by combining parts of texts from
Cicero and Sextus. Cicero (Acad. II. 145 = SVF I. 66) reportsthe famous
pantomimewherebyZenorepresentedappearance/impression, assent,appre-
hension, and knowledge: by his hand with open palm, with slightly
clenched fingers, formed into a fist, and then finally with the fist force-
fully secured by the other hand. Annas seems to be in mix-and-match
mode and to combine parts of this sequence with the reportof Sextus
(Adv.M. VII. 151), who tells us that apprehensionis betweenknowledge
and doxa. That is, she seems to arrive at her orderingby taking assent,
apprehension,and knowledgeas they are in the Ciceroreport(impression
is not one of her numberedstages as it is not yet a form of acceptance).
She then seems to deal with Sextus' saying that apprehensionis between
knowledge and doxa by puttingin doxa just below apprehensionin her
series.
Notice however that while neithersource tells us that doxa is higher
than mere assent, Annas' exposition does.7 Commentingon this part of
her sequence,Annas writes, "In any perception,therewill be not only an
appearance,but some kind of acceptanceby the person's mind of the
propositionalcontentof the appearance.The weakestform of this is assent
(sunkatathesis).The next strongestis belief (doxa)."8This seems to me
highly puzzling: what mere assent - weaker than Stoic doxa - can possibly

' "Stoic Epistemology," 186-88.

6
Annas discusses (fn. 7) "belief" and "opinion"as translationsof doxa, and plumps
for "belief." I use "opinion"in this paper to harmonizewith the extracts from LS, but
for present purposes the choice is no more significant than that.
7 An alternative reconstructionof her thought process is that Annas bases herself

on Acad. I. 40-42. This would give all her terms in a single source, but has the infe-
licity that this text is primarilyin terms of inscientia (agnoia, ignorance), whose rela-
tion to opinio (doxa) is not at all clear. And note that according to Annas, ignorance
is not equivalent to doxa. In any case, the main point that the source does not contain
informationsupportingAnnas' representationof the relation between doxa and assent
would still hold.
8 "Stoic Epistemology," 186.

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218 CONSTANCE MEINWALD

be eludes me. So a perplexityspecial to Annas' presentationis whether

doxa is in a sense higherthanmere assent.Note also thatAnnasdoes not
seem to give a definitepositionin the basic progressionto agnoia. A com-
mon perplexityconcernswhetherin Stoicismthe latteris betterthanopin-
ion. (This follows if one supposes, as we will see Annas does, that the
markof doxa is assentto the incognitive;some partsof a fool's ignorance
are his assents to his cognitive impressions.)She flags however that the
exactrelationbetweenignoranceanddoxais tricky;she holdsthemofficially
distinctbut finds the Stoics sometimesbluffing the line between them.
In generalin the literature,messinessseems to collect aroundthe notion
of doxa (opinion/belief).Thus, in this essay I will aim to clarifyhow opin-
ion should be characterized.9 I will argue for the restorationof a simple,
clean-cut view, which eliminatesany assent lower than doxa as well as
any suggestionthat ignorancecan be betterthan opinion. On my picture
assent to an appearancegeneratesa commitmentwhich in the best case
is knowledge,and in all others is opinion (= ignorance).

* **

Let us start by laying out some standardtexts on the comparativelyun-

controversialnotions of knowledge and ignorance. Here is Sextus on
knowledge:
paa:v... ?irtaTTI'TI,V p?V rivac TI1V pTcLXifi ICcE' PEiava KOti &AEOWcETOV bior

X0,Y01 K(XT0,t?jfV . .. K(XT&X7jV1V . . . Tlg iTfX K(VXT11-

aatxi a
MVTtUa; l01 OD-

iCaiOrls KaTat 5i Xpav-rctok) cata TOOtoi; ?TVtlv i aGi ca

TOML)T9 laOU10 c OLV v yEVoUro WE -;.

The Stoics say . . . Scientific knowledge is cognition which is secure and firm and
unchangeableby reason ... Cognition ... is assentbelonging to a cognitive impres-
sion; and a cognitive impression,so they claim, is one which is true and of such
a kind that it could not turn out false. (LS 41C = SE, Adv. M. VII. 151-52; cf.
LS 41H = SVF III. 112, from Stobaeus)

Cicero goes more quickly over cognition and knowledge, but relates
knowledgeto ignoranceclearly:
quod autem erat sensu comprensum id ipsum sensum appellabat, et si ita erat
comprensum ut convelli ratione non posset scientiam, sin aliter inscientiam
nominabat

' A subsequenteffort will examine the Stoic treatmentof weak assent in generat-
ing opinion.

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 IGNORANCEAND OPINION IN STOIC EPISTEMOLOGY 219

What was grasped by sense-perceptionZeno called itself a sense-perception,and

if it had been so grasped that it could not be disrupted by reason, he called it
scientific knowledge; but if it were otherwise, he called it ignorance. (LS 41B =
SVF I. 60 = Cicero, Acad. I. 41; cf. LS 41I = SVF III. 663 = Stobaeus II. 68,
18-23)

So we have: kataleptic impressions cannot be wrong; knowledge is un-

shakeably secure assent to kataleptic impressions; anything less is ignorance.
Now armed with characterizations of knowledge, katalehpsis (cognition,
apprehension) and ignorance, we will be able to entertain our theme ques-
tion of how opinion fits in. Let us start with a superficially similar pair
of statements:

sed inter scientiam et inscientiam comprehensionem ... collocabat

cognition ... [Zeno] placed between scientific knowledge and ignorance (LS 41B
= SVF I. 60= Cicero, Acad. I. 42)

-cpia yap (pczaV CKElVOt Ta aXikol;, ? 11V sat 56Rav

Eivai (Yoivta
cal TIV Ev jicOoppl rIv KaTXiwabtv
Toi3TOv TETOzYAEVV

The Stoics say there are three things which are linked together, scientific knowl-
edge, opinion, and cognition stationed between them. (LS 41C = SE, Adv. M.
VII. 151)

Are Cicero and Sextus telling us the same thing so that opinion and igno-
rance are equivalent notions in Stoicism? One might incline to think so,
and this would contribute to a clear-cut view, one featuring a contrast
between two forms of commitment that corresponds to the contrast we
started with between the sage and the fool. (To carry out this view one
has of course to specify the sense in which katalepsis is between knowl-
edge and ignorance in Cicero and between knowledge and opinion in
Sextus, but that must be done in any case and we will come to it in due
course.) Each character would have his proprietary form of commitment.
And for the most clear-cut view each of these forms of commitment would
be made up of eponymous parts i.e. knowledge as a state would consist
of pieces of knowledge, and opinion = ignorance as a state would be made
up of bits of opinion = ignorance. This is not only the simplest way of
thinking of the relation between the states and commitments falling under
them, but is the one taken in the importantly antecedent work of Socrates
and the middle books of Plato's Republic.'0

10 Discussion recurs throughoutthe stretch of the Rep. from 474 to 541.

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220 CONSTANCE MEINWALD

The picturesuch a view affordsfeaturesa seriesof simple,binaryoppo-

sitions:just as an individualpersonis eithera sage or a fool, so any men-
tal dispositionis either wisdom or opinion = ignorance,and so also any
individualcommitmentis either wisdom or opinion = ignorance.Just as
the sage is approvedand the fool disparaged,so the state of wisdom is
approvedand the state of opinion = ignoranceis disparaged,and so also
individualbits of wisdom are approvedand individualbits of opinion =
ignoranceare disparaged.Indeed,just as all disparagementof people is
of the fool, so all disparagementof mental states is of opinion = igno-
rance and so also all disparagementof individualcommitmentsis of bits
of opinion = ignorance.
However, the detailed work of mainstreamscholarsgoes against this
view. This is because it is widely thoughtto be the markof an individ-
ual opinion to be assent to an incognitiveimpression.Once one accepts
this the two optionsremainingboth involve sacrificingthe simple picture:
one must either disturbthe simple relationbetween the state of opinion
and individualopinions,or take opinion and ignoranceto be importantly
differentstates. Each of these has been spelled out by leading scholars;
let us considerthem in some detail.
The first option is to follow the suggestiondescribedby W. Gorler"
that opinionconsideredas someone's mentallevel has a complicatedrela-
tion to individualopinions:someone is at the mentallevel of opinion(i.e.
the sub-sagaciouslevel) if some of his individualcommitmentsare opin-
ions = assents to non-katalepticimpressions.This removes the threatof
opinionat the mentalstate/dispositionlevel coming apartfrom ignorance,
but at the cost of disturbingthe simple patternrelatingmental state and
individualcommitmentswe had above. (The simple patternstill holds for
knowledge: knowledge the state is made up only of individualbits of
knowledge.)Now some of the individualcommitmentsthatare partof the
overall state of opinionare not themselvesopinions.Notice that, if this is
the Stoic view, the circumstanceof their very often not making it clear
whetherthey are talkingaboutthe state of opinionor an individualbit of
opinionbecomes an issue, since individualopinionsare no longertypical
of all partsof the overall state.
The other and perhapsmore mainstreamoption is to let opinion and
ignorancecome apart.Both JuliaAnnasand LS makedoxa the state cover
only assents to the incognitive,while ignoranceextends to all commit-

" In his famous "'AaO8EvfiowyKcaa'ciOwt;:zur stoischen Erkenntnistheorie,"

WurzburgerJahrbucherfur AltertumswissenschaftN.F. 3 (1977), 84 fn. 5.

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 IGNORANCE AND OPINION IN STOIC EPISTEMOLOGY 221

ments that fall short of knowledge.'2Thus, the mainstreamoption is to

understandopinion (the disposition/state/overall commitmentset) as con-
sisting of all and only individualopinions,preservingthe relationbetween
individualopinions and opinion as a mental state. However, since this
yields a state understoodin such a way as to differimportantlyfrom igno-
rance, it sacrificesthe binary set-up that seemed characteristicallyStoic.
This ought to challengeus to say why the Stoics introducedthese two as
distinct.Aretherethreeepistemologicallysignificantmentalstates?Orcould
it be that one is the importantcontrastwith knowledgewhile the other is
merely an accessoryserving some specializedfunction?LS go some way
towards addressingthis with the idea that a non-sage's katalepticcom-
mitmentscorrespondto a progressive's"properfunctions"in ethics.'3But
then why does ignorancehave such a negative name?
Intriguingly,both Annas and LS point out some evidence that some
Stoics failed to distinguishbetween, or indeed actually identified,doxa
and ignorance.'4In the light of this I would like to proposethatwe review
criticallyour evidence for taking "assentto the incognitive"as the mark
of opinion.If we can departfrom the standardview on this we can restore
the simple picture that appealed initially and avoid having to choose
among such complicatedconstructionsas those we have reviewed.'5

Let us start with LS's favorite piece of evidence (cited, in this connec-
tion, earliest and most often):
... OTEToli; 7tpOOtl8YTloV0D;t 9~~~~~~~~,
T? FTE( . .. (Xa Iptvetv
TE t
!e si Xyo1V,
Eyl(YV av R?VseV\
Oe

a&lljxot; 6?tco, iEpOltTiOVTXa;, av 6i ?FUU?aU, i i?VOEU80V0o;, av &EKIVOW;

oaltawxslEol;, 8oRaCovTx;

12 "Stoic Epistemology," 186; LS I, 257-58.

'3 LS 1, 257, 259. We should connect this with Long's previous work on the ethical
progressive, in his Hellenistic Philosophy (New York, 1974), 129, 204, and 214 ff.
14 "Stoic Epistemology," 187; LS I, 258.

'1 We receive no guidance on this theme from three of the major treatments of
Stoicism from the last three decades. In J. M. Rist, Stoic Philosophy (Cambridge,
1969), "The Criterion of Truth" (133-151) focuses very tightly on its theme, and
"Knowing and Willing" (219-232) concerns only knowing as it pertains to willing.
While the title of Rist (ed.) The Stoics (Berkeley, 1978) sounds comprehensive, none
of its contributorshas happenedto thematize our issue. Finally, Michael Frede's "Stoic
Epistemology" in Keimpe Algra, Jonathan Barnes, Jaap Mansfeld, and Malcolm
Schofield (eds.), The CambridgeHistory of Hellenistic Philosophy (Cambridge, 1999),
295-322, has an internaldialectic because of which it also does not consider our issue.

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222 CONSTANCE MEINWALD

... On these occasions the Stoics say that those who assent to one of them...
are guilty of error;that they are precipitateif they yield to unclear impressions,
deceived if they yield to false ones, and opining if they yield to ones which are
incognitive quite generally. (LS 41E = SVF II. 993, from Plutarch,OnStoicSelf-
Contradictions)

Clearly this passage is committedto:

If one assents to the incognitive one opines.

But it is not at all clear that we have any right to take this as a bicondi-
tional, i.e. to supply the other direction:
If one opines one assents to the incognitive.

It is fascinatingthat LS themselves say concerninganotherpassage, "it

shouldbe noted that Arcesilaussays 'assent to the incognitiveis opinion'
(41C10 [= SE, Adv. M. VII. 156-571)and not 'opinion is assent to the
incognitive,'which leaves it open that some opinionsmay involve assent
to cognitive impressions."16It seems to me that this point applies equally
to our passage.Thus I don't see how it can show that"assentto the incog-
nitive"is the markor definitionof opinion.Of course,if we alreadyknew
that was the definitionwe could take this passage to be relyingon it, but
by itself this does not seem decisive.
A similar situationseems to me to obtainwith anotherpassagewhich
LS cite (as their 41G1) as showing that as the Stoics "normallyuse the
termdoxa, it refersto beliefs that resultfrom assent to the incognitive."'7
It runs:
c680i; 5' WtoXaRP&vEtv oi55EiroTE pxaG TOV ao9OV, OIA6E TO iExp6irsv
alK(XaT(XZ7T TtV' (o)YiataTiOfeXOat,UlaTbogtn5 50otfEVa.v mO'v sr15' O&YVoiv
gT186V.

They [the Stoics] say that the wise man never makes a false supposition, and
that he does not assent at all to anything incognitive, owing to his not opining
and his being ignorant of nothing. (LS 41G = SVF III. 548, from Stobaeus)

Clearly the passage is committedto the following:

Since the sage does not opine, he does not assent to anything incognitive.

Thus it is also committedto:

16 LS I, 258.
17 LS 1, 258.

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 IGNORANCE AND OPINION IN STOIC EPISTEMOLOGY 223

If the sage assents to the incognitive he opines.

Here as before, it is not at all clear that we have any license to take the
relationship to be a biconditional. Thus, I don't see how this passage any
more than Arcesilaus ap. SE (about which LS were so careful) shows that
opinion is assent to the incognitive.
How good is our other evidence that opinion is assent to the incogni-
tive? LS say that claim "has Zeno's authority (40D [= Cicero, Acad. II.
77-78] and cf. Cicero, Acad. II. 60.'8 We will turn to the other passage
next, but for now let's concentrate on LS 40D.

quaesivit de Zenone fortasse quid futurumesset si nec percipere quicquam pos-

set sapiens nec opinari sapientis esset. ille credo nihil opinaturum,quoniam esset
quod percipi posset.

We may take him [Arcesilaus] to have asked Zeno what would happen if the
wise man could not cognize anything and it was the mark of the wise man not
to opine. Zeno, I imagine, replied that the wise man would not opine since there
was something cognitive.

LS, I suppose, take this to show that Zeno gave his authority to the claim
that opinion is assent to the incognitive because they suppose the claim
to be required for the inference to go through. And this may appear to be
so if one considers the line of thought to be:

There is something cognitive therefore [any]one can make commitments without

opining.

LS may suppose that if opinion includes not only assent to the incogni-
tive but also unstable, weak assent to the cognitive, then there being some-
thing cognitive would not be enough to show that [any]one can avoid
opining. But this possibility is not relevant given the context, since the
discussion here is about the wise man.'9 Given that Arcesilaus and Zeno
are discussing what a sage will do, there being something cognitive for
him to assent to will allow him to avoid opinion, even construed in the
broader way I am advocating. The wise man's assents to his cognitive
impressions are automatically free from the weakness of the fool's which
render them mere opinions. Once we are thinking about the bearing of the
context, we can also see that since it is not a treatment of opinion in gen-
eral, this passage is somewhat unsuited as a source for an official general
characterization.

18 LS I, 257.
'9 Thanks to Michael Alexander for suggesting this to me.

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224 CONSTANCE MEINWALD

I think we can treat LS's other text, from a bit earlierin Acad. II, in
just the same way. The passagethey cite runs(startinga little furtherback,
in 1I. 59):
Mihi porronon tam certumest esse aliquid quod comprendipossit ... quam sapi-
entem nihil opinari, id est numquamadsentin rei vel falsae vel incognitae.

As before, we should be aware that this is not a general discussion of

opinion but just an expressionof the impossibilityof the sage's opining.
He - whose commitments are stable - would not endorse something false
or incognitive. Thus I would here prefer the translationof Rackham's
Loeb:
For my part, moreover, certain as I am that something exists that can be
grasped... I am still more certain that the wise man never holds an opinion, that
is, never assents to a thing that is either false or unknown

to LS's more interpretativerenderingof the crucialbit:

... opining is assenting to a thing either false or incognitive."'

Let us now look at the remainingbit of evidence LS cite as supportfor

the claim that "the general characteristicof 'opining' is 'assent to the
incognitive'."2'Their 41D2 = SVF II. 131, from Anon. Stoic. (P. Herc.
1020) does not read that way to me. It runs:
['tn]&6 A' [1]O64?v I TO'[V GO]qPO[V XkEiI &KoXol4or[0E]iv [(PcAq]v totkxrlak[a
RpIC0[to0]V?TV tbI [d 5o0Ce[iv] ])[TlC -nI6&vij Yap &K i4i]; ?xflLTv 66]4[

We say that the wise man's absence of opinion is accompanied by such char-
acteristics as, first of all, his supposing nothing; for supposal is an incognitive
opinion.

Certainlythis builds the incognitiveinto the definitionof dokesis (which

LS renderas "supposal"),but this very passage seems to treatdokesis as
distinctfromdoxa. Forwhy shouldsupposingnothingfollowfromabsence
of opinion if supposal is opinion? On the other hand if supposal is a
species of opinion the point "since the wise man never opines, a fortiori
he never indulgesin supposal"could be worthstating.Thus it seems most
naturalto me to read this passage as saying that supposalis the kind of
opinionwhich is incognitiveratherthanas saying thatsupposalis opinion,

20 LS 1, 257-58.
2" LS I, 257.

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 IGNORANCE AND OPINION IN STOIC EPISTEMOLOGY 225

which as always is incognitive. But now the circumstance that "incogni-

tive" is the differentia of a species of opinion seems to confirm that opin-
ion as such need not be incognitive, that is, to tell against the position LS
hold.

* * *

Do any other texts indicate that there is a clear-cut distinction between

ignorance and opinion in Stoicism? Cicero, Acad. I. 41-42 (LS 41B) can
be read in accord with LS's general interpretation,but need not be - espe-
cially if we depart very slightly from their punctuation and translation.22
With a more neutral punctuation we would have:

quod autem erat sensu comprensum id ipsum sensum appellabat, et si ita erat
comprensumut convelli ratione non posset scientiam, sin aliter inscientiam nomi-
nabat, ex qua existeret etiam opinio, quae esset imbecilla et cum falso incogni-
toque communis (adjusting the semicolon before ex qua existeret to a comma).

What was grasped by sense-perceptionZeno called itself a sense perception,and

if it had been so grasped that it could not be disrupted by reason, he called it
scientific knowledge, but if it were otherwise, he called it ignorance, taking this
to be the source of opinion as well, which was something weak and common to
what was false and incognitive (substituting"common"for LS's "related to").

Let us read this keeping in mind that, in the context, we have been con-
sidering the sage's unshakeable grasp and are now going back down
from the epistemic peak: if the grasp is not unshakeable we already deal
with ignorance/opinion. Even this first step down - a shakeable katalep-
tic grasp - is disastrous: we can appreciate its horribleness more fully
when we reflect that it is a kind of ignorance/opinion, where ignorance/
opinion as such can be a matter of false or incognitive assent. That is, the
horror of ignorance/opinion is that it is common as well to the false and
incognitive.23 Even LS's "related to" could support this interpretation if
we take it that Cicero is saying that what is bad about opinion is that it
is also related to the false and incognitive, instead of taking "opinion is
related to the false and incognitive" to gesture at the definition of what
opinion is.

22 I am very grateful to James Allen for showing me how to deal with this pas-
sage; I simply follow his advice in this section.
23 Cf. the use of the idea of "being common" in the debate about the cognitive
impression (Acad. II. 33-34): being common to the true and false is used to show that
the kinds of impressions put forward as the criterion cannot fulfill that function.

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226 CONSTANCE MEINWALD

Anothermajortext is so far from indicatingthat Stoic opinion and igno-

ranceare completelydistinctthatcorrectingthis assumptionremoveswhat
otherwiseappearsto be a crucial difficultyin the dialectical situation.I
referto the challengeSextus reportsArcesilausas havingpreparedfor the
Stoic claim that katalepsis, which is the criterionof truth, is between
knowledgeand opinion, and commonto the wise and foolish:
Waivta6i XeyOV V TdV a&to Tiq ITo&; o 'ApKccikaoo dcvTrtKa0OiCtaTo, 6eutvv;
0OT 0VO? ?T p?at ?x11npiWlo45slpo Ti aTa&i1.
lyap TV OE(Fl KOtcZXf,lXGtV KOaKarXa)XTXX11fliqavtasixa OUyKata0E8EIV, i",OI EV
GO(PCP11 CV (p0av)kq yivEtrat. XtX ?av 'e Ev 0o0pD YEVrITat, ?5taTT14T CaTIV, CXiv
TE EV pai5Xp, 66Ra, vait OVEV aiXXOixp& WtaiYaij jovov ovo[ia e ?ieiTal.

Arcesilaus contradictedthese statements of the Stoics by proving that cognition

is no criterion in between scientific knowledge and opinion. For what they call
cognition and assent to a cognitive impressionoccurs in either a wise or an infe-
rior man. But if it occurs in a wise man, it is scientific knowledge; and if in an
inferior man, it is opinion; and there is no furthervariation except a purely ver-
bal one. (LS 41C = SE, Adv. M. VII. 153-54)

On the usual understandingof opinion and its differencefrom ignorance,

Arcesilausis providingan argumentthat clearly doesn't work. (Cf. LS,
who seem to startby criticizingArcesilaus,later considerthe possibility
that Zeno did not distinguishopinion and ignoranceso that the argument
works after all, but then never wholeheartedlyendorse the interpretation
of Zeno this would require.24)For Arcesilausargues as follows:
(I) Cognition occurs in either a sage or an inferior man.
(2) Cognition in a sage is knowledge.
(3) Cognition in an inferior man is opinion.
(4) There's no other possibility.
(5) So there is nothing between knowledge and opinion to be the criterion.

But on the standardview (3) is false: cognitionin the inferiorman can-

not be opinion, if opinion is definedas assent to the incognitive.
Arcesilaus could of course be cheating and hoping that no-one will
notice that (3) is false, but how could a Stoic opponentfail to notice a
misstatementof the very characterof opinion?Anotherdiagnosis is that
Arcesilaushimself mistakes Stoic ignorancefor opinion. For if we sub-
stitutefor (3):

24 LS 1, 257-58.

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 IGNORANCE AND OPINION IN STOIC EPISTEMOLOGY 227

(3') Cognition in the inferior man is ignorance

we would have something true. We would then have correspondingly to

modify (5) to:

(5') There is no such criterion as katalepsis between ignorance and knowledge

to yield a reasonable argument. Both of these diagnoses are problematic.

To sum up simply, given the standard view of Stoic opinion, Arcesilaus
here is either cheating or so badly informed as to cast his argument com-
pletely in terms of the wrong notion. Yet surely he was in a better posi-
tion to be aware of Zeno's set-up than we are. Now with the standard
view already looking ill-supported, the reluctance we should feel to see
Arcesilaus as incompetent becomes another reason to abandon the thesis
that the mark of opinion is assent to the incognitive. Of course, this step
toward rehabilitation would be pointless unless there is some other inter-
pretation on which the dialectical situation looks better. Let us consider
how it plays out if read with my simple interpretation.
Clearly, (1) comes out true on the binary interpretation- cognition does
occur in either a sage or an inferior man. The uncontroversial (2) still
holds - cognition in a sage is knowledge. Now the contentious (3) comes
out true as well: on the simple, binary picture cognition in an inferior man
is opinion, since this picture makes any commitment of any inferior man
opinion. Of course the binary view is fine on (4): there's no other possi-
bility. So on the simple picture Arcesilaus has set up everything preced-
ing the conclusion fairly. But things become interesting when we consider
(5): there is nothing between knowledge and opinion to be the criterion.
Whether (5) follows and whether that matters for Stoicism seem to me to
depend on the interpretation we give to "between." We have now come
round to considering a point that I flagged earlier. So before trying to
assess our present argument, let us go back a bit and think carefully about
our reports that the Stoics put katalepsis between knowledge and opinion/
ignorance. The main evidence is the exposition in Sextus that precedes the
skeptical attack we have been considering (SE, Adv. M. VII. 151-52 = LS
41C) and Cicero, Acad. I. 41 (= LS 41B).
When we just hear that a thing is between two others, the kind of pic-
ture that most readily springs to mind is of three paving stones set in a
line, or a subway rider in a row of seats with fellow passengers to both
the right and left sides. That is, we think of a series of coordinate elements
strung out in a row, with no overlapping. This picture in fact may be
responsible in part for the hegemony of the standard interpretationof Stoic

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228 CONSTANCE MEINWALD

opinion- for if knowledge,cognition,and opinion are relatedas are my

paving stones, then opinions cannot be cognitions. But notice that this
readingimmediatelyfaces a challenge in dealing with the other half of
the picture,the relationbetween knowledgeand cognition.If the paving
stone model has it that opinionscannotbe cognitionsthen it would seem
also thatknowledgecannotbe cognition.Yet knowledgeis a kind of cog-
nition - as Sextus continues:

()V Cin10'T'ATV O
EV'v ElVat tnV aG(pakXi )Cat P 3PaiXV Kalt 6Cpe0ETr V ko)you
o
)caTak.vfstv

Scientific knowledge is cognition which is secure and firm and unchangeableby

reason. (LS 41C2 = SE, Adv. M. VII. 151)

So to upholdthe standardview one has to say that the "cognition"which

is between knowledge and opinion is "mere cognition". That is, knowl-
edge, the firstpaving stone, is an extra-fancykind of cognition,and "cog-
nition"the second and non-overlappingstone means those cognitionsthat
are not unshakeablyfirm and so fall shortof knowledge.
Howeverthis move is far from felicitous. For a few lines laterwe read
(iV TTiV <g.tv> E7htaT1iTirV eV Ovoti; Upiatzat ?OyVout Tot; opoWi;, TI1V &
86ouXv Ev itvot; TOi; a1Xot, TiV & E aTCiXTJitv cKOIVniV
ai4.potEpoV EIvat

Of these they say that scientific knowledge is found only in the wise, and opin-
ion only in the inferior, but cognition is common to them both (LS 41C5 = SE,
Adv. M. VII. 152)

and here "cognition"clearly cannothave the force of "mere cognition"-

if the wise also have it cognition cannot be understoodto fall short of
unshakeablestability.
Another indication that the paving stone model isn't quite right is
the languageSextus uses in openinghis reportof this key point when he
tells us:
Tpia yap lvaci qPatlv ?KEIVOI Ta
ivru4wyobvTa ,XXTiJXou, tati(yiPiv Icai 54av
Cal TTiVEV gE0oplq TO&roVTETaygEviiv 1CaxtXvWv

The Stoics say there are three things which are linked together, scientific knowl-
edge [episteme], opinion [doxa] and cognition [katakpsis) stationed between
them. (LS 41C1 = SE, Adv. M. VII. 151)

For while the garden path and subway models fit the talk of the middle
element as being "stationed between" the two others, they seem to me to

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 IGNORANCE AND OPINION IN STOIC EPISTEMOLOGY 229

resist the initial phrase that the three elements are suzugounta - "linked"
together as LS render it.
It is not natural to say that our three flagstones or three subway pas-
sengers are linked together. The elements of a chain bracelet are of course
linked, and one might say that the participants in a seance have linked
their hands. In the ur-image of suzugounta, a pair of animals is yoked
together. This ur-image makes it obvious that the key thing about the sit-
uation is that one yoke is common to the two animals. It is not a third
animal plopped into the row, but a thing of another sort lying over (at
least part of) each of them and so joining them together. And while
"linked together" changes the image, it is a good translation because it
also features a form of overlap or jointure. What differentiates the paving
stone and subway rider cases from the bracelet, seance, and farm/chariot
models is that in the first two cases there is no such overlap - we merely
have our three coordinate elements strung out in their row.
Thus a careful reading of what Sextus tells us the Stoics say about
knowledge, katalepsis, and opinion already tends to suggest that these
three are not as free from overlap as the phrasing of being "stationed
between" on its own might have suggested. We should reject the paving
stone model and free ourselves from the influence of any support it may
have lent the standard view. My simple picture by contrast works well
with the language of yoking. For cognition, on the binary interpretation,
figures in both knowledge and opinion: all knowledge involves cognition,
and some cognitions are opinions (if they are unstable, resulting from
weak assent). In the sense that it figures in both, cognition joins knowl-
edge and opinion, and this is what the image of yoking gets at.25
Our evidence from Cicero is the much briefer

sed inter scientiam et inscientiam comprehensionemillam quam dixi collocabat

That cognition I mentioned above he placed between scientific knowledge and

ignorance. (LS 41B2 = SVF I. 60 = Acad I. 42)

25 Tony Long raises the issue whether my yoking model is consistent with my want-
ing cognition to cover all knowledge but only some opinion. I still think it is: I take
the crucial idea of a yoke to be that of two things being connected by a third that
overlaps each, with no essential commitment on whether a yoke in general must lie
over the whole or just a part of what it yokes. Thus, even if one normally does yoke
animals more symmetrically,this part of the set-up need not be preservedin the appli-
cation of the image any more than the fact that what is yoked has hooves need carry
over.

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230 CONSTANCE MEINWALD

Surely Cicero's language is compatiblewith the gloss that cognition is

common to knowledge and ignorance = opinion, i.e. with the yoking
model and the binaryinterpretation.So our examinationof the passages
in Sextus and Cicero laying out the claim that katalepsis is between
knowledge and opinion/ignoranceshows that the paving stone model
sometimes fails, while the yoking model is always compatiblewith the
texts. The standardview of Stoic epistemologyin turnloses a bit of sup-
port,while the simple binarypicturereceives some confirmation.
Now let us returnto the dialecticalsituationwith Arcesilaus.I said ear-
lier that things got interestingwith his conclusion:
(5) There is nothing in between knowledge and opinion to be the criterion.

Does this follow problematicallyfrom the previoussteps, that katalepsis

occurs in either a sage or a fool, and so is either knowledgeor opinion,
therebeing no otherpossibility?With all the work we have done on var-
ious interpretationsof "between"it is now easy to see that they play a
role here.
Arcesilaushas proceededfairly in steps (1)-(4), and this does indeed
show that there is nothingbetweenknowledgeand opinion to be the cri-
terion if one interpretsbeing between on the paving stone model. On the
other hand our own reflection on the Stoic set-up has shown that this
model is not as well suited to Stoic epistemologyas the yoking one. And
on the yoking model, a binary set-up with knowledge and opinion still
does not show that cognition can't be between them: it is the common
elementthatjoins them and doesn't have to be a thirdcoordinateelement
like them but in the middle. So I think, looking at the dialecticalsitua-
tion overall, that it turnsout to be neitheran embarrassingbit of incom-
petence from Arcesilaus nor an easy knock-out by him, but rather
somethingmore appropriateto the ability of both sides. Thus my inter-
pretationsatisfies the desiderataAnnas sets out for interpretersof Stoic/
Skepticdebate.26The Stoics have a dogma ("cognitionis betweenknowl-
edge and opinion")which naively read is subjectto a certainobjection,
and Arcesilaus hopes to lead his opponent down the garden path and
exploit that. Yet the Stoics are not without a way forward,because it is
open to them to reject the paving-stonemodel, and to develop and artic-
ulate the otherinterpretation of "between"which is in fact the one suited

26 "Stoic Epistemology," 193-94.

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 IGNORANCE AND OPINION IN STOIC EPISTEMOLOGY 231

to their theory. Such articulation would constitute endorsement of the sim-

ple binary picture I presented initially as Stoic in character.27

University of Illinois at Chicago

Department of Philosophy

27 Thanks to the Editors, and to James Allen, Tony Long, and Wolfgang Mann for

reading and commenting on drafts of my work, and for their encouragement.

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