ZENO THE STOIC AND THE PHOENICIAN OUTFITS OF PLATO’S PHILOSOPHY

Annotation

Historical versions of the hermeneutics of Platonic texts give us a wide variety of forms of their interpretation. Some of them require our own hermeneutic effort — so to speak, secondorder hermeneutics. One such case is the evolution of Platonism in the Old Academy and its influence on the creation of Stoic doctrines. We want to challenge the popular hypothesis that the Platonists Xenocrates and Polemon formed the preconditions for future Stoic physics, ethics, and the doctrine of knowledge, and also anticipated the concept of the «ancient philosophy» of Antiochus of Ascalon. Evidence about Polemon shows that he was still close to the type of “metaphysics” that turned out to be formed in Athens in the era of PlatoAristotle. His accusation that Zeno the Stoic wants to steal academic teaching and dress it up in Phoenician garb can be interpreted through a reference to the «Phoenician myth» in Plato’s texts (The Republic, The Sophist, The Laws). The founder of the Academy clearly understands the «Phoenician» way of thinking as one that asserts that only corporeal being has reality. The «somatocentrism» of the Stoics is the «outfit» that, according to Polemon, Zeno tries on for the philosophy of the Academy. This accusation shows that Polemon was well aware of the difference between his teaching and Zeno’s views, and in the most important respects.

Keywords

Platonism, Stoicism, Polemon, Zeno the Stoic, «Phoenician myth»

Literature

1. Bugai, D. (2016) Edinstvo Platonovskogo «Gosudarstva» [The unity of Plato’s Republic]. M.
452 s. (In Russian).
2. Dillon, Dzh. Nasledniki Platona [The Heirs of Plato]. SPb., 2005. 281 s. (In Russian).
3. Svetlov, R. Ptichnik ili svinopas? Zhivotnye v “Politike” i v knige Levit [Poultryherd or
Swineherd? Animals in “Politics” and in the book of Leviticus.] In: Vestnik Russkoi khristianskoi gumanitarnoi akademii. 2013. T. 14. № 3. S. 45–52. (In Russian).
4. Svetlov, R. V. Universalii ratsional’noj (filosofskoj) teologii: proiskhozhdenie argumenta ot
analogii (na primere “Alkiviada I”). [Universals of rational (philosophical) theology: the
origin of the argument from analogy (using the example of «Alcibiades I»).] In: Trudy
kafedry bogosloviia Sankt-Peterburgskoi Dukhovnoi Akademii. 2023. № 1 (17). S. 188–
196. (In Russian).
5. Brunschwig, J. The stoic theory of supreme genus and Platonic ontology. In: Papers in Hellenistic philosophy. Cambridge. 1994. Р. 92–157.
6. Carmola, K. Noble Lying: Justice and Intergenerational Tension in Plato’s “Republic”. In:
Political Theory. Vol. 31. No. 1. 2003. Р. 39–62.
7. Dillon, J. The Heirs of Plato. Oxford University Press, 2003. 252 с.
8. Krämer, H.-J. Platonismus und hellenistische Philosophie. Berlin, 1971. 396 с.
9. Long, A. Subtexts, connections and open opposition // Plato and the stoics. ed. A. G. Long.
Cambridge, 2013. P. 106–127.
10. Renaud, F., Tarrant, H. The Platonic Alcibiades I. The Dialogue and its Ancient Reception.
Cambridge University Press, 2015. 292 с.
11. Reydams-Schils, G. The Academy, the Stoics and Cicero on Plato’s Timaeus. In: Plato and
the stoics, ed. A. G. Long. Cambridge, 2013. P. 28–58.
12. Rosen, St. Plato’s Republic. A study. Yale. 2005. 423 c.
13. Sedley, D. The origins of Stoic god. In: Traditions of Theology: Studies in Hellenistic Theology, its Background and Aftermath, eds. D. Frede and A. Laks. Leiden, Brill, 2002.
Р. 41–83.
14. Sedley, D. The Stoic Theory of Universals. In: Spindel Conference: Recovering the Stoics,
ed. R. H. Epp. Southern Journal of Philosophy. 23 Suppl. 1985. Р. 87–92.
15. Sellars, J. Stoic ontology and Plato’s Sophist. In: Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies.
Supplement No. 107, Aristotle & the stoics “reading” Plato (2010). Р. 185–203.

The reported study was funded by RSF according to the research project № 24-18-00980,
https://rscf.ru/project/24- 18-00980/