Chrysippus of Soli

Abstract

Chrysippus of Soli (c. 280/77–208/5 BC) was a most multilateral stoic philosopher; he earned the title of Second Founder of Stoa. A prolific writer (he has written much more than any other stoic philosopher, but none of his works have survived except as fragments), Chrysippus expanded the fundamental doctrines of Zeno of Citium, the founder of the school. Chrysippus excelled in logic, the theory of knowledge, physics and ethics. He created an original system of propositional logic in order to better understand the causal interrelations of events in the universe. He adhered to a deterministic view of fate, but nevertheless sought a role for personal freedom in thought and action. Ethics, he thought, depended on understanding the nature of the universe, and he taught a therapy of extirpating the passions which depress the soul. He initiated the success of Stoicism as one of the most influential philosophical movements in the Greek and Roman world.