What do our Impressions Say? The Stoic Theory of Perceptual Content and Belief Formation (2019)
Here I propose an interpretation of the ancient Stoic psychological theory on which (i) the concepts that an adult human possesses affect the content of the perceptual impressions (φαντασίαι αἰσθητικαί) she forms, and (ii) the content of such impressions is exhausted by an ‘assertible’ (ἀξίωμα) of suitable complexity. What leads the Stoics to accept (i) and (ii), I argue, is their theory of assent and belief formation, which requires that the perceptual impression communicate information suitable to serve as the content of belief. In arguing for (i), I reject a rival interpretation on which conceptualization occurs subsequently to the formation of a perceptual impression. In arguing for (ii), I deny that perceptual impressions have two kinds of content: one formulated in an assertible, the other sensory, featuring independently of this assertible. I explore the implications of (i) and (ii) for the Stoic theory of emotions, expertise, and rationality, and argue that they shed new light on the workings of impression, assent, and belief.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Book
Gail Fine;
(2014)
The Possibility of Inquiry: Meno's Paradox from Socrates to Sextus
(/isis/citation/CBB620224771/)
Chapter
Løkke, Håvard;
(2008)
The Stoics on Sense Perception
(/isis/citation/CBB000800098/)
Book
Knuuttila, Simo;
(2004)
Emotions in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy
(/isis/citation/CBB000471348/)
Article
Yulia Ustinova;
(2020)
Alteration of consciousness in Ancient Greece: divine mania
(/isis/citation/CBB226577100/)
Article
Michiel Meeusen;
(2022)
A Wine a Day …: Medical Experts and Expertise in Plutarch’s Table Talk
(/isis/citation/CBB990142165/)
Article
Maurer, Christian;
Jaffro, Laurent;
(2013)
Reading Shaftesbury's Pathologia: An Illustration and Defence of the Stoic Account of the Emotions
(/isis/citation/CBB001201193/)
Article
Orly Lewis;
(2018)
Fragments of History and Science
(/isis/citation/CBB011271166/)
Book
Lagerlund, Henrik;
(2002)
Emotions and Choice from Boethius to Descartes
(/isis/citation/CBB000301676/)
Article
Smith, Roger;
(2005)
The History of Psychological Categories
(/isis/citation/CBB000501585/)
Article
Gallagher, Shaun;
(2012)
Empathy, Simulation, and Narrative
(/isis/citation/CBB001251566/)
Article
Hatfield, Gary;
(2007)
Did Descartes Have a Jamesian Theory of the Emotions?
(/isis/citation/CBB001035167/)
Chapter
Gissis, Snait B.;
(2010)
Lamarck on Feelings: From Worms to Humans
(/isis/citation/CBB001031893/)
Article
Curtis, Robin;
(2012)
Einfühlung and Abstraction in the Moving Image: Historical and Contemporary Reflections
(/isis/citation/CBB001251569/)
Book
Kandel, Eric R;
(2012)
The Age of Insight: The Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind, and Brain, from Vienna 1900 to the Present
(/isis/citation/CBB001201847/)
Article
Joel P. Sodano;
(2017)
Uneasy Passions: The Spectator's Divergent Interpretations of Locke's Theory of Emotion
(/isis/citation/CBB728783237/)
Book
Grellard, Christophe;
Morel, Pierre-Marie;
(2010)
Les Parva naturalia d'Aristote: fortune antique et médiévale
(/isis/citation/CBB001220187/)
Article
Heyking, John von;
(2013)
Hermes as Eros in Plato's Lysis
(/isis/citation/CBB001213733/)
Book
Konstan, David;
(2008)
A Life Worthy of the Gods: The Materialist Psychology of Epicurus
(/isis/citation/CBB001035548/)
Book
Juhana Toivanen;
(2022)
Forms of Representation in the Aristotelian Tradition. Volume One: Sense Perception
(/isis/citation/CBB856378624/)
Chapter
Knuuttila, Simo;
(2008)
Aristotle's Theory of Perception and Medieval Aristotelianism
(/isis/citation/CBB000800096/)
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences
Philosophical Psychology
Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences
History of the Human Sciences
History of Psychiatry
Be the first to comment!