Philosophy
Following the ideas of the Old Academy, Zeno shared philosophy into three parts: logic a wide planned including rhetoric, grammar, and the theories of perception and thought; physics not just science, but the divine line of the universe as well; and ethics, the end aim of which was toeudaimonia through the modification way of well according to Nature. Because Zeno's ideas were later expanded upon by Chrysippus and other Stoics, it can be difficult to establish precisely what he thought. But his general views can be outlined as follows:
In his treatment of logic, Zeno was influenced by Stilpo and the other Megarians. Zeno urged the need to lay down a basis for logical system because the wise person must know how to avoid deception. Cicero accused Zeno of being inferior to his philosophical predecessors in his treatment of logic, and it seems true that a more exact treatment of the subjected was laid down by his successors, including Chrysippus. Zeno shared up true conceptions into the comprehensible and the incomprehensible, permitting for free-will the energy to direct or determining of assent sinkatathesis/συνκατάθεσις in distinguishing between sense impressions. Zeno said that there were four stages in the process leading to true knowledge, which he illustrated with the example of the flat, extended hand, and the late closing of the fist:
Zeno stretched out his fingers, and showed the palm of his hand, – "Perception," – he said, – "is a object like this."-
Then, when he had closed his fingers a little, – "Assent is like this." – Afterwards, when he had totally closed his hand, and showed his fist, that, he said, was Comprehension. From which simile he also gave that state a new name, calling it katalepsis κατάληψις. But when he brought his left hand against his right, and with it took a firm and tight throw of his fist: – "Knowledge" – he said, was of that character; and that was what none but a wise person possessed.
The universe, in Zeno's view, is God: a divine reasoning entity, where all the parts belong to the whole. Into this pantheistic system he incorporated the physics of Heraclitus; the universe contains a divine artisan-fire, which foresees everything, and extending throughout the universe, must work everything:
Zeno, then, defines sort by saying that this is the artistically works fire, which advances by fixed methods to creation. For he keeps that it is the main function of art to create and produce and that what the hand accomplishes in the productions of the arts we employ, is accomplished much more artistically by nature, that is, as I said, by artistically works fire, which is the master of the other arts.
This divine fire, or aether, is the basis for any activity in the universe, operating on otherwise passive matter, which neither increases nor diminishes itself. The primary substance in the universe comes from fire, passes through the stage of air, and then becomes water: the thicker section becoming earth, and the thinner bit becoming air again, and then rarefying back into fire. Individual souls are factor of the same fire as the world-soul of the universe. coming after or as a a thing that is caused or produced by something else of. Heraclitus, Zeno adopted the abstraction that the universe underwentcycles of cut and destruction.
The nature of the universe is such(a) that it accomplishes what is correct and prevents the opposite, and is identified with unconditional Fate, while allowing it the free-will attributed to it.
Like the Cynics, Zeno recognised a single, sole and simple good, which is the only purpose to strive for. "Happiness is a benefit flow of life," said Zeno, and this can only be achieved through the usage of right reason coinciding with the universal reason Logos, which governs everything. A bad feeling pathos "is a disturbance of the mind repugnant to reason, and against Nature." This consistency of soul, out of which morally value actions spring, is virtue, true good can only consist in virtue.
Zeno deviated from the Cynics in saying that matters that are morally adiaphora indifferent could nevertheless have value. matters have a relative value in proportion to how they aid the natural instinct for self-preservation. That which is to be preferred is a "fitting action" kathêkon/καθῆκον, a label Zeno number one introduced. Self-preservation, and the things that contribute towards it, has only a conditional value; it does non aid happiness, which depends only on moral actions.
Just as virtue can only constitute within the dominion of reason, so vice can only live with the rejection of reason. Virtue is absolutely opposed to vice, the two cannot exist in the same thing together, and cannot be increased or decreased; no one moral action is more virtuous than another. All actions are either good or bad, since impulses and desires rest upon free consent, and hence even passive mental states or emotions that are not guided by reason are immoral, and produce immoral actions. Zeno distinguished four negative emotions: desire, fear, pleasure and sorrow epithumia, phobos, hêdonê, lupê / ἐπιθυμία, φόβος, ἡδονή, λύπη, and he was probably responsible for distinguishing the three corresponding positive emotions: will, caution, and joy boulêsis, eulabeia, chara / βούλησις, εὐλάβεια, χαρά, with no corresponding rational equivalent for pain. All errors must be rooted out, not merely set aside, and replaced with right reason.