Stoic Cognition: To Grasp The Truth
Employing a dense framework coupled with a detailed spectrum of values, the Stoics insist on truth being something that could be indisputably identified. Any normal human being who uses the proper method has this innate potential. Detailed groupings of what comprises true things, whether concrete or abstract, can be known totally and perfectly by the ideal Stoic witness. This system of thought has an obvious influence on the way we perceive science and its motives. Knowledge of the truth is comprised of a tight and unified system that all have access to, but few realize. Cognition and control over its impressions must be guarded fiercely no matter what is experienced, and succumbing to false impressions is simply seen as a matter of individual failure. The Stoics run a tight but severely limited ship, and there is potential benefit in becoming aware of their strict criterion for truth to be truly known.
The net of Stoic criteria for something to “be” is a very wide one, allowing for truth to be known in the context of both corporeal and incorporeal terms. The only requirement any given thing (whether existent or nonexistent) must have is “to be a proper subject of thought and discourse” (p.164). Thus the playing field of Stoic knowable reality extends beyond many previously held borders. Things that do not exist on the material plane can be known through their effects, so the question as to their existence cannot be fully answered. The uniqueness of Stoic thought expresses itself in the value attributed to these incorporeal things; if their effect is apparent, they cannot be denied, but they do not enjoy the vaulted position of the Platonic Forms, while sensory impressions return as a system in which trust is very possible. Universals such as Plato’s are designated as a simple linguistic tool, concepts (ennoēmata) that are just exercises in imagination (p.181).
Of things that undoubtedly exist, however, the Stoics bring forth groupings that define the impressions that they give off. Like light rays in a spectrum, there are roots and their compliments; the basic root being existence itself (ousia) (p.172). This substance, or “substrate,” exists in unison with the second grouping (genus), that of the “qualified” (p.168). The complex idea that these two exist as both same and different from each other can be explained by stating that the raw existence of any given substance with any qualities whatsoever is a necessary predicate to the substance having any qualities at all. For a bird to be a bird or a fish to be a fish, they both have to “be” to begin with.
The third and fourth generic groupings of what exists are designated as “disposed” and “relatively disposed,” both being further analyses of what is already understood as “qualified” (p.177). A disposition is an aspect of qualities of a substance. For example, a bird has the quality of being blue, but the disposition of a chipped beak. To belong to the genus of “relatively disposed,” the aspects must involve conditions that are independent of the inherent qualities of a substance, conditions that can change or cease while having no effect on their subject (p.178). For instance, the blue bird with the chipped beak is perched in the oak tree to the left.These four genera comprise any impressor through which we receive the impressions or imprints that constitute the criteria for knowledge. This criteria may be asserted to be clear or confused; if clear, thus begins the process of identifying them true. If muddled or confused, however, they must be rejected based on the sheer chance or probability that they could end up being false.
Although sensory impressions are perhaps granted more potential for truth by the Stoics (as compared with other Greek philosophical schools), they are never assumed to be flawless. In fact, a strict delineation is made between impressions that are true to existing things, precisely imprinting the mind of the perceiver (cognition), and impressions that are less distinct (incognition) (p.242). A dual assumption is made, not only that truth exists, but also that it can be known as such, despite the limitations of both sensory and mental perceptions. The key is in the individual accountability of the mind that is doing the perceiving. Recognition of a cognitive (katalēpton) impression is recognition, by the Stoic definition, of something that is true beyond any direct likeness to possible falsehoods (p.243).
The Stoic definition of wisdom is a perpetual choice one makes between assenting to a cognitive impression and disregarding it as possibly inaccurate (p.245). The process extends to include remembered cognitive impressions that remain in consistent agreement with nature, dubbed “preconceptions” (p.249). Although these preconceptions bear some resemblance to Platonic Forms, they are still based in total, concrete experience, and do not exist prior to their specific examples. Once true cognition (katalēpsis) is enabled by an assertion of a cognitive impression, the gateway to truth is opened, although it still is conditional upon many factors, including “the mental state of the percipient and all the other perceptual conditions” (p.251).
A love for categories is very palpable among the Stoics, and cognition of something that is true is no exception. Cognition is the middle ground between two extremes that people fall under. The bigger category of the two implies weak, possibly false assent, which if it turns out true is the result of simply a lucky guess. This category is designated as opinion (doxa), and is assumed to be shaky and unsound, based on the character of the person who opines (p.254). The other extreme is not a matter of thinking that something is true, but absolutely knowing it as such. This extreme is idealized by the Stoics as scientific knowledge (epistēme), entailing the highest and purest identification with what is true (p.257).
Possible problems that may arise with the Stoic framework for truth come hand in and with its very rigidity. On the one hand, it seems to enable human potential with a positive promise that anyone who tries hard enough can really reach true perception. There was a stigma of fatalistic hand-wringing on the part of many of the Stoics’ Greek predecessors such as the Ionian physicists, who felt that human perception was invariably tainted, and that from the human perspective the truth of any given thing was out of reach. A second stigma possibly inherited from the Pythagoreans can be seen in the way that a type of knowledge (science in this case in the place of math) can be touted as being far above and beyond ordinary perception.
On the other hand, while asserting that such sublime knowledge is within any normal person’s grasp, the Stoics consistently assert that most people never get this far. This simultaneously allows for a goal of human perfectibility and limits it to an elite group who vastly enjoys agreeing with one another.
Despite this tendency, their stubbornness and insistence on knowledge placed above opinion is a very fundamental observation that anyone could benefit from. Although there is potential for such an insistence to become its own opinion, there is still the reassurance that if we wind up with false impressions or mistaken conclusions, we have no one to blame but ourselves. In addition to this legacy of duty towards ascertaining what is true, there is the legacy of an ideal of pure, raw, untainted experience that can serve as inspiration in a confusing world. If there is such a thing as pure cognition, the only limits that could be set upon it would be the ones that we ourselves impose.
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