The Definitive "Chrysippus' Hand Argument" Thread

Quote from Don

it's an all or nothing...

Yes -- and they are somehow convinced to go for the "All"

Again for anyone who has time on their hands, I recommend Lucian's HERMOTIMUS for background on that aspect., with an Epicurean or Epicurean-sympathizer arguing against a Stoic on some of these points.

EDIT: I know I am droning on about "Hermotimus" but for anyone who has not read it i think you are in for a big and most pleasant surprise -- it is very witty, easy to read, and covers a lot of important material from an Epicurean-Friendly perspective, in dialog form, almost as if we had our own variation of a Platonic presentation - with all of the elegance combined with wisdom as opposed to frequent deceit.

Quote from Don

btw I applaud Cassius 's optimism in calling this the definitive thread

Definitive because this time we will pursue this as long as it takes!

I am surprised to find that there don't seem to be any academic articles devoted to this hand question.

But maybe we need to be prepared to find a number of surprising things - such as that Chrysippus is alleged to have died of laughter, and that he was extremely arrogant (the latter is not surprising). This below from Diogenes Laertius (Yonge

The issue could also be a ridiculous play on words and logic like Chrysippus was known for, but if so that's exactly the kind of explanation we ought to try to understand. What is the logic of the question?

Reference to Chrysippus vs Epicurus in writing, and to the statue in the Ceramicus - plus the meaning of Chrysippus' name! (as Don points out below - a pun!)

Another observation in unraveling this, spurred by our recent discussion of Cyreniacs:

Chrysippus came after Epicurus, but that does not mean that he was responding specifically to Epicurus. Presumably he could have been responding to the earlier Aristippus/Cyreniacs, against whom his argument is valid, and ignoring Epicurus.

So from Chrysippus' point of view, If the guiding principle of life is the stimulative pleasure the Cyreniacs advocated, and if there are large segments of time when stimulative pleasure is not present at all, then to what are we to look during those times? Who needs or can depend on a guide which is not present?

Not that this really adds anything to the conversation but depending on who is talking to whom Chysippus could have been entirely pleased and convinced of his own argument if he was for some reason not intending to deal with Epicurus.

And to that extent Chrysippus and Epicurus would have been in agreement: both saw the flaw in the Cyreniac logic, but only Epicurus was motivated to correct it by expanding the definition of pleasure.