Chrysippus (c.280—207 BCE)

chrysippusChrysippus was a Stoic philosopher of Soli in Cilicia
Campestris. He moved to Athens, and became a disciple of Cleanthes,
the successor of Zeno. He was equally distinguished for his natural
abilities and industry and rarely went a day without writing 500
lines. He wrote several hundred volumes, of which three hundred were
on logical subjects, borrowing largely from others. With the Stoics in
general, he maintained that the world was God, or a universal effusion
of his spirit, and that the superior part of this spirit, which
consisted in mind and reason, was the common nature of things,
containing the whole and every part of it. Sometimes he speaks of God
as the power of fate and the necessary chain of events. Sometimes he
calls him fire. Other times he deifies the fluid parts of nature, such
as water and air, or he deifies the earth, sun, moon, a d stars and
the universe as a whole. To too he deifies those who have obtained
immortality. He was fond of the syllogistic figure sorities in
arguing, which is hence called by Persius "the heap of Chrysippus."
His discourses contain more curiosities and distinctions than solid
arguments.

In disputation, in which he spent the greatest part of his life, he
displayed a degree of confidence which bordered on audacity. He often
said to his preceptor, "Give me doctrines, and I will find arguments
to support them." Once he was asked to advise an instructor for a
someone's son. His response was "Me; for if I thought any philosopher
excelled me, I would myself become his pupil." He showed contempt for
distinctions of rank and, unlike other philosophers, would never honor
princes or other important people by dedicating his works to them.
Through his vehemence he made many adversaries, particularly among the
Academic and Epicurean philosophers. Even his friends in the Stoic
school complained that, in the heat of dispute, while the absurdity or
obscurity of his opponent's views, he would become so illogical as to
give his opponents an advantage over him. It was also a common
practice with Chrysippus to take the opposite sides of the same
question, and thus furnish his opponent with weapons which might
easily be turned against himself as occasion offered. Carneades, who
was one of his most able and skillful opponents, frequently used this
circumstance and refuted Chrysippus by convicting him of
inconsistency. Of his writings (reported to have been 700 in all),
nothing remains except a few fragments which are preserved in the
works of Cicero, Plutarch, Seneca, and Aulus Gellius.