Posidonius on Emotions

Abstract

Repeatedly in books 4 and 5 of On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato (PHP) Galen asserts that Posidonius abandoned certain views on the psychology of human action that at least since Chrysippus had generally been regarded as central and indispensable to the Stoic philosophy.¹ Specifically, Galen says he rejected Chrysippus’ theory of the pathê As a term of ordinary Greek pathê are conditions, especially noxious or otherwise objectionable ones, including bodily diseases, that someone undergoes or suffers. But the word is used in a somewhat special way by philosophers to refer generally to anger, grief, fear, sadness, elation, and so on — what we call emotions — as well as excited, agitated desires and aversions, notably agitated desires for food, drink and sex, and agitated aversions to bodily pain, physical harm, financial loss, and death. For convenience I will use the English word “emotions” to refer to the phenomena here in question (though, as we shall see, substantial philosophical issues are raised by any effort to give a clear specification of the phenomena that are to be covered by this term). Here at the outset, the important point to bear in mind is the agitation and excitement involved in all the pathê.