A Critical Problem with the Corporeality of the Stoic Principles

CURRENTLY UNDERGOING A MAJOR OVERHAUL! The two Principles (archai) of the Stoics, God and Matter, were considered by them to be bodies. The textual evidence for this can no longer be doubted, and the field is now in virtually universal agreement on this point. However, earlier commentators had doubted that the Stoic principles could be bodies on philosophical as well as (limited) philological grounds. For one thing, the two principles thoroughly co-mingle and occupy the exact same places; the co-occupation of identical spaces by distinct bodies is a general problem with Stoic ontology/mereology, but one which the Stoics (like some modern mereologists) were prepared to accept. However, there are additional problems distinct to the corporeality of the principles. For instance, neither principle on its own seems to constitute a body in the full sense, since both God/Cause (determinant) and Matter/Patient (determinable) seem necessary in order to have a body (in some region of space) with determinate characteristics and the capacity to be both a causal agent and a patient. For the Stoics, only bodies are causal agents and patients, but the principle of God is always and only a cause, and the principle of Matter is always and only the patient of the cause. Against this objection, the corporeality of the principles is frequently defended on the grounds that the Stoics claim that only a body can be *either* a cause *or* the patient of an effect. It need not be both. God is everywhere and always a cause to matter, so God must be a body. Matter is everywhere and always the patient, so it too must be a body. Although it is a core feature of the Stoic concept, being capable of causing or being affected is not their definition of "body". Rather, it is having extension in three dimensions and repulsion or resistance to penetration by another body (antitupia). Unfortunately, if matter is a body *everywhere* penetrated by another body, God, then any meaningful sense of impenetrability is nullified. That only leaves extension in three dimensions, but place, space, and void all have extension even though they are incorporeals.. Thus the Stoics' distinction between unoccupied void and occupied place dissolves (void will be full of "body" since it is extended). Worse still, the distinction between body and space is dissolved, and that means that their central ontological distinction - corporeal existence (body) v. incorporeal "subsistence" (time/place/void/"sayables") - also collapses. One strategy to resolve this problem would be to claim that occupied space can be co-occupied, but It differs from void because, unlike void, there are determined characteristics within it. That solution would preserve the body/incorporeal distinction, but it would eliminate the corporeality of the principle of matter - for matter is defined by the Stoics as unqualified (and passive) body. Once again we would have to deny the corporeality of (at least one, if not both of) their principles. Perhaps this dilemma can be resolved in some way that I have not foreseen, but if there is a defense of their theory that will fare better, I do not know of it. Unless a "new Chrysippus" can once again save the Stoa, we must conclude on philosophical grounds that there is a critical problem in their theory of principles that threatens the very core of their ontology and physics. At this point the sympathetic interpreter may be moved to attempt to revive the 'incorporeal principles' interpretation. But invoking the principle of charity at this point in order to deny the corporeality of the principles would be both bad history with respect to the Stoics and uncharitable interpretation with respect to their critics on this score (e.g. Plutarch and Alexander of Aphrodisias). We must, on philological grounds, admit that the Stoics extended their corporealism down to their most basic principles. Barring some novel solution to the problem I have outlined, we find ourselves in the following position: we cannot save the Stoics from the corporeality of their principles, and we cannot save the doctrine of corporeal principles from incoherence. But while we cannot force their theory into making coherent sense, we can make coherent sense of how they arrived at their theory. The tensions within it will remain unresolved, but they can at least be understood, provided that we locate the sources of their conflicting theses. The Stoic theory, I contend, was the result of blending Xenocrates' (*Timaeus*-inspired) ontology of God-infused matter (minus Xenocrates' Forms) with a separate tradition of corporealism. While corporealism and Xenocrates' proto-"field theory" each may have held some independent appeal, their combination - which Zeno formulated and Chrysippus defended - ultimately was incapable of having a coherent body/space distinction. Like many a cross-species hybrid, the offspring was sterile.