“A passion is an irrational and unnatural movement of the soul.”
— Zeno of CitiumStoic definition of passion (pathos), reported in Stobaeus, Anthology 2.7 and Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 4; approximate English rendering
Commentary
This definition of passion as an irrational and unnatural movement of the soul is reported in the Stoic doctrinal summaries and is generally linked to the school's founders. It presents passions not as natural impulses to be managed but as errors of judgment, arising when the mind assents to false evaluations of things as good or bad. A. A. Long and D. N. Sedley, in The Hellenistic Philosophers, show how the definition follows from the Stoic account of assent, so that passion is a kind of rational failure rather than a mere feeling. Brad Inwood argues that Chrysippus refined the definition and that its earliest form is difficult to reconstruct with confidence, which complicates its attribution to Zeno personally. Julia Annas discusses the definition in her study of Hellenistic mind, emphasising its relation to the therapeutic aims of Stoic ethics. Cicero's report in the Tusculan Disputations is polemical in tone, and it reflects his interest in comparing Stoic and Peripatetic accounts. The English is an approximation of a technical Greek definition, and the wording should be checked against Stobaeus and in Long and Sedley before quotation.
Commentary
This definition of passion as an irrational and unnatural movement of the soul is reported in the Stoic doctrinal summaries and is generally linked to the school's founders. It presents passions not as natural impulses to be managed but as errors of judgment, arising when the mind assents to false evaluations of things as good or bad. A. A. Long and D. N. Sedley, in The Hellenistic Philosophers, show how the definition follows from the Stoic account of assent, so that passion is a kind of rational failure rather than a mere feeling. Brad Inwood argues that Chrysippus refined the definition and that its earliest form is difficult to reconstruct with confidence, which complicates its attribution to Zeno personally. Julia Annas discusses the definition in her study of Hellenistic mind, emphasising its relation to the therapeutic aims of Stoic ethics. Cicero's report in the Tusculan Disputations is polemical in tone, and it reflects his interest in comparing Stoic and Peripatetic accounts. The English is an approximation of a technical Greek definition, and the wording should be checked against Stobaeus and in Long and Sedley before quotation.