The Stoic Sage: the early Stoics on wisdom, sagehood and Socrates

Brouwer, R. (2014). The Stoic Sage: the early Stoics on wisdom, sagehood and Socrates. Cambridge University Press.

Chapter 1

The Stoic view on wisdom:

1, knowledge of human and divine matters. 

(The author argues that this definition comes from the Stoic tradition instead of Plato.)

2, fitting expertise.

(Wisdom is an expert-like disposition in accordance with the expert-like structure of the world) 【有利于斯多亚提供一个圣人心性与宇宙秩序的平行对应】

Chapter 2

How to become a sage？

Stoic:  a physiologically qualitative change in the disposition of the human soul. 

"Comparably to the experience of someone who has mastered a craft, becoming a sage thus goes with an initial unawareness. This unawareness stands in a stark contrast with Plato's exalted versions of seeing the truth." (p. 178)

斯多亚认为，成圣是质的飞跃（一种理性存在者的本性的根本radical改变）。

圣人的状态是：apathy远离错误判断, eupathy乐于接受目前境遇, sympathy根据并成为引导世界之理性而生活. (pp. 89-90)

pp. 90-91 涉及斯多亚和柏拉图的圣人观的比较。斯多亚强调成为change (metabolē)这个世界的积极的一部分；柏拉图则强调转向turn towards (metastrophē)一个超越的世界。  

Chapter 3 【涉及圣人的自我意识问题】

"The Stoics stressed the extreme rarity of the sage, and that from the beginning onwards they either did not put forward the claim that they were sages, or even explicitly disavowed sagehood." (p. 178) 强调圣人的稀罕性，并否认自己已是圣人。

Chapter 4

为什么斯多亚会强调圣人的稀罕性，并拒绝自称圣人？The intellectual setting accounts for it. The stoic saw themself as the followers of Socrates, "who did not claim wisdom for himself, but nevertheless devoted his life to striving for it, perhaps even – without him being aware thereof – achieving this goal." (p. 178) 

这也可以从Epicurus反苏格拉底、自称圣人这些行为中反证斯多亚的倾向。