Editing Chrysippus (section)

== Epistemology ==
For the Stoics, truth is distinguished from error by the [[Sage (sophos)|sage]] who possesses right reason.<ref name="hicks70">{{Harvnb|Hicks|1910|p=70}}</ref> Chrysippus's theory of knowledge was [[Empiricism|empirical]].<ref name="gould90">{{Harvnb|Gould|1970|p=90}}</ref> The [[sense]]s transmit messages from the external world, and their reports are controlled not by referring them to innate ideas, but by comparing them to previous reports stored in the mind.<ref name="gould90"/> Zeno had defined impressions of sense as "an impression in the soul"<ref name="stock22">{{Harvnb|Stock|1908|p=22}}</ref> and this was interpreted literally by Cleanthes, who compared the impression on the soul to the impression made by a [[Seal (emblem)|seal]] on wax.<ref name="zeller77">{{Harvnb|Zeller|1880|p=77}}</ref> Chrysippus preferred to regard it as an alteration or change in the soul;<ref name="stock22"/> that is, the soul receives a modification from every external object that acts upon it, just as the air receives countless strokes when many people are speaking at once.<ref name="stock22"/>

In the receipt of an impression, the soul is purely passive and the impression reveals not only its own existence, but that also of its cause{{snd}}just as light displays itself and the elements that are in it.<ref name="stock22"/> The power to name the object resides in the understanding. First must come the impression, and the understanding{{snd}}having the power of utterance{{snd}}expresses in speech the affection it receives from the object.<ref name="stock23">{{Harvnb|Stock|1908|p=23}}</ref> True presentations are distinguished from those that are false by the use of memory, classification and comparison.<ref name="gould90"/> If the sense organ and the mind are healthy{{snd}}and provided that an external object can be really seen or heard{{snd}}the presentation, due to its clearness and distinctness, has the power to [[wikt:extort|extort]] the [[wikt:assent|assent]] that always lies in our power, to give or to withhold.<ref>{{Harvnb|Hicks|1911|p=946}}</ref> In a context in which people are understood to be [[wikt:rational|rational]] beings, reason is developed out of these notions.<ref name="hicks66">{{Harvnb|Hicks|1910|p=66}}</ref>