DIOGENES LAERTIUS AND THE STOIC THEORY

OF MIXTURE I

ERIC LEWIS

You have just returned from a taxing metaphysics lecture, and so quickly pour yourself a rather
generous Gin and Tonic. Pondering the fact that you have just created something, that you
have brought into existence something which has not existed previously, a Gin and Tonic, you
realise that the gin and the tonic which went into your Gin and Tonic, are still now actually
present in it. ‘That is why my Gin and Tonic tastes of tonic (and gin), and gets me drunk’, so
you reason. Both the gin and the tonic are parts of your Gin and Tonic. Yet if the gin and the
tonic are actually present in your Gin and Tonic as parts, then it appears that they are both in
the same place at the same time, they must be coextensive. It seems odd to think that the
mixing of the gin and the tonic somehow made the two coextensive. Luckily ‘folk chemistry’
comes to one’s rescue, the gin and tonic are not coextensive, but are juxtaposed in little units,
molecules of each are next to each other. No paradox concerning coextensive bodies arises.
We are quite lucky that crude Atomism supplies us with a ready answer to the dilemma of
how both the gin and the tonic can be actually present in your Gin and Tonic, yet not
coextensive. An equivalent non-atomist solution does not stand out. It seems that any model
which has the gin and the tonic actually present in the Gin and Tonic, yet does not have them
juxtaposed, either in indivisibly atomic units, or in divisible continuous bits, must have the gin
and tonic coextensive (you cannot avoid getting drunk on a Gin and Tonic by ‘selective
drinking’, drinking only the tonic, and avoiding the gin bits). The obvious move is to claim
that given any such non-atomist model the gin and the tonic are not actually present in my Gin
and Tonic. Yet this too is counter-intuitive. Surely your Gin and Tonic gets you drunk
because of the gin you mixed with the tonic. Your Gin and Tonic tastes sweet because of the
tonic you mixed with the gin. If the gin and tonic are not actually present in your Gin and
Tonic, it seems that they must have some privileged status in your Gin and Tonic. It is after all
a Gin and Tonic.
Explaining mixture, given a non-atomist universe, is quite difficult, yet for most ancient
natural philosophers atomism was anathema; they embraced assorted anti-atomist theories.
However rejecting atomism and embracing some sort of a continuum theory leaves one
seemingly unable to account for many physical phenomena in an obvious and tidy way. The
following question looms large for those who reject atomism: how does one account for the
coming to be of complex, ultimately organic, entities, from the basic building blocks of the

I An early version of this paper was read at the Institute of Classical Studies, where it benefitted from the comments
of many people. The following have been especially helpful in my attempt to understand Stoic natural philosophy:
Victor Caston, Harry Ide, Richard Kraut, David Sedley and Robert Sharples. I owe a great and permanent debt to
Richard Sorabji for many years of encouragement, advice, criticism and concern.

84
 E. LEWIS x5

universe, be they elements, humours, contrarieties, or something else'? The Atomists simply
invoke a model involving the amalgamation of atomic units, the continuum theorist has no such
intuitively simple mechanism at his disposal. This is no small problem, but is perhaps the
fundamental issue concerning natural philosophy - to account for the genesis of assorted
natural stuffs; ultimately to be abte to account for the genesis of man and his place in the
natural order.?
For these anti-atomist continuum chemists mixture was seen as the essential process via
which ontologically basic elements could interact and yield more complex entities.' It is
therefore essential to investigate their theories of mixture, and how such theories integrate into
their greater natural philosophies. Here I shall discuss the Stoic theory of mixture. Perhaps no
other physical theory has ever been so ridiculed, by ancient and modern commentators alike.
The Stoics are thought to have 'bitten the bullet', and claimed that the gin and the tonic in your
mixed drink are actually coextensive; that it is a case of two bodies occupying exactly the same
place at the same time. This 'absurdity'' is thought to result not just from their theory of
mixture, but from their whole natural philosophy. The Stoics are thought to have conceived of
almost everything as a body,' qualities, mental states, the soul, etc., and so coextensive bodies
are thought to be found wherever one looks in the Stoic universe. My body and my soul are
said to be two coextensive bodies, all of my qualities are claimed to be bodies distinct both
from my body, and from each other. Aristotle made it axiomatic that no two bodies can be in
the same place at the same time.h Most subsequent philosophers have agreed, the Stoics being
seen as foolish metaphysicians who base their whole natural philosophy on an obvious
falsehood.
This is a mistaken view. Neither has the correct Stoic theory of mixture been discovered, nor
has their theory of body, qualities and soul been properly worked out. Here I hope to correct
the first error, but hinting at the proper explication of the second.
The passages most useful for discussing the Stoic theory of mixture are as follows: Stobaeus
E d . XVII 4.153.24-55 14 Wachsmuth (= Ar. Did. FI-. Phps. 28 = SVF2.471), Alexander de
niivt. 3.2 16.14-217.2 (= SVF2.473), and, perhaps most importantly, Diogenes Laertius VII. 15 1

Theories of mixture, whether fully cashed out, or still embryonic, play a crucial role in the cosmologies of the
Presocratics. Perhaps the earliest account (although its date is quite controversial) is that theory attributed to
Sanchuniathon by Philo of Byblus (apud Eusebium, P.E. I , 10). A similar early account involving the mingling of
sky and earth is found in Diodorus ( I . 7.1 = DK6X B5.l). Perhaps Xenophanes' God is coextensive with the
cosmos. Empedocles' four roots seem to he mixed, yielding the coming to be of complex entites. According to
Aristotle. Philoaus conceived of the soul as ;I mixture (DA 407b27 = DK44a23. although this is perhaps best seen
;IS referring to the Pythagorians in general). The importance of mixture for Anaxagoras' response to the Eleatics is
well known. The same is true for Anaxagoras' pupil Archelaus. Diogenes of Apollonia argues from the need of
things to mix to their essential 'oneness' (Simp. i t i Phys. 151. 31 = Fr. 2). From very early in Greek thought
mixture was used in two oppmite ways to account for the complexity of the universe. The entities of the world
were either separated out of a pre-existing mixture. or some small number of ontologically basic entities
themselves mixed to yield the coming to be of complex entities.
The two most important philosophical schools which employed mixture in a fundamental way in their continuum
physics alternative to atomism were the Peripatetics, starting with Aristotle. and the Stoics. Interestingly enough.
both of these schools' theories of mixture have been found to be wanting. The Peripatetic theory. involving the
rather mysterious notion of 'existence in potentiality', has since antiquity been found to be obscure. Philoponus
compares the state of a constituent in a mixture to that of a geometer trying to solve problems while drunk! On the
other hand. the Stoic theory has been long ridiculed a s openly embracing paradox.
' Many modern philosophers think it is logically impossible for two individuals to be coextcnsive. This issue is.
however. a live one at the level of quantum theory, where it is asked whether two waves or two particles can be in
the same place at the same time.
' For the Stoics all things which truly cxist are said t o be bodies. Only the void. ploce. time and I i 4 f r r (akin to
propositions) are said to subsist ( / i c c / " r t . ~ / i c , i t i ) , and arc so thought to be incorporeal.
Aristotle denies this possibility at the following: Pliys. 4. I 209a4-7. 4.6 2 I3b7: Coip/.3.6 305~119-20:GC I .5
32la5-10; DA 1.5 409b3. 2.7 41Xb13-IX.
86 BICS 35 ( 1988)

(= SVF2.479). These passages have been looked at frequently, yet always with the
presumption that one already knows what one is going to find there. Consider first the passage
from Diogenes Laertius, which has been the most maligned:
And blends occur wholly [diolou] according to Chrysippus in the third book of
his Physics, and not by surface-surrounding and juxtaposition berigraphen kai
parathesin], for a small amount of wine thrown into the sea will extend
alongside it for a bit and then be destroyed along with it [epi poson
antiparektathzsetai eita sumphtharesetai].
I have translated the crucial last line literally - and think it should remain as such. This
passage is of invaluable importance, for it is our only reference to what happens to the
constituents of a mixture while being mixed. This point cannot be underestimated. This
passage, unlike all others concerning mixture, is concerned with wine and water, not the
substance of the wine, the qualities of the water, their natures, etc. Commentators have applied
‘bootstrap’ doxography to this and other related passages. They come to it with a preconceived
view as to what Stoic theory must be, interpret this passage accordingly, without realising that
it is in and of itself one of the key passages which any conception - including a preconception
- of Stoic theory must be based on. They allow their precritical interpretation of this passage
to affect their critical understanding of it. We must discover the Stoic meaning of
sumphtheiresthai and antiparektasis.
Todd clues us in to the meaning of sumphtheiresthai,“‘to be destroyed along with” and
elsewhere “joint de~truction”’.~ Yet he accepts the interpretation of Hicks, followed by
Wolfson,x who think that the term should here be construed in the opposite sense, as a ‘blend in
which constituents do not lose their identity.’ This somewhat startling reinterpretation is
needed to support a certain precritical view of the Stoic theory. But it wholly reverses the
canonical meaning of the term - from destroyed to preserved. Not even the ancient
commentators went so far, although often their intention was to malign Stoic meaning! In a
recent volume bound to become a classic, Sedley and Long follow Hicks, Wolfson and Todd.”
What has led to this reversal of meaning in the orthodox interpretation? It is the impossibility
of fitting the literal meaning of the passage into the preconceived view as to what the Stoic
theory must be. Yet this preconceived view is itself a product of the self-confessed hostile
ancient commentators of Stoicism.
I say, let the literal interpretation stand, until one can find some reason to have it tumble.
The theory, taken literally, has the constituents spread out alongside each other for a while, and
then both be mutually destroyed, and pass out of existence, not into some Aristotelian
purgatory of potentiality. What is left is, no doubt, an actual tertium quid. What is wrong so
far with such a theory? Nothing, and I shall argue that no evidence can be mustered against it.
Yet what about other uses of sumphtheiresthai? In particular, we would be interested in
usages found in other Stoic commentators and earlier philosophers, particularly Aristotle and

’ Robert B. Todd, Alexunder ofAphrodisius o n Stoic Physics (Leiden, 1976). 3 1 n.48.

Diogenes Laertius, Lives ofEminent Philosophers, 11, ed. R. D. Hicks (Cambridge Mass., 1965). 255. Hicks refers
to two usages of this verb, both not pertinent. See also H. A. Wolfson, The Philosophy of the Church Fathers
(Cambridge Mass., 1956). 383.
A. A. Long and D. N. Sedley, The Hellenistic philosophers, vol. 1 (Cambridge, 1987). 290-4. On 293-4 they
discuss the issue as to whether two bodies can be in the same place at the same time. I cannot agree with them that
the issue hinges on whether there is ‘room’ for the two bodies to be coextensive. They correctly claim that ‘the
active principle of the world is a different kind of body from the passive principle.’ yet I do not immediately see
how this difference avoids coextensive bodies.
 E. LEWIS x7

Theophrastus."' The word is not found in Plato, or, for example, Thucydides. It is found in
Aristotle's Topics (150a33), where he asks if parts perish along with wholes. This usage,
meaning mutual destruction, is echoed in Alexander's Topics commentary (488.8).
Theophrastus uses this word when asking whether a tree perishes if its bark is stripped (Hist.
P lants, 4 . 1 5 . 4 3 , and Plutarch, another important Stoic doxographer, uses the term three times,
as a term for mutual destruction (de defect. orac. 436b7; de esu curnium 997a4), and as a
cooking term, perhaps akin to melting (Quaest. conviv. 708El). Sextus claims that fire
destroys itself along with its fuel (Math. 8 480.4). Ps-Galen employs the term once similarly
(ad Gaurum quomodo animetur.fetus 10.5.6). Philoponus, in Phys. 836.23, argues that if the
soul of a body is pneuma, it perishes along with the pneuma. Alexander, in his de Anima
(90.140, argues that when one's passive intellect perishes, so too does one's nature, soul, hexis
and teleiotes.
The examples abound. Yet one in particular is most interesting. Alexander preserves a
section of Aristotle's juvenilia from the infamous Per; ldeon (in Mataph. 97.27-98.24). Here
we find an early use of sumphtheiresthui actually related to mixture. The pertinent clause runs
as follows:
[While arguing that the forms cannot be mixed in the particulars, he claims]:
and again if they are mixed with the things that are related to them .. . they will
be destroyed along with the destruction of the things they are in (eti te kai
sumphtheirointo an tois en hois eisi phtheiromenois, 98.19).
Clearly there is a long philosophical tradition of this term meaning mutual destruction.
Let us now turn to the two longest passages on the Stoic theory of mixture, often presented in
parallel, Stobaeus 1.17.4, 153.24-155.14, and Alexander de Mixt. 216.14-217.2. These
passages have been the subject of close scrutiny, yet not in the proper context. Let me just
extract the pertinent lines and what we can clearly cull from them concerning Stoic theory.
First, Alexander (after Todd) (2 16.25-217.1):
The third type of mixture, he says, occurs through certain substances and their
qualities being mutually coextended in their entirety and preserving their
original substance and qualities in such a mixture: this mixture is blending in
the strict sense of the term. The mutual coextension of some two or even more
bodies in their entirety with one another so that each of them preserves its own
substance and its qualities in such a mixture - this, he says, alone of the
mixtures is blending; for it is a peculiarity of bodies that have been blended
that they can be separated again from one another, and this only occurs through
the blended bodies preserving their own natures in the mixture.
In Stobaeus we find the following (after Todd) (154.14-155.I1):
Mixture is the complete coextension of two or more bodies while their inherent
qualities remain stable, as is the case of fire and heated iron, for here complete
coextension of bodies occurs. Similarly with our souls; for they extend
through the whole of our bodies - for it is their opinion that body extends
through body. Blending they describe as the complete coextension of two or
even more moist bodies and their qualities for (gur.)they say that the quality of
each of the moist bodies blended together appears together from the blend, as
with wine, honey, water, vinegar, and the like. It is clear that with such blends

I" The views of the early Peripatos are interesting for two reasons. First. they developed the most inlluentinl non
atomist theory of mixture. Secondly. the degree to which the Stoics might have been influenced by Aristotle. or
even had knowledge of his work, is a question now being hotly debated. spurred o n by F. H. Sandbach's bold
claim that the Stoics had no knowledge of Aristotle. He argues for this in his monogruph Arism//c mid / / t c S / o i ~ ~ . \ .
Cambridge Philological Society. Supplementary Volume no. 10 (Cambridge. 1085).
88 BlCS 35 (1988)

the qualities of the bodies blended together remain stable from the fact that
they can often be separated from one another by an artificial device. Certainly
if one places an oil drenched sponge in wine blended with water it will separate
the water from the wine as the water retreats into the sponge.
Before examining these passages let me correct two mistakes commonly made concerning
what the Stoics mean by ‘substance’ (ousia) and by ‘qualities are bodies’. For an Aristotelian,
like Alexander, substances are individual objects, tables, chairs, individuals, etc. They are
bodies. For an Aristotelian having two substances in the same place is having two bodies in the
same place, preservation of substance is preservation of body. Yet the Stoics do not conceive
of ousia in this way. For the Stoics ousia is akin to the putative Aristotelian notion of ‘prime
matter’ @rdton hulP). This passive substratum, itself without qualities, is not to be identified
with the body which it is the substratum of.
The sense in which qualities are bodies is a bit more tricky. For the Stoics all things which
truly exist are said to be bodies. Only the void, place, time and lekta (akin to propositions) are
said to subsist (huparkhein), and are so thought to be incorporeal. However, it is not clear in
what sense the Stoics conceive of all existing things as bodies. A careful perusal of the
fragments makes it clear that not all the entities which exist in the Stoic universe are separate
corporeal entities. My tan is not a body - a separate corporeal entity - wholly different from
my body. What is less clear is the precise relationship of, say, my qualities to my body. Two
views as to what form this relationship takes seem plausable. The first has it that things like
qualities are states of a body, the body they are the qualities of, and are not therefore bodies
above and beyond the body they inhere in. These qualities are distinct causally efficacious
states, both from each other and from the body they belong to. Yet no paradoxical bundle of
coextensive bodies threatens, since these qualities are bodies only in the weak sense that they
are causally efficacious.” The second view has it that qualities are bodies in a certain state, and
not states of a body.I2 This alternative only talks of one body, my tan and my temperature are
both my body in a state, more precisely my matter (ousia for the Stoics) in a state. This view
also avoids postulating a plurality of bodies, at the cost of saddling the Stoics with a less than
satisfactory way of conceiving of states.
Bearing the above in mind, what precisely does Alexander claim? He states that in these
mixtures, substance and qualities are coextended, preserving the original substance and
qualities [of those things mixed] in the mixture. This he claims is blending. Yet what about the
next clause, ‘The mutual coextension of some two or even more bodies in their entirety with
one another so that each of them preserves its own substance and its qualities in such a mixture
- this, he says, alone of the mixtures is blending’? I propose the following: the beginning of
the claim is Alexander’s addition, that bodies are coextensive (his reasoning for making this
seemingly innocuous addendum will soon become apparent), we then have Chrysippus’ claim
repeated that the constituents have their substance and qualities preserved in the mixture. We
then have a clearly Alexandrian explanation given to a Stoic (and indeed common in non-Stoic
sources) observation concerning mixtures - that the bodies present can be extracted again. It
is Alexander’s explanation since the reason here given for this extraction cannot be

This view entails that the Stoics radically altered the sense of the term ‘soma’, so that things which are bodies
need not themselves be separate corporeal entites; they only need be causally efficacious.
I* Richard Sorabji will be taking this view in Mutter, Space and Motion, (Duckworth and Cornell, 1988).
 E. LEWIS XC)

straightforwardly Stoic, for the Stoics think that ‘natures’ belong only to plants and animals,
not to the many things which mix, water, wine, fire, iron, gold, zinc, etc.I7
Alexander’s description of fusion (sunkhusis di’holnn, 2 16.22-23, where we find a further
usage of sumphtheir-esthai, supports our proposed model. Here he claims that in cases of fusion
both the substance and the qualities of the constituents are destroyed. This is held in opposition
to blending where they (sc. the qualities and the substance) are preserved.
Stobaeus is a bit more complex, yet equally explicable, given our model. He argues that the
difference between fusion and kr-asis is whether qualities are preserved (he forgets about
substance). We must be careful about his comment concerning blending. I claim that the
clause starting with sunekphainesrhai, ‘they say’, is Stoic. The preceding clause, as in
Alexander, is Stobaeus’ interpretation (note the ‘explanatory’ gar- in 155.3).
I suggest that for the Stoics mixtures involve only the substance (in the Stoic sense) and
qualities of the constituents remaining actual, and that even these are destroyed in cases of
fusion. In both cases the constituents are not preserved, as the traditional interpretation holds,
but precisely the reverse. They are, as the text says, destroyed.
Again, de Mi-1-t. 217-26-218.10 lists other cases of mixture. All one finds here is talk of the
preservation of qualities and substance. Even the problematic cases in Stobaeus are cashed out
this way. The soul and the body are said to preserve their own substantiality (see 217.320.
If I am correct so far, why did these doxographers think the Stoics had coextensive bodies in
the case of blending. The answer should now be obvious, and it is. If the Stoic theory of
mixture has qualities and substances actually preserved, and so in the same place, then the
doxographers are given two reasons to draw such a conclusion. First, preservation of substance
in an Aristotelian sense means the preservation of the thing, or body. Doxographers, unaware
of the meaning the Stoics attach to this term, may have thought that preservation of substance
straightforwardly entails preservation of the body. Secondly, given the commonly held belief
that for the Stoics qualities are bodies, then the claim of coextensive bodies follows
immediately. In other words, since the doxographers clearly think that the Stoics conceive of
qualities as bodies, the claim that mixture entails bodies in the same place seems to follow even
if the doxographers are trying to be fair to their sources. This is also the case if they are simply
misinterpreting the meaning the Stoics give to the term ‘substance’. It is a case of what has
happened often, the doxographers taking a legitimate Stoic claim and misapplying it. Yet we
have seen both that substance is not an individual body, and that qualities are not bodies distinct
from the body they are the qualities of.
If I am correct that the constituents in mixtures do not actually exist, and are in fact
destroyed, how can the Stoics keep to their claim that the constituents can be extracted again‘?
One must realise that nothing odd follows from the Stoics postulating spatio-temporally
discontinuous bodies, as they must on this proposed model. Indeed, their theory of time
necessitates such discontinuous bodies. Given the most likely theory, that the Stoics postulated
infinite repetitions within linear time, any entity which does not exist for a whole ‘cycle’ will
be discontinuous. We shall all die, and then at a different time again study the Stoics on
mixture, having not existed after our (last) death and before our (most recent past) birth. So

’7 The unique ‘brand’ o f Stoic reductionism has it that the relationship of body and soul. and that of qualities to thui
which they inhere in. is not a relation between two bodies.
90 BlCS 35 ( 1988)

even if our theory needs postulate spatio-temporally discontinuous individuals, this would not
in and of itself worry a Stoic.IJ
What about antiparektasis (literally ‘stretching alongside opposite’)? If this term implies
penetration, as it is universally taken to, might we not have coextensive bodies briefly (epi
poson), till the constituent bodies sumphtheiresthai? Antiparektasis is a strange word, and quite
rare. Besides its use in D. L. and in Alex. its use is very infrequent. It seems to be primarily a
military term, and a very interesting one at that. When two opposed hoplite armies approached
each other, a common ploy was to widen, or stretch out, one’s line in an attempt to be able to
outflank or encircle one’s enemy. If one army started to stretch, the opposing army would do
so also, in an attempt to keep one’s line as long as one’s opponent so as to prevent being
outflanked. This ‘stretching alongside opposite’ is antiparektasis:

A c

One possible result is that one line would be able to stretch out faster and longer than another
and so outflank the enemy. Another result has one line or both stretching out to such an extent
that both lines are destroyed ... sumphthairesthai! No notion of penetration at all is brought in.
In the end we see that the Diogenes Laertius passage should be taken literally, as an accurate
report of what for the Stoics goes on with constituents during mixture. The ridicule the Stoic
theory received in antiquity can now be seen as due to that all too familiar tendency of ancient
doxographers to view their sources from the viewpoint of a given school (usually Platonism or
Aristotelianism). They did not try to hide the fact that they held Stoicism in low esteem, and so
they did not go to great lengths to try to present a coherent Stoic theory. Modem commentators
have been hampered by the paucity of fragments which have bekn passed down, and by their
‘pollution’ via the insertion of Platonic and Peripatetic thoughts and language into seemingly
‘pure’ Stoic texts. Only once the history of late Greek philosophy becomes familiar will
scholars of Stoicism be able accurately to separate the doxographical chaff from the Stoic
wheat.

‘‘See Richard Sordbji, Time. Cwution und thc Continuum (London and Ithaca N.Y.. 1983). ch. 11, and A. A. Long,
.lortrnu/ of Phi/o.sophy 23, Supp..
‘The Stoics on world-conflagration and everlasting recurrence’, South~~aster77
13-38.