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person334 BCE-262 BCE

Zeno of Citium

Disciplines:
ethics
logic
metaphysics

Summary

Cypriot-Greek philosopher who founded Stoicism after studying in Athens, teaching in the Stoa Poikile — the Painted Porch — from which the school takes its name.

Core Contribution

Founded Stoicism and established its core thesis that virtue is the only good; external things are neither good nor bad but indifferent (adiaphora); the wise man lives in accordance with nature and reason.

Key Spikes & Highlights

  • Reacted to Plato's Republic by writing his own utopian work arguing for a world state with no temples, no courts, and no currency — a radical cosmopolitanism.
  • Reportedly shipwrecked on his way to Athens, which he took as providential, as it led him to philosophy.

Notable Works & Achievements

Republic

On the Life According to Nature

On Impulse

Historical Influences

Crates of Thebes Stilpo Diodorus Cronus

Intellectual Lineage

Cynicism Megarian LogicSocratic Ethics

Contemporaries & Peers

Epicurus Pyrrho

Minds Influenced

Cleanthes Chrysippus Epictetus

Intellectual Posterity

Stoicism

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Zeno of Citium

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