INTERDISCIPLINARY METHODOLOGY

The APATHES project aims to completely rework Hans von Arnim’s Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta. To achieve this goal, it will deploy an innovative and interdisciplinary methodology and will take into account all the texts concerning early Stoicism from the manuscript tradition, the Herculaneum and Graeco-Egyptian papyri, the Arabic, Armenian and Syriac literatures, and other epigraphical sources (in particular the Epicurean Inscription of Diogenes of Oinoanda). Specifically, the New von Arnim Project will benefit from:

(1) an innovative methodology for the new critical edition of the extant fragments and testimonia concerning early Stoics;

(2) a wider selection of the sources involved in this inquiry in comparison with von Arnim’s collection and a revision of most of the manuscripts (especially the papyri);

(3) a new methodology for reading and reconstructing the papyrological sources, especially the Herculaneum rolls (among them, a new pioneering critical edition of PHerc. 307, transmitting Chrysippus’ Logical Investigations, is underway);

(4) an innovative historical-philosophical methodology for commenting on and interpreting the extant sources;

(5) a website, along with a digital repository and the publication of partial and comprehensive outcomes of the project.

In particular:

(a) for each author or group of authors (see the editorial plan of the De Gruyter’s New von Arnim under the page ‘Publications’) the initials of all the sources (manuscripts, papyri, inscriptions) that have been taken into consideration for the constitutio textus will be presented and explained at length;

(b) each testimonium will indicate which reference edition it comes from and the places it corresponds (when applicable) with von Arnim’s Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta and Hülser’s Die Fragmente zur Dialektik der Stoiker, and will include a list of the loci similes/paralleli, a critical apparatus (generally concise for the texts handed down by manuscripts, more analytical for the papyrological sources), and an English translation;

(c) for the most important Stoics for whom enough evidence has been preserved, each edition will be divided thematically into five parts: bio-doxography, logic, physics, ethics, apophthegmata. In some cases, a specific section will be devoted to the dubious witnesses (dubia).

The enormous scholarly gain of this enterprise, directly proportional to its high risk and its ambitious purpose, is to provide the tools to revolutionize our current knowledge of Stoic logic, physics, and ethics and to shed new light on the history of the early Stoa, on its relationship with the other Hellenistic schools and with the previous ones, and also (although indirectly) on the enormous influence that it has had in the following currents of Western thought (up to the modern and contemporary philosophies).