Lunar Composition and Lunar Light in Stoic Philosophy

Abstract

AbstractThis paper attempts to reconstruct the Stoics’ theory (or theories) of the nature of the moon and its illumination from the fragmentary, and sometimes apparently conflicting, evidence. It reveals how the Stoics accounted for the distinctive characteristics of the moon by intricately utilising their mixture theory (especially κρᾶσις) and their elemental theory in their doctrines of the moon’s composition and the moon’s illumination. The evidence, I conclude, points to a singular, complex Stoic theory, one according to which the moon does not (as scholars have commonly supposed) have any light of its own. The details of this theory additionally furnish important new insights into the Stoic doctrines of κρᾶσις and πνεῦμα.