Diodorus Cronus (; died c. 284 BC) was a

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

philosopher Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

and

dialectician Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, value, mind, and language. It is a rational and critical inquiry that reflects on ...

connected to the

Megarian school The Megarian school of philosophy, which flourished in the 4th century BC, was founded by Euclides of Megara, one of the pupils of Socrates. Its ethical teachings were derived from Socrates, recognizing a single good, which was apparently combine ...

. He was most notable for logic innovations, including his master argument formulated in response to

Aristotle Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, a ...

's discussion of future contingents.

Life

Diodorus was the son of Ameinias of

Iasus In Greek mythology, Iasus (; Ancient Greek: Ἴασος) or Iasius (; Ἰάσιος) was the name of several people: *Iasus (Iasius), one of the Dactyli or Curetes. * Iasus, king of Argos. *Iasus, son of Io *Iasius ( Iasion), son of Eleuther ...

Caria Caria (; from Greek language, Greek: Καρία, ''Karia''; ) was a region of western Anatolia extending along the coast from mid-Ionia (Mycale) south to Lycia and east to Phrygia. The Carians were described by Herodotus as being Anatolian main ...

. He lived in the court of

Alexandria Alexandria ( ; ) is the List of cities and towns in Egypt#Largest cities, second largest city in Egypt and the List of coastal settlements of the Mediterranean Sea, largest city on the Mediterranean coast. It lies at the western edge of the Nile ...

in the reign of

Ptolemy I Soter Ptolemy I Soter (; , ''Ptolemaîos Sōtḗr'', "Ptolemy the Savior"; 367 BC – January 282 BC) was a Macedonian Greek general, historian, and successor of Alexander the Great who went on to found the Ptolemaic Kingdom centered on Egypt. Pto ...

, who is said to have given him the surname of Cronus ("old fogey") on account of his inability to solve at once some

dialectic Dialectic (; ), also known as the dialectical method, refers originally to dialogue between people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing to arrive at the truth through reasoned argument. Dialectic resembles debate, but the ...

problem proposed by

Stilpo Stilpo or Stilpon (, ''Stílpōn''; c. 360 – c. 280 BC), in Latin sources also Stilbo or Stilbon, was a Greek philosopher of the Megarian school. He was a contemporary of Theophrastus, Diodorus Cronus, and Crates of Thebes. None of his writi ...

, when the two philosophers were dining with the king. Diodorus is said to have taken that disgrace so much to heart that after his return from the meal, and writing a treatise on the problem, he died in despair. However, according to

Strabo Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called "Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-si ...

, Diodorus himself adopted the surname of Cronus from his teacher, Apollonius Cronus. Diodorus is thought to have died around 284 BC; his date of birth is unknown. It was once thought that he was old enough to have influenced

(384–322 BC), but there is no strong evidence for this. Diodorus was particularly celebrated for his great dialectic skill, for which he was called ''The Dialectician''. This effectively became his surname, and descended even to his five daughters, Menexene, Argia, Theognis, Artemesia, and Pantaclea, who were likewise distinguished as dialecticians. His pupils included

Philo the Dialectician Philo the Dialectician (; fl. 300 BC) was a Greek philosopher of the Megarian (Dialectical) school. He is sometimes called Philo of Megara although the city of his birth is unknown. He is most famous for the debate he had with his teacher Diodorus ...

, and

Zeno of Citium Zeno of Citium (; , ; c. 334 – c. 262 BC) was a Hellenistic philosophy, Hellenistic philosopher from Kition, Citium (, ), Cyprus. He was the founder of the Stoicism, Stoic school of philosophy, which he taught in Athens from about 300 BC. B ...

—the founder of the

Stoic Stoic may refer to: * An adherent of Stoicism Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy that flourished in ancient Greece and Rome. The Stoics believed that the universe operated according to reason, ''i.e.'' by a God which is immersed i ...

school. Although influenced by the

it is not clear how closely Diodorus and his fellow dialecticians were connected to that particular philosophical school.

Philosophy

He was most notable for logic innovations, including his master argument formulated in response to

's discussion of future contingents.

Diogenes Laërtius Diogenes Laërtius ( ; , ; ) was a biographer of the Greek philosophers. Little is definitively known about his life, but his surviving book ''Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers'' is a principal source for the history of ancient Greek ph ...

says that Diodorus also made use of the

Sorites paradox The sorites paradox (), sometimes known as the paradox of the heap, is a paradox that results from vague predicates. A typical formulation involves a heap of sand, from which grains are removed individually. With the assumption that removing a s ...

, and is said to have invented two others of the same kind, viz. ''The Masked Man'' and ''The Horns'', which are, however, also ascribed to Eubulides. Aulus Gellius claims that he also rejected the view that words are ambiguous, any uncertainty in understanding was always due to speakers expressing themselves obscurely. According to Sextus Empiricus,Sextus Empiricus, ''Adv. Math.'', x. 85–118 he also maintained that space was indivisible, and consequently that motion was impossible. He further denied the coming into existence and all multiplicity both in time and in space; but he considered the things that fill up space as one whole composed of an infinite number of indivisible particles.

Master argument

, in his work ''

On Interpretation ''On Interpretation'' (Ancient Greek, Greek: , ) is the second text from Aristotle's ''Organon'' and is among the earliest surviving philosophical works in the Western philosophy, Western tradition to deal with the relationship between language an ...

'', had wrestled with the

problem of future contingents Future contingent propositions (or simply, future contingents) are statements about states of affairs in the future that are '' contingent:'' neither necessarily true nor necessarily false. The problem of future contingents seems to have been fi ...

. In particular, whether one can meaningfully regard future contingents as true or false now, if the future is open; and, if so: how? In response, Diodorus maintained that possible was identical with necessary (i.e., not contingent); so that the future is as certain and defined as the past.

George Grote George Grote (; 17 November 1794 – 18 June 1871) was an English political radical and classical historian. He is now best known for his major work, the voluminous ''History of Greece''. Early life George Grote was born at Clay Hill near Be ...

, (1888), ''Plato, and the other companions of Sokrates'', Volume 3, page 501

Alexander of Aphrodisias Alexander of Aphrodisias (; AD) was a Peripatetic school, Peripatetic philosopher and the most celebrated of the Ancient Greek Commentaries on Aristotle, commentators on the writings of Aristotle. He was a native of Aphrodisias in Caria and liv ...

tells us that Diodorus believed that that alone is possible which either is happening now, or will happen at some future time. When speaking about facts of an unrecorded past, we know that a given fact either occurred, or did not occur—without knowing which of the two is true; therefore, we affirm only that the fact ''may have'' occurred. So too about the future: either the assertion that a given fact will—at some time—occur, or else the assertion that it will ''never'' occur, is positively true; the assertion that it ''may or may not'' occur, at some time or another, represents only our ignorance as to which of the two is true. That which will ''never at any time'' occur is, in a word, impossible. Diodorus went on to formulate an argument that became known as the ''master argument'' or ''ruling argument'' ( / ''ho kurieuôn logos''). The most succinct description of it is provided by

Epictetus Epictetus (, ; , ''Epíktētos''; 50 135 AD) was a Greek Stoic philosopher. He was born into slavery at Hierapolis, Phrygia (present-day Pamukkale, in western Turkey) and lived in Rome until his banishment, when he went to Nicopolis in ...

The argument called the master argument appears to have been proposed from such principles as these: there is in fact a common contradiction between one another in these three propositions, each two being in contradiction to the third. The propositions are: (1) every past truth must be necessary; (2) that an impossibility does not follow a possibility; (3) something is possible which neither is nor will be true. Diodorus observing this contradiction employed the probative force of the first two for the demonstration of this proposition: That nothing is possible which is not true and never will be.

Epictetus' description of the master argument is not in the form as it would have been presented by Diodorus, which makes it difficult to know the precise nature of his argument. To modern logicians, it is not obvious why these three premises are inconsistent, or why the first two should lead to the rejection of the third.William Kneale, Martha Kneale, (1962), ''The Development of Logic'', page 119, Clarendon Press Modern interpretations therefore assume that there must have been extra premises in the argument tacitly assumed by Diodorus and his contemporaries.

Richard Gaskin Richard Maxwell Gaskin (born 8 May 1960) is a British philosopher who is a professor at the University of Liverpool. He has published on metaphysics, philosophy of language and logic, and history of philosophy, as well as on philosophy of liter ...

, (1995), ''The sea battle and the master argument: Aristotle and Diodorus on the metaphysics of the future'', page 219. Walter de Gruyter One possible reconstruction is as follows: For Diodorus, if a future event is not going to happen, then it was true in the past that it would not happen. Since every past truth is necessary (proposition 1), it was necessary that in the past it would not happen. Since the impossible cannot follow from the possible (proposition 2), it must have always been impossible for the event to occur. Therefore if something will not be true, it will never be possible for it to be true, and thus proposition 3 is shown to be false. Epictetus goes on to point out that

Panthoides Panthoides (; fl. c. 275 BC) was a dialectician and philosopher of the Megarian school. He concerned himself with "the logical part of philosophy", and at some point taught the Peripatetic philosopher Lyco of Troas. He wrote a book called ''On ...

Cleanthes Cleanthes (; ; c. 330 BC – c. 230 BC), of Assos, was a Greek Stoic philosopher and boxer who was the successor to Zeno of Citium as the second head ('' scholarch'') of the Stoic school in Athens. Originally a boxer, he came to Athens where ...

, and

Antipater of Tarsus Antipater of Tarsus (; died 130/129 BC) was a Stoic philosopher. He was the pupil and successor of Diogenes of Babylon as leader of the Stoic school, and was the teacher of Panaetius. He wrote works on the gods and on divination, and in ethics h ...

made use of the second and third proposition to demonstrate that the first proposition was false.

Chrysippus Chrysippus of Soli (; , ; ) was a Ancient Greece, Greek Stoicism, Stoic Philosophy, philosopher. He was a native of Soli, Cilicia, but moved to Athens as a young man, where he became a pupil of the Stoic philosopher Cleanthes. When Cleanthes ...

, on the other hand, agreed with Diodorus that everything true as an event in the past is necessary, but attacked Diodorus' view that the possible must be either what is true or what will be true. He thus made use of the first and third proposition to demonstrate that the second proposition was false.

Nom de plume

During the 1960s and 1970s the philosopher

Richard Clyde Taylor Richard Clyde Taylor (November 5, 1919 – October 30, 2003) was an American philosopher renowned for his contributions to metaphysics and virtue ethics. He was also an internationally known beekeeper. Biography Richard C. Taylor was born i ...

also coauthored several articles under the nom de plume of ''Diodorus Cronus'' which included: ''"Time, Truth and Ability"'' (''Analysis'', 1965) and ''"The Necessity of Everything That One Does"'' (''The Southern Journal of Philosophy'',1971).

Notes

References

External links

* * * with a bibliography on the Master Argument {{DEFAULTSORT:Diodorus Cronus 4th-century BC Greek philosophers Ancient Greek logicians Megarian philosophers