The term Stoic categories refers to Stoic ideas regarding categories of being: the most fundamental classes of being for all things. The Stoics believed there were four categories (substance, quality, disposition, relative disposition) which were the ultimate divisions. Since we do not now possess even a single complete work by Zeno of Citium, Cleanthes or Chrysippus what we do know must be pieced together from a number of sources: doxographies and the works of other philosophers who discuss the Stoics for their own purposes.
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