Analogia , Contrariety , and the Imago Virtutis in Seneca’s Letter 120

In letter 120, Seneca tells Lucilius that we gain our concept of the good through analogia. Earlier Stoic texts describe analogia as a mental operation of conceptual magnification. However, some scholars, particularly Brad Inwood, have marshalled evidence from Cicero against interpreting analogia as conceptual magnification. Although scholars more recently have noted that conceptual magnification is the most likely reading of analogia , Inwood’s argument has not been adequately answered, and the implications on reading letter 120 of interpreting analogia as conceptual magnification have not been fully appreciated. In this article, I aim to show how Inwood’s argument may be answered through an accurate circumscription of analogia’s scope and its application in letter 120. On the reading proposed here, analogia turns out to be, contrary to the judgment of previous scholars, a rather mundane and reasonable way of conceptualizing virtue. Furthermore, Seneca uses an additional conceptual operation in letter 120: contrariety. These two conceptual operations are also at play in Seneca’s exempla in letter 24.