 The earliest Stoics seem committed to preserving the intuition that whenever we are in a mental state, there is something that our mental state is of or about. But they reject the Parmenidean requirement that this must be something “that is”, something that exists or obtains. On the contrary, they claim that “in the nature of things, some things are and some are not,” since the nature of things includes “anything that comes to mind, such as centaurs, giants or anything else made up by a false thought.” (Seneca Letter 58.15) Accordingly, these Stoics regard Something as the highest genus, rather than What is or What has being, as Plato had. Whenever a phantasia or representation is of something which does not in fact exist, there still is something our representation is of, which they call a phantasma, an “apparition” or “figment”. Even though it does not exist, on this view it is still something and so can serve as the object of our mental state.