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by Corry Shores
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Chapitre premier:
De l’incorporel en général
1.2
[The two planes of being: deep, real corporeality and surface incorporeality (predicates)]
1.2.1
[The only true beings recognized by the Stoics are the active cause (τὸ ποιοῦν) and the being that the cause acts upon (τό πάσχον). There are four elements of the world: Fire, Air, Water, and Earth. Fire and Air are active, and they act transformatively upon Water and Earth, which are passive. Fire is the primordial being and the seminal reason of the world, for two reasons: {1} the other elements are absorbed into the Fire (at cosmic cycles), and {2} the other elements are degrees of tension and relaxation of Fire.]
The only true beings recognized by the Stoics are in the first place the active cause (τὸ ποιοῦν) and then secondly the beings that the cause acts upon (τό πάσχον). [Recall from Sambursky’s Physics of the Stoics section 1.1 that the Stoics held that the cosmos is a continuous whole surrounded by a void. The continuity of the whole is a dynamic continuity resulting from a cohering activity of a very rarified substrate called pneuma. Pneuma is composed of a mixture of the active elements, Air and Fire, while Water and Earth are the other two passive elements that pneuma serves to bind.] The active elements of the world, fire and air, act transformatively upon the passive elements [Water and Earth]. Air, Water, and Earth are consumed in the universal conflagration. Thus Fire is the primordial being and the seminal reason of the world. The other beings [presumably Air, Water, and Earth, or if not, perhaps any individual object composed of the elements] are produced by a relaxation of the tension of the primordial fire. [I may not get this last point right, so see the final sentence of the quotation below. It might be the following. Air, Water, and Earth are not the effects or the parts of Fires (êtres primitifs), but are rather different states of tension of Fire.]
Les seuls êtres véritables que reconnaissent les Stoïciens, c’est d’abord la cause active (τὸ ποιοῦν), puis l’être sur lequel agit cette cause (τό πάσχον).3 Encore faut-il ajouter que les éléments actifs du monde, le feu et l’air, donnent naissance par transformation aux éléments passifs ; les trois derniers, dans la conflagration universelle, se résorbent eux-mêmes | dans le feu, si bien que l’être primordial est le feu, la raison séminale du monde. Les autres êtres sont produits par une tension moindre, un relâchement du feu primordial. Ils ne sont ni les effets ni les parties des êtres primitifs, mais plutôt des états de tension différents de cet être.
3. Philon du mund. op. 8 (V.S.F. II 111, 18).
(11-12, note, the footnote reads V.S.F rather than S.V.F. in my version)
1.2.2
[The active beings are the pneumata (πνεύματα) or “breaths,” whose actions are evinced through their effects. Through these effects, they can serve as qualities of bodies, namely primary ones: being hot, being cold, being dry, and being wet, and secondary ones like colors and sounds.]
Among these active beings are the qualities of bodies. The active beings are the pneumata (πνεύματα) or “breaths” whose actions are evinced through their effects. The active beings as qualities are in the first place the primarily qualities that can belong to the elements, namely, being hot, being cold, being dry, and being wet. And secondly they are such sensible [secondary] qualities as colors and sounds.
Parmi ces êtres actifs se trouvent les qualités des corps ; ce sont des souffles (πνεύματα) dont l’action se montre par leurs effets. Il y a d’abord les premières qualités qui appartiennent aux éléments, le chaud, le froid, le sec, l’humide, puis les autres qualités sensibles comme les couleurs et les sons.
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1.2.3
[We should not understand the Stoic notion of the world as being composed of distinct corporeal things that can be said to be the causes or effects of one another. Rather, beings are spontaneous principles that are different moments or aspects of one same universal being, the Fire.]
Bréhier notes that the world is composed not just of material beings made of the elements [Fire primarily, whose lesser degrees of tension are the other elements]. There are as well causes and principles. [I may not get the rest right, so please consult the text below. Given the Stoic cosmology of the universal fire, it is best not to think of the things in the world as being like substantial objects that can cause one another. Rather, beings should be seen as spontaneous “principles” (or let us say for now, “events”) that happen within the one same being, the Fire. But otherwise, in their doctrine of causality, one (corporeal) being cannot be said to be the effect of another (corporeal) being. (See for example the selective summary of Clement’s Stromata section 8.9.)]
Il faut remarquer que l’énumération de ces êtres, qui sont tous les êtres de la nature, ne nous fait pas sortir des causes et des principes. Le monde des Stoïciens est composé de principes spontanés, puisant en eux-mêmes vie et activité, et aucun d’eux ne peut être dit proprement l’effet d’un autre. La relation de cause à effet entre deux êtres est tout à fait absente de leur doctrine. S’il y a relation, elle est d’un tout autre genre : ces principes sont plutôt comme les moments ou les aspects de l’existence d’un seul et même être, le feu dont l’histoire est l’histoire même du monde.
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1.2.4
[Although corporeals cannot be causes or effects of one another (that is to say, they cannot change the corporeal properties of one another), they can still interpenetrate to form new mixtures, which is what really happens when we say that one body is causally influencing another body. Since everything is made of Fire, and since Fire never changes its physical nature (except for its degrees of tension, which is more a matter of distribution rather than composition), that means when one body mixes into another, neither one changes the physical properties of the other. For, their fundamental components of Fire retain their same physical Fire properties. What does change however as a result of the mixture are the arrangements and tensions of their component parts, corresponding to which are changed predicates (attributs) of the mixing bodies. Now, a predicate is not a quality. It is rather a way of being of the corporeal. So when a knife cuts flesh, the knife’s action causes the flesh’s way of being to change and to take on the predicate “being cut,” (and in the same stroke, the flesh’s passion causes the knife to take on the predicate “is cutting”). Predicates, then, are always expressed by verbs. And since they are not corporeal changes but rather correspond to them as incorporeal “events”, that places them at the “limit” or “surface” of the corporeal bodies they are predicates of.]
[But even though beings cannot be causes and effects of one another,] real beings can, however, enter into relations with one another, and by means of these relations, they in some sense modify one another. Clement of Alexandria says that real beings are not causes of one another but are rather causes of certain things for one another. [See especially subsection 12.1 of Stromata section 8.9.] These modifications are not themselves realities. They are neither substances nor qualities. One body cannot give new properties (propriétés) to another body. When bodies interact such that causation can be said to occur, what is really happening is that the two bodies interpenetrate and form a mixture (μῐξις or κρᾶσις). So when fire heats iron until it reddens, the fire has not given the iron a new quality (qualité) [redness or heat]; rather, the fire has penetrated into the iron and the fire’s parts now coexist among the iron’s parts. These modifications (modifications) however are not on this level of mixtures. They are not new realities (réalités), as properties (propriétés) of the things; rather, they are only attributes (attributs) (κατηγορήματα) [predicates] of the things. When the scalpel cuts the flesh, the first body (scalpel) produces upon the second body (flesh) not a new property (propriété) but a new attribute (attribut) [predicate], namely, that of being cut. [As we see, we must make some critical terminological distinctions. A property is a physical trait produced by a physical modification. One body cannot cause another body to have a property, because one body can only form a mixture with another. This mixture does not cause the mixed bodies to change their physical traits, that is, their properties; it only changes one another’s attributes or predicates. To continue this account, let me draw from an overall interpretation I gave in my commentary to Luhtala’s On the Origin of Syntactical Description in Stoic Logic section 5.6.2.4; but I will modify it to fit what Bréhier said in section 1.2.3 above. We have Fire primarily, and its various degrees of relaxation are the other elements. But overall, there is just one element, Fire. The parts of fire never change their properties. They only change their mixture arrangements. Different mixture arrangements will correspond to different predicates (here, ‘attributs’). So one thing, which as a corporeal is madee fundamentally of Fire, does not change the properties of another thing, which is also fundamentally Fire. Rather, the two sets of organized Fire particles, like the sets composing the knife and the sets composing the flesh, both enter into mixtures when they interpenetrate. But since all is just one Fire, we can think of their interpenetration as one region of the Fire moving through another region. So the region we call ‘knife’, when it is penetrated by the region we call ‘flesh’, does not thereby involve any physical change to its fundamental Fire particles. Rather, that region we call ‘knife’ now takes on the new incorporeal predicate ‘is cutting’, in accordance with its new compositional mixture. And similarly for the region we call ‘flesh’, the only change to it through this mixture is its new predicate ‘being cut’. I am not sure how to define “quality” yet. We know at least that a quality is not an attribute, because attributes are expressible by verbs. But attribute is defined as an incorporeal predicate, which is of such a physical nature that it is best expressed as a verb.] An attribute does not indicate a real quality. White and black for example [may be qualities, but they] are not attributes. For, an attribute is always expressed by a verb. This means that it is not a being, rather, it is a way of being. [It is not a thing itself, but rather] it is a category of being, πώς ἔχον. [See Luhtala On the Origin section 5.5.3.7 and Sambursky Physics section 1.4. Luhtala calls it “disposition” and Sambursky, “state”.] This way of being is somehow found at the limit of the being, that is to say, at the surface of the being. And this way of being cannot change its nature [Or, maybe, this way of being cannot change the nature of the thing it is affixed to.] Also, a way of being is neither active nor passive. For, in order for something to be passive, that would require that it be a corporeal that is suffering some action. Yet, some specific way of being, like “being cut”, is not itself suffering some action. Rather, it purely and simply is a result or effect of some interaction/interpenetration of bodies, and thus it should not itself be considered among the class of beings.
Les êtres réels peuvent cependant entrer en relation les uns avec les autres, et au moyen de ces relations, se modifier. « Ils ne sont pas, dit Clément d’Alexandrie exposant la théorie stoïcienne, causes les uns des autres, mais causes les uns pour les autres de certaines choses »1. Ces modifications sont-elles des réalités? des substances ou des qualités? Nullement : un corps ne peut pas donner à un autre des propriétés nouvelles. On sait de quelle façon paradoxale les Stoïciens sont obligés de se représenter les relations entre les corps, pour éviter cette production des qualités les unes par les autres : ils admettaient un mélange (μῐξις ou κρᾶσις) des corps qui se pénétraient dans leur intimité, et prenaient une extension commune. Lorsque le feu échauffe le fer au rouge par exemple, il ne faut pas dire que le feu a donné au fer une nouvelle qualité, mais que le feu a pénétré dans le fer pour coexister avec lui dans toutes ses parties 2. Les modifications dont nous parlons sont bien différentes : ce ne sont pas des réalités nouvelles, des propriétés, mais seulement des attributs (κατηγορήματα). Ainsi lorsque le scalpel tranche la chair, le pre- | mier corps produit sur le second non pas une propriété nouvelle mais un attribut nouveau, celui d’être coupé 1. L’attribut, à proprement parler, ne désigne aucune qualité réelle ; blanc et noir par exemple ne sont pas des attributs, ni en général aucune épithète. L’attribut est toujours au contraire exprimé par un verbe, ce qui veut dire qu’il est non un être, mais une manière d’être, ce que les Stoïciens appellent dans leur classement des catégories un πώς ἔχον. Cette manière d’être se trouve en quelque sorte à la limite, à la superficie de l’être, et elle ne peut en changer la nature : elle n’est à vrai dire ni active ni passive, car la passivité supposerait une nature corporelle qui subit une action. Elle est purement et simplement un résultat, un effet qui n’est pas à classer parmi les êtres.
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1. Strom. VIII 9 (V.S.F. II 121, 4).
2. Stob. Ecl. I, p. 154 (S.V.F. II 153, 9).
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1. Sextus Math. IX 211 (S.V.F. II 119, 21) ; cf. les idées d’Archédème (S.V.F. III 262, 31).
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[Note, regarding Bréhier’s Stob. Ecl. I, p. 154 (S.V.F. II 153, 9). There is no English translation that I can find, but there is a similar passage by Alexander (On mixture 216, 14-218,6 / SVF 2.473): “Moreover they say that fire as a whole passes through iron as a whole while each of them preserves its own substance” (Long & Sedley 291).]
Some of these passages above are translated by Mark Lester and Charles Stivale in The Logic of Sense:
When the scalpel cuts through the flesh, the first body produces upon the second not a new property but a new attribute, that of being cut. The attribute does not designate any real quality
it is, to the contrary, always expressed by the verb, which means that it is not a being, but a way of being.
This way of being finds itself somehow at the limit, at the surface of being, the nature of which it is not able to change: in fact, neither active nor passive, for passivity would presuppose a corporeal nature which undergoes an action. It is purely and simply a result, or an effect which is not to be classified among beings.
(Deleuze 1969: 14; Deleuze 1990: 5; Deleuze 2004: 8)
1.2.5
[These predicate-effects are what we today call facts (faits) or events (événements). Predicates are incorporeals, and they are what is said or affirmed of corporeals. As such, they have no bodily existence but can enter to some extent into the mind. Causes, which are corporeals, are always expressed using nouns, and effects, which are predicates, are always expressed using verbs.]
The predicates, being results of the actions of corporeals, are what we today call facts (faits [and not ‘états de choses’]) or events (événements). Predicates are not corporeals or properties of corporeals; rather, they are what is said of a corporeal or what is affirmed of a corporeal. By making the predicates incorporeal, the Stoics exclude them from real beings, while at the same time, this places predicates to some extent within the mind. Sextus Empiricus says that when a body acts upon another body, the first one becomes a cause for the second, and what it causes for the second is something incorporeal. [« Tout corps devient ainsi cause pour un autre corps (lorsqu’il agit sur lui) de quelque chose d’incorporel ». See Luhtala Origins section 5.6.2.6, quoting Sextus: “The Stoics say that every cause is a body which becomes the cause to a body of something incorporeal.” (Adv. math. IX,211 = SVF 2.341, tr. Long/Sedley 1987: 333)] We see this mental/linguistic nature of the incorporeal in the concern the Stoics always have for how language expresses the predicate or effect of bodily mixture: the effect is always expressed as a verb. So for example, hypochondria should not be understood as the cause of the fever. Rather, hypochondria should be understood as the cause of the fact that the fever occurs. And in the all the examples [of Clement] that follow this one, the causes are never facts (faits) but are always corporeals expressed as substantives: stones, teacher (maître), and so on. However, the effects are always predicates like “being stable,” “making progress,” and as such, they are always expressed by verbs. [Note, regarding hypochondria, I am not sure how that relates to the spleen and fever example of Clement, Stromata section 8.9, subsection 12.2. I so far have only found a discussion of it in these terms on a google book search, here, at p.224 of Jean-Joël Duhot’s La conception stoïcienne de la causalité. The examples of the stones in the archway having the predicates “remaining together” and the teacher and student “making progress” are found in subsection 12.3 of Stromata section 8.9. For more discussion on this noun/verb relation between causes and effects, see Luhtala Origins for example sections 5.6.2.5- 5.6.2.10]
Ces résultats de l’action des êtres, que les Stoïciens ont été peut-être les premiers à remarquer sous cette forme, c’est ce que nous appellerions aujourd’hui des faits ou des événements : concept bâtard qui n’est ni celui d’un être, ni d’une de ses propriétés, mais ce qui est dit ou affirmé de l’être. C’est ce caractère singulier du fait que les Stoïciens mettaient en lumière en disant qu’il était incorporel, ils l’excluaient ainsi des êtres réels tout en l’admettant en une certaine mesure dans l’esprit. « Tout corps devient ainsi cause pour un autre corps (lorsqu’il agit sur lui) de quelque chose d’incorporel » 2. L’importance de cette idée pour eux se fait voir par le souci qu’ils ont d’exprimer toujours dans le langage, l’effet par un verbe. Ainsi il ne faut pas dire que l’hypochondrie est cause de la fièvre, mais cause de ce fait que la fièvre arrive 3, et dans tous les exemples qui suivent les causes ne sont jamais des faits mais toujours des êtres exprimés par un substantif : les pierres, le maître, etc., et les effets : être stable, faire un progrès, sont toujours exprimés par des verbes.
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2. Sexus, ibid. [Sextus Math. IX 211 (S.V.F. II 119, 21) ; cf. les idées d’Archédème (S.V.F. III 262, 31).]
3. Clem. Alex. Loc cit. [Strom. VIII 9 (V.S.F. II 121, 4)]
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1.2.6
[There are two planes of being. {1} There is the plane of real and profound being, in which there are corporeals (physical bodies) that act and are acted upon by other corporeals on account of physical forces driving their interaction. {2} There is the plane of surface (and unreal) being. It lies at the metaphysical limit of the corporeal plane, remaining directly related to the interactions of corporeals, but not existing as something physically real among those interacting bodies. Here facts (predicates) play at the surface of physical being. They are the effects which are caused by the corporeal interactions. As such, the forces driving interaction on the deeper real plane are not exhausted by having produced effects on the incorporeal plane, since these effects are not matters of physical force.]
[First I will state the points Bréhier makes, and afterward I will comment.] The incorporeal fact (fait) is in some sense at the limit of the action of bodies. The form of a living being is predetermined in the germ that develops and grows. But this exterior form does not constitute a part of the living thing’s essence. Rather, the living thing’s exterior form is a result of an internal action that extends in space. And this internal action is not determined by the condition of filling out into its limits. In the same way, the action of a body, which is its internal force, is not exhausted in the effects that it produces. The effects of the body’s action do not come at any cost to its internal forces, and it does not affect the corporeal being in any corporeal way. So for example the act of cutting does not add anything to the nature or to the essence of the scalpel. The Stoics put force and thus all of reality not in events, that is, in the multiple, diverse processes that beings accomplish. Rather, they put force and reality into the unity to which belongs all the parts. In a sense, this makes them not too much unlike David Hume and John Stuart Mill, who reduce the universe to facts or events. But in another sense, the Stoics make possible a new sort of conception, which radically separates two planes of being. One the one hand, there is the plane of real and profound [corporeal] being, which includes force; while on the other hand there is the plane of [incorporeal] facts (faits), which are found playing on the surface (surface) of [real corporeal] being and which constitute an infinite multiplicity of incorporeal beings. [My comments on the above points: The incorporeal facts lie at the limit of the action of bodies. This “limit” seems to be a metaphysical limit, meaning that they lie beyond the realm or plane of corporeals, but still at the edge so to remain in an intimate relation with corporeals. It is in this sense that they lie at the surface. A living being will take on a form that is determined by the germ it develops from. But unlike what we saw with the Platonic conception in section 1.1, that form is not like an essence that causes the living thing’s parts to develop the way they do. Rather, it is caused internally by the forces at work among the corporeal elements that are able to act and be acted upon. As we have seen, the cause is corporeal but the effect is incorporeal. So the corporeal cause of development in the corporeal world, which is a matter of the physical forces at work in corporeal action, does not become exhausted in its causal action. Rather, there are just bodies acting and being acted upon by other bodies, which is a matter of new mixtures constantly being created. The effects they have are found on another plane of being, and so it is not like anything was subtracted from the physical forces, as the incorporeal plane does not admit of physical force. What is interesting to keep in mind is that only the corporeal plane is real, and the incorporeal plane is not. So the events/predicates/results of corporeal action are not found as real things among the real bodies of our world. But they are not so distant that our world bears to direct relationship to these incorporeals. Rather, they sort of dance or play at the metaphysical “surface” of physical reality. They are sort of hovering somewhere, but they have no location. They at best can only enter our minds when we conceive them.]
Le fait incorporel est en quelque façon à la limite de l’action des corps. La forme d’un être vivant est prédéterminée dans le germe qui se développe et qui s’accroît. Mais cette forme extérieure ne constitue pas une partie de son essence ; elle est subordonnée comme un résultat à l’action interne qui s’étend dans l’espace, et celle-ci n’est pas déterminée par la condition de remplir ses limites. De la même façon l’action d’un corps, sa force | interne ne s’épuisent pas dans les effets qu’il produit : ses effets ne sont pas une dépense pour lui et n’affectent en rien son être. L’acte de couper n’ajoute rien à la nature et à l’essence du scalpel. Les Stoïciens mettent la force et par conséquent toute la réalité non pas dans les événements, dans les démarches multiples et diverses qu’accomplit l’être, mais dans l’unité qui en contient les parties. En un sens, ils sont aussi loin que possible d’une conception comme celle de Hume et de Stuart Mill qui réduisent l’univers à des faits ou événements. En un autre sens pourtant, ils rendent possible une telle conception en séparant radicalement, ce que personne n’avait fait avant eux, deux plans d’être : d’une part, l’être profond et réel, la force ; d’autre part, le plan des faits, qui se jouent à la surface de l’être, et qui constituent une multiplicité sans lien et sans fin d’êtres incorporels.
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From the Mark Lester and Charles Stivale translation in The Logic of Sense:
[The Stoics distinguished] radically two planes of being, something that no one had done before them: on the one hand, real and profound being, force; on the other, the plane of facts, which frolic on the surface of being, and constitute an endless multiplicity of incorporeal beings.
(Deleuze 1969: 14; Deleuze 1990: 5; Deleuze 2004: 8)
1.2.7
[We first needed to see how corporeals revolutionized metaphysics so that we can next examine how they revolutionized logic.]
We next will examine how incorporeals constitute the material of all Stoic logic. Thus incorporeals will replace the genera and species of Aristotelian logic. We needed first to see how the Stoic’s original conception of incorporeality worked in their physics in order to better grasp how it revolutionized logic.
Nous allons montrer maintenant que ces incorporels constituent la matière de toute la logique stoïcienne, se substituant ainsi dans la logique aux genres et aux espèces de la logique d'Aristote. Il était nécessaire de montrer d'abord dans la physique les raisons de cette révolution de la logique.
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Bréhier, Émile. 1962. La théorie des incorporels dans l'ancien stoïcisme. 3rd Edn. Paris: Vrin.
PDF of a microfilm version available at:
Also cited:
Deleuze, Gilles. 1969. Logique du sens. Paris: Les éditions de minuit.
Deleuze, Gilles. 1990. The Logic of Sense. Translated by Mark Lester and Charles Stivale. Edited by Constantin Boundas. New York: Columbia University Press.
Deleuze, Gilles. 2004. The Logic of Sense. Translated by Mark Lester and Charles Stivale. Edited by Constantin Boundas. London / New York: Continuum [first published in English: Columbia University Press, 1990].
Long, Anthony A. and David N. Sedley. 1987. The Hellenistic Philosophers, vol.1: Translations of the Principle Sources, with Philosophical Commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
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