Ordres et impératif chez les stoïciens et Apollonius Dyscole

Abstract

Whereas Aristotle rejected outside of logic all statements but the declarative one, the Stoics deal with the imperative statement within a syntax of different “sayings” (λεκτά): the order is defined in relation to a προστακτικὸν λεκτόν or προστακτικὸν πρᾶγμα. Yet addressing the order is not reduced to a human being commanding another human being. In Epictetus, the cosmic reality in its natural dynamism arranges in an orderly way the different responses that different living beings give to the orders addressed to them by the deity. Apollonius Dyscolus inscribes addressing the imperative in his system of modal transpositions: each mode is transposed into a form comprising the infinitive along with the verb that signifies the same thing as the modal inflection. The grammarian relates the impossibility of a first-person imperative to what he calls the indivisibility of the person. The logical character of the Stoic reflection on the imperative also appears in the testimony given by the Herculaneum papyrus 307 on complex orders as well as in the link it allows us to establish with the question of determination.

Keywords

• Greek grammarians
• imperative mood
• logic
• order
• person
• stoicism