De la phantasia et du pneuma stoïciens, d'après Sextus Empiricus, au corps lumineux néo-platonicien (Synésios de Cyrène et Hiéroclès d'Alexandrie)

Abstract

The stoic origins of the luminous body. According to Sextus Empiricus, the older and middle Stoics linked imagination to matter. For them, phantasia was an alteration or a distortion of the soul by sensation. Thus they made Synesios familiar with the material character of imagination and induced him to consider matter favourably, when Hierocles did separate it radically from spirit. The hègémonikon of the Stoics anticipates Synesios' "sense of the senses" and the theory of the incorporeals proves that the Porch had an intimation of the "spiritualisation" of matter. For Chrysippus, hègémonikon , pneuma and phantasia made up one material whole. On the strength of S.E one may assume that Poseidonios freed pneuma from matter. The pneumaeidôlon , or phantasia of Synesios is perhaps to be traced up through Porphyros to the same philosopher. Pneuma was to become definitely immaterial with Hierocles.