L'ontologia stoica del qualcosa. Corpi, incorporei e concetti

he subject of this essay is the Stoic theory of the so-called supreme genus, i.e. the "something". The purpose of this theory was to ensure some kind of unity to a kosmos which, being made not only of bodies, but also of incorporeals, could appear dangerously discontinuous from an ontological point of view. The sources attest that the "something" is the supreme genus that includes both bodies, which are particulars, and incorporeal entities, that are non-particulars. For this reason, what unifies bodies and incorporeal is not being "something particular" but being "something objective and real". The assumption of "something" as a supreme genus, including bodies and incorporeals, has been established by Chrysippus, while before him, in Zeno's time, the "something" was only an ontological category opposed to the bodies. It is in the context of the Stoic theory of universal concepts that the characteristic of "particularity" plays a decisive role: the particularity characterizes the ideas conceived as objective and real entities. From this point of view, the universal concepts, described by the Stoics as fictions of the mind, are outina ("non-somethings") in two distinct senses depending on whether they are opposed to bodies and incorporeals, on the one hand, or to ideas, on the other. In the former case, they are outina in the simple and general sense that they are not objective and real entities, in the latter, they are outina in the more specific sense that they are not ideas intended as supersensible objective particulars.