Posidonius source de Plutarque en matière d’éthique c’est-à-dire La théorie des passions psychiques chez Galien et Plutarque

Abstract

The great revolution made by the most scientifi c of the Stoics, Posidonius, is the fact that passions cease to be perversions (διαστροφαί) of reason. But the philosopher of Apamea not only recognizes the existence of passions as natural impulses that fi nd their root in the body, but also admits the existence of psychic passions that acquire pathological character as a result of false judgments and empty opinions and that are the sign of a weakness (ἀσθένεια vel ἀτονία) of the soul. And it is this weakness of the soul the cause of the widespread passion that, in the early centuries of the vulgar era, authors with particular force, such as Plutarch and Galen, declare.