The Stoics on Language

Abstract This chapter surveys Stoic views of language, which the Stoics discussed under the general heading of logic (logikê). As far as we can judge from our scant evidence, the breadth of the Stoics’ interest in language was unsurpassed in antiquity, and intersected with several other areas of their philosophy, including ontology, logic, and philosophy of mind. After providing a brief overview of the Stoics’ theory of the origin of language and their associated practice of etymology, this chapter considers Stoic semantics and the Stoic classification of sayables (lekta), including the truth-evaluable statables (axiômata) that figure in Stoic logic. It turns next to Stoic views of argument, ambiguity, and grammar, and to the significance of these topics for Stoic philosophy as a whole.