Abstract
" It is to language, and to language alone, that fictional entities owe their existence, their impossible yet indispensable existence ". We can add to this statement by Jeremy Bentham, father of utilitarianism, by pointing out that language, to pursue this goal, makes use of metaphors and the body. The Latin corpus probably derives from the Proto-Indo-European *ḱrp-os-, *ḱrp- Its primary meaning is in fact the human body, in terms of its anatomy and outward appearance, as opposed to the mind. However, corpus has come to designate the bodies of animals other than man, as well as all organized living beings, and then any material object whatsoever. The polysemy of the term " corps " was such that the ancients attempted to define it, testing it on a specific case, that of the voice. Is the voice a body, or is it incorporeal, asks Aulu-Gelle (5.15). The discussion around the voice helps us to realize that the body is also the inescapable image for saying its opposite." Incorporeal " is nothing other than the symmetrically opposite concept of the body. We can only think of an entity, real or imaginary, if we give it or deny it a body. Jurists have also used thecategory of incorporeal things. Gaius, in particular, makes it the (sub)component of a triad that is intended to be exhaustive of all legal matters: personae, res, actiones. This approach draws a precise line, from metaphor to abstract notions. Legal thought first tends to construct its concepts using corporeal images (the notion of obligation belongs to this genre). Then, at a later stage, this idea is transferred to the category of incorporeal things. This permanent oscillation between abstract and concrete can also take another direction. This is the case when a group of individuals is conceived as a single body. The jurist Ulpian (D. 50.16.195.1-2, 4) thus seeks to define the multiple meanings of the word family (familia) using the notion of body, but also of blood and memory. Metaphors are not neutral : as carriers of ideas from a different domain, they never completely divest themselves of them, and call forth other metaphors.
