the daily stoic

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Prohairesis (προαίρεσις): reasoned or deliberative choice, our free will to choose, the sphere of
choice. The term goes back to Aristotle’s Ethics and has been traditionally translated there as
“purposive choice.” A. A. Long, in an attempt to free it from modern moral concepts, translates it as
“volition,” a term we find too remote from everyday understanding—for generations prior it was
translated as “moral purpose” (W. A. Oldfather, George Long, and others). We are avoiding loading
the term with either the moral sense of Christian tradition or the modernist sense of will, so heavily
colored since Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. A. A. Long sees this as Epictetus’s preferred term for
what distinguishes human beings from animals (which also have hêgemonikon in his reading of
Epictetus; Epictetus: A Stoic and Socratic Guide to Life, p. 211), something not even the gods can
touch (Discourses 1.1.23). The term is used sixty-nine times in the Discourses (1.4.18–22, 1.18.21–
23, 1.22.10, 1.29.1–4a, 2.1.12–13, 2.5.4–5, 2.6.25, 2.10.1, 2.16.1–2a, 2.22.19–20, 3.1.39b–40a,
3.3.18–19, 3.7.5, 3.10.18, 3.19.2–3, 3.21.1–3, 3.22.13, 4.4.23, 4.5.34–37) and six times in the
Enchiridion (13). Marcus uses it five times in the negative (ἀπροαίρετα), or outside of our choice,
and three times in the positive sense of deliberate choice (3.6, 6.41, 8.56, 12.3, 12.33). Where this is
the focal point of Epictetus’s system, Marcus leans heavily to hêgemonikon.


Prokopê (προκοπή): progress or improvement; on the path toward the virtues of self-control,
courage, justice, and wisdom. See Epictetus, Discourses 1.4, captioned “on progress,” especially
1.4.18–22; also 3.19.2–3. The word appears fourteen times in Epictetus (most often in 1.4). Hanging
out with the wrong people can limit our progress, according to Epictetus (4.2.1–5), and Musonius
Rufus reminds us of the same (Lectures 11.53.21–22; losing our soul).


Prolêpsis (πρόληψις): a primary conception, or preconception, possessed by all rational beings.
Epictetus talks about keeping them ready like polished weapons (Discourses 4 –5a, 6b). See also 1.22
and 1.2.5–7, where he talks about working over our preconceptions and the true meaning of
education.


Pronoia (πρόνοια): foreknowledge, foresight, divine providence. Epictetus says we can praise
providence if we have two qualities: seeing things clearly and gratitude (1.6.1–2). Marcus talks about
entrusting the future to providence in 12.1. The word appears ten times in Epictetus (see 3.17.1) and
twelve times in Marcus.


Prosochê (προσοχή): attention, diligence, soberness. See especially Discourses 4.12.1–21. In
1.20.8–11, Epictetus says it is particularly needed for things that might steer us wrongly. Marcus uses
the term once in the body of his Meditations in speaking about what a short time we have in life to
keep indifferent things from consuming our attention (11.16; not here).


Psychê (ψυχή): state of mind, soul, life, living principle. It appears forty-three times in the
Discourses, and the laconic Marcus uses it sixty-nine times in his Meditations. Marcus has a
beautiful image of the rational soul as a sphere in 11.12 (not here); Epictetus sees it as a bowl of
water in 3.3.20–22. Seneca’s term is animus, the rational soul. The Stoics were materialists, so the
soul itself has substance.


Sophos (σοφός): wise person, virtuous sage, and the ethical ideal of a practicing Stoic.


Sympatheia (συμπάθεια): sympathy, affinity of parts to the organic whole, mutual
interdependence.


Synkatathesis (συγκατάθεσις): assent; approval to impressions, conceptions, and judgments,
enabling action to take place. See Marcus quoting Epictetus in 11.37 (in verb form) and how it
relates to katalêpsis; also, in 5.10 Marcus talks about how every assent to impressions is subject to
error. This is the third level of self-coherence, concerning the will and judgment and what we choose

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