Glossary

Literally: the indifferents, things-not-making-a-difference

Things that are neither good nor bad in themselves — health, wealth, reputation, life itself — and which therefore cannot make a person's life genuinely good or bad.

Literally: love of one's fate

The active, willing endorsement of what happens — not mere acceptance, but the harder move of wanting what the universe has brought.

Literally: without passions, without pathē

The Stoic ideal of freedom from the disordered passions — explicitly NOT freedom from all feeling.

Literally: exercise, training, practice — root of the English ascetic

The practice of training the soul through deliberate exercises — the Stoic understanding of philosophy as something you do, not just something you know.

Literally: freedom from disturbance, untroubledness

One of the Stoic names for the inner state of the sage — undisturbed, equable, free from the pull of the passions.

Literally: good-spiritedness, being well-favoured by one's daimōn

The flourishing life. For the Stoics, the life lived in accord with nature — that is, the life of virtue.

Literally: good feeling, good affection

One of the three "good feelings" the Stoic sage actually has — joy, caution, and wish — as distinct from the disordered passions (pathē).

Literally: examination, weighing, inquiry — the noun form of examinare

The evening review — the Stoic practice of bringing the day before the rational faculty for inspection before sleep, asking what was done well, what was done badly, and what tomorrow's correction is.

Literally: the ruling or commanding part

The ruling faculty of the soul — the rational, governing centre that processes impressions and grants or refuses assent.

Literally: what has been allotted, fate, destiny

The Stoic doctrine of fate — the causally determined order of the cosmos, with which the wise person aligns rather than resists.

Literally: hupo- (under) + ex (out) + hairesis (taking) — withdrawal, exception

The reserve clause — the implicit qualifier "circumstances permitting" attached to every Stoic intention, so that disappointment is absorbed in advance.

Literally: what is fitting, what comes down to one

An "appropriate action" — the practical duty fitting to one's nature and station, even if performed without complete virtue.

Literally: katorthoun (to set straight, to make right) — right or perfect actions

Perfect actions — those fully virtuous in both content and motivation — which only the sage performs. The Stoic ideal that the practitioner aims at but does not expect to reach.

Literally: kosmos (world, ordered universe) + politēs (citizen) — citizen of the cosmos

The Stoic conception of the practitioner as a member of the moral community of all rational beings — not merely of a city, family, or nation.

Literally: word, reason, account, ratio, structure

The rational principle that orders the cosmos — and, in each rational being, the participating fragment of that same principle.

Literally: appropriation, affiliation, making-one's-own; from oikos, household

The natural impulse by which a living being recognizes its own well-being as its own — and, in humans, the same impulse extending outward through reason to family, community, and humanity.

Literally: things suffered, undergone; affections

The four primary disordered passions of the Stoic system — appetite, pleasure, fear, and distress — caused by mistaken assent to impressions about indifferents.

Literally: appearance, what appears; from phainesthai, to appear

An impression — the mental presentation of something, true or false, which the rational faculty must then grant or refuse assent to.

Literally: pro- (before) + hairesis (choosing) — choice-before-action

The faculty of moral choice — the seat of the self in Epictetus, the one thing nobody can take from you.

Literally: one who is making progress, advancing

The practitioner of Stoic philosophy who is not yet a sage but is on the way — the working target of all practical Stoicism.

Literally: pre-passion, first movement

The involuntary first stirring of emotion before assent is granted — a flinch, a startled gasp, a flash of irritation — which the Stoics treat as morally neutral.

Literally: attention toward, attention upon

Continuous vigilant attention to the contents of one's own mind — the foundational Stoic spiritual posture.

Literally: feeling-with, suffering-with, co-affection

The Stoic doctrine of cosmic sympathy — the universe as a single living organism whose parts are organically connected and causally interrelated.

Literally: putting together with; agreement, consent

The act of mental assent — granting consent to an impression and treating it as true, important, threatening, or desirable.

Literally: end, goal, completion, fulfilment

The end or goal of human life — for the Stoics, "to live in accord with nature," which means to live according to reason and virtue.