prohairesis

>But I would argue that Stoics divide life into what is within our control and what is not. Actually the (ancient) Stoics didn't do anything of the sort. What you describe is a complete misinterpret…

The fatalistic overcorrection of the dichotomy of control. — I wrote part of the body of this post as a comment in another thread, but I see these comments very often anyway so I thought (voluntarily) that I would give a general objection to them here. The g…

Welcome! Read Me First. — # Welcome to r/Stoicism. This community exists for serious discussion of Stoic philosophy. It is not a forum for general self-help, motivation, validation, or professional therapy. It is also not a p…

Stoic free will versus determinism — I recently posted this comment on a question regarding free will in Stoicism. I’d like any refinements or corrections to improve my understanding of free will and determinism in Stoic thought. The St…

Folks, tomorrow (Saturday 10 AM EST) I'll be doing a live zoom talk in the Conversations with Modern Stoicism series, and would love to see some of this community there. Here's the [link](https://luma…

You can’t control your emotions. The Stoics were quite deterministic, and they argue that there’s only one thing in your power (notice how they wouldn’t use the word control), and that thing is your…

I wrote a fantasy novel that dramatizes Epictetus' concept of prohairesis — then wrote the academic thesis proving it I wrote a novel set in classical Sparta where a seven-year-old boy in the agoge m…

In Stoic terms, the only thing that can't be taken from you is your faculty of prohairesis. The only thing worth having according to Stoicism is the Stoic conception of virtue, which essentially means…

The Stoic universe operates as a singular, rational organism governed by Pneuma, a divine breath or reason that structures all matter. This universal reason, or Logos, is perfect and consistent. Howev…

Oh man. At first I thought it was all broicism, that it meant you need to let go of everything out of your control and only focus on what’s in your control, or suppress your emotions or to only focus …

I'd have to collate stuff together from various comments I've made for a proper answer (I need to do something similar to what I did for Hays and make a kind of blog post on my profile), but a classic…

Where there is "control", there is a) something doing the controlling, and b) something which is being controlled. What are these two things exactly? In ancient Stoic thought, there is one thing, ou…

Yes. It’s important to reiterate that the only thing that we have is our prohairesis/character

Careful. "It's not getting what you want, it's wanting what you've got" is very common philosophical wisdom spanning numerous traditions-- witness the Sheryl Crow song "Soak Up the Sun"-- if you stop …

You’re absolutely right, there’s a danger in oversimplifying this into just being happy with your stuff. The distinction regarding prohairesis is crucial. True contentment isn't just about wanting the…

It’s important to reiterate that the only thing we truly have is our prohairesis, our character and our choices. I’ve been testing this lately in the wild by tempering my expectations of others. Inste…

Wow, that shatters my perspective of Stoicism, LOL. But it makes sense, things or thoughts cannot be directly under our control. Rather, our "prohairesis" is essentially the capacity to form valid jud…

The self or one’s character is essentially identical to the prohairesis, and our choices come from our power of assent, which the fundamental function of the prohairesis. Living out of a suitcase ma…

It’s about the difference between needing and using. For me, the suitcase experience isn't about glorifying deprivation, but about practicing that very contentment with less, proving to myself that my…

I think for the most part you're right but you explain it really poorly when you say that "thoughts occur to us". What is passively received is impressions. Impressions happen to you, not thoughts. Th…

> Thoughts are verbal representations of impressions. You get the impression of light from your eyes. You create the thought "It is day". The thought is in your agency, it is within your power. The im…

Yes I understand and agree that prohairesis is the voluntary faculty, and that everything flows from it. That part makes sense. What I’m still trying to clarify is not what the voluntary faculty is, …

I think you are not correct in this. You said:  "What is passively received is impressions. Impressions happen to you, not thoughts. Thoughts are verbal representations of impressions. You get the i…

You misunderstand what prohairesis is if you think it's automatic. For one, it's a term borrowed from Aristotle and it means anything but automatic triggers of emotion or what gets angry at people. Yo…

I think there's a line in Nichomachean Ethics that says that your character is revealed through your prohairetic choices, but yeah I can see how people would twist the meaning of your ethical characte…

A good account by Greg Sadler https://gregorybsadler.substack.com/p/what-is-aristotelian-prohairesis

The Stoics were compatibilist, but still very deterministic. They believed that everything in the universe, including the will (prohairesis), is causally determined (fated), but the will of rational…