assent

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…

Overcorrections 2 Electric Boogaloo — This time I'm focusing on the way things are phrased in this subreddit's Read Me First. The problems I'm noticing can be either attributed to right understanding but wrong phrasing, or wrong understan…

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…

It helped me to cut out some toxic family members. One of the elements that fed my anxious attachment was that I had low self esteem. I worked really hard to build that up, but it was difficult to m…

> The sub doesn't let me post That's weird. There are auto-rules that limit TOP-LEVEL comments for posts tagged as "Seeking Personal Stoic Guidance". You have to be tagged as a "Contributor". I do…

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…

> virtue consists in correcting these judgments rather than simply controlling the outward behavior. This is not correct. Virtue consists in having the disposition of your soul/mind (also understood …

Você encarna Júpiter, basicamente. Mapa noturno, então ele está fora de seita. Ainda assim, domiciliado em signo condizente à seita. Pelos termos egípcios e pelo regente da triplicidade de água noturn…

The definition of slavery provided by Epictetus focuses on the location of your internal toggle switch rather than the external requirements of the simulation. Project Grounding Rod identifies your co…

The distinction rests on the technical definition of terms within Stoic system logic. In Letter 9 Seneca refers to propatheia or the initial physiological response to external stimuli. These represent…

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…

The virtue of justice covers what is up to us when it comes to others. Stoicism is pro social. So when you combine the two, you see that we clearly have a moral responsibility in how we carry ourselve…

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 consider myself a fairly advanced reader but I still benefitted greatly by starting with Erick Cloward's "Stoicism 101". It's a nice, inexpensive little book with 1-2 page sections on the essential …

I think we want the same things: less misogyny, less resentment, fewer young men getting pulled into movements built on humiliation narratives. Fewer young women being treated like garbage as a result…

“The Discipline of Desire”, which has to do with acceptance of our fate. “The Discipline of Action”, which has to do with philanthropy or love of mankind. “The Discipline of Assent”, which has to do…

Thanks for sharing. Discipline of assent takes a lot of practice. I found that journaling has helped me improve on a continual awareness of the true self.

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…

A few misperceptions are clear in your post. You are judging other people's behavior as wrong, rather than examining your own reaction to it. But the behavior of strangers online is entirely extern…

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…

The Stoic path is about internal freedom, not necessarily external rejection. My travel experience simply serves as a reminder that while I can enjoy preferred indifferents, my only true possession is…

> 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…

Interesting, I haven't interpreted those explanations in a fatalistic or automaton way. More in the sense that some thoughts that may randomly pop up in the moment aren't up to us, but our thinking …

I largely agree with this and see the overreach you are warning of. I share that concern and see that attempts to correct often lose the plot more times than not. My one confusion in what you bring u…

By "up to us" I not only mean that we are responsible for them but that they are also in our power. By saying that assent is not in our power I am saying that we can't control assent in the sense that…

Thanks for the explanation, it’s helpful. Another clarification: Doesn’t the proper use of assent necessarily involve the ability to withhold assent? I understand that we cannot contradict a perfe…

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, …

Thank you, that clarification makes sense and I apologize if I confused it with my word choice. I think your last sentence is near my point/curiosity. I’m not trying to suggest that impressions them…

Well I think I've been clear already that assent is just an agreement to an impression with the appearance of truth, so it's not really up to us. What you call "withholding assent" really is instead "…

I see the distinction you're making and it’s a continuation from our previous exchange. But if the final assent is essentially automatic once the impression is clarified, then what exactly is Epictetu…

"The discipline of assent seems to lose its point if the testing itself, leading to a different understanding of what is true, isn't part of our positive agency." Testing is not merely a suspension o…

He is saying to test that we ensure it is solely the sensory impression and that we haven’t added a judgement. To see things as what they are. When this isn’t the case, who has added the false judge…

Why are you asking me that at the end, do you want me to repeat what I wrote already in part 1 and also part 2 about how Epictetus says assent is something free? It's all the preamble to assenting, th…

I think you guys are speaking past each other a bit but I think everyone here is in agreement about assent but what Alex is highlighting is that assent only matters as much as you know what is appropr…

If my questions are coming across as repetitive, that isn’t my intent, I’m just trying to understand the distinction you’re making more clearly. I believe on the door to this philosophy it says we are…

Right, I appreciate the revision to the question. It's also not my intent to shut down replies, just to not repeat myself too often. As a means to add something relevant, Epictetus compares this pro…

Thank you. I do see that in many ways and I understand the work Prosoche plays in how the epistemic chain plays out. I'm unsure if we are discussing pure technical terms or psychology of Stoicism in …

Well these things, the mechanisms of impression and assent, aren't in dispute nor the mechanisms impression management. They are relevant but not when you bring up things like "agency" which is tied w…

A fair critique of the phrasing. The "you choose whether to assent" framing does conflate the process in a way that obscures where agency happens. Assent follows the appearance of truth, such that the…

I always thought that virtue, in Stoic terms, IS a stable condition of consistent rational assent to what is true about good and bad. In that sense, moral goodness = proper assent impressions. The way…

Just a bit later, Sellars points out a caveat to what he just said: But in Gellius’ discussion it is clear that the propositions that are being assented to or rejected are not of the form “there is a …

Love this discussion. I really appreciate the emphasis on *prosoche* and on the deeper work of refining our conception of the good; I agree that this is central in Epictetus and often gets lost in sim…

The way to moral goodness or honing moral goodness is to study moral goodness. Consider a pianist is able to assent to the right notes does not make him a philosopher. Epictetus brings up a simila…

To speak a little bit outside of the Stoics, Aristotle believed the best life is a life of contemplation. Again, we see a common theme in Aristotle that binds him to his teacher Plato and Socrates, as…

I believe I understand your point of assent being automatic to what one perceives to be true of the proposition. If we think it true, we assent. If not we reject. So would it be better to phrase it …

There lies the better questions we should be asking. How do we define moral goodness? Because assent is a given in anything we do. It doesn’t instruct us on where to look for moral goodness. But if a…

I think Epictetus described the disciplines in practical terms of what we need to do, but the "discipline of this and that" is a modern interpretation that just got taken as convention. I wouldn't hav…

This is like Sphaerus and the wax pomegranates. If you believe him, then he didn't assent to the impression that the fruits were real pomegranates, but that they only appeared to be so. Or that there …

Great post! It's an important point and you gave a good explanation which I agree with fully. For me the concept that we always assent to what appears true to us is difficult to grasp. So here's an a…

I accept that my wording wasn't ideal. It was a very hastily written response late at night to someone's question to me in response to a previous comment, knowing that I was going to be away from home…

Even Hadot says that this isn't necessarily how virtue is divided but just a teaching framework used by Epictetus. Past Stoics didn't divide things so neatly, for judgement. In the book *Inner Citade…

This is a distinction worth making clearly and you made it well. The popular framing treats assent like a lever you pull consciously, which does not hold up against what Epictetus actually says about …

I think it's a good interpretation to say the important work is upstream. First with conceiving well what is good, what is indifferent, and what is wrong. Otherwise, when presented with rational impre…