Stoicism and Health
Our philosophy reading group recently covered the first chapters of Epictetus’s Enchiridion, focusing on the concept that’s now labelled as “the dichotomy of control”. As usual, I made my own views clear that the emphasis shouldn’t be placed on what lies out of our control, but rather what is in our control.
After all, for Epictetus, what is out of control is out of our “ownership” too and so it is “nothing” to us or “none of our concern”. He goes on to describe the domain of our agency — our very self — as lying within three areas: the power of choice (desire and aversion), the power of intent (your plan for your actions, which may or may not be successful), and the power of assent.
As a reminder, here’s the opening paragraph. For the purposes of clarity, I’ll emphasise the positive parts of this paragraph,
“Some things are within our power, while others are not. Within our power are opinion, motivation, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever is of our own doing; not within our power are our body, our property, reputation, office, and, in a word, whatever is not of our own doing. The things that are within our power are by nature free, and immune to hindrance and obstruction, while those that are not within our power are weak, slavish, subject to hindrance, and not our own.” (E. 1.1)
