Stoic Greek Vocabulary William S. Annis Scholiastae.org∗ February 5, 2012 This is a list of key Stoic terms used in the works of Epictetus, as well as a few idioms that might cause trouble for those used to different genres or periods of Greek. δύναμις Δύναμις refers to an individual’s ability or capacity for something, and not the art or science itself. So there would be an opposition between e.g., ἡ γραμματικὴ δύναμις and ἡ γραμματικὴ τέχνη, with the former being an individual’s linguistic (in a very broad sense) ability, while the latter would be the abstract science of linguistics. ἔκκλισις The base meaning of ἔκκλισις is “disposition, tendency,” but in Stoic terms means specifically disposition away from something, “aversion, avoidance.” Opposite of ὄρεξις. ἐφ’ ἡμῖν Ἐπί with the dative is a fundamental phrase in Epictetus’ philosophy, usually in the form ἐφ’ ἡμῖν or οὐκ ἐφ’ ἡμῖν, “up to us, under our control,” but also sometimes with other pronouns, ἐπ’ ἐμοί, κτλ. It is often nominalized, τὰ ἐφ’ ἡμῖν, “those things that are up to us.” See Ench. 1.1. ὄρεξις Ὄρεξις, “desire,” is often used to mean in particular desire towards virtue, but may sometimes refer to those desires to be avoided. Opposite of ἔκκλισις. ∗ This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/. 1 ὁρμή This means “impulse, rush forward,” but in Stoic writings “choice, intention, appetite,” the motivation of an action. It’s usually contrasted to ἀφορμή, “repulsion, aversion.” The denominative verbs ὁρμάω, “feel attraction, desire,” and ἀφορμάω, “feel aversion,” are also often seen. πάσχω The base meaning of πάσχω is to be on the receiving end of some action, so “suffer, have something happen to one, come to be in a state,” etc. There is a particular Stoic idiom meaning, “be acted on by external things, take impressions from (them),” which may further be used with a report clause introduced with ὅτι, “to be (led to) suppose that.” See Epict. 1.2.3. προαίρεσις Πριαίρεσις, from the verb προαιρέω, “choose, prefer,” comes in for a lot of extravagant translations in philosophical literature. Its basic meaning in non-philosophical Greek is “choice, resolution, purpose,” but it may also refer to one’s habits of choice, and so “conduct, character, reputation, devotion.” In Stoic writings it may be translated “moral purpose, moral character, intention, volition,” etc. προκόπτω, προκοπή The verb προ-κόπτω means “to move forward, advance, make progress,” especially in a philosophical or moral sense in Epictetus. The present participle is often used as an agent noun, ὁ προκόπτων, referring to someone making progress in living as a Stoic. The noun, προκοπή, is then “moral progress, improvement.” See Ench. 12.1, Ench. 13.1. φαντασία Φαντασία corresponds to the “idea” of British Empiricists (like Locke and so on), so it would include both particular sense-data and more abstract mental ideas. The use of φαντασίαι leads to value judgements both about gold (external things) and other δυνάμεις (abstract things). It is often translated “impression” in modern English works on Stoicism. See Epict. 1.20.7. φύσις Φύσις has the base meaning “growth, origin,” but also shades into “natural form, constitution, natural position,” and in the Stoic context is often simply “nature.” Because Stoics viewed the cosmos as a teleological system (it had a purpose for everything), living κατὰ φύσιν, “according to nature” was synonymous with living correctly. The phrase παρὰ φύσιν, “contrary to nature” is seen, as is the bare dative, φύσει, “by nature.” The intransitive second aorist (ἔφυν) and perfect (πέφυκα) of the verb φύω, “grow,” may be used with the meaning “to be (something) by nature.” 2 It should be noted that several Hellenistic schools all advocated living κατὰ φύσιν yet still came to quite different ideas about what that meant. 3
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