Representation and the
self in Stoicism
By: Calista Allen, Sam Thompson, Neil Brandt
Phantasia-Representation
• Originated in Plato, meaning a perception that an entity
elicits in one or more observers
• Necessarily individual experiences
• “The Stoics classify all occurrent sensations and feelings,
recollections, imaginations, and all transient thoughts as
‘representations’. There is no other faculty in virtue of
which mental states can appear to the self that has
them’” (Long, p271).
• Every representation has a corresponding lekta (or
sayable) that captures some but not all of its content
Horme-Impulse
• “Human beings are animals, albeit “rational” ones.
Their animal nature is evident by the fact that they
have a “soul”, where soul signifies agency, or a
creature’s capacity to cause itself to move about the
world. The self-motion of animals is due to the
conjoint operation of two faculties, phantasia and
horme, ‘impulse’” (Long 267-268).
• Animals have a non-rational commanding faculty of
soul, which is why humans differ from animals
Synkatathesis-Assent
• Synkatathesis-3rd faculty of the human soul, the power of
giving or withholding assent to representations
• The Stoics intuition that assent is an essential faculty of
the human soul draws attention to their interest in the
self, the first-person perspective, what each individual
does with his experience. Any representation is a part of
my experience, but I can make it mine,- my outlook, or
belied, or commitment- or not mine, by giving or
withholding assent (Long 274).
• Giving assent to a representation allows for action
Epictetus and Prohairesis
• “Epictutus repeatedly insists that an ethically good life is
equivalent to making correct or proper use of representations”
(Long 275).
• Epictetus claims that the one faculty given to us by the gods is
prohairesis, or a person’s moral character (defined by the way a
person evaluates representations and gives or withholds assent)
• “You are not flesh nor hair, but prohairesis: if you get that
beautiful, then you will be beautiful,”-Epictetus (Long, p276)
• According to Epictetus, the act of assenting is the defining
faculty of the self, because there must be a “me” that is
assenting to a certain representation (Long, p276)
Epictetus cont.
• “There is a normative way of living, a rational life
‘in accordance with nature’, which we are
genetically equipped to understand, as our reason
and experience develop, and which specifies what
we should all seek as moral agents. Stoic selffashioning is not a case of making up one’s
own
values, but learning to take the norma of nature as
one’s own” (Long 283).
• So prohairesis is humans using their natural rational
capacity to give or withhold assent to representations
Concerns about Prohairesis
• If our beliefs and desires are based on previous
representations, how can we accurately judge new
representations through prohairesis?
• Should a wrongdoer be blamed or pitied?
• How do we know not to act upon our first
impression?
• To have a representation of something as bad, would
you need to first witness or be part of a bad
experience?
Defense of Prohairesis
• Epictetus says that we are predisposed to assent to
representations that appear to be true. So our previous
experiences do affect our judgment (Long, 276)
• We should pity wrongdoers and teach them how to
remove themselves from representations and better
evaluate them (Long, 277)
• To avoid acting upon first impressions, we must apply our
pre-existing beliefs on morality to our representations in
the correct way. An example of how not to do it is
Medea—decided revenge was more important than her
kids (Long 278-279)
Lekta and the 3 faculties
• “Epictetus insists that ‘the correct us of representations’ is ‘in
our power’. It is reasonable to suggest that what is in our power
is a lekton or description, and that this is ‘our’ individual
contribution to our representations. In that case, the mind’s
freedom from constraint, so strongly emphasised by Epictetus,
fains a (transcendental?) dimension that scholars of Stoicism
have tended to overlook (Long 285).
• It is up to an individual to “decide what lekton matches their
situation, what precisely they are experiencing, and how they
should evaluate the experience” (Long 285).
• “The corporeal mind of the Stoics must have access to the
incorporeal lekta, but the process by which it does so remains a
mystery” (Long 285).
Questions?