All Topics  
Apatheia

 

 
   Email Print
   Bookmark   Link
 

 

Apatheia
 
 
  Topics Apatheia Topic Home

Apatheia in Stoic philosophy refers to a state of mind where one is free from emotional disturbance.

Whereas Aristotle
Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greeks philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, Poetics , theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology and zoology....
 had claimed that virtue
Virtue

Virtue is morality excellence. Personal virtues are characteristics Value as promoting individual and collective well-being, and thus Goodness and value theory by definition....
 was to be found in the golden mean
Golden mean (philosophy)

In philosophy, especially that of Aristotle, the golden mean is the desirable middle between two extremes, one of excess and the other of deficiency....
 between excess and deficiency of emotion (metriopatheia), the Stoics sought freedom from all passions
Stoic Passions

Stoic Passions refers to various forms of emotional suffering in Stoicism, a school of Hellenistic philosophy....
 (apatheia). It meant eradicating the emotional response to external events - the things we cannot control.






Discussion
Ask a question about 'Apatheia'
Start a new discussion about 'Apatheia'
Answer questions from other users
Full Discussion Forum



Encyclopedia


Apatheia in Stoic philosophy refers to a state of mind where one is free from emotional disturbance.

Whereas Aristotle
Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greeks philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, Poetics , theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology and zoology....
 had claimed that virtue
Virtue

Virtue is morality excellence. Personal virtues are characteristics Value as promoting individual and collective well-being, and thus Goodness and value theory by definition....
 was to be found in the golden mean
Golden mean (philosophy)

In philosophy, especially that of Aristotle, the golden mean is the desirable middle between two extremes, one of excess and the other of deficiency....
 between excess and deficiency of emotion (metriopatheia), the Stoics sought freedom from all passions
Stoic Passions

Stoic Passions refers to various forms of emotional suffering in Stoicism, a school of Hellenistic philosophy....
 (apatheia). It meant eradicating the emotional response to external events - the things we cannot control. For the Stoics, it was the optimum rational response to the world, for we cannot control things that are caused by the will of others or by Nature, we can only control our own will. This did not mean a loss of all feeling, or total disengagement from the world. The Stoic who performs correct (virtuous) judgments and actions as part of the world-order experiences contentment (eudaimonia
Eudaimonia

Eudaimonia is a classical Greek word commonly translated as 'happiness'. Etymologically, it consists of the word "eu" and "Daemon " ....
) and good feelings (eupatheia).

The Pyrrhonian
Pyrrhonism

Pyrrhonism, or Pyrrhonian skepticism, was a school of skepticism founded by Aenesidemus in the first century BC and recorded by Sextus Empiricus in the late 2nd century or early 3rd century AD....
 skeptics also sought the eradication of feelings when disturbance depends on belief, but allowed for only a moderation of feeling when based on sensations such as pain. The term was later adopted by Plotinus
Plotinus

Plotinus was a major Philosophy of the ancient world who is widely considered the founder of Neoplatonism . Much of our biographical information about him comes from Porphyry 's preface to his edition of Plotinus' Enneads....
 in his development of Neoplatonism
Neoplatonism

Neoplatonism is the modern term for a school of religious and mystical philosophy that took shape in the 3rd century AD, founded by Plotinus and based on the teachings of Plato and earlier Platonism....
, for whom apatheia was the soul's freedom from emotion achieved when it reaches its purified state. The term passed into early Christian
Early Christianity

Early Christianity is commonly defined as the Christianity of the three centuries between the Crucifixion of Jesus and the First Council of Nicaea ....
 teaching, whereby apatheia meant freedom from unruly urges or compulsions.