Glossary
Apatheia
ἀπάθεια (apatheia)
Apatheia is the Stoic name for a mind without pathē, the passions: fear, grief, craving and the unruly pleasure that the school treated as errors of judgment rather than as feelings to be moderated. Elizabeth Carter kept the Greek almost unchanged in her 1758 Enchiridion. When a little oil is spilt or some wine stolen, the reader is to say that this is the purchase paid for Apathy and for Tranquillity, and that nothing is to be had for nothing (chapter XII). Her “Apathy” translates apatheia and her “Tranquillity” ataraxia; the two words travel together in the Stoic texts.
Marcus Aurelius writes it as an image rather than a term. In George Long’s 1862 wording of Meditations, VIII, 48, the mind which is free from passions is a citadel, and man has nothing more secure to which he can fly for refuge. In Meditations, XI, 18 he ranks it: the nearer a mind is to freedom from all passion, the nearer it is to strength, and anger, like pain, is listed among the marks of weakness.
What apatheia removes is the passion, defined as assent to a false judgment of value, not affect as such. The Stoics allowed the wise person well-founded joy, caution and wish, and Marcus records of his teacher Sextus that he was entirely free from passion and at the same time most affectionate (I, 9). The condition is therefore described as an achievement of judgment, reached by refusing the opinion that an external thing is an evil, rather than as a temperament.
In the texts
Epictetus · Enchiridion, XII
Say to yourself, "This is the Purchase paid for Apathy, for Tranquillity, and nothing is to be had for nothing."
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations, VIII, 48
Therefore the mind which is free from passions is a citadel, for man has nothing more secure to which he can fly for refuge and for the future be inexpugnable.
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations, XI, 18
For in the same degree in which a man's mind is nearer to freedom from all passion, in the same degree also is it nearer to strength: and as the sense of pain is a characteristic of weakness, so also is anger.
What the term does not mean
- Not indifference or coldness in the modern sense of “apathy”. Carter’s “Apathy” is the Greek word kept, and Marcus pairs freedom from passion with affection when he describes Sextus (I, 9).
- Not the absence of feeling. What is removed is the passion, an assent to a false judgment; joy and caution founded on right judgment remain.
- Not a mood to be induced. In the texts it results from judging, not from relaxing, and it is described as a citadel, not as a calm.
Related terms
- Ataraxia — ἀταραξία (ataraxia)
- Prohairesis — προαίρεσις (prohairesis)
- Dichotomy of control — τὰ ἐφ’ ἡμῖν / τὰ οὐκ ἐφ’ ἡμῖν (ta eph’ hēmin, ta ouk eph’ hēmin)
- Hegemonikon — ἡγεμονικόν (hēgemonikon)
- Inner citadel — ἀκρόπολις (akropolis)
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