Glossary
Sympatheia
συμπάθεια (sympatheia)
Sympatheia, in Stoic physics, is the mutual affection of all parts of the universe: because the whole is one living body pervaded by one reason, what happens in one part is felt in the others. The word was used for the tides following the moon and for the influence of the heavens on the earth; in ethics it grounds the claim that human beings belong to one another.
Marcus Aurelius states the physical thesis twice in the Meditations, in George Long’s 1862 wording. At VI, 38: frequently consider the connection of all things in the universe and their relation to one another; in a manner all things are implicated with one another, and all in this way are friendly to one another. At VII, 9: all things are implicated with one another, and the bond is holy; and there follows the list, one universe, one god, one substance, one law, one common reason, one truth.
The ethical use comes at Meditations, II, 1, in the passage that opens the second book: since we share the same intelligence and the same portion of the divinity, we are made for co-operation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth, and to act against one another is contrary to nature. The image of the branch cut off from the tree, at XI, 8, says the same from the side of loss.
The Greek word does not appear in Long’s text; the doctrine does, in the images of the bond and the body. Modern writers sometimes reduce it to a sense of connection. In Marcus it is a claim about the world before it is a feeling about it, and it is the ground on which assent to what happens, the modern amor fati, rests.
In the texts
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations, VII, 9
All things are implicated with one another, and the bond is holy; and there is hardly anything unconnected with any other thing.
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations, VI, 38
Frequently consider the connection of all things in the universe and their relation to one another.
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations, II, 1
For we are made for co-operation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth.
What the term does not mean
- Not empathy. The Greek word shares the root, but the Stoic term is about the physical unity of the cosmos, not about feeling with another person.
- Not a mystical or emotional oneness. Marcus argues it from one substance and one reason, as physics.
- Not the slogan “we are all connected”. Marcus draws a precise conclusion from it, that wronging another is acting against nature.
Related terms
- Amor fati — amor fati (latin)
- Dichotomy of control — τὰ ἐφ’ ἡμῖν / τὰ οὐκ ἐφ’ ἡμῖν (ta eph’ hēmin, ta ouk eph’ hēmin)
Every passage in Stoïque carries its reference — the work and its locator, the author too wherever the room allows — in the app and in its widgets, on the Home Screen and the Lock Screen.