Prohairesis

Definition

Pronunciation: proh-HY-reh-sis

Also spelled: proairesis

Literally 'choosing before' or 'deliberate choice' (pro- 'before' + hairesis 'choosing/taking'). In Epictetus's usage, it refers to the governing faculty of the rational soul — the power to assent to or reject impressions.

Etymology

Constructed from the Greek pro (before, in preference) and hairesis (choice, selection, from hairein — to take, to choose). Aristotle used prohairesis in the Nicomachean Ethics (Book 3) to mean 'deliberate choice' — a reasoned desire leading to action. Epictetus transformed the term, expanding it from a specific act of choosing into the fundamental faculty of rational agency itself — the 'I' that chooses, the self in its deepest sense.

About Prohairesis

Epictetus made prohairesis the central concept of his teaching at Nicopolis, giving it a prominence it had not held in earlier Stoic philosophy. While Zeno, Cleanthes, and Chrysippus discussed the hēgemonikon (the ruling part of the soul) and the faculty of assent (sunkatathesis), Epictetus synthesized these ideas into a single concept — prohairesis — and declared it the sole thing that is genuinely "up to us" (eph' hēmin). In Discourses 1.1, he stated the principle that structures his entire philosophy: "Of all existing things, some are within our power and others are not within our power. Within our power are our opinion, choice, desire, aversion — in a word, whatever is our own doing. Not within our power are our body, possessions, reputation, office — in a word, whatever is not our own doing."

The identification of prohairesis as the self is Epictetus's decisive contribution. In Discourses 1.22, he argued that a person is their prohairesis: "Show me a person who is sick and yet happy, who is in danger and yet happy, who is dying and yet happy, who is condemned to exile and yet happy, who is disgraced and yet happy. Show him to me. By the gods, I want to see a Stoic. Since you cannot show me one fully formed, show me one who is forming, one who is tending that way." What makes such a person possible is the recognition that their prohairesis — their rational will — is untouchable by external events. A tyrant can chain the body but cannot compel the prohairesis to assent to a false impression.

This doctrine has a specific structure. Prohairesis operates through three functions: assent (sunkatathesis), desire (orexis), and impulse to act (hormē). The discipline of assent involves testing every impression against reason before accepting or rejecting it. The discipline of desire involves wanting only what is within our power (virtue) and being indifferent to what is not (externals). The discipline of action involves acting with a "reserve clause" (hupexhairesis) — pursuing appropriate goals while accepting that outcomes lie outside our control. These three disciplines correspond to the three areas of Stoic training (topoi) that Epictetus taught, and all three are functions of prohairesis.

The Aristotelian background is important for understanding what Epictetus transformed. For Aristotle, prohairesis meant "deliberate choice" — the reasoned selection of means to achieve a desired end. It was one faculty among many, operating alongside perception, imagination, and non-rational desire. Epictetus elevated prohairesis from a specific cognitive act to the whole of rational agency. Where Aristotle asked "What did you choose?", Epictetus asked "What kind of chooser are you?" The shift is from ethics as a theory of right action to ethics as a theory of right character — or more precisely, right orientation of the faculty that constitutes character.

Seneca, writing a generation before Epictetus, expressed similar ideas without using the term prohairesis. His concept of the animus (rational mind) as the seat of virtue, his insistence that the sage is free regardless of external circumstances (De Vita Beata), and his analysis of anger as a judgment we can refuse (De Ira) all describe the same territory. Marcus Aurelius, a generation after Epictetus, frequently referenced the hēgemonikon (governing part) and its inviolability: "The things you think about determine the quality of your mind. Your soul takes on the color of your thoughts" (Meditations 5.16). Though Marcus used the older Stoic terminology, his practical emphasis on the self as identical with its rational judgments is pure Epictetan prohairesis.

The philosophical implications of prohairesis are far-reaching. If the self is identified with rational choice rather than with the body, social role, or emotional life, then personal identity becomes a matter of the quality of one's judgments rather than the content of one's experiences. Two people can undergo identical external circumstances — imprisonment, for example — and emerge as fundamentally different selves depending on how their prohairesis responded. Viktor Frankl, writing about his experience in Nazi concentration camps in Man's Search for Meaning (1946), described this Stoic insight independently: "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our freedom and our power to grow."

The concept also has implications for interpersonal ethics. If every person's prohairesis is inviolable — if no one can be compelled to judge falsely against their will — then the only genuine harm is self-harm: the corruption of one's own rational faculty through assent to false impressions. Epictetus argued in Discourses 1.28 that the person who wrongs you harms themselves (by corrupting their prohairesis) more than they harm you (since they can only affect your externals). This produces a distinctive Stoic compassion: the wrongdoer is not evil but mistaken, not malicious but ignorant of what genuinely constitutes their own good.

Epictetus trained his students to identify with their prohairesis through repeated confrontation with the question: "Is this within my prohairesis or not?" Applied to health: not within prohairesis. Applied to reputation: not within prohairesis. Applied to the quality of one's response to losing health or reputation: within prohairesis. The practice is a continuous winnowing that reduces the field of concern to the one thing that is genuinely one's own — and discovers, paradoxically, that this one thing is sufficient for eudaimonia.

Significance

Prohairesis is the Stoic answer to the question "Who am I?" By identifying the self with the faculty of rational choice rather than with the body, emotions, social position, or biographical narrative, Epictetus established a concept of personal identity that is both radically free and radically responsible. Free, because no external force can compel prohairesis against its will. Responsible, because every failure of virtue is a failure of one's own choosing.

This concept shaped Western thought in ways that extend far beyond academic philosophy. The Christian theology of free will, particularly in Augustine and Aquinas, draws on Stoic accounts of rational agency. The Enlightenment concept of moral autonomy (Kant's "good will" as the only unqualified good) is structurally identical to Epictetus's prohairesis. Existentialist philosophy — Sartre's radical freedom, Kierkegaard's concept of choice as self-constitution — recapitulates the Epictetan insight that we are what we choose, not what happens to us.

For practitioners, prohairesis is the concept that transforms Stoicism from an intellectual framework into a daily practice. Every moment presents an impression; prohairesis determines whether we assent wisely or foolishly. The practice of identifying with prohairesis — rather than with one's health, wealth, or reputation — is the single most powerful reorientation Stoic philosophy offers.

Connections

Prohairesis finds a close structural parallel in the Buddhist concept of cetana (volition/intention), which the Buddha identified as the essence of karma: "It is volition, monks, that I call action" (Anguttara Nikaya 6.63). Both traditions locate moral agency in the quality of one's intentional responses rather than in external circumstances. The difference: the Stoics identify prohairesis as the true self, while the Buddhists use cetana as evidence that the self is a process of choosing rather than a fixed entity.

In Hindu philosophy, the Bhagavad Gita's teaching on nishkama karma (desireless action) — acting from duty without attachment to results — parallels Epictetus's discipline of action with a "reserve clause." Both traditions distinguish between what is within our rational control (the quality of our action) and what is not (the outcome). The Gita's concept of the atman (true self) as distinct from the body and mind maps onto Epictetus's identification of the self with prohairesis rather than with externals.

The existentialist tradition — particularly Sartre's concept of radical freedom and "bad faith" — recapitulates the Epictetan analysis. Sartre argued that we are always choosing, even when we deny our freedom, and that identifying with external roles or circumstances is a flight from the responsibility of choice. Epictetus would have recognized this as a description of the untrained prohairesis that has not yet learned to distinguish what is up to us from what is not.

See Also

• Apatheia
• Eudaimonia
• Katalepsis
• Logos
• Prosoche

Further Reading