Simple Stoic Advice
Protect Your Commanding-Faculty
Protect Your Commanding-Faculty
The beautiful thing about Stoic philosophy is the advice contained within it is just as applicable today as it was when it was first written all those many years ago. We can learn a great deal from interpreting the advice provided and using it to our advantage as we go throughout our own lives.
Today’s quote comes to us courtesy of Epictetus in his Enchiridion, entry 28 (translation from How to be Free):
Quote
“If someone in the street were entrusted with your body, you would be furious. Yet you entrust your mind to anyone around who happens to insult you, and allow it to be troubled and confused.”
Advice
Epictetus speaks constantly to our need to protect our commanding-faculty. Our commanding-faculty to Epictetus is our mind and our ability to use reason.
Far too often, Epictetus reminds his students, we watch out for everything but our commanding-faculty. We protect our bank accounts, we protect our families, we protect our bodies, but seldom do we protect our minds. Many of us put ourselves in situation which could harm our mind — in other words, we allow others to dictate our thoughts.
In book one of Epictetus’ Discourses, he states:
“The faculty that takes both itself and everything else as an object of study. And what is that? The faculty of reason. For that alone of all the faculties that we’ve been granted is capable of understanding both itself — what it is, what it is capable of, and what value it contributes — and all the other faculties.”
For the majority of us, our judgments are just natural reflexes without thought in the moment. But it is important to remember we were granted a commanding-faculty for a reason (no pun intended). As John Sellars, author of such works as Stoicism, Lessons in Stoicism, and The Art of Living states:
“Our emotional lives are effectively the product of the judgements we make.”
The Stoics believed that our wisdom and knowledge is derived from the judgments we make. We essentially receive stimuli through our senses, make a judgment, and either accept or reject such judgment. If we accept it, it becomes a belief whereas if we deny it it does not. This is our commanding-faculty in action.
It is therefore imperative that we not only protect our commanding-faculty, but also use it effectively to make proper judgments about the world around us.
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