Stoicism and the Art of Archery

The “Dichotomy of Control” Explained

Archery is often used as a metaphor in Stoicism. Painting: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Archers (detail), 1935–37 (Public Domain, Source: Wikimedia Commons)

The so-called “dichotomy of control” is one of the central and most famous ideas of Stoicism. Yet it is widely misunderstood.

While the idea dates back to Stoicism’s founder Zeno of Citium in the 3rd century BC, it is best expressed in the surviving words of Epictetus, a Stoic philosopher born in the first century C.E.