The Fundamental Rule in Stoicism

…and the problem with the “Dichotomy of Control”

Diego Velázquez, “The Jester Don Diego de Acedo”, 1645 (Detail) (Public Domain. Source: Wikimedia Commons). “Don” Diego de Acedo was practically a slave and used as an object of fun in the Spanish Royal Court. This is all owing to his physical “deformity” of dwarfism. But Velázquez painted every human being with a supreme dignity that all human beings deserve. Epictetus saw the body as merely an external, an indifferent. Like Velázquez, he would see Diego de Acedo’s will as intrinsically valuable and beautiful. If I had to show you what the Fundamental Rule is all about, I would show you this painting.

In Stoicism, a great deal hinges on these words.

ἐφ᾽ ἡμῖν
eph’hemin

They appear twice in the first lines of the Handbook (Enchiridion) of Epictetus, as well as in his more elaborate Discourses within the core idea of his teaching, the kernel of Stoic moral philosophy which we call the Fundamental Rule.

I’m very far from fluent in Greek. But I’ve looked at the translations of these words carefully. They more or less mean “upon us”. There is no mention of the word “control”. In fact, there’s no Koine Greek that translates directly into the English word “control”.

Despite this, the so-called “dichotomy of control” has become the idea central to the popular understanding of Stoicism today. Yet it is a misunderstanding. It’s a misunderstanding that misrepresents the Fundamental Rule.

The phrase itself seems to have emerged with a William Irvine’s A Guide to the Good Life: the Ancient Art of Stoic Joy (2009), probably the first modern Stoic book that wrapped the ancient philosophy in the packaging of self-help literature.

“Control” has a lot of baggage, it implies a gateway in the flow of causality. The word emerged in the Medieval…