Katalepsis

''Katalepsis'' ( el, κατάληψις, "grasping") in Stoic philosophy, that meant comprehension. To the Stoic philosophers, ''katalepsis'' was an important premise regarding one's state of mind as it relates to grasping fundamental philosophical concepts, and it represents the Stoic solution to the problem of the criterion.

Stoicism

According to the Stoics, the mind is constantly being bombarded with impressions (''phantasiai''). (An impression arising from the mind was called a '' phantasma''.)

Some of these impressions are true and some false. Impressions are true when they are truly affirmed, false if they are wrongly affirmed, such as when one believes an oar dipped in the water to be broken because it appears so.George Henry Lewes (1880), ''The history of philosophy: from Thales to Comte'', p. 360 When Orestes, in his madness, mistook Electra for a Fury, he had an impression both true and false: true inasmuch as he saw something, viz., Electra; false, inasmuch as Electra was not a Fury. Believing that the mind instinctively discriminated between real and false impressions, the Stoics said that one ought not to give credit to everything which is perceived, but only to those perceptions which contain some special mark of those things which appeared.Thomas Woodhouse Levin (1871), ''Six lectures introductory to the philosophical writings of Cicero'', p. 71 Such a perception then was called a ( el, φαντασία καταληπτική), or comprehensible perception. The is that which is impressed by an object which exists, and which is a copy of that object and can be produced by no other object.

Cicero relates that Zeno would illustrate ''katalepsis'' as follows:

he would display his hand in front of one with the fingers stretched out and say "A visual appearance is like this"; next he closed his fingers a little and said, "An act of assent is like this"; then he pressed his fingers closely together and made a fist, and said that that was comprehension (and from this illustration he gave to that process the actual name of ''katalepsis'', which it had not had before); but then he used to apply his left hand to his right fist and squeeze it tightly and forcibly, and then say that such was knowledge, which was within the power of nobody save the wise man

''Katalepsis'' was the main bone of contention between the Stoics and the two schools of philosophical skepticism during the Hellenistic period: the Pyrrhonists and the Academic Skeptics of Plato's Academy. These Skeptics, who chose the Stoics as their natural philosophical opposites, eschewed much of what the Stoics believed regarding the human mind and one's methods of understanding greater meanings. To the Skeptics, all perceptions were acataleptic, i.e. bore no conformity to the objects perceived, or, if they did bear any conformity, it could never be known.

Epictetus once said, "Recognise mere appearances for what they are." This alludes to knowing that interpretations are just that, when things are causing us despair, anxiety or anger, these emotions are really existing within and are not existing independently of us. Epictetus said, "So make a practice at once of saying to every strong impression: ‘An impression is all you are, not the source of the impression.’ Then test and assess it with your criteria, but one primarily: ask, ‘Is this something that is, or is not, in my control?’" this refers to the Stoic dichotomy of control, this tells us how to retain healthy mental state by accepting what we cannot control (amor fati) and concentrating on what we can control. The key lesson of Stoicism is this; focus on what you can control and embrace or accept what you cannot, things we can control can be like opinion, desire, aversion and pursuits, the things we cannot control are property, infirmities, status/reputation, disease and death. In short the external events (outcomes) that we cannot decide but happen to us without our consent, within our control is beliefs or hopes and things of that nature. This helps many people determine the quality of their life by putting mental effort on where a individual can make an impact.

Epictetus said, "Remember, it is not enough to be hit or insulted to be harmed, you must believe that you are being harmed. If someone succeeds in provoking you, realize that your mind is complicit in the provocation. Which is why it is essential that we not respond impulsively to impressions; take a moment before reacting, and you will find it easier to maintain control." Epictetus recognised external events for what they are, neutral, neither good nor bad. Its all in your perceptions, according to Marcus Aurelius in his book Meditations "Choose not to be harmed and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed and you haven’t been." and “If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself but to your own estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment." When you think upon something as causing you harm, its really the distress of your estimate of the thing that caused that distress, distress does not actually bring us any harm. All exists within the mind which has power over the estimate of the external event, the estimate that is formed as decidedly bad (even when the negative event really helped stop a even worse event from happening) really brings us pain. We must learn to recognize the thoughts, vices, fears and anxieties and take responsibility for their formation.

Jesper Mount says, "We cannot simply say that an external event, something outside our control, has made us upset. Instead we must recognize that we have allowed ourselves to become upset with that event." The Stoic Marcus Aurelius said, “The things you think about determine the quality of your mind.” This is why Stoics focus mainly on the quality of their thoughts through what we can control (stated above as dichotomy of control) and thus virtue, as they help shape the qualities of our thoughts. The quality of our mind determines the fact that many worries never come true and anxieties can be greatly diminished by our expectations of what should occur and our estimates of negativity as external events as being more neutral in our conception as opposed to being bad.

Notes

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