Definitions

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  • noun A state of mind in Stoic philosophy in which one is free from emotional disturbance; the freedom from all passions.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Ancient Greek ἀπάθεια

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Examples

  • One of the virtues he will have is ˜apathy™ (in Greek apatheia), which does not mean listlessness, but detachment from wanting anything other than what nature, or the god, is already providing.

    Religion and Morality Hare, John 2006

  • It may very well be that their apatheia is a suppression of feeling, anxiety about getting hurt.

    THE CLOSING OF THE AMERICAN MIND Allan Bloom 2003

  • It may very well be that their apatheia is a suppression of feeling, anxiety about getting hurt.

    THE CLOSING OF THE AMERICAN MIND Allan Bloom 2003

  • Diogenes Laertius (9.60) ascribes to him an attitude of apatheia and eukolia,

    Picnic 2009

  • However, as a result of particular historical circumstances, our culture has hugely developed the capacity for apatheia but lost the capacity to integrate the insights generated into a larger spiritual discipline.

    The apathistic stance, and asophism Sam Norton 2006

  • Put simply, apatheia – science - is unable to supply any answers to questions of meaning, to guide us as to what is considered important – it is blind to ‘the seriousness of life’.

    The apathistic stance, and asophism Sam Norton 2006

  • This emotional distancing is at heart a spiritual discipline, one with roots in Christian and Stoic thinking about controlling the emotions: apatheia apathism – the structured denial of emotion, apathist, apathistic.

    The apathistic stance, and asophism Sam Norton 2006

  • The result of Lipsius's repackaging of Stoic apatheia

    Justus Lipsius Papy, Jan 2004

  • Jewish saint and like his master Plato, to scorn all bodily limitations and recommend "insensibility" ([Greek: apatheia]) [273] by which he means that man should crush his physical desires and repress his feelings.

    Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria Norman Bentwich 1927

  • Stoic and Epicurean really aimed at one thing when they preached their apatheia and ataraxia, respectively Anechou kai apechou: be the autarches, master of your self and fate.

    The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 11: New Mexico-Philip 1840-1916 1913

Comments

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  • in the stoic sense is not apathy

    February 16, 2009

  • 'A pure eye and a fixed gaze see every object becoming transparent in front of then'(La Ville)'Only a soul that has been made pure will understand the fragrance of a rose'(L'oiseau noir dans le soleil levant)

    Claudel

    May 7, 2011