EleutherIA — Defined term

Hegemonikon (Ruling Faculty)

ἡγεμονικόν

Hellenistic · Stoic

The hegemonikon is the Stoic commanding faculty, the chief part of the soul in which impressions, assent, sensation, impulses, and reasoning are coordinated. In human beings it is rational and therefore central to responsible agency, but Stoic accounts also assign a hegemonikon to non-rational animals. Marcus Aurelius VIII.48 says that the ruling faculty can gather into itself and compares a mind free from passions to a citadel; IV.3 separately recommends retreat into one's own soul. “Inner citadel” is Hadot's modern synthesis, while Marcus's explicit restriction of desire and aversion to what is up to us is better anchored at VIII.7.

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