Epictetus Discourses 1.1: What Is in Our Power

Arrian recorded the Discourses of Epictetus during teaching sessions at Nicopolis in the early second century. Epictetus wrote nothing himself. This is the first chapter of Book 1 and the foundation of everything that follows in the series. View the full Book 1 commentary.

What Epictetus Is Arguing in Discourses 1.1

Epictetus opens with a question most people spend their lives avoiding: what is actually yours? Not what you own, what you have earned, or what you are trying to protect, but what belongs to you in a way that nothing and no one can ever take away?

His answer is narrow and, if you sit with it, genuinely unsettling. The body is not yours: it gets ill, ages, and dies regardless of what you do. Property is not yours: it can be lost or taken. Reputation is not yours: it lives in other people’s judgments. Even the people you love most are not yours in the Stoic sense. They can leave or be taken from you. None of this is under your full control.

What remains? One thing. The capacity to examine your own impressions and decide what to do with them. The Reasoning Faculty, which Epictetus considers the one gift that is truly ours. Everything in this chapter, and everything that follows across all four books of the Discourses, is a working out of that single claim.

The Reasoning Faculty

Epictetus begins the chapter not with an assertion but with an argument. He works through the other faculties first. Grammar can tell you what words to write, but not whether you should write at all. Music can distinguish melody, but cannot judge its own use.

This is not a minor technical point. It is the foundation of the entire argument. The Reasoning Faculty is the only faculty that can step back and ask whether its own operation is sound. That self-reflexive capacity is precisely what makes it uniquely ours, and precisely what makes it the right place to locate all genuine freedom.

We need the Reasoning Faculty to handle our impressions correctly. These impressions, the inputs we receive from the world around us, are where the real work of Stoicism happens. External circumstances unfold whether we want them to or not. Since we have no control over that, the only sensible place to focus is on what we do control: the judgment we bring to each impression. To make the best of what is in our power, and take the rest as it naturally happens.

Prohairesis, the Hegemonikon, and the Discipline of Assent

When Epictetus talks about the Reasoning Faculty, he is pointing at two closely related but distinct Stoic concepts worth naming clearly.

The first is prohairesis, the faculty of choice, the capacity to give or withhold assent to your own impressions. This is what Epictetus considers the seat of your identity. Everything that belongs genuinely to you flows from prohairesis. It is the one thing that cannot be compelled by any external force.

The second is the hegemonikon, the ruling faculty of the mind, the governing centre where impressions are received and assent takes place. When Epictetus tells you to examine your impressions before acting on them, he is describing what the Stoics called the discipline of assent: the practice of pausing between impression and response and asking whether this is actually yours to act on.

The Practical Heart

This is not just technical vocabulary. It is the practical heart of the chapter. Most of the anxiety and frustration Epictetus describes, the worry about reputation, the grief over what we might lose, the anger when the world does not comply, comes from treating impressions as facts about reality rather than as events to be examined. The distinction between prohairesis and everything else is where Stoic practice actually begins.

Stoicism is a toolset to help us live virtuous and peaceful lives. Above all, it helps us realise how fortunate we are to possess a part of the divine Logos. This is what sets us apart: this Reasoning Faculty. Without it, there is no possibility of even contemplating how to make our lives better. Reading and discussing these ideas has its place. But after the realisation is made, it needs to be put into practice. That is done by trial and error, with the reassuring reminder that we will most likely never be perfect. The Stoics hold up the Sage, the wise person, as the model, not as a standard we are expected to reach.

How Epictetus Thought About God

One of the most striking passages in this chapter asks why the gods did not simply give us freedom from external things as well. Epictetus answers directly: because we are embodied. We are on earth, confined to a body, living among other people with their own choices and circumstances. External hindrance is not a failure of divine generosity. It is the condition of being the kind of creature we are.

In Stoic thought, God is not a being who exists separately from the world and intervenes in it. God is the rational principle, the Logos, that constitutes and pervades everything. Nature and God are the same thing viewed from different angles. There is nothing outside of God because God is nature itself in its rational totality. Given that we are embodied and situated in the world, the gods gave us precisely what could be fully placed in our power: not control over outcomes, but the one faculty capable of meeting all outcomes rightly.

Epictetus then makes this personal. In one of the most compressed passages in the chapter, Zeus speaks directly and names what he gave us.

The impulse to act or not to act, desire and aversion, and the proper use of impressions: these are the three Stoic disciplines in a single sentence, framed not as techniques but as a portion of the divine given specifically to us. This is Epictetus’s view of what it means to be human: to carry a fragment of the rational universe inside you, and to either honour it or squander it.

The Sage and the Preferred Indifferences

The Sage seems at first like an impossible model, someone whose attention rests only on what she can control. Yet when you look more carefully at where the Sage actually focuses, it starts to feel less out of reach. She examines her impressions and decides on a moral action based on that. We, in most cases, choose a different direction.

Take a step back and ask yourself where your attention actually lies. You can try to live a healthy life and still fall ill. The best advice you give can be brushed aside. The people you try to protect can still be taken from you. That is not to say we should stop caring about our health or our relationships, but we need to see them for what they are. They are preferred indifferences: natural to want, worth tending, but not ours to own. Unless we hold them as such, they become desires and aversions that disturb everything.

Discourses 1.1 and Cognitive Restructuring

This chapter maps directly onto one of the most well-evidenced techniques in cognitive behavioural therapy: cognitive restructuring. The ABC model, developed by Albert Ellis, identifies the same pattern Epictetus is describing. An activating event occurs (A). A belief or judgment is formed about it (B). That judgment, not the event itself, produces the emotional consequence (C). Epictetus locates the leverage point at B. So does CBT. What Epictetus calls the proper use of impressions, Ellis calls the belief layer. They are describing the same thing from two different directions, two thousand years apart.

Reading these ancient texts, written around two thousand years ago, what strikes me is how little has changed in human nature. We are still more preoccupied with externals than with ourselves. In our current time, with all the information at our fingertips and the constant view into other people’s lives, we compare even more. The problem, and this has not changed, is that we get a distorted picture. People do not show us the full story. We see the highlights and mirror that against what we feel we lack. The Reasoning Faculty, applied honestly here, asks one question: whose business is this, and what about it is actually within my power?

The Exercise: What Is Yours

Discipline: Desire   |   Timing: Morning or before any significant decision · 5 minutes

Before you begin your day, or before you pursue any goal that matters to you, name the one thing you most want to go well. State it plainly.

Now ask one question: does the outcome depend on your choices, your character, and your effort, or does it depend on other people, on circumstances, on luck? Be honest. Most goals contain both elements.

Name what is yours in this goal: the preparation, the attention, the quality of your engagement. That is where your energy belongs. Name what is not yours: the other person’s response, the timing, the result. Hold that part lightly, because it was never yours to grip.

You are not giving up on what you want. You are seeing it clearly and putting your effort where it can actually land.

This exercise is one of 30 drawn from the Discourses. See the full 30 Epictetus exercises from Discourses Book 1.

← Epictetus Discourses Book 1   |   → Next: Discourses 1.2: How to Keep Your Character

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Epictetus Discourses 1.1 about?

Discourses 1.1 introduces the Stoic distinction between what is in our power and what is not. Epictetus argues that the only thing truly within our power is the Reasoning Faculty, the capacity to examine our own impressions and choose how to respond. Everything else, including the body, property, and reputation, is subject to external forces and should be held as a preferred indifference rather than a foundation for well-being.

What does Epictetus mean by the Reasoning Faculty?

The Reasoning Faculty refers to prohairesis, the faculty of choice and assent, and the hegemonikon, the governing faculty of the mind where impressions are received and evaluated. It is the one aspect of human experience that Epictetus considers genuinely ours, because no external force can compel it. It is also the only faculty that can examine itself, which is why it alone can be fully placed in our power.

What are the three Stoic disciplines and how do they appear in Discourses 1.1?

The three Stoic disciplines are the discipline of desire, the discipline of action, and the discipline of assent. Epictetus introduces all three in this chapter. The preferred indifferences discussion addresses the discipline of desire. The dying and dining passage addresses the discipline of action. The argument about impressions and judgment addresses the discipline of assent. In Discourses 1.12, Zeus names all three explicitly as the portion of himself given to human beings.

What did Epictetus believe about God?

In Stoic philosophy, God is not a separate being who intervenes in the world. God is the rational principle, the Logos, that constitutes and pervades everything. Nature and God are the same thing viewed from different angles. For Epictetus, the Reasoning Faculty we carry is a portion of this divine rational principle. Misusing it, by chasing externals and ignoring what is genuinely ours, is not just a practical error but a failure to honour what is most essentially human.

How does Discourses 1.1 connect to cognitive behavioural therapy?

The distinction Epictetus draws between external events and the judgments we form about them maps directly onto Albert Ellis’s ABC model in CBT. The activating event (A) is what happens. The belief or judgment (B) is the Reasoning Faculty at work. The emotional consequence (C) follows from B, not from A. What Epictetus calls the proper use of impressions is what Ellis calls the belief layer. Both locate the leverage point at the judgment, not the event.

Want to Apply This to Your Own Life?

Reading the Discourses is the beginning, not the end. If you want to work through what Epictetus is asking of you and apply it to what you are actually dealing with right now, I offer one-on-one Stoic coaching. Start with a free consultation. Listen to The Via Stoica Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube. Browse the Epictetus quotes collection for more passages from the Discourses.

About the Author

Benny Voncken is the founder of Via Stoica, a platform dedicated to making Stoic philosophy practical for modern life. He is a writer, podcast host, and Stoic thinking partner with almost a decade of daily Stoic practice. He creates articles, workshops, and reflections that bring ancient wisdom into everyday use.