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Question

What are the three Stoic disciplines of desire, action and assent?

A short guide to Epictetus's three fields of training and what each one asks of you.

Updated

The short answer

Epictetus names three fields of training for anyone who wants to become wise and good: the discipline of desire, which governs what you want and avoid, the discipline of action, which governs your duties and how you carry them out, and the discipline of assent, which governs what impressions and judgments you agree to. He ranks desire as the most urgent, since it is the direct source of disturbance and grief, and calls assent the discipline that protects the other two by keeping impressions from slipping past unexamined.

Key points

  • Epictetus lays out three topics in Discourses III 2: desire and aversion, action and duty, and assent to impressions.
  • He calls the discipline of desire the most urgent, because failing to get what you want or falling into what you avoid produces the passions.
  • The discipline of action concerns ordinary duties and social roles, and does not ask you to become emotionless like a statue.
  • The discipline of assent concerns examining impressions before agreeing to them, and Epictetus says it exists to secure the other two disciplines.
  • Epictetus criticizes philosophers of his own day who neglect desire and action and turn assent into clever argument rather than self-examination.
  • Marcus Aurelius applies the same three disciplines together when he describes a rational nature that assents to nothing false, acts justly, and confines its desires to what is in its power.

The longer answer

Epictetus does not present these as three separate techniques you rotate through. He presents them as three regions of your inner life that all need training, and he ranks them in order of urgency.

The discipline of desire concerns your desires and aversions, so that you are not disappointed in getting what you want or falling into what you avoid (Discourses III 2). Epictetus calls this the first and most urgent topic, because it is the source of what the Stoics call the passions: disturbance, grief, envy, and the rest all come from wanting something you do not get, or getting something you tried to avoid (Discourses III 2). His remedy in the Handbook is severe. Since anything outside your control can fail to arrive or fail to be avoided, you should for now largely suppress desire itself, and use pursuit and avoidance only lightly, with reservation (Handbook 2). This is not a call to want nothing forever. It is a recognition that desire aimed at externals, health, reputation, other people's opinions, guarantees frustration, because none of that is yours to secure.

The discipline of action, which Epictetus also calls the discipline of the impulses toward and away from an object, concerns your duties: what you actually do, and whether you do it in an orderly way, according to reason, rather than carelessly (Discourses III 2). This is where the Stoic does not withdraw from the world. Epictetus is explicit that a person should not be free of feeling like a statue. You still have roles to fill, as a citizen, a son, a father, a member of a community, and this discipline governs how you carry them out (Discourses III 2). Marcus Aurelius names the same pairing when he tells himself to behave justly to those who are about him, alongside directing his thoughts (Meditations 7.54).

The discipline of assent concerns freedom from deception and rashness in judgment: examining the impressions that arrive in your mind before you agree to them (Discourses III 2). Epictetus calls this the third topic, and says it exists to secure the other two. If you assent carelessly to a false impression, for instance the impression that some external loss is actually bad for you, that false judgment is what generates the disordered desire and the botched action downstream. He adds a demanding detail: this vigilance should hold even in sleep, intoxication, or melancholy, so that no impression slips past unexamined (Discourses III 2). Marcus makes the same discipline personal, describing a rational nature that goes well when it assents to nothing false or uncertain (Meditations 8.7).

The common misreading treats these as three independent self-help techniques, pick the one you need today. Epictetus's own text resists that. He complains about philosophers of his own time who neglect the first two topics, desire and action, the ones that actually touch how you live and feel, and instead spend all their energy on clever argument about the third, assent, using it for sophistry rather than self-examination (Discourses III 2). The three disciplines are meant to work together and in a specific order: assent examines the impression, desire and aversion respond to what the impression seems to offer or threaten, and action carries out what duty then requires. Marcus's own practice of directing his thoughts and behaving justly (Meditations 7.54) is really both the first and second discipline running at once, because for him they are not separable in daily life.

What changes if you take this seriously is where you locate the effort. You stop trying to manage outcomes, whether you get the promotion, whether the diagnosis is good news, and start managing three things that are actually yours: what you want and dread, what you do, and what you agree to believe. A concrete place to start is the third discipline, because it is upstream of the other two. Before you feel dread or relief, or move to act, ask what judgment you have already assented to about the thing in front of you, and whether that judgment is true.

Primary passages

There are three things (topics) in which a man ought to exercise himself who would be wise and good. The first concerns the desires and the aversions, that a man may not fail to get what he desires, and that he may not fall into that which he does not desire. The second concerns the movements (towards an object) and the movements from an object, and generally in doing what a man ought to do, that he may act according to order, to reason, and not carelessly. The third thing concerns freedom from deception and rashness in judgment, and generally it concerns the assents.

Epictetus, Discourses III 2 Read in context

Epictetus lays out the three disciplines in a single passage: desire, action, and assent.

Of these topics the chief and the most urgent is that which relates to the affects (perturbations); for an affect is produced in no other way than by a failing to obtain that which a man desires or falling into that which a man would wish to avoid.

Epictetus, Discourses III 2 Read in context

He ranks desire as the most urgent discipline, since it is the direct source of the passions.

The second topic concerns the duties of a man; for I ought not to be free from affects like a statue, but I ought to maintain the relations natural and acquired, as a pious man, as a son, as a father, as a citizen.

Epictetus, Discourses III 2 Read in context

The discipline of action keeps the Stoic engaged in ordinary social roles, not withdrawn from them.

The third topic is that which immediately concerns those who are making proficiency, that which concerns the security of the other two, so that not even in sleep any appearance unexamined may surprise us, nor in intoxication, nor in melancholy.

Epictetus, Discourses III 2 Read in context

Assent is the discipline that guards the other two, examining impressions before agreeing to them.

But the present philosophers neglecting the first topic and the second (the affects and duties), employ themselves on the third, using sophistical arguments , making conclusions from questioning, employing hypotheses, lying.

Epictetus, Discourses III 2 Read in context

Epictetus criticizes philosophers who treat the discipline of assent as clever argument rather than self-examination.

a rational nature goes on its way well, when in its thoughts it assents to nothing false or uncertain, and when it directs its movements to social acts only, and when it confines its desires and aversions to the things which are in its power

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 8.7 Read in context

Marcus Aurelius folds all three disciplines, assent, action, and desire, into a single description of a nature going well.

for the present, totally suppress desire: for, if you desire any of the things which are not in your own control, you must necessarily be disappointed ... Use only the appropriate actions of pursuit and avoidance; and even these lightly, and with gentleness and reservation.

Epictetus, Handbook 2 Read in context

Epictetus's practical instruction for the discipline of desire in the Handbook.

Important distinctions

Three disciplines, not three techniques to choose among

It is tempting to treat the three disciplines as a menu, pick whichever fits today's problem. Epictetus's own complaint is against philosophers who do exactly this, over-cultivating assent as a game of argument while neglecting desire and action. The three are meant to operate together: assent examines the impression, desire and aversion respond correctly to it, and action carries out the resulting duty.

Suppressing desire is not suppressing feeling

The instruction to suppress desire in the Handbook is not a call to become unfeeling. Epictetus is explicit that the person practicing the discipline of action should not be free from affects like a statue. The target of suppression is desire aimed at externals that are not up to you, not emotional life as such.

Objections and replies

Suppressing desire sounds like giving up on wanting anything

Telling someone to totally suppress desire, even as a temporary measure, can sound like a recipe for a flat, joyless life, or an excuse to stop striving for anything at all.

Reply

Epictetus's target is desire aimed at things not in your control, since wanting those guarantees disappointment. He still allows pursuit and avoidance for things that are up to you, just held lightly and with reservation, which is different from wanting nothing whatsoever.

Why should assent be treated as the discipline that secures the others, rather than an equal third topic

If assent is really foundational, ranking it third and calling desire the most urgent can look inconsistent.

Reply

Epictetus's ranking is about urgency of harm, not about logical order. Desire produces the most immediate suffering when mismanaged, which is why he calls it the most urgent topic to work on. But he still describes assent as what guards the other two, since a false judgment about what is good or bad is what sets a disordered desire or a careless action in motion in the first place.

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Related questions

Podcast discussions

Concepts

  • Assent (synkatathesis) Assent is the mind's power to say yes or no to an impression, and the Stoics treat training it as the whole work of philosophy.
  • The dichotomy of control You will learn why Epictetus draws a hard line between what is up to us and what is not, and why that line is about identity and value, not stress management.

Philosophers

  • Epictetus Epictetus argues that freedom does not come from your circumstances but from correctly sorting what is up to you from what is not.

Works

  • Handbook by Epictetus A short, blunt manual for telling what is up to you from what is not, and building your life on the first.
  • Meditations by Marcus Aurelius A Roman emperor's private notebook of Stoic exercises shows what it looks like to practice philosophy under real pressure, not just write about it.

Sources

  1. Epictetus, Discourses III Primary text, Stoa library
  2. Epictetus, Handbook Primary text, Stoa library
  3. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations Primary text, Stoa library