From the book
Stobaeus, Volume II
John Stobaeus · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordDispreferred things have substantial disvalue within the indifferent class, distinguishing a practical disadvantage from moral evil; some indifferents belong to neither preferred nor dispreferred class.
- In StobaeusDegree and class govern the definition, so dispreferred does not give an unconditional command to avoid an object in every circumstance or at any cost.
- In this editionRetain dispreferred and its pairing with preferred indifferents; translating it as evil would confuse the evaluative levels that the report deliberately keeps apart.
- A place to readChapter 7 · Excerpt 7b · Passage 1 Read preferred, dispreferred and neither together, paying attention to the amount and source of value; the neutral group prevents the two opposed classes from exhausting indifferents.
- English renderings
- dispreferred things
Meaning
Apoproēgmena are indifferents that possess substantial disvalue within their own evaluative class. They are opposed to preferred things without becoming moral evils in the Stoic classification.
Use in the book
The definition is paired with preferred things and followed by a third class, neither preferred nor dispreferred. Examples therefore have to be interpreted within the school’s distinction between virtue or vice and natural advantages or disadvantages. The practical point is that one can reasonably reject a dispreferred thing while denying that it damages happiness in the way vice does. The account also allows differences of degree in value or disvalue; “dispreferred” is not a universal command to avoid an object regardless of circumstances.
The neutral class prevents every difference between objects from automatically becoming a preference or dispreference. Both opposed classes require a considerable amount of value or disvalue, which may belong to the thing itself or to what it produces. This is more structured than a division into attractive and unattractive circumstances. The marked supplement in the final definition restores part of a parallel; it should not make the English appear wholly transmitted. Practical ranking operates within the class already called indifferent.
“Dispreferred things are those which similarly have much disvalue.” (Chapter 7 · Excerpt 7b · Passage 1).
Places to read
- Chapter 7 · Excerpt 7b · Passage 12The definition specifies substantial disvalue.
- Chapter 7 · Excerpt 7b · Passage 32The account lists dispreferred examples.
Translation in this edition
The deliberately technical “dispreferred” keeps the connection with preferred indifferents visible.
ἀποπροηγμένα
Attested. Chapter 7 · Excerpt 7b · Passage 1; Wachsmuth II, printed p. 80.
αὑτά, τὰ δὲ ποιητικά· καὶ τὰ μὲν προηγμένα, τὰ δ’ ἀποπροηγμένα, τὰ δ’ οὐδετέρως ἔχοντα. Προηγμένα μέν, ὅσα ἀδιάφορα ὄντα πολλὴν
Source note
Wachsmuth, volume II, printed pp. 80–81. Do not confuse disvalue in this scheme with an account’s moral condemnation of injustice or cowardice.