From the book
Stobaeus, Volume II
John Stobaeus · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordRejection is the evaluative counterpart of selection, setting an alternative aside without necessarily treating it as a moral evil or experiencing fear or hatred.
- In StobaeusThe Stoic paragraph joins selective value with disvalue for rejection while denying that either kind of value contributes to happiness in the strict moral classification.
- In this editionRetain the pairing with selection and distinguish rejection from action aversion; replacing one technical noun with the other would blur different stages of the account.
- A place to readChapter 7 · Excerpt 7 · Passage 3 The sentence qualifies the sense of indifferent before distinguishing selection and rejection; follow both halves rather than reading rejection as an unconditional response to every dispreferred object.
- English renderings
- rejection; rejecting in selection
Meaning
Apeklogē is the counterpart to selection: setting aside an alternative in the evaluative selection of things. It is not automatically a passion of fear or hatred.
Use in the book
The Stoic exposition says that indifferents are not indifferent with respect to selection and rejection. Some have selective value, others disvalue for rejection, while neither contributes to happiness as a moral good does. Formulations of the end use selecting what accords with nature and rejecting what is contrary to it. The distinction permits practical discrimination without reclassifying disease or poverty as moral evils. The later Peripatetic exposition employs this vocabulary within a different account of natural goods.
Rejection appears within a carefully restricted account of differences among things between virtue and vice. The paragraph does not introduce a second class of moral evils; it explains why calling those things indifferent does not remove practical discrimination. Its structure is symmetrical: selective value belongs on one side and disvalue for rejection on the other. The final restriction concerns contribution to happiness, not the impossibility of choosing among circumstances. This helps a reader avoid interpreting rejection either as indiscriminate hostility or as an admission that the rejected condition must destroy a good life.
“others disvalue for rejection” (Chapter 7 · Excerpt 7 · Passage 3).
Places to read
- Chapter 7 · Excerpt 7 · Passage 32Selective value is paired with disvalue for rejection.
- Chapter 7 · Excerpt 6a · Passage 32Antipater’s formulation pairs selecting and rejecting.
Translation in this edition
“Rejection” preserves the pairing with selection; do not substitute the separate technical noun ἀφορμή.
ἀπεκλογήν
Attested. Chapter 7 · Excerpt 7 · Passage 3; Wachsmuth II, printed p. 79.
τῆς αἱρέσεως ταύτης, οὐ μὴν πρὸς ἐκλογὴν καὶ ἀπεκλογήν· δι’ ὃ καὶ τὰ μὲν ἀξίαν ἐκλεκτικὴν ἔχειν, τὰ δ’ ἀπαξίαν ἀπεκλεκτικήν,
Source note
Wachsmuth, volume II, printed pp. 76, 79. The article groups the noun with its cognate verb, not with every Greek expression for avoidance.