From the book
Stobaeus, Volume II
John Stobaeus · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordSusceptibility is a ready tendency to fall into a passion or other contrary activity; it concerns proneness rather than merely the intensity of a passing feeling.
- In StobaeusExamples extend from emotional tendencies to theft, adultery and outrage, showing how the category can characterize a person through recurrent readiness for a kind of conduct.
- In this editionKeep susceptibility distinct from a passing passion and from the hardened condition called disease; the successive definitions mark different levels rather than interchangeable psychological labels.
- A place to readChapter 7 · Excerpt 10e · Passage 1 Read the emotional examples with the later examples of conduct and the resulting names for agents; the second group broadens the scope of the initial definition.
- English renderings
- susceptibility; readiness to fall into passion
Meaning
Euemptōsia is a tendency or readiness to fall into a passion. It is distinguished from a momentary passion and from an opinion hardened into an established disease.
Use in the book
The Stoic exposition lists proneness to distress, irascibility, enviousness and quick temper as examples. It also extends susceptibility to other activities contrary to nature, including theft, adultery and outrage. The term therefore concerns the agent’s tendency toward a class of conduct, not merely the intensity of a passing emotion. The following account of diseases introduces a more settled, hardened condition. Keeping these levels apart avoids making every angry movement or weakness into the same psychological category.
The list moves from proneness to distress or quick temper to readiness for actions such as theft and outrage. Its final clause explicitly connects these susceptibilities with the names given to people. That connection explains why the account is concerned with characteristic tendency, not only a single occurrence. The category can therefore have behavioral as well as emotional examples. The next definition of disease adds a hardened settled opinion; keeping that progression visible prevents the earlier, more general readiness from being treated as already the same hardened condition.
“There are also susceptibilities to other activities contrary to nature” (Chapter 7 · Excerpt 10e · Passage 1).
Places to read
- Chapter 7 · Excerpt 10e · Passage 12Definition and examples of susceptibility.
- Chapter 7 · Excerpt 10e · Passage 22Diseases are separately described as hardened settled opinions.
Translation in this edition
“Susceptibility” is descriptive within the report’s moral psychology; it need not imply a modern clinical diagnosis.
Εὐεμπτωσίαν
Attested. Chapter 7 · Excerpt 10e · Passage 1; Wachsmuth II, printed p. 93.
Εὐεμπτωσίαν δ’ εἶναι εὐκαταφορίαν εἰς πάθος, ὥς τι τῶν παρὰ φύσιν ἔργων,
Source note
Wachsmuth, volume II, printed p. 93. The dictionary form is supported by the inflected noun in the running definition.