- Translated as “Attention”.
- fundamental Stoic spiritual attitude
- continuous vigilance and presence of mind, self-consciousness
- attention to the present moment
When we first experience a situation, we don’t control our first impression, but it is up to us if we take that impression to be true. There is a gap between impression and belief, and in that gap we have the freedom to choose what we believe. This process of choosing to believe our impressions, they called assent, and it is one of the things the dichotomy of control says is up to us. Prosoche, or the careful examination of impressions, is the exercise of making sure you evaluate these impressions carefully, and only assent to what you know to be true.
We can determine what we let affect us, what we believe to be true, and that is the most important freedom of all.