Abstract

This article intends to demonstrate that Seneca associates involuntary affections with the self (principale/hēgemonikon) and the body in different ways. He distinguishes strict bodily affections from cognitive affections. The former originate in the body and are merely experienced by the self, whereas the latter result from an assent-independent cognitive activity that usually provokes a bodily reaction and is the starting point for developing emotions. Seneca describes this activity as "capere", a concept that has no precedent in the intellectual history of Stoicism. It is an unconscious evaluation occurring in both animals and humans. Letter 92 also provides valuable insights into the embodied self’s relation to affections and emotions. Seneca presents here a psychological model that is much more Stoic than previously recognized. In this context, the article’s main argument is that a connection exists between his acceptance of a twofold irrational component of the self and his two types of affections.