← Glossary
Metathesis (Greek μετάθεσις = transposition, reordering) refers in Stoic practice to the active, rationally trained reappraisal of what an external event means for the self. It is neither repression nor false optimism, but a philosophical work upon the judgment itself — a shift of perspective achieved through intellectual work on the hegemonikon (the ruling faculty), which makes it possible to acknowledge the objective facts while fundamentally displacing one's evaluation of them. It presupposes that the external situation does not lie within our power (ouk eph' hēmin), but that the decision about how we interpret it lies entirely with us (eph' hēmin).