Oikeiosis
This week you are learning about oikeiosis (pronounced oy-KAY-oh-sis), a Greek word that means something like "affiliation" or "the sense of belonging to." The Stoics used it to describe the natural impulse that draws you first toward yourself, then outward toward family, neighbors, and finally all of humanity. Understanding oikeiosis is the foundation of Stoic ethics on friendship and loyalty: it explains not just why you care about the people you love, but why that care, properly developed, should eventually extend to every person you meet.
Passage
The consideration of the duties pertaining to [our other] kindred is consequent to the discussion of those that pertain to parents, brothers, wives, and children; for the same things may, in a certain respect, be said of the former as of the latter; and on this account may be concisely explained. For, in short, each of us is, as it were, circumscribed by many circles; some of which are less, but others larger, and some comprehend, but others are comprehended, according to the different and unequal habitudes with respect to each other. For the first, indeed, and most proximate circle is that which every one describes about his own mind as a centre, in which circle the body, and whatever is assumed for the sake of the body, are comprehended. For this is nearly the smallest circle, and almost touches the centre itself. The second from this, and which is at a greater distance from the centre, but comprehends the first circle, is that in which parents, brothers, wife, and children are arranged. The third circle from the centre is that which contains uncles and aunts, grandfathers and grandmothers, and the children of brothers and sisters. After this is the circle which comprehends the remaining relatives. Next to this is that which contains the common people, then that which comprehends those of the same tribe, afterwards that which contains the citizens; and then two other circles follow, one being the circle of those that dwell in the vicinity of the city, and the other, of those of the same province. But the outermost and greatest circle, and which comprehends all the other circles, is that of the whole human race .
— Hierocles, Ethical Fragments 5.1
Reflection
Hierocles draws the map of your social life as a set of concentric circles. You stand at the centre. Wrapped around you are your closest family, then extended kin, then neighbors, townspeople, and finally all of humanity at the outermost ring. This is oikeiosis, the natural sense of affiliation, showing its structure: you do not love everyone equally, and the Stoics are honest about that. But the circles are connected. Every person you will ever meet already occupies a place on this map, even before you know their name.
Go deeper
When you look honestly at your own circles right now, where do you notice a circle that feels thinner or more neglected than it probably should be, and what do you think caused that distance?
Practice
Draw Your Own Circles
On a piece of paper or in a notes app, sketch the circles as Hierocles describes them, with yourself at the centre. Write two or three real names in each ring. Do not judge the result; just look at it. Notice which rings feel full and warm, and which feel sparse or uncertain. Keep this sketch somewhere you can return to it later in the week.