Doxa
δόξα (doxa)
The Greek word that expresses two things at once: *opinion*—what seems true—and *reputation*—the shine one has in the eyes of others. The verb it comes from, *dokeîn*, means "to seem, to appear." Among the Stoics, *doxa* in the sense of reputation is classified among external goods, *"what does not depend on us"*: real, sometimes useful, but never our own doing. Wisdom does not lie in scorning it, but in not resting one’s peace upon it.
Celles qui ne dépendent pas de nous, c'est le corps, les biens, la réputation, les dignités : en un mot tout ce qui n'est pas notre œuvre.
Here’s the idiomatic English translation, preserving all Markdown, links, transliterations, and symbols:
Greek doxa (δόξα) holds together what French splits into two words. Derived from dokeîn (to seem, to appear), it first denotes opinion—what seems true to someone, as opposed to certain knowledge—before shifting to mean reputation: the image one holds in others’ eyes, radiance, glory. The same term thus names both what appears and the esteem it confers.
Three uses not to be confused. In Plato, doxa stands opposed to epistēmē: it is uncertain opinion, short of true knowledge. For the Stoics, doxa-as-reputation is an external good—Epictetus lists it, in the first chapter of the Enchiridion, among things “not within our control.” Finally, among Greek monks, kenodoxia (vainglory) is no longer an external matter but a passion of the soul, the hunger for others’ gaze that clings even to virtue.
Schopenhauer adopts the Stoic reading, secularizing it, when he calls reputation “our existence in the opinion of others.” Doxa-as-reputation is thus not, like vainglory, a vice to root out in oneself: it is a real but alien good, one we do not hold in our own hands—distinct from prohairesis, the sole faculty the Stoic deems entirely their own.