Dokimazein

DOKIMAZEIN is ‘examining’. This Ancient Greek word is strictly related to the functions and abilities of a person who tests fine metals. Or it refers to the capacities of someone with the task of examining coins in order to verify their authenticity. In short, we are talking of specialists. They are professional people because they count on specific competences. The focus here is on their capability to assess, to evaluate, to estimate. Those experts are very good in rating and gauging. And of course their uncommon kind of preparedness requires a combination of senses and intellect. This is a very relevant issue. Because we point to an integral human being. Not someone who only has acute sensibility. Not somebody with only a high intellectual capacity. And not a person with only a very long practical experience. Our maestro is good for his mixture of qualities.

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Epiktetos compares the human need to try impressions to what we could do with coins. In fact he mentions a skillful merchant who can quickly make out a counterfeit coin cast upon a table. And he compares him to a musician who can easily detect a sour note. As we need to double-check sense impressions so our judgments (<dogmata>) need a scrupulous cross-examination to be fully tested.

<Dokimazein> is ‘examining’. In a wider sense, the expertise, scrupulous attention and talent of an appraiser or of a tester are the same qualities we should apply in life. Our philosophy demands that we behave as an examiner when we choose our friends, home or job.