Hypolēpsis literally means "that which is taken under [consciousness]," from ὑπολαμβάνω ("to suppose," "to take to be"). In Stoic technical terminology, it is the evaluative judgment that the TERMruling part makes about an TERMimpression. The chain of cognitive-emotive acts runs: an impression arrives in the soul → the ruling part gives it TERMassent → a hypolēpsis is fixed in place ("I take it that this is such-and-such and worth such-and-such") → from that hypolēpsis arises an impulse (TERMὁρμή) → if the hypolēpsis contains a false evaluative content, a TERMpassion is born.

In Aristotelian usage (De anima III 3, 427b25), ὑπόληψις is a broader cognitive category: one of the ψυχικαὶ δυνάμεις, covering ἐπιστήμη (knowledge), δόξα (opinion), and φρόνησις (practical wisdom). The Stoics narrow the term in an ethical direction: for them ὑπόληψις is always already an axiologically loaded opinion, not a neutral propositional attitude. This is why work on the passions is work on one's ὑπολήψεις.

In Marcus, ὑπόληψις is one of the most frequent terms and one of his programmatic anchors. The famous formula is πάντα ὑπόληψις — "all is judgment" (Med. 2.15; 12.8; 12.22). The idea is simple and radical: things have no intrinsic affective charge; whatever stirs passion in the soul has passed through the soul's own evaluative judgment. To change the judgment is to change the world for me. This is one of the strongest therapeutic intuitions of Stoicism, and roughly every second passage of the Meditations rests on it.

Aristot. De an. III 3, 427b25 — 428b9 (the classical statement of ὑπόληψις as a generic category); SVF II 92, 105–110 (Stoic theory of impression and assent); III 169 (the role of ὑπόληψις in generating ὁρμή); DL VII 47–51; Stob. Ecl. II 88 W; Cic. Acad. I 41–42 (doxography of the Stoic doctrine of assent); LS 40, 53. In Marcus, ὑπόληψις is a leitmotif: Med. 2.12; 2.15 (πάντα ὑπόληψις); 3.9 ("guard your ὑπόληψις"); 4.3, 4.7 ("remove the ὑπόληψις and the offence is removed too"); 05-12 (the seeming goods of the many rest on a false ὑπόληψις); 05-26 (add to the sensation no ὑπόληψις of "good/bad"); 05-34 (to flow well if you ὁδῷ ὑπολαμβάνειν — judge rightly); 6.8; 06-19; 06-21; 06-51; 06-52; 07-02 (I can hold the judgment I ought — why then be troubled?); 07-14 (until I take what happened for an evil, I am not injured; ἔξεστι μὴ ὑπολαβεῖν); 07-16 (the ψυχάριον — that which "forms the judgment"; it will not turn itself ὑποληπτικῶς into fear); 07-26 (what ὑπόληψις of good and evil did the wrongdoer hold — the root of the offence); 07-62 (look into the πηγαὶ τῆς ὑπολήψεως of those whose praise you seek); 08-40 ("it is not the thing that disturbs you, but your ὑπόληψις about it"; the "self" = reason); 08-44 (another's — even posterity's — ὑπόληψις of you is nothing to you); 9.13; 10-03 (the boundary of the bearable runs through ὑπόληψις, not through the event); 10-11 (what anyone will ὑπολήψεται about him he "does not even take into his mind": another's opinion is not among the data); 10-32 (ὅστις τούτων τι περὶ σοῦ ὑπολήψεται — the ὑπόληψις of another is neither forbidden nor disputed: let him think it, but let him be wrong); 10-33 (χωρὶς ὑπολήψεως καὶ τῆς αὐτοῦ τοῦ λόγου ἐνδόσεως — without judgement and without the assent-like "giving way" of reason itself, an obstacle does no evil); 11-03 (ἀπὸ ἰδικῆς κρίσεως — the only readiness to die that will serve is one that comes of a judgement of one’s own, not of a "bare formation"); 11-16 (the wax-tablet image: we "as it were write" the judgements in ourselves — ἐξὸν μὲν μὴ γράφειν, ἐξὸν δὲ … εὐθὺς ἐξαλεῖψαι, we may not write them and may rub them out at once); 11-18 (the seventh chapter of the protocol against anger: ἆρον … καὶ ἀπῆλθεν ἡ ὀργή — take the judgement away and the anger is gone); 11-21 (the analogy: not every opinion about what the majority take for good is uniform — only judgements about what is common will serve, and so must the aim be); 12.8; 12.22; 12.26. In Book XII — 12-01 (ὑπόληψις stands among the hindrances alongside another's badness and another's voice: another's opinion as an external); 12-04 (a man's own ὑπόληψις about himself is set "at a lower reckoning" than other people's — the whole passage turns on that inversion). And 12-08 (ὅτι πάντα ὑπόληψις — the closing item of the checklist); 12-22 (the same formula placed first and completed: καὶ αὕτη ἐπὶ σοί; the verb of removal is ἆρον, as in 04-07). And 12-25 (βάλε ἔξω τὴν ὑπόληψιν· σέσωσαι — a coarser verb than ἆρον, and the perfect stands with no connective); 12-26 (πάνθ’ ὑπόληψις, the penultimate item in the list of what is forgotten). In Books I–IV: 02-15 (πάντα ὑπόληψις — the formula from Monimus, which Marcus accepts with a reservation), 04-03 (ὁ βίος ὑπόληψις — "life is opinion"), 04-11 (μὴ τοιαῦτα ὑπολάμβανε — do not take up the opinions your offender holds), 04-39 (the faculty that forms an opinion of evil: let it fall silent and all is well).

In 02-12 ὑπόληψις makes its first appearance in Book II, and at once in two functions:

• As an object of diagnosis: «τί εἰσιν οὗτοι, ὧν αἱ ὑπολήψεις καὶ αἱ φωναὶ τὴν εὐδοξίαν παρέχουσι» — "what are these people, whose judgments and voices supply your reputation?" Here ὑπόληψις stands at the source of a false craving for fame: my desire for renown depends on the ὑπολήψεις of others, which are themselves the opinions of people who do not know what is good. Analyse the source, and the motive is unmasked.
• As an act of correct seeing: «οὐκέτι ἄλλο τι ὑπολήψεται αὐτὸ εἶναι ἢ φύσεως ἔργον» — "he will no longer suppose [death] to be anything other than the work of nature." Here ὑπόληψις is itself the therapeutic instrument: a correct judgment, achieved by analysis, releases one from fear.

The link with Epictetus: the famous formula of Ench. 5 — «ταράσσει τοὺς ἀνθρώπους οὐ τὰ πράγματα, ἀλλὰ τὰ περὶ τῶν πραγμάτων δόγματα» ("people are disturbed not by things, but by their opinions about things") — is the same doctrine in the vocabulary of δόγμα. In Marcus, δόγμα and ὑπόληψις overlap functionally: both designate an evaluative judgment fixed in the TERMruling part. The nuance differs: δόγμα foregrounds the settledness, ὑπόληψις the act of taking into consciousness. Marcus prefers ὑπόληψις.

"πάντα ὑπόληψις" is not relativism ("everything is subjective"), but a Stoic assertion of the locus of work: I do nothing directly to the world, but I work on my own ὑπολήψεις, and through them I rebuild my relation to the world. It is a constructivist thesis not in the ontological but in the operational sense: the world is objective, but my experience of the world is constituted by my judgments about it, and only at that level can I change anything. Cf. 09-13: "today I threw out all trouble, for it was not outside but within, in my ὑπολήψεις." And 09-32: "much of what troubles you lies wholly in your ὑπόληψις" — it can be "removed."

In 03-09 ὑπόληψις is placed at the foundation of the whole system: "revere the faculty of judgement (ὑποληπτικὴ δύναμις) — on it everything depends." From the single task — to let no judgement inconsistent with nature arise in the TERMruling part — Marcus derives all three Hadotian disciplines: ἀπροπτωσία (non-rash assent — the discipline of assent), οἰκείωσις toward human beings (action), ἀκολουθία toward the gods (desire). Thus the discipline of assent is the root from which the other two grow. The same triad, in the terse formula "it is enough" (ἀρκεῖ), stands at 09-06: ὑπόληψις καταληπτική (assent), πρᾶξις κοινωνική (action), διάθεσις εὐαρεστική (desire). The same three faculties are "paused" at death (09-21: παῦλα ἐνεργείας, ὁρμῆς, ὑπολήψεως) — hence it is "no evil."