Epictetus, Discourses: A Commentary

                                                    Epictetus (55 - 135 A. D.)

 

I have read what writers and thinkers I trust wrote about the Stoics – Martha Nussbaum, for example – but I have never read the work of a Stoic philosopher. So I will remedy this by reading Epictetus’ Discourses (even though the Discourses are reported thoughts and sayings of Epictetus (50 – 135 A.D.) and not written by the man himself. I chose Epictetus because he was a slave and later a free man who was not far removed from the circles of power in Rome. I also chose him because he was Greek: I could thus avoid having to deal with my prejudice against the Romans.

 

Book I

“As then it was fit to be so, that which is best of all and supreme over all is the only thing which the gods have placed in our power, the right use of appearances; but all other things they have not placed in our power. Was it because they did not choose? I indeed think that, if they had been able, they would have put these other things also in our power, but they certainly could not. For as we exist on the earth, and are bound to such a body and to such companions, how was it possible for us not to be hindered as to these things by externals?

     But what says Zeus? "Epictetus, if it were possible, I would have made both your little body and your little property free and not exposed to hindrance. But now be not ignorant of this: this body is not yours, but it is clay finely tempered. And since I was not able to do for you what I have mentioned, I have given you a small portion of us, this faculty of pursuing an object and avoiding it, and the faculty of desire and aversion, and, in a word, the faculty of using the appearances of things; and if you will take care of this faculty and consider it your only possession, you will never be hindered, never meet with impediments; you will not lament, you will not blame, you will not flatter any person."

 

Will you not stretch out your neck as Lateranus did at Rome when Nero ordered him to be beheaded? For when he had stretched out his neck, and received a feeble blow, which made him draw it in for a moment, he stretched it out again…. What then should a man have in readiness in such circumstances? What else than "What is mine, and what is not mine; and permitted to me, and what is not permitted to me."

 

"Tell me the secret which you possess." I will not, for this is in my power. "But I will put you in chains." Man, what are you talking about? Me in chains? You may fetter my leg, but my will not even Zeus himself can overpower. "I will throw you into prison." My poor body, you mean. "I will cut your head off." When, then, have I told you that my head alone cannot be cut off?

 

Comment

  We cannot control what happens to us, only our attitude toward it. That which we cannot control has no value. That which we can control – our attitude – has absolute value relative to everything else.

   What struck me right away is his dualism between body and reason, with the body causing attachments to all those worldly things that make you vulnerable to fortune and the mind alone free to take up a bodily or detached attitude toward those apparent goods. Very much reminds me of Socrates of the Phaedo, though so far without any comforting thoughts of an afterlife.

  The loss of that which has no real value or meaning is no loss. Whatever fortune can take away is by definition of no real value, has no deep meaning. The only thing of value is the mind, and that no one can take away. (He should have read 1984.) That seems to be the thesis. Reminds me of children who when they want something and it is withheld from them reverse themselves and say they never wanted that worthless thing to begin with (sour grapes). Something like this:

Emma: Wow, look at Lily’s new bike! It’s so cool. I wish I had one like that.

Jack: Yeah, it’s alright, I guess.

Emma: Just alright? It’s got shiny red paint and those awesome gears! You said last week you wanted a bike just like that.

Jack: Well… it’s probably not that fun to ride anyway. And I bet it’s really heavy. My old bike is better because it’s lighter.

Emma: But you just said—

Jack: Whatever. I don’t even want a new bike. Bikes are dumb.

 

Jack really wants the bike but, realizing he can’t have it, dismisses its value to protect himself from disappointment. This reaction, this reshaping of our desires to fit our limitations, is exactly what Epictetus seems encourage. And instead of the bike, read bodily, worldly life itself.

  Epictetus’ attitude implies a radical renunciation—like the child who dismisses what he cannot have, except that for Epictetus, this isn’t a defense mechanism but a deliberate philosophical stance. He isn’t just saying, I didn’t want that anyway out of resentment; he’s saying, That was never worth wanting in the first place.

   The contrast to Aristotle is illuminating. Aristotle acknowledges that worldly goods – health, friendship, political life (I would add other things: natural beauty, philosophy, children, etc.) – have genuine value. But Epictetus posits that nothing worldly has real worth. He (like Socrates) sees through the illusion of external value and is unshaken by loss because he has trained himself never to desire what is beyond his control. This extends even to life in the body itself. The Stoic view on death is extreme: if life is no longer in accordance with reason, one should be willing to leave it behind without distress. Epictetus teaches a kind of preemptive detachment from everything – including one’s own existence.

     In moments of crisis – war, exile, severe illness – this kind of Stoic detachment might serve as a psychological refuge, a way to maintain dignity when all else is lost. But as a general philosophy of life, it can empty life of meaning, hollow out the loves that keep us attached to life. Aristotle’s approach, by contrast, assumes that engagement with the world, with relationships, with the body, is not just inevitable but good. He sees wisdom not in renunciation, but in ordering our desires rightly—valuing what should be valued, neither overindulging nor rejecting what is naturally fulfilling. The world is not totally a Cave of shadows pretending to a value they don’t have – like the good things Neo had to give up when he left the illusory world generated by the Matrix behind (he used to eat at a certain restaurant where the noodles were especially good). The world is dangerous, human beings can fail to become what they should be, making “a Hell in Heaven’s despite.” But for a person of any wisdom at all, a person who sees the world right, there are many wonderful things, many reason to love and thus attach oneself to that which is love-able.

  Epictetus is like Plato/Socrates in that they reject tragedy as based on an ungrounded and thus irrational valuing of worldly goods, goods that can only be external, of no intrinsic value. This includes family, art, home, nature, and one’s own life. Tragedy presupposes the loss of what is precious.

    For Epictetus, following Socrates and Plato, tragedy is based on a fundamental misunderstanding: the belief that external things—health, reputation, family, natural beauty, good art, even life itself—are truly good and worth grieving when lost. But if only virtue is good, then no real harm can befall the wise person, and tragedy becomes, at best, an illusion. Cf. Socrates: “The good man can’t be harmed.” Socrates was perhaps the first Stoic, though he made conceptual space for an afterlife.

  Again, contrast this to Aristotle, who sees tragedy as deeply educational. In the Poetics, he argues that tragedy allows us to experience catharsis, a purification of emotions like pity and fear. i.e. allows us to live with them by allowing us to experience them and deal with them vicariously; allows us to face the possible of bad fortune without necessarily being afflicted by it. Allows us to identify through compassion partly with those who are and yet do not lose their dignity. For Aristotle, these emotions are not irrational in themselves; they have a role in moral education. But for Epictetus, the wise person should not need catharsis because he should never be emotionally disturbed in the first place. (Christianity does not deny that loss and suffering are real, but it transforms their meaning. In this way, Christianity, and even Aristotle’s view, seem to take suffering and tragedy more seriously than Stoicism does – well, many Stoics showed real courage, and that is the ultimate proof of a philosophy.

. . .

   While no worldly good - not even life - has an absolute value (here I agree with Plato) many aspects of the world, many existing things in it are precious, can come to be seen as precious by people. This makes life liveable, meaningful, makes existence something one can say 'yes' too. If the body were nothing but “clay,” not a part of 'me', I would never choose to be born.

    My criticism of Epictetus’s view is thus: to secure invulnerability he risks making existence itself indifferent, even meaningless. If nothing outside of virtue is truly precious, then why would one affirm life at all?

   My convictions align more with Aristotle’s and perhaps with a Platonic-Christian view:  worldly goods are not absolute, yet they still have genuine, though dependent, value. Life is not the highest good: better die defending the innocent than live on in shame as a coward, for example. (I think of that man who died trying to save the two-year-old from the fanatic’s knife attack. Honor to him!) The body, relationships, and beauty in the world are not mere distractions but real aspects of a life worth affirming. This is what gives tragedy its depth: we grieve because something truly precious has been lost, even if it was not absolute.

    You cannot affirm life, life has no meaning, unless you love something or someone. As soon as you love you are vulnerable. There is no exit from this. You can make yourself invulnerable only by denying love, and thus the value of life.

. . .

I do not judge Epictetus. Had I lived in ancient Rome, I would have been either a Stoic or a Spartacus. A horrible, loveless world based on oppression and violence. The sense of a common humanity, the reality of love, beauty, goodness - unknown. It was Hell on earth. If you live in Hell and know nothing else, you will think that "nature." I agree with Epictetus that the Roman world has no genuine value. I disagree with him that the Roman world is the essence of all worlds, of nature.