Fragments of the new Stoa

2006-02-18T19:26:00.000-08:00

Aristotle on happiness and externals goods

Several times I've made reference to Aristotle and represented him as holding a more moderate and reasonable position on externals. I have been asked to put some chapter and verse to these allusions.

It is a reasonable request, I concede, but one I can satisfy only in the most cursory and unsatisfactory fashion. Aristotelian eudaemonics is just too rich and complex a subject. Even if we limit ourselves to the remarks found in these six works---the Protrepticus, Nicomacheans, Eudemians, Magna Moralia , Politics and Rhetoric--- we shall be struggling to compass a series of positions that defy reduction to anything that could be honestly styled “the Aristotelian view.” In the face of that reality, I’m going to cheat and pick one small piece of text, Politics VII.1, and pretend that text gives us “the Aristotelian view” of happiness and externals.

We begin with some key parts of the text in their Jowett's translation :

[ Enough has already been said in previous discussions about the Best Life. We need only recap our conclusions. ] Certainly no one will dispute the propriety of partitioning goods into three classes, viz, external goods, goods of the body, and goods or virtues of the soul, or deny that the happy man must have all three.

Men argue about the relative importance of this or that good. Some think that a very moderate amount of virtue is enough, but set no limit to their desires for wealth, property, power, reputation, and the like. To them we must reply…that men do not acquire or keep virtues with the help of externals, but external goods with the help of virtue…External goods, like any other tool, have a limit…and where there is too much of them, they either do harm or at any rate cease to be of any use….

Let us assume then that the best life is primarily a life of virtue, but where virtue is also equipped with enough of the external goods for the performance of good actions.

Even in this very brief excerpt you begin to get a sense of the complexity of the Aristotelian view. But there are also several points that are clear enough in these few lines. Externals goods like (moderate) wealth and good circumstances, and goods of the body like health and fitness, are absolutely necessary for happiness and a good life. Without them, the excellences of the soul will have no occasion either to arise or to display themselves. Externals may not be good in themselves, may only be “tools” and depend upon our having wisdom to use them well, but without these tools, we cannot be virtuous ( no more than the builder can build, if we has no tools or materials or the health to do work ).

This is the position I wish to contrast with the Stoic dogma that virtue alone is good and necessary for happiness, and that wealth and health and the rest are not things we need. Aristotle's texts are not rich in exhortations to pursue wealth and health--he assumes men are already well motivated in that direction-- but it is clear that he understands that we must pursue them ( in the right way, to right degree, at the right time, with the right people, etc ). The Stoa never gives us this concession.

[to be continued]

2006-02-18T06:30:00.000-08:00

“I too am a man, but almost everything that concerns other men I happily deem a matter of utter indifference to me.”

I shall forbear to inflict my Latin version of this emendatio upon you, but you can trust my scholarship. I had thought to entitle this post “Chremes the busybody, or what Menedemus ought to have said”, but even fans of the African’s plays might miss that allusion.

We are talking about “homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto.” Cicero lauds it in De Officiis. Augustine tells us it was one of the most recognized and applauded lines in the Roman theatre. But how did Terence mean us to take this heavy dose of moralizing? I know about 2000 years of criticism is solidly against me on this one, but I think we should read it as the posing of a busybody.

Let’s recall the scene. It is early in the Self Tormentor. Two old men are talking, Chremes pestering Menedemus with questions. Why you are wearing yourself out at your age doing heavy farm work? A man of 60 should be directing his workers, not outworking them. Menedemus replies, “Have you so much free time that you can ignore your own business and mettle instead in the affairs of others, matters that do not concern you?” Chremes draws himself at that point and gives his little speech beginning “Homo sum.” He says he wants to understand what Menedemus is doing and why, so that he may either join him or try to dissuade him. His neighbor’s business is his business sub specie humanitatis.

At this point Menedemus fails to grasp that he is in the grasp of a moralizing busybody. He makes a flustered reply ( “I must do as I do. Do you as it is necessary for you to do.” ) Not a bad piece of writing, I concede, but Terence misses the chance for an immortal retort with the line I have suggested:

“I too am a man, Chremes, but just about everything that concerns other men I happily regard as not my business. Now go away, you boorish busybody, and leave me to my labors.”

What do you think? Great theatre? A curmudgeonly Stoic rewrite of Terence. [ My serious point, if I have one, will have to remain obscure until a later post.]

2006-02-18T05:34:00.000-08:00

Lathe biosis

Someone who utters the counsel “Lathe biosis” is advising us to do what? The aphorism is credited to Epicurus as comprehending his recommendation that we live our lives as private citizens, avoiding any entanglements in politics and public matters. But "lathe biosis" enjoins quiet, inconspicuous conduct in some particular matter. As a general recommendation we want "lanthane biosis.” Live your life ( everywhere and always ) inconspicuously. Conduct your life in such a manner as to be unnoticed in everything you do. Let's think about this kind of advice as it bears on the Stoic's programme.

Every Stoic, even the Stoic Emperor, piously condemns the pursuit of doxa or kleos. Fame or celebrity is very much a fickled and treacherous external. Eschew it. Avoid it. Run away and hide from it. But be careful fleeing Scylla of celebrity, because the monstrous whirlpool of Asapheia waits to consume you. So Epictetus at Discourses IV. 4.

“Cultivate asapheia”, then, is poor intrepretation of the counsel to live incospicuously. But what is a good Stoic to do if Fate comes apounding at our door and demands we choose, celebrity or obscurity? Neither is a good. The pursuit of either is an evil. Doxa and asapheia are equally aquaregic to a true good like ataraxia. So which should I choose?

I'm sure you already know the answer. The Stoic of course chooses neither. Celebrity and obscurity are not the only doors of my house, through one of which I must pass. Celebrity and obscurity are rather ways or styles of coming and going. Adverbs of living, if you like. "Lanthane biosis" counsels, avoid’em both. Study not to live conspicuously, nor again inconspicuously. Neither a celebrity nor an obscurity aim to be. Lanthane biosis.

2006-02-10T08:41:00.000-08:00

Desireless action

A reader writes to argue that the Epictetean Stoic will not neglect his health or fitness or any other important external. The Epictetean Stoic, he says, can select and PURSUE an external like fitness even though neither it is not a good and not something he should desire. The first question is whether a desireless pursuit of some external is psychologically possible for a Stoic. For a Stoic, recall, all action comes from impulse ( horme ), and often from a special kind of impulse called desire. No impulse or desire, no action.

Confronted with a choice between a preferred and "dispreferred" external, a Stoic can select the preferred ( without desiring it ). But securing externals like fitness or a good diet is not a matter of picking among things offered to me. Important things do not fall to me by chance or at random. I have to pursue them assiduously. "Desireless" pursuit strikes me as a complete no-go in Stoic terms and in modern psychological terms as well. What will motivate and sustain my often arduous and uncomfortable pursuit of a goal but a strong desire for it conceived as something important good? I cannot imagine that occasional impulses toward dispreferreds me will not be sufficient to sustain any serious goal seeking.

The classic study of the Stoics on impulses, desire, and the action remains B. Inwood's Ethics and Action..., which I recommend to all.

You say also that I misrepresent Epictetus on the likelihood that our pursuit of externals will fail. I don't think so. Consider: if you think that your pursuit of externals will likely be successful, then why the devil don't you pursue them? Epictetus' principal argument against pursuing externals is that we must fail in such attempts on things not in our power. And, as a result, become distressed and unhappy with our failure. But if we are likely to succeed with externals, why not go down both roads at once, and pursue and enjoy both inner peace and outer prosperity as well?

It is one thing if you don’t want a life that is prosperous and successful—to each his own—but another to claim, as Epictetus constantly does, that pursuing externals will wreck your chances at a calm and virtuous inner life. Epictetus does not ( and probably cannot ) qualify his denunciation of desiring and pursuing externals. He cannot, like an Aristotelian, say “beware of overpursuing externals that are good in moderation or of pursuing some externals that seem good but aren’t.”

2006-02-04T11:05:00.000-08:00

Money and virtue

In Friday’s “Latin Proverb of the Day”, Bob Patrick offered us

Cui deest pecunia, huic desunt omnia.

Bob wisely intreprets this to mean that he who lacks money lacks the means to do anything worth doing. The indigent person is effectively “locked out of life”, money being the key he needs and lacks to gain entry to a life worth living.

I am fairly sure how a Stoic would reaction to this sort of aphorism. I am tempted to tease with him more of the same:

Quis est qui probus sine pecunia?

or Horace’s memorable

Quaerenda pecunia primum est, virtus post nummos.

Pecunia here is standing stead as the arch-extrenal. The claim is that securing externals must come first and anything else, including virtue, after we have secured a materially acceptable life. “First” not necessarily in the temporal sense, but in the sense of importance. Money has first priority, then other things if they are compatible with money-seeking.

In opposition to this view Epictetus, I believe, has staked out an equally radical and hard to defend position. His view is that you must be devoted to securing either a tranquil inner life or a prosperous outer life, BUT NOT BOTH. We are continually told in the Discourses that we cannot face in both directions at once. We must choose one and go after it, and let the other go.

The point I have been hammering away at here—ad nauseam, some of you are saying—is that we NEED to face both ways at once. Don't put virtue on the wrong side of an either/or. It is right and even necessary that we desire and pursue and secure certain externals, because if we don’t, we have no chance at the tranquil inner life the Stoics prize most. Ataraxia and euroia require a calm and safe and productive outer life, absurd Stoic “happy on the rack” pretensions notwithstanding. Indeed, inner peace and calm are a product and reward of dealing successfully with the world for the things you need, just as failing to obtain these things earns a miserable and uncalm existence.

The Stoics say that they do not completely neglect externals because they “select” preferred indifferents when the situation presents itself. But that formula for living, “select the preferred indifferent that are on offer”, is hopelessly inadequate to obtaining a life worth living. We must fervently desire and relentlessly pursue and finally capture the externals that the life we want requires. Waiting to select preferred indifferents is what directionless teenagers do until their parents tell them it’s time to get a job and a life. Yes?

Externals may be pursued virtuously or without virtue. [ The Stoics seem to despair of the argument that important externals can only be secured virtuously. They shouldn’t. They should have read more Plato. ] “Virtus post nummos” sets the priorities clearly. Seek wealth as a means to a life worth living. Prefer to seek it justly. But seek it successfully by whatever means. That is the “ethic” of virtus post nummos. I do not personally subscribe. But the Stoic position seems to me equally radical: externals don’t matter, seek virtue within. My question remains, how do you that without (first seeking) externals?

Someone will inevitably allude to monastics at this point. Don’t. Their lives are devoted to maintaining a calm, orderly, pleasant, properous environment. Visit a monastery or temple if you think externals are not central to the lives of the people who live there.

Have I at last made myself clear?

2006-02-02T20:16:00.000-08:00

The door is open ( II )

As we observed in an earlier post, this is one of Epictetus’ standard replies to someone who complains that life has become unbearable. For example, at Discourses II. 1. 19 we read

What is hardship [ponos]? A bogyman. Turn it around and see what it is….If suffering is not worth your while, the door is open. If it is worth your while, bear it. For it is fitting that the door should stand open in all circumstances and we shall have no trouble.

In our earlier post we pointed out that death is not in fact available to everyone who wishes to die, especially when a society finds profit in keeping people alive beyond their wishes. Perhaps this is just another way that the world has changed for the worse since Epictetus' day. In any case, the Stoic assurance that the door is always open for us is now a false promise. Many of those for whom an easy exit is most desirable will be kept alive because there is money in torturing people. Life has become much harder to escape than the Epictetus’ image of the door standing open suggests.

But let’s not revisit those problems, and turn instead to a more fundamental one. Why does a Stoic want to live? Why not prefer death now? Do we ask too much of a eudaemonism that it explain why living, under at least some conditions, is preferable to being dead? I do not assert that Epictetean Stoicism has a serious problem here, but I must ask the question.

Any theory of human flourishing or happiness that identifies ataraxia ( and perhaps aponia ) as the summum bonum has the difficulty I am alluding to. The dead are beyond pain and suffering. They are no longer troubled and disturbed. Being alive, we are always prey to pain and suffering. We secure our escape from these states only in death. So why not prefer death now?

“But I have roles and responsibilities I have been assigned and must fulfill.” These don’t really matter, do they, if what I should desire above all is ataraxia and aponia. If I am able to lay down my sufferings and struggles now, why should I not do so without delay? The universe will cope well enough without me, and whatever kind of life I might manage to live going forward will not be as free of suffering and pain as death.

Other eudaemonic theories-- Aristotle’s comes to mind-- offer us a summun bonum of insight and contemplation. We endure our human existence because we are afforded on occasion the opportunity of a god-like contemplation [theoria] of the truth. Theoria not your thing? Well, suppose we add the chance to create? Another eudaemonic theory might add creativity to contemplation as a reason to live. Life gives us the opportunity to create the beautiful. The dead do not contemplate or create. But they are beyond pain and suffering.

This then is my question to the Stoic. A pretty basic one, I think. Why is better to be alive than dead?

2006-01-29T22:14:00.000-08:00

Desiring and Pursuing Externals

A reader offers a bold challenge to my previous post, citing chapter and verse, in favor of his view that Epictetus does not counsel neglect of externals. His arguments merit a considered, if necessarily brief, response.

He alludes first of all to the distinction that the older Stoa drew amongst externals. Some externals, though not good, have some worth and are to be preferred in selecting among externals. Indeed. We addressed this distinction in a previous post in terms of the difference between “selecting” and “choosing” , and wondered whether it was preserved in Epictetus. Not systematically.

Here’s the problem with “selecting” preferred externals like a health and fitness. If we are confronted with a choice between a healthy diet and a poor one, we should prefer and select the healthy one. But (eating) a healthy diet is not something in my control and not a good. Therefore not something I should desire and pursue because my pursuit is all too likely to be frustrated. Unfortunately, a healthy diet is not something that befalls me by chance and luck. I need to design a diet and motivate and discipline myself to pursue it. That is desire and pursue of an external, nothing less.

My reader cites a passage at the end of Discourses I. 4 where Epictetus says he does not neglect [ ouk amelo ] his body or his property. Indeed, he says that. And another passage at Discourses II.5 where he cautions that he must be careless [ amelos] with externals. He also says that. But set these two declarations alongside the argument we examined last tine at the beginning of Discourses I. 4. There, and at many other places in the Discourses, tells us that we must abandon desire for externals and forswear action in pursue of them. I won’t cite that passage yet again, but reread it if you have any doubt about Epictetus is saying. I assume that Epictetus thinks these statements are compatible.

Epictetus seems to think he can say that he does not “neglect” his health and fitness if, when confronted with a choice between unhealthy and healthy, he will select the healthy. But as we started to discuss about above, this is not the way you can acquire and maintain health and fitness ( and any other externals you care to mention). Externals must be objects of desire and deliberate pursuit, not casual selection.

So I say: Epictetus’ claim that he does not "neglect" externals is not credible. He will select them if & when they are offered, but that is just a recipe for neglect and disaster.

2006-01-27T16:43:00.000-08:00

Quit the gym, cancel your health insurance, and don’t worry if you can’t walk to the mailbox: advice from the Stoa

A reader objects that Epictetus does not counsel the neglect of externals that I have characterized as extreme and dangerous.

I want to revisit an early chapter of the Discourses to show, first, that progress for Epictetus is nothing but progress in ceasing to desire and pursue externals misperceived as goods, and in ceasing to be averse to and flee externals misperceived as evils. Ceasing to pursue and avoid externals, we spurn and disvalue and neglect them, as we shall see in detail in a minute. I also wish to show that Epictetus’ condemnation of externals rests on a double fallacy concerning failure and unhappiness.

Let’s return to the beginning of Discourses I. 4 “On Progress.”
[ Ti ouv prokoptei ; ]
That man is making progess who has learned from the philosophers that desire is for things good and aversion for things evil, and who has learned that peace of mind and serenity can only be achieved by a man if he attains what he desires and avoids what he does not want to fall into. Such a man has rid himself completely of desire or put it off to another time, and feels aversion only toward things in the sphere of choice. For if he should act to avoid anything outside the sphere of choice, he knows he will fall into it sometimes despite his aversion and be unhappy.

Let us remind ourselves of some things NOT in the sphere of choice. Such externals include disability and ill-health, poverty, persecution, exile, and bad reputation. Epictetus is telling us that the man who is “making progress” has rid himself of any aversion to these conditions and has ceased to act to avoid them. Think about that! The man who is making progess doesn’t care about ( has no aversion to ) becoming disabled and indigent and persecuted and held in opprobrium. And he does nothing to prevent these things from happening to him, because sometimes these things will befall him anyway and he will be disappointed at his failure and unhappy. He will not pursue fitness. He will not seek good medical care. He will not pursue a livelihood that will keep him out of poverty. He will do nothing to secure and preserve a good reputation. This is why I call Epictetus’ position on externals extreme and dangerous.

As the passage above makes quite clear, Epictetus’ injunction to avoid externals rests on these premises:
(1) happiness is essentially an inner tranquility undisturbed by what happens in the world.
(2) Tranquility cannot survive in the face of failure to achieve what you desire and avoid what you are averse to.
(3) Our lack of control over externals guarantees ( or virtually guarantees) that we will fail in our desires and aversions if we desire and are averse to externals.
I have (1) discussed in several previous posts and will content myself with some remarks on (2) and (3).

I call (3) the assumption that we will fail. This kind of pessimism is certainly understandable in people whose experience of the world has been one of failure and subjugation -- see some very insightful comments by Oldfather on page xvi of his introduction to the Loeb edition—but we must not credit this as the universal and general experience of mankind. Some men pursue externals like wealth and fame and celebrity and succeed admirably. Their lives are rich and rewarding, despite hollow Stoic protests. The recipe for failure seems to be overreaching, and not reaching for externals. Men of modest ability and timorous natures should very definitely not pursue fame and wealth, but those who are able may do so. As a point of fact, the failure to achieve the externals we desire is a possibility, not a (virtual) certainty.

Premise (2), I think, misunderstand human psychology and the pursuit of success in the world. We often must fail to succeed, and all success is partial and qualified. Yet if we are able and confident, we persevere and endure and eventually achieve a level of success we are satisfied with. Almost always. On the hand, failing to pursue the externals that we need and desire is a certain guarantee of a life we despise and don’t want. The Stoic counsel is not to try because we may or almost certainly will fail, but not to try is an absolute guarantee of failure. Tranquility and happiness are not dividends of neglecting our health and circumstances and the success we desire in the world.

2006-01-25T15:08:00.000-08:00

Philosophobia, or blinded by theory [ Gorgias 484b ff. ]

A reader accuses me of closet philosophobia, abusing not just the Stoics, but all of their “philo” confreres/rivals, who alike speculate freely on the nature of happiness and virtue. Though I like the sound of that epithet being thrown at me, “Phil the Philo(so)phob”, I must plead against the charge. Here for the sake of comparison is a true specimen of philophobia. I have edited out most of the sex and violence to keep my G rating:

“These things are true, as you may determine, if you will leave philosophy behind and go on to more important things. For philosophy, Socrates, if pursued in moderation and at the proper age, is an attractive accomplishment, but too much philosophy is the ruin of human life.”

Can philosophy be the ruination of a man’s life? Callicles has much more to say.

“If a man, even if he is a good man, carries philosophy into his mature years, he becomes necessarily ignorant of all those things a gentleman and an honorable man should know. He is without experience in matters of law. He knows not how to speak to other men in his dealings, public or private. He knows nothing of pleasures and desires and human character in general. And should he try his hand at politics or business, his performance is ridiculous…”

The man who persists with philosophy becomes useless and incompetent on the stage of practical affairs. Is that it?

“He also becomes effeminate. He flees from the places of business and the marketplace where men distinguish themselves. He creeps into a corner for the rest of his life and talks in whispers with yhree or four admiring youths, but never speaks out like a citizen in any satisfactory way.”

The study of philosophy is a good thing in the education of the youth, but then, when one becomes a man and turns to important things, it becomes a ridiculous and unmanly to persist in such games to the neglect of real affairs. Men devoted to philosophy, Callicles concludes, have no power to help themselves or others, especially in times of real need. What good are these unmanly men?

What more could we add to Callicles' denunciation? It is, I think, a masterful potrait of a man and a mind set that regards a devotion to philosophy, as personified in Socrates, as a shameful wrong-turning. Socratic elenchus so outrages him that he confesses that it makes him want to slap Socrates. Callicles is not-in-the-closet philosophob. At our peril we fail to understand him and the mindset of many others like him.

2006-01-24T11:15:00.000-08:00

Externals and Happiness

It is very difficult to decide how we should go about actually confirming or disconfirming a philosopher's eudaemonic speculations. Testing human beings in some of the obvious ways is certainly ruled out. It seems we can do no better than look at the experiences of some people who have been fortunate and unfortunate in their pursuit of virtue and happiness. A philosopher can of course dismiss such ”anecdotal” evidence and say these people know nothing of virtue and happiness, but then I think we rightly begin to lose interest in the untestable ramblings of the philosopher. Why DO we assume the philosopher knows anything about happiness?

I take an interest in the Stoic claim that virtue and happiness do not depend upon externals. We concede to the Stoic that the superfluous adornments of high-income living don’t matter, but that is not the challenge at issue. I wish to consider the effects of catastrophic losses of externals upon happiness or flourishing. One obvious place to go for testimonials is people who have suddenly become prisoners or POW’s or political exiles. My admittedly limited experience with such people is absolutely unanimous and consistent in describing their circumstances as a loss of happiness and flourishing. One of the first things they tell me is that many of their compatriots soon choose to die rather live under such conditions. That is a fairly definitive sign that one’s life has taken a serious turn for the worse. Those who endure years of captivity universally tell me that it is the prospect of recovering their former life and its “externals” ( family, occupation, home) that inspires their will to endure. Some of these people have actually written about how reflecting upon Stoic maxims helped then endure, but that was as a recipe for survival, not happiness!

You can say “Those people weren’t Stoics, so of course they suffered”, but they were men of strength and character and they endured years of terrible hardships. It is interesting that were, before the fact, no Stoics in their number. You can say in absence of any evidence that someone who professes a Stoics faith would react differently, but frankly I see no reason at all to credit this claim. I think everyone who experiences such a catastrophic loss of the externals in his life will confess that it effectively devastates his life, at least pro tempore. I would be astonished if ONE MAN can back from seven years in the gulag and said, “I was happy there, and I’m happy to be back, but really it’s all the same.”

I worry when someone preaches to young inexperienced mind that virtue and happiness are invulnerable and don’t depend upon the external circumstances of our life. This dangerous gospel runs contrary to the universal human experience as I understand, including the experience of people of actual, not theoretical, virtue. I worry that such advise comes recklessly from the pens and mouths of people who have no experience with what they are talking about. "Live your talk, philosopher, and come back from the camps and tell me about flourishing there, and I will repent my criticism of you."

2006-01-23T07:35:00.000-08:00

Do not attempt many things

Stobaeus has saved for us a passage from the 5th century BCE philosopher Democritus of Abdera:

The man who is going to be tranquil [euthumeisthai ] must not be busy with many things, either in public or private life, and whatever he does, he must not aspire to something beyond his powers and nature. [ Anth. IV. 39. 25]

It is interesting, and somewhat surprising, to find the ambitious Roman Emperor and Stoic Marcus Aurelius alluding to this passage and offering his own positive gloss on it. This is from Meditations IV. 24.

Do only a few things, he says, if you are going to be tranquil. Is it not always better to do the things that are necessary and the things that the reason of a creature born for a social life demands and as it demands? For what brings tranquility is not just doing a few things but doing them well. Most of what we say and do is unnecessary. If a man will strip off these things, he will enjoy more leisure and be less troubled. Therefore, do not forget to ask yourself on every occasion: is this one of the necessary things? We must strip off not only actions that are unnecessary but also thoughts. Only then will superfluous actions cease to follow.

Necessary things for Marcus are the things that our bodies require ( nutrition, rest, shelter, etc ) and the things we must do because we are social creatures. We have families and friends and neighbors and compatriots. All of these relationships generate duties.

So the recommendation that Marcus is extracting from Democritus is to do only the things that our bodies and communal life require, and these things are few, not many. The question of whether these things are in our power [dunamis], raised by Democritus, is discreetly passed over by Marcus.

I shall pass discreetly over the ad hominem question of whether it was necessary to defend the empire with almost 20 years of continual warfare—I think Marcus believed it was, but then consider about how stretched the concept of necessities has become—and ask a much smaller question about what is necessary. Is it necessary for us to do creative work in the arts and sciences and mathematics and philosophy? Do our physical and social natures demand it?

If they do, it is possible to envision one kind of simplification of one’s life that is not an impoverishment of it. But if not, and I do not see a reassuring argument that they do, then the simplification recommended is perhaps a fatal impoverishment of our life, removing not the means to survive, but any compelling reason to do. Do I live to eat and sleep and take carry of my relatives?

There is, you see, another kind of simplification of my life that gives me the leisure and focus to do the creative work that I love. That simplification targets my social and community life, and aims to “strip off” precisely those roles and duties that Marcus is recommending, as many of them as possible.

Do fewer things, then, and do them better. But are we are talking about a dispiriting focus on necessities or on our creativity?

2006-01-22T10:29:00.000-08:00

Factis procul, verbis tenus.

Favorinus once told me, says Aulus Gellius [ A.N. xvii.19], that Epictetus used to say that most of those who seemed to be doing philosophy were all talk, no action. They were philosophers aneu tou prattein, mechri tou legein, or in Latin, factis procul, verbis tenus.

So Epictetus thought hypocrisy a fair charge to level at his contemporaries. A risky move, that. One would think that the Stoics in particular were wise to avoid that issue. I can hear the shouts of “tu quoque” even at this distance.

Bertrand Russell once offered an apology for several of the bad choices that marred his personal life. He said made these mistakes not wilfully but “blinded by theory.” ( The educational experiments he inflicted upon his children went disastrous wrong. )

One can’t but wonder whether we are dealing with something of the same sort when Epictetus continues to recommend to us a theory of virtue and happiness that only “sages” can manage to live. And there are no sages.

A recent comment on this site pointed that some people have reported that Stoicism helped them cope with their years of confinement as prisoners and POW’s. No doubt! People who find themselves in situations in which they have almost no control over the external conditions of their life are not unnaturally attracted to a theory of virtue and happiness that says externals don’t matter. But most of us, I assume, are not prisoners or slaves or completely disempowered people. We have some fundamental choices to make about how we want to live in the world—career, family, companions—and we believe our happiness is not unrelated to whether we are wise and successful in these choices. If we fail in our career and our marriage, if we fall into a live of poverty and hardship, we shall likely not claim a virtuous or happy life.

You can of course SAY that these externals don’t matter, but it is another thing to ACT and live as though they weren't important. You can SAY, don't value and desire and pursue these externals, but who could really manage or even want to live that way? Where are the happy Stoics offering their testimonials to Epictetean Stoicism?

2006-01-21T20:51:00.000-08:00

The Indestructibility of Virtue and Happiness

A reader of this site worries that by recommending that we improve the external circumstances of our life, I misunderstand the good life the Stoics are recommending. That is a good life is a life in which arete and eudaimonia, once attained, are permanent and indestructible.

This view, the permanence of virtue and happiness, is indeed a well-attested dogma of the old Stoa, though Epictetus does not emphasize it. See, for example, DL. VII. 128.

The reader is correct is that I do not believe virtue or happiness can ever be counted as an enduring, much less indestructible, state. My grounds are shallowly empirical, not apriori. Many of us, I think, have watched virtue and happiness erode and fail. Name any virtue you wish—courage, temperance, piety, justice, prudence—and we can tell unhappy stories of war and disease and old age destroying these qualities in exemplary human beings. These were not of course the ideal Stoic sages, but I am speaking now of real men and real lives. Nothing about virtue and happiness seems permanent.

The Stoic summum bonum is the inner tranquility of a life that flows smoothly and naturally. Ataraxia is not an indestructible state. I have known people who have retreated to Trappist monasteries and Buddhist temples in search of it. This was not an unwise move because our externals have a great deal to do with how enduring our calm and tranquil life can be. Tranquility, however, is not the special preserve of the monastics. In fact, the most tranquil people I have known were people with successful marriages and careers who were doing professionally what they loved to do. The monastics, by contrast, were, at least in my experience, on the whole a much less tranquil and happy lot.

I am not challenging the Stoic view of the summum bonum. I am suggesting that externals are vital to protecting the fragility of our flourishing. Please do not quote Stoic dogma to me about flourishing under any conditions. Zeno and Chrysippus and Epictetus did not grow up in an Nazi death camps. I have spoken to people who did ( vide R Vrba’s Ich Kann Nicht Vergessen ). You can survive under such conditions, you do not flourish.

The idea that you can attain and sustain a inner calm by neglecting your externals is a very dangerous hypothesis. No recipe is surer to provoke and secure an unhappy and unvirtuous life than neglecting your externals. None of the Stoic philosophers did so, it seems, though they seemed to have felt free to preach a gossip they did not themselves live.

I do not offer this view of externals as dogma, but as my experience of the world and how we must live in it. If you can attest a very different experience of the world, I should be very pleased to hear about it.

2006-01-21T12:38:00.000-08:00

Another test: Is he a hypocrite?

We have spoken before about testing the ethical and eudaemonic speculations of philosophers. Philosophers want us to believe the views they put forward about virtue and happiness, and belief in this area is not divorced from action. Pursuing a bogus notion of happiness, as with ingesting a phony medicine, may have serious implications for your health and well-being. So we must test. One fair test, I think, is to inquire whether the philosopher himself believes what he wishes us to believe. Believes, not in the empty sense of mouthing some words, but in the real sense of trying to live in accordance with those words.

So, when a philosopher tells me something remarkable like “only virtue is good and vice bad”, and “virtue suffices happiness”, it occurs to me, not unnaturally I think, to question whether that philosopher has actually tried to live the good life he is recommending to all of us. At least try to walk your talk, philosopher, before you lead others astray with your speculations.

So far as we can tell, some ancient philosophers seem to have managed to live the life approximating the good life they recommended. Epicurus is first name made comes to mind and his life of tranquil hedonism. Aristotle’s life, I think, conforms broadly to the scheme of human flourishing found in the Eudemians. Socrates, for better or worse, seems to have lived his mission. And there were others

When we come to the Stoics and their remarkable eudamonism, however, the record is not as encouraging. We have of course one spectacular failure. The spectacle of Seneca scribbling his little essays disvaluing wealth and power whilst he labored day and night to become one of Neronian Rome’s wealthiest and most powerful men is too much for my stomach. We shall have no discussion of Seneca Hypocrites in these pages.

Zeno and Chrysippus are too shadowy in their biographies for us to say much about them , but we know considerably more the two most famous Stoics of antiquity, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. Aurelius’ Stoicism is significantly different Epictetus’, and we shall have to leave a discussion of it to another time. I want to confine myself here to the question of whether Epictetus seriously tried to live the life his Stoic dogmas recommend.

Perhaps instead of dogmatizing on that subject myself, I should be content to raise the question with you and let you form your own judgments. The key issue, I will say, is Epictetus’ chronic disvaluing and abuse of externals. We are constantly told that no externals are goods and none of them has anything to do with happiness. Cease to value and desire and pursue them, he says, and look only to the virtues of your inner life. Only virtue is good and virtue suffices for happiness. Do the facts of Epictetus' life give us a man earnestly trying to live this gospel?

A final comment about hypocrites. I do not call a man a hypocrite who says “I believed that happiness lie in pursuing x, and I tried to pursue it, but I have found that a life of pursuing x is beyond me and leads instead to misery. Maybe others can do better with it than I did.” That man is not a hypocrite, I say, but he has confessed that his eudaemonic speculations are in one conspicuous case at least a proven failure. Speculate as you wish, philosopher, but then I demand from you the honesty of telling me whether you have tried and managed to live the good life you recommend. Is that an unfair test?

2006-01-12T03:52:00.000-08:00

Virtue alone saves us from going wrong

Here is another selection from our friend Musonius, admittedly sounding more Stoical than Cynical in this excerpt. I have referred to this essay in a previous post under the rubric of Stoic optimism.

From Musonius' [ That man is born with a disposition to virtue]
[ This selection is untitled in the manuscripts. The editors have supplied the title above based on lines 18 and 19 of the text. It is plausible. Equally plausible, or perhaps a little more plausible, is the caption THAT EVERY MAN CAN LIVE FREE FROM ERROR AND VIRTUOUSLY. Stobaeus’ selection has omitted the standard first line of the essay, which I assume must have gone something like this: “Once when someone asked him whether all men or only some were born with a chance to live a life that is free of error and virtuous, he answered emphatically in this fashion.” ]

All of us, he said, are formed by nature in such a way that we can live without error and virtuously. Not some of us and not others, but all of us.
One important indication of this is that lawgivers make laws that apply to everyone equally, prescribing what should be done and proscribing what may not be done. They exempt none who disobey or do wrong from dishonor, not the young or the old, not the strong or the weak, not anyone at all. Yet they should if virtue as a whole were something unnatural to us, and we had no claim upon it by nature. Just as no one is required to be flawless in performing actions that pertain to any of the other arts if he has not studied those arts, so no one is required to be flawless in matters pertaining to living if he has not made a thorough study of virtue, since virtue alone saves us from making errors in life. Now in the case of the sick, no one is required to be unerring except the doctor; and in playing the lyre, no one but the musician; and in manning the rudder, no one but the pilot. Yet in the case of living, we no longer demand only the philosopher to be unerring, though supposedly he alone is attentive to virtue. We demand it of all men alike, even those who have given it no attention. Clearly, then, there is no other explanation for this than the fact that man is born with a disposition to virtue.
There is also another important indication that we partake of virtue by nature. This is the fact that all men talk about themselves as having virtue and being good. No man off the street, if he is asked whether he happens to be dim-witted or intelligent, allows that he is dim-witted. No man, if he is asked whether he is just or unjust, says that he is unjust. Every man, if someone asks him whether he is in control of his appetites or utterly ruled by them, replies at once to such a question that he is in control. And should he be asked simply whether he is good or bad, he would say that he is good, though he would not be able to name his teacher of complete goodness, nor his studies in virtue, nor any training he happened to have had.
What is this an indication of, then, but the fact that there is in the soul of man a natural propensity to complete goodness, and that a seed of virtue lies in each of us? Because it is appropriate for us to be completely good, some of us delude ourselves that we really are good, while others are ashamed to admit that they are not. Why is it, by the gods, that we don’t see someone who has not learned writing or music or gymnastics claiming to know these matters? Or someone pretending to have these skills, though he can’t even name a teacher with whom he studied? Why nevertheless does everyone profess virtue? The reason is that none of these arts belongs to man by nature, and no one has come into this life having a natural propensity toward them.

2006-01-11T06:38:00.000-08:00

Pity for thieves and robbers and even the child-killer Medea?

When I first read Discourses I. 18 and I. 28 in translation, I thought the translator must have gotten it wrong. Epictetus was surely recommending only some sort of understanding of these people, not pity. But pity it is. The Greek verb eleein means to pity. And at I.18.3 we read,

Why are you angry with these people?
“They are thieves and robbers!”
What do you mean ‘thieves and robbers’? They are people who have gone wrong in matters of good and evil. Ought we then to be angry with them or pity them? Do but show them their error and you will see how quickly they mend their ways.

And little later at 1.18.9,

Man, if you must be affected in a way that is contrary to nature at the ills of another, pity him rather, but do not hate him.

Pity for Medea comes at I.28.9,

Why do you not, if anything, pity her instead? As we pity the blind and the lame, so likewise pity those who are blind and lame in part of them that rules.

Notice first of all that Epictetus qualifies what he says about pitying these people. He seems to allow or accept it, rather than recommend it. If you must feel some emotion toward these people, he says, then let it be pity rather than anger. The second passage from I.28 identifies pity as a pathe, as an emotion contrary to (our) nature, which the wise man will not experience. Early Stoic sources condemn pity as a form of passion and distress, and Seneca follows this line. So it is little surprising when he hear Epictetus voicing even qualified acceptance of pity for wrongdoers. What, after all, is the point of trying to feel pity for these people? Is it intended as a kind of therapy to check our anger?

There is an obvious and immediate problem with “pity therapy.” The judgment on which pity rests is that someone has suffered undeserved harm. “Intent on making a go of their poor farm, the family was devastated by the flood that ruined their crops and wrecked their home.” There are some people to pity. And, if we are able, take action to help, because pity is not an emotion divorced from action. But thieves and robbers and murderers are not people, intent on good, who have suffered unfairly and need our help to recover. Thieves and robbers and murderers are people intent on doing undeserved harm to others. If they in turn suffer harm in the course of being prevented from carrying out their evil intent, or are punished after the fact for their evil deeds, there are no grounds for feeling pity or bringing aid to these malefactors. Pity rather their victims. We cannot feel pity for thieves and robbers and murderers, and it would be utterly inappropriate to do so. “Pity therapy”, if that is Epictetus’ point, won’t work.

“But they are only misguided people, mistaken about the nature of good and evil. If they knew that good and evil did not lie in having externals, they would not do the bad things they do.”

This sort of plea seem to rest on a very naïve diagnosis of the roots of criminal behaviour. Suppose we allow that criminals commit the “error” of thinking that my property would be good for them. Perhaps we can find some mitigation for this belief in their lack of a moral and philosophical education. Not enough Epictetus in the currriculum! But this misvaluing of my property is not the key “error” in their thinking. They also must believe it is proper for them to deprive me, by violence or threat or other criminal means, of my property. (If they didn't have this additional thought and assent to it, how could their impulse to action go forward on the Stoic model?)

This last belief and assent are not, I think, in the same sense an excusable “error” or confusion about the value of externals. Aristotle thought wealth a good, but did not, so far as I know, recommend robbery as a path to wealth. What violent criminals are guilty of, their cardinal “error” if you wish, is a willingness to harm others to get the things they want. I cannot find an excuse for this error in their lack of education or philosophy. "Oh really, so it's WRONG to rob and murder to get what you want? I didn't know that. Thank you for enlightening me." They know that it is wrong to steal and rob and kill.

In Stoic terms,again, they have experienced but rejected the judgment it is not proper to do these things. They have resolved the conflict between “ It would be good to have Tom’s car” and “It is wrong to steal it” by willfully disregarding the latter. If they err, then, and let's agree that they do, it is not an excusable mistake about the nature of good and evil, but a wilful decision to harm others to obtain what they desire.

“Do but show them the error of their ways and they will repent.”

This is an clear implication of Epictetus' view that criminality is the result of a simple excusable error about the nature of good and evil, and it is, I think, demonstrably false. We have no evidence of the efficacy of "moral instruction," and much evidence that it is not effective, especially in the case of people who resort to vicious violent crimes. It is not ignorance of what is right and wrong, but a willingness and a will to harm other people to satisfy their desires that is the source of their criminal behaviour. Moral instruction will not curb their vicious habits. Serious punishment may, and if it does not, then other solutions must be sought. But let's cease to pretend that criminals will be reformed by moral instruction.

“Do not be angry with these people.”

Here at last we can find some agreement with Epictetus, though we have undercut his rationale and his remedy. Anger is not an emotion that guides wise decisions, and we need to make wise decisions about what to do with thieves and robbers and murderers. Wise personal decision in the face of crime that menaces us, and wise social decisions about how to deal with criminal problem in our society. My first thoughts are that our highest priority should be to protect society from these people. The story Epictetus tells in I.18 about loosing his iron lamp to a thief once again fails to take an honest look at the problem of crime. One lamp is a small loss, but suppose the thief had decided to completely loot Epictetus' house and beat him senseless in the process ( "It's fun to beat up old philosophers.") Should we pity this thief for his "errors", or be angry with him, or just take effective action to remove him, perhaps permanently, from our society?

2006-01-10T15:56:00.000-08:00

The only way philosophy will be of any profit

Here is another selection from the Stoic/Cynic philosopher Musonius Rufus, this one under the catchy rubric "That it is not necessary to give many proofs in regard to one matter." Presevere, the best parts are at the end.

Once, when a discussion arose about the proofs that those starting out should hear from the philosophers in order to apprehend with certainty what they are studying, Musonius said that it was not appropriate to pursue many proofs for each subject, but rather a few compelling and clear ones. For neither is that doctor praised, he said, who prescribes many drugs for the sick, but rather the one who assists them in a worthy fashion with the few drugs which he prescribes. Nor is the philosopher who instructs his students with many proofs, but rather the one who leads them to what they truly want with a few proofs. So too in the case of the student: the brighter he is, the fewer proofs he will need, and the quicker he will agree to the conclusion of the argument, if it is sound. But the person who requires proofs at every step, even where matters are transparent, and wants to have demonstrated to him with many proofs what could be done with a few, he is altogether a dim and dull-witted fellow.
The gods, it is likely, require no proofs of anything, because nothing for them is hidden or unclear, and for such things alone are proofs needed. Men, however, must seek to discover things that are not apparent and not immediately accepted by all through those things that are apparent and are manifest beforehand. That is the job of a proof. Consider, for example, the proposition that pleasure is not good. At first sight this does not seem to be credible, since in fact pleasure strikes us as being good. But if we take as an accepted premise that every good is choiceworthy, and add to it as another premise that some pleasures are not choiceworthy, we prove that pleasure is not good. Through things that are accepted we prove what was not accepted.
Or again, it does not seem at once to be plausible that toil is not an evil. For its opposite, that toil is an evil, seems much more plausible. But having laid down the obvious premise that all evil is to be avoided, and added to it the even more obvious claim that that many kinds of toil are not to be avoided, it follows that toil is not evil.
This being the nature of proof, since some human beings are quicker and others duller, some raised in better circumstances, others in worse, those who have an inferior character or nature will need more proofs and more diligence in order to embrace these doctrines and be molded by them. In just the same way, I think, the infirmities of the body require much more care when you want it to be probable that you will preserve your health. But those of the beginners who are better endowed and have enjoyed a better upbringing will more easily and rapidly and with fewer proofs assent to what it is being put forward properly and will follow it.
That these things are true we may easily discover if, let us suppose, we were to become acquainted with a boy or young man who has been raised in total luxury. His body has been made soft as a woman’s, his spirit enfeebled by habits conducive to weakness, and he displays a disposition that is lazy and slow to learning. Suppose on other hand we also came to know a young man who had been brought up in the Spartan mold. He is unaccustomed to luxurious living, trained to endure, and disposed to listen to what was said appropriately. Now what if we made both these young men listen to a philosopher who was saying of death and toil and poverty and alike that they are not evils, and, on the other hand, of life and pleasure and wealth and of similar things that they are not goods? Would both young men take in the words in similar fashion, and would each be persuaded to nearly the same degree by what was said? That could not happen. The first one, reluctantly and slowly and as if being pried loose by a 1000 arguments might perhaps in the end give his assent. He is the duller one. The second one, by comparison, will quickly and readily accept the things that were said as proper and appropriate to him. He will need neither many arguments nor further study.
Was it not a child of just that sort, a Spartan boy, who asked the philosopher Cleanthes if toil was good? For that question made it plain that the boy was so favored by nature and so well raised with a view toward virtue that he would consider toil to be closer to the nature of good than of evil. He had posed his question, whether toil might be good, after the manner of someone conceding that it was not evil. In admiration of the boy Musonius said to him, “of noble blood you are, dear child, such things you say.” How could such a youth not be easily persuaded not to fear poverty or death or any of the other things that seem fearful, and again, not to chase after wealth and life and pleasure?
But let me return to the beginning of our discussion. I said that the teacher of philosophy should not recite a volume of arguments to his students. He should instead talk about each matter in its due measure, and touch the mind of his listener, and utter arguments [ that are persuasive] and not easily refuted. But most of all, he should show himself in this way to be someone who talks about the most useful things and acts in accordance with what he says, and in this fashion guides his listener. The student, for his part, should exert himself to grasp what is being said and be on the lookout lest, without noticing it, he accept something false. But with respect to things that are true, he should not, by God, try to listen to many proofs, but only those that are perspicuous. And whichever of the things commended to him he is persuaded are also true, to these he should conform his life. For only in this way will anything profitable come from philosophy, if to words one accepts as true one adds deeds that harmonize.

2006-01-10T15:20:00.000-08:00

Stoic or Cynic?

I am busy these days revising my translation of the fragments of Musonius Rufus found in Stobaeus. This Musonius was either the Roman Stoic who flourished in the third quarter of the 1st century AD and was a teacher of Epictetus, or an Athenian Cynic and writer whose floruit probably belongs at the end of Hadrain's reign. 20th century scholarly consensus inclined to the former identification, but I lean strongly in the other direction. Here is a translation of his essay on training, an excellent point of comparison with Epictetus essay of the same name at Discourses III. 12.

Musonius' On Training

Employing arguments such as these, he [Musonius] was always vehement in encouraging those around him to engage in training. Virtue, he said, is not just a theoretical science, but also a practical one, like medicine and music. Just as a doctor or a musician must have absorbed the principles of his art, but also trained to perform according to these principles, so too the man intent on goodness must not only thoroughly understand the many precepts leading to virtue, but also train with these precepts in a way that shows a love of honor and hard work. Otherwise, how could someone straightaway become able to control his passions if he merely recognized that one must not yield to pleasures, but was actually untrained in resisting them? How could someone become just, having learned that one must love fairness, but having no training in rejecting avarice? How could one acquire courage, having learned that the things that seem terrifying to many people are not to be feared, but having never practiced being unafraid in the face of such things? How could one become prudent, having learned what things are truly good and what things evil, but having never practiced disdaining those things that merely seem good? Training, therefore, must follow learning the precepts appropriate to each virtue, if we are actually going to derive any benefit from this study.
To the extent that philosophy is a more important and more arduous pursuit than all the others, training becomes even more necessary for a person professing philosophy than for someone pursuing medicine or some similar art. Those who aim at these other arts [ start out with a big advantage], not having had their souls corrupted beforehand, nor having learned the opposite of what they are about to study. But those who attempt philosophy come to it already corrupted in many ways, and full of evils, and they pursue virtue in such a way that they naturally have need of more training in this.
How then, and in what way, should these people be trained? Since it hasn’t happened that man is soul alone, or body alone, but some kind of synthesis of both of them, the man who is in training must be concerned about both, but about the better part more, as is fitting, that part being the soul. But also about the other part, if he is not going to be deficient in any part of a man. For it is certainly necessary that his body be well conditioned for physical labour—by his body I mean the body of the philosopher—since often the virtues employ the body as a necessary tool for the business of living.
There is, then, one kind of training that pertains strictly to the soul alone, and another that is common to soul as well as body. Training in common, then, will pertain to both, as when we become inured to cold, heat, thirst, hunger, plain food, hard beds, avoiding pleasures, and patiently enduring toil. For through these things and things of this sort the body becomes strong, and inured to suffering, and tough, and fit for any work. The soul for its part is strengthened by being trained both in courage by the patient endurance of hard work and in self-control through the avoidance of pleasures.
Training peculiar to the soul consists first of all in preparing ourselves with proofs, both those that concern apparent goods, as not really being goods, and those concerned with apparent evils, as not really being evils; and in discussing the things that are truly good, and becoming accustomed to distinguish them from things that are not good. Then it goes on to practice not fleeing from any of the apparent evils, and not pursuing any of the apparent goods, and turning away from true evils by every means, and going after true goods in every way.
In summary, then, enough has been said about the nature of each kind of training. Nevertheless, I will try to expand on how each of them should be conducted, not by differentiating and distinguishing further between those exercises that are common to the soul and body and those peculiar to the soul, but by examining ( in no particular order) the components of each kind of training.
And so, although we have heard and understood these things, all of us who have taken part in philosophical discussions, that neither hard work nor death nor poverty is in any way an evil, nor any other things that have been freed from evil, and again that not wealth or life or pleasure, or any other thing not partaking of virtue is good, still, even though we have understood these things, because of the corruption implanted in us right from our childhood, and because of our bad habits arising from that corruption, we believe that when hard work is at hand an evil has befallen us, and we believe that when pleasure is present, we are in the presence of something good, and we shutter at death as the worst misfortune and cling to life as the greatest good, and when we give money away, we feel pain as though we were being injured, whilst when we receive it, we rejoice as if we were receiving something really beneficial.
To an almost equal degree in the case of most other things, we fail to deal with our circumstances in accord with the proper innate concepts, preferring to follow bad habits. So I say then that since all these things are the case, the man who is in training must try to make himself superior to pleasure instead of being well-satisfied with it. He must try not to turn away from hard work. He must try not to be in love with life nor afraid of death, and in the case of possessions, not put getting above giving.

2006-01-03T06:41:00.000-08:00

Stoic Vespers

As a kind of detached prologue to his discussion of how to deal with our illnesses ( Discourses III. 10 ), we find Epictetus citing with approval five lines from the so-called Golden Verses of Pythagoras:

Let not sleep approach your weary eyelids,
before you’ve examined every action of the day gone by:
Where did I go wrong? Doing what? And what was left undone?
Starting from here review your acts and remember:
censure yourself for acts that were base, but rejoice in the good.

Keep these verses on hand, he goes on to say, and actually apply them, not merely recite them.

It is interesting to caught sight of Epictetus recommending evening “offices”, or vespers, to his students. I suspect Epictetus' practice also included at least an important morning office, primes by its monastic name, and perhaps also a midday “How is my day going?”. These kinds of offices are almost indispensable for getting a novice or proficient to refocus on his inner life and let go of his daily battles with the world.

But the Pythagorean examination that Epictetus seems to approve really needs to be considerably adapted to Stoic practice, doesn’t it? Stoic practices is much more about controlling one’s desires and aversions and choices and beliefs than about what one did. So instead of “what did I do,” the salient questions should be things like
“What did I desires today?
What distressed me today?
Were those things in the sphere of choice?
What decisions did I make today?
Did I make them properly? Did I abide by them?
What beliefs did I credit or accept today? Was it reasonable to do so?”

Stoic primes, similarly, would try to anticipate and plan for the decisions of the day, and prepare for any desires and aversions that were likely to occur. I suspect Epictetus was very clear about all of this, but Arrian’s draconic editing here has lost for us much of the distinct flavor of Stoic offices.

2006-01-02T15:53:00.000-08:00

Be content

Someone whose advice I value enough that I sought it before I deviated into the blogsphere has posted for a second time on a (justly) famous selection ( 10.47) from Martial. Forbearance is a virtue I’ve never been accused of, so herewith is my reaction—not to the posting, but to the sentiments expressed by Martial .

The incipit—my incipits run to two verses-- goes as follows

These are the things, my deligtful Martial,
that create a happpier life

And the final verses are

Wish to be what you are and want nothing more,
Neither fear nor covet thy final day.

Stoic sentiments are not uncommon in Latin poetry, and I do not propose to tax Martial with the criticism that he has not argued his case persuasively. But think about the recommendations we are being given here. If you want a better life, be content with what you are and don’t desire anything more. Forgive me, but how in Hell can that possibly get you a “better” life that way?

“The poet is saying that my life is really fine as it is; I just need to adjust my attitude to it.” No, in all probability, if you dislike your life, things are not OK , and you need more than an attitude adjustment. You need in fact to make some fundamental changes in your life. Stoic dogmas aside, you probably do have the power to make basic changes to the externals in your life. It will be hard and painful, and you may fail, but the attempt is worth it if happiness lies on the other side of the change. I can never understand “be content” when your life does not work as it is. Do not despair of you power to affect change.

As someone who came from a background in Analytic Philosophy, I have always thought that literature and especially poetry are so much more powerful vehicles for examining and commending the Good Life. Good poetry seems to strike the soul as if it were a kataleptic presentation, commanding our assent. When I see will-corroding sentiments like Martial’s so well crafted, I feel the need the jump up and say,”no, no, think about it”. Indulge me.

2006-01-02T07:03:00.000-08:00

Training for the New Year

We have been pondering the differences between Stoic and Cynic. Amongst the Stoics no one is more sympathetic and disposed to Cynic discipline than Epictetus, unless it is someone identified to us in Stobaeus as "Musonius Rufus." Perhaps this is the Roman eques who was Epictetus' teacher, but much likely, I think, we have the words of a well-known Athenian Cynic and writer who fluorished in the early Antonine era. Here is an excerpt from that Musonius preserved under the rubric " On Training." Compare this essay with Epictetus' own "On Training" at Discourses III.12., and imagine Epictetus trying to subject his own scholars to some of Musonius' Spartan ways.

Employing these sorts of arguments, more or less, [Musonius] was always vehement in encouraging those around him to engage in training. Virtue, he said, is not just a theoretical science, but also a practical one, just like medicine and music. Just as the doctor or the musician must each have not only absorbed the principles of his art, but also have trained to perform according to these principles, so too the man intent on goodness must not only thoroughly understand the many precepts leading to virtue, but also train with these precepts in a way that shows an eagerness for honor and hardship. How otherwise could someone straightaway become able to control his passions if he merely recognized that one must not yield to pleasures, but was untrained in resisting them? How could someone become just, having learned that one must love fairness, but having no training in avoiding greediness? How could one acquire courage, having learned that the things that seem terrifying to many people are not to be feared, but having never practiced being unafraid in the face of such things? How could we become prudent, having learned what things are truly good and what things evil, but having never practiced disdaining those things that merely seem good? Training, therefore, must follow learning the precepts appropriate to each virtue, if indeed it is going to happen that we derive any benefit from this study at all.
To whatever extent philosophy is more important and more arduous than all other pursuits, to that extent is training even more of a necessity for a person professing philosophy, rather than for someone pursuing medicine or some similar art. For truly those who aim at these other arts [ start out with a big advantage], not having had their souls corrupted beforehand, nor having learned the opposite of what they are about to study. But those who attempt philosophy come to it already corrupted in many ways, and full of evils, and they pursue virtue in such a way that they naturally have need of more training in this.
How then, and in what way, should these people be trained? Since it has not come to pass that man is soul alone, or body alone, but some kind of synthesis of both of them, the man who is in training must be concerned about both, but about the better part more, as is fitting, that part being the soul. But also about the other part, if he is not going to be deficient in any part of a man. For it is certainly necessary that his body be well conditioned for physical labour—by his body I mean the body of the philosopher—since often the virtues employ the body as a necessary tool for the business of living.
There is, then, one kind of training that pertains strictly to the soul alone, and another that is common to soul as well as body. Training in common, then, will pertain to both, as when we become inured to cold, heat, thirst, hunger, plain food, hard beds, avoiding pleasures, and patiently enduring toil. For through these things and things of this sort the body becomes strong, and inured to suffering, and tough, and fit for any work. The soul for its part is strengthened by being trained both in courage by the patient endurance of hardships and in self-control through the avoidance of pleasures.
Training peculiar to the soul consists first of all in preparing ourselves with proofs, both those that concern apparent goods, as not really being goods, and those concerned with apparent evils, as not really being evils; and in discussing the things that are truly good, and becoming accustomed to distinguish them from things that are not good. Then it goes on practice not fleeing from any of the apparent evils, nor to pursue any of the apparent goods, and to turn away from true evils by every means, and to go after true goods in every way.
In summary, then, enough has been said about the nature of each kind of training. Nevertheless, I will try to expand on how each of them must be conducted, not by differentiating and distinguishing further between those exercises that are common to the soul and body and those peculiar to the soul, but by examining ( in no particular order) the components of each kind of training.
And so, although we have heard and understood these things, all of us who have taken part in philosophical discussions, that neither hardship nor death nor poverty is in any way an evil, nor any other things that have been freed from evil; and again that not wealth or life or pleasure, or any other thing not partaking of virtue is good, still, even though we have understood these things, because of the corruption implanted in us right from childhood, and because of our bad habits arising from this corruption, we believe that when we are overtaken by a hardship an evil has befallen us; and we believe that when pleasure is present, we are in the presence of something good; and we shutter at death as the worst misfortune, and cling to life as the greatest good ; and when we give money away, we feel pain as though we were being injured, whilst when we receive it, we rejoice as if we were receiving something really beneficial.
To an almost equal degree in the case of most other things, we fail to deal with our circumstances in accord with the proper innate concepts, preferring to follow bad habits. Since that these things are the case, then, the man who is in training must try to make himself superior to pleasure instead of being well-satisfied with it. He must try not to turn away from hardship and not to be in love with life, and not to fear death, and in the case of possessions, not to put getting above giving.

2006-01-01T05:02:00.000-08:00

Why be a good actor?

I have another selection from the Cynics Teles and Bion to offer you. Bion is again telling us to be good actors. Last time I invited you to think about how close Epictetus stands to some his Cynic heroes. This time I want to remark an important difference between them. Both Bion and Epictetus counsels us to play well the roles assigned to us, but the playwrights are not the same. Bion’s thea and Epictetus’ theos are very different. Here's the new selection, found in Stobaeus under the rubric “ From the writings of Teles, On Circumstances”

Fortune, like some poetess, authors roles of every sort: a shipwrecked man, an indigent man, a man of reputation, a man of bad reputation. A good man, then, must play well whatever part she assigns him. You've been shipwrecked? Then play a shipwrecked man well. Once prosperous, you’ve fallen into poverty? Then play a poor man well. “ Equipped for adversity and equipped for prosperity,” [ as the poet says], and satisfied with any old garment and diet and service. Like Laertes, [Odysseus’ aged father, who had only one servant to care for him and who slept upon the ground.] For these things suffice for living suitably [ prosenos ] and in good health, unless of course one wants to live in luxury [ truphe]. “But not in the stomach lies the good.”

O’Neil translates prosenos in the last sentence as “calmly”, and that may be the meaning intended.
So why should we play well these roles of misfortune that the fickled goddess of chance [ tuche] assigns us? Why shouldn’t our total focus be upon reversing our turn of fortune and reclaiming the kind of roles we’d prefer to play? Better a rich man, ah, than a poor one.
Epictetus has the answer that God, a rational ,benevolent, immanent presence in the universe, has assigned this role to us for a good reason. Trust in His judgment and play the role you must play anyway. Bion and Teles, on the other hand, have a fickled goddess handing out roles with no presumption that anything is for our own good. Apparently, we are equally pawns of fate, just not a benevolent fate. So then why play a bad hand well?
The Cynic answer seems to be that none these misfortunes really matter. Shipwreck, exile, poverty, ignominy, and old age can all be endured, whilst we still live a tranquil and healthy life. So Diogenes and Crates have shown us. None of these circumstances, the Cynic goes on to say, involves us in a real evil. Evil is a thing like “truphe”, an addiction to luxury, which makes us dependant on unnecessary externals and subservient to them. That way lies no inner peace and healthful living.

So the Cynics counsel acceptance of our externals circumstances, of conditions that most men would call misfortunes, because they think such circumstances don’t matter to living a tranquil and healthy life. They don’t emphasize our powerlessness to overcome such circumstances, as do the Stoics, but it seems clear we cannot hope to fight against the assignments of God or Fate. Remember the excerpt from the previous post where personified Poverty asks Bion, “Why are you fighting against me? I bring you nothing evil?”

Let me end with a bold conjecture. Arrian is somewhat attracted to, or at least sympathetic with , the Cynics’ view of the universe, ruled more by Chance than God. The Encheiridion, which fairly consistently excises explict reference to God’s determining what is in our power, what are roles are, etc, reflects Arrian’s decision to frame Epictetus’ philosophy in a way that de-emphasizes its dependence on Stoic theology.

( I’ve not forgotten my promise to examine the Argument from Acceptance we found in Bion yesterday. I leave on the table for your comments before I offer my own.)

2005-12-31T09:29:00.000-08:00

Be a good actor

Just as a good actor must perform admirably [ kalos] whatever role the playwright assigns him, so too must a good man must perform whatever fortune assigns. For fortune is like a poetess, say Bion, sometimes assigning a leading role and sometimes a supporting role, sometimes the role of a king and sometimes that of a beggar. Do not, then, desire the leading role, when you are a supporting actor. Otherwise you will be creating discord.

Those of you familiar with the Encheiridion may think I have found the source passage for Encheiridion 17 ( “Remember you are only an actor…”). But in fact these remarks belong to Bion of Borysthenes, a very colorful character and sometimes follower of Crates the Cynic. They were quoted mid-3rd century BCE by Teles, whom Stobaeus excerpts. Thus the passage I quote antedates Arrian’s composition by at least 350 years.

I introduce Bion and Teles here because I wish to point out again how strongly Epictetus was influenced by the Cynics. The lives of Diogenes and Crates were a kind of moral ideal to which Epictetus aspired, as we’ve seen. It is no accident that Encheiridion 17 sounds like Bion. Indeed, as we will see, at least two other chapters of the Encheiridion ( 5, 43) could be easily thought to be lifted from the very same text of Bion and Teles. I am not of course saying Arrian was reading Teles and Bion, but the striking similiarities show how imbued Epictetus was with the ideas and ideals of Cynic forebearers.

A little later in the same passage we just quoted Bion imagines himself in a conversation with Poverty personified. To his complaints she replies,

Why do you fight against me? You aren’t being deprived of anything good because of me, are you? Not of wisdom or of justice or of courage? And neither are you wanting necessities, are you?...

If Poverty were to speak thus to you, how would you reply? As for me, I think I would be silent. Indeed, we blame everything but our own difficult character and unhappiness. We blame old age, poverty, an accidental meeting, the day, the hour, the place… Truly, many misguided men lay the blame [ for their unhappiness ], not on themselves, but upon their circumstances.

Bion expands upon the point.

Just as in the seizing of wild beasts you are liable to be bitten: if, for example, you grab a snake in the middle, you’ll be bitten, but if you grab it by the neck, you will suffer no harm, so too with circumstances. If you grab them with a false assumption [ hypolesin ], you will be distressed, but if you have the same grasp of then as Socrates, you will not be distressed. But in any other fashion, you will suffer, not at the hands of circumstances [pragmata], but because of your own character and your false beliefs.

Reading this passage we cannot but recall Encheiridion 5: “ It is not the pragmata distress men, but their beliefs about the.” And remember the metaphor of Encheiridion 43 that says everything may be taken hold of by two handles, the right handle and the wrong handle?

The most important part of the passage from Bion and Teles comes next. It gives us an argument that I think also lies at the heart of Epictetus’ philosophy. From the fact that it is our beliefs about our circumstances, not our circumstances, that control our emotions, the Cynics make this deduction.

Therefore we should not try to change our circumstances, but prepare ourselves for them as they are, just as sailors do. For they do not try to change the wind and the sea, but instead prepare themselves to be able to cope with them. If there is fair weather and a calm sea, they row. If there is wind, they hoist sail. If the wind blows against them, they furl sail and give way. And so you too, in your present situation, should use it appropriately. If you have become old, do not seek the things of a young man. If you have weak, do not seek to carry the burden of a strong man…And if poor, do not seek the wealthy man’s life.

Before I comment upon this argument for acceptance ( shall we call it), I think I will you a chance to reflect upon its mix of analogies and assumptions. Acceptance of our lot, as I discussed in our last post, is at the core of Epictetus’ philosophy. Here is an argument for that view that at least is unburdened by Stoic cosmolgy.

( I take my text of Bion/Teles in Stobaeus from Ed O'Neil's 1977 minor edition, which mostly follows Hense. In O'Neil, the reference is "On Self-sufficiency ", 1-85. Hense, rev. ed., pp 5-12 )

2005-12-30T08:20:00.000-08:00

How we should bear our illnesses

An essay under this title appears as the tenth chapter of Book Three of the Discourses. I had occasion recently to recommend it to an ailing friend. I myself have profited from reading it during bouts of ill health. I think the essay epitomizes what’s good about Epictetus and what’s missing.

What’s good is his resolute stand against any self-pitying, “why me” thinking, especially on the part of people who have decided to live their life in a certain way.

What does it mean to engage in philosophy? Is it not to prepare yourself for what is going to befall you?...What then should each of say as some hardship befalls?
“It was indeed for this that I was exercising and training.”
Now is your time to be ill with a fever.
“[I will] bear it well [kalos]”
To be thirsty.
“I will bear it well.”
To be hungry.
“I will bear it well.”
Are these things not in your power? Who can stop you?
[ III.10. 6-9 slightly modified ]

What then is it to bear a fever well?
Not to blame God or man. Not to be upset at whatever happens. To await your fate in a proper and noble fashion. To do as you are told by the physician. Not to be afraid of whatever he will tell you when he comes…[ III. 10. 13 ]

Being ill is sometimes a role we must play. It doesn’t matter that this is not a role we want to play. That part is not up to us when we have already fallen ill. Our only choice is how we shall play it, well or poorly.

Yes, indeed. So what is there to criticize here? What’s wrong with Epictetus’ message? What do you thinking is missing?

What’s missing is the determination to get well and to refuse to continue to continue to play the role of the sick person. “Very well, I’m sick. I accept that role. I don’t blame anyone. I’m not whining or complaining “ why me”? But I insist upon a short run for this engagement. I am going to do everything in my power to get well and reclaim the life I want to live. I will not play the role of the happy valetudinarian. That I refuse to accept.”

Epictetus’ message is one of acceptance. Accept ill health. Accept the unjust persecution of the government. Accept a bad reputation. Accept whatever misfortune befalls you and your family, because ultimately these things are not in your power and not important. I utterly and completely disagree. These things are important, and we are not powerless to resist what the world tries to do to us. The more resources and skills and will we have not to be consigned to an unlivable life, the better are our chances. Our efforts may fail, will probably fail, but what does it matter? What choice do we have if we are determined to live our life, and not the life of a slave? If Caesar is my enemy, I can always go live with the Hyperboreans.

Epictetus thinks we live in a deterministic universe controlled by a rational benevolent being who will see to it that “no harm befalls a good man.” His view is that what will happen to us is already ordained, and so it is both stupid and futile to fight against our fate. Go along with what happens to you. Be calm. Wish that what must happen will happen. Don’t worry. It will turn out for the best. I worry. I worry deeply about that kind of passivity, passivity in the face of evil. Did not the 20th century teaches us what passivity in the face of evil will gain us?

2005-12-29T09:11:00.000-08:00

The dissent of Posidonius

We are not done examining Epictetus’ disciplines of assent and desire, but I want to post today on a related topic that was brought to my attention.

Diogenes Laertius inserts an epitome or outline of Stoic philosophy in his “Life of Zeno.” There we read that the Stoic philosopher Posidonius ( circa 135- 50 BCE ) dissented from the orthodox Stoic view about what is good. The early Stoics and Epictetus share the view that virtue alone is good and suffices for happiness. This is what Diogenes tells us about Posidonius:

Further, they [ the older Stoic] say that something is not good of which both good and evil use may be made. But wealth and health can be used for both good and evil. Therefore, health and wealth are not goods. Posidonius, however, maintains that these things are goods. [DL. vii. 103]

[Whilst the older Stoics maintain that virtue alone suffices for our happiness], Panaetius and Posidonius deny that virtue is sufficient. On the contrary, [ they say], we need health and a good amount of money [ choregias] and strength. [ DL. vii. 128 ]

For the Stoics, the good is that from which some advantage or benefit comes, evil that from which some harm follows.[ vii.94] Something may be good for its own sake, or for the sake of something else, or both reasons. The greatest good, it is agreed, is human happiness or flourishing [ eudaemonia ]. Whatever is necessary for or even conducive of happiness is necessarily a good. The older Stoics and Epictetus claim that virtue alone is necessary for happiness. Posidonius disagrees and stakes out a position closer to Aristotle's in the Eudemian Ethics. Health, Posidonius says, and money and even strength are things we need to live a good life.

Unfortunately, Posidonius’ philosophical works have not survived, so we do not have the arguments he employed against the older Stoics. Obviously he must have rejected the argument, noted in the passage above, that only what can always and only be used for good is good. We had occasion to look at that argument in Epictetus a while ago. We noted that many of the cardinal virtues such as courage and temperance can be put to bad use by bad people. IF so, thenvirtue is not good. I conjecture Posidonius made this same point.

I have a bigger conjecture about Posidonius and his views about what is good. I think that Posidonius, everywhere the observer and scientist in his studies of the natural world, took the same approach in studying what is good and what is necessary for happiness in the human world. He did not dogmatically echo the Stoic line that virtue is all we need for a good life, but looked at human affairs and saw what virtue can and cannot achieve by itself. If we are in chronic bad health and indigent and weak, he saw, we are just not going to be able to fulfill any of the natural roles that the Stoics recommend for a man. We shall be unable to fulfill the duties of a spouse and a parent and a citizen and a productive member of our society. Inner virtue is not enough if you lack the means and the ability to accomplish things. Health and money and strength are needed for a good life. So I believe Posidonius argued. Unfortunately, as we saw, Epictetus reverts to the older dogmatic line and seem to pay little real attention to what human flourishing requires.

2005-12-27T08:36:00.000-08:00

The wise man does not assent.

Apropos our last post about the discipline of error and assent, there is one other important passage we should look at, preserved for us by Aulus Gellius from a lost fifth book of the Discourses. The original text is in Latin. Here,without comment, is a translation.

The way things look to the mind—what philosophers call “impressions”—have an immediate effect upon the mind, and are not subject to our will. They force us to acknowledge them by their inherent power. But inner acts of approval—what they call “assent”—whereby these same thing perceived by the mind are confirmed are something voluntary and subject to our judgments. So, when a terrifying noise from the sky or from a collapsing building,…even the mind of a wise man is disturbed and shrinks back and grows pale for a moment, not because of a judgment that something evil is imminent, but because of some quick and unconscious movements that prevent the mind and reason from acting properly. Straightaway, however, our wise man does not give his approval—he does not “assent or confirm by approval”—to these impressions, i.e., these terrifying things seen by the mind. He rejects them and dismisses them, seeing nothing in them to occasion fear. And so, they say, this is the difference between the mind of the fool and the mind of the wise man. The fool thinks that the dreadful and terrifying things seen by the mind, when it is first struck by them, actually are what they seem to be. And afterwards, as if they were really fearful, he confirms them with his own assent, “ratifying them with his judgment” as the Stoics say when discussing this. The wise man, though his color and expression change for a moment, “does not assent”, preserving his consistency and firmness of judgment…[and remembering] that these things are not proper objects of fear at all, but only things that frighten with a false façade and an empty terror. [Attic Nights XIX.1. 14-21 ]

2005-12-26T10:46:00.000-08:00

Avoiding error

There are three areas of study, Epictetus tells us at the beginning of Discourses II.2, in which the man who is going to become fully virtuous ( kalon kai agathon ) must be trained. First he must be trained in the area that concerns desire and aversion, so that he may neither fail to get what he desires nor fall into what he wishes to avoid. Second in the area that concerns impulse to act and refrain from acting, so that he may act in an orderly fashion and after due consideration and not recklessly. Third in that area which concerns the avoidance of error and rashness in judgment, so that he may not give or withhold his assent wrongly.

We have been looking recently at the training Epictetus prescribes for desires. “On Training” ( III. 12 ) is an essay in the discipline of training desire. Some time ago I complained of the lack of a comparable essay in the discipline of avoiding errors in judgment. I had been hoping someone would challenge me with the essay that opens Discourses III, 8. I suppose I will have to spring my own trap.

In the same way as we train ourselves to deal with sophistries, we should train ourselves daily to deal with our experiences, for these too put questions to us.

So-and-so’s son is dead.
You should reply, "it is not a matter of choice, nor an evil [ aproaireton, ou kakon ]”.

So-and-so has been disinherited by his father.
What do you think of that?
"It is not a matter of choice, nor an evil."

Caesar has condemned him.
"Not a matter of choice nor an evil."

He has become very distressed by all this.
"A matter of choice and an evil".

He has borne it nobly.
"A matter of choice and a good thing".

If we make a habit of this sort of thing, we shall make real progress and never give our assent to anything except a compelling experience [ phantasia kataleptike ].

His son is dead.
What has happened?
"His son is dead."
Nothing else?
"No".

His ship is lost.
What has happened?
"His ship is lost."

He has been taken to prison.
What has happened?
"He has been taken to prison."

But what about the judgment that something evil has happened to him?
"That would be something you have added." [ III. 8. 1-5, slightly modified]

This remarkable little Stoic recitation could be the subject of a book by itself. We shall have to content ourselves with a few remarks now and later.

Before we venture into the underlying Stoic psychology of perception and judgment, let’s make sure we are clear on what Epictetus is training us to do. There is controversy and uncertainty on even this issue.

In my view Arrian’s notes have unhelpfully mixed two exercises at this point and reversed their natural order. The first exercise, presented second ( following the allusion to kataleptic perceptions ), is about remembering that whatever we experience is itself devoid of evaluation. “This is terrible” or “this a great evil” are beliefs that added by us, and we have control over them. Even if such a thought pops into my head spontaneously when I hear that someone has been dragged off to jail, I can refuse to assent to it and reject it.

He has been taken to prison.
“Yes, and hasn’t that something terrible and a great injustice? How can such things happen in a supposedly just world?”
All that I see that has happened is that he has been taken to prison.

That's the drill here. I can refuse to be carried away by such judgments as these, because judgment is always up to me. It is up to me to consider the proper way to evaluate what I'm experiencing.

The proper way to evaluate what I experience is the topic of the first exercise. It demonstrates that there is only one primary discrimination—whether the thing lies in the sphere of choice or elsewhere. If elsewhere, then it is neither good nor evil. If a matter of choice, then good or evil depending on whether it exemplifies virtue. If he allows himself to be distressed at the loss of an inheritance, then he has inflicted an evil upon himself, while if he accepts it calmly, he shows nobility of character.

So all judgments to which we should assent must begin with an answer to the question “in the sphere of choice or not?” and proceed from that primary discrimination.

Those are the two exercises I think Epictetus is demonstrating here. Exercises that will help us avoid errors in the evaluations we make of what we experience.

2005-12-25T09:42:00.000-08:00

Failure and Unhappiness

First of all, Happy Holidays!
Despite the title of this essay, I mean it. In fact, I think I have a positive message to offer today. I want to discuss a pessimistic premise in Epictetus’ eudaemonism. Epictetus believes that our desire for externals, any externals, dooms us to frustration and failure, since externals are not in our control. And if our desires are frustrated and disappointed, we must live troubled and unhappy lives.

There are two obvious lines of objection to Epictetus’ pessimism with respect to externals. One simply denies that failure & disappointment are inevitable. Some people seem to be conspicuously successful in their pursuit of externals, and are not unhappy with their success. Granted such success is not extremely common. Many try for the brass ring and fail, but is their failure more the result of the elusiveness of the brass ring or more the result of their lack of skills & determination? Is the target then to blame if the archer shoots poorly?

Let us leave that question to another time, and consider the other part of Epictetus’ premise, the part that says if we fail to achieve the external we are pursuing we will be troubled and unhappy. This claim is clearly a fundamental motive of the Stoic abandonment of externals, but it lacks, may I say, lacks any self-evidence. We are all, I assume, familiar with failing to achieve goals we’ve set for ourselves and pursued earnestly. But our reaction to these “failures” is in fact quite varied and nuanced. Distress and despair and unhappiness is certainly one kind of reaction, typically seen in immature adults & children who have less experience of worldly successes & failures. But amongst mature adults other sorts of reactions are quite possible and even probable.

May I illustrate with a story from my own childhood about learning to deal with failure. When I was fifteen Roger Bannister’s four minute mile was not ancient history. I loved to run and decided I too would train myself to be a competitive miler. My first timed mile on the track was a very disappointing 6:24, but I was completely untrained, so I discounted it and set out over the summer and fall on a rigorous training regimen. Diet, exercise, a proper training schedule and eventually even a proper coach. I targeted the late March track meet at our high school as the first solid test of my improvement. On race day I was healthy and ran my best race ever—and lost in the qualifer! I came in third in my heat with a pathetic 5:49. I watched as two kids pulled away from me effortlessly on the last two laps and I could do nothing to reel them back in. Try as I might, I just was not fast enough. My coach candidly agreed. My mechanics were good, my fitness was good. I was just not able to bust out more than two 1:15 quarters. I was almost at full sprint at that pace.

I was of course devastated. But I resolved to try again. Five weeks later at another high school meet, the same results. Four weeks, another meet, another loss in the qualifiers. After that third meet, the coach, otherwise not a great human being, decided to sit down and talk to me. He said, “Look, you’ve learned a very important thing today. Some people are naturally gifted at some things and some aren’t. I’ve watched you train and you’ve trained as hard as anyone I could. You just aren’t built to be competitive miler. Maybe try distance or cross-country, but miling is just going to be an exercise in frustration for you.”

That was that. I had failed to become a competitive miler. Beyond question. And that failure did not feel good. But as I thought about what the coach had told me, I realized he was right. Each of us has different things we are naturally talented at. Try as I might, I was never going to be a fast miler. If I persisted in trying to compete in that arena, I was going to be very unhappy. But I could not know that about myself apriori, before the fact, could I? So I had to try, and try hard, and find out. And that was exactly the path of self-discovery I pursued. The training had done me no harm, and the competition had taught me a big lesson in life. I now understood that trying and failing was the only way in many cases to know what I was good at and not good at. Holding back and “not entering any contest at which I am not invincible”, as Epictetus recommends, would have been a sure recipe for discovering and achieving nothing.

Since failing to be a competitive miler, I have experinced other failures in pursuing externals. How did I react to them? For the most part positively, so long as I was sure that the reason I did not succeed was not that did try hard enough. That kind of failure provokes the distress and unhappy Epictetus predicts. But in general, failure has been more of any invaluable tool of self-discovery than a recipe for unhappiness. It has guided me toward the life that was right for me.

I have learned that it is important to pick your goals ( externals) very carefully, and plan your goal-seeking thoroughly, and persist with it resolutely. But a priori we can never be certain we have the right goals. What looked like something ( or someone ) that would be good for me sometimes turned out not to be. And what I thought I could do well at, sometimes I could only do poorly. So those goals needed to be abandoned and better ones put in their place. The whole process of trial & error in our pursuit of externals is not something that should or need drive us to despair & unhappiness. We fail in order to succeed. We fail in order to discover what things and what kind of life is truly good for us. We achieve happiness & success after many necessary failures & disappointments.

Epictetus’ prediction that pursuing externals will lead inevitably lead to failure & unhappiness was one of his biggest errors.

2005-12-25T07:06:00.000-08:00

Wishing to be Brave

The apparent vulnerability of virtue to fate is not a new theme in these pages, but let’s see whether we can use an example to focus our intuitions.

Imagine a young merchant marine officer—call him Jim—serving as second mate on a dilapidated freighter sailing the Indian Ocean. This trip Jim’s ship has taken on a large number of passengers, Muslims on pilgrimage to Mecca. A storm suddenly blows up and the old ship begins to founder. The crew panic and decides to abandon the ship & passengers. Jim does not panic and resolves to stay with the ship and to try to persuade the rest of the crew to do so as well. He rushes up to the deck where the crew is about to board lifeboats. He starts to address the crew when suddenly he has some kind of seizure and falls unconscious on the deck. The crew picks him up, puts him in a lifeboat, and sails away abandoning the ship & its passengers.

What do our moral intuitions say about Jim’s conduct? First of all, did he do anything cowardly since in fact he ends up abandoning the passengers? No. He was rendered unconscious by the seizure and carried off the boat by the crew. He did not abandon or desert the passengers. Then did he behave bravely? Unfortunately, no. He wished to behave bravely, and had decided to stay with the ship, and probably would have stayed were it not for the seizure. But in fact, he was unable to carry out his intention to stay with the ship and rally the crew. He did not act courageous, though he wished to.

I want to consider the Stoic reaction to this story, but first notice that we could tell a very similar story about any intended but frustrated act of virtue. We could imagine someone wishing to act temperately or justly or prudently, but frustrated in the event by some circumstance beyond his control. Our general intuition about such cases seems to be that they show that virtue, which is after all primarily a mater of taking action, can be frustrated by bad luck or fate. Unlucky people like Jim don’t fall into vice because they cannot do what they wish to do, but virtue escapes them because they cannot take the right actions.

For the Stoic virtue lies in the sphere of choice. If one judges correctly and makes the right choice, then one is virtuous regardless of what actions actually follow. Jim correctly judged that his duty was to stay despite the danger, and that is what he chose to do. He just couldn’t execute that choice, because, after all, our body is not something “in our power”. But he chose bravely, and that was all the counted.

The Stoic view of virtue is counterintuitive. We agree, in the example at hand, that Jim chose commendably. But bravery and justice and the rest require actually carrying out good intentions in appropriate actions. Intentions are not enough. Maybe, or probably, Jim would have stayed if he had remained conscious. But he didn’t, and that is the final word on whether he was courageous or not. Virtue is not decided by the counterfactual.

“But actions are not in my power and sometimes, as here, my good intentions are frustrated.” Yes, that’s how it is. Jim was unlucky, and we will be unlucky sometimes in our attempts to be virtuous. Virtue in this sense is not "in our power."

2005-12-23T08:35:00.000-08:00

No wine, pretty girls, or sweet cakes?

Training for Epictetus is not about building stronger muscles and quicker reflexes, but about disciplining our desires. Unfortunately, “disciplining” our desires for the Stoics seems to reduce to trying to extirpate them, or at least all of them that reference the external world. The inadvisability and indeed the impossibility of doing so is a theme we are exploring here. “On Training” ( Discouses III. 12) has some particular recommendations I’d like to look at today.

Next, train yourself to make a decent use of wine, not in order to drink more, for some are so foolish as to train themselves even for this, but to be able abstain, first, from wine, and then from pretty girls and sweet cakes. After a while you may venture into the arena at the proper time, as a sort of test, to see whether what you experience gets the better of you as much as it did before. But for now, remove yourself a safe distance from whatever is stronger than you. A contest between a beautiful girl and a young man just taking up philosophy is an unequal one. As they say, pot and stone do not belong together. [ 11-12 ]

The training programme here recommends complete abstinence, apparently with the hope that abstinence will somehow suppress our desires for these sorts of things. And the principal therapy seems to be removing oneself from the things that tempt you. A somewhat difficult therapy to follow in modern urban life.

It would be fun to discuss to discuss more effective strategies for combating our attraction to pretty girls & sweet cakes, but why should we--and the Stoics--put ourselves to the trouble of trying to suppress these sorts of desires? Forget for the moment the question of whether an unwilling abstinence will be at all effective. Why do we want to suppress ( versus moderate or educate) our desires for these sorts of externals? ( Neither I nor Epictetus is considering the special case where some has already developed a serious dyscontrol problem with reference to these substances or activities.)

The main Stoic position is that we must learn to make wise choices or selections in the realm of externals. Wise choices are choices that make proper use of externals with a view to sustaining the natural or normal life of a human being. Things that sustain our life are “preferred”. Health is preferred, family is preferred, a useful livelihood and civic involvement are preferred. These preferreds are plainly things we must pursue at the cost of considerable energy and expense, but somehow not desire at all, or desire only with “reservation.”

I have in a previous post commented on the psychological impossibility of pursuing big goals like family and career without a strong desire for them. I don’t want to cover that ground again. Instead, I want to ask why we are supposed to train ourselves to ABSTAIN from externals like wine and pretty girls and sweet cakes. Abstain rather than make proper use of.

Is wine in modest amounts not good for me? It is. Then why should I not enjoy it instead of abstaining from it?
Is having a family not something good for me? It is. Then I had better be attracted to pretty girls or that is never going to happen.
Are sweet cakes not good me? Well, that’s another issue.

The proper use of externals that have value is not abstaining from them but employing them in the proper measure. Enforced abstinence is a recipe for creating dyscontrol problems, not preventing them. Our normal desires need to be schooled and perhaps moderated, not suppressed. We should not train with Epictetus.

2005-12-22T10:56:00.000-08:00

Eudaemonic pessimism ( II )

Discourses III. 14 is selection of five remarks with little or no connection to one another. Arrian’s editorial rationale utterly eludes me. The fourth remark ( 8-10) also has a major lacuna that threatens the sense of that passage. My interest in this unpromising piece of text stems from the fact that in it Epictetus addresses a doctrine that we’ve discussed before, eudaemonic pessimism. Let’s start with a translation of the text we have.

There are two things that must be rooted out of men: arrogance [oiesis] and pessimism [apistia]. Now arrogance lies in thinking that there is nothing more one needs, while pessimism assumes that one cannot live a serene life under so many adverse circumstances. Arrogance is rooted out by cross-questioning, which Socrates first employed….[ ] to see that the matter is not impossible, inquiry and search—and this inquiry itself will do you no harm. In fact, to philosophize practically amounts to this, seeking to discover how it is possible to employ desire and aversion without hindrance.

Oiesis is a difficult word to translate in some passages in Epictetus, but here it pretty clearly means a conceited opinion of oneself. “Conceit” is fine as a translation, except that its use as a noun is now becoming somewhat rare, and most people prefer the noun arrogance. Apistia has a range of meaning including doubt, disbelief, mistrust, and even treachery. But here the sense is clearly a kind of despairing doubt, i.e., pessimism. “Diffidence” is wrong because that term now means primarily overt shyness.

So the sense of the passage is that there are two bad conditions that need to be remedied. Epictetus says Socratic elenchos is a great tool for rooting out arrogant self-confidence. (Let us grant that on the evidence of the Plato’s dialogues.) But what is the remedy for the other condition, pessimism regarding tranquility and human happiness? Not elenchos, to be sure, but some other philosophic discipline? What?

Here Epictetus seems to surprise us and says, well, look and see. You suspect happiness is impossible in the face of misfortunes, but look and see how some men actually manage to flourish under those conditions. The refutation of your pessimism lies in finding living, breathing counterexamples to the suspicion that happiness must elude us under difficult circumstances.

If I’ve read him corredtly, I am indeed surprised by this answer. I wonder what Epictetus is confident our research will discover. Remember the Stoic dogma that virtue alone for happiness. I wonder whether Epictetus actually expects us to find virtuous people living in bad or terrible external conditions who nevertheless enjoy a tranquil & happy life? Epictetus’ position of course entails that there should be such people, but they seem perennially hard to find, like Sages.

2005-12-22T07:09:00.000-08:00

Homelessness as a Philosophical Ideal

I have posted on this topic before, but its importance justifies another visit. Indeed Epictetus insists that we return to his ideal of the wandering, homeless Cynic at several points in the Discourses. The most extensive treatment is his long essay “On the Cynic Calling” at III. 22, but there is also an important short passage at IV. 8. 30-33 that we will take note of shortly.

I want to take a moment to make sure everyone understands what Epictetus is recommending. It is really an incredible view of the virtuous life. Epictetus, first of all, is NOT recommending the life of the wilderness pioneer. The man who with a knife and an axe heads off into the Alaskan wilderness to prove his self-sufficiency or die trying. That kind of admirable self-sufficient character bears no relationship to Epictetus’ urban parasite. Epictetus’ Cynic must live in the city among other people so the “virtues” of his life are manifest to all. He lives on the street without a home or any possessions except for the clothes on his back. He has no family (or, I think, friends). He begs for his food. He has no occupation besides abusing people who walk by him on their way to work or school for their love of externals and neglect of virtue.

Wait! I know what you thinking. You’re thinking our streets overrun with Stoics & Cynics, except we have different names for them. The police are periodically called upon to round up bands of wandering Cynics when their violent abuse of each other and of citizens gets out of hand. And the “virtues” of their lifestyle are a frequent topic of the evening news.

But it’s time to let Epictetus speak for his ideal. The Cynic is sent to us by Zeus, he says [ IV.8 .30],

in order that you see, oh mankind, that you are seeking happiness & tranquility not where it is, but where it is not. Behold, I am an example sent you by God, having neither property nor house, neither wife nor children, nor even a bed or a tunic or a piece of furniture. But see how healthy I am! Test me and see whether you find me free from disturbance…

Forgive me, but is Epictetus joking? Is this Cynic thing a joke that I don’t understand? The alternative is that Epictetus actually believes you can have a safe and healthy and tranquil and happy life as a homeless person on the street. I don’t have statistics at hand about the mental & physical health of the homeless or their crime rates or their life expectancy, but short of trying to live in the middle of a war zone, I can’t imagine a life that is worse. And Epictetus is suggesting that we voluntarily inflict such a life upon our for the sake of "virtue".

We need to remember that living homeless on the street was a vocation that Epictetus himself declined. His recommendation of this lifestyle is innocent of any first hand experience of it. Nor did any of his teachers or the Stoics he most admired ever try to live this way. Not Agrippinus, not Rufus, not Thrasea. Nor any of the major Stoic figures from Zeno to Chrysippus to Posidonius. Epictetus’ acquaintance with homeless wandering is apparently a bookish one built around the life & legends of a very strange character named Diogenes.

But we need to let Epictetus finish his paean to homeleeness:

But consider whose work this is—that of Zeus and the person he deems worth of this vocation, such that he may never lay bare before the world anything by which he might invalidate the testimony that he gives in favor of virtue and against externals.

There is no way around it. Epictetus apparently believes that someone trying to live like a homeless urban beggar is offering some kind of important Stoic testimonial. I have to agree. Nothing to me is a surer proof of the bankruptcy of the Stoic abuse of externals than the spectacle of the Stoic-Cynic wandering the streets as an urban parasite. To any of you who think Epictetus’ Cynic is playing a virtuous role, I can only recommend that you go try it and come back (if you survive) and tell us about all the useful & virtuous things you accomplished on the street. I would love to hear your testimonial.

2005-12-21T06:59:00.000-08:00

We must abide by our decisions.

No one doubts this. No one doubts that when we’ve decided upon the course of action that seems best for us, we must stick to our decision. But if we are to stick to our decisions, our decisions must themselves be of the kind & quality that we can confidently and stick to. We can stick to our decisions only if they are "stickables." This obvious point seems lost on some people.

Epictetus tells the story of a friend who had for no apparent reason decided to starve himself to death. Epictetus went to the man and asked what had happened to provoke this decision.
The man replied, “It doesn’t matter. I have decided [ kekrika ].”
Epictetus said,” Well, yes, but let’s examine your decision. If it was correct, I will try to help you accomplish your purpose; but if it was unreasonable, you must change your mind.”
“Oh no,” said the man, “ I can’t change my mind. Keprika. And that settles it.”
“But not all of our choices are good choices,” said Epictetus. “Surely you accept that, and we cannot abide by every choice we’ve made regardless of how bad it is.”
“Kekrika,” said the man again, “and one must abide by one’s decisions.”

I am paraphrasing somewhat freely an exchange that occurs at Discourses II.15.4-12. Epictetus tells us that somehow he eventually was able to persuade this fellow, whom I call the Kekrika man, to reconsider his suicidal fast. He seems to have jarred the man back to reality by asking him this question. “And suppose for no reason you had decided to kill me. Would it now be necessary to do that? Because you had decided to and ‘one must abide by one’s decisions’.”

I think Epictetus has made his point about the difference between being resolute & steadfast in one’s decisions and clinging obstinately to a choice that never made any sense in the first place. Everyone who reconsiders a choice he has made is not automatically akratic or weak-willed, as the Kekrika man seems to believe.
But this exchange also points to another, deeper difference between Epictetus and Kekrika man. Epictetus comes to him and says “show me your decision and we will review it and make sure it’s a good one.” Kekpika plainly has nothing to show him. He just keeps saying "kekrika". At some point he had apparently said to himself “ It’s time to die and I will starve myself to death.” That was his decision. Uttering or thinking those words. And now he thinks that because he said those words, he has made a decision that he must abide by.
I was quite surprised when Epictetus did not make this sort of a reply to him:

“That’s not a decision, my friend! Why is it time to die? What are your reasons for choosing death? Are those reasons more weighty than those that speak for life? If you have problems, are there no other or better remedies than death? Why is death the best answer here? And what about all your responsibilities? Have you considered and weighed all these things and still arrived at the verdict that death is best? That is a decision. That is how a man must decide such matters as these. So show me that you have made a decision , and we will review it together and perhaps honor it. But otherwise, abandon this foolish, impulsive course of action you have embarked without a deciding anything, and in any case, stop babbling kekrika, kekpika, kekrika.”

2005-12-19T12:42:00.000-08:00

Where are all the boulophils?

Boulophils love to make decisions. They aspire to excellence in decision making, a virtue Aristotle called euboulia. Boulophobs are people who don’t mix well with boulophils. They fear and hate making decisions.

As it happens, I have taught decision making for more years than I care to remember. About 15-20% of my students were borderline or full-blown boulophobs. Oddly, I cannot attest to the existence of one true boulophil. Rara avis! Some people I taught were certainly good at making decisions, but none of them would ever confess or agree that they were boulophils.

Stoics should be boulophils. Judgments and choices are the primary things that are up to us and our business. Choices and judgments alone are good or evil. We cannot be hindered or frustrated in our choices or judgments if we make the right choices & judgments. We are fully responsible for our choices & judgments. Judging and choosing well should be the cardinal Stoic virtues, even more so than for Aristotle.

So where does Epictetus discuss the art of decision making? That is not a rhetorical question. Epictetus was, I think, a closet logician, though he repeatedly professes a lack of interest in the logical problems he seems to know so well. He taught syllogistic and Chrysippean propositional logic to his students, and at several points in the Discourses ( e.g., I.17 ) he gives a qualified endorsement of the value of these logical studies. But where is his treatment of the logic of decision making? Where do we glimpse his distinctively Stoic logic of decision making?

“A distinctively Stoic logic or art of decision making, you say? What's that? Why would there even be such a thing?”

Because decision making will be different if the most important thing is the decision process itself and not anything aimed at or actually obtained. Good decisions will not be those that achieve some sort of maximal return of externals, preferred or otherwise. Good lies in flawless execution of the process of identifying the objective(s), compassing and comparing the alternatives, selecting the best one by the appropriate decision rule, etc

“So a good decision for a Stoic does not aim at or achieve anything good? Is that what you’re saying? That sounds odd.”

Think about the implications of saying that our choices and judgment are the only things are good. What do my choices aim at? If at externals, then not at things that are good or evil. Obviously a choice amongst externals must prefer some external to others, but the primary thing must be to choose well, not to obtain whatever is chosen. In Aristotle’s language, deciding is more of a doing than a making, and doing for its own sake, like a performance. ‘I have just performed a wonderful choice of a new job.’ Well, congratulations. By the way, what job did you select?

“I see. The Stoics & other boulophils value decisions primarily as a kind of performing art, and they see themselves as artists in this discipline. That’s different.”

2005-12-18T13:50:00.000-08:00

Stoic baiting?

First of all, a word of reassurance. Rumors to the contrary, I was not as a baby kidnapped by a band of wandering Stoics and forced to listen to their ceaseless chanting of the Encheiridion. No such torture was ever inflicted upon this humble blogger, and so this site is not a place where I contrive to practice a lex talionis upon my erstwhile tormenters.

A gentleman who has already contributed many valuable comments to this site seems to have some worries along those lines. So perhaps I should pause and offer an overdue Statement of Intentions. I will at least try.

Let me give Epictetus some rest today and take my departure from a text of Marcus Aurelius:

Put an end once and for all to this discussion of what a good man should be, and be one! [ Med. X.16 , Haines trans ]

A noble & inspiring sentiment, you say. But what exactly is it recommending to us, may I ask?
I once knew a philosopher who had a plaque hanging in his office with that motto engraved on it. One day I found the temerity to ask him what he believed it meant. He said that Marcus was cautioning against the inaction to which theoreticians are all too prone. It was not enough just to talk earnestly about goodness and the completely good man ( kalokagathos ). We also needed to take action in accordance with that ideal.

"OK, " I said," but about what the 'put an end to discussing' part? Isn’t that about putting an end to the business you are in? "

Instead of the testy reply I was bracing for, he smiled and said, “You know, I am now older than Marcus was when he wrote that passage, and even at my age I do not know how we stop inquiring about the good, as though it were a settled issue. It’s as if we knew someone planning a long, arduous trip, and we said to him, ‘stop this all debate about where you are going to go and get going!’ We cannot sit forever debating our routes and destinations and never go anywhere, but neither can we take to the road pretending that our maps & charts of the terra incognita we propose to explore are reliable. It will be a voyage of uncertain route & unknown perils, and we need to be continually discussing & replannung it.”

“So Marcus was wrong about that?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“But you honor his error with this plague on your wall?”

“Precisely.”

2005-12-14T09:32:00.000-08:00

Nothing is in our control ( eph’ hemin )

One useful way to explore and test an ethical philosophy like Epictetus’ Stoicism is to detach certain parts of it—parts that strike us as the least defensible --and see whether the remaining edifice is still , literally, viable.

Epictetus believes that there is strong and absolute difference between the things that are in our control ( eph’ hemin) and the things are are not. Externals, including our body, are not in our control; internals are. But be careful with this term “internals.” For Epictetus much of our inner life is also not in our control. Perception isn’t, memory isn’t, imagination isn’t. The only part of our inner life that is in our power is the activities of ruling faculty, reason. Reason forms judgments and makes decisions. These alone are in our power.

Epictetus uses the concept of eph’ hemin in a very strong sense. Something is eph’ hemin for me only if I can never be hindered or frustrated in the whatever use I wish to make of it. No external is in my control in this strong sense. Perception and memory aren’t reliably under my control. But Epictetus thinks the functions of reason are. Nothing can ever frustrate me when I wish to judge or choose in an appropriate way. Reason is somehow held immune to the disturbances & pathologies of the brain that we know wreak havoc with our own judgments & choices. ( Epictetus nowhere addresses this major problem in our surviving texts. )

Suppose then we reject Epictetus view that reason is eph’ hemin, and conclude that indeed nothing is eph’ hemin ( in his strong sense ). We continue to accept the rest of system, and in particular, his view that good & evil lie solely in the activities of reason. What then follows?

“Well, if choice & judgment aren't in our power, then neither are good and evil, and happiness too, since it depends upon our securing the one and avoiding the other.”

Correct. And what else?

“The primary task ( ergon) of a human being will then become to try to secure and maintain as much inner control as is possible, and hope that it suffices at least for the major choices in his life. Because if a man chooses badly out of a failure of reasoning part to work well, then he will be troubled and the goal of a serene life will escape him.”

Absolutely. And will he succeeed?

“No. That’s the terrible part. Despite our best efforts and through no fault of our own, many of us will still fail because fate decrees that things will go wrong and effect our reasoning part. We will choose badly and earn an unhappy life.”

Yes, that does indeed follow. And so, what do you think, is that kind of life livable? But before you answer, consider one other thing. How would such a life be different from the life we believe we are already living?We've undermined the Stoic promise that virtue and happiness were eph' hemin, but did our experience of the world ever persuade us that they were more than a longshot?

2005-12-14T07:26:00.000-08:00

Conditional Desires and Impulses

It appears to be the case that for Epictetus our ruling part (reason) can do more than simply reject or approve (assent) to our desires & impulses. On occasion, it can apparently also assent, but only with reservations, i.e., conditionally. What is the practical effect on a desire or impulse of being approved by and guided by a conditional assent? Is it supposed to be less intense and perhaps easier to withdraw in the event that it fails to achieve its purpose? Suppose I have elected (“selected”) to pursue some appropriate external in accordance with an impulse to do so, but find that it escapes me. If my assent was only conditional ( “pursue it provided that…” ), am I supposed to be undisturbed at my failure? Is this what the Stoics are trying to set up here: a way to fail with valued externals yet remain untroubled?

The texts are not very forthcoming. Unfortunately, the only explicit reference I can recall to approving our impulses with reservations ( meth’ hypexaireseos ) comes at the end of Arrian’s Encheiridion 2:

For the present then totally suppress desire….Use only impulse and aversion, and even these lightly, with reservation and without straining.

A problem that we immediately face with this text is the distinction between desire and impulse. Desire is a kind of impulse that apparently can be completely rejected, leaving only impulses toward what? Simpler, safer, more basic things such as food and shelter? I can only conjecture.

If we lack explicit references to “reserved impulses” in Epictetus/Arrian, perhaps we have at least several examples of how they are supposed to work. I’m thinking , for example, of Encheiridion 16. The topic there is how we should react to someone who has suffered the death of a parent or a child and is grieving. Reflexively (“impulsively”) we want to express sympathy. And that’s OK, says Epictetus, so long as we remember that the loss was not really an evil. “As far as words" , express sympathy, but do not let these words or the other’s behaviour persuade you that something evil has befallen him. So, we elect to response with sympathy--albeit a kind of feigned, half-hearted sympathy- on the basis of assenting to what judgment? "I may sympathize with this misguided person who believes something bad has happened beacuse...'' You see at once the problems we encounter here.

[ to be continued]

2005-12-12T10:22:00.000-08:00

Freedom from error

Some days we have need of Stoic optimism. Even a small dose will do.
Stobaeus preserves for us thirty-three longish excerpts from a Stoic/Cynic philosopher known as Musonius Rufus. ( This may be the teacher of Epictetus, but more likely a Greek philosopher of the same name who flourished in Athens in the second quarter of the second century CE. )
The incipit of the second excerpt in Hense’s collection reads

We are all, he used to say, endowed by nature to such a extent that we are able to live without error and nobly. Not some of us and not others, but all of us.

The adverb in Greek that I have translated as “withour error” is anamartetos, from the verb amartano, which has as at least as broad a meaning in Greek as our “to err” or “to make a mistake” or “go wrong.” Every kind of error and going wrong falls within its compass.

I have question about living anamartetos. Never mind the Olympian challenge of living nobly ( kalos). I would be content just to pull off a life undisgraced by major “errors.” But is even that in our power ( eph' hemin)? And if it is not in our power, are we doomed then to commit blunder after blunder, error after error?

Nothing disturbs my peace of mind ( you may have guessed ) more than errors in judgment. My judgment about errors in judgment is that they betray a feeble intellect and a flawed character. We almost always err because we fail to take care and check and recheck what we are doing.

Has the data in landing programme been entered in kilometer or miles?
"I assume it must be kilometers. What idiot would mix in non-metric units?"
And we miss the entire damn planet ( Mars) by 3000 miles with our billion dollar piece of spacejunk.

Did you bid on that painting in euros or in sterling?
"I thought I was bidding in euros."
Your bid was entered in sterling and you just overpaid $5000 for the piece, fool.

These are not the errors of Medea, but they drive me crazy. In principle, the Stoics would say, I can and should be errorless in these matters. But “in principle” is no help. Can I actually, by availing myself of some discipline, free myself from the galling regret of making these kind of blunders?

“My life is too busy. I have too things to do, too many decisions to make, too much info to swallow and digest. Too many things too check.”

Is that suposed to be a plea in mitigation? These things may be part of the problem, but other people are busier and do a better job. Your brain has not yet turned completely to mush, has it?Then you should consider the possibility that your errors are not entirely accidents. You are placing recklesss bets on the truth and losing. Why are you gambling when you could put the matter beyond doubt?

"I don't know."

Epictetus seems to echo Musonius' optimistic view that our judgments and our choices are without exception up to us. We need not go wrong and fall into disturbance and unhappiness because of our mistakes. That's the dogma, but then there is the reality. Each of us must speak for himself here, but the more I reflect on errors that I keep driving me crazy, the less sanguine I am about their ameloriabilty, at least by any discipline or therapy I know of. I still like to hear Musonius say that we are all capable of living anamartetos, but it is harder & harder to believe.

2005-12-11T09:57:00.000-08:00

Choice and Selection

One of the things I am puzzling over is the degree to which Epictetus preserves the Old Stoa’s distinction between choice and selection. The distinction is not a conspicuous theme of the Discourses, and without it we have some difficulties understanding Epictetus’ attitude toward “choosing” and pursuing important externals like health & family. Choice, according to the Old Stoa, always aims at something which is truly good, while selection tries to find an appropriately preferred external. We would never “choose” to pursue a healthful diet and fitness regimen, for example, but we should probably select them over the alternatives.

Cicero at De Finibus 3.22 gives us an example to illustrate the distinction. Imagine an archer competing in a contest with a great reward for the winner. If our archer is a Stoic, his agenda is a little complicated. He aims of course to hit the bullseye and win the prize, but that favorable external result is something he strictly only selects with a conditional desire or impulse. Successfully hitting the bullseye is not something “in his power.” In Epictetus’ sense, it is not a result he can guarantee however skillfully he shoots. The proverbial gust of wind or wayward bird or latent defect in the arrow can ruin his shot. So his wish to hit the target & win can and sometimes will be frustrated. But since it a was only a conditional desire to hit & win, provided that God or fate has arranged the uncontrollable variables in his favor, he will not be disturbed if his shot goes astray due to one of them. The prize, at all, was only a preferred external.

As I said, his agenda is a little complicated because, besides wishing to hit the bullseye, he also has another and much more important objective. That objective specifies the good which he genuinely chooses. What it is? Well, to make the perfect shot by considering all the variables he can control and judging what he must do and planning & executing his shot without error. This goal is something completely in his power and so can never be frustrated or hindered by winds or birds or such. He need never be disappointed & unfortunate in this unconditional desire for the good of planning his shot perfectly.

That is Cicero’s account of the distinction. As I said, to my knowledge there is nothing comparable in the Discourses. Nor do I recall any talk about conditional or “reserved” desires for preferred externals. It is easy to draw the conclusion that for Epictetus any desire for & pursuit of externals is a mistake and bound to lead to disturbance. But then how are we going to undertake the natural roles he so often commends? A family is not something that arrives COD at my door one day, and I accept or reject it.

Let me stop and hear what others have to say on this problem. I would like to close this piece with one remark on the Stoic decision maker. There is an obvious problem with saying that the only good in choosing is a making good choice. We do not make choices for the sake of making choices. If there was nothing we wished to obtain or avoid, we would not be at pains to plan and deliberate and choose carefully. The decision is for the sake of obtaining that end ( viewed as a good ) and depends upon it. The decision is always a practical thing in Aristotle’s sense and never an artful thing treasured for its own sake. A good choice is certainly a good ( and euboulia a virtue ), but it is a good aimed at realizing the good for which I am making the choice. ( Imagine someone who gets up this Sunday morning and says, " Gee, I feel like making a good hard decision today. I think I'll deliberate and decide whether to propose marriage to my girl friend or join the Foreign Legion. I don't particularly want to do either but what a decision!" )

2005-12-10T20:56:00.000-08:00

Grab it by the other handle, stupid!

Some of you have hinted that I have been pressing Epictetus a little hard of late, so let us pause this Sunday morning and honor one of his minor masterpieces, Encheiridion 43 :

Everything has two handles. By one it is capable of being carried, by the other it cannot. If your brother wrongs you, do not take hold of the matter by the handle that says he is wronging you. By that handle it cannot be handled. Take hold of it by the handle that says he is your brother and you were raised together. If you do that, you will be taking hold of it by the handle by which it can be carried.

There is no need to explain this metaphor. I don't have a brother, but I have a spouse and a daughter and friends, and sometimes they do things that strike me as thoughtless and disrespectful. That is the first judgment that forms in my mind ( proving that I am a long way from sagedom). But then a second judgment arises-- if I am lucky-- and this one says that this is a person I love or care for, and although he or she has done something unfotunate and caused me some problems, there are no grounds for ascribing to her an intent and desire to do hurtful & disrespectful things. My own actions no doubt sometimes appear as thoughtless and rude to her.

Whichever judgment I listen to will clearly give rise to very different actions. The choice is up to me. Why should I not grasp what has happened by the first judgment? Perhaps in fact the behaviour was intended to offend and hurt me! No, I should not go down that road because that leads to anger and the retaliatory actions anger refuses to forbear. My anger will in turn fuel a angry counter-reaction, and the familiar red blossoms of conflict will burst forth aplenty. Is this the result that I desire? Think about it. Much better for one who prizes inner peace and a smoothly flowing life to avoid this whole angry cycle of accusation and attack.

"But maybe it was intended to hurt me!" And so? What then do you wish accomplish ? Is this to be a lesson in power & retribution? "Those to whom evil is done do evil in return." Is this your gospel, and one your wish to preach to your own family and friends? Are you so unsure of everything and everyone that no possible insult may be allowed to pass unrequited? Who are you?

Grab it by the other handle and say to yourself, "this is my daughter, and though I wish she had not done this foolish thing, I will live with it. No one of us is wise and clear-thnking all the time."

Whenever I have been able to follow Epictetus’ advice, I have never regretted it; whenever I have ignored it, I have always found the costs too high. You, of course, must make your own judgment.

2005-12-10T09:07:00.000-08:00

I do not play Iago.

The noble-spirited man, we are told [ Fragment XI ], plays well whatever role the Deity assigns him. Oedipus the proud king or Oedipus the blind beggar & outcast. Odysseus in purple or Odysseus in rags.

That’s fine, I suppose, but what if the roles assigned to me are of a somewhat different character. Suppose I am assigned to play an Iago in this life. Or maybe I’m given a choice: you may play either an Iago or a MacBeth or a Richard III.
No, I refuse to play any of these roles.

“God would never assign any such roles to a good man.”
Really? Well, he seems comfortable assigning them to millions of others. He assigns the roles of thief and pervert and murderer and war criminal to millions of otherwise ordinary people who never wished for them. Why I am immune to such an assignment?

“What impiety! I bet you'll turn out to be the next Ted Bundy or William Calley.”
Sorry, I don’t do mass-murderers or war criminals either.
“ But if you are assigned one of those roles, you must and will play it, and probably play it very well."
No, I don’t think so.

The problem here, I hope you can see, is that the concept of “ the role in life assigned me by God” is useless, or even meaningless, as some philosophers would say. God does not show up at rehearsal and say to the actors, “These are the parts you play, willingly or unwillingly. Whatever you want or think or choose doesn’t matter. You WILL do as I say.” God does not "assign" us roles. Other people try to.

Our parents, our teachers, our friends, the state, society at large all try to pressure us into assuming certain roles. “You will go college and med school and become a successful doctor like your father. If you do, we will support you and give you a car & nice apartment and pay your tuition. If instead you wish to persist with this artist thing, then I think it’s time you moved out and found yourself an apartment and got a job to pay your own bills. Try that and see how you like living in poverty and squalor. The world needs doctors, not artists.”

And so it does. But I will not be “assigned” that role. I have chosen for myself the role of an artist. And if my parents and society and God don’t like, that’s tough.

“You will fail and suffer for your hubris.” Maybe. Probably. But I will fight relentlessly and without compromise for the life I WANT.
“Your life will not flow smoothly and tranquilly. The roles we occupy are not something in ourn power.”
I don’t expect it to, and we shall see whether I have the power to create the life I want. What I wish to do, you see, is to create something beautiful & true, not repose with the Lotus-eaters in a Prozac-fueled serenity. Conflict with the cultureless money-worshipping culture that surrounds me is an inevitable fact of life, but I have chosen that conflict and I am proud of it.

Do you see the attitude I'm trying to illustrate? A life is a terrible thing to waste. We run straight at that danger when we start thinking in terms of “accepting the roles assigned to us” by anyone. This is not a play, it’s real life. We will accomplish with our life what we go after relentlessly with all our resources and skills and heart. Do not accept anything.

2005-12-09T10:58:00.000-08:00

Only an actor

No, this is not another screed against the governor of Kalifornia. My topic is less topical. I want to talk a little about Encheiridion 17 :

Remember that you are only an actor in a play whose story will be what the playwright wishes. If he wishes the play to be long, it will be long. If he wishes it to be short, it will be short. If he wishes you to play the part of a beggar, remember to play even that role skilfully. Likewise if your role is that of disabled person or of someone in government or of a private person. For this is your job, to play well the part you have been assigned, but the choice of the role belongs to another.

Once again, Arrian’s “excerpt’ from the Discouses has managed to avoid or delete any explicit reference to the deity, though it’s clear who the playwright is. Oldfather’s translation cleverly smuggles him back in by capitalizing “playwright” and “he” throughout.

Encheiridion 17 is the place where many people first encounter the troublesome consequences of Stoic determinism. If at least the external circumstances of my life are already fully determined, what kind of life choices are left to me? I can, I suppose, “assent” and accept that life, or I can reject it and futilely struggle against will happen to me anyway.

I think I will leave an exposition of Stoic determinism to wiser hands ( see Long and Bobzein ), and just comment briefly on some of the baleful consequences of seeing your life as a script that is in the hands of someone else. Of course the salient moral consequence is that your choices, not actions, must be the locus of praise or blame. You are responsible for those actions to which you “assent”, but you will perform those actions regardless if it is fated that you will so act. So best to focus on choices, which, I take it, is what Epictetus does. ( And what are choices? Aren't they simply impulses to which I assent? And where does impulses come from? But let’s not wander into a discussion of Stoic psychlogy either. See Inwood if you interested )

If my life is a script in the hands of another, there is a problem about why I should try to plan and direct my own life. It will not do for a mere actor to try to usurp the roles of author and director even if the play is “My Life”. My role is just to act the part as already written, or leave the stage if I can no longer stomach the part.

Does it strike you that such a passive hands-off attitude toward the course of our life is likely to be more than a little debilitating? Persistence, even to the point of relentlessness, is not a dispensible quality for success. The foundation of persistence is a belief that my efforts will eventually prevail over the obstacles I am encountering and realize a future that would otherwise be denied me. The belief is that I will be able to make the world accept MY script for my life. But if my belief were instead “ I can only choose well, what will happen will happen,” there is an obvious psychological barrier to battling for a foregone conclusion. My plans & my persistance don't really matter to what will happen.

I know that the friends of Epictetus will have things to say in his defense here. I 've said or too much. What do you think?

2005-12-09T08:36:00.000-08:00

Epictetus on Marcus Aurelius

I have a question for those of you who are familiar with the stoicism of the Marcus Aurelius. We have been discussing lately Epictetus’ view that you cannot be devoted to both externals and your inner life. As he says at Discourses IV. 10. 18, you cannot wish for a consulship or land or wealth, and also attend properly to what lies in the sphere of choice.

I think it’s fair to say that Epictetus did not imagine someone who professed to be a Stoic reigning as Emperor of Rome. But within 30 years or so of this death that did happen. You cannot but wonder what Epictetus would have thought of Marcus. Would he have said, “That man is no Stoic!” Or would he have changed his views about the compatibility of temporal & spiritual devotions?

I want to register my dissatisfaction in advance with one interpretation of Marcus’ career that I think does not fit the historical record. Epictetus and Marcus both speak piously of fulfilling the role fate or God has assigned us. Some of us are destined to be emperors and some of us to be slaves. That is not in our hands, only how well or poorly we play the role we have been assigned. ( Vide Encheiridion 17 )

No doubt both men believed this to a degree, but the career of Marcus is not the portrait of someone drifting along on the winds of fate “wherever God wishes is fine with me”. Marcus was no accidental emperor, no Claudius from behind the curtain. He clearly wished to be emperor, he struggled to secure his ambition, and then he fought almost continuously for 20 years to suppress rebellions and attacks upon his empire. His visit to the Quadi & Marcomanni, noted in the Meditations, was not a goodwill outing!

The Meditations strike me as the record of a man trying to combine just what Epictetus thought you could not combine: a devotion to a fragile, unstable external good ( the Empire, his Empire ) with a tranquil inner life. Does it seem to you that Marcus was reasonably successful in this, or are his life & reign evidence in the end that Epictetus was right?

2005-12-08T10:43:00.000-08:00

Still trying to have it both ways

At one point in Discourses IV. 10, Epictetus considers an objection I have been raising lately to his claim that one cannot pursue both externals and things in the sphere of choice. Epictetus imagines an interlocutor voicing the objection very laconically. “Ergon ergo”, he says in the Greek, alluding to a proverb meaning one thing has nothing to do with other. His interlocutor is saying that he sees no necessary conflict between attending to one matter and also the other. He’s what Epictetus replies:

You cannot devote your attention both to externals and your ruling part. If you crave the former, let go of the latter, or you will succeed at neither, being pulled in two directions. On the other hand, if you want the latter, you must give up on externals things. The oil will get spilled, the furniture will be damaged, but I shall be free from passions [ apathes]. [ IV. 10. 25 ]

He goes on to describe other domestic disasters. There will be fire while I’m away and all my books & papers will be lost. In the face of all these disasters, the Stoic alone will be “apathes”. That term , I think, is the key to understanding Epictetus’ response here. Epictetus does not think it possible that if we can value externals and then when they get damaged or lost or stolen—as they must inevitably-- that we can remain tranquil, calm, undisturbed, “apathes” in the face of these losses.

“Pathe” is the technical term Stoics use to refer broadly to any negative emotion. If I am afflicted with pathe, I cannot enjoy the tranquil and smoothly flowing inner life that is my goal. So much we must grant, but the question remain why the lost of valued externals MUST inflict sorrow and anger and such on me? Granted I have lost something good and something I valued, and that I did not want this to happen, but still, must I be devastated & grief-striken & inconsolable at its loss?

“Of course you must and will. You cannot help be grieved at the loss of what you think is good.”
But I knew my books & papers were flammable. I did what I could to protect them, but then there was a lightning strike and a big fire and they were lost. There was nothing I could do. They are gone. I would rather they weren’t, but my memory is good and I had insurance and some vital pieces of work were back up on disks I keep at the bank. I will cope.
( Is this beginning to sound like a true story?)

Let me stop here and just state what I’m trying to show. I do not see why we must accept Epictetus’ claim that we must necessarily be afflicted with pathe in the face of losses of what we consider good. Valued externals will be lost. We can & must learn to cope. Pursuing and trying to protect some externals is not incompatible with an inner devotion to tranquility.

2005-12-08T06:40:00.000-08:00

What is in our power

This is an important point raised by a commentator [ see below ] , and I think it deserves more than a brief comment.

The Greek phrase “eph’ hemin” is conventionally translated as “ up to us” or “in our power” or “in our control”. And so I translate, for a want of better idiom, but caveat lector! The term, originally from Aristotle, has a technical meaning for Epictetus. Something is not “eph’ hemin” if our use of it can ever be hindered or frustrated in any way. Can the use we wish to make of our body or our property or any external sometimes be frustrated or hindered? Yes. Then no external is “eph’ hemin”. Epictetus says that more times than I can count, and we translate those passages as “ no externals are in our control or in our power.”

But there is a problem with this translation, isn't there ? It sounds counterintuitive to say “ our bodies are not in our control.” But this is what Epictetus is saying with the idiom “eph’ hemin”, not meaning, I think ,to deny the fact that we seem to be mostly in charge of what we do, but meaning only to deny that we have a level of control or power that cannot be overridden.

Don’t think of Epictetus as someone keen on scientifically exploring the limits and degrees of the voluntary control we do exert over ourselves and things. That is not his game in the Discourses. He thinks it self-evident that externals are not “eph’ hemin”.

One question I have been asking Epictetus is why he thinks that internals are “eph’ hemin” in his strong sense? We have the familiar phenomema of drugs and alcohol and brain injuries dramatically interfering with and altering our ability to reason and choose and behave well. Character and virtue and intellect are vulnerable. I can think of nothing, within or without, that is “eph’ hemin” in Epictetus strong sense. Remember, once again, that this is not to deny that we have some, perhaps a significant amount of internal control.

2005-12-08T05:33:00.000-08:00

Our Principal Duties

Epictetus usually prefers to speak in terms of the roles ( prosopa, personae) we should adopt—spouse, parent, citizen, etc—but occasionally he reverts to a more traditional Stoic idiom and speaks of our duties ( kathekonta). Thus at Discourses III. 7. 25 he says

With man it is not his material being that we should honor, his bits of flesh, but principal duties. What are these? To engage in public affairs, to marry, to have children, to worship God, to take care of our parents,…

The question I keep asking in these pages is how we going to do these things without resources and, in particular, money? How will we take care of our parents and family, how will we support our church and community, if we lack the material means to do so? With words? And if we need externals like money to fulfill our duties, isn’t it also our duty to assiduously pursue these things?

It is one thing if you aspire to the life of a hermit or a street person. Then you can consistently denounce the pursuit of externals as a waste of time. And you will have plenty of time to do so! It is another if you are trying to live a responsible and worthwhile life. The pursuit of externals is at the heart of such a life. How can the philosophers urge us to neglect externals and yet hold that it is our duty to pursue a life that requires externals? Someone please explain this to me.

2005-12-08T03:34:00.000-08:00

A Nameless Vice

Aristotle tends to identify virtue with moderate activity, activity that finds & establishes a mean between vices of excess and of deficiency. Thus generosity is a tendency to give moderately and appropriately, avoiding both the imprudent extreme of prodigality and also the vice of meanness or miserliness. Courage is a virtue that avoids both cowardice but also the reckless extreme of utter fearlessness.

Greed—pleonexia in Greek, avaritia in Latin—is the vice associated with an excessive devotion to acquiring wealth and money making. The Aristotelian virtue associated with wealth & money is plainly a moderate and appropriate concern with one’s financial health. What then is the vice of deficiency associated with wealth & money-making? It is nameless vice , as far as I know, but Aristotle says vices are often nameless if it is rare that people fall into them. It isn’t miserliness, which refuses to part with money, or injustice, which makes and uses money in bad ways. It is the vice of being deficient or derelict in pursuing one’s financial interests.

“There is no such vice!” Can you hear the Stoic saying that? “There is no vice of being insufficient attentive to externals. On the contrary, that is the road to virtue.”

But can the Stoic afford to say that, I wish to ask. Suppose I utterly neglect gainful employment and fall into poverty. Never mind the quality of life I inflict upon myself. Consider the kind of life I am now capable of if as an indigent in society. Can I function in and fulfill any of the responsibilities of a spouse or a parent or a neighbor or a teacher or a citizen? No. I survive ( if I do ) only as some kind or parasite or homeless street person. Can I fulfill any of the “natural” roles Epictetus so often recommends? How can I function as a parent or teacher or citizen living the life of a street person? Lack of externals like money and a job and a home consigns me to a worthless life. Is it not shameful to fail to struggle to avoid such a life?

“All our difficulties and problems arise in connection with externals,” says Epictetus at the beginning of Discourses IV. 10. I agree. If we either overpursue them, neglecting our inner life, or underpursue them, inflicting a worthless parasitic life upon ourselves.

2005-12-06T21:52:00.000-08:00

One road leads to serenity—keep this thought before you morning, noon, and night—and that is to stand aloof from things that lie outside the sphere of choice, to regard none of these things as your own, to surrender all of them to the divine and to fortune, to allow those persons to watch over these things whom God himself has allowed to do so. And then you must devote yourself to just one thing: that which is your own and which is free from all hindrance... [ Discourses IV. 4. 39-40 ]

Inspiring words, are they not? But reflect on their message. Do you believe that the only goods are right desire and right choice and right judgment? Would that they were perhaps, and that their opposites were the only evils, but as it is, do you think that what you want and believe and choose will guarantee you even a livable life, much less a good and happy one?

Some externals seem to be essential. Their presence in our life indisputable goods and their absence grave evils. It seems that I must assiduously pursue some of these things as the necessities of life. And that I must tiredlessly avoid others, things like illness and disability and real poverty. If I have no resources, if I am too ill or unfit to do anything worth doing, if I must live in hunger in bad places among bad people, I have no choices, or if you insist, only greater & lesser evils to choose between. Should I choose to die now or suffer another day? Is this a choice on the road to serenity?

I wish that a philosopher who tell us to stand aloof from externals had actually first done what he preaches. I wish he had lived the life he recommends. If he survives this experiment in living, let him come back and report to us on the quality of the life he has experienced. Let him tell me then that the hunger and poverty and illness that he suffered were not evils, and I shall listen to him more earnestly.

As Bertrand Russell once confessed, "Blinded by theory, I did not realize how foolishly I spoke and acted".

2005-12-06T11:02:00.000-08:00

Unacceptable Consequences

We were looking at Epictetus’ argument in Discouses I. 22. 12-17 that valuing externals has unacceptable consequences. If things like health and wealth and reputation and power were goods, Epictetus says, it would be impossible to live a happy and tranquil life.

Let’s pick up the argument at 22.13:
“And could a man [ who values externals ] continue to live as he should amongst his fellow men? How could he? For by nature I look to my own interests. If it is in my interests to have some land, it is in my interest to take it away from my neighbor. If it is in interests to have a cloak, it is in interests to steal in from the baths. This is the source of wars, rebellions, tyranny and conspiracy.”

There is a parallel passage at Discourses II. 22. 14 that we might also take note of. Epictetus is speaking of the terrible fratricidal war between Polyneices and Eteocles for the throne of Thebes. “When the kingdom, like a piece of meat, was thrown between them”, he says, did you see how those brothers spoke and acted? “ For it is a universal rule –be not deceived about this—that every living thing is devoted to nothing so strongly as its own interests. So that whatever seems to be a hindrance to those interests--whether a brother or a father or a child or a loved one or a lover—is at once hated and abhorred and cursed.…”

There is great deal to sort out in these passages, and we can only do a little of that work here, but let’s see whether we can understand why Epictetus thinks civility and morality and piety and just all about all the other virtues are doomed if we value externals. Consider the claims he makes in the first passage: if it is my interest to own land, it is my interest to seize from someone else, and if it is in interest to own something like a cloak, it is in my interest to steal.
These seem like a pair of complete non sequiturs, don’t they?

Owning a piece of land legitimately grants me the right to reside on it and to use it to farm or pasture or whatever. But seizing a piece of land does not convey any rights of use. Do I expect to get away with seizing it from the previous owner? Do I expect that other people will leave me in peace to enjoy my ill-gotten gains? The land is valuable to me only if I can use or work it, but if other people, and especially the civil authorities, do not accept my right to use that land, I will find myself in a very precarious position. And the same thing in the case of someone else’s personal property. A coat might be valuable item to have these cold days, but if I steal it someone, I am a thief and liable to lose both coat and my freedom.

I don’t see Epictetus recognizing and responding to any of these obvious objections. The value and usefulness of anything is not independent of how we acquire it; and if we steal it, no rights of legitimate use are conveyed. We have made criminals of ourselves, and invited all sort of just punishments. How is that in my interests?

Let’s look at what Epictetus says about Polyneices and Eteocles. He blames the great value each placed upon the throne of Thebes for their fratricidal war. To this extent, he certainly right: If one or the other had not wanted to and valued being King of Thebes, there would have been no war. But was it the fact that they both valued the throne that precipitated their war?

Remember they both were already joint monarchs. Their sharing arrangement had been agreed to and honored by both of them for some time. Then one brother decided to depose the other and keep the throne permanently and solely for himself. That unjust act, that injustice, was the cause of their quarrel and the siege of Thebes. Not the external, nor the valuing of it by two people, but the unjust abrogation of their agreement to joint fair use.

Blame vice, greed & lust for power, not the valuing of property and office and reputation. Unless you wish to allow that vice is also innate in human beings—and Epictetus certainly doesn’t—then you can’t claim that valuing externals will necessarily & inevitably spawn the vicious & criminal behaviour he points to. We certainly do need virtues like self-control and justice if we are going to pursue and compete for externals, but we are capable of these virtues, are we not? I’m suggesting that Epictetus’ argument gains footing only if we assume a much darker view of human nature than he would ever concede.

2005-12-05T10:27:00.000-08:00

A Historical Note on Eudamonic Pessimism

According to Diogenes Laertius [ II. 94 ], Hegesias Peisithanatos was a Cyrenaic hedonist who developed a short-lived following in Ptolemaic Alexandria. Hegesias maintained the usual hedonistic view that pleasure was the good and pain the evil, but he came to the somewhat unusual & surprising conclusion that happiness was therefore impossible. The body and mind are forever prey to suffering and disturbances to which there is no effective remedy. Pleasure escapes us, suffering envelops us, happiness is unattainable. The practical consequences of his view were apparently not lost on some of Hegesias’ unfortunate students—whence his name “the advocate of death.” When a number of them began to feed themselves to the grateful Nile crocs, Ptolemy eventually intervened and required Hegesias to find residence elsewhere.

I tell you this tale from the doxographers to make you aware that eudaemonic pessimism was a view some ancient philosophers openly embraced. Many others—and I think especially of Aristotle—fought unenthusiastically to avoid a drift toward it. Who of us has a realistic chance at eudaemonia on either the account in the NE or in the EE? Happiness is not impossible, just extremely unlikely for almost all of us.
The Stoics do want to avoid eudaemonic pessimism, but they have their own problems with it. If the happy life is the life of virtue, and only the sage is virtuous, and there are no actual sages…. You see the inference. So when Epictetus says any philosophy that locates good & evil in externals is doomed to be a philosophy of kakodaemonia, he needs to worry about a charge of Tu Quoque. "Yes, but what are my chances of finding happinesss listening to your Stoic line, Epictetus?"
Hegesias argued that ataraxia was unattainable because the ills & failings of the body infect and compromise our mind & character. The facts he alludes to are undeniably, but the Stoics seem to revert to the superstition that mind can flourish as the body suffers. It is hard to see how serenity & happiness can be found by pretending that the state of our health isn't of vital concern.

2005-12-05T09:02:00.000-08:00

Eudaemonic Pessimism

Eudaemonic pessimism is the view that human happiness is unattainable or nearly so. The gods may be a happy bunch, a few sages may glimpse happiness, but for the rest of us a happy & flourishing life is out of reach. We have a better chance of making it to the summit of K2 blindfolded than stumbling into a happy life.

Epictetus argues at several places in the Discourses that if we accept externals as goods, we must fall into eudaemonic pessimism. Epictetus considers this a strong reductio ad absurdum argument against anyone who would locate good and evil in things beyond the sphere of choice.
Why Epictetus considers eudaemonic pessimism a completely unacceptable position is an issue that would carry us into the heart of his view of the universe a rational, benevolent, providential place. I would rather look at his argument that if externals are good or evil, we are doomed to kakodaemonia.

The best formulation, albeit still only a brief sketch, comes at Discourses I. 22. 12-17. Let’s look at the first part of argument which gives us Epictetus' most general grounds for predicting that kakodaenia awaits if we pursue externals.
"What then? Are not health and an undamaged body and life goods? Aren’t children and parents and a native land? Who will have any patience with you if deny these things?
But let us assume that they are really goods. Is it possible for a man who is harmed and fails to obtain good things to be happy? It is not. "[ 22. 12-13 , slightly modified ]

The argument is severely enthymatic. Let’s try to reconstruct it.
1. Assume (some) externals are good or evil.
2. We are harmed when we are deprived of something good (or fail to achieve it).
3. If (some) externals are good, we will harmed if we are deprived of them.
4. We will be deprived of external “goods” (or frustrated in our pursuit of them ).
5. We will be harmed
6. If we are harmed, we cannot be happy
7. Therefore, we cannot be happy.

Consider premises 4 and 6.

Premise4 is a factual claim about the way the world will treat us. The world will frustrate our pursuits of critical externals and snatch away those we have been fortunate enough to obtain. A somewhat paranoid view of a benevolent universe, is it not? Epictetus is apparently predicting that this will inevitably happen to all of us . Not just that some or many of us will be unfortunate with externals, but that all of us will be. Does this agree with your experience of the world?

Premise 6 says that if we are in fact harmed by the loss of important external “goods”, we cannot be happy. We cannot be happy because we cannot be serene and tranquil in the face of the loss of real goods. What do you think? It obviously depends upon the severity of the loss, but are we incapable of dealing with ill-health or financial losses or notoriety or legal problems if we accept that these are real evils? Serenity in the face of real evils that can befall us is certainly a challenge, but is beyond us? Denying that many misfotunates are evils , as does Epictetus, could be seen as trying to taking refuge in an illusion.

There is a modal version Premise 6 that we should briefly acknowledge: if we CAN always and at any time be harmed by being deprived of vital externals “goods”, we cannot be happy even if we are not actually deprived of them. This is quite different from the factual claim that we will be deprived of externals. This is the claim that recognizing how fragile and precarious our hold is on anything external in life, we are condemned to a state of perpetual anxiety & dread that we will lose what we cannot protect.

To Epictetus I would offer two comments on this version of the argument. You are right, but more right than you think, for our grasp on internals like intellect and character and virtue is just as fragile & vulnerable to accident. Let one little blood vessel in the brain rupture suddenly, and we will never be who we were before. The challenge remains the same: to cultivate a serenity & happiness based on a realistic view of our terrible mortality & vulnerability to the fate. Better that, I think, than trying to build and move into a benevolent fantasy universe where no evil may befall a good man.

2005-12-04T18:12:00.000-08:00

Just as a target is not set up to be missed, so the nature of evil does not arise in the universe. [ Encheiridion 27 ]

Let me take a stab at intrepretting this passage in the Encheiridion that fully deserves its reputation for obscurity. I shall pretend that we have no textual problems and that the English translation given above if a fair rendering of what Arrian wrote.

Here's my conjecture. The archer does not create or set up a target without a purpose. His purpose is to hit what he has established as his target. So God does not create anything in the universe without a purpose. But if he were to anything evil, what would be his purpose? What thing would ever aim at realizing something evil & harmful to itself?

Arrian's "excerpts" from the Discourses have a marked tendency to omit any reference to the diety or his agency, and I think part of the problem here comes from that source. Arrian has deleted all reference to agency, both on the part of the archer and on the part of the Creator. We know Epictetus has good reasons for rejecting anything that is evil by nature. Only vice is evil, he has claimed or argued at many points. Now vice, deriving from a misuse of our faculties of reason & assent, is anything but natural or inevitable. We are born with the capacity to make good judgments and choices, and we fail to do so for want of education and understanding and discipline. There is nothing necessary or inevitable about the errors we make.

2005-12-04T10:23:00.000-08:00

IS VICE THE ONLY EVIL?

“Shall you and I talk a little about things good and evil? While we have a few minutes this morning and before the business of the day sweeps us away. I see you often carrying around a copy of Epictetus’ Discourses . You must know it well by now. So what does the philosopher say, my friend?”

Well, Epictetus says some things are good and some things are bad and most things are neither. Good are the virtues, evil are the vices, and all the rest, such things as health and honor and wealth and even life itself, are neither.

“Yes, a remarkable view. Only virtue is good, only vice evil. And doesn’t he also say that virtue and vice are completely up to us, so it is fully in our power to attain the good and avoid all evils?”

Oh yes, that is one of the most attractive points of his philosophy. What really matters is in our hands.

“So, what do you make of Epictetus’ views? Have you set about testing them yet?”

Testing them? How do you mean? How would you go about testing a philosophy? Do you mean who agrees with him? I’ve also started reading Plato, and Socrates seems to agree with him, and of course the other Stoics do. Aristotle disagrees and allows that some externals are necessary and good for us. Epicurus—

“No, no, that’s not what I mean. We don’t test a theory or a hypothesis by taking a survey and counting up who agrees and who disagrees. Poverty is not an evil if twelve philosophers say it isn’t and only eight say it is. That’s not testing anything about the effects of poverty on how we live our life. I mean testing in the same way that we’d go about checking out any other recommendation presented to us. Suppose a trainer recommended a certain diet to you and a certain exercise regimen, would you automatically believe that it must be right for you and plunge ahead with it? Maybe would you take time to investigate it first, asking other people about their experience with it , and then, if those reports seemed satisfactory, cautiously subjecting yourself to the programme? Is this diet and fitness program working for me, or does it make me ill and tired all the time? If the latter, then it isn’t good for me, is it?”

No, you’re right. We can’t just accept, we must investigate things for ourselves. Well, I guess I haven’t gotten around to testing Epictetus’ views yet. You know, I’m remembering, he even tells us to that, to test them in our lives. Observe yourself, he says, and see whether you’ve begun to actually live these precepts, not just talk about them or recite them like some religious dogma.

“Good. Now let’s focus on a specific precept of his. How do you think we might go about testing in our lives his view that vice is the only evil? That view has always struck as very difficult. Things that are evil or bad harm us. That’s the fundamental point, but the philosophers insist on a qualification: harm us not trivially, but in our capacity to live rational, self-directed, moral lives. So a flat tire is not an evil even if causes me to miss my tennis match. Let’s grant that to the philosophers.”

Yes, that seems right. Some minor things, some inconveniences, seem too petty to call evils. A flat tire is a good example, but what about a serious auto accident? What about an accident that ends up crippling you?

“Epictetus would insist that that was not an evil. Ill-health or accidents are not evils.He says that over and over, doesn’t he?”

Yes, he does. Many times.

“ But now let me tell you a story, and you can probably match it with one of your own. I knew this fellow named John who worked for the Navy doing some kind of advanced electronic research. One day, riding to work on his motorcycle, a pickup truck ran a stop sign and clipped John’s motorcycle. John was thrown head first into a cement curve. He was wearing his big Bell helmet as he always did, but at 50 mph the force of the impact cracked it open like an egg, and John suffered significant head trauma. Making a long story short, John lived, and won a big insurance settlement, but he was never the same. He could not do the work he had previously loved to do. It was now beyond him intellectually. He developed a range of emotional problems, especially dyscontrol problems when faced with any challenge. He could not socialize well and a serious personal relationship was out of the question. He became reclusive and distrustful of others and eventually focused his life on collecting Canadian postage stamps.”

Yes, that’s a terrible story and you are right, I could tell you one of my own about a relative who had a head-on collision with an drunken driver and got thrown through the windshield, and unfortunately, he too survived as a walking shell of what he had been. But I don’t want to thinkabout that anymore. Why are we talking about these terrible accidents?

“Because Epictetus says that such things are not evils and that we are not fundamentally harmed by such tragedies.”

He’s wrong. let me tell you, he is wrong. That man in the car accident, it would have better for him and for his family if he had just died in the accident. Before the accident he was one man, after it another, and all the changes were for the worse. Intellectually, emotionally, and morally. I saw it, but I cannot imagine what it felt like to be living his life. He tried to kill himself several times with his pain meds but they didn’t kill him. I remember—

“My friend, you’re right, I think we’ve remembered enough about these events of our past. Most people, I fear, could tell similar stories about some friend or family member who suffered this kind of life-altering tragedy. Either in an accident or as the result of some illness. I coild tell you about an artist I knew who had a serious stroke at thirty-two. Thirty-two. Couldn’t paint. Couldn’t…but enough of this, as you say. I think we agree that we must disagree with Epictetus on this matter of the evils to which we all are prey. Not just vice, but accident or illness can utterly ruin the life we had and any hopes for any kind of decent life. If this isn’t grevious harm, nothing is.”

Yes, I agree.

“So at least one external, as Epictetus calls them, can harm us, wrecking havoc with not just the external circumstances of our life, but with our mind and character as well. But we need to go on and consider our experience with other externals, and whether they too can do us grevious harm . Let’s take poverty next.”

Please. another time. Yes, I think we shall find that poverty warps and deprives lives too, but I’ve had enough for right now. I see what you mean by examining or testing the views of philosophers. I see now I could never live with Epictetus’ view that only vice is an evil. The man I spoke of did nothing wrong. He was not careless or reckless or negligent in any way. He was just driving to work and a drunk hit him. That accident ruined him and did horrible things to his family as well. A great evil.

“As you say. Let’s stop then. I think it’s time to go work anyway. Philosophers like to tempt us with views that promise us a happier, safer, better life. But we cannot believe some strange views about the nature of good and evil just because it would make us feel safer & happier if we did so. We need to examine and test these views. If indeed no evil could befall us except the vice we inflict upon ourselves, then our life would be at once a much safer and happier affair. Would that it were so, but, as we began to see, our life seems vulnerable and prey to many evils over we have no real control. That’s is not news, is it, but merely a return to reality from an illusion that the philosopher likes to spin for us. A vulnerable, fragile , perilous existence, not life the happy providential universe of the Stoics, seems to be what we must face, perhaps stoically.

2005-12-03T08:49:00.000-08:00

You can be invincible if you do not enter any contest in
which victory is not up to you. [ Encheiridion 19 ]

Epictetus says this several times, referring of course to our struggle to live virtuously, in control of our judgments and desires and choices. You can be undefeated in this arena because these things, and these things alone, are in your hands.
Perhaps, but isn’t our experience that externals are sometimes much easier to master than inner virtues? Aren’t fitness and money and respect easier to claim than a reliable self-discipline & self-control, much less tranquility? It seems to me that I at least have a poor record in the contests for virtue I’ve entered. Maybe I’m 18-30-10, not exactly a contender. My record with externals is quite a bit better.
You can say of any new fighter that he can go undefeated, but name me a champion who did. In the struggle to master some virtues I do not see that victory is “up to us” in any meaningful sense. Will I become courageous enough to face the terrible things I will experience on the battlefield? Maybe and maybe not. If you begin to think "I am courageous enough to face anything ", the world will test you and you will probably not like the result.

2005-12-02T05:23:00.000-08:00

Who then is a Stoic? As we call a statue “Pheidian” that has
been formed in accordance with the precepts of Pheidias, so show me a man formed in accordance with the principles he professes. Show me a man who though ill is happy, though in danger is happy, though dying is happy, though exiled is happy, though maligned is happy. Show him to me, for by the gods, I long to see a Stoic.
But you cannot, you say, show me someone fully formed in this
fashion? Then just show me someone who is becoming so formed, who is on the road in that direction. Do me this favor, please. Do not begrudge an old man the sight of a spectacle that to this very day he has never seen. [Discourses II. 19. 23-24 ]

Indeed. Show me such a man/person, for I have never seen one either. Neither a sage nor an apprentice. Our living, breathing Stoics must all be like the black swans, hiding in Australia.
But think about the question raised here. What are we to make of the remarkable absence of practicing Stoics in our own day, and apparently in Epictetus’ day as well? Why aren't there more Stoics than Buddhists or Presbyterians? Is it possible that the Stoic view of what is good and evil is not one that anyone can actually live? Is it possible that we must learn to deal with death and sickness and all of our perils not by pretending that they are evils? I am not recommending fear or anger or sorrow, but something other than denial.
Observe your actions, Epictetus tells us, and you will out to what sect of the philosophers you belong. Well, apparently not to the Stoics. None of us.

2005-11-28T08:38:00.000-08:00

Putting aside desire

The man who is making progress has learned from the philosophers that desire
has good things for its object and aversion bad things. He has learned that
peace of mind and serenity can only be attained by a man if he achieves what he
desires and does not fall into what he wants to avoid. Such a man either has rid
himself of desire completely or has put it off to another time....
[Discourses I. 4. 1]

But for the present, totally suppress desire, for if you desire any of the
things that are not up to us, you must be unhappy. [ Encheiridion 2 ]

There are other passages in the Discourses where Epictetus urges us to do away with or at least suspend our desires for the time being. At several places Epictetus recommends that this should be the first priority for the proficient, i.e., the one who wishes to make progress toward a tranquil life. Epictetus believes that frustrated desires & unavailing aversions are the main cause of our unhappiness. We are unhappy in our desires because we desire to have or control the wrong things, things that are innately not in our control or power. This is a constant theme in the Discourses.

Interestingly, neither Epictetus nor Arrian seem to speak directly to the question of how we should go about suppressing or suspending our desires. Desires arise all the time for all sorts of things, most of them very dubious goods. We want a bigger house, a new car, more leisure, a better paying & more prestigious job, a better computer. If we carried around a notebook just to log every desire that occurred to us, we’d be lugging a hefty volume in no time. So how are we supposed to turn off this fountain of desire, at least until we know good desires from bad ones?

As I said, there is no essay in the Discourses entitled “On suppressing desire.” There is no passage I know of that turns directly to instructing us in the delicate art of suppressing desires & aversions. Given the constraints of Stoic psychology, there may be a significant problem here. If we accept that desire is a kind of impulse ( horme) in reaction to an experience that reason/memory has labelled as attractive & choiceworthy, the only way to block this impulse is by withholding assent to the judgment that it is good or choiceworthy. But how do we train our faculty of assent to react negatively to what we recall as a pleasant experience?
There are to be sure many hints in Epictetus & Arrian that we may pursue, but no well-articulated therapy of desire. What sort of a problem is this for Epictetus? What do you think?

2005-11-26T19:34:00.000-08:00

Oudeis Oudamou

Do not allow these thoughts to distress you: I shall live unrecognized
and be a nobody everywhere [oudeis oudamou], for if the lack of recognition were an evil, then you could be implicated in something evil through the actions of someone else. But that cannot be the case, no more than you can become involved in something shameful in this way. [ Encheiridion 24, slightly modified ]

As the rest of our text of Encheiridion 24 goes on to explain, receiving honors or recogition is not something in my power or "up to me". So it cannot be a good, nor its absence an evil. Other people may or may not be disposed to recognize my virtues and talents and other fine qualities--to list them all would be tedious. It doesn’t matter. Obscurity is nothing to me. It is enough that I know I have them and I recognize them. There is no possibility of self-delusion here, I'm sure.

I want to draw attention to the translation of Oldfather and Hard and others, who read the second clause as “I shall live without honour.” That translation is too liable to misunderstanding. Living without a personal sense of honour is not what Epictetus is talking about here. He is referring to public honors and recognition. Those externals don’t matter. Very different is whether you feel you are living an honorable & proper life, which is something very important and not up to the judgments of others.

Another textual comment if I may. As scholars of the Encheiridion have long pointed out, our text in some chapters of the Encheiridion plainly has problems. Early editions of the Encheiridion apparently appended related passages from the Discourses to Arrian’s very brief remarks. Subsequent editions managed to conflate Arrian’s text and the related texts from the Discourses. Encheiridion 29 is an undeniable product of this kind of transmission, as I believe is our text of Encheiridion 24. I think I have cited in full the original text of Arrian, and the rest of Encheiridion 24 is material derived from a missing book of the Discourses.

2005-11-26T18:30:00.000-08:00

Encheiridion 1

Some things are under our control, others are not. Under our control are belief, determination to act, desire, aversion, and in a word, whatever is our own doing. Not under our control are our body, property, reputation, employment, and in a word, whatever is not our doing.

Forget about the underlying Greek text for a minute and just consider the credibility of these claims as we would understand them in ordinary English. Our immediate reaction is incredulity, is it not? My body is not under my control? Under whose control is it then? My property is not under my control? Who then owns it? How in the devil have you come to this list of things I can and cannot control, philosopher? What kind of research and investigations have you conduct? I know that disease can impair my control of my body. I know the government asserts eminent domain over most of realty. My control is nowhere complete or certain or infallible, but I do try to control some externals with apparently some success. What are you trying to tell me? That I over-estimate my control or its reliability? Well perhaps, but then don’t just say these things are not in my control. Forbear to treat me to your dogmas, if that is what they are, but if you know anything useful about the actual limits of our ability to control things, I am all ears.

What does Epictetus mean by “under our control? The Greek phrase is “eph’ emin”, which could as well be translated “in our power” or “up to us.” It turns out that for Epictetus nothing is eph’ emin unless nothing can prevent or hinder our bringing it about or achieving or acquiring it. Since under some circumstances our control over all externals fails, Epicteus concludes that no externals are in our control. If not in unfailing control, then not in control at all. I don’t think I need to comment on that argument by definition. But I would put one additional question to Epictetus: what makes you think desire and choice and belief are in our control on this absolute standard? You think what you believe and choose and desire are always up to you, and not, for example, sometimes at the mercy of the fragile health of our brain & nervous systems? What is your evidence that this is so?

Several other passages in the Discourses and Fragments repeat this same story without the theology that Arrian’s summary sees fit to delete. See Discourses I.1 and IV. 7, and Fragment 4. A provident God has placed some things in our power and other things beyond our power, we are told there. Does that help, or does it make it even more obvious that we are dealing with (religious) dogma, not scientifically based and sustainable argument?

2005-11-26T03:05:00.000-08:00

Now it is the nature of every man to pursue good and avoid
evil, and to regard that man as an enemy and betrayer who deprives him of the former and involves him in the latter, even though he be a brother or a father or a son. For nothing is more closely related to us than the good. It follows that if good and evil lie in externals, there is no affection between father and son, brother and brother, and all the world is everywhere is full of enemies, betrayers, and informers. [ Discourses IV. 5. 30-31 ]
Nothing of the sort follows, Epictetus, and you know it.
If some externals are both good and things for which we compete, sometimes unjustly, then there will be conflict, which we must learn to manage. And if some externals are evils, then we must study to avoid them, and again, there will sometimes be conflict, which we must also manage. But " all the world is everywhere full of enemies" is a symptom of paranoid delusion, not an inference. Epictetus is trying once again to sell us a false dichotomy: either turn your back completely on material, external thing, or prepare to live in constant perpetual conflict with evryone else.
But if a right choice is the only good and a wrong choice the
only evil, what room is there for quarreling or reviling? About what? About something thar is nothing to us? [ ibid]
Right choice and right desire and right belief are vital goods, but do we believe that they are the only goods? Aren't some externals like health & a decent standard of living indispensible for living a life worth living? Health and fitness are not things for which we compete. You may be as healthy & fit as you wish and so may I. Arguably, my having a decent standard of living also does not mean I must oppress and exploit you. Some other external goods are competitive and so we must compete, at least for our fair share. So be it. But let us not pretend that pursuing any externals is recipe for unceasing, implacable conflict with everyone.
[ I follow Robin Hard's translation in the passages above. ]

2005-11-20T18:57:00.000-08:00

Discourses IV. 4

Remember that it is not only a craving for wealth and power that
makes you servile and subservient to others, but also a desire for solitude and leisure, travel and leisure. It is the value you assign to an external, whatever it is, that makes you subservient to another.

Don’t doubt for a moment the tremedous cost of procuring ex inopia a life of solitude and leisure, wherein you are fully master of your own time. Don’t doubt for a moment the egregious costs of comfortable travel and higher education. But suppose I have been fortunate in my parents and have inherited wealth. The secluded estate in the Tetons is mine for the asking. The private jet awaits my pleasure at the Jackson Hole airport. Whomever I wish as a teacher I can afford to hire. To whom am I subservient for these things, to whom must I sell myself to obtain them (Discourses I.2) ? You who have not been fortunate in your patrimony must surrender 50-60 hours every week to a job you do not esteem but must servilely protect. You are fortunate to claim an hour or two a day for leisure studies, and solitude is for you a black swan.
To be sure, my wealth must defended, but I have men for this too. My wealth has secured for me the solitude and leisure and in general the capacity to live as I choose. Your poverty has denied you these things. But wealth, you say, is not a good and poverty not an evil?

"It is your appropriate use of your wealth, your good choices, not the wealth itself that has given you a good life. Without the wise choices, your wealth would have been an invitation to vice of all sorts and early tragedy."

No, philosopher, actually it was both the wealth and my ability to use it wisely. Without the wealth the ability to use money well would have useless, and I would have been consigned to same servile unhappy life as someone who never had a savings account in his life. The money and the ability to use it were both necessary.

2005-11-19T02:10:00.000-08:00

Desiring health and wealth and other externals

I am pressing Epictetus on the issue of whether it is appropriate to desire & pursue some externals such as health and (moderate) wealth and a safe, pleasant physical environment in which to live. This business of needing & wanting externals is not a minor or peripheral issue to Epictetus or other Stoics.
Epictetus and I agree that desire should be directed toward the true good and aversion toward real evil. I am suggesting to Epictetus that he cannot deny that those things are true goods which are indispensable conditions of a good life, and in fact the kind of good life he recommends. The good life, Epictetus often reminds us, is not the life of a statue or an animal. We should aim to fulfill our natural roles as a human being, a spouse, a parent, a friend, a citizen, etc.
But conditions like abject poverty and chronic ill-health & lack of fitness utterly disable us from being able to undertake or sustain these roles in a responsible and reliable fashion. If a man is so poor that he cannot feed and clothe and shelter his family, if he must live in an environment where he cannot protect them or see to their other material needs, if his poor health & fitness makes him a burden to them instead of a provider, then that man cannot fulfill the roles of parent and friend and citizen. He is in fact unsuited to fulfilling any worthwhile roles or living any kind of a life worth living.
So, in failing to desire and pursue and secure certain indispensable externals like health & wealth, I seem to doom myself to a worthless life unfit for any of the roles that Epictetus agrees makes life worth living. How then can I fail to desire or pursue these externals?

“But externals are not in your control, and if you desire things not in our control, you will be hindered and frustrated, and in your disappointment fall prey to the passions like anger and envy which deny you the great good of an untroubled & tranquil mind.” ( See, e.g., Discourses III.2 )
I agree, philosopher, that when we go in pursuit of externals like wealth & fitness, we open the door wide to frustration and failure. Probably we will and eventually we must fail in finding and keeping some of these things. But we have no choice, do we? Unless we wish to be content with an empty life that fulfills none of the proper roles of a human being, we need to pursue and secure some externals. So are we therefore doomed to a troubled and untranquil life as we chase after things we cannot secure? How does this follow?
I would propose to Epictetus that our pursuit of the right externals in the right amounts, though risky and liable to failure & frustration, need not be the cause of the tranquillity-robbing emotions he predicts. Anger and envy and fear need not attend everything we try to secure for ourselves in the world and every lack of success we experience. Failure is inevitable: get used to it! And what is my alternative? Failing to pursue the right externals will absolutely doom me to an unlivable, untranquil, worthless life.
That, in any case, is the argument I would present to Epictetus.

2005-11-18T08:42:00.000-08:00

Encheiridion 5

It is not the things themselves that disturb people, but their judgments [ dogmata] about these things. For instance, death is nothing terrible, or else Socrates too would have thought so. But the judgment that death is terrible, that is what is terrible. So whenever we are frustrated or distressed or grieved, let us never blame others, but only ourselves and our judgments.

I append this oft-quoted passage from the Encheiridion to yesterday's post about being in control of and responsible for actions that flow from our judgments.
If we are to credit Plato's Phaedo, Socrates did indeed come to see death not as an evil or terror. But can you and I, without the benefit of the mythology of a happy and just afterlife, imitate Socrates? How can we say "death is not an evil" if it extinguishes a life trying to be productive & virtuous? Can we will ourselves to believe some mythology or philosophy that views death as a good or at least not an evil?

Perhaps we would be better off to avoid the debate over whether death is a good or an evil, and begin by accepting that death is an inevitability and a permanent & immediate possibility of our fragile lives. That judgment need not inspire fear or terror in us, but focusing on it does make it hard to cultivate a joyful and hopeful attitude towards our life. So where does this leave us? Can we base a serene and tranquil attitude [ euroia, in E's terminology ] to the unadorned, undisguised realities of the human condition?

I have no answer to aver. Yes, I agree our judgment about the matter is the critical thing. But it is also hard to guage in all of this how much or how little we are really in control of judgments about death & dying.

2005-11-17T08:51:00.000-08:00

Discourses I. 11

One of the most poignant exchanges in the Discourses arises when a man guiltily confesses that he deserted the bedside of his young daughter when she was seriously ill. "I could not bear it", he says, and wonders, half-heartedly, if his conduct might be excusable in the circumstances since it was a very “natural” reaction to what he was confronted with.
Epictetus does not deal harshly with the man, but firmly rejects his wish to find an excuse for his behaviour. Epictetus points out to the man that it was not the circumstances that caused & controlled his behaviour but his judgment [ dogma] about what those circumstances amounted to. The man formed the judgment that it was unbearable to watch his daughter suffer while he stood by powerless. That judgment, not the fact of his daughter’s illness, caused him to flee.
Circumstances are not in our power, but our judgments are. It was in this man’s power to reject the thought that is unbearable to watch his daughter suffer. He could instead have accepted that it was his duty to stay and render whatever help & support he could. Correcting his judgment, he would have corrected his behaviour. But he allowed his fearful judgment to sweep him away. His shameful desertion finds no excuse in the fact that his fearful reaction was "natural".

One of the things that bothers me here is Epictetus’ ultimately dogmatic reply to what is clearly a complex & nuanced problem about human action and responsibility. Epictetus reasons on the basis of the assumption that the man could control the judgment he made. It is Stoic dogma that we can always control our judgments. But does dogma reflect psychological reality?
I would have much preferred Epictetus to inquire with the father whether he thought it was possible for him to have examined and rejected the belief that caused him to flee. The father was clearly inexperienced & unprepared for dealing with this sort of family crisis. In general we don’t expect people to deal courageously with frightening situations for which they have received no training or preparation. We don’t, for example, take a young man with no preparation and training and drop him in the middle of a horrific battle. People are being killed and horribly wounded all around him, but we tell him, “You must stand fast and not be afraid. Fear is just a judgment and you can control your judgments.”
A man who adopts the role of parent, we feel, should anticipate that illness and tragedy will strike his family. He should examine himself honestly and assess whether he can cope such situations. If he thinks he may not be equal to such situations, he should not assume the role of a parent.
Too late, in the middle of a crisis to say to someone unprepared and unsuited to crises, “control your thoughts and fears.” He can’t.

2005-11-16T17:36:00.000-08:00

Diogenes Laertius VII. 102-03 ( Zeno)

Goods comprise the virtues of prudence, justice, courage, temperance, and the rest. The opposites of these are evils, namely, folly, injustice, and the others. Neutral, that is, neither good nor evil, are those things which neither benefit nor harm a man. These include life, health, pleasure, beauty, strength, wealth, fame, noble birth and also their opposites,….They [the Stoics] say that such things as these are not in themselves goods, but are morally indifferent, falling under the subdivision of things preferred. For…wealth and health do no more benefit than injury, and therefore neither is a good. Further they say that nothing is good of which both good and bad use can be made. But both good and bad use can be made of wealth and health. Therefore they are not goods.
I take this statement of the Stoic position, for the sake of its succinctness, from Diogenes Laertius’ epitome of Stoic Ethics appended to his life of Zeno. I have been examining in previous posts the anti-Stoic argument that the absence of wealth and health are evils because they do us real harm. They harm us by either rendering us incapable of assuming the natural roles of parent, friend, citizen, etc, or , if we’ve already assumed those roles, forcing into shameful derelictions when we lack the means or ability to meet our responsibilities. Poverty is an evil because it renders us morally deficient or derelict with respect to these roles. ( A destitute person can of course decline all these roles, but then what sort of life remains? )
The second argument in the passage from DL says health & wealth aren’t goods because they can be used for good or bad purposes. But this is not credible test of what is good or bad because courage and temperance and self-discipline are equally useful to a bad man. Virtually any excellence can be misused. It would follow on this test that virtues are not goods.
A much better test asks whether the external in question is indispensable to fulfilling the duties & obligations we have chosen ( or aspire to ) . Health and moderate wealth, I fear, are indispensable to most of our natural roles. Those externals that we must have to live a valuable, responsible life and avoid dereliction seems to me to be goods.

2005-11-16T08:27:00.000-08:00

Am I suited to the calling of an itinerant Cynic?

I think it was one of the disappointments of Epictetus’ life that he did not consider himself fit for the itinerant, ascetic life of a Cynic preacher. The Cynic was supposed to be a kind of living, walking advertisement for the Stoic-Cynic ideal of a virtuous & happy life independent of the “slavery” of all material possessions and conventional roles in society.
That Epictetus thought a Cynic’s calling one of the noblest is evident from his fulsome [sic] praise of that life in passages such as Discourses III. 22. As you read through that long essay, think about why Epictetus considered himself disqualified from that "heroic" calling and settled for the life of a schoolmaster.

I speculate that one of the key considerations was Epictetus’ lameness. The Cynic, he confesses ( 86-89), has need of a body that radiates health & fitness. If he presents as someone struggling with physical problems, his body belies his claim that his lifestyle is healthy & robust. We pity consumptives and emaciated beggars rather than seek to imitate them.
It is interesting that Epictetus concedes that an external like a healthy & fit body is a requirement for the Cynic’s role. Suppose I find myself attracted to the Cynic’s calling, but I am not naturally a picture of robust health & fitness. Yet with a proper diet and training and rigorous exercise I can build myself up and present well. Should I not then earnestly pursue those externals , even though they are not, strictly speaking, something in my power? And is it really in the lap of the gods or chance whether I shall become healthy & very fit?

"But you may fail to achieve health & fitness despite your best efforts, and then you will be frustrated and unhappy." Indeed I may. Any useful role that I wish to assume in society seems to require that I acquire & master externals, and doing so is always a perilous and uncertain course. But what is the alternative? if I wish to fulfill some role in society, how can I avoid pursuing the externals that are requisite? Even the wandering Cynic needs a healthy body.

2005-11-15T10:00:00.000-08:00

Epictetus, gadfly of Rome

One of the most entertaining passages in the Discourses describes what happened when Epictetus decided to play Socrates among the Romans. The text is Discouses II.12, 17-25.

To set the scene, imagine Epictetus, a young freed slave of Asian Greek heritage, loitering in the Forum and trying to engage Romans of consular rank in discussion about whether they are neglecting the care of their souls. Farce, or tragedy, was the only possible outcome.

At first, says Epictetus, speaking of one encounter, things seemed to be going well. The wealthy consular listened to him and responded to his questions. But then, when we got to the meat of the matter and I suggested to him that he might be neglecting the care of his soul, the mood changed, and the patrician said to me, “Pray, sir, what business is this of yours?” And when I persisted with him, he raised his hand and began to box my ears.
Meeting with such difficulties, confesses Epictetus, I began to be less keen on pursuing this sort of inquiry among the Romans.

I am a little surprised that Epictetus was naïve enough to try this. If the young Domitian was one of those whom he accosted, some subsequent history finds an easy explanation.
But what genuinely puzzles me is why Epictetus thought Socratic elenchos would be successful amongst the Romans when it had been so spectacularly and universally unavailing in the hands of the master. Whom did Socrates ever make wiser or better by cross-questioning him?

2005-11-14T07:57:00.000-08:00

Discouses I. 12, 32-34

Why do you not give thanks to the gods that they…have rendered you accountable only for what is your control? They have discharged from all accountability for parents and for your brothers, for your body and property and life & death. For what have they made you accountable? For what is alone in your power, the proper reaction to what you experience.

Remember the narrow compass for Epictetus of what it in my power. Only what I wish for and believe and choose are in my power. So I am responsible, it seems, only for coming to desire the right things and coming to believe the right things and making the right choices.

But suppose I have assumed the role of a parent and my daughter falls ill. One day a doctor calls me up and says “your daughter needs an expensive medical treatment and you are not insured. Can you raise $25,000? Otherwise she may become permanently handicapped.”
What is the right choice here?
I hear the father saying “I would gladly write that check if I could, doctor, but, you see, I’m poor and we don’t even have $500 in the bank. Oh yes, I could have gone to work for that insurance company and gotten good health insurance and a decent salary, but I’m a philosopher, you see, not a clerk.”

Do we excuse the father’s dereliction here? He would make the right choice if he could. But he can’t, because he lacks the resources to look after his family. He could have pursued externals like insurance and savings, but he didn’t, and because he didn’t, he is now not in a position to help his daughter. He would save her if he could, but doesn't that seems a pathetic excuse? He can’t because he failed to pursue & secure resources adequate to address his family’s medical needs. He was responsible for doing so.

2005-11-13T06:49:00.000-08:00

The door is open.

This is one of Epictetus’ favorite retorts to someone who complains that he has suffered too many misfortunes and his life is no longer worth living. If that is your judgment, says Epictetus bluntly, then stop living. But whatever you choose to do, stop whining. Choose to live and endure what must be endured, or choose to die.

Fair enough, but we should also remember that there are people living horrific lives that they wish to end but cannot. I’m thinking of people permanently paralyzed by strokes and accidents. Some of these people quite reasonably wish to die but cannot elect to do so, because they no longer have the means to kill themselves. The decision whether they shall be permitted to die has escheated to relatives and physicians and insurance companies, each with their own agendas. So for these people at least Epictetus’ advice is not very useful. The door was open, but now it has slammed shut.

( Consider: Were these people not harmed when they were deprived of this fundamental choice? And is not what harms us an evil? )

But let me ask Epictetus another question about his "the door is open" recommendation. Is being dead supposed to be something good? It may be a better choice than continuing to live a horrible life, but it is something good? I thought the Stoic view was that living virtuously, or at least choosing to live virtuously, was the greatest good? If that is so, consider this. Suppose we take a talented young person who aspires to a worthwhile career, a family, a position of civic and community leadership—all the roles you Stoics commend--and then frustrate all of these aspirations by inflicting dire poverty or ill-health or unjust imprisonment upon him. Denying him the possibility of pursuing the good life he intends, we also deny him the possibilty of electing or choosing such a life. We cannot choose what we know is impossible for us.

“But you have not harmed his faculty of choice,” replies Epictetus. I think I have. If there is nothing good left to choose, what good is choice? How can I make a good choice? Have I not deprived him of possibility of choosing to pursue a worthwhile life? Have I not greviously harmed him, ruining what could have been a good life, by inflicting upon the evils of poverty or confinement or disabling ill health?

2005-11-12T08:22:00.000-08:00

Encheiridion 41

It is a mark of the talentless that they devote much of their time to matters pertaining to the body. They exercise a great deal, they eat and drink a lot, they spend a lot of time in the bathroom, or else engaging in sex. In truth, these are things that should be done in passing, and we should turn our attention completely to the care of our souls.

Once again we are told that the pursuit of externals like health & fitness are unimportant matters, to be granted attention only grudgingly. Elsewhere Epictetus is a little more accommodating to health and fitness when he acknowledges that some special roles, such as that of the Cynic preacher, absolutely require a healthy, fit body to sell the Cynic's gospel.

But consider: isn't it a fact that health and fitness are pretty universal requirements of most of the roles we wish to undertake in our life? An unfit, unhealthy person is simply unable to take up many occupations or engage in many activities. The civic duties he can perform are limited. Even his domestic capacities are limited. And the fiction of a healthy mind in an unhealthy body is fallacy of an antiquated, scientifically untenable mind-body dualism. We know that the mind is in no way independent of the decline & diseases of the body.

So it would seem that health & fitness are necessary conditions of the virtuous human life Epictetus recommends, and not incidentals or adornments. We must earnestly pursue these externals if we are to claim a life worth living and not become derelict in the duties & roles we try to undertake.

That is the argument I would return to Epictetus with a recommendation: put down the damn book on syllogisms, philosopher, and get up and go to the gym.

2005-11-11T07:14:00.000-08:00

One of the themes I wish to pursue here is the compatibility of Epictetus' disvaluing of externals with his insistence that we take on and fulfill the roles appropriate to us given our human nature and our individual characters.

Many discussions in the Discourses touch on this issue. For example, III.26, entitled "To those who are afraid of want." Suppose a man has undertaken the natural role of a parent and finds himself unable to provide proper food & housing for his family. I can endure inflicting hunger upon myself, Epictetus imagines him worrying, '" but my family too will starve!" Epictetus' response begins, outrageously, with "Well, what of it?" Poverty & hunger & destitution are not evils. Don't worry about it! Read the astonishingly dogmatic reply at III.26, 4-7.

The obvious problem is that the man who willingly undertook to be a husband & parent undertook to provide for his family's welfare. He pledged not to allow them to fall into destitution. To allow them to die for want of necessities seems egregiously derelict. Undertaking to be spouse & parent, he accepted the duty of providing these things for his family, and so of pursuing them. He has a duty to be focused on obtaining these externals. Since his family needs food & shelter & medical care, our parent needs to make money that can purchase them. Can we pretend that for such a man failing to pursue a reasonable amount of money is not an evil?

The world is different if one chooses to live the life of an anchorite ( or a wandering cynic), rejecting all the conventional roles of family and citizenship and occupation. No responsibilities attend such a life. But if one assumes any of the natural roles, misprizing externals is no longer an option. It is now shameful & disgraceful to neglect the externals like money and health and reputation that are essential to fulfilling those roles.

This is the kind of argument I would like to put to Epictetus and see what reply we would make. ( I know there are dogmatic grounds on which Stoics could reply here, but I seek a credible answer.)

2005-11-09T15:40:00.000-08:00

Discourse II.2 " On Tranquillity"

Consider this, you who are about to apear in court [ or in any other arena of competition & conflict ], what do you wish to preserve and in what do wish to succeed? If you wish to keep your choices aligned with nature,..and if you wish to preserve what is in your power,...and if you wish to be a man of honor & trust, who can prevent you?...But if you wish to preserve your externals as well, your body or property or reputation, I advise you to make every kind of preparation...
My editing of Discourses II.2. 1-14 is somewhat draconic , so reread the complete text as you consider this. The question I'd like to pose is this: Why do we bother to engage in business & legal disputes & other contests at all? Our purpose must be to secure or defend some externals ( such as property), things thought to be good or at least choiceworthy. Otherwise, if nothing of value is at stake, why don't we just avoid all such entanglements and focus solely on improving our inner life?
Acquiring or preserving externals, then, is the reason why we do much of what we do. We clearly value externals such as life and health and reputation. Is where we go wrong, on the Stoic view, not in valuing but in overvaluing externals? Is our error to be wish to preserve some externals above all or at all costs?
We might wish to ascribe this more reasonable view to Epictetus, but the Greek in this passage says literally " if you wish to preserve externals as well [KAI TA EKTOS]".

2005-11-09T06:07:00.000-08:00

If you wish to be crucified, just be patient and the cross will come to you.

Discourses II.2, "On Tranquillity," has several arguments worth exploring, but this striking admonition comes near the end as Epictetus warns us to avoid needlessly provoking the powers that be. If you wish to elicit a fair or sympathetic response from anyone, but especially from those with power, do not make a show of informing them that you do not care what decisions they make. You are encouraging & provoking an unfair and unsympathetic response with such lack of respect.
If Socrates wanted to elicit a just verdict from his jury, we could not have spoken more ill-advisedly. Epictetus implies that Socrates' character required him to speak as he did, but that "apology" is very hard to understand. Reread the Apology and especially Scrates' timesis speech. For whatever reason, it seems that Socrates was impatient for the cross to come to him.

2005-11-08T11:13:00.000-08:00

Encheiridion 37

If you take on a role that is beyond your capacities, you will not only disgrace yourself in that role, but neglect the role you were capable of fulfilling.
Epictetus has many important things to say about the roles that belong to us by nature & by choice. But suppose we begin, as good Stoics should, by considering whether a given role is "up to us" or in our power. Not just the choice of it, but the ability to carry out the tasks & obligations it involves. Something is in our power for Epictetus, recall, only if nothing can hinder or prevent us from realizing it.
Consider then our roles as a parent or a neighbor or a citizen or teacher. Can nothing prevent or frustrate us from fulfilling these roles? Can nothing deprive us entirely of these roles, and, in their place, inflict upon us other roles we would study to avoid? Aren't our roles & relationships in fact externals, and in consequence, ultimately matters of indifference?
"Yes, but preferred indifferents. Choiceworthy things as things go in the realm of externals." The first problem with this answer is that it leave me unmotivated to essay some of these arduous roles & responsibilities if what I'm pursuing is not even a good. Why undertake the struggles of parenting or playing the good citizen? Now if the answer to this question is that I should undertake those roles that God wishes and has planned for me to undertake, the discussion comes to halt in different views of human freedom.

2005-11-07T17:02:00.000-08:00

What do I care, said Epictetus, whether everything is composed of atoms or indivisibles or fire & earth? Is it not enough to study the nature of good & evil, the limits of our desires & aversions, and also of our impulses to act and avoid, and, employing these as rules, to direct the affairs of our life and dismiss the things that are beyond us?
Stobaeus II. 1, 31 ( Fragment 1, Schenkl )
Epictetus is not in fact as contemptuous of physics as this sounds, but he clearly believes that the most important questions, about how we should lead our lives, do not depend our scientific conjectures of the world.
But suppose we recast his challenge in terms of the modern biological sciences: "what do I care about how a human being comes to be from its genome? Or about what chemistry & neurophysiology underlie the emotions and choices and beliefs that our brains create? Can we still dismiss scientific knowledge of this sort as irrelevant to how we should guide the course of our life?" ( This is unfair if pressed as a criticism of Epictetus' dismissal of physical speculation. He has no experience of scientific inquiry as we know it. )

2005-11-05T23:36:00.000-08:00

Discourses III. 15

“ Do not act like a child—playing at being a philosopher today, a taxman tomorrow, then a rhetorician, then a judge. These roles do not go together. In the end you must be just one person, either good or bad. You must labor to improve either the part of your mind that directs you or your externals. You must work hard on either the inner man or external things. You must play the role of the philosopher or of the ordinary man.”

Elsewhere Epictetus invokes the striking image of the Janus, asking us how it is possible to make progress trying to face in two directions at the same time. Either we must focus on and attend solely to externals, or we must give our full attention to our inner life. It is impossible to do both. This theme is pervasive in the Discourses.

One problem is that this kind of either/or extremism seems to fly directly in the face of our experience of life. Happiness, many would argue, lies precisely in neglecting neither our external situation nor our inner life, and in making tandem progress in both areas. What could we say to Epictetus to persuade him that our inner and outer lives are not separate mutually exclusive devotions?

2005-11-05T15:14:00.000-08:00

Agrippinus was a man of this sort, said Epictetus, that when any
hardship befell him, he would compose something commending it. If he had a fever, then something on fever. If a bad reputation,
then something on bad repuation. And if exiled, then something commending exile. Once, as he was about to dine, a messenger brought him word that Nero had ordered him into exile. Well then, he said, we shall enjoy our lunch in Aricia. [ Stobaeus III.7,16-- Fragment 21 (Schenkl) ]
Agrippinus was Roman and a Stoic of considerable personal importance to Epicteteus. Here, as in several passages of the Discourses, he uses the example of Agrippinus to illustrate and recommend the virtue of accepting the roles that fate or circumstance assign us. If we fall ill, we acquire the role or identity of a sick man. If we are driven into exile, we acquire the role of an exile or refugee. If a natural disaster or personal tragedy befalls us, we become victims of these misfortunes. Our choice is not whether or not to accept these roles--they have already befallen us-- but how we shall accept them, well or badly. Agrippinus' example is of someone who is determined to accept & play these roles as well as one can.
Think about the choice we would face in similar situation. Is Aggrippinus' example something we should study to imitate?
"But Aggrippinus & Epictetus do more than recommend that we just accept our arduous roles, they tell us to embrace & praise them. And they do so because they believe we live in universe controlled by a rational, benevolent intelligence who intends the best for us. God is not careless with our well-being. So whatever befalls us is ultimately for our own good. They believe, moreover, that illness and exile and personal tragedies are not evils. Only bad judgments and decisions and beliefs are really evil".
What then if we cannot follow these Stoics in their benign view of our universe and in their rejection of any evil residing in externals. Does it follow that Agrippinus' example is groundless and misguided?