Epictetus, Handbook and Discourses

Lecture 1

1. Historical Context and Influence

• Epictetus grew up as a slave during the Roman empire
• The general goal of Hellenistic philosophers: to give an account of how people can attain happiness (tranquility), and to practice what they teach
• Early Stoics taught logic and “physics” as well as ethics; later ones, like Epictetus, concentrated heavily on ethics

· Stoicism influenced:

• Christian, Islamic, and Jewish theology
• Modern philosophy, especially Descartes and Spinoza
• Contemporary ethics and psychotherapy

2. Things that are “Up to Us”

· Only our mental states are up to us: our opinions, judgments, desires, aversions, emotions, virtue and vice

· Even our own physical actions are not up to us

· Only the things that are up to us are

o By nature free, unimpeded, and our own

o Really good (beneficial under all circumstances)

· It is irrational to envy others because all the really good things are up to us

· It is irrational to have desires for (or aversions to) things that are not up to us

· Fear, anger, grief, exhuberance, and other “passions” are irrational judgments – in contrast with rational emotions like caution and joy

· People are upset not by things but by our own irrational judgments about things, such as: “Wealth is good,” “Poverty is bad,” “Pain is bad “

3. The Central Argument (Handbook, sect. 2 & 8)

i. Happiness lies in getting what you want

ii. What you get is not up to you

iii. Therefore, either

a. Want it, or

b. Strive to want nothing

Some Problems

• If we eliminated all our passions, would we still be motivated to do anything?

· Even if we could avoid feeling grief at the death of our spouse or child, should we? Would we better persons if we did not feel grief?

• Would we want a friend who did not to some extent share our suffering? Would we consider such a person a good friend?