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October 1, 2004
I have been reading one of Epictetus' text called Discourses, which was composed by his student Flavius Arrian. Epictetus was an exponent of Stoicism in the early second century in Rome and the Discourses concentrates on ethics. I presume that he builds on the texts of early Greek Stoic philosophers (Zeno, Cleanthes and Chrysippus). These texts survive only as quoted fragments found in the later works.
The role of the Stoic teacher was to encourage his students to live the philosophic life, whose end was eudaimonia (‘happiness’ or ‘flourishing’).This was to be secured by living the life of reason, which – for Stoics – meant living virtuously and living ‘according to nature’.
The Discourses appear to record the exchanges between Epictetus and his students after formal teaching had concluded for the day. In these discussions Epictetus aims to make his students consider carefully what the philosophic life – for a Stoic – consists in, and how to live it oneself.
This is what Epictetus says about philosophy in Ch.15, Bk 1, of the Discourses:
"When a man was consulting him how he should persuade his brother to cease being angry with him, Epictetus replied: Philosophy does not propose to secure for a man any external thing. If it did philosophy would be allowing something which is not within its province. For as the carpenter's material is wood, and that of the statuary is copper, so the matter of the art of living is each man's life. "What then is my brother's?" That again belongs to his own art; but with respect to yours, it is one of the external things, like a piece of land, like health, like reputation. But Philosophy promises none of these. "In every circumstance I will maintain," she says, "the governing part conformable to nature." Whose governing part? "His in whom I am," she says.
"How then shall my brother cease to be angry with me?" Bring him to me and I will tell him. But I have nothing to say to you about his anger.
When the man, who was consulting him, said, "I seek to know this- how, even if my brother is not reconciled to me, shall I maintain myself in a state conformable to nature?" Nothing great, said Epictetus, is produced suddenly, since not even the grape or the fig is. If you say to me now that you want a fig, I will answer to you that it requires time: let it flower first, then put forth fruit, and then ripen. Is, then, the fruit of a fig-tree not perfected suddenly and in one hour, and would you possess the fruit of a man's mind in so short a time and so easily? Do not expect it, even if I tell you."
In chapter 10 Bk 3 Epictetus asks: "But what is philosophizing? Is it not a preparation against events which may happen?
The ills we suffer, says Epictetus, result from mistaken beliefs about what is truly good. We have invested our hope in the wrong things, or at least invested it in the wrong way. Our capacity to flourish and be happy (to attain eudaimonia) is entirely dependent upon our own characters, how we dispose ourselves to ourselves, to others, and to events generally. What qualities our characters come to have is completely up to us. Therefore, how well we flourish is also entirely up to us.
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