Sixth installment:
Arrian, a student of Epictetus, wrote eight books, The Discourses of Epictetus, of which four survive. Selections from those eight books were also collected in the Enchiridion, or “Handbook.” The Discourses give us a quite vivid portrait of the man who inspired them, and also give us fascinating glimpses into his singular didactic style. We very quickly see how Epictetus ran his school, the nature of its curricula, and how he mentored his students. We see his earnestness, his zeal, and piety, but we also get a good dose of his sharp and often acerbic sense of humor. It is no wonder that Arrian felt he ‘had to get this down.’
It also can be quite a challenge to understand exactly what is being said in the chapters of the Discourses. The text is composed of lecture notes, we must recall.
So, with that genesis in mind, I’ve set out to read through the four books, a chapter at a time, while also breaking up the text with commentary, (essentially my best guesses as to how we might flesh out what can be very brief or truncated sketches of dialogue and argumentation), as it was no easy business for Arrian to get down what he had experienced in the lecture halls of Nicopolis!
Commentary is in italics! Also, please forgive any formatting issues (spacing between paragraphs) that you see. They stubbornly will not go away no matter what I do!
Book I Chapter 6
Of Providence
This chapter gives a vivid sketch of Epictetus’s ‘design argument’ for the existence of God, as well as his contention that man was deliberately designed with ability to cognize the mechanics and teleology within that world-design. He sketches man’s role in that whole, and then considers some possible objections that can be lodged against the view, objections that are component to what has come to be labeled ‘the problem of evil.’
This chapter shows three things:
(1.) Natural theology was front and center in the Stoic world view.
(2.) Stoics contented that God’s existence could be rationally defended as the most plausible view of how life, and humanity, came into existence, and that belief in a deity need not be taken up merely as a matter of faith.
Furthermore,
(3) given the truth of (2), Epictetus takes great pains toward forcing us consider what wide-ranging affect this should have upon our view of ourselves, as individuals and as a species. We must consider our relationship to that overall design, because it is apparent that we were consciously and deliberately designed and placed within it with all those cognitive and moral capacities we have. The implications are weighty.
We will see more on all three of these contentions as we move through the Discourses.
From everything that happens in the universe it is easy for a man to find occasion to praise providence, if he has within himself these two qualities: the faculty of taking a comprehensive view of what has happened in each individual instance, and the sense of gratitude. Otherwise, one man will not see the usefulness of what has happened, and another, even if he does see it, will not be grateful therefor.
If one has an eye toward fitness-to-purpose, as we all undoubtedly do as an aspect of our cognitive capacity, one will often run into specific instances where we recognize this fitness in some naturally occurring objects or events. This recognition encompasses phenomena on scales both large and small, local and universal. What is more, if one takes it to be the case that such apparent fitness-to-purpose is best explained by its having been designed, one has occasion for gratitude toward the entity that undertook the design; God.
Epictetus gives us some instances which are, as usual, set forth in snippets of dialogue:
If God had made colors, but had not made the faculty of seeing them, of what good had it been?
None at all.
But, conversely, if He had made the faculty, but in making objects, had made them incapable of falling under the faculty of vision, in that case also of what good had it been?
None at all.
What then, if He had even made both of these, but had not made light?
Even thus it would have been of no use.
In the case of eyesight, we have an articulated cooperation of interacting elements that make up the process. Removal of any element will render the feat impossible. We have the eye, sensitive to light, and objects capable of emitting electromagnetic radiation at those frequencies to which eyes are sensitive. There are two competing explanations as to how all this came about: Either God created and arranged these elements with the purpose in mind of allowing eyesight to result, or some unguided adaptive process of great duration and complexity brought it about. Epictetus argues that the sheer multitude of such adaptations to purpose indicate that the latter is the least likely explanation, the probabilities being compounded (and for modern readers, exponentially compounded by the need for explaining the origin of genetic and epigenetic information and information processing capacities within cells), and thus far too remote for it to have happened by that means. He believes the universal scope of such adaptations to purposes indicates a designer for the universe entire. He provides further analogical illustrating cases with which we are, again, quite familiar due to their ubiquity. They are introduced by way of an analogy which would appeal to the military man or woman:
Who is it, then, that has fitted this to that and that to this?
And who is it that has fitted the sword to the scabbard, and the scabbard to the sword? No one?
Assuredly from the very structure of all made objects we are accustomed to prove that the work is certainly the product of some artificer, and has not been constructed at random.
Thinking of the sword and scabbard as one example of ‘made objects’, we can admit the logical possibility of natural processes of immense duration having brought together the materials that make up the sword, in that exact sword-like configuration we see, the object having, as a result, a nice sharp cutting edge. We can admit the logical possibility of something similar having occurred in the case of the parts of the object that ultimately became the scabbard, with the result of its fitting that sword, ‘glove on hand.’ We can even admit the logical possibility of these two objects meeting at one vanishingly small spot in the cosmos, thus presenting us with sheathed sword, ideal instrument of battle. But, we must also admit that this explanation is very unlikely, a mere logical possibility, and that the other explanation, the one that suggests itself most strongly, one that refers to someone who designed these things with a purpose in mind, is the more probable. The same probabilistic argument can be made for the much more complex ‘fitting-together’ that is the phenomenon of sight:
Does, then, every such work reveal its artificer, but do visible objects and vision and light not reveal him?
And now Epictetus reminds us of myriad other examples besides, all drawn from the realm of biology. He reminds us that we’ve grown so used to these that we no longer marvel at them:
And the male and the female, and the passion of each for intercourse with the other, and the faculty which makes use of the organs which have been constructed for this purpose, do these things not reveal their artificer either? Well, admit it for these things; but the marvelous constitution of the intellect whereby, when we meet with sensible objects, we do not merely have their forms impressed upon us, but also make a selection from among them, and subtract and add, and make these various combinations by using them, yes, and, by Zeus, pass from some things to certain others which are in a manner related to them – is not even all this sufficient to stir our friends and induce them not to leave the artificer out of account? Else let them explain to us what it is that produces each of these results, or how it is possible that objects so wonderful and so workmanlike should come into being at random and spontaneously.
Again, the sheer volume of instances, and the symphony of complexity that allows the biological denizens of the world to function in all their multifarious ways, compounds massive improbability upon massive improbability, rendering any explanation of these that does not refer to an artificer, an explanation, and research project, that places a very tall order for itself, and an explanation, the terms of which will never be filled out, save in the most cursory of manners.
Consider the case of man. He not only is built to make use of ‘external impressions’ in the way that non-human animals do, but he is also able to categorize their intentional objects conceptually, understanding them in various ways. He is able to understand and apply mathematical concepts to that world he confronts through his senses. What is more, he has the power to draw deductive, inductive and abductive inferences, formulating hypotheses along the way, and thereby carrying out scientific investigations. To attempt an explanation for all of these capacities that posits some unguided random process bringing such beings about is, to state it again, a quite tall order. We are much more complex beings that scabbarded swords:
What then? Is it in the case of man alone that these things occur? You will, indeed, find many things in man only, things of which the rational animal had a peculiar need, but you will also find many possessed by us in common with the irrational animals. Do they also, then, understand what happens? No! for use is one thing, and understanding another.
Considering man’s relationship to the other animals in the world, and considering their similarities and differences with us, Epictetus thinks we will note three things.
- Species’ behaviors suited to biological purposes need not be accompanied with that species’ awareness of their behaviors having suitedness to purpose. But, when, as in the case of man, they are accompanied by this awareness, they are necessarily accompanied by a rich conceptual apparatus through which the actions, the consciousness of these actions, and their planning are undertaken. The actions not only have teleological features, but they are explicitly understood as such.
- When we apply this human capacity of consciously understanding and utilizing the teleological to our cognizance of the world as a whole, we will find ourselves casting a God or gods in the role of the entity or entities responsible for the articulated arrangement, and will also see that world as arranged for some overarching purpose we more or less dimly realize, in terms of which we will also take it that there is some role or other in that larger purpose that is played by man’s capacity to consciously and rationally use the world around him.
- We’ll also take it that man’s work includes ongoing use of those non-human species. They are ‘allowed’ to be used because they themselves lack that same human capacity or have it in much more rudimentary degrees.
- Man will also take it that he and God share this capacity for rational action and understanding use, but that God has it, and its constituent components, to a much greater degree. He applies it in a scope more all-encompassing and vast, than does man. Yet, man does take himself as able to grasp the plan, as it were, in outline. What is the outline? What, if anything, can we infer as to the particulars of God’s design plan and purposes? Epictetus elaborates:
God had need of the animals in that they make use of external impressions, and of us in that we understand and make use of external impressions.
The plan, whatever its particulars, evidently requires that non-human species be able to react to their environments in a more or less immediate and unself-conscious mode. So, they have the various sensory faculties, and capacities to act upon or ‘use’ what they perceive. Those actions and uses involve their individual and specific survival. In so doing, non-human species make use of their sensory apparatuses, again these having been provided them, for purposes of survival and for the larger purpose their lives ultimately serve, of which they are not cognizant at all.
And so, for them it is sufficient to eat and drink and rest and procreate, and whatever else of the things within their own province the animals severally do; while for us, to whom He has made the additional gift of the faculty of understanding, these things are no longer sufficient, but unless we act appropriately, and methodically, and in conformity each with his own nature and constitution, we shall no longer achieve our own ends.
Human beings, on the other hand, have evidently been created so that they not only ‘act on their external impressions,’ in the more or less immediate and instinctual way that animals do, but with a self-aware understanding of what it is they do. This is man’s intended mode of being, and to act otherwise than in this fashion is, for human beings, to act in a way that is not in accord with their designed purpose. What is more, they increase their fitness for survival only if they regularly make use of this specific capacity. Things get dangerous for human beings if they do not behave in this way! On the other hand, non-human animals are intended to function in this non-understanding, non-self-aware fashion, and do just fine with this more immediate ‘use-only’ mode of action.
For of beings whose constitutions are different, the works and the ends are likewise different.
That is, from God’s point of view, the ends for which beings of different constitutions work in his overall plan are distinct, yet ultimately coordinated in some way toward that one ultimate end he has for having brought about the world. That end, in some way, makes use of the unique aspects of differing specific natures. So, in the case of man, his work in the cosmos is essentially tied up with his capacity to understand, to be self-aware, reason and plan. Not so, the animals.
So, for the being whose constitution is adapted to use only, mere use is sufficient, but where a being has also the faculty of understanding the use, unless the principle of propriety be added, he will never attain his end.
Another way to put this point makes use of a thought experiment: Suppose man as a species decided to do something, like carry out a species wide lobotomization that eradicated his uniquely human capacities. In that case he would have rendered himself incapable of serving the purpose for which he was created, for he would have ‘lopped off’ his essential nature, something God had intended him to use for the duration of the species’ existence. He will, to use the language here “never attain his end.” In so doing, he would have thwarted God’s overall goal in having created the cosmos.
What is more, it is not too difficult to see that man would have signed his own death warrant by undertaking this bizarre species-wide act. Because humanity can only hope to survive by way of using its understanding and reason, man would have doomed itself. That would be an obvious case of man thwarting his own ends, while also thwarting God’s.
What then? Each of the animals God constitutes, one to be eaten, another to serve in farming, another to produce cheese, and yet another for some other similar use; to perform these functions what need have they to understand external impressions and to be able to differentiate between them?
The short answer: animals need not ‘understand’ external impressions to play these roles. They need only “use” them, be capable of reacting to them in ways that will allow them to survive, feed, procreate, lactate, and so on.
But God has brought man into the world to be a spectator of Himself and of His works, and not merely a spectator, but also an interpreter.
Again, man, because he is an understanding and rational agent, is able to detect design in the cosmos, and see it as a complex hierarchically organized, coordinated and internally adapted network of purposes, some near-term and clear, others more distant and dimly understood, He also sees that this capacity he has, this teleological lens of understanding with which he comes at the world, also places him in a position to take up a place in that world from which he is able to do things similar to those God undertakes. He can create, in his neck of the woods, (so to speak), his own realm, one that he takes as mirroring that larger containing cosmological and teleological context he always dimly perceives.
Wherefore, it is shameful for man to begin and end just where the irrational animals do; he should rather begin where they do, but end where nature has ended in dealing with us. Now she did not end until she reached contemplation and understanding and a manner of life harmonious with nature. Take heed, therefore, lest you die without ever having been spectators of these things.
We have the capacity to discern teleology in nature. The apparent sophistication of design in the world and multiplicity of coordinated functions and purposes that we can discern in it, indicate to us that we, as conscious rational planning agents, have been grown or evolved, and ultimately placed in its midst so that, we too can understand it and rationally work within that world, and that, in so doing, we play a part in bringing that larger divine plan to fruition. We recognize, in our own capacities, and in our apparent careful placement in this world, a mirror and indicator of that much greater designing intelligence that governs and arranges things in the cosmos. We also detect an obligation given us, to play that part we’ve been given, always making use of our specific excellence. What is more, granted our intelligence and understanding, and our ability to study the world, we have an obligation to study it, form justifiable hypotheses not only regarding its ‘mechanics’ but also its ends. We should, in some sense, act in accord with that nature as we understand it, for it, in concert with our own existence, works toward that, to us, dimly perceived singular end for which all of us and all of the cosmos exists.
It is quite important to note that we must undertake this task with humility, however, given our quite limited perspective on the spatial and temporal vastness within which we find ourselves. In any case, this much is certain for us human beings: To forgo our rational and cognitive inheritance and instead choose the life of an animal, only pursuing food, sex, procreation, and forms of simple pleasure, is to fail in fulfilling our nature, and, for Epictetus, thereby is a failure to carry out our given role. It would also endanger our continuance as a species, if this was to be the lifestyle adopted by too large a constituent of the human race.
We do have to be constantly reminded of these remarkable, improbable and amazing things about ourselves and the world. Epictetus repeats them to us time and again, because he knows we are so thoroughly familiar with those aspects of the world that should fill us with awe, that we take them for granted. Familiarity does not necessarily breed contempt in this case, but it certainly can lead us into failure in noticing things that we should notice. He illustrates with an illuminating analogical example, again addressing his readers or students as if in dialogue. He addresses those in his audience that have played the tourist, traveling for art appreciation’s sake!
But you travel to Olympia to behold the work of Pheidias, and each of you regards it as a misfortune to die without seeing such sights; yet when there is no need to travel at all, but where Zeus is already, and is present in his works, will you not yearn to behold these works and know them? Will you decline, therefore, to perceive either who you are, or for what you have been born, or what that purpose is for which you have received sight?
Pheidias was a renowned sculptor, whose works were incredibly life-like and showed remarkable virtuosity in stone. People took great pains to travel to Olympia and Athens in order to see his works. (Olympia housed one famous instance, Athens showcased another.) Yet, every day those same travelers were surrounded by the originals of which even the works of Pheidias are but pale copies, and did not marvel at these, nor do men often marvel at the artist that created them. Why is that? Utter familiarity.
We must note why it is Epictetus picks this example: One of those sites to see in Olympia, one of the original seven wonders of the world, was a huge rendering of Zeus himself, father of all, King of the Gods. What is remarkable about this, for Epictetus, is the fact that those that made that sometimes difficult trek to Olympia to see a representation of Zeus would not often notice ‘works of Zeus himself,” works of God himself, that were all around themselves as they were safely ensconced at home; nature, animals, other human beings, (yes all endowed with that remarkable faculty of sight!)
Now, having stated this, Epictetus has his imaginary interlocuter provide an interesting and somewhat unexpected response. He notes that life is not all beauty, as perhaps the works of Pheidias are:
“But some unpleasant and hard things happen in life.”
His response? Firstly, when people run into such hardships on their way to, or in Olympia, they do not typically conclude that the sculptures they had travelled to experience were not created by Pheidias, nor do they think the trip not worth it. What is more, they see these annoyances as unavoidable concomitants of the trip. So too, it may be that the beautiful aspects of our world are unavoidably accompanied by the unpleasant and hard things of life.
And do they not happen at Olympia? Do you not swelter? Are you not cramped and crowded? Do you not bathe with discomfort? Are you not drenched whenever it rains? Do you not have your fill of tumult and shouting and other annoyances? But I fancy that you hear and endure all this by balancing it off against the memorable character of the spectacle.
An apropos response. Yes, life has its ugly side, and some petty inconveniences, but is tolerating these a fair price to pay for our experience of the beautiful and remarkable in our own person, in those around us, and in the world at large? It seems so. What is more, according to Epictetus, we have been provided, by divine providence, with tools that collectively allow us to endure the travails that life invariably brings:
Come, have you not received faculties that enable you to bear whatever happens? Have you not received magnanimity? Have you not received courage? Have you not received endurance? And what care I longer for anything that may happen, if I be magnanimous? What shall perturb me, or trouble me, or seem grievous to me? Shall I fail to use my faculty to that end for which I have received it, but grieve and lament over events that occur?
The picture here is of God very carefully providing for us. Knowing that the difficulties and travails we will encounter in life are unavoidable, both for ourselves and for him (as noted in an earlier chapter), Zeus still made sure to give us what was in his capacity by way of tools for coping with these things. Epictetus lists various capacities or virtues that allow us to cope. Wielding these, along with our capacity for discernment between the controllable and uncontrollable aspects of our lives, will see us through, allowing us to experience the divine and remarkable, even as we must also deal with the terrible.
(And…the inconvenient, or gross. Don’t forget about the inconvenient and gross. Here’s another occasion for Epictetus’s humor and barbs in dialogue form):
“Yes, but my nose is running.”
What have you hands for, then, slave? Is it not that you may wipe your nose?
This is not going to be the only time the running nose makes an appearance in the Discourses. In any case, the interlocutor is up for it. He trades snark for snark:
“Is it reasonable, then, that there should be running noses in the world?”
In his silence on this question, Epictetus seems to bite the bullet, but insists that his interlocutor consider the fact that the difficulties found in life do often serve a purpose; the formation and exercise of human character and capacities:
And how much better it would be for you to wipe your nose than to find fault! Or what do you think Heracles would have amounted to, if there had not been a lion like the one which he encountered, and a hydra, and a stag, and a boar, and wicked and brutal men, whom he made it his business to drive out and clear away? And what would he have been doing had nothing of the sort existed? Is it not clear that he would have rolled himself up in a blanket and slept? In the first place, then, he would never have become Heracles by slumbering away his whole life in such luxury and ease; but even if he had, of what good would he have been? What would have been the use of those arms of his and of his prowess in general, and his steadfastness and nobility, had not such circumstances and occasions roused and exercised him?
This will not be the first time Heracles makes an appearance, as well. More on that in Book II. For now, though, the interlocutor, again answers with snark. He asks, if no such difficulties were in the offing, should Heracles have gone out of the way to provide them for himself, so as to reap the benefits:
What then? Ought he to have prepared these for himself, and sought to bring a lion into his own country from somewhere or other, and a boar, and a hydra?
Epictetus:
This would have been folly and madness. But since they did exist and were found in the world, they were serviceable as a means of revealing and exercising our Heracles.
Perhaps Heracles finding these things in his world is metaphor for the thesis Epictetus holds as to the ineliminable nature of adversity that is a result of our dual nature, something, (to remind ourselves of from earlier chapters), that even the gods or Zeus himself were not able to avoid. Yes, it might seem at least logically possible that Heracles have existed in a world devoid of such adversity, but in actuality it is not possible. So too with us, it would seem.
So, he seems to say to his interlocutor something like this: Look, if you agree with me on this ‘in-eliminability’ thesis, then don’t waste your time on such fruitless and ultimately pointless hypotheticals, as they can have no possible bearing on how we live and how we come at adversity, adversity you admit we cannot avoid.
What is more, it is evident that humanity is able to attain nobility only through such trials. There is no such thing as instant nobility, or acquiring it by taking a pill. In any case, it is universally accepted that it is better that we form nobility that than try to avoid such things.
And, assuming per impossibile we were to succeed in completely insulating ourselves from hardships and dangers, what would the result be? Nothing other than living the life of contented gerbils kept in warm cages, all our needs attended to, by our keeper. That is the life of a pet, or perhaps an infant, but not the life of a man or a woman.
Come then, do you also, now that you are aware of these things, contemplate the faculties which you have, and, after contemplating say: “Bring now, O Zeus, what difficulty Thou wilt; for I have an equipment given to me by Thee, and resources wherewith to distinguish myself by making use of the things that come to pass.” But no, you sit trembling for fear something will happen, and lamenting, and grieving, and groaning about other things that are happening. And then you blame the gods! For what else can be the consequence of so ignoble a spirit but sheer impiety? And yet God has not merely given us these faculties, to enable us to bear all that happens without being degraded or crushed thereby, but—as became a good king and in very truth a father—He has given them to us free from all restraint, compulsion, hindrance; He has put the whole matter under our control without reserving even for Himself any power to prevent or hinder. Although you have these faculties free and entirely your own, you do not use them, nor do you realize what gifts you have received, and from whom, but you sit sorrowing and groaning, some of you blinded toward the giver himself and not even acknowledging your benefactor, and others, – such is their ignoble spirit – turning aside to fault-finding and complaints against God. And yet, though I can show you that you have resources and endowment for magnanimity and courage, do you, pray, show me what resources you have to justify faultfinding and complaining!
Well! Take that, interlocutor!