Eleventh 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 11
Of Family Affection
This chapter, like the last, begins with Epictetus’s account of a conversation he had with a peer. Again, the man is an un-named official. The account gives him a good occasion for illustrating the sort of ‘drilling down’ that can be done with regard to study of man’s role in the cosmos. According to Stoics, there is a teleological element to his being, various faculties having been put in place by Zeus in order to allow man to successfully carry out his role as subsidiary administrator of his corner of the cosmos. Among these faculties or tools are emotions, which function to cement familial and other social connections, ultimately allowing man to look out for the benefit and continuation of the species. The particular example used here: Family affection. Reasoned analysis of its purpose, and the actions of this official, show that he did not function in accord with human nature, even if, technically speaking, he did ‘react naturally.’ The lesson here is that we can reason teleologically about our roles, and figure out what ‘nature’ requires of us in each role, that is; what our divinely ordained obligations and duties are.
When an official came to see him, Epictetus, after making some special enquiries about other matters, asked him if he had children and a wife, and when the other replied that he had, Epictetus asked the further question, “What, then, is your experience with marriage?”
‘Wretched,’ he said.
Is the man not happy with his wife? No. The source of his despair is his children:
To which Epictetus replied, “How so? For men do not marry and beget children just for this surely, to be wretched, but rather to be happy.”
“And yet, as for me,” the other replied, “I feel so wretched about the little children, that recently when my little daughter was sick and was thought to be in danger, I could not bear even to stay by her sick bed, but I up and ran away, until someone brought me word that she was well again.”
“What then, do you feel that you were acting right in doing this?”
“I was acting naturally,” he said.
Epictetus responds to this invocation of the notion of the ‘natural’:
“But really, you must first convince me of this, that you were acting naturally,” said he, “and then I will convince you that whatever is done in accordance with nature is rightly done.”
In other words, Epictetus is starting to draw a logical distinction between what we can call, on the one hand, ‘human behaviors that happen in the natural world,’ and on the other hand, what we can call ‘actions in accord with human nature.’ The two are not co-extensive, for you can have a human act occur that does not serve human ends well at all. The case of this man is one instance, and Epictetus is about to demonstrate this for the man’s future benefit, in his role as father:
“This is the way, said the man, all, or at least most, of us fathers feel.”
“And I do not contradict you either,” answered Epictetus, “and say that it is not done, but the point at issue between us is the other, whether it is rightly done. For by your style of reasoning we should have to say of tumors also that they are produced for the good of the body, just because they occur, and in brief, that to err is in accordance with nature, just because practically all of us, or at least most of us, do err. Please do show me, therefore, how your conduct is in accordance with nature.”
Again, an action, if it is ‘in accord’ with nature, must serve the preservation or sustenance of the sort of organism in question. Other sorts of things often do happen in nature, things which are harmful to organisms. Cancer is one such natural event that is not in ‘accord’ with host organisms’ nature. We can see cancerous growths as malfunctioning of cellular machinery that is in fact intended to be supportive of life.
We are going to see that Epictetus wants to convince this father that his actions taken in light of affection have amounted to a similar sort of malfunctioning on his part. Affection has a purpose, an obvious purpose, in that it leads parents to protect and provide for children, but, when parents are pained by the suffering of their children, that affection can lead to actions that, though explicable in light of that affection, are not justifiable in terms of the protective and nurturing ends for which affection exists. So, any such actions, while natural in the purely technical sense, are nevertheless NOT in accord with nature.
“I cannot,” said the man; but do you rather show me how it is not in accordance with nature, and not rightly done.”
The father doesn’t see any obvious way to argue for his running away as being ‘in accord with nature,’ so he asks Epictetus to argue that it is not in accord. Epictetus obliges, by first citing analogous cases:
And Epictetus said: “Well, if we were enquiring about white and black objects, what sort of criterion should we summon in order to distinguish between them?”
“The sight,” said the man.
“And if about hot and cold, and hard and soft objects, what criterion?”
“The touch.”
“Very well, then, since we are disputing about things which are in accordance with nature and things which are rightly or not rightly done, what criterion would you have us take?”
“I do not know,” he said.
“And yet, though it is, perhaps, no great harm for one not to know the criterion of colors and odors, and so, too, of flavors, still do you think that it is a slight harm for a man to be ignorant of the criterion of good and evil things, and of those in accordance with nature and those contrary to nature?”
“On the contrary, it is the very greatest harm.”
“Come, tell me, are all the things that certain persons regard as good and fitting, rightly so regarded? And is it possible at this present time that all the opinions which Jews, and Syrians, and Egyptians and Romans hold on the subject of food are rightly held?”
So, we have two comparisons made here. If we want to successfully tell what color objects are, we need to see them. If we want to tell what temperature an object is, we might feel it. So, the sensory faculties come into play, they are the ‘criteria’ by which we are able to discriminate these things.
After having illustrated with these examples, Epictetus next asks this father what faculty or faculties come into play when we are wondering whether an action is ‘in accord with nature’ (‘rightly done’) or not? The man cannot answer. At this point, (though it is not altogether clear why he picks this particular example), Epictetus introduces a third analogous case:
It is introduced with the phrase “the subject of food.” What he seems to be driving at here is not so much the fact that there are differences in mere matters of gustatory taste or custom between the Jews Syrians and Egyptians, but that there are discernable differences in the objective nutritive value of their distinct and culturally determined diets.
“And how can it be possible?”
“But, I fancy, it is absolutely necessary, if the views of the Egyptians are right, that those of the others are not right; if those of the Jews are well founded, that those of the others are not.”
The key thing in the case of nutritive value, is that this can be determined by scientific research, an application of reason; rigorous empirical study. We can come to conclusions about how well particular diets serve, or are in accord with, human biology. Something like this is also the case when it comes to whether or not certain actions are ‘rightly done,’ and in ‘accord’ with other aspects of human nature.
“Yes, certainly.”
“Now where there is ignorance, there is also lack of knowledge and the lack of instruction in matters which are indispensable.”
Epictetus is here getting this man to admit that his ignorance is important, and that he’d better get cracking on remedying it. After all, proper parenting is as vital to humanity as is diet.
He agreed.
“You, then,” said he, “now that you perceive this, will henceforth study no other subject and will give heed to no other matter than the problem of how, when you have learned the criterion of what is in accordance with nature, you shall apply that criterion and thus determine each special case. But for the present, I can give you the following assistance toward the attainment of what you desire. Does family affection seem to you to be in accordance with nature and good?
“Of course.”
Getting clear about what the criteria is for actions that are in accord with nature, and therefore right, is not as simple and as automatic as is the use of sight or touch. It is much more like the science of human nutrition. Once we have the idea of what the basics are, we are stepping off on a year’s long, indeed a lifetime’s journey of careful research. Be that as it may, Epictetus can give this father an introduction to what he will be studying if he chooses this path, and how it is we can come to discernments of the proper, or that which is in accord with nature, and ‘done rightly.’ The basic idea he presents is that we must take cognizance of certain innate tendencies humans have, and we must exercise reason to see if actions taken in light of those are truly supportive of human nature. He illustrates with the natural role of parenting, and the natural emotion of affection:
“What then? Is it possible that, while family affection is in accordance with nature and good, that which is reasonable is not good?”
Assuming we have a handle on what things are in accord with nature, it seems self-evident that reason, if carefully used would only aid in attaining them. Epictetus is here asking the father if we should expect anything other than this. He asks this with particular focus on the emotion of affection.
“By no means.”
“That which is reasonable is not, therefore, incompatible with family affection?”
“It is not, I think.”
“Otherwise, when two things are incompatible and one of them is in accordance with nature, the other must be contrary to nature, must it not?”
“Even so,” said he.
“Whatever, therefore, we find to be at the same time both affectionate and reasonable, this we confidently assert to be both right and good?”
“Granted,” said he.
“What then? I suppose you will not deny that going away and leaving one’s child when it is sick is at least not reasonable. But we have yet to consider whether it is affectionate.”
Leaving the child is irrational teleologically, as it works in no way toward protecting or nurturing that child. This is obvious. But, to be thorough here, we must also consider whether it is consistent with parental affection, the function of which, we must remind ourselves, is to render parents able protectors and nurturers.
“Yes, let us consider that.”
“Were you, then, since you were affectionately disposed to your child, doing right when you ran away and left her? And has the mother no affection for her child?”
“On the contrary, she has affection.”
“Ought then the mother also to have left her child, or ought she not?”
“She ought not.”
So an appropriate and ‘in accord’ act for an affectionate mother is to remain with her sick child.
“What of the nurse? Does she love her child?”
“She does,” he said.
“Ought, then, she also to have left her?”
“By no means.”
The same holds for a nurse.
“What about the school attendant? Does not he love the child?”
“He does.”
“Ought, then, he as well to have gone away and left her, so that the child would thus have been left alone and helpless because of the great affection of you her parents and of those in charge of her, or, perhaps, have died in the arms of those who neither loved her nor cared for her?”
“Far from it!”
…And the same goes for the male pedagogue, the person who attends the child as he or she goes to school. (We can also assume this line of reasoning holds for their teachers!)
“And yet is it not unfair and unfeeling, when a man thinks certain conduct fitting for himself because of his affection, that he should not allow the same to others who have as much affection as he has?”
“That were absurd.”
The gist of these examples is that there is no gender-based distinction in how human beings should behave with regard to their affection for children. In each case, the rational course of action is clear. To run away is always to imperil the child. Furthermore, our runaway father can’t use the excuse that things are different for men, that somehow or other it serves the child’s interests or is in line with the proper function of affection to do so. He cannot plausibly carve out a unique status for fathers, allowing them to run away from sick children on account of their affection. It’s just as patently unreasonable for them to do so as it is for any of the others, because running away clearly works against the interests served by affection, the interests of the child, which are just as obviously apparent to reason.
Just to be sure the father has gathered this, Epictetus turns the tables on him, asks him what sorts of behavior would be in line with familial affection and reason if it were he, instead of his child, that was ill.
“Come, if it had been you who were sick, would you have wanted all your relatives, your children and your wife included, to show their affection in such a way that you would be left all alone and deserted by them?”
“By no means.”
“And would you pray to be so loved by your own that, because of their excessive affection, you would always be left alone in sickness? Or would you, so far as this is concerned, have prayed to be loved by your enemies rather, if that were possible, so as to be left alone by them? And if this is what you would have prayed for, the only conclusion left us is that your conduct was, in the end, not an act of affection at all.
The conclusion is drawn here. This bit of dialogue was not only an illustration of the logical distinction that exists between naturally occurring acts and acts truly in accord with nature, but also serves the purpose of showing how it is one can go about determining that very sort of thing in particular cases, that is, what is and is not in accord with nature in any given situation. Put in other words, this is an illustration of how it is we can go about discerning right from wrong action, and what our divinely assigned subsidiary administrative roles require of us.
To review the case: We examined the function of parental affection; we examined what actions can reasonably be taken as in support of that function; and on the basis of these we were able to pass judgment on the actions of the runaway father.
What we’ve also done is, for Epictetus, a good case of falsifying the father’s rationalizing contention that his action was the result of his parental affection. Endangering his child was, most assuredly, not his motivation. That being the case, we can ask what his actual motivation was. If not from the proper functioning of affection, from whence did this action commence?
“What, then; was the motive nothing at all which actuated you and induced you to leave your child?”
“And how can that be?”
“But it was a motive like that which impelled a certain man in Rome to cover his head when the horse which he backed was running, and then, when it won unexpectedly, they had to apply sponges to him to revive him from his faint! What motive, then, is this? The scientific explanation, perhaps, is not in place now; but it is enough for us to be convinced that, if what the philosophers say is sound, we ought not to look for the motive anywhere outside of ourselves, but that in all cases it is one and the same thing that is the cause of our doing a thing or of our not doing it, of our saying things, or of our not saying them, of our being elated, or of our being cast down, of our avoiding things, or of our pursuing them—the very thing, indeed, which has even now become a cause of my action and of yours; yours in coming to me and sitting here now listening, mine in saying these things. And what is that? Is it, indeed, anything else than that we wanted to do this?”
“Nothing.”
There is quite a bit to unpack here, and what we can certainly say on behalf of the runaway father is that, though he should realize that his actions were not rational, given his affection for his child, and what reason would clearly dictate as being in the interests of the child, still, Epictetus is missing something in this passage.
While it is certainly true to say that the father’s choice to run away was made because he ‘wanted’ to run away, this leaves unanswered the question as to why he wanted to run away in the first place. We can imagine the man could reply with something to the effect that he wanted to run away because his daughter, for whom he has great affection, was suffering, and he, the parent could not bare to see it, so he, perhaps selfishly, ran. That makes perfect sense. Absent that love, perhaps he would have found it easier to watch?
Be that as it may, Epictetus would no doubt respond that it was still within his power to choose otherwise. More importantly, he would insist that the father could see that he should have chosen differently, because reason and affection both, in fact, dictate parents take another course. So, again, the affection did not directly cause the abandonment, nor did any but a most cursory use of reason (‘I don’t want to see this, so I’ll run in order that I may not see it!). An adequate or a deep understanding of the nature of parental affection, and an adequate or deep application of reason to the situation would have shown him otherwise, as the tour through counterexamples (mother, nurse and pedagogue) clearly showed.
Next, Epictetus focuses on that act of volition, which in every case, is distinct from the event or emotion that occasions it. He wants to emphasize that, no matter the strength of the emotional influence, acts of volition are independent, and ultimately free, with all the responsibility that this entails:
“And supposing that we had wanted to do something else, what else would we be doing than that which we wanted to do? Surely, then, in the case of Achilles also, it was this that was the cause of his grief, not the death of Patroclus (for other men do not act this way when their comrades die), but that he wanted to grieve. And in your case the other day, the cause of your running away was just that you wanted to do so; and another time, if you stay with her, it will be because you wanted to stay. And now you are going back to Rome, because you want to do so, and if you change your mind and want something else you will not go. And, in brief, it is neither death, nor exile, nor toil, nor any such thing that is the cause of our doing, or of our not doing, anything, but only our opinions and the decisions of our will. Do I convince you of this, or not?”
“You convince me,” said he.
The case of Achilles and Patroclus is very near this father’s own case. Again, it occasions a natural reaction to Epictetus’s claims here: Achilles’ grief at the death of Patroclus was an immediate emotional reaction, one that is as natural as affection, and indeed occasioned by it. On an uncharitable reading of what Epictetus is reported to have said here, he is simply wrong to claim that we choose to grieve, if indeed, that is what he means by apparently saying that ‘Achilles grieved because he wanted to grieve.’ That turn of phrase makes it sound like there is an on/off switch for the grief reaction, and that Achilles chose to turn it to the ‘on’ position. That seems to be an obviously false portrayal of the nature of emotion.
There is a more charitable reading: We can choose to indulge our grief, to the exclusion of all else. There is, according to this reading, something more like the on/off switch when it comes to how we respond to the onset of emotional reactions caused by things and events around us. Those emotional reactions are indeed hardwired responses that we cannot avoid. But, we can make efforts to not immediately respond to them in our actions. We can try to take a metacognitive step back and give ourselves time to reason about what actions we should take in response.
This second reading is more in the spirit of the example provided by this father’s conversation with Epictetus about parental affection. No doubt such metacognitive distancing from intense emotional reactions is difficult, but it is possible, and can be of tremendous benefit.
The Stoic project is not the impossible feat of extirpating emotions, but rather exerting rational control over actions taken in wake of them. Much of what Epictetus says militates in favor of this charitable reading of the relationship he thinks exists between volition and emotions, even if it is true that much of that same material, and the turns of phrase he employs, do make it sound like he takes the first less plausible ‘on/off switch’ reading according to which we have direct control over the onset of emotions.
“Of such sort, then, as are the causes in each case, such likewise are the effects. Very well, then, whenever we do anything wrongly, from this day forth we shall ascribe to this action no other cause than the decision of our will which led us to do it, and we shall endeavor to destroy and excise that cause more earnestly than we try to destroy and excise from the body its tumors and abscesses. And in the same way we shall declare the same thing to be the cause of our good actions. And we shall no longer blame either slave, or neighbor, or wife, or children, as being the causes of any evils to us, since we are persuaded that, unless we decide that things are thus-and-so, we do not perform the corresponding actions; and of our decision, for or against something, we ourselves, and not things outside of ourselves, are the masters.”
“Even so,” he said.
“From this very day, therefore, the thing whose nature or condition we shall investigate and examine will be neither our farm, nor our slaves, nor our horses, nor our dogs, but only the decisions of our will.”
“I hope so,” he said.
“You see, then, that it is necessary for you to become a frequenter of the schools, (that animal at which all men laugh), if you really desire to make an examination of the decisions of your own will. And that this is not the work of a single hour or day you know as well as I do.”
Again, this is hard work. For, ‘examining decisions of the will’ necessarily involves examining how the will interacts with the various other faculties we have, and the multitude of emotions we experience (the “desires and “aversions” earlier described). We have argued here that these two families of emotion play various vital roles in life, and that they function in several ways to help us navigate the world and take care of ourselves and those around us.
Yet, these emotions can function in ways that can lead to, what from a rational point of view, may be hasty, unwise or dangerous decisions. What is more, they can, if indulged unthinkingly, lead to addictions, despair, trauma and moral injury. By having us focus on the metacognitive gap that exists between the direct raw experiences and suggested immediate reactions these present us with (these complexes are what Epictetus labels ‘immediate impressions,’ a term we will run into again) and the ability we have to step back from these, give ourselves time to examine them and rationally consider courses of action they more or less immediately suggest to us, Epictetus is driving home the point that we have considerably more control over our own emotional, moral and psychological well being than we may, at first blush, suppose.
He is also telling us that we have incredible responsibility for how we turn out, and that it is, in a sense, a cop-out to blame things external to us, be they people, events, political life or culture, when we end up morally compromised, emotionally wrecked or otherwise psychologically debilitated. The same can be said for emotions, for they too, are in a sense, externals. We do not have ultimate control over them, but do have control over how rationally we respond to them.
A closing note on the metaphysical scheme we’ve seen sketched in earlier chapters, and which will be further developed as we progress into the next two chapters: God’s rationality, and the scope of divine knowledge, is mirrored in our capacities, even though we are considerably more limited in the scope of our knowledge. What is more, the Stoic sees us as having been deliberately placed in our station, here on earth, with that mirrored capacity, so as to play a subsidiary role in carrying out God’s ends, whatever they may be. We must do so individually and in social cooperation, with humility, while hewing to a careful analysis not only of the world in scientific terms, but of the teleological facets of the various hard-wired tools we have been provided.
These tools, our multifarious human capacities, are considered to be something like pre-programmed genetically installed responses that aid us in life, giving us some level of direction as to proper behavior in those roles we have been assigned (as we have seen in the examples of our senses and of the emotion of affection in this chapter’s cases).
But unlike non-human species, we have also been given a rational and metacognitive capacity, and the special sort of freedom it provides, a freedom that, Epictetus has reminded us, mirrors divine will. It too is rationally guided toward the good, and ‘free and unhindered.’ It intends for us to mirror this capacity in our own subsidiary realm. We must constantly remind ourselves of this mirroring and that unique status we have been given among creatures. We are, to use Epictetus’s way of putting it, sons of God. It is far too easy to forget this due to our fragility, our ‘earthly’ or material nature, and in the midst of the great press of events.