Seventeenth 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 17
That the Art of Reasoning is Indispensable
This wide-ranging chapter starts by returning to an examination of the unique self-evaluative and self-referential nature of human reason, one we saw in the first chapter, then it leads us into another humorous examination of the role textual exegesis plays in the Stoic curricula, comparing interpretations of its text books to diviner’s use of entrails. The chapter wraps with a fascinating exploration of the Stoic view of God’s nature, and the direct metaphysical connection it has with human freedom.
Since it is reason that analyzes and perfects all else, and reason itself ought not to remain unanalyzed, wherewithal shall it be analyzed? Why, clearly, either by itself, or by something else. This latter is assuredly either reason, or it will prove to be something else superior to reason, which is impossible. If it be reason, who again will analyze that reason? For if it analyzes its own self, the reason with which we started can do as much. If we are going to require something else at each step, our process will be endless and unceasing.
This is extremely quick. Not the clearest exposition of the argument, but it is one we’ve seen presented earlier, in the first chapter of the Discourses. That chapter’s case is here being revisited with some additional augmenting argumentation. It will help to paraphrase and expand upon what it seems to be saying:
What would ‘analyze and perfect’ human reason itself, and what would be the terms of the analysis? On the latter question, we have a clue in the use of the conjunction used here “analyze and perfect.” To perfect something, on Epictetus’s view is to tailor its use, either by way of efficiency or appropriateness to circumstance, (as we have seen in that earlier discussion of reason). Recall the first chapter, where musical arts and grammar are contrasted and compared with what he calls ‘reason.’ Reason was conceptualized as a faculty of telling when the exercise of these other capacities would or would not appropriate. Logic is but a component of this human capacity to ‘reason.’
So, the question in this present chapter is similar. Epictetus asks what capacity would play a like ‘analyzing and perfecting’ role when regarding the human faculty of reason. In short, what faculty would be able to tell when exercise of our reason is appropriate to circumstance?
Now, in this opening paragraph, there are two possible answers given:
- A faculty distinct from human reason, or –
- Human reason itself.
The next step in the argument seems to be this:
If we assume (1) to be the case, and that this ‘other thing’ is actually able to make such calls (that is the intent behind the use of the descriptor “superior”), and we also assume that it is itself not, in any way, reasoning, this is, in fact, impossible. For nothing is superior, in this sense, to reason. Reason stands at the pinnacle of ‘superiority’ with regard to judgments as to appropriateness, as it were. So, this hypothesized superior thing must itself be some form of reasoning, even if not human reasoning.
So, let us suppose it is some non-human level of reasoning. If we do, we can always raise the question of when it is appropriate to exercise that higher level of reasoning (that level being ‘superior’ to human reasoning.) If we do, and we also assume that any particular level of reasoning cannot adjudicate such questions about itself, we must, time and again, appeal to yet a higher-level reasoning to resolve such questions, and that same question will be raised with regard to the appropriateness of each new level’s reasoning, and so on ad infinitum.
On the other hand, if we assume this next-level reasoning can indeed adjudicate such questions about itself, then, why can we not also say this about the level of reasoning just below it, i.e., human reason? We already know that humans can reason out when it would be appropriate to use their faculty of reason and when it would be inappropriate. (Feel free to supply your own examples here, one thinks of the first chapter’s instances of comforting those in grief as being potential examples.)
If this is in the ballpark of a correct interpretation of the intent of this opening paragraph, we can move on. As we noted in chapter 1, this conception of ‘reason’ is in a way broader than what we nowadays take to be the province of logic (‘the science of reasoning,’) but does contain that core as essential to its functioning. The balance of this chapter makes the case that a fairly nuanced and well-grounded familiarity with formal and informal logic (deductive, inductive and abductive inference as well as an ability to ferret out fallacies borne from ambiguities or vagueness of terms) is indispensable to this broader end. The science of reasoning is central to exercising the ‘art’ of reasoning, we might say:
“Yes,” says someone, “but the cure (of the decisions of our will) is a much more pressing need (than the study of logic),” and the like.
This person voices a possible objection one might hear from a green student of the school. He is essentially saying that, because the most important aim of the school is to render students able to exercise will appropriately (‘cure decisions of will’) less time should be spent on logic. We can see, from what has just transpired, what the answer will be:
Do you then wish to hear about this other matter? Very well, listen. But if you say to me, “I do not know whether your argument is true or false,” and, if I use some ambiguous term, and you should then say, “Distinguish,” I shall bear with you no longer, but shall tell you, “Nay, but there is a much more pressing need.”
In other words, he answers this student in this way: “If you had tended to the logic courses in the first place, you would not have to be asking such questions now. You’d easily be able to tell if my argument was indeed valid or sound, and you would also be able to detect any instances of my trading on ambiguities. By the very fact of having to halt my presentation in these ways, you show the utility of the logic in question. So, study up! This is why we place such early emphasis on logic.”
This is the reason, I suppose, why the Stoic philosophers put Logic first, just as in the measuring of grain we put first the examination of the measure. And if we do not define first what a modius is, and do not define first what a scale is, how shall we be able to proceed with measuring or weighing anything? So, in the field of our present enquiry, if we have neglected the thorough knowledge and intellectual mastery of our standard of judgement for all other things, whereby they come to be known thoroughly, shall we ever be able to attain intellectual mastery and thorough knowledge of the rest of the world? And how could we possibly?
“Yes,” we are told, “but the modius is made out of wood and bears no fruit.”
True, but it is something with which we can measure grain.
“Logic also bears no fruit.”
Now as for this statement we shall see later; but if one should grant even this, it is enough to say in defense of Logic that it has the power to discriminate and examine everything else, and as one might say, to measure and weigh them. Who says this? Only Chrysippus and Zeno and Cleanthes? Well, does not Antisthenes say it? And who is it that wrote, “The beginning of education is the examination of terms?” Does not Socrates, too, say the same thing? And of whom does Xenophon write, that he began with the examination of terms, asking about each, “What does it mean?”
A very clever analogy is here drawn between the use of standard measures and the use of logic. The picture is this: We can imagine a person whose job it is to measure out units of grain. He’ll need to use a balance scale. For that purpose, he’ll need to use a standard measure on one side of that scale and an empty container on the other. (This is the wooden “modius.” You can imagine a one-pound standard weight instead). On that other side of that balance scale, he will place scoops of grain until the dishes on both sides of that balance scale are even with each other. Because he has used that standard weight “modius” on one side of the scale, he knows that the amount of grain on the other side of that scale is exactly one modius (or one pound in weight, as the case may be).
Similarly, if one has a clear idea of the standards by which we evaluate arguments (deductive validity, soundness etc.) and has an ability to clearly discern the meanings of terms, one will be well situated in evaluating arguments that concern themselves with that art of ‘measuring’ appropriateness of the exercise of reason with regard to the various externals with which we contend and with clear-eyed cognizance of levels of control which we have been given by dent of human nature and by circumstance.
What is more, the several schools of philosophy, (even those at odds with the Stoic school), tell us of the import of a grounding in logic, for they all recognize that they must necessarily make use of argumentation in constructing their several cases. The import of logical and definitional analysis is a common intellectual inheritance, one tracing to Socratic roots, as is attested by the men he references, even if implicitly, in the passage: Plato, Antisthenes the Cynic and Xenophon.
Epictetus wants to add this, (aimed again at his own students):
But, please, do not mistake this claim as to the importance of attending to our logic classes to be equivalent to saying that careful attention to those logic classes, and interpretation of the texts we use (here we see Chrysippus make another appearance as he had in chapter 4, and to essentially the same effect, along with fellow founders of Stoicism, Cleanthes and Zeno), as being the ultimate end for which we expend our efforts. These are only intermediary tools for ultimate goals. They provide waystations toward that final purpose for which we work. Put another way, these are measurement paraphernalia we hone. They are produced and refined so they can be used to another greater purpose. A carpenter uses his tools to build a house. We Stoics use logic to build a person, a Moral Purpose, and thereby, use it in service to Zeus’s overall purposes:
Is this, then, your great and admirable achievement—the ability to understand and to interpret Chrysippus?
And who says that?
Epictetus flips the sarcasm switch: ‘Surely, None of the faculty in Nicopolis! Maybe some of the school’s academic competitors, but certainly, none of us!’
Most likely from the given context, Epictetus has in mind his own logic students who typically would become full of themselves after having wrestled successfully with the Chrysippean logic textbooks. Perhaps he has his own youth in mind, remembering how he had behaved after he had mastered interpretations of these texts? This guess makes sense of the next exchange. Epictetus asks his younger self, or that puffed up student:
“What, then, is your admirable achievement?”
Or perhaps:
‘Should you ever be able to achieve it, what would your most admirable achievement at this school be?’
To which the appropriately indoctrinated student of Stoicism would dutifully respond:
“To understand the will of nature.”
…and ‘Nature’s God.’
Very well; do you understand it all by yourself? And if that is the case, what more do you need? For if it is true that “all men err involuntarily,” and you have learned the truth, it must needs be that you are doing right already!
Now, even this puffed-up student, be he a younger Epictetus or one under the older man’s tutelage, is not that pompous! It would truly take a next-level amount of self-regard to answer these questions in the affirmative. One can imagine the steady penetrating stare that accompanied the tutor’s question, boring, along with that pointed enquiry, into the kid’s self-regard. The puffed-up student is reminded of his ignorance, and, to his credit, is honest about it. Perhaps Epictetus remembers Rufus in this passage:
But, so help me Zeus, I do not comprehend the will of nature.
Who, then, interprets it?
Men say, Chrysippus. I go and try to find out what this interpreter of nature says. I begin not to understand what he says, and look for the man who can interpret him.
Again, we are reminded of the opaque nature of Chrysippus’s texts, and the unavoidable recourse to interpretations that must be taken in trying to figure out what the man says, not only with regard to logic, but with regard to the entirety of his philosophical system (the religious, metaphysical and natural scientific corpus as well).
Again, one wonders if this account is a bit of autobiography on Epictetus’s part, his recall of being a perplexed student trying to get a handle on the Hegel of his day (with regard to his writing style only!).
We are next presented with a humorous scene, student with teacher, busy at the task of interpreting Chrysippus:
“Look and consider what this passage means,” says the interpreter, “just as if it were in Latin!”
We can see the scene in the classroom:
The two are pouring over the Greek text, interpreting and paraphrasing Chrysippus in plain English… er …Latin, and apparently doing a pretty good job. Should they, as they painstakingly interpret the text, and record the results, become proud of this accomplishment? No. If they are serious Stoics, they need to do more: To use the modern well-worn cliché; They need to ‘walk the walk,’ nor merely ‘talk the talk.’ Textual interpretation (and acuity in logic we might add) is only half the game:
What place is there here, then, for pride on the part of the interpreter? Why, there is no just place for pride even on the part of Chrysippus, if he merely interprets the will of nature, but himself does not follow it; how much less place for pride, then, in the case of his interpreter! For we have no need of Chrysippus on his own account, but only to enable us to follow nature. No more have we need of him who divines through sacrifice, considered on his own account, but simply because we think that through his instrumentality we shall understand the future and the signs given by the gods; nor do we need the entrails on their own account, but only because through them the signs are given; nor do we admire the crow or the raven, but God, who gives His signs through them.
Epictetus has introduced an analogy here between the divination or fortune-telling practices of the day and textual exegesis. Teachers and students are examining entrails when they study the texts of Zeno, Cleanthes and Chrysippus! Another strikingly humorous comparison.
Wherefore, I go to this interpreter and diviner and say, “Examine for me the entrails, and tell me what signs they give.”
The fellow takes and spreads them out and then interprets:
“Man, you have a Moral Purpose free by nature from hindrances and constraint. This stands written here in these entrails.
Otherwise put, the practical import of the message in these books is the important thing: We each are centers of volition, willing beings, that must choose, moment to moment, as we move through life, and, insofar as we do this, we see an ineliminable freedom at the core of our being, (something that is also a pre-condition of moral agency, for it would make no sense to hold ourselves morally accountable for actions if we were in fact unfree in those actions). We can be brought to recognize this freedom in the sphere of the non-moral as well. Epictetus has us consider the simple matter of accepting propositions or assertions we take to be true, or rejecting those we take to be false:
I will prove you that first in the sphere of assent. Can anyone prevent you from assenting to truth?
No one at all.
Can anyone force you to accept the false?
No one at all.
Do you see that in this sphere you have a Moral Purpose free from hindrance, constraint, obstruction?
No matter how hard people may try, they cannot stop you from accepting some assertion as true or rejecting it as false, once you have recognized these propositions as such. Outsiders may be able to make you behave as if you accept the false proposition or reject the true, but have no such control over the mental acts of assent or dissent. These ‘as-if’ follow-on actions are freely given, and under one’s complete control, while belief or disbelief follow almost automatically upon being presented with the evidence, so to speak.
Come, in the sphere of desire and choice is it otherwise?
Here, again, we can either choose to indulge a desire or not. It’s ultimately up to us. Nothing about desired objects or ends ultimately compels us, in some automatic way, to pursue the objects of desire. When we carefully consider it, we always realize that we must first choose to pursue these things. Again, this ultimate fact of self-control explains many things we humans uniquely experience, including such commonly reported facts as that addicts feel guilt or shame concerning their actions. They see that they could choose otherwise, but fail to do so.
And what can overcome one impulse but another impulse? And what can overcome one desire or aversion but another desire or aversion?”
To be quite precise here, when we overcome one desire, (say the addict’s desire for his drug), it will always be because we have valued some other object or end state to a greater degree, and have, on that basis, chosen to pursue it to the exclusion of the other object of addictive desire.
In the case of the recovering addict, he values his life, perhaps, over the high. Ultimately his putting aside the drug is an act of will, an act originating from that core of freedom that is his person, that valuation propels him to choose the long-term good. There are other, much more striking examples of such choice. Courage in the face of threat, for instance, and even the much more common instances of acquiescing to such threat. In each case, a choice is made:
“But,” says someone, “if a person subjects me to the fear of death, he compels me.”
“No, it is not what you are subjected to that impels you, but the fact that you decide it is better for you to do something of the sort than to die. Once more, then, it is the decision of your own will which compelled you, that is, Moral Purpose compelled Moral Purpose.
From these examples Epictetus now moves to a very interesting but condensed argument vis God’s nature and its relationship to human valuation and freedom:
For if God had so constructed that part of His own being which He has taken from Himself and bestowed upon us, that it could be subjected to hindrance or constraint either from Himself or from some other, He were no longer God, nor would He be caring for us as He ought.
This is very condensed indeed, almost a mere stub of an argument, but it’s worth exploration. The picture is this: God ‘constructs’ and then takes a part of himself divides it in some sense and gives it to humanity as he creates us. Necessarily, this ‘part’ has been given to us each individually, and thereby has been given to us collectively as a species. What is that thing that has been given to us? Freedom; the capacity for reasoned choice. Ineliminable freedom is at the core of each self. It is what we are. We choose, are aware that we must always choose, and are aware that we are responsible for the consequences of our choices, both with regard to impact on self, and with regard to impact on others. This is what each of us, as person, is. We are exactly similar to God in this respect. He is Moral Purpose. So are we.
Now, it seems Epictetus is also implying here that God could have ‘constructed’ those parts of himself differently. What exactly that different construction would amount to, he does not say, other than that he could have made it such that it could be hindered or constrained.
In any case, this is a curious set of things to say about God in regard to himself. God constructs aspects of himself and distributes them, and could have made it the case that he, or those parts, be less than totally free.
What is more, by distributing those parts, he could have made it the case that we too were similarly limited. But, if he had done this, then, in regard to his own being he would no longer have been God, at least as traditionally understood. Further, such choice to limit those parts of himself that are ourselves would have been an expression of a level of care for us that is less than he could have expressed. Again, he could have done better in that case. To be free, and capable of reasoned choice is better than the life of the hindered or constrained animal. The truly caring God would not fetter us in this way. He would not fetter himself that way. This is all quite curious, even if terribly brief.
Now, it is possible to read this quick argument in two ways. Firstly, it can be taken more or less as just sketched, a description of an alleged logically possible state of affairs with regard to God and his creations (us). He could have rendered himself as less than totally free and he could have rendered us less than free. For some reason, on this view, God chose to refrain from either course of action.
Still, it sounds odd to say that God could choose to be unfree. It also seems odd to admit that he could thereby cease being, or refrain from being, God. It seems God cannot do either. God cannot choose to no-longer be God. This seems logically impossible. If so, then the import of the penultimate clause is not so much to say that God could make this choice, but to say it is logically inconsistent with his nature to be so situated.
That would cast this condensed argument in a second light, as being a reductio-ad-absurdum, an argument essentially establishing the falsity of its leading assumption by way of deriving a contradiction from it. The contradiction in this case is that God is both God and not God. The assumption: That God could possibly be ‘constructed’ as to be hindered in his capacity of free choice. God, it seems, is necessarily free. By implication, this carries the consequence that humanity is also necessarily free.
In any case, this is an example of one of those tangential side roads Epictetus likes to include while making the main points of a chapter. In this chapter the main point was to get across to us that we need to focus on the message, not the messengers, when it comes to being serious students of his. The task at hand is to understand the content of what the ‘diviners’ tell us.
Remember, ‘diviners’ here are the major figures in the Stoic school, and their ‘divinations’ are their teachings and the books recording these are the diviner’s entrails, assiduously studied by faculty and students. We should not lose sight of that primary motivation, that primary focus, and get lost in scholasticism. We should not only read and interpret the manuals, but should apply them:
This is what I find,” says the diviner, “in the sacrifice. These are the signs vouchsafed you. If you will, you are free; if you will, you will not have to blame anyone, or complain against anyone; everything will be in accordance with what is not merely your own will, but at the same time the will of God.” This is the prophecy for the sake of which I go to this diviner – in other words, the philosopher, not admiring him because of his interpretation, but rather the interpretation which he gives.