The Discourses of Epictetus with Running Commentary – Book I, Chapter 23

Twenty-third 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. The subject matter sometimes jumps from one subject to another, veering into matters that are not obviously related to what we have just read. Sometimes these tangential matters are finally related back to things brought up earlier, or to the main topic of the chapter. Sometimes they are not. This leaves the reader with the task of finding the connections. Epictetus deliberately ‘weaves’ in an almost conversational style. His is most certainly not the style of the tightly outlined academic’s essay. He does not write like Aristotle, nor, if we are to believe his own testimony, like the Stoic school’s founders (chief among them, Chrysippus). Yet, we can see, as we ride his ‘weave’ that he was quite versed in all aspects of the school’s doctrine.

So, with that genesis, and that style of writing in mind, I’ve set out to read through the four extant 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 some of his ‘weave,’ (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!

A last note: I use the Oldfather translation in the Loeb Classical Library, and have taken some editorial and interpretive liberties where I thought it necessary. But, I’ve tried to keep such changes to a minimum. The advantage of using this translation is that it can easily be accessed via various online sources, and given that it presents, along with Oldfather’s translation and footnotes, the text in the original Greek, it is quite useful for those that would like to check any translations or interpretations against the original.

[A quick note, the last post was inadvertantly taken from Book II, chapter 23 of that book. This present post moves back to chapter 23 of Book I!]

Book I, Chapter 23.

In Answer to Epicurus

In this chapter, we see Epictetus again addressing his rivals, the Epicureans. He notes a certain inconsistency in the advice given by the school. They take a sharp stance counter to human nature, and as such, recommend things that are not only violent affronts to that nature, but deeply unrealistic in terms of prospects of success. 

We are to contrast the Epicurean position sketched here with that of the Stoics. The official Epicurean position? That social or familial relations, though natural, should not be counted as in any significant way components of ‘the good’ for man. That is, (to use one of the aforementioned skeletal elements of the definition of the good); these relations should not be counted in a principal role as among those things that we should pursue, not even as ‘preferred indifferents.’ We are going to see, in this brief section, that Epictetus doesn’t have much patience with this. It galls him.

Even Epicurus understands that we are by nature social beings, but having once set our good in the husk which we wear, he cannot go on and say anything inconsistent with this.

That ‘husk’ is our body. By this, Epictetus means to claim that Epicureans place the primary good of man in individually enjoyed physical pleasures. Having ‘put all of their eggs in that basket,’ they have to ‘bite the bullet’ (to mix cliché’s) and we find the following to be the case: In taking pains toward maintaining consistency between theory and practice, they end up suggesting we do things that are massively inconsistent with the totality of human nature, and immensely implausible as a way of life: 

For, he next insists emphatically upon the principle that we ought neither to admire nor to accept anything that is detached from the nature of the good; and he is right in so doing.

Again, this is telling us that Epicurus, like all men, agrees with the formal, skeletal or ‘preconceptual’ aspect of the definition of ‘good’ we have just explored, according to which the good, (whatever else it might be in a precise sense), is taken to be something worth pursuing. In so far as he takes this ‘no-duh’ position, he agrees with us all. But that doesn’t take him very far. In fact, once he sets about giving us the more specific fleshed-out account of what the good is, he lands himself in difficulties:

But how, then, can we still be social beings, if affection for our own children is not a natural sentiment?

Again, a restatement of the fact that we are naturally social, and naturally inclined to affection, especially for children! How does Epicurus, who fully admits this, square it with the deeply unrealistic, emotionally and psychologically untenable advice that he gives?  If he is honest with himself, he will admit that he cannot square it, and that he should count familial affection as among the good things, among those things ‘to be pursued’:

Why do you dissuade the wise man from bringing up children? Why are you afraid that sorrow will come to him on their account?

Again, grief, (or sorrows of other kinds), are natural occurrences, given our equally natural affections.  Epictetus provides an illustration that Epicurus would personally understand. He had a favorite slave by the name of Myc (here rendered “Mouse”). His attitude toward Mouse was quite affectionate, and indeed, he included Mouse in his classes as he grew up. To all intents and purposes, Mouse was Epicurus’s child:

What, does sorrow come to him on account of his house-slave Mouse? Well, what does it matter to him if his little Mouse in his home begins to cry? Nay he knows, that if once a child is born, it is no longer in our power not to love it or to care for it.

We cannot turn off affection and concern for our children. Again, to recommend that man retreat from familial or social life, as Epicurus evidently does, is to recommend the constitutionally impossible. Yet this is what the school does advise, telling us to focus on our individual pleasures first and foremost:

For the same reason Epicurus says that a man of sense does not engage in politics either; for he knows what the man who engages in politics has to do since, of course, if you are going to live among men as though you were a fly among flies, what is to hinder you?

What is this passage attempting to convey? It’s not altogether clear. We can take the second clause after the semicolon to be providing premise material.  It seems to be saying this: One can always choose to live in a way detached from familial life and social intercourse, no one prevents us from doing so. It is also true that we can choose to live in those more typical ways that do engage the familial and social. Again, no one prevents us from doing so, and most prefer this. In this latter case, though, along with the more pleasant aspects of that life, there will be unpleasant. In the case of politics, we’ve seen Epictetus focus considerable time, in earlier chapters, on those risks. Epicurus, as here presented, concludes that ‘the man of sense’ does not engage in politics.

In the premises, he wants to make clear that it is indeed possible to eschew such a life, as it is also, generally possible to disconnected from human society.  But, he also wants to point out to us how unnatural a mode of life this is for us. We are hard-wired contrary to this lifestyle.

As a matter of fact, the life of the hermit is considered to be difficult, and the relative rarity of such people does indicate that it is counter to human nature. We are genetically predisposed to be social, and have affection for one another, just as flies are hard-wired to be solitary creatures, neither rearing their young nor congregating socially. If we do choose to engage with our fellow man politically or otherwise, we are not doing anything fundamentally contrary to nature, but should go into that life knowing what it does entail, both good and bad. ‘We Stoics,’ Epictetus seems to say, ‘are better situated doctrinally to help in that regard than are the Epicureans with their very implausible value system.’

What is more, and returning to the main theme of the chapter, we find, in Epicurus himself, a counterexample to his own doctrines and advise. For, as founder of the school, and an allegedly pre-imminent ‘man of sense’ he does not practice what he preaches, but instead puts a great deal of stock into the welfare of his family and children. The fact that he had children, and had strong affection and concern for them does militate quite effectively against what is, in effect, highly dubious and implausible advice or ‘official school doctrine’ as to how to live well:

Yet, despite the fact that he knows this, he still has the audacity to say, “Let us not bring up children.”

For Epictetus, this advice is silly, and so pitted against human nature that even Epicurus himself cannot help but ‘performatively’ refute it in his personal life. So, we should not take his advice seriously, and have Epictetus’s’ permission, as it were, to ridicule it. He himself does so in rounding out this chapter:

But a sheep does not abandon its own offspring, nor a wolf; and yet does a man abandon his? What do you wish us to do? Would you have us be foolish as sheep? But even they do not desert their offspring. Would you have us be fierce as wolves? But even they do not desert their offspring. Come now, who follows your advice when he sees his child fallen on the ground and crying? Why, in my opinion, your mother and your father, even if they had divined that you were going to say such things, would not have exposed you!

Ouch. That left a mark!

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