Twenty-seventh 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.
Book I, Chapter 27
In How Many Ways Do the External Impressions Arise, and What Aids Should We Have Ready at Hand to Deal with Them?
The rather dry title of this chapter belies its primary focus. As we’ll see, Epictetus has one particularly powerful “external impression” in mind, as he lectures. After an introductory section covering all the possible combinations of ‘match’ between how things appear to us, and how they may be in reality, he quickly gets down to a discussion primarily concerned with the proper attitude to take toward death, viz-a-viz its impact on our obligation to tend our Moral Purpose, our person. Drawing on examples from Greek literature, Epictetus makes the case that death is not the worst of fates, and that we should behave accordingly. His primary example is that of a warrior, Sarpedon, who fought for Troy. Along the way, Epictetus has some harsh and cold sounding things to say about natural attitudes we hold regarding the ravages of warfare. His is a warrior’s ethos. Weaved into this discussion are what amount to some amusing non-sequiturs. He again cannot resist poking fun at Pyrrhic and Platonic Academy skeptics, as is his wont! He begins the chapter by drawing, for us, that four-celled diagram of the possible match-combinations between appearances and reality:
The external impressions come to us in four ways; for either things are, and seem so to be; or they are not, and do not seem to be, either; or they are, and do not seem to be; or they are not, and yet seem to be.
When it comes to our experiences of things, we can make a basic distinction between how things appear to us, and how they actually are. When we do this, we come up with four basic combinations of the possibilities with regard to match between appearances and reality. Our experiences of things are either accurate or inaccurate representations of those external things. Some such external things actually exist, or they do not.
So, combining the members of these two membered sets we can describe all the possible outcomes:
- An experience portrays something as actually being the case, and things are actually as represented.
- An experience portrays something as not being the case, and it is also true that things are indeed as presented (not actual).
- An experience paints something as not being the case when in fact it is.
- An experience paints something as being the case when in fact it is not
A simple set of illustrating examples.
- I think I see a cat on the mat, and a cat is actually on the mat.
- I think I see that there is no cat on the mat and there is indeed no cat on the mat.
- I think I see there is no cat on the mat and there is a cat on the mat
- I think I see there is a cat on the mat and there is no cat on the mat.
Consequently, in all these cases it is the business of the educated man to hit the mark.
In other words, with regard to these four basic possibilities with regard to ‘external impressions’ broadly construed, we want to distinguish type 3 and 4 cases from type 1 and 2 cases, and never fall into type 3 and 4 mistakes. We can delineate specific sorts of impressions and thereby delineate specific sorts of error that we should try to avoid. One such species of ‘impression’ is ‘distress.’ We want to be able to distinguish cases where the level of distress we feel is well founded and justifiable from cases where it is ill-founded and unjustifiable. Again, using our silly example, if we become distressed at the apparent approach of a threatening big cat (a lion, let’s say, who had been previously sitting on a mat), we want to ensure that there is indeed a lion, and that we are not dreaming or in some sort of virtual reality simulation before we take flight! For this task we need to refer to elements of the circumstances or our background knowledge. For instance; if a Michigander who has never, and does not intend to travel to Africa or visit a zoo has the experience (as might occur in a dream) that person has what we, with Epictetus, can call ‘reinforcements’ that aid him in concluding that he is having a type 4 lion ‘impression.’ As often happens when we have dreams that are beyond the normal confines of our day-to-day experience, such a person will either wake up directly or become suspicious and make efforts to wake up, thus confirming the illusion. In every case where we are ‘distressed’ we should make similar sorts of effort, bringing to bear whatever ‘reinforcements’ we need to the end of determining whether or not the level of distress we are experiencing is justified. Epictetus illustrates for his students, drawing, first upon their own classroom experiences, no doubt:
But whatever be the thing that distresses us, against that we ought to bring up our reinforcements:
If the things that distress us are sophisms of Pyrrho and the Academy, let us bring up our reinforcements against them.
(This lets us know his audience in in one of the classrooms of Nicopolis, does it not)
Epictetus now introduces two other sorts of ‘distressers’: What are termed “plausibilities” on the one hand, and the force of habit, on the other:
If they are the plausibilities of things, whereby we are led to think that certain things are good when they are not, let us seek reinforcements at that point.
If the thing that distresses us is a habit, we should try to hunt up the reinforcements with which to oppose that.
We have been given here a set of three things that could be potential sources of ‘distress.’ One of them is something that would be a particular temptation and nuisance to students in the Stoic school in their dealings with competing philosophical schools; arguments of a more theoretical, and dare we say, more stereotypically “philosophic” nature, that might emanate from those competing institutions. Pyrrho’s Academy (yes, that Academy originally founded by Plato) specialized in the sorts of skeptical arguments we saw earlier portrayed in chapter 5, arguments that today we associate with Rene Descartes. (Descartes himself noted his own indebtedness to this ancient school.) We have already seen examples of such skeptical arguments and Stoic responses in that earlier chapter. We can take it that such specimen responses also give us a good idea of what the ‘reinforcements’ are that are referenced in this present chapter. It certainly involves the marshalling of careful logical analysis of the sort we saw in that earlier chapter, along with efforts toward disambiguation of terms, use of hypothetical reasoning, and other sorts of techniques.
This chapter’s discussion gives us a brief reminder of that earlier chapter, along with similar reminders of related discussions he had presented at other occasions. One matter, reflecting, as we noted before, the precarious nature of political life in Rome, is possible death. Here too he will discuss death, and the distress it’s threat can cause; he considers, as his example, death while in military service. He focuses on what would be a quite natural response to the death of men in service, and uses it to illustrate what sorts of measures can be considered to be ‘reinforcements’ we can marshal and bring to the fore against certain “plausibilities” or habits of thought we have concerning such deaths, and how these can lead us into incorrect, though completely understandable, judgments.
To be clear here, habits can bring into being, “plausibilities,” or beliefs of types 3 and 4 discussed above. They are matters that appear to be contrary in nature to how they actually are. Here those two categories are treated with particular regard to the moral sphere, and how cognizance of the primary import of that sphere should guide our attitudes toward death.
There are two specific sorts of type 3 and 4 ‘plausibility’ here under discussion: Either cases where something appears to be good when it is not, or cases where something appears to be bad when it is not.
The focus is on the latter of these two sorts of appearance, with particular regard to how death is perceived; it can appear to be the worst possible outcome, when it is not.
With regard to habits, we want to get in the middle of that space that exists between stimulus and habitual response, and make the whole affair a more carefully considered thing. Done conscientiously, and repeatedly, this will create a new and better habit.
In either case, (facing misleading “plausibilities” or misleading habits) we want to be able to detect, evaluate, and respond appropriately, getting at the true nature of things, and the true moral import of the situations at hand, whatever they might be.
Epictetus does start this section focusing on habit as a common source of distress, but I think would tell us that it is very often the case that habit is the origin source of ‘plausibilities’ with which we must contend. So, we will see the treatment of habit and plausibilities are intended to blend here.
What are the reinforcements we can bring up against habit? In short, it is the production of contrary habit, to be brought about by strategically calibrated repetition of certain patterns of thought. His instance, again, is the typical, (and understandable), strong responses to death; grief and pity:
What reinforcements, then, is it possible to find with which to oppose habit? Why, the contrary habit. You hear the common folk saying, “That poor man! He is dead; his father perished, and his mother; he was cut off, yes, and before his time, and in a foreign land.”
The case is of a man who had died in some foreign land, after being ‘cut off.’ We can only presume the man was serving in a military capacity. His parents have both passed on as well. His fate is bemoaned. He is pitied. He has allegedly suffered the worst possible fate. But Epictetus tells us that we must do more than indulge the natural emotions of pity and grief when we come up against such cases, as will be inevitable, because death is inevitable, and its risk is certainly involved in military service.
It may very well be that the man led an honorable life, as did his parents. If that is so, then we should not acquiesce in letting pity or grief be the predominant response when we contemplate this man. We should perhaps also admire him, see him as in inspiring case, and express gratitude, both to him for his service and to God for the man’s life. It may very well be that he died for the good of his fellow man, or for some similar high end, and did so facing down the natural fear of death, treating dishonor, or failure to serve his fellows, as worse than death. If the man was correctly judging his duty, and carrying on, he is an exemplar, not merely to be grieved or pitied. But, in order to do that kind of evaluation of the man in his totality, we do have to militate against the habit of taking that pair of first and most powerful emotional reactions to his death as the final word on how to respond to loss:
Listen to the arguments on the other side, tear yourself away from these expressions, set over against one habit the contrary habit.
Now, he very quickly shifts gears. (In fact, they grind! There is no transition.) Epictetus (or Arian) here deems it appropriate to give, what to all appearances is an aside to his student audience, one that might very well have been preoccupied with argumentation on other matters. So, he feels it necessary to briefly recapitulate the discussion he had already presented in chapter 5 regarding those skeptical bad boys, the ‘sophist,’ in Pyrrho’s camp, for whom we have already noted he had no great amount of patience:
To meet sophistic arguments, we must have the processes of logic and the exercise and the familiarity with these.
We think he will elaborate. But no. He grinds his gears again. He immediately, (and once more, without transition), moves into a discussion of ‘plausibilities.’ The ‘marshalling forces’ involved in coping with these include, as we saw in chapter 22, utilization of those common “preconceptions” or valuations humans bring to bear when they engage in argument, and, in particular, moral argument. We can wield these in ways that defang distracting plausibilities:
In this case, we discuss death, and the plausible assumption that it is ‘evil.’ He draws an absurd consequence from the assumption. For, if we should avoid evil, (which is what one of those moral ‘preconceptions’ we all share does in fact, tell us) then, when it comes to avoidance of death, we are doomed to fail in this regard. To assume this to be the case is to impugn Zeus’s decency. Why? Zeus, being supremely good does, to the best of his ability, ensure that we have the means to avoid evil if we so choose. We have been created so to always have the capacity of free choice, and can thereby always avoid choosing morally unctuous actions. For evil actions are evil precisely insofar as they are knowingly and freely taken. One cannot be blamed for something that is not within one’s power to choose or avoid doing. If one cannot be blamed for such things, then one cannot conceivably be described as evil for having behaved in that manner. Now, let us take a look at death. What is its nature?
Death is unavoidable for us. As well, if the Stoics are right about Zeus’s true options when it came to creation, it was unavoidably necessary for God to create us as mortal beings. He really did not have the option of making us immortal.
Combining the results of the last two paragraphs we get this: It follows that death is not really an evil, for we have no choice in that matter. We are doomed to die. We cannot avoid it. On the other hand, we see that we are never doomed to failure in avoiding evil choices. It is always open to us to avoid the morally unctuous.
We can conclude that death is only an ‘evil’ in the sense that it is one of those indifferents of the ‘dis-preferred’ variety. Like pain or suffering, it is, in actuality, morally neutral, if we but carefully consider it.
So, in effect we must ‘trust the process’ as it were, and put our focus on our capacity to make proper choice, avoiding moral evil, which is always in our complete compass, and is also our unique duty, our unique assignment, as persons, as Moral Purposes. Again, we can ascertain that this is so by carefully noting what it is we over which have been given complete control.
Against the plausibilities of things we must have our preconceptions clear, polished like weapons, and ready at hand. When death appears to be an evil, we must have ready at hand the argument that it is our duty to avoid evils, and that death is an inevitable thing. For what can I do? Where shall I go to escape it? Suppose that I am Sarpedon the son of Zeus, in order that I may nobly say, as he did: “Seeing that I have left my home for the war, I wish either to win the prize of valor myself, or else to give someone else the chance to win it; if I am unable to succeed in something myself, I shall not begrudge another the achievement of some noble deed.” Granted that such an act as Sarpedon’s is beyond us, does not the other alternative fall within the compass of our powers?
The import of the latter portion of this passage is not altogether clear. Sarpedon was indeed son of Zeus, and mortal. He fought on the side of the Trojans. He is killed by Patroclus during a battle in the Iliad. Zeus does not prevent this. Sarpedon goes into battle fully accepting the possibility that he may die. Sure, he would prefer to emerge victorious, but he knows death is a risk, and he comports himself bravely, not cowering in the face of that possibility, but carrying on his duty, his defense of Troy. His case is in marked contrast to those of others in the war, particularly Achilles, in that he is not led about by his ‘immediate impressions.’ He does not fail in his duty, where Achilles does. We should adopt an attitude similar to his, for life is, in effect, a long-term battle, and death is not merely possible, but inevitable. It does no good worrying about it, and indiscriminately taking all available means to avoid it. That is not only deeply irrational, but can lead to moral compromise of profound degree, and resulting degeneracy, something that is ultimately far more miserable for human beings:
And where can I go to escape death? Show me the country, show me the people to whom I may go, upon whom death does not come; show me a magic charm against it. If I have none, what do you wish me to do? I cannot avoid death. Instead of avoiding the fear of it, shall I die in lamentation and trembling? For the origin of sorrow is this; to wish for something that does not come to pass.
Epictetus has us now consider the kind of life one might live if one loses sight of the moral risk and deep irrationality involved in a life devoted to avoiding death at all costs. This is the one external that invariably has the last word. Our own lives are the one thing that will be taken from us all, guaranteed! So, we must accept that, and not ‘rage against the dying of the light,’ in ways that compromise our Moral Purpose, and self-respect. To do otherwise leads down some very dark roads:
Therefore, if I can change externals according to my own wish, I change them; but if I cannot, I am ready to tear out the eyes of the man who stands in my way.
And here, Epictetus explains this sad way of life in terms of one of those ‘preconceptions’ of ours:
For it is man’s nature not to endure to be deprived of the good, not to endure to fall into the evil.
Again, this is statement of a common value we all share, but one that can be carelessly and incorrectly applied, as this particular example is demonstrating. We’ll also note, here that this statement of that ‘preconception’ has those two ambiguous terms “good” and “evil.” People will certainly strive ‘not to endure’ deprivation of what they take as goods and will also strive ‘not to endure’ suffering perceived evils, but may very well take preferred and dis-preferred indifferents as the primary goods and evils they need to concern themselves with. In the unique case of death, this ends up putting one in an untenable position, for it cannot be avoided. From there, it is a short step to inhumanity toward fellows in service to preservation of one’s own life, and then impiety toward Zeus; accosting God for having set us up for failure, for having presented us with an impossible goal (More on the ‘fruits’ of this ambiguity is in chapter 28):
Then, finally, when I can neither change the circumstances, nor tear out the eyes of the man who stands in my way, I sit down and groan, and revile whom I can—Zeus and the rest of the gods; for if they do not care for me, what are they to me? “Yes,” you say, “But that will be impious of you.” What, then, shall I get that is worse than what I have now? In short, we must remember this—that unless piety and self-interest be conjoined, piety cannot be maintained in any man. Do not these considerations seem urgent?
The end result for this man attempting to succeed in the impossible, (avoiding death at all costs, or guaranteeing continuing possession of other externals, come what may), is inevitable disappointment. He will turn to blame others and/or God for his plight, failing to recognize that it is his own deeply unrealistic and impossible goal which set him up for failure.
Instead, he should have approached his life in the manner of Sarpedon, being prepared to accept inevitable contingencies, but committed to carrying out his various roles as best he can, while also taking care to control that which does fall in his ambit, his Moral Purpose. By so doing he aligns his ‘self-interest’ with what the designer evidently intends for mankind.
After having given us this rather stirring example, and mythic representation of bravery in the face of mortality and an analog for what we can discover as humanity’s marching orders, (as it were), Epictetus decides that it is high time to grind his gears yet again. He returns to the internecine warfare between academies, again, aiming his barbs at the skeptics:
Let the follower of Pyrrho or of the Academy come and oppose us. Indeed I, for my part, have no leisure for such matters, nor can I act as advocate to the commonly received opinion. If I had a petty suit about a mere bit of land, I should have called in someone else to be my advocate.
He is saying here, that skeptical arguments constitute a very small part of the territory that philosophers should be tending to. So too, questions that are technical and trade in speculative matters of various sorts. To use a term we’ve run into in another of its senses, many, and often conflicting, arguments of quite ‘plausible’ nature can be made upon such matters, and we seem to have no way of determining which of these are true. That being the case, it seems there are more fruitful things to consider, and certainly more pressing matters at hand, when it comes to living as Moral Purpose. Leave the academics to worry about such things, as they evidently have much leisure time set aside for wrangling!
With what evidence, then, am I satisfied? With that which belongs to the matter in hand. To the question how perception arises, whether through the whole body, or from some particular part, perhaps I do not know how to give a reasonable answer, and both views perplex me.
Contrast these cases with matters concerning which we have certainty:
But that you and I are not the same persons, I know very certainly. Whence do I get this knowledge? When I want to swallow something, I never take the morsel to that place but to this. When I wish to take bread, I never take sweepings, but I always go after the bread as to a mark. And do you yourselves, who take away the evidence of the senses, do anything else? Who among you when he wishes to go to a bath goes to a mill instead? What then? Ought we not to the best of our ability hold fast also to this, that is; maintain, the commonly received opinion, and be on our guard against the arguments that seek to overthrow it?
And who disputes that? But only the man who has the power and the leisure should devote himself to these studies; while the man who is trembling and perplexed and whose heart is broken within him, ought to devote his leisure to something else.
And, thus concludes a chapter that jumps around, changing direction or examples suddenly, but which does, even if in a rambling way, address the question it raises. We see how it is the Stoics recommend we deal with the full complex of our daily lives, and all of the ‘impressions’ it presents us with. The elements of that strategic approach: Recognize habit and plausibilities for what they are; impressions in need of evaluation. Evaluation should be carried out in light of our careful application of those universally held ‘preconceptions,’ we all carry with us, and in light of those things we are also able to deduce from conjoining examination of these with view that we have been expressly created as rational and free moral beings placed in subsidiary administrative roles in the cosmos, while being in complete control only over our attitudes toward the vicissitudes of life, and the state of our Moral Purpose.