Christoph Kraiker
I
Epictetus was a late stoic
philosopher who lived from about 50 to 130 after Christ. Born in Asia Minor, he
was brought to
Epictetus himself wrote nothing as
far as we know. What we have are notes of lectures, discussions and
conversations collected by his disciple, the historian Flavius Arrianus. These
were published under the title „Diatribes“ in eight books of which
four and a few fragments have survived. Arrianus later compiled a summary of
Epictetus´ philosophy - the well-known Enchiridion or Handbook.
The Enchiridion is what made
Epictetus famous. It is easy to get - there are several translations around -
easy to carry and quite short for a book that tells you the true and right way
of living. It has about 30 to 35 pages.The diatribes, on the other hand, are
just that: diatribes, difficult to read, difficult to understand and difficult
to get. As far as I know, the only complete English edition is that of Loeb
classical library from the 1925 and 1928. There is also a translation in
paperback which I, however, haven´t seen so I dont know if it has the complete
text or not.
The Enchiridion has been popular
throughout the centuries and is one of the classical western guide-books for
the soul, together with „Ways to Oneself“ by the emperor Marcus
Aurelius, „The Consolation of Philosophy“ by Boethius, „The
Guide out of Errors“ by Al Ghazali, or „The Imitation of Christ“
by Thomas a Kempis. In our times and for our circles it was rediscovered, so to
speak, by Albert Ellis who based his Rational Emotive Therapy (RET) on certain
principles derived from the teachings of Epictetus. The sentence he quotes most
frequently is one known to us all, and that is:
„Men are disturbed not by
the things which happen, but by their opinions about the things“
I will take this as a starting point
and it will get us quickly to the topic of suggestion.
Second, it does not talk about
things or events or happenings. The term it uses is pragmata, and
pragmata are acts, things being done. I´ll come back to that later, but for now
let me return to the statements of fundamental convictions. It is easy to
change your opinions, but it is not at all easy to change your dogmata
or dogmas. But since erroneous fundamental convictions are the sole source of
human suffering, the aim of a philosophical education, or psychotherapy, is to
change those convictions, and as this is not easy, it is not enough to
listen to your philosopher or therapist, you also need rigorous training. This
training is called askesis (like in „ascetic“) and it has
two aspects: One which nowadays we would call behavioral (since wrong
convictions lead to behavior which becomes habitual) and one aimed at those
convictions themselves, the cognitive aspect.
Today I will ignore the behavioral
part of the training and concentrate on the more fundamental, cognitive aspect.
A basic assumption of Epictetus seems to be that those convictions manifest
themselves as things you say to yourself in certain situations, real situations
or expected situations. This way of talking to yourself becomes habitual and
has to be replaced by other, more rational ways.
(Fragments 16)
„One ought to know that it is
not easy for a man to aquire a fixed judgement, unless he should day by day
state and hear the same principles, and at the same time apply them to his
life“
This sounds like Coué, or Donald
Meichenbaum, or Autogenic Training. In a nutshell, Epictetus holds that people
become unhappy, worried and disturbed by irrational self-suggestions, and his
therapy (askesis) consists in exercises that replace those by rational ones.
And this is, of course, why he belongs in this symposion.
II
The Enchiridion starts with an
essential distinction:
(E 1)
„Of things some are in our power, and
others are not“
This is one of the numerous
formulations that try to express the distinction between what we do and what
happens to us. Starting with Aristotle ( as far as I know) and continuing
throughout the Middle Ages until Descartes ( and beyond) we find discussions of
the difference between „actions“ and „passions“ (cf.
Descartes´ „De Passionibus Animae“), and in modern times Freud´s
idea of primary processes and secondary processes, or Skinner´s
categories of respondent and operant behavior each in their own
way reflect that difference (to name just a few examples).
By definition, what is not in your
power you can neither create nor prevent. It follows that, if you desire things
which are not in your power or if you detest things which are not in your power,
you will be unfortunate and unhappy. Thus, the ability to distinguish between
what is and what is not in our power is of fundamental importance.
Another key concept is
„phantasia“. This has been translated as appearance, impression,
perception, idea and so on. If you recall the A-B-C Model of RET, where A
stands for the activating events, B for the (irrational) beliefs, and C for the
consequences (of whatever kind), then we might say that phantasia means
the perception, imagination or expectation of activating events in this sense.
The translation of George Long uses appearance, and you have to keep in mind
that it actually means what I just explained.
III
So we now are ready for the first
and fundamental principle
(E 1)
„Practice saying to every
disturbing appearance: you are an appearance, and in no manner what you appear
to be. Then examine it by the rules which you possess, and by this first and
chiefly, whether it relates to the things which are in our power or to the things
which are not in our power: and if it relates to anything which is not in your
power, be ready to say, that it does not concern you“
For example:
(E 24)
„Dont say: I shall live
unhonored and without reputation everywhere
Is it then in your power to obtain
the rank of a magistrate or to be invited to a reception?
By no means. How then can this be
lack of honor?“
„But I will be of no help to
my friends? What is help? They will not receive money from you, nor will you
make them Roman Citizens. Who then told you that these are among the things
which are in your power, and not in the power of others? And who can give to
another what he has not himself?“
„But my country, as far as it
depends on me, also will be without my help“ I ask again, what help do
you mean? It will not have porticoes and baths through you: So what? After all,
it doesn´t get shoes from the smith nor weapons from the shoemaker.“
What Epictetus here tells us is not
to be unhappy because we are not famous, rich or powerful, because having or
not having those qualities is outside our control. This corresponds to Ellis´
irrational belief that you have to great and perfect to be happy. But he goes
on:
(E 12)
„If you intend to make
progress, dont say: „If I neglect my affairs, I shall not have the means
of living.Unless I punish my slave, he will be bad.“For it is better to
die of hunger and so to be released from grief and fear than to live in
abundance with perturbation, and it is better for your slave to be bad than for
you to be unhappy“
I´m afraid some of us may still
prefer living in fear to dying of hunger, and the question is, whether this is
due to our lack of understanding, but for now I would like to draw your
attention to another question which we have to ask of an appearance or
„phantasia“, and that is: what is it worth und whose worth is it?
(E 6)
Be not proud of any excellence which
belongs to another: If a horse should proudly say: I am beautiful, one might endure
it. But when you are elated and say: I have a beautiful horse, you are proud of
some excellence which is in the horse.
(E 12)
Begin then from little things: Is
the oil spilled? Is a little wine stolen? So what. Say to yourself: At such
price is sold freedom from perturbation, at such price is sold tranquility.
(E 26)
When your neighbor´s slave has
broken his cup or anything else, you say: that is one of the things which
happen. You must know, then, that when your cup also is broken, you ought to
think as you did when your neighbors cup was broken.
This is meant to inoculate against
the negative effects of daily hassles and corresponds to the irrational belief
that things should be the way I want them to be.
If a man has
reported to you that a certain person speaks ill of you, do not make any
defense to what has been told, but say: that man did not know the rest of my
faults, for otherwise he would not have mentioned these only.
... the idea being not getting upset
at what other people think or say about you.
(E 44)
These statements are not consistent:
I am richer than you, therefore I am better than you.
I am more eloquent than you,
therefore I am better than you. It is correct to say: I am richer than you,
therefore my possessions are greater than yours. I am more eloquent than you,
therefore my speech is superior to yours. But you are neither possession nor
speech.
(E 45)
Does a man bathe quickly? Dont say
he bathes badly, but that he bathes quickly. Does a
man drink much wine? Do not say that
this bad, but that he drinks much.
All this is quite clear and I think
most of us will find these suggestions quite reasonable. They represent, so to
speak, the homely part of Epictetus´ teaching. But let us return to the
question of what is in our power and what is not. Recall that to desire
or to detest things which are not in your power makes you unhappy. So what
should we detest or what should we desire, in other words: what is in
our power?
I´m afraid: very little. Nothing
outside our body is in our power and, unfortunately, our body itself is not in
our power either. Epictetus says:
(E 1)
„...not in our power are
the body ...“.
or
(Dia I, 1)
„This body is not thine own
but only clay cunningly compounded“
Another good one is:
„You are a little soul,
carrying around a corpse“
So, your body, and what happens to
your body, should not be the object of your concern:
(E 2)
„If you attempt to avoid
disease or death or poverty, you will be unhappy“
(Dia III, 26).
„You tremble and lie awake
at night for fear the necessities of life will fail you. Wretch, are you so
blind, and do you so fail to see the road to which lack of necessities of life
leads? Where, indeed, does it lead. - Where also fever, or a stone that drops
on your head, lead - to death“
(E 5)
„We know that death is nothing
terrible, for if it were it would have seemed so to Socrates; but the opinion
that death is terrible, that is the terrible thing.“
Now, in our culture health, death,
our family and their well-being are among those things that concern us most. We
have heard Epictetus argue against the fear of death, and he also goes out of
his way to liberate us from our concern for the kids, wifes, husbands and
parents. The person who has been convinced that it makes no sense to be anxious
about the necessities of
life still has something to worry
about:
( Dia III, 26)
„You say: yes, but my family
too will starve. - What then? Their starvation does not lead to some other end
than yours (i.e. death), does it?“
The goal of this kind of training,
evidently, is to enable you to watch with equanimity while your children slowly
die of hunger.
And it goes on:
(E 3)
„If you love
an earthen vessel, say it is an earthen vessel which you love; for when it has
been broken, you will not be disturbed. If you are kissing your child or wife, say that it is a human being
whom you are kissing, for when your wife or child dies, you will not be
disturbed“
(E 26)
„Is another man´child or
wife dead? ‘There is no one who would not say: „Such is the fate of
man“.Yet when a man´s own child dies, immediately he cries: Woe to me,
how wretched I am“ . - But we must remember how we feel when we hear of
the same misfortune befalling others“
So, to summarize, we are not
supposed to be concerned about our body and its health, our family and their
well-being, our friends, the community, wealth, honor, oil, wine, horses,
earthen vessels - in short: we are not supposed to be concerned about anything.
You will surprised:
(Dia I,1)
„As was fitting, the gods have
put under our control only the most excellent faculty of all and that which
dominates the rest, namely the power to make correct use of appearances
(phantasiai), but all the others they have not put under our control.
And what is the correct use of the
appearances? The exercise of „prohairesis“ towards them, that is,
to consent to them as they are. All what Epictetus teaches is summarized in the
statement:
(E 8)
„Seek not that the things which
happen should happen as you wish; but wish the things which happen to be as
they are, and you will have a tranquil flow of life“
Not only is there nothing in our
power except the power to assent to what befalls us, it is also true that
nothing belongs to us:
(E 11)
„Never say about anything, I
have lost it, but say I have given it back. Is your child dead? It has been
given back. Is your wife dead? She has been given back. Has your estate been
taken from you? Has not this also been given back? But he who has taken it from
me is a bad man. But what is it to you, by whose hands the giver demanded it
back? So long as he may allow you, take care of it as a thing which belongs to
another, as travelers do with their inn“
Let me add a few afterthoughts. Many
suggestions formulated by Epictetus seem very reasonable to us, and indeed, of
therapeutic value. But his fundamental Weltanschauung is completely alien to
our own views of life, the universe and everything. According to Epictetus,
everything is good as it is, since it was created by a good and omnipotent God
who would not create anything bad. To the Deity everything belongs and we
cannot change the course of creation. In the last analysis, there are no
events, there are only acts of God, and this explains the use of the term pragmata
(things being done) at the beginning. If we are unhappy about something, it
is because we are mistaken. The goal of philosophy is to correct those
mistakes, and this is in fact the only thing we can do, at least with a
little help from our friends and by systematic askesis, that is, telling
ourself again and again the correct principles.
Evidently, this is far removed from
the views of contemporary enlightened cognitive therapists as exemplified, say,
by Albert Ellis. He certainly would not say that all things are good as they
are. He would say that many things are pretty lousy, and that there is
something but not much we can do about it, and that this is the reason why we
should not get mad at us and the world.
So, there are some useful precepts
to be extracted from Epictetus, but his philosophical basis seems to be
incompatible with our own. However, strange as all this may seem to us, if we
really took serious our own modern world-view, namely that the universe expands
relentlessly according to fixed deterministic or propabilistic laws, then the
very concept of having control over something would be meaningless, and to
follow Epictetus would be the absolutely reasonable thing to do.
As we don´t, let me end with a last
quotation to take home
The uneducated person blames others
for his own bad condition. He who has made some progress blames himself. And he
who has complete understanding blames neither another, nor himself.
Thank you for your attention (and
for a satisfactory amount of applause)
A note on the text
The authoritative edition for an English
speaking audience is that of Loeb Classical Library.
Epictetus: The Discourses, with an English
Translation by W.A. Oldfather
Vol. I; Book I-II (1925, reset and reprinted
1998)
Vol.II; Book III-IV-Fragments-Encheiridion
(1928)
However, here the translation of some of the
key concepts seems to be inappropriate. „prohairesis“ is
translated as moral purpose, but a better choice would be
„will“, as in the translation of G. Long, and „phantasia“
as external impression, but the term phantasia also covers expectations
and imagined events. There is actually no good translation for this. I would
prefer perception (leaving it open whether that would be an inner or outer
perception), but Long´s „appearance“ is acceptable, too, even
though a bit vague.
In German no complete edition is easily
available. For the Enchiridion I prefer
Epiktet: Handbüchlein der
Ethik. Aus dem Griechischen übersetzt und mit Anmerkungen versehen von Ernst
Neitzke.
The quotations presented here are mostly taken
from the translations by Long and Oldfather. In some cases I did change the
text a bit, especially in cases where the translations seemed to be rather
antiquated or inappropriate in other ways.
Paper presented at the 9th
ESH Congress in