Epictetus. - Stoic ethics: epictetus and happiness as freedom

STOIC ETHICS

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STOIC ETHICS

Epictetus and Happiness as Freedom

William O. Stephens

Continuum International Publishing Group

William O. Stephens 2007

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ISBN: HB: 0-8264-9608-3
9780826496089

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Foreword

This is a lightly edited version of my 1990 doctoral dissertation at the University of Pennsylvania supervised by Professor Charles H. Kahn tided Stoic Strength: An Examination of the Ethics of Epictetus. After leaving Penn, I turned to other projects at Creighton without a serious thought to seek a publisher for the largest early relic of my years of fascination with Epictetus. On 15 September 2004 Dr Jim Fieser of the Philosophy Department at the University of Tennessee at Martin emailed me with that very thought. Without his prompting, encouragement, and persistence, this monograph would have been fated to remain undisturbed, collecting dust in the archives of University Microfilms International in Ann Arbor, as it were, perched precariously above the dustbin of history. Readers will judge whether publishing this dissertation is a case of the old clich Better late than never.

Technologically speaking, 1990 was an age ago. The manuscript was produced using a Magnavox Videowriter and an IBM correcting Selectric typewriter with a Greek font element. Email was unknown. Yet Epictetus gritty charm endures. So the bibliography has been updated to include selected publications after 1990 in which Epictetus figures prominently, but not work in Stoic ethics broadly. My hope is that others may find this monograph as useful as Jim believes it is. I dedicate this dusted-off package, retitled to please my publisher, to him. I also again thank my colleagues at Penn for their generous comments and support offered long ago.

August 2006
WOS

Abbreviations

thos anthrpi daimn.
A persons character is his fate.

Herakleitos

Es ist die Sache der Wenigsten, unabhngig zu sein:es ist ein
Vorrecht der Starken.
It is the concern of extremely few to be independent: it is a
privilege of the strong.

E W. Nietzsche

Preface

A quick sketch of the last twelve decades of scholarship on Epictetus can provide a bit of orientation. The German giant of Epictetus studies was BonhfFer (1890, 1894, 1911). He remains the only author of not two but three volumes on our philosopher. The contributions of subsequent German scholars have been much more modest in scope. So these are good times for studying Epictetus. I hope that this study provides a sufficiently fresh approach to understanding the character of his style of teaching Stoic wisdom.

Epictetus was born the son of a slave woman in Hierapolis in Phrygia For both men this art of living consisted in determining what the philosopher must know in order to judge and act correctly.

It was during the time he was owned by Neros freedman and administrative secretary Epaphroditus that Epictetus took lessons from the great Stoic teacher of the day, C. Musonius Rufus. Oldfather claims that

[s]o many passages in Epictetus can be paralleled closely from the remaining fragments of Rufus (as Epictetus always calls him) that there can be no doubt but the system of thought in the pupil is little more than an echo, with changes of emphasis due to the personal equation, of that of the master.

Sandbach observes that Rufus makes some use of the denial that anything indifferent is good or bad: the proofs of this should, he says, constantly be repeated; it is a truth which demonstrates that exile cannot rob a man of anything really good. Moreover, the emphasis on the necessity of an austere and frugal lifestyle is certainly shared by both the master and his pupil.

Epictetus was among the philosophers expelled from Rome by the emperor Domitian (presumably in 89 or 92 CE ) . He moved to Nicopolis in Epirus and founded a school in order to promulgate the ideas of Stoicism. The four books entitled Arrians Discourses of Epictetus are generally believed to be not the transcripts of the formal readings of Stoic disquisitions, but rather Epictetus expositions of particular issues from those readings and practically oriented responses to his students recitations given to them in less formal seminars. As to the question of the accuracy of Arrians reporting of Epictetus lectures, I concur with De Lacy that

[w]e need only assume that Epictetus had a systematic ethics which he taught in his school and which Arrian used for a framework in the first book of the Discourses. In spite of his literary imitation of Xenophon, Arrian has portrayed in detail the methods and subjects of Epictetus teaching. It is not unlikely, therefore, that the plan of Arrian s work is based on Epictetus system of ethics.

Senecas writings are interesting in themselves yet sometimes lack the earnest spirit of Stoicism so evident in Epictetus Discourses. Senecas life and personal practices fell far short of the austere Stoic ethics he preached, Marcus is primarily concerned with consoling himself, whereas Epictetus interest is not a private one. The former slave turned teacher makes a concerted effort to instill the doctrine of Stoicism in his students by urgently reminding them that they must persistently and rationally apply what they learn in the classroom to every situation of their daily lives.

In short, if we observe, we shall find mankind distressed by nothing so much as by the irrational, and again attracted to nothing so much as to the rational. Now it so happens that the rational and the irrational are different for different persons, precisely as good and evil, and the profitable and the unprofitable, are different for different persons. It is for this especially that we need education, so as to learn how, in conformity with nature, to adapt to specific instances our preconceived idea of what is rational and what is irrational. But for determining the rational and the irrational, we employ not only our estimates of the value of external things, but also the criterion of that which is in keeping with ones character. (1.2.47)