Be a Stoic like Epictetus

The sage from Hierapolis has much to teach us about the life worth living

Epictetus, image from quotes.thefamouspeople.com.

It is no secret that my guiding light ever since I have started practicing Stoicism has been Epictetus. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate Marcus Aurelius’s loftiness and brooding melancholy, and I love Seneca’s style and depth of thought. But every single book I have written so far about Stoicism has Epictetus as its protagonist or inspiration.

There are many reasons for this. At a human level, it’s harder to sympathize with an emperor (Marcus) or a senator who was the second most powerful man in the empire (Seneca). But a slave who becomes a freedman and eventually achieves the status of most sought after teacher in the entire Mediterranean area is something else entirely.

In terms of his persona—though what we have from him was actually transcribed by his brilliant student, Arrian of Nicomedia—Epictetus comes across as direct, no-nonsense, and even occasionally sarcastic and (gently) abusive toward his students. According to my friend Brian Johnson, author of the excellent The Role Ethics of Epictetus: Stoicism in Ordinary Life, we should imagine the sage from Hierapolis as an ancient Greek version of Rocky Balboa’s trainer. As an example, here is an exchange in which Epictetus chastises one of his students—calling him a slave (to his passions)—because the student spends too much time on theory and too little on practice:

“‘Get the treatise On Inclination and you’ll see how thoroughly I’ve read it.’ That’s not what I’m trying to find out, slave! What I want to know is how you manage your inclinations and disinclinations, and your desires and aversions; how purposeful, intentioned, and prepared you are; whether or not you’re in harmony with nature.” (Discourses 1, 4.14)

But the main reason to love Epictetus is because his version of Stoicism is both highly coherent and innovative, and most importantly, extremely practical. Though in some sense he arches back to the early Stoa of the logician Chrysippus, the way he presents philosophy to his students is anything but stuffy and academic. In fact, he accuses them of reading Chrysippus himself as if they were scholars interested in the minutiae of logic, rather than human beings trying to improve themselves ethically:

“If what I prize is just the interpreting itself, haven’t I ended up as a literary critic rather than a philosopher, with the only difference being that I explicate Chrysippus rather than Homer?” (Enchiridion 49)

View of the theater at Hierapolis, modern day Pamukkale in Turkey, where Epictetus was born. Photo by the Author.

So let’s see what the major tenets of Epictetus’s version of Stoicism actually are, and why they are so powerful. It boils down, I think, to four points:

(i) The Fundamental Rule

“Some things are up to us and some are not. Up to us are judgment, inclination, desire, aversion—in short, whatever is our own doing. Not up to us are our bodies, possessions, reputations, public offices—in short, whatever isn’t our own doing.” (Enchiridion 1.1)

This is sometimes unfortunately referred to as the dichotomy of control, unfortunately because the word “control” leads to misunderstandings, along the lines of “but, but, some things I partially control and influence!” Pierre Hadot (p. 84 of Philosophy as a Way of Life, downloadable commentary here) rightly calls it “the fundamental rule of life: that is, the distinction between what depends on us and what does not.”

Epictetus helpfully provides us with a list of what is and is not up to us, meaning for what we are or are not ultimately morally responsible. Turns out, the number of things up to us is very limited, though the standard English translations are a bit misleading with respect to the original Greek:

Judgments: conscious, explicit assessments of any given situation, object, or person.

Inclinations: decisions to act or not to act (on our judgments).

Desires: what we judge to be of value, and therefore seek.

Aversions: what we judge to be of disvalue, and therefore wish to stay away from.

That’s it. Everything else, including our health (“bodies”), possessions, reputation, and career (“public offices”) is not ultimately up to us, because it depends in part on external factors and other people.

Here is another way to understand the distinction Epictetus is making: what is up to us is our considerate judgments and conscious intentions to act in certain ways. What is not up to us are the outcomes of such actions. Therefore, we need to work on refining our faculty of judgment (prohairesis), which according to Epictetus is not just the most important ability we have. It is who we truly are.

The distinction between what is and is not up to us is not an ethical one, per se, as it comes straight from Stoic “physics,” that is from the Stoic understanding of how the world works (from the Greek physis, nature). That my intensions are up to me while the outcomes of my actions are not is a straightforward fact of life.

What follows? That wise persons will focus their energy and resources on what is up to them while develop an attitude of acceptance and equanimity toward the things that are not up to them. For instance, in advance of a job interview I devote my time and efforts to preparing in the best way I can while at the same time accepting from the onset that I may or may not get the job, and that I’ll be okay with either outcome. That’s why Epictetus tells his students:

“If you regard things that are naturally enslaved as free, if you regard things that are not yours as yours, you’ll be obstructed, dejected, and troubled, and you’ll blame both gods and men. But if you regard as yours only what is yours, and as not yours only what is not yours, which is the way things are in reality, no one will ever constrain you, no one will impede you, you’ll blame no one, you’ll reproach no one, you’ll never act reluctantly, no one will harm you, and you’ll have no enemies, because you’ll never suffer harm.” (Enchiridion 1.3)

Which is a statement of the further, crucial, corollary of the fundamental rule: happiness—in the sense of eudaimonia, a life worth living—is entirely up to us, because it depends on our understanding and application of the Fundamental Rule.

(ii) Opinions are not facts

“People are troubled not by things but by their judgments about things. Death, for example, isn’t frightening, or else Socrates would have thought it so.” (Enchiridion 5a)

If there is something that frightens most people is the thought of their own demise. And yet, Epictetus reminds us that the notion that death is frightening is an opinion, not a fact. And this is proven by the observation that not everyone shares that opinion. Socrates, for instance, was not afraid of death.

The point is not to suggest some kind of “you say, I say” relativism. The Stoics do think that there are truths of the matter about the world, and that human judgments can be correct or incorrect. But just because a particular judgment—death is frightening!—is common that doesn’t make automatically it right. So it is always a good idea to keep in mind the distinction between objective, mind-independent features of the world on the one hand, and our opinions and judgments of those features on the other hand.

For instance, if your partner breaks up with you the default position is that this is a bad turn of events. But is it? It obviously depends on the specifics of the relationship, as well as on your reaction afterward. In order to best cope with the event it is helpful to keep in mind the distinction Epictetus is making: it is a fact that your partner has announced that they are leaving you; it is not a fact that this is necessarily a bad thing.

Albert Ellis, the founder of Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy, a form of cognitive behavioral therapy inspired, as it turns out, by reading Epictetus, calls our tendency to adopt negative assessments of unexpected situation “catastrophizing,” as in “poor me!, poor me!, X has happened!!” We should, instead, pause and reflect on X, how it came about, and how we best can deal with it, regardless of what X is.

This is related to what in modern psychology is known as the framing effect, about which Bill Irvine wrote a whole book from a Stoic standpoint. The notion is that we react very differently to the same facts depending on how such facts are presented to us. For example, you go to the doctor and he greets you thus: “I’ve looked at the results of your analysis, I think you have a 95% chance of making it.” As opposed to: “I’ve looked at the results of your analysis, I think you have a 5% chance of dying.”

Research shows that people feel optimistic in the first scenario and become depressed in the second one. Even though the facts of the matter are exactly the same in both cases. The Stoics can exploit the framing effect to their advantage by keeping in mind the facts/values distinction articulated by Epictetus: the next time that something “bad” happens to you—say your flight is cancelled—pause, resist your default tendency to catastrophize, and reframe what is happening as a challenge sent to you by the Stoic gods in order to test your character. I bet it will help. A lot.

One more comment: note that the facts/value distinction is—just like the up/not up to me distinction—not a matter of ethics, but of physics. Neither distinction tells us what is the right thing to do or not to do. They are simply very practical observations about how the world works. A psychopath could take advantage of these two observations, but that wouldn’t make him a Stoic. To be a Stoic we need two more elements of Epictetus’ philosophy, to which I turn next.

Partial view of the Odeon at Nicopolis, northwestern Greece, the town in which Epictetus established his school. Photo by the Author.

(iii) The three disciplines

“There are three domains in which a person must be trained if they are to become truly good. The first is the domain of desires and aversions, and the upshot of the training is that they never fail to get what they desire and never experience what they want to avoid.  The second is the domain of inclination and disinclination, and in general of appropriate behavior, and the upshot of the training is that they act in an orderly and well-reasoned manner, rather than being careless. The third is the domain of immunity to error and rash judgment, and in general the domain of assent.” (Discourses, 3.2.1-2)

These are the famous three disciplines of Epictetus, first described in detail by Pierre Hadot in The Inner Citadel: The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, which happens to be in large part about Epictetus, who greatly influenced the famous emperor-philosopher. I cannot emphasize just how important they are to Stoic practice, as well as to moving us from the realm of physics to that of ethics.

You may have noticed that the three disciplines mirror the three kinds of things that we have seen above are truly up to us. The first discipline, of desire and aversion, is concerned with realigning our values and priorities, so that we are cognizant of what is truly good and truly bad for us. Without it, we would not have a point of reference to act in our life. Turns out that the only good thing—and this is one of Epictetus’s innovations—is good judgment and the only bad thing is bad judgment. And those are, pretty much, also the only things that are up to us. Which is good news: it means we are in control of the only things that truly matter!

The second discipline is referred to be Hadot as “of action” and it concerns how to properly act in the world, particularly with respect to our fellow human beings. It is this discipline that moves Epictetus’s Stoicism into the domain of ethics: some behaviors toward others are “appropriate” (kathēkon) in Stoic lingo, and some are not, and the goal of the discipline of action is to train us to do more of the former and less of the latter.

The third discipline, “of assent” is the most difficult, according to Epictetus, as it aims at rendering our judgments about things automatic, so that we can engage in the appropriate action even if we are tired, sick, or drunk. Think of it this way. When you first learn how to drive a car you need to pay conscious attention to every detail: when to brake or accelerate, which gear to shift to, the road, other cars, pedestrians, and so forth. But after months and years of practice your driving becomes largely automatic. Your brain has now learned how to do all of that stuff without consciously thinking about it. And a good thing it is, because this automation of your driving skills can save your or someone else’s life in a split second.

The same goes for the disciplines: the first two are were the meat of the matter is, but the third one is what allows you to act appropriately in most circumstances, especially when you do not have time to stop and think too much about it.

Psychologist Daniel Kahneman has written a best selling book that spells out the cognitive science underlying Epictetus’s third discipline. Kahneman suggests that the human brain naturally works on two registers: fast but inaccurate subconscious processing (system I) or slow, accurate, deliberate processing (system II). The first is, for instance, what is engaged in the fight or flight response we experience when suddenly facing a potential danger. The second one is operating whenever we ponder complex decisions over a period of time, like whether to get married, to change career, and so forth. Epictetus’s advice, then, boils down to engaging our system II so that it eventually it trains our system I to act correctly no matter what.

All of this is fine, but how do we determine which actions are appropriate and which are not? What, exactly, counts as a correct or incorrect action? While the long response is found in Epictetus’s notion of role ethics mentioned above, articulated particularly in Discourses 1.2, that’s where our fourth component of the overall philosophy comes in.

(iv) Cosmopolitanism

“We can only follow the example of Socrates, and if someone asks where we’re from, never say ‘I’m an Athenian’ or ‘I’m a Corinthian,’ but ‘I’m a citizen of the universe.’” (Discourses 1.9.1)

The Stoics inherited the notion of cosmopolitanism from Socrates and from their philosophical cousins, the Cynics, so this isn’t original with Epictetus. It is, nevertheless, a crucial component of his philosophy, the one that tells us what actions are or are not appropriate.

The answer, in fact, is very straightforward: anything that helps the cosmopolis—the brotherhood and sisterhood of humanity—is appropriate. Anything that undermines it is inappropriate.

I can guess what you may be thinking: how can I, in my little corner of the universe, do anything at all that helps or undermines the cosmopolis? I mean, I ain’t the President of the US, or the Prime Minister or the UK, or something like that, right?

Wrong. There are countless ways, small or big, to help or hinder the cosmopolis. Every time you get angry or mistreat another human being you are engaging in inappropriate actions, from a Stoic perspective. Every time you do something that undermines the environment, in which we all have to live, you are also undermining the human cosmopolis. Contrariwise, every time you are kind to a fellow human, or every time you cut down your carbon footprint, you are helping the cosmopolis. I could go on ad infinitum. There is a huge number of behaviors that either help or hinder the universal family, and most of them are small and therefore within your purview. (Here is a short practical guide regarding the environment.)

There are many, many, things that are logically entailed by the above reasoning. I should think, for instance, that a Stoic ought to be concerned with the environment, supportive of women’s rights, in favor of minority rights, honest, politically engaged, and—above all—kind and respectful. Not easy, but then again nobody told you that being a Stoic was going to be easy!

Bonus: pay attention!

This essay is already too long, and I have pretty much covered what I think are the essential aspects of Epictetus’s version of Stoicism, which in my opinion is by far the most practical and ethically coherent out there. But there is one more thing I feel compelled to mention:

“When you relax your attention for a little while, don’t imagine that you’ll recover it whenever you choose, but bear in mind that because of the mistake you’ve made today, you’re bound to be worse off in everything you do in the future. … Are any aspects of life excluded—any that are out of reach of attention? I mean, is there anything that you’ll do worse by paying attention and better by not paying attention?” (Discourses, 4.12.1,4)

One of the words that recur more often in Epictetus’s Discourses is prosochē, sometimes translated as mindfulness, but which really just means attention. As in pay attention to what you are doing. Always.

As Epictetus explicitly tells us in the passage above, nothing is ever made worse by paying attention to it (or better by not paying attention!). Once again, he was way ahead of his time. Modern science shows that attention is very, very closely related to (though not identical with) consciousness, and therefore a defining ability of human beings. But to what, exactly, ought we to pay attention, according to Epictetus? To our impressions:

“So take up the practice right now of telling every disagreeable impression, ‘You’re an impression, and not at all what you appear to be.’ Then go on to examine it and assess it by these criteria of yours, and first and foremost by this one: whether it has to do with the things that are up to us or the things that are not up to us. And if it has to do with the things that are not up to us, have at hand the reminder that it’s nothing to you.” (Enchiridion 1.5)

And with this we have come full circle. We pay attention to our impressions so that we can always apply the very thing that got us started: the Fundamental Rule of Life. Happy practice!