How to be free, Epictetus style

Part I of the Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series

[Based on How to Be Free: An Ancient Guide to the Stoic Life, by Epictetus, translated by Anthony Long.]

Epictetus was a late first century and early second century slave-turned-teacher and Stoic philosopher. He literally changed my life. His Discourses were the first book from original sources that I read after discovering Stoicism as a practical philosophy, and it struck me like a ton of bricks. But in a good way. I immediately responded to Epictetus’s sense of humor, which often borders on sarcasm. I appreciated his no-nonsense talk to his students, the fact that he doesn’t pull punches, that he calls it as he sees it. But most importantly the fact that his philosophy is arguably the most useful form of Stoicism, which in turn is the most useful of ancient philosophies.

(I wrote three books on Stoicism based on Epictetus: How to Be a Stoic, A Handbook for New Stoics, and A Field Guide to a Happy Life.)

What better way, then, to begin this occasional series of commentaries based on the excellent “Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers” books put out by Princeton University Press, than with Anthony Long’s translation of Epictetus’s Encheiridion, retitled “How to Be Free.” Long is arguably the foremost scholar on Epictetus, and his introduction to the famous manual for a good life (as well as to a few selected excerpts from the Discourses) is well worth the price of admission.

The word “encheiridion” comes from the Greek cheir, which literally means a little thing to carry in your hand. A vade mecum (comes with me), as the Latins called it. It was not actually written by Epictetus (and neither were the Discourses), but rather by one of his brilliant students, Arrian of Nicomedia, who went on to produce, among other works, The Anabasis of Alexander, which is considered the best source on the military campaigns of Alexander the Great.

Long focuses our attention on Epictetus’s conception of freedom. Freedom is not a question of legal status, nor of being able to do whatever one wants. Rather, it’s a mental attitude whereby we are in charge of our judgments, willingly accepting that we ought to live in accordance with nature, regardless of our external circumstances. As a former slave, Epictetus understood that we can be enslaved by our own desires, held hostage by our wants of material goods or other things that are not “up to us,” as he puts it.

He teaches his students how to manage unhealthy emotions like fear, anger, anxiety, resentment, and grief—the same kind of emotions that grip us in the 21st century just as they affected those students almost two millennia ago. Which answers the oft-asked question: why bother reading the ancient Greco-Romans? Because the human predicament hasn’t changed much, despite our immense advances in science and technology.

Suppose someone is rude to you, or even downright insults you. What, in this situation is and is not up to you?, asks Epictetus. To control what the other person does is not up to you; but to decide if and how to react to it certainly is. For Epictetus an insult is yet another opportunity to exercise your judgment and act in the best way a human being could act: by ignoring the insult, and even pitying the insulter. These days, you can practice this pretty much every day on social media, if you wish.

Epictetus accepts Stoic natural philosophy, understanding the cosmos to work by cause and effect. It is, therefore, irrational to complain abut natural phenomena—such as diseases, or disasters like earthquakes and floods. Instead, the reasonable thing to do is to accept them for what they are and focus on your response to them, acting in a manner that maximizes your agency. As Long puts it in his Introduction:

“As human beings, we can try to understand external nature and conform to it intelligently in our actions and attitudes, or we can resist it and be forcibly confronted with situations we are powerless to resist because of their natural causality.”

For Epictetus, we are our will, the Greek term being “prohairesis,” sometimes translated as volition, that is our ability to arrive at judgments and make decisions. That’s who we are, as animals capable of reason. That’s what distinguishes us, so far as we can tell, from all other species on earth.

Earlier Stoics referred to this faculty as “assent,” and its target are what they called “impressions,” or appearances. For instance, my senses may deliver to me the impression that it would be good for me to cheat on my taxes, because I’ll be left with more discretionary spending. But my faculty of assent reminds me that this would amount to cheating, which is a vice, and which therefore undermines my character, the most valuable thing I have. So I deny assent to the impression and do not cheat on my taxes. Again, Long:

“What Epictetus insists we should do, in order to live as effectively as possible, is confront our impressions, especially those that disturb us, and accustom ourselves to manage them, interpret them, understand their occurrence, and thus bring them, or at least our response to them, under the control of our will and faculty of assent.”

Key to understanding both Epictetus in particular and the Stoics more generally is their classification of goods and bads, which is rendered by Long in this helpful diagram:

The radical departure from commonsense here is represented by the observation that goodness and badness are judgments of the human mind, they do not belong intrinsically to things and events. This is a crucial metaphysical point with huge ethical implications. All too often we “catastrophize,” as modern cognitive behavioral therapists put it, that is we jump from facts to judgment without pausing to question whether that judgment is, in fact, appropriate.

Have you been let go from your job? Perhaps this is a setback, but not necessarily. It could also be an opportunity to finally explore new possibilities and get unstuck, as you wanted to do for some time now. The point is that we should be weary of “obvious” labels attached to things and events, and instead use our critical faculty to assess the nature of those things and events with the aim of developing an appropriate response.

The upshot of this approach is that—if we accept the Stoic classification of goods and bads—happiness is entirely up to us, it no longer depends on external circumstances that are the province of fortune. According to the Stoics, it is perfectly possible to flourish under adverse conditions, as well as to flounder under what would otherwise have been favorable circumstances. The circumstances themselves are not our doing, but how we respond to them is.

Stoic ethics—like virtue ethics more generally—belongs to the class of ethical approaches that put the emphasis on the agent’s intentions, not on the consequences of that agent’s actions. This makes sense if we understand that intentions, but not consequences, are up to us—the fatal flaw in any utilitarian philosophy.

Stoic ethics also comes with a crucial social component. Yes, the tranquillity of mind (ataraxia) that results from focusing on what is up to us has obvious benefits for ourselves. But it also benefits our family, friends, and whoever we may come in contact with, because it means we are not subject to destructive emotions like fear and anger. As Long says, Epictetus’s freedom regimen satisfies the moral imperative to do no harm.

Moreover, Epictetus is obviously concerned with our actions in society, and talks quite a bit about how we ought to play our various social roles (e.g., father, husband, friend, teacher, colleague) in order to benefit others. Even when he tells us to be ready to accept the death of loved ones with equanimity, he also reminds us that those people are precious to us, and therefore we should not take them for granted, or we risk regretting the wasted time and missed opportunities once they are gone.

Here are some highlights from the actual text, with accompanying brief explanations:

“Whenever you are about to start on some activity, remind yourself what the activity is like. If you go out to bathe, picture what happens at a bathhouse—the people there who splash you or jostle you or talk rudely or steal your things. In this way you will be more prepared to start on the activity, by telling yourself at the outset: ‘I want to bathe, and I also want to keep my will in harmony with nature.’ Make this your practice in every activity.” (Encheiridion 4)

I used to get really upset when I went to the movies and some jerk would turn on his cell phone in front of me, because he just had to text someone, or post something, or whatever. I couldn’t believe it. How can someone be so stupid, so inconsiderate of others, as to engage in that sort of behavior? Sometimes I would politely ask them to turn off the damn thing. Occasionally they did, but in other instances they started yelling at me. More often I would simply sit in my place and fume for much of the movie, ruminating about the human condition.

Then I read this passage from the Encheiridion. The light bulb suddenly went off. Of course! Whenever I do anything I should have two objectives in mind: to do the thing I set out for, and—more importantly—to keep in harmony with nature, which means in harmony with other people, since human beings are by nature social animals. I can’t claim that I now never get upset at jerks with a cell phone, but it certainly happens far less than it used to. Besides, I remind myself that I always have the choice of staying home and watch a movie on my large screen tv…

“Whenever you see someone grieving at the departure of their child or the loss of their property, take care not to be carried away by the impression that they are in dire external straits, but at once have the following thought available: ‘What is crushing these people is not the event (since there are other people it does not crush) but their opinion about it.’ Don’t hesitate, however, to sympathize with them in words and even maybe share their groans, but take care not to groan inwardly as well.” (Encheiridion 16)

Epictetus is making two important points here. First, a major part of Stoic practice is to retrain ourselves to arrive at rational judgments about things and events. If your child moves to another city (like mine did a couple of years ago), it is human to see this as a loss. But it is rational to see it as the natural progression of life, the fact that your child is spreading its own wings, just like you did at about her age. Similarly, to lose property—say because you’ve been pickpocketed as you were boarding the subway—is upsetting. But you may also consider that you just lot a bit of money, while the thief lost his moral integrity, a far bigger problem.

Second, however, do not wield your Stoicism as a club to batter other people with. If they do not subscribe to your chosen philosophy of life, for them a loss is a loss, something to be mourned and be distressed about. And since your duty is to comfort them, not to make yourself look good, you need to act in a way that they find helpful. Just keep in mind the distinction between your judgment of what happened and theirs.

“‘Get money, then,’ someone says, ‘so we can have it too.’ If I can get it and preserve my honor and integrity and moral principles, show me the way, and I will get it. But if you are asking me to lose the good things that are mine just for you to acquire things that are not good, you can see how unfair you are and how ungenerous.” (Encheiridion 24)

Here is an example of Epictetus’s sarcasm. But the ethical point is plain: there is nothing wrong with wanting to make money, per se. Money, after all, is classed by the Stoics under “indifferents,” that is, literally, things that do not make a difference to the only true good: your faculty of judgment, or prohairesis.

However, Epictetus also makes clear that money can be either “preferred” or “dispreferred,” depending, for instance, on how it is acquired. If honestly, then preferred. If dishonestly, then dispreferred. This is a point that even some modern practitioners of Stoicism get wrong. They often classify money under preferred indifferents. But that is incorrect: it is fundamentally an indifferent, which can then acquire the status of preferred or dispreferred depending on the circumstances (not only how it is acquired, but also how it is spent).

“Every situation has two handles, as it were, one making it supportable and the other insupportable. If your brother mistreats you, don’t fasten on the mistreatment—that is the insupportable handle of the situation—but on the other handle instead—that he is your brother, the boy you were raised with—and then you will fasten onto the situation in the way that makes it supportable.” (Encheiridion 43)

This is another passage of the Encheiridion that has been directly applicable to my life. Not long ago I was in precisely the situation that Epictetus describes: my brother and I were not on good terms. I thought he acted in an unloving manner toward me and, I’m sure, he thought likewise as far as my behavior toward him was concerned. We were at an impasse, neither of us making a move to ease the tension, out of stubbornness, pride, or just laziness. But I remembered Encheiridion 43, pondered it a bit, and decided to offer an olive branch. It was immediately accepted, and our relationship has been good ever since.

The general philosophy underlying Epictetus’s advice here is that we ought to carefully consider our values and prioritize them according to Stoic philosophy, a philosophy that values friendships and other relationships ahead of material goods. If the disagreement with your brother, or friend, or partner, is about money, well, remember that the latter is an indifferent, while our relationships with people are a major component of a eudaimonic life, a life worth living. Once you put it that way, the decision becomes obvious.

“How long will you delay thinking yourself worthy of the best and making reason your decisive principle in everything? You have received the principles you ought to endorse, and you have endorsed them. … Whatever you encounter that is painful or pleasant or popular or unpopular, keep in mind that now is the contest, and here right now are the Olympic games, and that postponement is no longer an option, and that your progress is saved or ruined by a single day and a single action. … Even though you are not yet Socrates, you ought to live as someone who wants to be a Socrates.” (Encheiridion 51)

One of the most un-Stoic things I can think of is the notion of New Year’s resolutions. If you have decided that, say, to quit smoking, to eat or drink less, to exercise more, to be more kind toward people, and so on, are good things, why on earth would you want to set a date into the future to begin practice them?? The Olympics are now, and postponement is not a good option.

There is always what I think of as a welcome urgency in Stoic philosophy. The focus is right here, right now, hic et nunc, because this is the moment we are living and here is where our agency is efficacious. Moreover, we simply don’t know how many more moments Fate has allotted for us. We should live our lives as if today were our last day, because it may be. And if we get up tomorrow we can embrace the new day as a welcome bonus to be grateful for and to use wisely.

[Next in this series: How to keep an open mind according to Sextus Empiricus.]