Epictetus

The root of all unhappiness, Epictetus argues, is to expect one's happiness from things that are not in our power. Hence the opening move of the Enchiridion: sorting our concerns into two classes by the single criterion of mastery, what is wholly up to us (judgments, desires, aversions) and what is not (body, goods, reputation). The dichotomy is not one thesis among others but the operation that conditions everything that follows: all disturbance arises from having claimed a hold on what eludes us. Where the older Stoics dwelt on cosmic fate, Epictetus brings the division down to the concrete use, here and now, of what is properly mine.

Of things, some are in our power, and others are not.Enchiridion, §1

Enchiridion, §1 · Discourses, I.1

A former slave, Epictetus relocates the whole question of freedom outside chains and masters: my body may be fettered, I may be jailed or exiled, but no one, not even Zeus, can compel my assent. Real freedom lodges in the one place nothing external can reach, the prohairesis, the faculty of judging and willing. Hence a sharp compatibilist stance: the course of the world obeys fate, yet the use I make of my impressions stays inalienably mine. Against the common notion that measures freedom by the absence of obstacles, he holds that a man in chains can be free and a tyrant a slave to his desires.

Discourses, I.1 · Discourses, I.17

The good resides exclusively in virtue, that is, in the right use of impressions and of the will: this is Stoic moral perfectionism. A eudaimonist dimension remains, since this virtue is also the path to serenity (ataraxia), but pleasure is never the criterion.

Discourses, I.29 · Enchiridion, §8

Desire and aversion aim at attaining or avoiding: directed at what is not up to us, they doom us to miss our aim and to suffer what we flee, hence to unhappiness. The first of the three disciplines, that of desire, is to withdraw them from everything external so as to desire only what is in our power, until progress makes desire safe. For the beginner Epictetus goes so far as to recommend suspending desire altogether and using only aversion, and that solely toward what depends on us. A reasoned sorting of the preferred indifferents remains in the background, but the lived tendency is detachment from all that fortune can take back.

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.Enchiridion, §8

Enchiridion, §2 · Enchiridion, §8

Loving acceptance of what happens is a central prescription: to will that events be as they are, not as we would have them. This is the Stoic matrix of amor fati.

Enchiridion, §8 · Discourses, II.14

The world is ordered by a rational providence and every being has an assigned role in it, which reason allows us to recognize and fulfill. A constructive part remains, since it falls to each of us to play the received role well, like an actor in a play.

Discourses, I.16 · Enchiridion, §17

If passion comes from a hasty assent granted to an impression, then everything is decided at the moment the impression appears, not afterward. Hence the need for continuous attention to oneself, prosochē: relentlessly questioning each impression, "wait for me a little, let me see who you are", so as never to assent mechanically. This discipline of vigilance, a standing recollection upon the ruling faculty, is what Epictetus puts in place of a morality of rules: not a code to apply but a scrutiny of every second, the opposite of the dispersion in which the soul follows its impressions unfiltered.

Discourses, IV.12 (On attention) · Enchiridion, §4

Hardship has the value of training: difficulties are the opponents providence sends us to reveal and strengthen our character, as for the athlete. Suffering, rightly used, is fruitful.

It is difficulties that show what men are.Discourses, I.24

Discourses, I.24 (How to struggle against difficulties) · Discourses, I.6

The body and pleasure are indifferents: one should use external goods with measure, attach to them only as one uses a passing inn, and defer pleasure to make sure one remains its master. A moderate asceticism, with no absolute condemnation of pleasure.

Enchiridion, §11 and §34 · Enchiridion, §33

Death "is nothing terrible", but is the opinion about it that makes it so: it is a natural event, the return of the elements to the whole, to be kept daily before one's eyes without fear. The tone meets the Epicurean serenity toward death, with a Stoic cosmic coloring rather than any genuine personal immortality.

Enchiridion, §5 and §21 · Discourses, III.24

For Epictetus the only good is virtue, understood as the right use of impressions: moral worth lies entirely in the state of the character and of the prohairesis, not in consequences nor in an external rule. It is a virtue ethics in the strict sense, with a thin deontological strand in the idea of faithfully discharging the duties attached to one's roles.

Discourses, I.29 · Enchiridion, §30

Morality rests on nature: the same logos dwells in all human beings, and to live according to nature, that is, according to reason, is a universal and non-conventional norm. This is a realist universalism, grounded in the divine law of the world.

Discourses, I.11 · Discourses, II.16

Taking up Cynic and Stoic cosmopolitanism, Epictetus invites us to call ourselves citizens of the world and sons of Zeus rather than citizens of a particular city. Local attachments remain as roles to honor, hence a strong but not extreme position.

Discourses, I.9 · Discourses, II.10

Every passion contains a value judgment about some external thing, of the form "this is bad": it is that judgment, not the event, that constitutes the disturbance. The decisive step is to charge the passion to opinion rather than to the thing: if an emotion rests on a judgment, and a judgment can be revised, then no passion is suffered as a fate, all are correctable by reason. Epictetus draws an unusual ethical corollary: never to blame others or circumstances for our distress, but the use we make of our impressions. Anger, grief and fear are not alien forces to be subdued but hasty assents to be withdrawn.

Men are disturbed not by things, but by the opinions about things.Enchiridion, §5

Enchiridion, §5

Epictetus constantly affirms the existence of a providential god, the immanent reason of the world, whom he celebrates in a genuine hymn of gratitude. This theism is pantheistic and cosmic rather than personal, which holds the score back from the extreme.

Discourses, I.16 · Discourses, I.6