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The Stoic Fragments: Hidden Wisdom from Epictetus (Episode 182)
374 Plays16 hours ago
Discover the hidden gems of Stoic philosophy in this exploration of Epictetus' fragments - those powerful passages preserved by other philosophers but lost from his main works.
Caleb and Michael unpack these concentrated nuggets of wisdom, from the surprising idea that we should value people by their capacity to help friends rather than harm enemies, to the famous "persist and resist" maxim that captures the essence of Stoic emotional management.
Learn why terrible people are already punished by their own character, how to judge humans by their true virtue rather than superficial success, and why no one is truly free without mastering themselves.
(00:00) MT: Fragments
(05:18) Fragment 7: Helping Friends vs. Harming Enemies
(10:43) Fragment 10: The Clean Jar - Approaching Philosophy Properly
(16:19) Fragment 10: The Famous "Persist and Resist" Maxim
(19:31) Fragment 13: Why Bad People Are Their Own Punishment
(25:39) Fragment 18: Judging Humans by Their True Excellence
(28:41) Fragment 17: The Banquet of Life
(31:29) Fragment 20: Becoming Resilient to Emotions
(37:04) Fragment 26: A Soul Carrying a Corpse
(39:39) Fragment 35: True Freedom Through Self-Mastery
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Transcript
Introduction and Context
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Stoa Conversations. My name is Caleb Ontiveros. And I'm Michael Tremblay. And today we're going to be talking about some of the fragments from Ecpectides.
00:00:13
Speaker
We've talked about the discourses, talked about the handbook, and touched on a handful of fragments here and there, but I've not spent too much time. So Michael pulled out some highlights. I pulled out some comments as well.
00:00:24
Speaker
And we'll ah we'll go through a few of them. Yeah, I'm excited for this one. i mean, I'm excited whenever we talk about Epictetus. um But so for those that aren't familiar, um when you're looking to get into Epictetus, you want to read some of his works.
00:00:39
Speaker
You can often purchase in one copy everything we have existent of his writings. And that's the the discourses, the handbook, and then the fragments.
Understanding Epictetus' Works
00:00:50
Speaker
And the i said writings, but I should say the Discourses is maybe a transcription of those lectures, probably some alteration by Arian. The handbook is then a summary, so kind of your your greatest hits, if you will, the key concepts, the study notes.
00:01:07
Speaker
And then on top of that, you've got the fragments, um which are pieces of Epictetus either quoted or preserved by other writers that no longer exist in the remaining Discourses or handbook.
00:01:18
Speaker
So for example, ah Fragment 9 is from Aelus Gellius. I think that's how you say his name. ah His book, Attic Nights, that's like a also, um you know, third century AD book, but it references a Stoic philosopher citing book five of Epictetus' Discourses.
00:01:40
Speaker
So, you know, the first philosopher pulls out the book and says, I'm going to read you this passage from book five of Epictetus. And we only have, the discourse only has four books. So this points to like some of the content of the fragments presumably is from additional books that we've lost.
00:01:56
Speaker
You know, parts of Epictetus is thinking that were shared and spread around and in, in, in, his time that we don't have anymore in the handbook or the discourses. um I was excited to do this episode because I hadn't actually read that much of the fragments. and I didn't actually dig into them in that much detail. I think because it can feel like they're, I mean, they're a little bit less certainty in their authenticity or a little, or some of them maybe are paraphrases along or, you know,
00:02:28
Speaker
but other philosophers talking about what Epictetus said.
Discussing Fragments and Their Significance
00:02:31
Speaker
So from a scholarly perspective, when I was really digging into Epictetus, and there's a little bit less um certainty or confidence in the authenticity of of the thought or the representation of the thought.
00:02:43
Speaker
But I think they're a great supplement to Epictetus' thinking. And there's not something that I've thought about much or talked about much. So I thought it would be fun idea for an episode to go through, read the the fragments carefully, and then each talk about some of our favorites um or some key ideas that popped up that we thought were cool.
00:03:03
Speaker
And so for this, I'm using Robin Hard's 1995 translation of Epictetus, and that has 36 fragments. I know something you talked about, Kayla, when you were preparing for this episode, some translations have more, some have less.
00:03:17
Speaker
Maybe speaking to further research on the authenticity, like Robin Waterfield's translation you were saying has less, so maybe... Maybe there's an argument there that some of them have been shown to be less trustworthy than others. i'm not sure I'm not sure his reasoning.
00:03:31
Speaker
But that's the one those are the ones that I was ah reading from and using. Yeah, absolutely. I think ah the fragments, they do have, ah for some of you who are maybe more familiar with Epictetus or this podcast, there there are some famous lines from Epictetus that come from the fragments. I think you know that line about persisting and resisting,
00:03:52
Speaker
I believe that's a fragment, if I'm mistaken. It's fragment 10. Yes, that's fragment 10. Well, because when I was when i wasn't really into Epictetus, I was like, why is everyone talking about persist and resist? I was like, where is this coming from? I've been i've been reading the discourses back and forth, and he does not talk about persisting persisting and resisting. I was very confused.
00:04:14
Speaker
But no, you're you're exactly right. This is where that comes from. Yeah, absolutely. It's cool to see how other writers, Marcus Aurelius, picks out ideas from Epictetus. I think there's something to be said for the fragments, and since they are selections done by other writers, philosophers, and such. you know Out of anything they could have picked from Epictetus, they decided to choose these lines.
00:04:39
Speaker
And so they were fortunate enough to have more of a a wider selection to choose from. So you know As you were saying, we don't have the complete set of discourses anymore. It's been lost. So you get at least a teaser of what what could have been, perhaps.
00:04:57
Speaker
Yeah, good to jump into it. Yeah, let's do it.
Key Ideas from Epictetus' Fragments
00:05:01
Speaker
Cool. So for the structure for the episode, I'm going to take a some of the fragments are longer than others. Like fragment makes some of them sound small.
00:05:09
Speaker
ah Some actually know up to a page. Others are just a line. But I'm going basically quote from Either the entire fragment or the portion of fragments I think are the most interesting, and then we'll reflect on the idea a bit. So pull out the key idea and not talk about either maybe maybe how it's surprising or maybe how it reinforces some of the other ideas of Epictetus.
00:05:31
Speaker
So kicking things off with fragment seven, this says, quote, it's the part of a thoroughly mean-spirited and foolish man to suppose we shall be despised by others.
00:05:43
Speaker
unless by every possible means we harm the first enemies we come across. For we are inclined to say that a man can be recognized as contemptible by his incapacity to do harm, but he is much better recognized as such by his incapacity to be of help.
00:06:02
Speaker
So that's the quote. I thought that was a really interesting one. and to summarize that in less maybe old timey language, Epictetus is basically saying, ah
00:06:13
Speaker
It's dumb to to despise people because of their incapacity to hurt or harm other people. we we We should judge somebody by their incapacity to be of help.
00:06:26
Speaker
And I think you're getting here, you know, my summary out it on it is that, you know, it's it's better to value the person that can help their friends than value the person that can harm their enemies. I think we're getting here also some, maybe some ancient conceptions of masculinity where people were valued of, you know, well, what capacity do you have to go out and, know,
00:06:44
Speaker
maybe exert your will on others or to dominate others if need be. And Epictetus is kind of taking a bit bit more of a pacifist line here and saying, look, we shouldn't judge somebody as being a bad man, I would say, because they can't harm other people. We we should judge the bad man by people who can't help their friends, basically.
00:07:05
Speaker
Yeah. Which is an interesting thought. I thought that was like, mean Epictetus is normally known for being pretty hard, ah pretty intense in his theicism. And this was kind of an interesting, um it's a pacifist angle.
00:07:20
Speaker
exactly It's not exactly that, but it was kind of a more, you know, let's focus on raising other people up than our capacity to pull other people down. um Yeah, which i which which which stood out to me.
00:07:30
Speaker
What did you think? Yeah, it's a good one to call out. And I think you're right that it's a rejection of other forms of masculinity. What this first brought to mind to me was what was inscribed on the Roman dictator, generals,
00:07:51
Speaker
dictator roman generals um That line hard. That is good line, though. Yeah, one must admit an absolute banger great line.
00:08:03
Speaker
I suppose what Epictetus is saying here is what really matters is and absolute banngger a great line ah but i suppose what you know epictetus is saying here is what really matters is the friendship aspects And yeah of course there's some amount of navigation one needs to do with respect to one's enemies, but know the example of Sulla prescriptions and such, I take Epictetus really be rejecting here. that's um
00:08:42
Speaker
That's not required you know to be excellent. it's ah It's much more important to be to help one's friends than harm one's enemies. Yeah, i think that's exactly right. So it's like judge the person who hasn't repaid their friends. Don't judge the person who hasn't repaid their enemies.
00:08:57
Speaker
Like that's a, maybe, as you said, maybe, you know, you've got to, you've got to kind of navigate the world and people that are trying to harm you and, ah you know, hold your boundaries and stand up for yourself. But we should be more judgmental of the person who who doesn't do right by their friends than the person who doesn't, you know get vengeance on their, their enemies in the way we might suspect or um expect of them in this kind of Roman society.
00:09:21
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Epictetus would think, but you know, what Marcus Aurelius did with forgiving people who attempted to launch coups against him was the right sort of move where you have, you put forward a kind of practical forgiveness as as an option. And it's not necessarily the, you know, the stance that someone is acting as aggressor towards me, I need to squash them, you know.
00:09:52
Speaker
or something of this sort. Yeah. And then I guess the last part is just the like, so that stands true as like better to be that than the other thing, like better to be, better to be the person that repays his friends than the person who punishes his enemies.
00:10:05
Speaker
But then he's also just calling out, which we've spoken to, but just the last time sees, he's, um he's calling out this kind of actual social tendency to value one over the other. Like he's pushing back against a norm of, of,
00:10:21
Speaker
ah valuing one over the other. And I think that's a good it's a good reminder, um I guess, what we value when we look at others. yeah i suppose Yeah, that's true. That is a good reminder. I suppose you can also take this in political context if you like. You might maybe value politicians more by their ability to help their constituents than crush their constituents' enemies and so on. So I think that might be, there's some practical upshot there for sure.
00:10:43
Speaker
Yeah. Cool. So moving on to the next one, this is fragment 10. And so this is a, just a ah portion of it, but it goes, Arian said that Epictetus noticed a man who had lost all sense of shame, who had misguided energy, bad habits, was self-confident and relied on his power of speech and concentrated on everything except his moral character.
00:11:09
Speaker
Epictetus saw that a man of this kind was also tackling philosophical subjects and methods. He would attack this man in these words. Man, where are you putting these things?
00:11:20
Speaker
Look careful to see if the jar is clean. If you put these things into your mind, they are ruined. If they rot, they become urine or vinegar or perhaps something worse. So the idea here is we've got this guy, he's not doing super well.
00:11:37
Speaker
ah um he's he's He's not living philosophically. And then he goes and he starts studying philosophy.
Philosophical Mindset and Warnings
00:11:45
Speaker
And then Epictetus makes this metaphor of about, look, you're you're taking...
00:11:50
Speaker
You're taking these concepts, these good concepts, and you're storing them in yourself. But you know you're you're the jar, but the jar is not clean. And so the things they rot inside of you, they become urine or vinegar. The philosophy becomes tainted.
00:12:03
Speaker
You're not a right receptacle of it. um So you corrupt the ideas instead of them helping you. I thought this was an interesting one because Avictetus is returning to this idea of needing to study philosophy in the right way, needing to approach it from the right direction.
00:12:18
Speaker
He talks also in the discourses, he uses the metaphor consistently of digesting philosophy. You know, be sure not to show off your philosophy.
00:12:30
Speaker
don't Don't brag about your philosophy. Otherwise, this philosophy you've eaten, you'll so you'll vomit it up. you need to just like You need to just let it sit and digest it.
00:12:41
Speaker
And so here we have another this other metaphor of, you know, you're you're not philosophy is not this inherently good thing. I guess I should say that, you know, virtue is inherently good. Almost philosophy is like an indifferent or philosophical maxims are like an indifferent.
00:12:55
Speaker
in that maybe they benefit you, maybe they don't. Depends on how they're engaged with. And so you need to be in the right mindset. You need to approach philosophy the right way. Otherwise, you you taint this otherwise useful thing, which is just a ah great reminder. It's one of Epictetus's key ideas, and he provides another metaphor here um to add to the list.
00:13:17
Speaker
What did you think? Yeah, it's a it's a cool metaphor. Epictetus, of course, is so good on that theme of you know embodying your philosophy, not merely regurgitating maxims or show what you've learned in your actions, not by quoting Chrysippus and so on. maybe there's there's so There's also that that new idea that you called out that you know think of yourself as a container of philosophy. and I suppose that that brings to mind that there are
00:13:49
Speaker
you know some philosophy is useful other times or maybe you're not always as a container ready for certain aspects of the philosophy you know you were talking about skill acquisition the other day and you were thinking you know you can think about if you're trying to if you're beginning to acquire a skill sometimes there's that temptation to go after shiny more advanced concepts or what have you um and uh But so that's often not the best approach. So sort of a reminder to you know look at your own character, look at the basics before you dive into chrysippus and logic or what have you.
00:14:26
Speaker
That's ah another cut on it. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. And we're stronger than just like stoic maxims or theory. It's not like, oh, you've got this terrible person and they're they're not engaging in philosophy authentically or genuinely, but i you know here's this great one-liner. Okay, everything's good now. my this ah This epiphany has revealed to me the truth.
00:14:48
Speaker
It's not really that way, right? You'll take it in, you'll distort it, you'll corrupt it to your own ends, you'll use it to justify. you know People that use stoicism to justify Clearly non-Stoic things, the same way you can see that in any sort of philosophy or religion.
00:15:05
Speaker
We have a capacity to envelop or overpower the philosophy if it's not if it's not approached properly. Yeah, absolutely. That's a great point. I suppose you have that idea.
00:15:15
Speaker
Almost that it's not the exact same, but I think there's a related idea of some conception Christian conceptions of sin. ah i martin Martin Luther talked about incurvitus se, which is sort of just fancy Latin for curving.
00:15:31
Speaker
in words, you know the tendency to come up with maybe even a good idea, a good character change, but there's that human tendency to curve in on itself, to turn that good idea into maybe a us selfish one or something that benefits oneself. And he talked about this in the religious circumstance, but you also see it in the philosophical case, I think. Even if you have some idea or personal change that you make an idea that you implement improve your character in some way there's still always that tendency to curve back to oneself as it were to misuse it and that's something one always needs to be on guard against yeah or as Epictetus would say turn it into urine or vinegar neither good things
00:16:18
Speaker
Neither are good things. it's all It's also worth calling out from this ah that this is the fragment where um persist and resist or bear and forbear comes from. and I was thinking maybe we should read it briefly in case ah someone's not familiar with this.
00:16:34
Speaker
ah there It is ah something that we've quoted others quote before these two lines.
00:16:42
Speaker
Epictetus used to say that there are two vices that are much graver and more hateful than all the others. namely want of endurance and want of self-control. When we are unable to bear and endure the wrongs that we ought to bear and cannot hold back from those pleasures and other things that we ought to hold back from.
00:16:58
Speaker
And so he said, if someone can take these two words to heart and use them to govern and control himself, he will be free from fault for the most part and live a most peaceful life.
Interpreting Famous Advice
00:17:09
Speaker
Those two words he used to say are bear and forbear.
00:17:15
Speaker
So that's ah the Robin Hart translation.
00:17:20
Speaker
Yeah, that's, I've never thought of that before in terms of, I mean, when you, when you, when you put it like that, um, my, my translation is slightly different, but, uh,
00:17:33
Speaker
I have like put up with things and to control oneself. it It seems to me to be then desire and aversion, right? Like it seems to me to be, you've got to control your desire and you've got to, so that's self-control and you've got to put up with things and that's controlling your aversion.
00:17:51
Speaker
So that's like your, your fear and and your desire. And when you, cause I think that's the issue I always have with bear and forbear is it never really connected to me. i was like, it rhymes Like the another one is persist and resist. Like these, these, they rhyme.
00:18:06
Speaker
Like I'm not understanding what the, where this connects with Epictetus's philosophy, but now I think that it, not to be dismissive of it, because I know a lot of people like that line, but um now that it connects back to those, I guess, are the opposite of, you know,
00:18:21
Speaker
desire and aversion, right? It's like persisting. Persisting is you can put up with when your mind is saying, I don't want to do this. This is scary. And resisting is is saying when your mind's tempted, you know, isn't that that thing is shiny? Or maybe you should go for go for this thing you desire.
00:18:41
Speaker
and I really like that makes sense to me now. That connects. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's really helpful. I don't actually know where this fragment comes from. do you? No, I don't.
00:18:52
Speaker
it just begins, I have heard Favarinus say. Who is this Favarinus? I know. Well, it's it's clearly, it's one of those fragments that, i I mean, I'm sure we could find out, but it's one of those fragments where it's, um you know, yeah, talking, it's not a quote that was quoted. It's like talking about what Epictetus used to say. It's commentating on Epictetus's philosophy. So somebody who's read, presumably a part of Epictetus, we've lost.
00:19:24
Speaker
Cool. Nice. um Anything else on fragment 10? No, that's all I got. So now moving to fragment 13.
00:19:34
Speaker
um So in this one, um Epictetus is talking to a student upset that terrible people are successful or, you know, that terrible people seem to go unpunished by the universe and it seems kind of unjust or,
00:19:49
Speaker
that bad people could be in position of power, you know successful business people, politicians, people basically succeeding despite the bad things they've done. And Epictetus says, the man who blames providence because the wicked are not punished, but are strong and rich, is doing much the same as if, when they had lost their eyes, he said they had not been punished because their nails were sound.
00:20:14
Speaker
I, for my part, say there is much more difference between virtue and property than there is between eyes and nails. So in plainer language, Epictetus' point, the person's point here is like, what kind of providential, the Stoics claim the world is providential. You know, it's unfolding towards a plan, a kind of good state of affairs.
00:20:34
Speaker
And then the person says, the students ask, what kind of providential world sees bad people succeed, get in positions of power? um become strong and rich, as as Epictetus says.
00:20:47
Speaker
And Epictetus is like, you know, you getting mad about that, they've literally had the worst thing happen to them. They're a bad person. If you're a Stoic, you think they've they've had the only bad thing there is happen to them.
00:21:02
Speaker
They're experiencing being a bad person and you're complaining because they have accumulated these preferred indifference. And he's like, that doesn't make sense. The awful character is its own punishment. They've already been punished.
00:21:18
Speaker
And that's the analogy between the eyes and the nails. It's like complaining, well, that person who's had their eyes plucked out has nice nails. And it's like, oh what what part of that is supposed to be ah unjust?
00:21:30
Speaker
They've clearly already been punished. I ended up doing like a solo podcast um on this topic because this fragment really stood out to me. But it's this I think it's this nice litmus test for how much we've internalized Stoic values.
00:21:48
Speaker
Because I think often we can, you know, let's say I don't get that promotion or I don't get that raise or, um you know, a group of people don't like me. Sometimes you can use Stoicism in the way Nietzsche would criticize it, which is like you're trying to shrink from life. you're like, well, those things didn't really matter anyway.
00:22:08
Speaker
Those are just like preferred indifference. It doesn't really, I don't really care. You kind of like post-talk using stoicism to justify or or reduce the pain of your own disappointment. And I think if you've really internalized stoicism, you can tell ah by how well you apply those judgments to people outside of yourself.
Challenges in Applying Stoic Principles
00:22:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:25
Speaker
So you see somebody you see somebody you know succeed and you're happy for them, but you're not like elated for them. Or you see you know a bad person get into a position of power and you go, well, they have to live with themselves. you know like they have I'm not jealous of them. I wouldn't want to be them.
00:22:43
Speaker
um And I think that there they don't have a good life fundamentally. Like you really believe they don't have a good life. I think that's a a pretty profound thought, but but one that's hard to do.
00:22:55
Speaker
Yeah, it's really hard to internalize. And I do think you're exactly right that it's a useful test to see how deeply one has understood some of the stoic ideas.
00:23:08
Speaker
and your Your explanation also like fully brings the beginning of the fragment to life, which I like as well. ah It begins with, but I see the good and virtuous, someone one says, dying from hunger and cold.
00:23:23
Speaker
But don't you also see that those who aren't good and virtuous dying from luxury, pretension, and vulgarity? Is epi Epictetus' response. And then it continues into the section you read.
00:23:37
Speaker
And I think that's just a Emphasize the yeah the point you made, which is for the Stoics, you know success and indifference obviously isn't the ultimate meaning of success in life. You know, that's not what one ought to be pursuing.
00:23:56
Speaker
And as such, you know the thought that the world is unfair, feelings of envy, jealousy, and such due to other success and indifference is going to be misplaced.
00:24:08
Speaker
Mm-hmm. And I think ah if anything, if you're going to have some sort of problem of evil and stoicism, it would be something more along the lines of like, so the problem of evil is, you know, if if God is good or there's a providential universe, why do bad things happen?
00:24:24
Speaker
And if you're pointing to the evil in the universe as a stoic, you're not pointing to the good people who get sick and die early or something like this. You've got to point to the bad people and say,
00:24:38
Speaker
you know what kind of providential universe allows them to become ignorant? What kind of providential universe allows them to lose track of living in accordance with nature? And Stoicism maybe has answers to that, but that for the Stoicism is the bad thing that's going on the world. It's the it's the ignorant people.
00:24:54
Speaker
And so to point to them and say, Well, the world's unjust because of how successful they are, because they're not being thrown in jail enough or because they're not being exiled or physically punished.
00:25:06
Speaker
it just it's it's It's really counter... um Even though i fall I fall into that same thinking all the time. I'm not saying that it's a very advanced thing to think. i mean, epictet it's what Epictetus is doing, but um it's it's like an unstoic way of thinking about it, right?
00:25:22
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, in some ways, maybe it makes the problem of evil, at least as a philosophical problem, easier to deal with than it may be for theists. of course, that's ah that's a bit of a rabbit hole, but that's I think that's worth pursuing.
00:25:37
Speaker
All right, what's next? So next up is fragment 18, bit of a longer one. So ah this goes, they they are pretty fellows indeed, said Epictetus, who value themselves on things that are not in our own power.
00:25:54
Speaker
I am a better man than you, says one, for I have a great deal of land and you are half dead with hunger. I'm a consular rank, says one. Another, I'm a governor. Another, i have a fine head of hair.
00:26:05
Speaker
i just, to pause for a moment, I thought these were just like really funny ways of going. Yeah, I got, I'm rich and you're hungry. Yeah, well, my hair is really nice. um We haven't changed that much.
00:26:18
Speaker
um So the quote continues, yet one horse does not say to another, i am better than you, for I have a great deal of fodder and all that barley. And I have gold bridles and embroidered saddle clothes.
00:26:30
Speaker
But they say, i am swifter than you. And every creature is better or worse because of its own virtue or vice. Is man then the only creature that has no virtue of its own?
00:26:42
Speaker
Must we then look to hair and clothes and ancestors? So, I mean, I think this but this is a great line. um And so ancient Greek teleology, stotism is based in ancient Greek teleology. That just means that we should judge things based on their function or their nature.
00:26:59
Speaker
And that's what Epictetus is saying. Horses shouldn't be judged based on their hair or their saddles, but their swiftness. That's the virtue specific to horses. That is where when you when you're evaluating horse excellence, you look at swiftness. You can argue about that. You could say there's maybe we should evaluate horses based on something different.
00:27:16
Speaker
But the the idea is that there is a specific virtue that makes something excellent. We don't judge, you know, that there's that... that We don't judge a fish's ability to fly. We judge its ability to swim and so and so forth.
00:27:31
Speaker
So Epictetus is is just pointing out that we we need to apply this own reasoning to humans and we look silly when we don't do it. We sometimes, you know, when when when we, sometimes we we don't acknowledge that we have a virtue that sets us apart.
00:27:45
Speaker
And other times maybe we think of that virtue as these shallow things that our career, our hair, um all that land we have. um But we the fact is we do have a defining virtue according to Stoicism.
00:27:57
Speaker
We have something that we deserve to be judged on, a way that you evaluate a quality human versus a ah poor human, and that's how we make use of impressions. It's our character. how well we make decisions with the circumstances we have.
00:28:11
Speaker
And so, um you know, the same way it's silly to judge a horse by its hair, it's silly to judge a human by also its hair, an epitome example, or you know its richness or its its physical strength.
00:28:24
Speaker
You judge humans on their character, on the the quality of their character, their achievement of of virtue. um And I think that's like think that teleology is sometimes hidden below the surface in Stoicism.
00:28:37
Speaker
And I just love this passage that really pulls out and brings it to the forefront. Yeah, absolutely. honestly don't think I have too much to add to that. I suppose an adjacent one that i pulled out that's just before this, the fragment that's just before this that I enjoyed, um that I like,
00:28:53
Speaker
As Epictetus says, when we're invited to a banquet, we take whatever is served.
Life Lessons and Stoic Metaphors
00:28:58
Speaker
And if anyone should ask his host to serve him with fish or cakes, he would be thought eccentric.
00:29:04
Speaker
And yet in the wider world, we ask the gods for things that they don't give us, irrespective of the many things that they actually have given us. And I suppose that's just another angle on indifference, if you will. In some ways, we are inclined to take ah feel like we we're responsible for good indifference, a fine head of hair, riches, career success, what have you, which to some extent may be true.
00:29:36
Speaker
But at the end of the day, those are just indifference, and then perhaps we we have the opinion that we're owed other things. the You know, the the picture of the providential universe, or I just like the analogy of, you know, we wouldn't go over to a friend's house, they serve us food, and then we say, well, excuse me, I would have actually preferred a different dish.
00:29:57
Speaker
Yeah, where's the cake? i
00:30:01
Speaker
And yeah, so I like that analogy and sort of just applying that to the circumstance one finds one. and and life in general. So I think that's a, I think that's a fruitful way to look at things.
00:30:15
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I love this. so I love this one. Cause it just, I think Epictetus has a lot of great points about but why we shouldn't complain or the kind of mistakes we're making when we get into kind of a complaining mentality. And this is, that is just like, we all judge the person who goes through the buffet and it's like, Oh, they don't have this.
00:30:31
Speaker
mean it's not even a buffet in this case, right? that you're not paying. You're like, You've been invited to a dinner and you're like, well, you didn't make the type of cake I like, or i prefer fish to meat or something. yeah And and the the point, we're not, but we're not being incorrect at the banquet. We're being correct at the banquet. We're recognizing, okay, I've got this opportunity.
00:30:49
Speaker
This opportunity sets a certain set of options. It's my goal to try to navigate that opportunity well and to make the best use of those options. You know, maybe if I can't, maybe I would have preferred there to be fish, but I'm going to either eat this. And if I can't eat this, then I'll abstain from eating it.
00:31:03
Speaker
You just basically conduct yourself with good decorum. And the idea is we should treat, treat our personal fate in the same kind of way. Like maybe I would have preferred this to be differently, but these are the options I have.
00:31:16
Speaker
I'll make use of some of them. I'll choose not to, I'll choose to forego others, but I won't be angry or bitter about, you know, finding myself in the banquet I found myself in. Absolutely. Absolutely.
00:31:29
Speaker
Yeah. i like that one.
00:31:32
Speaker
Cool. So I've got two or three more here. So moving on to fragment 20, Epictetus those whose bodies are in good condition are able to withstand heat and cold. And so likewise, those whose souls are in the right condition can bear anger and grief and a moderate joy and all other emotions.
00:31:55
Speaker
I liked this one because Epictetus, he he really likes to make metaphors between philosophy and athletes. That's something I've talked about a lot. I've written about that. i don't think the point here is that a philosopher should be angry or grieve, but that someone well-trained is in a better position to recover from these.
00:32:13
Speaker
um mean, maybe we could you can interpret it different ways, but I basically i basically think it's this idea that you know you can make mistakes and If your foundations are solid, you know, if you're in good shape, you can withstand some, uh, you can get a little sick, you can withstand getting roughed up a little bit.
00:32:32
Speaker
You can go for a run and recover quickly. And likewise, you know, if you're, if you're if you've got the foundations of your stoicism down, you can bounce back from some anger, some grief, some extreme joy.
00:32:46
Speaker
You can handle these emotions and and have them be like relatively less disruptive so that they they don't kind of spiral or don't kind of build into this bigger thing than they need to be.
00:32:57
Speaker
And I just like, I like that. just another, you know, we're we're kind of, we're preparing ourselves. We're putting ourselves in a good condition like an athlete. Why? So we can respond to the things that that pop up. I just, like I like these metaphors in Epictetus.
00:33:09
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I think it puts some color into the idea of a progressor. And you can think about, you know, what does progress look like in my case? Perhaps it yeah expecting not to experience anger immediately is a mistake and it might be better to think about reducing the intensity of anger.
00:33:30
Speaker
you know avoiding making foolish decisions while in the grips of frustration and so on. And... you know Someone whose soul is in a better condition, one one could say, is is you know you're moving the right direction if you're able to deal with negative emotions and not experience the the same kind of negative consequences.
00:33:57
Speaker
So perhaps that's a that's another a way to make sense of of progress that's suggested by this fragment. Yeah, no, I really like that. yeah Adding some color to the progressor is a good way to put it.
00:34:09
Speaker
yeah not cured, not invincible, but bounce back a little bit more, a little bit more resilient. um I often think about that in terms of like sport about, you know, I've been doing some research into like, you would know more about this foot with running than I would, but like,
00:34:25
Speaker
let's say there's like zone cardio, which is basically the intensity of your heartbeat. And in one hand, it's almost like in absolute terms, our bodies, even if you get in better shape, you can't handle.
00:34:38
Speaker
So like, you know, even, even the person who's in the best shape can't handle a zone five for a long period of time, but there's, but at a relativistic relatively, you know, you Caleb, who's a good runner is going to be able to run much faster and stay in zone two than I can and stay in zone two.
00:34:55
Speaker
Um, I don't know how much of this metaphor is, is, is going to hold up, but there's this, there's this position of like, and if you get your body in the right condition, yeah. Okay. You know, you're still gonna, until you're a great stoic, you know, if, if, if, ah if a loved one dies, if someone spits in your face, like all of these things are still going to like get to you, but maybe that only gets you to zone three cardio where instead it would have got you to zone five.
00:35:22
Speaker
And there's almost this like, this like, uh, youre you're you're yeah you're just you're just subjectively handling the experience differently and with less intensity as you progress instead of like this binary like oh I read the discourses once and now nothing makes me angry anymore it's just like yeah it made me kind of angry but it didn't ruin my year I didn't become the kind of person who's like I need to now murder this person in revenge like you know these kind of things like it just it takes a lot to get me there and then a certain point it's like you literally couldn't get me there and And so that kind of dulling over time is is a nice way to think about it.
00:35:56
Speaker
Yeah, i think so. It's almost a you know decide metaphor of efficiency you can apply perhaps to stress or something of this sort, you know, how efficient are you at dealing with ah stressors that arise in your environment? Are you, are you able like the person who has aerobic efficiency to, you know, maintain
00:36:16
Speaker
yeah a cool head and you know, much wider range of circumstances over time? If so, you're becoming more efficient in a way. Yeah, efficiency is a good of putting it out. Like, yeah, like you could probably, i don't know.
00:36:28
Speaker
I don't, I'm just, but you you could you could do a 30-minute 5K and probably stay in zone two and that's fine for you. Whereas somebody else, if they experienced this, if they had to do the same thing or run a 5K in 30 minutes, you know, they'd be,
00:36:43
Speaker
puking after. And it's like, so it's like objectively the same thing, but subjectively a much different experience because of the efficiency improvement. And so that's like a way to look at your stoicism progress is not like, Oh, were you perfect?
00:36:56
Speaker
But you know, did it get less of a rise out of you than before? Did you handle it more efficiency, ah more efficiently?
00:37:05
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. Cool. so next one is fragment 26. And this will goes, you are a little soul carrying a corpse, as Epictetus used to say.
00:37:17
Speaker
um Caleb, you called out in the notes rightly that this is from the meditations. This is a Marcus Aurelius fragment. Um, but the one I like about this is that Epictetus, as much as he uses that metaphor of comparing herself with athletes, and I like the physical metaphors uses all the time, he's really cautious about identifying us too strongly with our bodies, um,
00:37:37
Speaker
Our fundamental idea for fundamental identity in Epictetus's view is our ability to choose our our mind or pro-hiresis. um This is a reminder of that. our our Our body is a corpse. We are the soul. And so it's like, again, it's a very particular use of language about, you know, you're a little soul carrying a corpse.
00:37:57
Speaker
not with a corpse, not like you're, you're, it's almost this baggage you have. And that calls that, that calls back to me this idea you get in Plato as well of like the the body as being this corrupting factor, this limiting factor for the soul.
00:38:16
Speaker
um I don't know if Epictetus goes that far. i don't know I don't think he thinks the body is corrupting us, but we have a, we have a corrupting tendency to identify
Mind, Body, and Stoic Freedom
00:38:24
Speaker
ourselves with the body. Yeah. and We want to resist this if possible.
00:38:33
Speaker
Yeah, i think I think Marcus Aurelius sometimes talks about like there's ah there's a little more of this corruption idea from the body. but The Hayes translation is nice. A little wisp of soul carrying a corpse.
00:38:44
Speaker
Epictetus. That's a book 441.
00:38:52
Speaker
Yeah, again, we get that idea of caring, right? Like it's this, it's this it's not you, it's this possession.
00:39:00
Speaker
Yeah, i think you're you're right to call out that the number of analogies or metaphors are exceptionally useful. um but but But this line, of course, it's it's a another metaphor but i think it's at something fundamental to philosophy this view of identity what are you fundamentally you know what are human beings essentially it's that prioris us our ability to choose you know the ruling part as a marcus aurelius is often translated as saying that's uh that's what's essential yeah totally
00:39:37
Speaker
Nice. so All right. Last one. You got one more? Yeah. On to the last one. So this is fragment 35. um we were calling this out, um,
00:39:48
Speaker
some of the Some of the translations end around 28. So mine went all the way up to 35. So I'm going to include this one. But maybe we'll we'll take a look at why and um why it got dropped and you know whether this one is with this one is reliable. But the other ones have come from the ah the consistently reliable sources.
00:40:05
Speaker
This one is, no man is free who is not a master of himself. kind of pithy. It's rather short and to the point. Epictetus was a former slave, so he he liked to make use wordplay and metaphor around slavery and freedom.
00:40:21
Speaker
liked to call his students slaves in a way. you know The irony of that, this former slave calling these you know rich, up-and-coming, soon-to-be-successful Roman citizens um slaves,
00:40:35
Speaker
yeah irony-heavy statement. um And so um on one hand, there's this just that this this just this significance to this kind of wordplay, but he also does mean this literally. like he's not He's not making, it's not a metaphor. When he says you're not free unless you're master the master of yourself,
00:40:58
Speaker
he He means this. For Epictetus, freedom comes from self-mastery because for Epictetus, freedom has a specific definition. It's the capacity to not be controlled or determined by other people.
00:41:11
Speaker
If you desire something outside of yourself, then another person can determine you by either threatening you with something you want to avoid or tempting you with something you want to have.
00:41:23
Speaker
That comes back to the persist and resist thing. If someone has something you cannot persist or has something you cannot resist, then they are able to control your behavior. They're able to determine you.
00:41:35
Speaker
And so for Epictetus, yeah, you you cannot be free. You cannot be a self-determining person who to decides what you do and acts how you want to act unless you have self-mastery, which means you can persist and resist anything.
00:41:50
Speaker
And so that's a, that's a, it's a, I think sometimes when I hear one-liners like this, my i kind of roll my eyes a little bit and go, okay, what does that even mean?
00:42:00
Speaker
But in Epictetus' case, he he actually has like a philosophy behind that, which goes, no, it's not it doesn't just sound cool. It's like, I'm actually saying something with that, which I'm saying, you the only way to be free is to be a master of yourself because freedom requires control of desire and aversion, requires the ability for someone else not to determine your behavior.
00:42:19
Speaker
And so in his case, because it's connected with Stoic philosophy, it's actually just a reference to a more profound idea, again, in with that wordplay around you know the obvious historical context of him being a former slave.
00:42:32
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And you can contrast it with perhaps some modern ideas of freedom. You know you have this idea of negative liberty. You have liberty. You are free so long as someone is not preventing you from doing what you want to do.
00:42:49
Speaker
or positive liberty, you're free if you're able to do what you want to do, have sufficient resources to do that. And I think Epictetus is cutting through both of those conceptions and saying you that what matters for freedom is self-mastering. that's That's deeper than, say, just being prevented from doing what one wants to do or being enabled to do what one wants to do. It's putting a question mark next to what you want to do to begin with and where that maps up with internal or external reality. And of course, he's a pushing us to you know desire virtue and be averse to vice. That's ultimately what what matters. And that's ah that's where freedom is going to be found.
00:43:31
Speaker
Yeah, it's almost like a ah happy side effect. It's like,
00:43:38
Speaker
it's not enough to just like
00:43:41
Speaker
you You need to want the right things. And it just so also happens that by wanting the right things, you'll be uncontrollable. Because somebody could want the right things. you know If you had a different conception where you thought, well, money was a good thing, you could want the right thing and then still be controlled.
00:43:56
Speaker
And then you'd almost have to choose between desiring the right things. You'd have to forsake desiring some good things just for the sake of freedom. You'd almost have this like... Yeah. Yeah, this... this trade-off like am i free or do i pursue what matters and it's like in stoicism well you can you can only be free by pursuing what matters um and that's like i guess a convenient convenient fact of the world
00:44:23
Speaker
yep nice cool well it's good to go through these if y'all get a chance i think the fragments aren't aren't too many of them worth leafing through and uh It's, I think, worthwhile exercise to sort of explore, if you can, or think through how do these fragments, shorter excerpts, map up to the rest of
Reflections on the Value of Fragments
00:44:44
Speaker
Stoic philosophy. I think that's ah that's worth worth doing because there is, I think, as you were pointing out, none of these are, I think, one-liners. They sort of stand alone. They all have a...
00:44:54
Speaker
significant, as you know, a philosophical and practical background behind them. So I think that's a worthwhile thing to do to flesh out and then, you know, come back to the fragment as a, almost like a, you know, this idea of a stoic maxim, some, a capsule or some, something you've used to, to capture this larger system and remind yourself of it as you go throughout, throughout your days and so on.
00:45:18
Speaker
Yeah, totally. um I like that idea you just raised of almost like you read the maxims is um as like, you know um if I say homework, it's going to make it sound less cool now, but it's like ah almost like a little test for yourself of like, okay, do I understand the idea that's behind that maxim?
00:45:35
Speaker
So both the maxim helps remind me of things, but it helps me, I need to flush out of my own mind and my own words. And in doing that, I think in in your own words is I guess the part that i was thinking about if you can flesh that out in your own words, then you really do understand the philosophy behind it.
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:45:50
Speaker
um But yeah, that was a lot of fun for me. Thanks, Gil. Cool. Awesome. Thanks for putting these together. for listening to stoic conversation please give us a rating on apple podcasts or spotify and share it with a friend if you want to dive of deeperfer still searched doa in the app store or play store for a complete app with routines meditations and lessons designed to help people become more stoic.
00:46:18
Speaker
And I'd also like to thank Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music. You can find more of his work at ancientliar.com. And finally, please get in touch with us.
00:46:30
Speaker
Send a message to stoa at stoameditation.com if you ever have any feedback, questions, or recommendations. Until next time.