Epictetus’s attests to the incompleteness of his philosophy by acknowledging that, “Some things are up to us and some are not up to us”(Epicteus 1). By defining human limitation and relinquishing the desire for a comprehensive theory (as in the case of the Platonic Theory of Forms or Aristotelian Teleology), the individual can be studied as an intrinsic entity (independent of a polis or a telos). Epictetus’s epistemology is centered on the perception of experience and the corresponding moral choice (prohairesis) in the various situations that are enumerated in the handbook. Epicteus’s moral choice takes on the role of rational thought as his didactic strategy revolves around the presence of examples. The notion of a moral choice makes the consciousness the sole representation of the self, as the individual’s will determines the “rational” reaction to experience. This marks a procession from teleological understandings of the world to the possibility of multiple outcomes, a primordial notion of modernity. The individual is endowed with the power to make a moral decision, however the existence of a peripheral reality that lies outside the confines of our control provides an ontological coping mechanism. Regardless of what occurs, Epictetus propounds the notion that the individual has no control over the outcome of nature, and can only control the reaction of the self. Thus there is a natural subjugation to divine fortune. However, through active control of the self, the individual escapes a fatalist existence. The aforementioned faculty of the mind places all experience in the context of the self, thereby creating a singular perception of the world. Understanding the role of the self (respectively the limitations of the individual) allows one to attain a stoic (in the colloquial sense) outlook on life. Of course this raises the question of practicality in the context of a larger society. When individuals act on their own behalf and take a passive position to events they believe they can’t control, the building of a societal structure seems implausible. This is also accompanied by a diminishment of progress as an undisputed acceptance of events deemed “natural” leads to a lethargic spirit, one that does not question and therefore fails to progress. Thus stoicism appears to lead to a content self, one that understands and is unaffected by change however, the very essence of a stoic perception appears to be incongruent with human nature. It remains to ask if there is use for a stoic in our modern world and what aspects of our society would benefit most from conforming to these aphorisms?
Epictetus is of the opinion that everyone is equal because everyone is truly their own master in those matters which he assigns are up to us. Freedom as he defines such is available to all, equally attainable by all for as he suggests, “a person’s master is someone who has power over, what he wants or does not want, whether to obtain it or take it away. Whoever wants to be free, therefore, let him not want or avoid anything that is up to others” (15). A slave then, someone forcibly indentured to another, poor without any right to possessions, can therefore be free and thence happy if they are the masters over their own emotions, does not desire to change that determined by not themselves—their physical enslavement, and poverty—but simply works to change those things they can—their outlook despite circumstance.
ReplyDeleteI am critical of the opinion because such a belief encourages dangerous submission. No matter how much Epictetus believes and argues for a freedom which all can have—Epictetus would take issue with those efforts meant to liberate, emancipate, and decolonize by suggesting that those who do fight for their self determination do so erroneously in hopes of freedom because they attempt to change those this which are not determined by themselves. It is such a critique that demonstrates Epictetus the inadequacy of his ideas. To suggest that a slave can be free while enslaved, I assume, did nothing but further the idea that the enslavement of people can be justified for it cannot do any wrong or rather hinder anyone from true freedom. Who ends up critiqued and scolded by Epictetus is not the slavemaster but slave who resists for their agency has been misused, used to change a condition not determined by themselves. What Epictetus promotes is repugnant submission, which belittles all agency and attempts to control or discourage any effort to change the circumstances of enslavement, and marginalization.