~by David Aiken~
Epictetus’ Enchiridion Expanded_§1.6.1.1. [Phrontisterion translation]. You should never accept praise, from
anyone, for any accomplishment or quality that belongs to another. (2) If a fine-looking horse should ever exclaim,
exalting himself, “I am fine-looking,”
that would be acceptable. (3) But
you, each time you say, exalting yourself,
“This fine-looking horse is mine” –remain aware that you are praising yourself for
a quality that belongs rightfully to the horse. (5) So, your “accomplishment or quality” here is only a “borrowing” from “the
horse’s” outward appearance. What then is actually yours? In a world cobbled
together of outward surfaces & façades, what this means is that you should
hold fast to your own real or natural qualities—in which case you are
rightfully praised. (7) For then
you shall accept praise for some quality that belongs rightfully to you.
2 “Ench”, 1.6.1.1
∆Epi« mhdeni« e˙parqhvøß aÓllotri÷wˆ
proterh/mati. 2 ei˙ oJ iºppoß e˙pairo/menoß e¶legen o¢ti "kalo/ß
ei˙mi", oi˙sto\n 3 a·n h™n: su\ de÷, o¢tan le÷ghØß e˙pairo/menoß
o¢ti "iºppon kalo\n e¶cw", i¶sqi, o¢ti e˙pi« iºppou aÓgaqw◊ø
e˙pai÷rhØ. ti÷ ou™n 5 e˙sti so/n; crhvsiß fantasiw◊n. w‚sq’, o¢tan e˙n
crh/sei fantasiw◊n kata» fu/sin schvøß, thnikauvta e˙pa¿rqhti: to/te 7 ga»r e˙pi« sw◊ø tini
aÓgaqw◊ø e˙parqh/shØ.
NB—Just a
note on the translation of the datives in the opening line (ln. 1): the dative
case for medeni [Epi« mhdeni«], which opens the paragraph and
precedes the verb, is governed by the preposition epi and therefore dative. Following the verb, the closing datives
of the phrase, allotriw proterhmati [aÓllotri÷wˆ
proterh/mati], are
datives of possession.
Although Ms.
Carter gets to the gist of meaning in this section, her text is stilted and
therefore fails to engage us or to move us very much. She renders this sixth segment of The
Enchiridion in the following way:
Don't be prideful with
any excellence that is not your own. If a horse should be
prideful and say, " I am handsome," it would be
supportable. But when you are prideful, and say, " I have a handsome horse," know that you are proud of what is, in fact, only the
good of the horse. What, then, is your own? Only your reaction
to the appearances of things. Thus, when you behave conformably
to nature in reaction to how things appear, you will be proud
with reason; for you will take pride in some good of your own.
Likewise, the
Thomas Wentworth Higginson translation at Project Gutenberg, which, in addition to being
a somewhat fantastical rendering from about line 5 and on, also makes
a modest and uninteresting attempt to introduce philosophical language into an
otherwise fairly uncomplicated text, gives us this:
Be not elated at any
excellence not your own. If a horse should be elated, and say, “I am handsome,”
it might be endurable. But when you are elated and say, “I have a handsome
horse,” know that you are elated only on the merit of the horse. What then is
your own? The use of the phenomena of existence. So that when you are in
harmony with nature in this respect, you will be elated with some reason; for
you will be elated at some good of your own.
§ Some Comments on Structure. This segment
of the Enchiridion is chock full of
passive and reflexive verbs, which, when they occur to this extent in English
writing, reflect questionable style. This is just normal everyday ancient Greek,
though. Stylistically, of course, most of my generation learned in grade school
that passive verbs mean the action is happening to the subject, and that middle
or reflexive verbs mean the subject is doing the action to or for itself. In
this section, Epictetus creates both ontological and ethical tension precisely in
the interstice that separates what one can/should do for oneself (middle-reflexive
verbs), and what is acceptable for others to attribute to you (passive verbs).
I.
Our text starts with a dominant passive in line 1: (1) You
should never accept praise [e˙parqhvøß], from anyone, for any accomplishment or quality that belongs to
another.
II.
And then Epictetus gives an illustration of his principle using the
reflexive/middle (lns. 2-4): (2) If a fine-looking horse should ever exclaim, exalting
himself [e˙pairo/menoß], “I am fine-looking,” that would be
acceptable. (3) But you, each time you say, exalting yourself [e˙pairo/menoß], “This fine-looking horse is mine” –remain
aware that you are praising yourself (leading to the
only indicative in the text: [e˙pai÷rhØ]) for a quality that belongs
rightfully to the horse.
III.
The conclusion, of course, which is in lines 5-7,
is that you should hold on to the truth of what is in fact yours, which means that the praise will be relevant to you (lns. 6-7)—in which case you are rightfully praised [e˙pa¿rqhti]. (7) For then you shall accept praise [e˙parqh/shØ] for some quality that belongs
rightfully to you.
§ On possessiveness. Not to belabor the
obvious, but possessive pronouns, such as my,
mine, yours, ours, and theirs, really only work well, and with
philosophical appropriateness, in matters of grammatical realities and
relationships – my table, your table, their table. Otherwise, no one has true ownership of anything: we
have de facto rights only to a usufruct
rapport with everything that has our name on it. So, no matter how much we
might want to hold on to a thing, anything at all, all our ‘wanting’ will not
help us to keep hold of things in the real world. So, our use of possessive
pronouns does not reflect true ontology; but only linguistic habit and
convention. Which makes Epictetus’ point in this section important ethically,
as meaningful direction for living the good life.
§ The unbridgeable divide between IS and HAVE.
Self-Ownership [oikeiosis - οἰκείωσις] in Stoic philosophy, corresponds to the sense of self-awareness
in humans, what modern neuroscientists such as Oliver Sacks would call proprioception,
and it contributes in the most fundamental kind of way not only to our sense of
ourself, but to an overarching sense of human community. So, Self-Ownership for the Stoics is truly a basis for human virtue. The same cannot also be said of Ownership tout court, however. In fact, in this
section of the Enchiridion, Epictetus
makes the case that possessions are not in any way whatsoever an indication of personal
virtue or value.
So, there we are innocently by-standing down at the corner and we find
ourselves inadvertently dropping eaves on a conversation, which goes something
like this: Hey, look at this! I have this absolutely gorgeous new [TOY = fill
in the blank with any ‘thing’]: car; girlfriend; baby; dog; house; laptop
computer; big-screen television; fine, fancy stereo setup; set of six-pack abs;
et cetera ad nauseam. Hearing this,
we might well anticipate that the next bit of the conversation to drop upon our
eaves, might pan to the ‘thing’ being admired by our two interlocutors, and to their
comments concerning its many virtues—how
pretty; wow, what great lines; wonderful resolution; great sound; etc.
At this latter point
in our neighborly, corner-store heart-to-heart, however, Epictetus insists that
the conversation between our two confidants, or at least the philosophically interesting
bit in their otherwise completely insipid tête-à-tête, comes sliding to a
screeching halt. It has to end, because there is no plausible connection or
possible attribution of virtue that can be made between the qualities of independent
things, and the fact that someone may actually possess such things.
In the illustration Epictetus provides for us in line 5 of the Enchiridion, of the hail-fellow-well-met
one-up-ist who owns the fine-looking horse, his “virtue,” which is to say the accomplishment or quality for which
he is seeking praise, consists only in
an imagined and imaginary “borrowing” from some outward trait that belongs,
rightly, only to the horse. And yet what the horse looks like, charger or old plug,
reflects in no way whatsoever on the person who has paid for that horse, thus
acquiring ownership and use of it, and who must for ever after feed it and
clean up the trail of equine apples it leaves behind. And so, Epictetus rightly
asks: Remind me again—What, here, is your
virtue, exactly? [ti÷ ou™n 5 e˙sti so/n].
The moral of Epictetus’ story is this: who we
are is not equivalent to what we own or what we might chance to have in our
pockets or purses. Possessions, of any and all sorts, are only accoutrements of
living. They may perhaps be pleasant enough accessories for us; but inessential
possessions, traits & attributes, are not fundamental to the virtue or
integrity of who we are according to our nature. In lines 5-6 Epictetus makes a
very tidy and carefully articulated distinction grounded in levels of
‘rootedness’, which we may use much in the way intended by the younger
Heidegger’s notion of ‘fundamental’ in Fundamental
Ontologie. In the deepest, most fundamental layer of Epictetus’ notion of
the Self, there are qualities or virtues that are profoundly us, that demarcate
what we are by nature [kata phusin - kata» fu/sin]. Epictetus distinguishes these
natural virtues of Self, from traits or accidents [per Aristotle] that “belong”
to us only very casually, and which accompany us on our journey through Life as
shallow or superficial baggage [para
physin - para» fu/sin]—including
those obviously incidental qualities such as weight, baldness, height, eye and
hair color, physical beauty or ugliness, possessions, etc. Epictetus then
reconfirms his levels of fundamental rootedness for the Self, by again highlighting
the contrast between the natural virtue or attribute or quality [kata» fu/sin], which is deeply rooted in us, and
the more superficial properties, which, he says, are only skin-deep appearances
[en chresei phantasiwn - e˙n crh/sei
fantasiw◊n].
What then is actually yours? In a world cobbled together of outward surfaces
& façades, what this means is that you should hold fast to your own real or
natural qualities—in which case you are rightfully praised. (7) For then you
shall accept praise for some quality that belongs rightfully to you.
§ A Fantastical
Excursus. On the question of phantasiwn,
a genitive plural from phantasia [φαντασία], and which means appearances or surface level, its use is
rather straight-forward in our text here from Epictetus, in that it is
juxtaposed with the deeper, more radical and fundamental sense of kata phusin [kata» fu/sin]. Essentially, phantasia has
everything to do with superficiality and appearances – what one perceives or
sees; the external and transient aspects of a thing; its accidental versus its essential
qualities, to put a dandy Aristotelian spin on it.
That said, however, phantasia is a rather magnificent word all in
all, and covers lots of territory in Greek literature, from the
philosophically rich to the quotidian and banal, encompassing phenomena such as
ghosts, things invented, imagination, etc. Were he to have translated himself
into ancient Greek, for example, Immanuel Kant would definitely have used phantasia to translate his noumenal sense of Verstandeswesen or Hirngespinste (Prolegomena zu einer jeden
künftigen Metaphysik,
13:292).
For the
expansiveness of phantasia in
Greek literature, Tuft University’s Perseus
Project cites the LSJ in
extenso to give some sense of its reach, which is here further decanted for
the non-Hellenophile:
Phantasia-- fantasiw◊n [pl f gen]- φαντασία from φαντάζομαι: imagination,
the power by which an object is presented (φαίνεται) to the mind (the
object presented being φάντασμα), Plat.,
Arist.
a. appearing, appearance;
usu. with less verbal force, appearance, presentation to consciousness,
whether immediate or in memory, whether true or illusory; the appearance
of the milky way, Id.Mete.339a35;
esp. of visual images, Arist. de An.429a2; image
reflected in a mirror, Placit.3.1.2;
also of other sense=perceptions, appearance is the same as perception,
whether we are talking of hot things or of anything else like them, Pl.Tht.152c,
cf. Chrysipp.Stoic.2.21;
freq. in later Philos. esp. in meaning psychic image, Epicur.Ep.1p.12U., S.E.M.7.152, M.Ant.4.24,
al.; mental images, Cic.Fam.15.16.1; apparition,
Arist.Mir.846a37.
b. less scientifically, appearance, Id.SE165b25; “(in a conjuring trick) Cels. ap. Origenes Cels.1.68; Gal.6.105, cf. 15.17,115, 19.206; Id.18(2).73, cf. 71, al.
2. imagination,
i.e. the re-presentation of appearances or images, primarily derived
from sensation; colours as judged by the φ., apparent colours, Placit.1.15.8.
b. in Aristotle, faculty of
imagination, both presentative and representative, opp. Arist.de An. 428a5; opp. δόξα, because πίστις is absent, ib.22, 24;
opp. ἐπιστήμη, νοῦς, διάνοια, οὐδὲ [φ.] τῶν ἀεὶ ἀληθευόντων οὐδεμία ἔσται, οἷον ἐπιστήμη ἢ νοῦς ib.428a17;
3. the use of
imagery in literature, Longin.3.1;
4. prestige,
reputation, Plb.22.9.12, cf. 24.7.2, 24.11.5, Fr.233; Hipparch.1.1.6; parade, ostentation, Hp.Decent.7, cf. Plb.15.25.22, 16.21.1, 31.26.6, Posidon.36 J., D.S.12.83, Vett.Val.38.26, al.
Further
reading:
· Cf. the following article from Vox for a lesson in applied Epictetus on
the question of taking credit for something ‘you’ did not do: http://www.vox.com/world/2017/4/21/15389362/trump-video-aya-hijazi]
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