Sunday, July 31, 2016

§ Epictetus’ Enchiridion Expanded_§1.4.1.1. On Activities. BATHING HABITS…., AMONG OTHER THINGS


Elvis, horsing around while swimming_July 4, 1956
2 “Ench”, 1.4.1.1 TRANSLATION (AIKEN)—On Activities. “Whenever you are about to undertake some task or activity, keep reminding yourself what sort of an activity it is. If you should leave to go swimming, for example, in your mind’s eye pass in review what kinds of things occur at swimming pools: there are going to be some who are splashing water, others who are horsing around, some who are yelling and screaming, and then there are those sneaking around trying to filch stuff. (4)
If you pass in review each and every activity in this same way, (5) you will negotiate your life with greater composure, (6) by just repeating this mantra to yourself straight-away: ‘I want to go swimming; and this choice is of my own accord so I want to be absolutely clear about what it means to do this activity; (7) because each activity, like swimming, has its own nature.’ By going about activities in this way, (8) if for example something should happen to prevent you from going swimming, you shall still be able to say: ‘The choice of doing this activity [e.g., swimming] is mine, and I am absolutely clear about what it means to do this activity, which is that there will be splashing, horsing around, yelling and screaming, and stealing. However, it is only some other hindrance, something I did not want and was not looking for, that is keeping me from going swimming; and I will not be losing sight of my own purpose, if I do not get all worked up when other stuff happens to get in the way.”
         ›Otan a‚ptesqai÷ tinoß e¶rgou me÷llhØß, uJpomi÷mnhØske 2 seauto/n, oJpoi√o/n e˙sti to\ e¶rgon. e˙a»n louso/menoß aÓpi÷hØß, pro/balle 3 seautw◊ø ta» gino/mena e˙n balanei÷wˆ, tou\ß aÓporrai÷nontaß, 4 tou\ß e˙gkrouome÷nouß, tou\ß loidorouvntaß, tou\ß kle÷ptontaß. kai« ou¢twß aÓsfale÷steron a‚yhØ touv e¶rgou, e˙a»n  6 e˙pile÷ghØß eujqu\ß o¢ti "lou/sasqai qe÷lw kai« th\n e˙mautouv proai÷resin 7 kata» fu/sin e¶cousan thrhvsai". kai« wJsau/twß e˙f’ e˚ka¿stou 8 e¶rgou. ou¢tw ga»r a‡n ti pro\ß to\ lou/sasqai ge÷nhtai e˙mpodw¿n, pro/ceiron e¶stai dio/ti "aÓll’ ouj touvto h¡qelon 10 mo/non, aÓlla» kai« th\n e˙mautouv proai÷resin kata» fu/sin e¶cousan 11 thrhvsai: ouj thrh/sw de÷, e˙a»n aÓganaktw◊ pro\ß ta» gino/mena."

Carter Translation 4. When you are going about any action, remind yourself what nature the action is. If you are going to bathe, picture to yourself the things which usually happen in the bath: some people splash the water, some push, some use abusive language, and others steal. Thus you will more safely go about this action if you say to yourself, "I will now go bathe, and keep my own mind in a state conformable to nature." And in the same manner with regard to every other action. For thus, if any hindrance arises in bathing, you will have it ready to say, "It was not only to bathe that I desired, but to keep my mind in a state conformable to nature; and I will not keep it if I am bothered at things that happen.

In our previous essay expanding on Epictetus’ Handbook (§1.3.1.1), which was entitled “On Things… as Things. Or, an Old Ontology," we learned about a former slave’s attitude toward ‘things’, such as wine glasses, coffee mugs, and loved ones. We learned that when we keep in mind what each particular thing is, in and of itself, independent from our need of or interest in that thing, and separated from whatever functions, uses, and purposes might be commonly or even uncommonly assigned to it, we free ourselves from our dependency on all the object-things in our lives that compete for our attention and for mastery over us. In a later variation on this theme complete with a phenomenological tweak, Martin Heidegger, doing his very best Epictetus imitation, might have said something like, it is by continually ‘keeping in mind’ the nature of things as ephemeral things that we begin ‘inhabiting’ fundamental philosophy, or ontology. The history of Western philosophy did not really need to wait on a 20th century philosopher for this invitation, however, which is as old as the hills, to be aware of the worldliness of the World, which constructs itself all around us and by means of us, through the medium of things.
Epictetus’ outline for the philosophical life addresses activities in their specificity, and becomes more diffused when applied to more general notions of activity, such as a career in teaching or politics. The principle, however, is certainly applicable. If I understand the activity of ‘politics’ to be ‘helping my fellow citizen’, for example, my understanding of the activity is not specific enough for Epictetus’ purposes, and so I will be liable to land up to my neck in misunderstandings, miscommunications, and misrepresentations. For Epictetus’ philosophical strategy to work as intended, I must be able to identify specific actions or activities that are an inherent part of the larger political pursuit—e.g., fundraising, writing laws, defending the interests of my constituency, etc.
In this present section, then, Epictetus recommends that we cultivate the same exact attitude, the same point of view, toward the ‘activities’ with which we occupy the hours of our life, as he has encouraged us to have toward all the various ‘things’ that surround us in the course of our journey through space and time. We ought continually to keep active in the front of our minds (1.3.1.1, L2) an attitude of attentiveness toward the world that can resolve itself into one question: ‘What kind of a thing is this thing or this activity?’

§ Bathing Habits
Perhaps, first of all, it might be helpful to clarify that the example Epictetus is going to use as his illustration in this section—bathing, is not necessarily referring to the activity of going to the beach or to the local swimming pool to go swimming, which is clearly the orientation of the Phrontisterion translation. To be sure, the middle/passive lousomenos [louso/menoß] does certainly have the meaning of to bathe in the ocean or in a river, and is used so quite normatively by Homer if we remember, for instance, the time when Odysseus ends up in a suggestive bathing-situation with the young princess Nausicaa on his journey home from Troy (Odyssey Bks. 5-6). The addition of balaneio [balanei÷wˆ], however, which translates as bath or bathing-room, seems to suggest that Epictetus is probably talking about public bathing, an activity that is generally only remembered nowadays by the older generations who experienced public baths as a common occurrence in countries like France until about the mid 1980s.
Public bathing might begin to look a little more familiar to the modern imagination if we think about how people still rinse off in the open showers at the beach or at the pool after swimming. The practice in antiquity, however, seems to have had its detractors and, apparently, already by the time of Socrates (5th c. BC) and Demosthenes (4th c. BC) the more rigorous moralists of the city considered over-indulgence in public bathing “a mark of luxury and effeminacy.” This is a bit of historical insight that I could have wished had informed my parents for all those early evening baths I had to take in my yesteryear summer-times when, as a rather wayward-minded and urchin-esque young partisan of our local parks and woods, the younger version of me would return home after long, dusty days playing hard outside!
            Our source on bathing in antiquity tiresomely informs us that there were both public and private baths, the public belonging to and maintained by the polis, and the private, predictably, belonging to individuals: “Such private baths are mentioned by Plutarch” (1st -2nd c. AD) and “were probably mostly intended for the exclusive use of the persons to whom they belonged.” On the other hand, a rather succulent piece of additional information from this source is that the entry price for public baths was a mere trifling, at about ¼ of one obol, at a time when the going rate for a prostitute was 3 obols. For the comparison, in a ‘one-thing-leading-to-another-thing’ kind of chatty way, present-day black market prices for prostitutes are available here, and the ¼-to-3 ratio is certainly a thing of the antiquated past in most countries.

In memories of my boyhood America, there were just going to be some things that inevitably happened when one went swimming; and you either had to be on board with that, or you were going to have a profoundly frustrating and unhappy day at the pool. There are going to be some who are splashing waterFrom my hours at the pool I remember with no fondness whatsoever all those morons who used to splash everyone and everything. Probably the worst was when one was laying on the grass with the current squeeze and all cozy warm from the sun, and someone would come up with a bucket of cold water to splash all over you. There were also, of course, all the fist volcanoes when we were goofing off in the water– ‘hey, look at this’, as they hold out their fist vertical in front you; you look, and they squeeze water up through their fist, which sprouts like a volcano in your face. First time, shame on them…. Then there were also the classic cannonballs from the high dive, where those in a more athletic and daring mood attempted to drench the nearby lifeguards in their high chairs overlooking the deep end of the pool. In the case of the cannonballs, the penalty for success was to be kicked out of the pool for the rest of the day.
[source]
There are going to be others who are horsing around…, and some who are yelling and screaming. Nothing new there in my childhood swimming pool memories. But then there will also be those sneaking around trying to filch stuff. I have to admit: I never did understand why kids stole stuff from lockers at the pool and it certainly used to tick everyone off. It is not like they were in any material need; after all, we were all cut from the same working class mold and haled from the same blue collar neighborhoods. And while we may have found locker room theft aggravating at the time, or frustratingly stupid, our source for bathing in antiquity tells us that in the Athens of Aristotle’s day, “those who stole clothes from the baths were punishable with death.” Now no matter how much we might appreciate the Athens of antiquity for all the right things, such as philosophy and democracy and gyros pita with tzatziki, it is arguably a social improvement that nowadays there is no longer a death penalty sanction for those who steal stuff at local beaches or swimming pools. A good whack should generally be sufficient.
            Finally, in this section Epictetus shows great personal tact, in addition to delicacy vis-à-vis the later history of Western philosophy, by refusing to hold forth on a topic that is certainly the comic scourge of public pools in modern times, and which, humans being humans, must undoubtedly have plagued the baths of antiquity. Which is the issue of yellow water, and all the panoply of attendant responses to the phenomenon—such as, Who did that? Why is the water warmer here? That is disgusting! and, You are a real sicko! There exists a very general humoristic consensus on this matter, although Epictetus does not formally weigh in on the question, which translates nicely by the admonition: ‘Don’t pee in the water.’ 
 
Which brings us back round again to Epictetus’ mantra about ‘things’, but which he is now applying to ‘activities’, which we are supposed to repeat to ourselves: ‘What kind of an activity is public bathing?’ The answer to this question needs to be something like: I am clear about all the various associated activities that are part and parcel of public bathing, and I choose to go ahead and participate in this activity, understanding what it is. With this state of mind, I am now liberated from any ignorance about what it means to go swimming in public pools, and I am mentally prepared for the consequences of my decision—that there will be splashing, horsing around, yelling and screaming, and stealing.
Epictetus cautions us, however, that having girded up the loins of our mind with this wonderful, appreciative, philosophical attitude, there is yet a possible setback we might encounter. What happens when something ‘else’, some other hindrance, which we are not expecting and which does not necessarily belong to the activity of swimming, should happen to keep me from going to the pool—e.g., the car breaks down, my parents ground me, the pool is closed for maintenance, there is a snowstorm in July. In this living philosophy, Epictetus encourages us to become clear about what we, as individual actors, wish to do or intend to do—so that we do not lose sight of our own purpose in all the rigmarole of trying to go swimming ‘out there’ in a world of intersecting and competing actions and activities. Stoic peace of mind inhabits us when we can keep clear in our mind our understanding and our intent with respect to the activity at hand; then, whenever the Universe-at-Large, which can often be contrary-minded, interferes with our ability to carry out our planned activity, Epictetus invites us to remember that it is our Choice, our Intent, that is necessary to our peace of mind, and not the actual ‘doing’ of any particular activity. So when there is the odd snowfall in July that happens to close the swimming pool for a time, which means I cannot go swimming on that day when I really wanted to go to the pool, I need to remember that I have no ability to make happen or ‘unhappen’ odd snowfalls in July; but given this hindrance I do have the ability to discover with my understanding and to determine my own purposes toward, new and unexpected activities—e.g., making snowballs, or snowmen, or snow-forts, or snow-sicles, in July. Conclusion: “If I do not get all worked up when other stuff happens to get in the way, I will not be losing sight of my purpose.”

§ Grammatical Tidbits.
Whenever you intend to undertake some task or activity, keep reminding yourself what sort of an activity it is (1-2); ›Otan a‚ptesqai÷ tinoß e¶rgou me÷llhØß, uJpomi÷mnhØske 2 seauto/n, oJpoi√o/n e˙sti to\ e¶rgon.
The translation: ‘intending to undertake’ some activity [me÷llhØß a‚ptesqaimellesaptesthai], sounds sort of like American entrepreneurial or business English, which is unfortunate but not necessarily unrelated. There are two components to this phrase. ‘Intending’ has a fairly interesting core, clearly having the sense of to be just about to, or to be on the point of doing, or, perhaps more richly turned in the Stoic, purposive kind of way, it means to intend to do something, in the sense of, I meant to or I had every intention of doing something this afternoon.
The undertaking bit of the translation [a‚ptesqai; aptesthai], which is in the middle voice, has the core meaning of laying hold of or of fastening oneself to, to cling. This verb brings to mind the image of the marriage idea as seen through the eyes of the King James Bible translators of 1611 (Genesis 2:24) – “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife”; however, the LXX verb for Genesis is not the same as the aptesthai of Epictetus. In the Odyssey Homer uses aptesthai when speaking of suppliants who, in olden times, used to grab onto—to latch themselves onto like ticks on a dog—the knees of their benefactors. Sophocles uses aptesthai in reference to engaging in war, and Plato uses aptesthai to express a similar but more metaphorical situation, which is to dispute someone’s argument. Both Sophocles and Plato use aptesthai in the sense of to grasp with the senses, to apprehend, to perceive; and Plato and Xenophon both certainly must have had cookie jars and little people in mind when they used aptesthai with the meaning of to come up to, to reach, to gain or lay hold of. Equally, one can imagine that pole vaulters, when successful, reach their mark [aptesthai].

Keep reminding yourself what sort of an activity it is. If you should leave to go swimming, for example, in your mind’s eye pass in review what kinds of things occur at swimming pools… (2-3); uJpomi÷mnhØske 2 seauto/n, oJpoi√o/n e˙sti to\ e¶rgon. e˙a»n louso/menoß aÓpi÷hØß, pro/balle 3 seautw◊ø ta» gino/mena e˙n balanei÷wˆ
We have already sufficiently considered Epictetus’ use of the bathing illustration; and as an illustration… it is illustrative but really nothing more. He could have used any activity to make his point, which suggests that, for whatever reasons, he may simply have had beach-party activities on his mind at the time of his thinking. The important piece of this phrase is not the illustration, but rather the verbal parenthesis provided by [uJpomi÷mnhØske 2 seauto/npro/balle 3 seautw; hupomimnhske seautonproballe seauto].
In a previous essay on the Enchiridion entitled, “Liberty Through Grammar [§1.2.1.1-1.2.2.1]” we saw the perfect imperative expression: “Keep repeating in your mind” – [Me÷mnhso; memneso], which we saw again in Handbook, 3, §1, L.1; and we became accustomed to the idea that a verb in the perfect tense is a sustained activity, beginning in the past and continuing dynamically into the present. You must continue to keep in mind…” In this present passage we find a variation on the theme of re-membering, re-minding, and re-calling, in the form of the present active imperative, hupo-mimnhske [uJpomi÷mnhØske]. The idea of re-calling to mind continues to constitute the core image of this verb, although it is nuanced here in the present tense instead of the perfect tense that we have seen earlier. Nonetheless, the verb is rendered more emphatic in this passage by the addition of the prefix hupo- [uJpo], which gives us the sense of re-minding someone, or ourself, by repeating over and over again; it harks back, and forward as well, to the notion of the repetitive ‘mantra’ so dear to Epictetus’ heart.
One could say that the action of hupo-mimnhske is immortalized in the classic American comic strip, the Bumsteads, where Blondie, the nagging wife, who is the embodiment and cultural translation of the principle of hupo-mimnhske, continues to hupo-mimnhske her husband, Dagwood –to harp upon him, to continually recall to his mind— that he should drag his carcass up off the sofa where he is busy napping and get busy, instead, doing his various household chores. Similarly, as we go about the various activities of our day, Epictetus invites us to nag ourselves continually, even in a harping kind of a way, to keep calling back again to the front of our minds what sort of an activity it is that we are presently engaged in.
Which brings us to proballe [pro/balle; present active imperative, 2nd singular]: in your mind’s eye pass in review, which closes line 2. Proballe is, in effect, the active re-membering mechanism or device whereby the hupo-mimnhske [uJpomi÷mnhØske] becomes effective for us. We re-call to our mind what sort of an activity we are engaged in, by throwing again in front of our mind’s ‘eye’ [pro-balle; pro-/balle] the types of things that happen at swimming pools. Pro-balle has the root sense of throwing, to which is appended the prefix before or in front of—so: casting in front of our memory. When used in this root sense the meaning of pro-balle is clear—so, pro-posing [X] for an office (per Androcides); or putting forward a defense or a plea (per Sophocles, Euripides, & Thucydides); or giving up oneself for lost (per Herodotus & Sophocles), but it seems less clear in its more legal permutations. Because apparently, in Attic law, one accuses a person by probolle (προβολή), pre-senting him as guilty of the offense, which is the job of the prosecutor; and in this context, the general meaning of to attack or to censure seems more remote.
In looking for the image to give life to Epictetus’ use of pro-balle, we chose the idea of the military parade, where the troops march smartly before the critical eye of the ranking officers—“in your mind’s eye pass in review what kinds of things occur at swimming pools…”

If you pass in review each and every activity in this same way, (5) you will negotiate your life with greater composure, (6) by just repeating this mantra to yourself straight-away: ‘I want to go swimming; and this choice is of my own accord so I want to be absolutely clear about what it means to do this activity; (7) because each activity, like swimming, has its own nature.’ [kai« ou¢twß aÓsfale÷steron a‚yhØ touv e¶rgou, e˙a»n  6 e˙pile÷ghØß eujqu\ß o¢ti "lou/sasqai qe÷lw kai« th\n e˙mautouv proai÷resin 7 kata» fu/sin e¶cousan thrhvsai".]
Epictetus has now finished laying out the principle of understanding ‘things’ and ‘activities’, and invites us in lines 5-7 to become ever more consistent in applying his principle as a philosophical ‘rule of thumb’ for living. This passage is particularly rich in both Stoic and simply philosophically interesting language, such as: pass in review; negotiate…life with composure; repeating…mantra; and especially choice… of my own accord. Ms. Carter’s translation of this passage in § 4, while not terribly insightful philosophically, is linguistically minimalistic and stilted as well, which is unfortunate, because the ideas here are at their most intimately individual and human, and should therefore be rendered more intimately and normally. Carter Translation 4. Thus you will more safely go about this action if you say to yourself, "I will now go bathe, and keep my own mind in a state conformable to nature." ‘Safety’ simply has no place in Epictetus’ thinking, and is, in fact, antipodal to the Stoic mindset.
The modest houtos [ou¢twß] that opens these lines and which translates as thusly, invites the translator, by means of this more-than-efficient quasi-ellipsis, to insert for clarity’s sake the last idea Epictetus was speaking about, which gives us: If you review each and every activity in this same way [thusly]. And if we do as Epictetus suggests, the yield to us shall be asphalesterpon [aÓsfale÷steron], which Phrontisterion translates as greater composure, where Ms. Carter translates as to go about more safely. Greek epic uses asphalesterpon in the sense of remaining fast, firm, or steady; without faltering; without fail. It equally has the sense of in safety, or with certainty, and is apparently so translated in Sophocles. But this is still far away from Ms. Carter’s inappropriate and misdirecting more safely. The image behind the translation, you will negotiate your life with greater composure, is supplied by the future middle indicative verb, hapse [a‚yh], which conveys the sense of grappling as if in a wrestling match—we are called to engage in a wrestling match with each and every one of our activities, in order to understand the nature of the activity that is trying to drop a fireman’s carry on us, so that we might remain steadfast in the heat of the action of our lives and not get humiliatingly pinned in the very first round. 
Fireman's carry in wrestling
Furthermore, Epictetus invites his students to do first things first. When the opponent reaches out to grab our arms or to do a take-down on us, when Life reaches out to grapple with us, Epictetus wants us straight-away [euthus; eujqu\ß] to repeat the mantra to ourselves: What on earth is going on here?! The mantra-repeating drill is supposed to begin immediately and posthaste, not later or after the fact, where the only fruit to be gathered is a life full of, ‘I wish I had…’, ‘If only I had…’, ‘I really regret that…’, or ‘It is a shame that…’
            Finally, Epictetus delivers in these closing lines of §4 a notion that is elemental to the Stoic conception of the individual, which is the idea of choosing with a sense of purpose, of making deliberate choices. I want to go swimming; and this choice is of my own accord [lou/sasqai qe÷lw kai« th\n e˙mautouv proai÷resin], so I want to be absolutely clear about what it means to do this activity. Proairesin [proai÷resin; feminine accusative] is a noble concept for Epictetus, and has a strong history in Democritus as well as in Plato and Aristotle. First, making a deliberate choice flows out of myself [e˙mautou; genitive]; it is not imposed upon me from the outside. Second, the choosing is deliberate or reflective in nature; the not-making-a-decision-is-the-same-as-making-a-decision refrain, which one hears commonly served up in an oft repeated, mindless litany, does not hold here, unless the not-choosing is in fact deliberate, which renders both the situation and the proverbial and still mindless refrain yet more vacuous, if that is possible. Pro-airesin, whose root idea is a deliberate or preferential choosing of one thing before another thing, encloses a considered and purposive resolve. It carries the idea of doing an action on purpose; and it may be widened out to include a purpose, plan, a scope or principle of action, or even the course of a life. In political discourse, pro-airesin refers to a deliberate course of action, or to a policy; and it may also bespeak a mode of government (democracy, oligarchy, monarchy, etc.). Finally, the term may be used to speak of a department of government or even a political party.
            The image, then, that Epictetus leaves us with in §4 is that of being the Leader or CEO in the management or government of our own life, at least in terms of the deliberate choices that we make in the course of a day. Which brings us up to his conclusion: that as long as we keep sight of our purpose in the heat of all the action going on all around us, we will not get all worked up when other stuff happens; and while ‘other stuff’ may interfere with the performance of our ‘actions’, nothing will be able to interfere with the steadfastness of our ‘purpose’. And I will not be losing sight of my purpose, if I do not get all worked up when other stuff happens to get in the way. [aÓlla» kai« th\n e˙mautouv proai÷resin kata» fu/sin e¶cousan 11 thrhvsai: ouj thrh/sw de÷, e˙a»n aÓganaktw◊ pro\ß ta» gino/mena].
The insight of Epictetus’ philosophy of attitude is to actively avoid getting worked up [aganakto; aÓganaktw] about stuff, either about ‘things’ or about ‘activities’. Aganakto is an expression that ranges from feeling a violent irritation, to being vexed at a person, to getting angry, and actually stands in contextual relationship to the ou’ taraxthese [ouj taracqh/shØ] of §3, lns. 4-5: we are to avoid getting worked up as we are to avoid being troubled in our minds, disturbed, agitated, an expression which carries with it the images of stirring up mud, to be in a state of disorder, or being in an uproar. And we can avoid this muddled mental state, says Epictetus, by repeating the famous, mind-nagging mantra and thereby re-calling for ourselves: What is this activity I am doing?

Friday, July 1, 2016

Epictetus’ Enchiridion Expanded_§1.3.1.1. ON THINGS… AS THINGS. Or, AN OLD ONTOLOGY.


2 “Ench”, 1.3.1.1. TRANSLATION (Aiken)—On Things. For each thing that you find glamorous, or handy, or that you really care about and enjoy—beginning with the most insignificant things, keep repeating the mantra in your mind: “what kind of a thing is it?” If you have favorite wine glasses, for example, keep repeating to yourself: ‘I really like these wine glasses, but they are glass after all! If you do this, when they eventually break or get broken, which they will, you will not become devastated. And each time you affectionately embrace your child or your wife, keep repeating to yourself that you are tenderly embracing a mortal human; for then, when the day of their mortality is at hand, you will not become devastated. 
         ∆Ef’ e˚ka¿stou tw◊n yucagwgou/ntwn h£ crei÷an pareco/ntwn h£ stergome÷nwn me÷mnhso e˙pile÷gein, oJpoi√o/n e˙stin, aÓpo\ 3 tw◊n smikrota¿twn aÓrxa¿menoß: a·n cu/tran ste÷rghØß, o¢ti "cu/tran 4 ste÷rgw". kateagei÷shß ga»r aujthvß ouj taracqh/shØ: a·n paidi÷on 5 sautouv katafilhvøß h£ gunai√ka, o¢ti a‡nqrwpon katafilei√ß: aÓpoqano/ntoß ga»r ouj taracqh/shØ.

In order to show the contrast in terms of clarity of meaning and image, in our previous Phrontisterion reflections on Epictetus’ Enchiridion we began to juxtapose our translation with that done by Elizabeth Carter, the 18th century English poet, classicist, writer, translator, and Bluestocking Circle-ite whose translation is housed at The Internet Classics Archive.
Carter Translation 3. With regard to whatever objects give you delight, are useful, or are deeply loved, remember to tell yourself of what general nature they are, beginning from the most insignificant things. If, for example, you are fond of a specific ceramic cup, remind yourself that it is only ceramic cups in general of which you are fond. Then, if it breaks, you will not be disturbed. If you kiss your child, or your wife, say that you only kiss things which are human, and thus you will not be disturbed if either of them dies.

§ Ontology – Definition.
            Ontology comes from the Greek word, on (on), which means a ‘thing’, superglued onto the -logia ending, which every school student learns means, ‘the study of’. So simply stated, ontology asks the question: what makes a thing a particular thing?

§ Reflections on Grammar.
One of the interesting grammatical goodies in Section 3 of the Handbook is the simple language structure that Epictetus uses in order to focus our attention on each and every ‘thing’ in our world as objective item. The prepositional phrase at the beginning of the paragraph, ef’ ekastou [Ef’ e˚ka¿stou], which will govern all three of the genitive plural participles to follow in Line 2 (Psyxagogounton, yucagwgou/ntwn; chreian parexonton, crei÷an pareco/ntwn; and, stergomenon, stergome÷nwn], structurally reduces the quasi infinite plurality of things within our various circles of attention (per Mary Douglas’ theory…), to each and every thing as some very specific and particular item, which thereby becomes special for us not only by virtue of garnering our focused attention, but also and more importantly, because we recognize that each thing-as-some-particular-thing has its own very real and pertinent reality apart from our interest in or our perception of it. As we take into consideration each ‘thing’ in terms of what it really ‘is’, and not just for what function it may serve for us in our world, then that thing becomes the object of our special awareness—we truly see ‘it’ for what it is in itself.
Keep in mind 1) “for each and every one of those things that you find glamorous” [Psyxagogounton, yucagwgou/ntwn]… For those who have grown up in the post Harry Potter world, the notion of something as glamorous has shifted away from the yesteryear image of the Hollywood ‘glamour’ stars, such as Rita Hayworth, Gloria Swanson, and Marilyn Monroe, to embrace an older and more magical idea that our eyes can be deceived by a ‘glamour’ cast by the magician or the fairy godmother, which is intended to delude us by making us see a handsome prince where there is only, in reality, a rather gross-looking toad. The only difference in Epictetus’ philosophical imagination, is that we do not really need at all the external provocateur—the magician, because we have the cosmetic-inducing function [Grk: kosmos, nous] of our own minds, which comes with a complete cast of characters, including pre-conceptions, personal preferences, desires, dreams, and wishes, all of which provide us with a “made-up” world masked over by a layer of theatrical make-up, all of which serve to cast a glamour of illusion over the world of simple, ‘there’-type realities [Grk: physis]—the world that ‘is’ there in front of us, present in all of its simplicity.
Keep in mind 2) “for each and every one of those things that you find handy” [chreian parexonton, crei÷an pareco/ntwn]… Scientists remind us that we are animals that use tools. And it certainly does seem that humans have a ‘bent’ for translating objects from being into function. In fact, the plot for the 1980 South African film, The Gods Must Be Crazy, actually revolves around precisely this premise. A Kalahari bushman finds an empty Coca-Cola bottle lying in the desert, and takes it with him home to his village, thinking that the gods have given him a gift. It goes without saying that he has no idea what soda-pop is, nor that it comes in bottles, nor that one drinks it from a bottle. So the simple reality of the ‘item’ at hand is entirely lost to him. His family, on the other hand, is not at any loss to interpret the item-at-hand in terms of possible functions—it can function as a rolling pin or masher for cooking uses, or as a musical instrument when one blows across the opening of the item-at-hand, or as a weapon when a brother wants to antagonize an aggravating older sister (actually, this latter may be from the plot of my own childhood!). In fact, the item-at-hand has so many potential functions—as numerous as the grains of sand in the desert, that it seems to have no specific or fundamental truth of its own about its own nature, which means that, in and of itself, it is no real thing at all. Rather, it is an intersection event where no-thing is wedded to every-thing, becoming pure, unbridled function. The bushman concludes that the gods must be crazy to create such a thing that is no specific thing, at which point he returns the no-thing-‘gift’ back to the desert where he first found it.
This is the ontological layer of make-up that Epictetus adds when he asks us to remember that for each and every one of those things that we find handy or useful, its handiness and its utility does not belong to ‘it’ at all in any essential fashion, but rather to us, the outside observer, and to our subjective translation of the item-at-hand. And somehow, through a movement of the mind or thought, Epictetus invites us to philosophically navigate beyond the infinite variety of functions that may translate the item-at-hand, and which derive from our interpretive cosmos, in order to discover the nature of the particular thing that the item-at-hand is, in and of itself.
Finally, Epictetus applies his ‘Keep in mind!’ to 3) “each and every one of those things that you find that you really care about and enjoy” [stergomenon, stergome÷nwn]. C.S. Lewis famously wrote about four different types of love in his eponymously titled book, The Four Loves (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1960) – storge, philia, eros, and agape. Everyone is pretty familiar with philia, of course, made mundane by incorporation into the city-name, Philadelphia (USA), the City of Brotherly Love. Deriving from companionship, according to Lewis, philia bespeaks the freely chosen bonds of friendship that unite free hearts and minds, a condition so aptly described by the aged, wandering hero, Ulysses, in the moving words of Tennyson (1809-1892), the Victorian era’s principal Poet Laureate:
My mariners,
Souls that have tol'd and wrought, and thought with me-
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads -

The freedom that surrounds philia also gives added meaning to the activity of philosophizing—the free movement of binding oneself over in friendship to sophia, to wisdom, to the virtuous life of thinking and creating the good and the beautiful (kaloskagathos).
Unlike philia, eros evokes images of eroticism and the erotic, and even has distinctly religious overtones in the world of the earliest Greeks. In the Theogony, for example, Hesiod (ca. 700 BC) names Eros as one of the oldest generations of gods. Wiki sources remind us, though, that in contrast either to usage among the ancient Greeks, or to more modern connotations and associations, eros was for Lewis “love in the sense of 'being in love' or 'loving' someone, as opposed to the raw sexuality of what he called Venus.”
Perhaps most well-remembered among the four loves is Lewis’ notion of agape love, which he translates as Charity – the only love that does not have its origins in the natural order of things: the unconditional love of God. Lewis calls agape the greatest of the loves, because it is self-sufficient, originating in God Himself, and therefore unchanging.
            Which leaves us to consider now only the first of Lewis’ four loves: storge, whereby we discover his common ground with Epictetus. According to Lewis, storge is an affection or fondness for the familiar, in the sense of the fond feelings or emotion that one has for members of one’s family; it is, for example, a natural love or affection of the parent for a child. The notion of storge is ubiquitous in Greek literature, and is at once much less lofty than Lewis’ presentation, and yet also more informative in its association of images. In fact, the strongest image associated with storge is perhaps that found in a text from Xenophon, On Hunting: [7.12] “As a rule when [the dogs] are hungry the master should feed [them] himself; for when they are not hungry they do not know to whom that is due; but when they want food and get it, they love [storge] the giver.” Storge, then, is curiously used to describe the very interesting love of dogs for their masters. Lewis is correct, however, in also seeing storge as the mutual love of a familiar and familial sort, between parents and children, brothers and sisters, and husbands and wives, as this is attested by usage in Sophocles, Euripides, Herodotus, Thucydides, etc., although it also extends figuratively to the type of affection that is said to exist between a country and her colonies, and between a king and his people.
So in our present text from the Enchiridion, Epictetus invites us to take stock of “each and every one of those things that you find that you really care about and enjoy” [stergomenon, stergome÷nwn], and to continually bring into and keep in the front of our minds the truth about the world’s reality—about the ephemeral nature of each thing that is any-thing, by reciting the mantra: “what kind of a thing is it?” From the fancy suit that catches our eye in a store window, to the utility vehicle, a.k.a. people-mover, that we find so useful in our soccer-mom lives, to the profoundness of the emotions that define our relationships with our significant others, everything is something that flees from us by its nature.

We have already seen in our previous Phrontisterion essay, “Liberty Through Grammar [§1.2.1.1-1.2.2.1]” the expression: “Keep repeating the mantra in your mind – [Me÷mnhso; memneso]. We saw this perfect imperative of remembering in Handbook, 3, §1, L.1, where we learned that the idea of the verb in the perfect tense is a sustained activity, begun in the past, and continuing in the present. So:You must continue to keep in mind…” And what we are supposed to keep in mind with respect to all manner of things, is to epilegein [e˙pile÷gein], or as the dictionary says: to “cite ‘as proof’ or to pronounce or to attribute, to utter as if pronouncing a spell.” When we drink wine from those fine, fancy wine glasses of ours, Epictetus calls us to utter the mantra in the quiet of our minds, as if pronouncing an unspoken spell, that the wine glass we are so tremendously caressing and enjoying is made of glass and will break one day, and that the wonderful wine we are savoring and enjoying is already poured out. That, in the language of Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat, “The Bird of Time has but a little way/ To fly—and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing.” Time has the natural ownership of All Things.
A pipkin
Now there is an obvious difference between Phrontisterion’s translation of ‘wine glasses’ in Line 3, and Ms. Carter’s translation: “If, for example, you are fond of a specific ceramic cup, remind yourself that it is only ceramic cups in general of which you are fond.” The word is chutran [cu/tran], and means earthen pot or pipkin, of the sort in the accompanying images. So the translator has a choice: either to translate, as Ms. Carter has chosen to do, according to the materiality of the object, and thus speak about ceramic cups –our initial translation was actually going to be in the direction of favorite coffee mugs! —or in terms of the pipkin’s natural function, which was certainly to pour out something to drink. And since it pleased me to think of Epictetus drinking wine from his ephemeral pipkin, Phrontisterion opted to translate according to function. This is the translator’s free choice, as long as the meaning is not lost.
However, Ms. Carter makes a translating error, both grammatical and philosophical, in translating Lines 4 and 5 “Then, if [the cup] breaks, you will not be disturbed.” Epictetus’ first example, which we might call of the spilled milk variety, is followed by the second, more dependent sounding condition clause: “If you kiss your child, or your wife, say that you only kiss things which are human, and thus you will not be disturbed if either of them dies.” But Epictetus is not giving us hypotheticals in either of these clauses, which means that Ms. Carter has not grasped the philosophical implications of Epictetus’ illustrations. The genitive absolute in Line 4 tells us just as plain as day that Ms. Carter’s ‘cup’ will inevitably break just as surely as milk spills, in the same way that it tells us in Line 5 that it is absolutely not a question of ‘if’ either the child or wife dies, but rather, of ‘when’ the time comes for them, as Homer might have said, to meet the day of their fate.
But what does all this grammatical mumbo-jumbo really add up to? The aorist participles in the genitive absolute construction in Line 4 and at the end of Line 5, per Greek grammar, mean that “instead of while and as, after and when are the conjunctions in translations.” By means of the grammatical road-signs he uses, Epictetus tries to help us fathom, to visualize for the mind’s eye, the inexorable inevitability of the glass breaking and of the mortal dying: not ‘if’ it breaks, but ‘when’ it breaks, as break it must and will, not ‘if’ they die, but ‘when’. Because, says this Stoic philosopher, if we have right thinking about this simple reality—about the true nature of things as things that are designed to pass out of our lives, then we will not be overwhelmed on the day when that reality comes busting in through our front door.
            The first illustration, then, is about remembering to correctly ‘grasp’ our favorite wine glasses, and the second illustration is about remembering to take our loved ones in our arms, tenderly, because both glasses and loved ones are limited editions, and our relationship to them is not at all ‘iffy’. This is in stark philosophical contrast to Ms. Carter’s rendering in the second illustration, however: “If you kiss your child, or your wife, say that you only kiss things which are human, and thus you will not be disturbed if either of them dies.” This ‘if’-conditional should rather be translated by the notion of ‘whenever’—so: whenever I embrace my child and wife, I have to remember that they are fragile items defined naturally by their built-in-obsolescence. One day they will no longer be present for me to embrace tenderly, so I should kiss them indeed, but with an understanding about their fragileness that brings out a tenderness to my embrace. The moral of the story is, that because we understand what we are and what the ‘other’ is, our gestures should be infused with gentleness.
Finally, there is the notion of being ‘devastated’ that returns like a bad penny in Section 3 of the Enchiridion. Ms. Carter renders this idea as being ‘disturbed’, which certainly seems to have diminished in import in the English language over the last several centuries. One is disturbed, for instance, by the dog jumping up on the bed when he is wet, or by an importune ringing of the telephone or doorbell; one is disturbed when a nice bottle of wine is bouchonnée, or when a favorite shirt has become a little too snug around the shoulders and waist—due to shrinkage, of course. We may even be disturbed when our ceramic cup or coffee mug breaks, as Ms. Carter suggests. But, at least nowadays, we are more than just ‘disturbed’ by the death of a wife or child; and in fact, ‘disturbed’ does not seem quite to get to the job of describing this type of loss. But whether of favorite wine glasses or of wife and child, whether of things trivial or profound, Epictetus reminds us that the effects of any of our losses during the course of our life should not be ‘devastation’.
‘To not become devastated’, or ataraxia, is an expression that originally comes to Western philosophy from Epicurus (died 270 BC), and it will subsequently become a fixed philosophical notion for the three great schools of philosophy in ancient Greece: Epicureanism, Pyrrhonism, and Stoicism; Epictetus, of course, who died almost 400 years after Epicurus, is classified as a later Stoic philosopher. The dictionary definition of this future passive verb [ouj taracqh/shØ; ou taraxthese] is, to get stirred up or troubled; to confound, to agitate, to disturb or disquiet. In its passive form, which we have here, it denotes to be in a state of disorder or anarchy (per Thucydides and Democritus). The literature (in the form of Xenophon) also provides a nice figurative image: to be shaken in one’s seat on horseback.
The translation, ‘devastated’, as in, “you will not become devastated,” seems to get to the heart both of Epictetus’ word choice [ouj taracqh/shØ; ou taraxthese], and of the philosophical distance that Epictetus encourages us to acquire as we learn to respond to Loss in our lives. We have written elsewhere that not-taraxia’ or ataraxia is a mental state that one can learn; it is “the tranquility of mind that characterizes someone who is free from worry and distress.” It is this discipline of keeping in mind the real nature of the world—the limitations of materiality in general, which Epictetus is here trying to teach us.

This brings us back full circle, then, to our expanded translation of Section 1.3.1.1 of Epictetus’ Enchiridion.
TRANSLATION (Aiken)—On Things. For each thing that you find glamorous, or handy, or that you really care about and enjoy—beginning with the most insignificant things, keep repeating the mantra in your mind: “what kind of a thing is it?” If you have favorite wine glasses, for example, keep repeating to yourself: ‘I really like these wine glasses, but they are glass after all! If you do this, when they eventually break or get broken, which they will, you will not become devastated. And each time you affectionately embrace your child or your wife, keep repeating to yourself that you are tenderly embracing a mortal human; for then, when the day of their mortality is at hand, you will not become devastated. 

§ Reflections on the Reading of Texts.
In the language of ancient Jewish hermeneutics, we tend almost intuitively to read special texts, such as sacred writings or the teachings of sages, first through the moralizing lens of practical applications of the text to everyday life. In Jewish thought this is called halakhah interpretation. The parameters of hermeneutics for the Hellenistic period, however, which historically and intellectually included the thought-world inhabited by Epictetus, would be more or less single-handedly established by Origen of Alexandria (184/185-253/254 A.D.). A level of Hellenistic interpretation corresponding to the Jewish halakhah, for example, would be the anagogical or mystical level of exegesis (i.e., ‘reading’, or Rudolf Bultmann’s Aus-legung), because it tended to speak to and for the betterment of our mind or spirit, and therefore to make us more complete (perfecti) in our spiritual or intellectual (not soulish!) person. It is therefore especially appropriate to value this interpretative approach when we read the teachings of Epictetus, because this former-slave, Stoic philosopher understands that in our day-to-day lives, with and by means of right reasoning, we can actually act intelligently, deliberately, and with a great degree of purposiveness, and therefore live liberated lives.
            However, in all reading there is also a different layer of possible meaning-taking, which corresponds to the literalism of the Jewish Cabbalists, or to Hellenism’s lowest level of interpretation, i.e., simple literalism, which reflects the simplicity and straight-forwardness of bodily existence (simpliciores) without any particular subtleties or metaphorical flourishes. This interpretative approach is also relevant to our passage from Epictetus, because after all, we are being invited here to remember what type of a thing each thing is, and therefore to understand that by its very materiality fine glassware is just waiting for an opportunity to break into pieces, and that human mortals are precisely that –vassals of Mortality. In Epictetus’ straight-forward ontology we are dust in the making, and by our very natures our lives hang in the balance each instant. It is also on this level of recognizing things as the specific things they are, that we shall encounter the later philosopher of new ontology, Martin Heidegger.

Martin Heidegger took his first plunge into the history of philosophy by being submerged in, and then by swimming against, the prodigious floodwaters of idealism in German philosophy. Historically speaking, idealist expressions in German philosophy seem to have percolated up from British currents of thinking wending their way through Europe at that time, roiling notably from the pens of philosophers like Hume (Scotland) and Berkeley (Ireland), and which were to give sustenance to the thinking of Immanuel Kant. Kant’s form of idealism was to become, in turn, a pervasive and permeating tide in the history of German philosophy, manifesting itself in various and diverse eddies in the philosophies of Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer, and eventually Husserl, Heidegger’s one-time teacher and mentor.
Archimedes, by Fetti
As we were saying, then, Heidegger found himself paddling around in the rising waters of idealism (both epistemological and metaphysical) where it was obvious, at least to him, that philosophy was increasingly backstroking away from the world and things in the world as things, and was therefore losing its this-worldly relevance. In an Archimedean moment of (self)-discovery (probably complete with a leap out of the bathtub accompanied by a shout of ‘Eureka!’), Martin Heidegger became radicalized (in the sense of putting out roots), in a philosophical kind way, which is to say that he went back to the true, metaphysical or ontological “roots” of thinking, which are in the ‘thing’-ness or the ‘fact’ of the world (per Parmenides). So for the History of Philosophy, MH became the philosopher of new ontology, or Being. Unfortunately, he seized control of this so-called ‘return’ to ontology, making it for all intents and purposes his own personal, pot-bound bailiwick, by soaking the language of ontology in obscuring and off-putting jargon. This has ever since created feeding frenzies among the pseudo-initiated or wannabe initiates, who have wanted to make at least the effort to decrypt the verbiage in order to understand some sort of philosophical profundity, where there is in fact essentially only linguistic novelty. For the muddy backwaters characterizing Heidegger’s language-acts about ontology, derive palingenetically from the calm and limpid headwaters of Aristotle’s basic ideas about the stuff of the world, which are not at all dissimilar to those one finds in Epictetus’ writings, and which are expressed very straight-forwardly in Aristotle’s introductory lectures on first philosophy, called the Metaphysics.
Significantly, both Epictetus and Heidegger allow for the notion of multiple entelechies – for an entelechy that is anchored in the natural, particular physis of an item-at-hand, and then for those types of entelechy of an item-at-hand that are derived from the kosmos of the subjective gaze. This is the import, after all, of the later Heidegger’s rather difficult statement: “the death of an animal, is it to die or rather to arrive at its end? (quoted in Payen, 466; from Les Concepts fondamentaux de la métaphysique (Paris: Gallimard, 1992, p. 387)

Sources and Further Reading:

·      Guillaume Payen, Martin Heidegger, Catholicisme, révolution, nazisme, Perrin: Paris, 2016.
·      Mary Douglas, Thinking in Circles, Yale University Press: New Haven and London, 2007.
·      Omar Khayyam, The Rubaiyat, Thomas Y. Crowell Co.: New York, 1964.  
·      C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves, Harcourt, Brace: New York, 1960.
·      Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Ulysses.
·      Hesiod, Theogony.