~by David Aiken~
§ 2 “Ench”, 1.14.1.1
TRANSLATION (AIKEN)— If you would like for your children and wife and [2] your friends to live
forever, then you are just being silly; because you are wishing for control over
[3] things that are beyond your control, and for matters that are not your
concern to concern you. Similarly, if you ever harbor the hope that your [4]
child would not fail or not do wrong, then you are being ridiculous; (5) because
you are wanting the child’s moral failing to be something other than moral failure.
(6b) On the other hand, if you do not want to miss out
on the truth in the matter of what you can control about your life—then this is something that is entirely possible.
(7) Train yourself therefore with respect to this: To strive for what is achievable.
2 “Ench”, 1.14.2.1
One
who is master over another, whether others are willing or not willing, is the
one who has the means to bestow [3] or to take away. Whosoever wants to be freed
then, let him neither crave anything that is under the control of others nor
let him try to escape such things. Otherwise, he necessarily sets himself up [5]
to become enslaved.
2 “Ench”, 1.14.1.1
∆Ea»n qe÷lhØß ta» te÷kna sou kai« th\n
gunai√ka kai« 2 tou\ß
fi÷louß sou pa¿ntote zhvn, hjli÷qioß ei•: ta» ga»r mh\ e˙pi« soi« 3 qe÷leiß e˙pi« soi«
ei•nai kai« ta» aÓllo/tria sa» ei•nai. ou¢tw ka·n to\n 4
pai√da qe÷lhØß mh\ aJmarta¿nein, mwro\ß ei•: qe÷leiß
ga»r th\n kaki÷an mh\ ei•nai kaki÷an, aÓll’ a‡llo ti. e˙a»n de« qe÷lhØß
ojrego/menoß mh\ aÓpotugca¿nein, touvto du/nasai. touvto ou™n a‡skei,
2 “Ench”, 1.14.2.1
o§
du/nasai. ku/rioß e˚ka¿stou e˙sti«n oJ tw◊n uJp’ e˙kei÷nou qelome÷nwn h£ mh\
qelome÷nwn e¶cwn th\n e˙xousi÷an ei˙ß to\ peripoihvsai 3 h£ aÓfele÷sqai. o¢stiß
ou™n e˙leu/qeroß ei•nai bou/letai, mh/te qele÷tw ti mh/te feuge÷tw ti tw◊n e˙p’
a‡lloiß: ei˙ de« mh/, douleu/ein 5 aÓna¿gkh.
In Ms. Carter’s internet translation: 14. If you wish your children, and your wife,
and your friends to live forever, you are stupid; for you wish
to be in control of things which you cannot, you wish for
things that belong to others to be your own. So likewise, if
you wish your servant to be without fault, you are a fool; for
you wish vice not to be vice," but something else. But, if you
wish to have your desires undisappointed, this is in your own control. Exercise, therefore, what is in your control. He is the master of
every other person who is able to confer or remove whatever
that person wishes either to have or to avoid. Whoever, then,
would be free, let him wish nothing, let him decline nothing,
which depends on others else he must necessarily be a slave.
§ N. B. On wishes and wishful thinking.
In his short essay
on “Wishful Thinking” (Minima Moralia,
§127), Theodor Adorno reminds us of an insight about ‘intelligence’, which also
happens to be entirely Epictetian in nature– that it is in fact a moral category.
§ Nursery Rhyme
Truths in Philosophy.
 |
| Disney's Jiminy Cricket & Pinocchio |
Philosophically
speaking, there is no meaningful difference between a philosopher like
Epictetus who tries to teach us the commonsensical silliness of counting on
future contingencies, and the more astute nursery rhymes of our childhood that rhyme-teach
us the same lesson. For instance, an ethics
teacher might say to his students: “If you hope for your children and wife and
your friends to live forever, then you are just being silly…” But how is this really
different, at least content-wise, from the rhymes that taught us as children
the silliness of idle wishes, which
were idle precisely because they were attempts to put some kind of ‘impossible’
grapnel upon an elusive future
of contingencies?
Pace to the world of Walt Disney, who threw a
monkey-wrench into the works of practical and intelligent philosophical
thinking with his version of Jiminy Cricket singing in Pinocchio:
When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires
Will come to you.
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires
Will come to you.
 |
| French tinker |
Because this Disney outlook is only true in an animated
world where cartoon reality holds court; but it is not at all true in this here-and-now
world where men live out more ordinary and less cartoonish existences. So, let
us put aside the Disneyworld anti-philosophy of wishing upon stars complete with
the guarantee of ‘getting’ our-heart’s-desire, in order to embrace more humanly
relevant, even if rhymed, philosophical counsel that showed us as children the
silliness of any and all idle wishing,
such as If Wishes Were Horses:
If wishes were horses
Beggars would ride:
If turnips were watches
I would wear one by my side.
And if if’s and an’s were pots and pans,
The tinker would never work!
Beggars would ride:
If turnips were watches
I would wear one by my side.
And if if’s and an’s were pots and pans,
The tinker would never work!
Or, adding a slight spin to the rhythmical twist,
there is also A Chapter of Ifs:
If Ifs and Ands were pots
and pans,
’Twould cure the tinker's cares:
if ladies did not carry fans,
They’d give themselves no airs:
If down the starry skies should fall,
The starlings would be cheap:
If Belles talk'd reason at a ball,
The band might go to sleep.[…]
’Twould cure the tinker's cares:
if ladies did not carry fans,
They’d give themselves no airs:
If down the starry skies should fall,
The starlings would be cheap:
If Belles talk'd reason at a ball,
The band might go to sleep.[…]
The link between parts 1 [1.14.1.1]
and 2 [1.14.2.1] of the 14th
section of Epictetus’ Enchiridion, because
the two segments present in fact one coherent argument, is the connection that
necessarily denies the possibility of any contingent link between yet-future
events and our personal all-too-human, here-and-now desire and ability to control
the yet-future. Indeed, the belief that we can influence the imminent world in
any way whatsoever constitutes for Epictetus a gilded cage of mental imprisonment;
this is in fact the very principle of a slavery that is self-sought and
self-constituted. For in our frantic desire for control over always uncontrollable
future events, we become willing drudges to the ultimately unknowable and unpredictable
eventualities of if-then contingencies. Which means that we are constantly either
running toward or away from whatever Reality shall itself yield on its own
terms, when It gets around to fielding Its impromptu team. So, putting all
contingencies aside as The Unknowable Unknown, the working philosophical
principle that Epictetus gives us here in §14 is for each of us to know and identify what is in fact
controllable in our relationship to future events, which, he says in 1.14.1.4,
is the only thing that ‘is entirely
possible. Train yourself therefore with respect to this: To strive for what is achievable’.
§ A little comparative expansion on Epictetus’
thinking.
In 1970 Perry Como
released his unforgettable hit, originally composed by Armando Manzanero, It’s Impossible.
It's impossible, tell the sun to leave the sky, it's
just impossible
It's impossible, ask a baby not to cry, it's just impossible
Can I hold you closer to me and not feel you goin' through me?
Split the second that I never think of you, oh, how impossible…
It's impossible, ask a baby not to cry, it's just impossible
Can I hold you closer to me and not feel you goin' through me?
Split the second that I never think of you, oh, how impossible…
With a little imagination and a lot of suspended disbelief,
one could well imagine that §14 of the Enchiridion
represents Epictetus’ archaic version of the contemporary sentiment expressed
in Manzanero’s ‘It’s Impossible’—minus the famous melody, of course.
·
In
line 1: if you should want [ean theles
= ∆Ea»n qe÷lhØß]
the IMPOSSIBLE, which is to say that you would like “your children and wife and [2] your friends to live forever,” then the
line 3 response is: Well, then, you are just being silly [elithios ei = hjli÷qioß ei], because you are wanting what is not possible.
·
In
line 4: And, if you should want [ka·n … qe÷lhØß] the IMPOSSIBLE, which is to say that you
would prefer it that your kid should never fail or do anything morally
reprehensible, then the line 5 response is: Well, now you are really being
ridiculous [moros ei = mwro\ß ei], because you obviously do not
want to call a spade a spade in terms of your junior’s morally dubious actions.
But then, after establishing the completeness of our philosophical
frivolousness and of our ridiculous, because impossibly counterfactual, attitudes
toward life, both present and eventual, by repeating the statement: ‘if you
should want’ … (what is obviously IMPOSSIBLE’), Epictetus turns around and stops
us in our tracks by showing us in line 6 that there is in fact one and only one
thing that is really POSSIBLE for us to
control in this world: We do not have to miss out on what is true about the
question of ‘control’ in our lives! The only guaranteed ‘possible’ is this,
says Epictetus in line 7: It is entirely POSSIBLE for us to obtain knowledge
about what type of control men can achieve for themselves in this world. It is
therefore a philosophical no-brainer for Epictetus that we should only strive after
what is achievable, which is not any sort of participatory control over what
may or may not happen in the non-contingent future, but rather knowledge about
the actual role we play in our historical present.
33-142
No man is himself the cause of loss and gain, Cyrnus;
the Gods are the givers of them both: nor does any that labor know in his heart
whether he moves to a good end or a bad. For often when he thinks he will make
bad he makes good, and makes bad when he thinks he will make good. Nor does any
man get what he wishes; for his desires hold the ends of sore perplexity. We
men practise vain things, knowing nought, while the Gods accomplish all to
their mind [English updated].
Now, although history sees in Theognis a poet given to
a more than modest degree of inward gazing, thus categorizing him as elegiac or
sad, our poet yet arrives at not-necessarily depressing truths about the human
condition that will make the hearts of later Stoic philosophers such as
Epictetus ‘soar like an eagle’. For in
Epictetian-speak, some 650 years later, this archaic gnomic wisdom will yield:
2 “Ench”, 1.14.2.1
One who is
master over another, whether others are willing or not willing, is the one who
has the means to bestow [3] or to take away. Whosoever wants to be freed then,
let him neither crave anything that is under the control of others nor let him
try to escape such things. Otherwise, he necessarily sets himself up [5] to
become enslaved.
§ Contingencies – and standing still.
We have seen already
in Enchiridion §12 that Epictetus
philosophically juxtaposes over and against the unknowable and finally unpredictable
future, our present NOW. Thus, in Enchiridion
§12, which anticipates and philosophically amplifies our present section,
Epictetus already alerts us to the fact that there is tension in our thinking,
not because there is any real possibility of influencing the non-contingent intransigence
of the yet-to-come, but because our thinking is fatally flawed and therefore
unreasonable on this question. His contingency principle is explained in this
manner in §12:
…
Philosophically, this is a truly existential moment, where the “perceived”
weight of a potential future, over which one has no control whatsoever, at any
level at any time, makes us fearful and sorrowful in the present. Epictetus
uses the parallel subjunctives in lines 2-3 to create emotional distance from
the two examples of proverbial wisdom that he wishes for us to dismiss as
counter-factual: 1) If I were to be careless at this
point about…; 2) If I should not correct my child…
The parallel subjunctives
are then followed by parallel verbs in the future tense: 1) I shall
never [in future] keep hold of the means for taking care of myself;
2) [my child] shall
turn out to be a good-for-nothing, which imply that, at least
according to the erroneous traditional beliefs of proverbial wisdom, the future
is somehow dependent on our actions in the present. […]
But Epictetus has stopped by to remind us that, in point of fact, we do
not have the responsibility for either our own or our children’s future. This
is not to say, however, that we should fail to exercise stewardship over our
present actions and in our sphere of influence; only that we have no means to
control the outcomes of our actions. Sometimes present good shall yield future
evil; sometimes present evil shall reveal a future good. For Epictetus, our
ethical and philosophical job is limited to acting well in the present, and to
thinking correctly in the present about our actions.
Note that Epictetus counters the incorrect thinking of proverbial wisdom
with an illustration sandwiched in-between two common Stoic principles
(1.12.2.1-4). The example is from the spilled oil: ‘A little spilled oil is the price to pay for [3] peace of mind, and
that a little wine gone missing is a small price to pay for a calm spirit.’
The illustration [viz., oil, wine] uses present tense verbs, so that our
attention is grammatically riveted on the present, on what is happening around
us right here and right now. So, although the world around us may find itself
caught up in the fury of the maelstrom, it is precisely this focus on the Here
& Now that allows us to maintain the calmness of spirit [aÓtaraxi÷a] so prized by the Stoic
philosophers.]
§ A Promising Observation and Intuitions About Words: (hamartanein)
and (thn kakian)—Lines 5-6a.
 |
| Missing the Mark_Bruce Peterson |
Hamartanein
(aJmarta¿nein), in line 5, means,
blandly, ‘to fail to hit the target with a spear’, or in contemporary Americaneze,
‘to be unable to shoot worth a damn!’, which broadly translates as, ‘to miss
the mark’, ‘to err’, and ‘to make a mistake’. But hamartanein
also has a second level meaning, especially in Christian circles: as a moral failure, and especially in the New
Testament sense of to ‘do wrong’ and to ‘sin’. This secondary meaning is confirmed
in Enchr. §14 by associating hamartanein with th\n kaki÷an (thn kakian = bad or evil) in line 6a. Now, kaki÷an can
have a fairly banal quasi Stoic sense, philosophically speaking, such as in the
proverbial usage in Matthew 6.34: So do
not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today [ὴ οὖν μεριμνήσητε εἰς τὴν αὔριον, ἡ γὰρ αὔριον μεριμνήσει αὑτῆς· ἀρκετὸν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ἡ κακία αὐτῆς.],
where the suggestion is clear that at issue are the cares and worries associated
with daily living, e.g., paying bills, putting food on the table, and fixing
and repairing things around the home that periodically need fixing and
repairing. So, the Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers rightly interprets this NT text in a Stoic sense:
(34) Take therefore no thought for the morrow.--No precept of divine
wisdom has found so many echoes in the wisdom of the world. Epicurean
self-indulgence, Stoic apathy, practical common-sense, have all preached the
same lesson, and bidden men to cease their questionings about the future. […] Men were to look forward to the future calmly…
That said, however, kaki÷an more generally
translates with emphasis on badness in
quality (as opposed to ἀρετή (arete = excellence), cowardice, faint-heartedness, moral badness, evil, ill-repute,
and dishonor. In the Pauline texts of
the NT, for example, this term consistently reaffirms its negative ethical
associations.
·
I Corinthians 5:8 -- Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the
leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the
unleavened bread of sincerity and truth [ὥστε ἑορτάζωμεν, μὴ ἐν ζύμῃ παλαιᾷ μηδὲ ἐν ζύμῃ κακίας καὶ πονηρίας, ἀλλ’ ἐν ἀζύμοις εἰλικρινίας καὶ ἀληθείας].
·
I Corinthians 14:20
-- Brethren,
do not be children in your thinking; yet in evil be
infants, but in your thinking be mature
[Ἀδελφοί,
μὴ
παιδία
γίνεσθε
ταῖς
φρεσίν,
ἀλλὰ
τῇ κακίᾳ
νηπιάζετε,
ταῖς
δὲ
φρεσὶν
τέλειοι
γίνεσθε].
Which brings us back full-circle to Epictetus:
Similarly, if you ever harbor the hope that your [4]
child would not fail or not do wrong, then
you are being ridiculous; (5) because you are wanting the child’s moral failing to be something other than moral failure. [ou¢tw ka·n to\n 4
pai√da qe÷lhØß mh\ aJmarta¿nein, mwro\ß ei•: qe÷leiß ga»r th\n kaki÷an mh\ ei•nai kaki÷an…
A perhaps gratuitous, but certainly suggestive,
amplification of meaning for kaki÷an with its moral implications and overtones, might be to
consider an equally challenging, because arcane in the highest degree, phrase
from the pre-Socratic philosopher Anaximander, which juxtaposes injustice (adikia) and justice (dikia). It would seem after all, at
first intuitive blush and without further ado, that what makes a failing (hamartanein) a kakian type of failing,
as opposed to a simple and banal, “Oh nuts! I missed the target yet again” type
of failing, is that the non-banal type of failing may be, and certainly even must
be, somehow linked to an ancient Greek notion of justice/injustice. The
fragment in question from Anaximander is Fragment 1:
[link] He says [the
material cause and first element of things was the Infinite] is neither water
nor any other of the so-called elements, but a substance different from them,
which is infinite, from which arise all the heavens and the worlds within them.
And into that from which things take their rise they pass away once more,
"as is ordained; for they make
reparation and satisfaction to one another for their injustice according to the
appointed time," as he says in these somewhat poetical terms. —Phys.
Op. fr. 2 (R. P. 16).
The specific passage of interest to our
intuition in this first fragment is penultimate (from line 5): "as is ordained; for they make reparation and satisfaction to one another for their injustice according to the appointed time" (χρεών· διδόναι γὰρ
αὐτὰ δίκην καὶ τίσιν ἀλλήλοις τῆς ἀδικίας κατὰ τὴν τοῦ χρόνου τάξιν. (5)).
Now, while
some philosophical study ultimately linking kakian
to the idea of dikia and adikia might be philosophically
enlightening in a Heideggerian type of way, there may also be reservations about
such studies. Initially, because the critical literature on Anaximander seems
overwhelmingly to want to read the dikia-adikia connection as a fundamental materialism
linked to causality, see especially Vlastos (156), who interprets this language
as a basic law of ‘Cosmic’ measure among the elements. However, while the vast
majority of scholars are content to hang their hats on the materialist peg and
proceed on to other, less spicy things, there are yet those few, enough, who seem
to do some very-slight doffing of the proverbial cap, in a by the by kind of
way, to the moral tones that seem,
also, to abide in the terms dikia and
adikia, thus justifying a possible
parallelism between dikia and ‘not a moral failing’ (mh\
ei•nai kaki÷an), and adikai
and a ‘moral kakian’.
§ On the Servant Mentality. Epictetus’ pre-Nietzschean
Critique of Proto-Christianity. Line 5.
2 “Ench”, 1.14.2.1
One
who is master over another, whether others are willing or not willing, is the
one who has the means to bestow [3] or to take away. Whosoever wants to be
freed then, let him neither crave anything that is under the control of others
nor let him try to escape such things. Otherwise, he necessarily sets himself
up [5] to
become enslaved.
2 “Ench”, 1.14.2.1
o§
du/nasai. ku/rioß e˚ka¿stou e˙sti«n oJ tw◊n uJp’ e˙kei÷nou qelome÷nwn h£ mh\
qelome÷nwn e¶cwn th\n e˙xousi÷an ei˙ß to\ peripoihvsai 3 h£ aÓfele÷sqai. o¢stiß
ou™n e˙leu/qeroß ei•nai bou/letai, mh/te qele÷tw ti mh/te feuge÷tw ti tw◊n e˙p’
a‡lloiß: ei˙ de« mh/, douleu/ein 5 aÓna¿gkh.
 |
| Gilded Cage_Talha Khan |
For the nonce, the bit that most intrigues in this
fragment is line 5, where Epictetus admonishes his students not to allow themselves
to become lost in a type of mindset that must necessarily result in reducing
them to slavery, or in them becoming servile to situations that can lead only to
mental and emotional thralldom. And, of course, this admonition is entirely about
the vassalage we demonstrate as we commit so easily to our lives of non-thinking. Epictetus wants to speak
to us about freedom, which is really about our having ownership of our own
thinking; this, he says, we can absolutely achieve… on two conditions: neither
1) to let one covet or long for a thing that is outside of one’s grasp to
obtain, nor 2) to let one try to flee from things from which one cannot possibly
escape. The one who does either of these two things, affirms Epictetus, necessarily sets himself up to become enslaved. [ei˙
de« mh/, douleu/ein 5 aÓna¿gkh].
This Epictetian
encouragement toward personal and mental freedom is, of course, diametrically
opposed to the “new” teaching that was beginning to emerge in the same 1st
century period, which was being promoted by proponents of the Jesus movement, and
especially the proselytizing Paul, and which encouraged listeners to become
servants, or bondsmen, of the Lord. Thus, Paul will call himself in Romans 1:1,
the “slave of Jesus Christ.”
The general
attitude of the NT toward slavery is certainly not morally censorious in the
slightest, but rather reflects fairly accurately the widespread mores of the pluralistic Roman empire.
There is, for example, the lazy slave motif in Matthew 25:26; and Jesus himself
speaks of the impossible position of a slave who is trying to serve and please
two masters at once, comparing that slave to those who are torn between service
to God and service to Mammon (Matthew 6:24, Luke 16:13). Indeed, it would seem
that the early Jesus movement was particularly attractive to those who were
themselves slaves, to judge by passages such as I Corinthians 7:21, I Timothy
6:1, and I Peter 2:18. The NT, and not only the Pauline letters, also enjoins
slaves to obey their masters, as in Ephesians 6:5ff., Colossians 3:22ff., I Timothy
6:1-2, I Peter 2:18, and Titus 2:9-10; and, it would also seem that some
Christian masters were treating their slaves poorly, because there is a call
for them to treat their slaves better (Ephesians 6:9, Colossians 4:1).
‘To become enslaved’, as we find it in Enchiridion §14, 5, is the verb douleuein
(douleu/ein), which is, quite literally speaking, to be a slave,
to serve, to do service. But the verb is generic in its applications. Enslavement
can be used of persons, as it can be used to refer to nations being in
subjection to other nations. In the NT, for example, the Apostle Paul will famously
make the case in Galatians 4:25 that the Jews are under the yoke of (=slaves
to) the Mosaic law. Of course, as always with words, there is also a second
level, non-literal or metaphorical meaning to douleuein, where the
sense is to submit to, to obey. For the positive, albeit troubling sense: the
Christians are called to yield obedience to those who are in authority over them
as unto God himself (Romans 13:1-2):
Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no
authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist
have been established by God. 2 Consequently, whoever rebels
against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those
who do so will bring judgment on themselves (NIV).
Likewise, the
Christian is expected to obey God, etc. For the negative sense, on the other
hand, the NT speaks of those who become slaves to, or who yielded themselves
to, some baser power, such as to sin (Romans 6:6), or to the Law of sin (Romans
7:25), or to pleasures (Titus 3:3), or to acquiring wealth (Matthew 6:24), or
to the ‘elements [i.e., probably neo-Platonic deities] of this world’
(Galatians 4:9).
So, we see that there arises in the 1st
century of the common era two opposing philosophies toward the idea of freedom:
the Christian philosophy that admonishes slavery to God and a life of service
to the brethren, and Epictetus’ philosophy, which invites us to become
emotional and intellectual freemen.
A later
embodiment of exactly Epictetus’ philosophy of mental and emotional freedom is
found in the works of Friedrich Nietzsche. In the particular, in Genealogy of Morality (1:7ff), a true
masterpiece of proto-existentialism, Nietzsche writes about “the slave revolt
in morality” as a speculative historical by-product of the West’s religious
inheritance, as both religious historical happenstance, and our birthright. This
slave revolt supposedly led to the great inversions in morality whose genealogy
Nietzsche sketches out for us in the G of
M, where the natively good and admirable qualities of physical prowess and
strength, commonplace in the ancient heroes, were transformed into evil
attributes. Consequently, heroes like the Homeric Achilles, because he was simply
too powerful and too overwhelming—a veritable force of nature against whom few
dared even to stand, became a ‘bad’ man in the eyes of Christian morality—his natural
virtues, in the most literal sense of that word, became evil and immoral
traits. This slave revolt oversaw the inversion whereby the heroically noble became
the ‘bad’; where those who responded to Life with feebleness and vulnerability,
with the Nein-sagen, who insisted on
otherworldliness for their validation, became the bedrock of virtue; where the
weak and pathetic, fueled by ressentiment,
assumed the high place of new ‘virtue’ and morality; where the will to death (Nein-sagen to Life) replaced the will to
life (Ja-sagen to Life). In fact, in
his writings Nietzsche traces out for us Moderns nothing short of the
enslavement of the entire Western way of thinking, a thralldom to a
Life-defying, subjugating morality that perverts life-affirming thinking, a
morality that is untimely precisely because it is committed to death and the
already mentally dead, instead of to life and the emotionally alive.
Epictetus
seems to sense already in his 1st century AD how this mental and
emotional enslavement will come about—through unjust thinking. And, to borrow
upon Frostian tones, he warns us against taking this road ‘just as fair’, as the
more traveled road into captivity.
Further reading: Phrontisterion’s
translation of Epictetus’ Handbook
- · Epictetus’ Enchiridion Expanded_Section §1.13.1.1_ More on Making Intellectual Progress; October 2018
- · Epictetus’ Enchiridion Expanded_Section §1.12.1.1_Wrong Thinking About (Perhaps) Right Action; September 2018
- · Epictetus’ Enchiridion Expanded_Section §1.11.1.1_On the Ownership of Things; August 2018
- · Epictetus’ Enchiridion Expanded_§1.8.1.1, 1.9.1.1 and 1.10.1.1_Bits & Bobs of Fine Advice: Being presumptuous; December 1, 2017
- · Epictetus’ Enchiridion Expanded_§1.7.1.1_SeaFaring Ways; October 1, 2017
- · Epictetus’ Enchiridion Expanded_§1.6.1.1. On Receiving Compliments, On Possessions, & On What is Rightfully Yours; July 1, 2017
- · Epictetus’ Enchiridion Expanded_§1.5.1.1. ABOUT SH#T THAT HAPPENS; January 1, 2017
- · Epictetus’ Enchiridion Expanded_§1.4.1.1. On Activities. BATHING HABITS…., AMONG OTHER THINGS; August 1, 2016
- · Epictetus’ Enchiridion Expanded_§1.3.1.1. ON THINGS… AS THINGS. Or, AN OLD ONTOLOGY; July 1, 2016
- · Liberty Through Grammar... Epictetus’ Enchiridion Expanded_§1.2.1.1-1.2.2.1; June 1, 2016
- · More On the Question of Freedom_Or, How to be the Consummate Control Freak_Epictetus Expanded_§1bis; August 1, 2015
- · Epictetus' Enchiridion Expanded_§1_On the Question of Freedom; July 1, 2015
References and related reading:
Nursery Rhymes:
Anaximander:
· Engmann, Joyce. “Cosmic Justice in Anaximander.” Phronesis, Vol. 36, No. 1 (1991), pp. 1-25 [Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4182374].
· Mansfeld, Jaap. “Anaximander’s Fragment: Another Attempt.” Phronesis, Vol. 56, No. 1 (2011), pp.
1-32 [Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41057453].
· Seligman,
Paul. The ‘Apeiron’ of Anaximander. University
of London: The Athlone Press, 1962.
· Vlastos, Gregory. “Equality and Justice in Early Greek Cosmologies.” Classical Philology, Vol. 42, No. 3
(Jul., 1947), pp. 156-178 [Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/265987].
The NT and slavery:
