 Hi, I'm Peter Adamson, and you're listening to the History of Philosophy podcast, brought to you with the support of King's College London and the Leverhulme Trust, online at www.historyoffilosophy.net. Today's episode, You Can Chain My Leg, Epictetus. Man is condemned to be free. So said Jean-Paul Sartre, the French existentialist. And perhaps only a French existentialist could think that we are condemned to be free. It's the kind of thing that would occur to you as you sit in a Parisian café on a rainy afternoon smoking unfiltered cigarettes and feeling the enormity of existence settle upon your shoulders as you gaze in ineffable, inexplicable horror at the glass of beer sitting on the table in front of you. But doesn't Sartre have a point? If we are truly free, free even in chains, as the saying goes, then we are also responsible for what we do. This was Sartre's point, or part of his point. We are irreducibly, unavoidably free and thus cannot escape responsibility, cannot blame anyone or anything else for our failings, our impure thoughts, our misguided intentions. We are, in this sense, always on our own. It is a terrifying thought and one that can, paradoxically, be paralyzing. Towards the end of his enticingly titled novel, Nausea, Sartre has his main character stop in the street, alone, contemplating the infinity of choices available to him. He realizes that his life until now does not determine his next action, and this radical freedom strikes him as being like death. It's the sort of thought that can make you sick to your stomach. Of course, Sartre was not the first philosopher to worry about freedom of the will. It's one of the oldest philosophical topics, so much so that we tend to assume it goes back before the dawn of philosophy. Surely humankind has always felt itself free, and speculated about the nature of this freedom? Perhaps this is true in some sense, but in fact the notion of free will is a fairly late arrival in the philosophical record. We saw it briefly in Lucretius, but it emerges with clarity only in late antiquity, in part because talking about free will requires first having the idea, and vocabulary, of having a will in the first place. A favorite game of scholars is to look for the first philosopher who asserts that we do have a will, whatever that might mean, and that this will is free, whatever that might mean. A favorite answer in this game is the greatest of the Roman Stoics, a man who knew what it meant to be in chains, Epictetus. Though we call him one of the Roman Stoics, Epictetus was not born in Rome, nor did he conduct his teaching there. He was born into slavery in 55 AD in Phrygia. This region in modern-day Turkey was under Roman domination, but as in much of the eastern part of the empire the local language was Greek. From there he did go to Rome, in the service of a master named Epaphroditus, who was associated with the emperor Nero. During his time there Epictetus encountered a great Stoic teacher named Musonius Rufus, an influential figure whose works are unfortunately lost to us. Rufus was one of the few men to impress Epictetus during his lifetime. For the most part, he reserved his admiration for his two favorite role models, Diogenes the Scenic and, inevitably, Socrates. Epictetus modeled his teaching style on that of Socrates, posing provocative questions in lively exchanges that are preserved with remarkable vividness in his writings. Epictetus also followed Socrates in not writing anything himself. What we have instead are records of conversations and diatribes that took place in Epictetus's school, which he set up in Nicopolis in western Greece after he was freed from slavery. For these texts we must thank a student of Epictetus who was also a historian, Arrian. He compiled these so-called discourses, an extensive collection of Epictetus's conversations in which his aggressive but intoxically persuasive philosophical style is on full display. A much briefer second work is called the Handbook, in Greek enchiridion, that is, something that fits comfortably into one's hand. It is more like a greatest hits collection, often in the form of aphorisms or short paragraphs that can be easily remembered and reviewed for the purposes of ethical training. Indeed, it is ethics that occupies central stage in these records of the thought of Epictetus, and his philosophy focuses on ethics more than the other areas of Stoic doctrine, logic and physics. It's clear from the discourses themselves that Epictetus did teach logic at his school, and that many of his students came to him expecting to learn the ideas and technical tools associated with the greatest of the early Stoics, Chrysippus. But Epictetus has mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, he believes that one should indeed study logic. He even gives a brief proof of this, to the effect that anyone who contends that logic is useless will need to argue for its uselessness, but arguing successfully for this, or any other, claim means arguing logically. Usually though, Epictetus brings up technical issues like logic in order to chastise his students for concentrating on these things instead of seeking to become better men. In one typical passage, he advises a student who wants to learn about Chrysippus's solution to the liar paradox that he should go hang himself, unless he also wants to become good. This isn't the only passage where he suggests that one of his listeners should go kill himself. He also constantly addresses his students as slaves, an ironic allusion to his own lowly origins, and a pointed reminder that until the students achieve virtue, they are the true slaves. Epictetus makes the same point by lamenting that his students are not really interested in being Stoics, never mind Cynics, a vocation that Epictetus describes as nearly unattainable for most men. A true Stoic or Cynic is a philosopher with complete self-control, who values what is really valuable, who chooses in accordance with reason and nothing else. Given that even the people who have sought out Epictetus are, by his estimation, enslaved to their base desires, vain ambitions, and prideful self-delusions, the learning curve is bound to be a steep one. This brings us back to Epictetus's most important contribution to the history of Stoicism, indeed to the history of philosophy in general, his conception of choice, or the will. For this, he uses the Greek word prohiresis, which means deliberately choosing or preferring something. It's a word that had already been used by Aristotle in his account of voluntary action. Epictetus makes prohiresis the core of his ethical theory. Though this theory is definitely innovative, it is built on foundations laid by earlier Stoics. As we've seen, the Stoics described most of the things people value and esteem as being, in fact, indifferent. Such things as pleasure, reputation, wealth, and even health lack any intrinsic value. Only virtue, which guides the correct use of such things, is genuinely good and worth pursuing in itself. Epictetus adapts the theory by arguing that our virtue really consists in the right use of prohiresis, that is, choosing rightly. For example, money is in itself without value, but it acquires value when we choose to use it correctly. Epictetus has a powerful argument for this point, which again relates to earlier Stoic ideas. The Stoics had always rejected certain things as valueless because of their vulnerability – wealth can be lost, beauty fades, family members and friends die. But virtue and knowledge are stable and invulnerable once achieved, and within our power to pursue and attain. These things are, as the Stoics had always said, up to us. Epictetus goes further by pointing out that it is really our power of choice, and only our power of choice, that is up to us. For instance, I can choose to go to the zoo to visit the giraffes, and that choice is up to me. But it is not up to me whether I succeed in reaching the zoo and seeing the giraffes. There may be too much traffic, the giraffes may have tragically succumbed to a virus, or a giraffe-hating tyrant may send his thugs to imprison me before I get there. Ultimately, I can completely control only the choices I make, the intentions I form. The situations to which I respond, and my degree of success in responding to them, can never be fully up to me. Of course, I may have all kinds of reasons, or apparent reasons, to choose one thing rather than another. A tyrant may attempt to compel me to obey him by imprisoning me, or saying he will execute me. In one of the most celebrated passages of his discourses, Epictetus imagines precisely this case. He envisions the tyrant threatening to chain us up, and says we may respond, you can chain my leg, but you cannot chain my power of choice. Even my body is, on this way of thinking, a dispensable external thing. If the tyrant says he will throw me in prison, I can say, no, you will throw only my body in prison. If he says he will cut off my head, I can shrug and say, whoever said that my head cannot be cut off? The true philosopher, as we have seen, is the one who values nothing that is not up to him, and it is not up to me whether my body is in prison, whether I am decapitated. What is up to me is my choice. Nothing, whether the allure of the giraffe enclosure, or the command of a tyrant, the promise of pleasure, or the threat of pain, can force me to choose. Epictetus draws a parallel here between our power of choice and our power of assent. Just as no power on earth can force me to believe something that seems to me false, so no power can compel my choice. Now I know what you're thinking. Epictetus has told us that our choices are up to us, and that the value of our lives consists only in using this power of choice well. He hasn't, though, told us what it means to use choice well. This seems especially puzzling if everything other than choice is indifferent. If it is really a matter of complete indifference, whether I am rich or poor, healthy or sick, slave or emperor, then what difference does it make what I choose? In fact, how am I to avoid the despair of one of Sartre's existential heroes? If nothing outside of my power of choice is worth pursuing, then life itself begins to look meaningless. Fortunately, Epictetus does give us some further guidance. Like other Stoics, he endorses the goal of living in accordance with nature, and believes that we can use our reason to discern what is natural and what unnatural. In a passage I can't help admiring, he complains about men who shave their beards, since they are going against nature. The point is not as trivial as it sounds. In the ancient world, a beard was often the symbol of a philosopher. This incidentally is why the emperor Hadrian, a great fan of Greek culture, decided to start going unshaven, to the alarm of his fellow Roman aristocrats. Epictetus also speaks of what he calls primary duties, the natural duties that fall to us in virtue of our family relationships, for instance. Two memorable passages in the discourses concern the attitude a father should take towards his children. In one, a father has come to Epictetus and told how he fled from his own house out of dismay when his child was sick. Epictetus firmly instructs the man that this was an unnatural act, even if it seems to have been a manifestation of his paternal love. On the other hand, in what may be the most chilling single passage in all of ancient philosophy, Epictetus asks what harm it could do to whisper daily in the ear of your child, tomorrow you will die. In so doing, you remind yourself that the child is not given to you forever, and you prepare yourself for the child's possible death. The two passages together capture the demanding ethics of Epictetus. We must never shirk from our duty, but neither should we allow ourselves to place value on things in an unreasonable way. If a child dies, we should be prepared to reflect that all humans die. Just as no one ever told you that your head cannot be cut off, no one ever said your child is immortal. Besides, if it is the will of God that your child dies sooner rather than later, then it would be impious and irrational to object. Epictetus gives plenty of other concrete advice, much of which can speak to us today, though some is charmingly redolent of specifically Roman social practices. For instance, it was common for less wealthy Romans to become clients of rich citizens and to visit their houses daily, to shake them down for money in exchange for support. When asked whether this is appropriate behavior, Epictetus responds that it depends. If you are the kind of person who begs for money, then it is appropriate. You have to choose whether you are that kind of person. Everyone must know at what price they sell their self-respect. This is typical Epictetus, reminding his listeners of what they already know deep down. Notice incidentally that in this and many other cases, we do not need to add anything to the theory of choice in order to know what is the right choice. Debasing oneself to get money is something we can learn to avoid simply by reflecting that money, unlike choice, is indifferent. We can sum up Epictetus' view then by saying that what is external to our choice is indifferent, but the way we use these external things is not. Rather, it makes all the difference. Just as I must, as the Stoics put it, make good use of impressions by knowing when to assent to the way things seem and when to suspect I am being misled, so I must use my power of choice to make good use of external things. It might seem paradoxical that it could matter so much how I use things that have no intrinsic value. Epictetus does not shy away from this paradox. He compares our lives to a ball game. There is nothing more to being a good player than knowing how to use the ball skillfully, even though it doesn't actually matter whether the ball winds up in the goal or not. Another way of thinking about this is one borrowed from Socrates. Although money, health, and so on have no intrinsic value, they gain value in relation to choice so long as the choice is virtuous. In a wonderful passage, Epictetus compares virtue to the magic wand of Hermes. Epictetus is a wand that can turn everything to gold. In the same way, virtue changes everything it touches into something good. In common with many other ancient philosophers, Epictetus has an ethical theory so demanding that it is hard to imagine how one might ever live up to it. But if anything characterizes Roman Stoicism, it is attention to the problem of how we make progress towards the goal of perfect virtue. Epictetus does, like the early Stoics, emphasize the gulf separating vice from virtue, but he is not satisfied with the early Stoics' pessimistic claim that everyone who lacks perfect virtue is wholly ignorant and may as well be insane. For one thing, he expresses a remarkably tolerant attitude towards those who are not even trying to attain virtue. He suggests that those who cannot be converted to philosophy should be treated the way we treat children. We humor them, cheerfully clapping along with them when they celebrate and patting them on the head when they are upset. As usual, Socrates is his exemplar. Epictetus alludes to the end of Plato's Phaedo, where Socrates first chastises his philosophical companions for lamenting his death, then expresses apparently sincere gratitude for the guard who is nobly weeping over the execution. In a way, Epictetus is even tolerant of wrongdoers. He sees them not as targets for vengeance, but objects of pity. Again, following Socrates, he assumes that wrongdoing comes from a kind of ignorance of the true good. An evil man is just an ignorant man, and putting an ignorant man to death is akin to executing someone for being blind in death. Besides, if you find yourself angered by wrongdoing, it is often because you share the values of the wrongdoer. Suppose someone steals your money. If you cannot face this with calm composure, it can only be because, like the thief, you think the money is well worth having. Instead, you should remember that the money was never yours in the first place. Only your choice is truly yours, because it is the only thing that cannot be taken from you. Thus Epictetus reserves his harsh judgments for those who say they want to become good. They are the only people who have any chance of benefiting from his tough love. And because the ethical teaching he offers is so rigorous, only the most rigorous of regimes has any chance of succeeding. He also tells us to be on guard against cultivating a show of virtue, so that we can show off how virtuous we are. As an example of the kind of training that might work, he likes the following suggestion. On a hot day, when you are extremely thirsty, take a mouthful of cold water, then spit it out, and tell no one what you have done. As you might expect, not everyone who comes to Epictetus for help is able to benefit from this sort of advice. As we've seen, he complains that his students are hypocrites, and several times in the discourses, he's shown refusing to engage with his listeners because he thinks they will be unable to benefit. At one point, he imagines a frustrated visitor to his philosophical school going away and complaining, I met Epictetus, and it was like talking to a stone. This may itself be a cunning strategy. Epictetus mentions that his own teacher, Rufus, was in the habit of harshly sending people away simply to test their determination to learn from him. When would-be students fail to learn from Rufus or Epictetus, the blame does not rest with the teachers? But let's suppose that you, being a better sort of person, have gone to see Epictetus, or read the discourses, or perhaps just listened to a podcast about him, and you're now persuaded that you should value nothing but your own power of choice, and accept the will of God, always ready to give back immediately whatever has been given to you, whether it is wealth, family, or life itself. Will you instantly become a perfectly wise sage? Of course not. Like the Epicureans, the Stoics, and especially the Roman Stoics, put great stress on therapeutic training, a lifelong journey of self-discipline. Epictetus is recorded in the discourses as advising his students to review their Stoic principles daily. That his words did not fall entirely on deaf ears is shown by the next great Roman Stoic, a man who wrote down ideas influenced by Epictetus in a daily ritual of self-examination. Yet, in terms of his biography, our next thinker could hardly have been more different from Epictetus. Epictetus was a slave, whereas this philosopher was quite literally master of everything he surveyed. He was, in fact, the most politically powerful philosopher who has ever walked the earth. He was Marcus Aurelius, and he'll be the topic of a royally entertaining podcast next time on The History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps.