Evaluating Epictetus

1. His absolute faith in an all-knowing diety that controls the affairs of human beings, fitting together every event into an overall harmonious plan, is just nuts. To the extent that some of his assertions about ethics rest on rewards or punishments from God, these are hard to take seriously. We should be similarly skeptical about justifications for behavior that rest on "nature" as revealed by God to Epictetus.

2. His disinterest in natural science marks Epictetus as a highly superstitous, and insufficiently scientific, thinker.

3. Epictetus sometimes seems to be advocating pathological passivity. 'Your wife died? No, she was returned. My land was confiscated. No, it too was returned.' When you lose something, Epictetus counsels that you repeat the mantra "for such a small price I buy tranquillity and peace of mind." Sure it is good to keep losses in perspective and preserve virtue by not over-reacting, but what about under-reacting? Where does this end?

4. The friend-in-danger-indifference problem: Let's say you are duty-bound by virtue to come to the aid of a friend who faces danger from an external force. Let us also say that your friend is wise (for you would not be friends with someone who was not wise). Won't your friend recognize that the danger is an external, thus something to which he should be indifferent? And if what your friend faces is a matter of indifference, to him and to you, why bother lifting a finger? Aren't you in fact relieved of your duty to help your "friend in danger" because you (and he) have surmised he's not really in danger at all - he only faces decapitation if convicted - and the body (and head) are a matter of externals, thus things to which we are indifferent, and thus "the danger" is no real danger at all?

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1. Epictetus insists that we have the choice to respond to stimuli as we please. That's interesting.

2. Epictetus' refrain about being clear about what we control and what we don't control, and focusing on the former and de-emphasizing the latter, is life-changing advice (see The Serenity Prayer).