Retreat and vulnerability

From Epicurus - that we value virtue, not because of the gods, but because living virtuously makes us happy (brings pleasure).

From Epictetus - that we cannot escape into "a Garden" - that the only thing we control is our virtue (our aversion and desire) - that the Epicurean path to happiness by retreating into the Garden and focusing on friendship is a formula for anxiety - for friends are externals and thus unpredictable - and we will never know when an intruder is about to scale the walls of the Garden. The quest for Epicurean ataraxia means constant vigilance, constant vulnerability to whoever intrudes, constant slavery to whoever can secure (or invade) our Garden.

Epictetus on children and marriage

Foucault, The Care of the Self, p. 155:

[Epictetus] refers to the social obligations that no man must shirk and of which marriage forms a part, alongside the duties that pertain to political life, religion, and the family: 'citizenship, marriage, procreation of children, worship of God, care of parents.'

But not really. On page 156 Foucault says "it was the same with marriage as with all the other practices that the Stoics classed among the proegoumena, the things that are preferable. There may be circumstances in which it is not obligatory."

...as if he were his own enemy lying in ambush

Epictetus, Enchiridion, Chapter 48:

The mark and attitude of the ordinary man: never look for help or harm from yourself, only from outsiders. The mark and attitude of the philosopher: look for help and harm exclusively from yourself.

And the signs of a person making progress: he never criticizes, praises, blames or points the finger, or represents himself as knowing or amounting to anything. If he experiences frustration or disappointment, he points the finger at himself. If he is praised, he is more amused than elated. And if he is criticized, he won't bother to respond. He walks around as if he were an invalid, careful not to move a healing limb before it's at full strength. He has expunged all desire, and made the things that are contrary to nature and in his control the sole target of his aversion. Impulse he only uses with detachment. He does not care if he comes across as stupid or naive. In a word, he keeps an eye on himself as if he were his own enemy lying in ambush.

A role beyond your means

Epictetus, Enchiridion, Chapter 37:

If you undertake a role beyond your means, you will not only embarrass yourself in that, you miss the chance of a role that you might have filled successfully.

Finishing school for philosophers

Epictetus, Enchiridion, Chapter 33:

1. Settle on the type of person you want to be and stick to it...
2. Let silence be your goal...say only what is necessary and be brief about it...above all don't gossip about people, praising, blaming or comparing them. Try to influence your friends to speak appropriately by your example. If you find yourself in unfamiliar company, however, keep quiet.
3. Keep laughter to a minimum...
4. Avoid fraternizing with non-philosophers...
5. [Moderation in food, drink, sex...]
6. If you learn that someone is speaking ill of you, don't try to defend yourself against the rumors; respond instead with 'Yes, and he doesn't know the half of it, because he could have said more.'
7. [Stay away from crude amusements...]
8. When you are going to meet someone, especially someone deemed important, imagine to yourself what Socrates or Zeno would have done in that situation and you won't fail to get on, whatever happens. When you are going to house of someone influential, tell yourself that you won't find them in, that you will be locked out, that the door will be slammed in your face, that they won't give you the time of day. And, despite that, if it's the right thing to go, then go and face the consequences...
9. ...don't dwell at excessive length on your own deeds and adventures...
10. And avoid trying to be funny...
11. [don't swear too much...]
    

Duties are broadly defined by social roles...

Epictetus, Enchiridion, Chapter 30:

...keep up your side of the relationship; don't concern yourself with his behavior, only with what you must do to keep your will in tune with nature. Another person will not hurt you without your cooperation; you are hurt the moment you believe yourself to be...give social relationships their due in your daily deliberations.

A person who will not stoop to flattery...

Epictetus, Enchiridion, Chapter 25:

...if you do not engage in the same acts as others with a view to gaining such honors, you cannot expect the same results. A person who will not stoop to flattery does not get to have the flatterer's advantages...refuse to praise someone and you cannot expect the same compensation as a flatterer. It would be unfair and greedy on your part, then, to decline to pay the price that these privileges entail and hope to get them for free.

All such apparent tragedies...

Epictetus, Enchiridion, Chapter 21:

Keep the prospect of death, exile and all such apparent tragedies before you every day - especially death - and you will never have an abject thought, or desire anything to excess.

Put up with being perceived as ignorant

Epictetus, Enchiridion, Chapter 13:

If you want to make progress, put up with being perceived as ignorant or naive in worldly matters, don't aspire to a reputation for sagacity. If you do impress others as somebody, don't altogether believe it. You have to realize, it isn't easy to keep your will in agreement with nature, as well as externals. Caring about the one inevitably means you are going to shortchange the other.

Compare with Gracian, who would suggest we hide the depth of our knowledge, but for strategic reasons, and in order to increase our ability to manipulate and surprise others.

Advice to those just starting out: keep it simple

Epictetus, Enchiridion, Chapter 2:

Direct aversion only towards things that are under your control and alien to your nature, and you will not fall victim to any of the things that you dislike...as for desire, suspend it completely for now...restrict yourself to choice and refusal, and exercise them carefully with discipline and detachment.

Epictetus, Enchiridion, Chapter 8:

Don't hope that events will turn out the way you want, welcome events in whichever way they happen: this is the path to peace.

Advice to those just starting out: rehearse

Epictetus, Enchiridion, Chapter 4:

Whenever planning an action, mentally rehearse what the plan entails... 'I want [to do x], but at the same time I want to keep my will aligned with nature.' Do it with every act. That way if something occurs to spoil your [plans], you will have ready the thought, 'Well this was not my only intention, I also meant to keep my will in line with nature - which is impossible if I go all to pieces whenever anything bad happens.'

Persist and resist...

Epictetus, Fragments, 10:

...there are two vices much blacker and more serious than the rest: lack of persistence and lack of self-control...two words should be committed to memory and obeyed by alternately exhorting and restraining ourselves, words that will ensure we lead a mainly blameless and untroubled life...persist and resist.

A warning about what makes other people tick...

Epictetus, Discourses, Book IV, 13:

...if you see someone fond of externals, someone who values them over their own moral integrity, you can be sure that he is vulnerable to thousands of people who can frustrate or coerce him.

Here's the sort of formulation that gives Stoicism a bad name...

Epictetus, Discourses, Book IV, 4:

It would be lovelier still if you could secure happiness, free of emotion, poised and dependent on no one except yourself.

Here the view of emotion is overly simplistic: emotion equals weakness. The role of emotion in motivation (for virtues like courage), attention, or even the proper functioning of memory, is completely unrecognized.

If you observe rather than are observed...

Epictetus, Discourses, Book IV, 4:

If you keep yourself calm, poised and dignified, if you observe rather than are observed, if you don't envy people with greater success, don't let externals disconcert you - if you do all this, what more do you need?

Warnings against advancement

Epictetus, Book IV, 1:

When a man gain's Caesar's friendship, does he stop being hindered or constrained, does he live in peace and happiness?...So step up, sir, and tell us, when did you sleep more soundly, now or before you became intimate with Caesar? 'By the gods, stop mocking my condition. You don't know what agonies I endure. I can't even fall off to sleep before someone comes and announces, "The emperor is up already, and about to make his appearance," and then I am harassed by one worry and crisis after another...He says that if he's not invited to dine with Caesar, he's an emotional wreck; and if he is invited he behaves like a slave asked to sit beside his master, anxious the whole time lest he do or say something gauche. Is he afraid that, like a slave, he'll get whipped? He should be so lucky. As befits a personage as lofty as a friend of Caesar, he's afraid his head will be chopped off...

...in a word, which life would you prefer, the present or the previous one? I could swear that there is no one so crude or forgetful that they don't actually regret their fortune in precise proportion to how close to Caesar they've become.'

Musonius stakes out the pro-marriage, pro-kids position

Hence, it is clear that it is appropriate for the philosopher to devote attention to marriage and the production of children.

Musonius points to the gods - they got married - and to nature - clearly the gods intended man to marry and procreate, and if that's what is intended for man then that is what is intended for the philosophers that walk among man.

Also, note that Epictetus had strong feelings about the sanctity of marriage vows (though he suggested philosophers should not marry), made clear in his reprimands to the wayward senator.

Epictetus sounding unrealistically harsh...

Epictetus, Discourses, Book II, 16:

Every day you should put the ideas in action that protect against attachment to externals such as individual people, places or institutions - even your own body. Remember the law of God and keep it constantly in view: look to your own means, leave everything that isn't yours alone.

If by "leave everything that isn't yours alone" Epictetus suggests we should bring less than attentive devotion to the externals around us, he contradicts his earlier statements.

And the detachment he sets as a standard here sounds so unlikely.

Between Epictetus and Epicurus

What do they really disagree on? The omnipresence of god and the power of fate.

Epictetus suggests we know what is right because it is revealed to us by god - things are as they "seem" - while Epicurus says we direct ourselves towards the good by doing what brings us pleasure and by avoiding pain.

Epictetus draws the sharp line between what is external and internal; what is beyond my control and what is within it; and good and bad reside only in what is internal, what is within my control, and done through my choice. What's more:

It is a general rule that externals of any kind, if we attach importance to them, make us subject to somebody. (Discourses, Book IV, 4)

Epicurus draws lines among what he sees as, respectively, good and bad externals - those in accordance with nature versus those that are not.

Balancing acts

With Epictetus we balance careful attentiveness to external matters - as if our handling of those matters reflected the depth of our virtue - with a counterbalancing detachment from everything that is not related to personal virtue, and within my direct control.

Epictetus, Discourses, Book II, 17:
'I want to be free from fear and emotion, but at the same time I want to be a concerned citizen and philosopher, and attentive to my other duties, toward God, my parents, my siblings, my country and my guests.'