Abstract
The primary question concerns the extent to which we each have control over our thoughts. Epictetus argues that our internal rationalized mentality should be resilient to external influences. Our social environment is for Epictetus a primary example of this external stimulus. In asking whether an insulation of our mind from an external environment is possible though, I integrate Durkheim’s structuralist theory of the socialized ways we are each mentally oriented. The consequent discussion interrogates the opposition that Epictetus posits between an internal self and an external society. The limit between what is internal and external to the self for the Stoic is further reconceived through a discussion of the daimon. Via a Durkheim-centered intervention and the Stoic daimon we can identify a receptivity in Epictetus’ Stoicism to an element of the internal self that is also universally external. With this Stoic sense of universality, we likewise destabilize the localized limits of a social structure for Durkheim.
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Notes
- 1.
Shad Helmstetter (1982) exemplifies the everyday advice to only concern yourself with “what is in your control.” Helmstetter distinguishes between what is in your control and deserves your focus, versus what is beyond your control and you should forget; “I am in control of my feelings, my emotions, my attitudes, and my needs” (181). We can match this terminology to Epictetus’ conception of the jurisdiction of control that we are about to explore.
- 2.
In A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy, William Irvine describes Stoicism as a philosophy for life (Irvine 2008, 4). See similarly Robertson (2013) and Ussher (2014, 2016), as well as Pigliucci (2017a, b), for discussions of Stoic philosophy’s practical relevance to daily existence.
- 3.
Epictetus’ Discourses is an account of his lectures provided by his student, Arrian of Nicomedia. Arrian’s retelling of Epictetus’ work occurs without any input from Arrian himself, M.C. Howatson reporting that Epictetus’ “oral teachings he [Arrian] later published verbatim” (Howatson 2013, 73). I will duly refer to Epictetus as the author of Discourses as is conventional. For a detailed breakdown of the relationship between Epictetus and Arrian refer to Brunt (1977).
- 4.
Diogenes Laërtius reports in The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers the foundational Stoic belief that distinguishes human impressions as those “of rational animals … rational impressions are thought processes; irrational ones are nameless” (Diogenes Laërtius, SVF, 2.52,55,61, in L&S, 337). See also Becker (2004, 41–44) in which Chrysippus’ early Stoic conception of the rational animal is discussed.
- 5.
While nonhuman animals “lack logos” William Stephens notes the curiosity that for Epictetus certain animals should be revered as “paragons of freedom.” This is not an incidental point given that freedom is a “supreme goal of Epictetus’s philosophy” (Stephens 2014, 228). By exploring Epictetus’ belief that human and nonhuman animal existences involve vices and virtues, Stephens posits certain commonalities between all creatures that modern Stoic scholarship often overlooks.
- 6.
As with themes developed in other chapters, Stoic thinkers often arrive at their positions by continuing or deviating from preceding Socratic, Platonic, or Aristotelian positions. In The Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle defines rationality in specifically human terms. Humans for Aristotle have this rational component (Aristotle 2004, 1.13.1102a.30–1103a.10) as well as a component that because it is “vegetative has no association at all with reason” (1.13.1102b.30). Humans share this vegetative component with less-rational entities such as flora, fauna, and nonhuman animals. The vegetative component for all is “the cause of nutrition and growth” (1.13.1102a.30). Humans though rationally transcend such functions in ways that other entities do not.
- 7.
While rationality can be associated with ordered thinking processes, René Descartes denies that this also provides the conditions to define the thinking human as rational; “what is a man? Might I not say a rational animal? No, because then I would have to inquire what ‘animal’ and ‘rational’ mean. And thus from one question I would slide into many more difficult ones” (Descartes 1993 (1641), 2.26). Descartes’ concerns regard the regressive rabbit hole involved in trying to define rationality. Bertrand Russell also sees ongoing contradictions in defining ourselves as rational. This however is because for Russell our actions apparently contradict rational inclinations; “man is a rational animal—so at least I have been told” (Russell 1943, 5). Russell refers here as much to the question of what rationality means as he does to the question of whether humans fulfill such requirements.
- 8.
These Stoic principles are likely drawn from Socratic impressions of a rationally ordered universe. Gisela Striker (1996, 217–218) discusses the connections between Socratic and Stoic theories of a perfect rational order. Anthony Long indeed generally observes of the Socratic influence in Epictetus’ thought that no “other philosopher, not even Zeno or Diogenes, is named nearly so frequently” in Discourses as is Socrates (Long 2004, 10). Beyond Socrates, an Aristotelian impression is also possibly apparent regarding an ordered world. In “On the Cosmos” Aristotle describes the universe as deriving from a “single power” which “concords” that everything in the world “is well-arranged; for it is called ‘well ordered’ after this ‘universal order.’ What particular detail could be compared to the arrangement of the heavens and the movement of the stars and the sun and moon” (Aristotle 1955, 5.297a.10).
- 9.
In Descartes’ Discourse on Method we find a literal example of inspiration provided by Epictetus’ focus on self-control. As Descartes writes, in approaching philosophy he sought “to conquer myself rather than fortune, to change my desires rather than the order of the world, and generally to accustom myself to believing that there is nothing that is completely within our power except our thoughts” (Descartes 1998 (1637), 3.25).
- 10.
An awareness of this relationship helps contextualize Epictetus’ Stoic development. Commentators including Chester Starr have noted the consensus among “students of Stoic philosophy” that not only did Epictetus study under Musonius but furthermore that “he followed closely his teacher” in developing the “tripartite division … all things are good, evil, or else indifferent” (Starr 1949, 22).
- 11.
Matthew Sharpe interprets that the Enchiridion is directed by Epictetus urgently to “‘beginners’ to the philosophical school: people potentially interested in Stoicism as a possible way of life” (Sharpe 2014, 379–380).
- 12.
Durkheim is typically positioned as such alongside Karl Marx and Auguste Comte (Moore 1966; Shils 1970; Thomassen 2012). Anthony Giddens though counters characterizations of a distinguishable point of birth of any intellectual discipline, arguing that “the idea that there was a certain Archimedean point at which a discipline became founded—begotten by its fathers—does not stand up to scrutiny” (Giddens 1995, 4–5). By instead arguing that sociology has a progressively constructed identity, Giddens dismisses the claims of a series of thinkers who believe that they have instituted a new science of society (5).
- 13.
The themes of faith and ritual and suicide will be apparent in the texts that are engaged in this chapter. Durkheim’s work on the final theme listed here—labor—can be most notably located in his The Division of Labour in Society (1997 (1893)).
- 14.
As translated by William Oldfather. In the Robert Dobbin translation with which we have been previously working the phrase “what are we in earnest about” is instead translated as “what do we look after” (Epictetus 2008, 2.16, 11).
- 15.
See also Eliasson (2008, 84–95) for a discussion of what the phrase “depends on us” means for Chrysippus. Eliasson additionally incorporates an extended commentary of Bobzien’s reading of the Chrysippean position.
- 16.
Rationality’s authority over the other two faculties of the soul is also famously evoked in Plato’s metaphor in Phaedrus of the charioteer, as reason, driving two horses (Plato 1995)
- 17.
This not-isolated sense of subjectivity perhaps lurks in what Anthony Long describes as the “normative” constitution of the daimon. The daimon divinely perpetuates the proper criteria for how to live in accordance with universal nature. This for Long means that the daimon is “every person’s normative self, the voice of correct reason that is available to everyone because it is, at the same time, reason as such and fully equivalent to God” (Long 2002, 166).
- 18.
In “The Cosmopolitan Ideas of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius,” G.R. Stanton explores the ideological similarities between these two Stoic thinkers. In particular, this outlines why “Epictetus had an immense influence on the whole philosophy of Marcus Aurelius” (Stanton 1968, 1).
- 19.
This is even when taking into consideration as Gretchen Reydams-Schils observes that for Epictetus “[q]uestions about nature as a whole are beyond our grasp.” It is nonetheless through inquiring into how we are naturally inclined and appreciating our common, universal conditions, that such questions “help us realize that Nature also made humans intrinsically social beings” (Reydams-Schils 2005, 38).
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Johncock, W. (2020). Who Controls Your Thoughts? Epictetus and Émile Durkheim on Mental Structure. In: Stoic Philosophy and Social Theory. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43153-2_2
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