Epictetus

c. 50/60 - c. 135 CE · Greek (Roman Empire) · Stoic Ethics, Practical Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Pedagogy

Some things are in our power; others are not.

Born a slave in a Roman household owned by one of Nero's secretaries, Epictetus attended Stoic lectures while still enslaved. After manumission he taught in Rome until Domitian expelled philosophers from Italy in 95 CE, then founded a school at Nicopolis. He was lame, lived simply, and never wrote — what survives are the Discourses and the Enchiridion, transcribed by his student Arrian.

Topics Epictetus addresses

• the dichotomy of control
• what is in our power (eph' hêmin)
• prohairesis
• the discipline of impressions
• the use of impressions (chrêsis tôn phantasiôn)
• assent (synkatathesis)
• desire and aversion (orexis and ekklisis)
• impulse (hormê)
• the three disciplines
• progress (prokopê)
• the prokoptôn
• freedom from passion (apatheia)
• the passions (pathê)
• innate preconceptions (prolêpseis)
• conceit (oiêsis)
• self-examination
• kinship with God (syngeneia tôi theôi)
• the fragment of God (apospasma tou theou)
• providence and Zeus
• Stoic cosmopolitanism
• the Stoic paradox of freedom
• inner slavery and inner freedom
• the first topic of philosophy
• Socratic dialectic

Converse with Epictetus on Symposium. Every reply is grounded in Epictetus's own writing and cites the page it came from. The corpus is public-domain text.