 And I want to start by addressing the question that Vaidehi asked, which is actually about chapter one, and is about the fifth section of chapter one. And could you just read that aloud for us, that whole section you were asking about instead of just the fragment you were doing before? Yes. Therefore, for every troubling impression, practice saying at once, you are an impression and not at all what you appear to be. Then examine it and test it by the standards which you hold. But first of all, and most of all the standard, whether it is about the things up to us or about the things not up to us. And if it is about something that is not up to us, then be ready to say it's nothing to me. Okay. Now, restate the question you had about this. So, I kind of just don't understand the difference between being an impression and appearing to be something. There is no difference. That's what an impression is, is an appearance. It says you are an impression and not at all. Well, he's anthropomorphizing the impression. He says when you have a troubling impression, like for example, I don't have enough money or I didn't prepare well enough for this or something. When you have a troubling impression, then take that impression and don't just run with it and certainly don't let it transform into an emotion or a pathological state. But look at it and just say, that's just an impression. That's just how things appear to me. It's not anything more or less than just how something appears to me. And this already goes a long way towards dissipating its troublesomeness. But if you then follow through and apply the test of this dichotomy of determining, well, is this up to me or is it not up to me? Okay. Well, suppose it's not up to me that I don't have enough money or that I'm a particularly ugly person or whatever, then I'm not concerned with it at all. Doesn't affect, it's not me. It's something external to me. Whereas if it is up to me, like how am I going to react to this? Am I going to never go into public because I consider myself so ugly or something? That's up to me. And that's what I should focus on. But don't just dwell on the impression itself and certainly don't fail to realize what it is, which is just a thought or a judgment in your mind that you're making. And when we put that in the context of that whole extraordinary chapter, the introduction of this, and we get this dichotomy between things that are up to us and that are not up to us. Now, somebody, some people have referred, I think, erroneously, I think, to the so-called trichotomy. And that's how William Irvine puts it in his book. And I think Matthew Mochilucci also signs up for that. And says, well, epictetus is wrong instead of a dichotomy. It ought to be a trichotomy. It's not just things that are up to us and things that are not up to us. There's also this third class of sort of mixed things that are partly up to us and partly not up to us. But that's a confusion and it's wrong. We can eliminate, or sorry, we can reduce the distinction to two things. What's up to us and what isn't up to us. And we will confuse ourselves if we think of it as being three things. And this sort of confused, mixed third category of things that are partly up to us and partly not up to us. And the way to do this reduction is to analyze every event or everything and then figure out what components in it are up to you and what aren't up to you. So, for example, if somebody spits in my face and there's a risk that I'm going to become angry about that and then I'm going to retaliate and do something stupid like beat them up or something, then we can analyze, you might think, well, that's a mixed thing. Some things are up to you and some things aren't up to you. That worse fit ad is not up to you and blah, blah, blah. But Epictetus wants us to say, okay, there are some things up to us and some things not up to us in this. So it is not up to me to have been spat at. It is not up to me to have blinked when that happens because that's an involuntary reaction that I have. But, and it is not up to me, perhaps, I may then formulate a proposition like, this is a bad thing that this person has spited me unjustly and I want revenge. It's up to me now whether I assent to that or whether I don't assent to that. Thus it is up to me whether I subscribe to a proposition that results in me becoming angry or not. So we shouldn't confuse this and say, well, that's one of those really complicated cases where it's kind of up to you, kind of isn't. The whole point of this is to get clear because there's a categorical distinction between things up to you and things not up to you. And if you leave this confused, then you won't be able to focus on the things that are up to you, which are the only things that matter to you. And so that's exactly the kind of thing they're talking about when you have a troubling impression. So I have an impression that somebody did this outrageous thing and spatted me and that's really horrible because it makes me look weak in front of my students or something like that. Well, that's just an impression. That's all it is. It's just something that appears so to me. It doesn't appear so to other people. Most other people don't care. And so then I can say, well, so what am I going to do with that impression? Well, what I'm going to do is analyze it and say, that's not actually a bad thing because it's happened to a lot of good people that have had a pie thrown in their face. So if it's happened, if Socrates had a pie thrown in his face, then it must not be a bad thing. And so we need to apply that reasoning to every one of these troubling impressions or appearances that we have, and then we'll be in control of what happens to us. And specifically whether we do good or we do little, or we suffer emotions or not. Okay, so any other thoughts about that or any other sections that struck you that you liked or didn't like sound? I was struck by almost how opposite of the things that FNQ's described as being up to us or not up to us are compared to a lot of, you know, ideas that will be out there today. A lot of people today would say that maybe you have to control your desires and that you don't call it all the time, but you can't, like, get rid of them. Or that emotions are something that you can get rid of and still say that that's a good thing. Or a version, people would say that you couldn't choose to not be afraid of something, but still have to say that you should try to control that. And then things like possession, reputation, power, you know, your own body, people would see that as being kind of your responsibility as far as, like, you know, working hard to have wealth, or to, you know, build up your reputation, or to take care of your body by doing certain things. So it's a lot different from how people think nowadays. Yeah. And there's enormous confusion about these things. And it's funny you say how they think about it nowadays, because it's also the way they thought about it those days, and nothing's changed. Because humans haven't changed very much. I mean, since the time Evictetus is writing, not at all. And actually for 50,000 years or so before that, nothing has changed for any different. Okay, so that's one thing. And then the specific things that he says are up to us versus are not up to us, and that doesn't matter. And that he doesn't even want us to think of some of these things as being us. So if I have a lame leg, I'm supposed to think there's a lame leg there. I don't think I'm lame. I think there's some aspect of this body thing that I happen to have that has that problem. But that's not my problem, because it doesn't affect how what I ascend to and what emotions or feelings I have or don't have. And so all of these things that people think you should be most concerned with and are constantly encouraging you to be most concerned with are basically the things you don't actually have any control over. And even if you did, it wouldn't be good. And then the last things that people encourage you to do, for example philosophy, the last thing you want to do is waste your life doing philosophy, actually gives you access to the things that you do have control over and that are possible for you. So he's sort of midpoint of ancient philosophy, but reminding people of that fact, and as you say things remain exactly as they were then. Yes. So in chapter three, he talks about the mud. So he says, should you be fond of the mud and then say I'm fond of the mud because then, when afraid, you'll be disturbed. And then he brings up an example of a child or wife. She says, should you kiss your child or wife and then say you're kissing a human being because then when she dies, you won't be disturbed. So I was wondering exactly what he means by this, because at least in my opinion, I would say that it's almost humanly impossible to both value someone and then just not be disturbed at all if ever to die. So for example, I would agree that you shouldn't be permanently disturbed necessarily, but to say you won't even be disturbed, you won't even be moved, but even a little bit, I feel like it's a little bit extremely easy. Right. And Daniel, you mentioned this one is seeming odd to you before class, too, right? And also, I don't want to take away from your point of view. Well, no, no. And make sure you're talking about the same text before we move on to another one. Well, I mean, I was going to talk about how Seneca talks about the same thing. Okay, go ahead. Seneca seems to bring up a point that may contradict this. He says that if you're not disturbed at all, he compares that to an animal. An animal has this very strong desire to protect the child, but as soon as the child dies, they just don't care anymore. So Seneca seems to say that if you don't have a little bit of grief, you're acting like an animal. That seems to contradict this point. Well, okay. And this also relates to a part of Sam's comment that I didn't address. The very first thing he said, that now we might talk about controlling emotions or limiting emotions and having moderate emotions, but we don't really talk about getting rid of emotions and stopping having emotions. And then we don't talk about apathy as being an ideal anymore. And what I hear everybody here saying is that, well, I can see you saying moderate. You should be moderately disturbed. I mean, if my favorite mug here had been stolen by somebody since I left it over there, then I'd be really slightly upset about that, but I shouldn't get to fly off the handle about it. And if my sister dies, I should feel kind of bad about that, not perhaps too bad. We want to be philosophers here and not feel too bad about it, but I should feel at least a little bit bad. And so that's a paradigm called moderation of emotions. And that's basically Aristotle's take on emotions, that there's a right amount of grief to feel and there's a right amount of anger to feel and there's a right amount of desire for wealth and for glory and things like that. There's a right amount to feel and you shouldn't have too much of it, but you also shouldn't have too little of it. Either one is a problem, it's an extreme, it's an excess or a deficiency, whereas you should hit a kind of mean state where you're exactly as angry as you should be. So if I see somebody doing an injustice, I ought to be angry with that and there's something wrong with me if I'm not angry with it. So goes Aristotle's argument. And everybody's nodding their heads and going along with this and this is of course the common-sense view that we should moderate emotions and that that is perhaps a reasonable thing to do, a hard thing to do, but it's a reasonable thing to do, whereas it doesn't seem reasonable to eliminate emotions and to completely extirpate them. So now that's just a statement, that's just a claim that we can't do it and the Stoics are making exactly the opposite claim that we can do it, that that is in our power to do. So simply stating I don't think that a human could do that is worthless against a statement that says I think they can do it. Further argumentation or consideration of what's going on needs to take place and he says just as I can realize that upon this mug being destroyed or lost, okay well I lost a mug, they can be replaced, it's not that valuable anyway. So with respect to a human being I can say well I didn't think that she was an angel or that she was a god or that she was immortal and would live forever and that I would live forever. I knew it was a human being. Human beings die all the time. We're all dying all the time and they die every day and lots of them have died in the past and lots of them will die in the future and that's what happens to human beings and so that can't actually be a bad thing, that's just a feature of reality. So there's really actually something wrong by people who get upset with the, it's like people that get upset with taxes and think they want to set up their own country with guns within Texas and so forth so that they don't have to pay taxes, it doesn't work that way. Everybody pays taxes just like everybody dies. Get over it, it's going to happen. To become upset about it is actually the bizarre position and it is possible to not be upset about it. We have moral exemplars of people who aren't upset about it and being upset about it is itself a state that's based on a judgment, a value judgment about the things that is false according to our analysis. So you have to actually show that it's a bad thing that people die in order to convince me that it would be true to think that it's bad that it's happened in that case and thus that the attendant emotional state that follows from making that kind of judgment is an appropriate one to have. So it's no argument against the position to say, I just don't think people can do that. I get really upset when I hear people have died. Totally worthless against an argument that says, the reason you're getting upset is because you don't understand the value of things and you're not taking into consideration the nature of reality and what things are really like. And so you could just remain in that state and say, I just don't think it can get any better and I just have to let grief pass once I stop thinking about it. How long is this grief supposed to last, Seneca? Exactly how long does it make sense to be upset about it? If it's not actually something bad and if becoming upset and distressed about it is a result of thinking that it is something bad, then no amount of that is justified. Any reduction in it would be good and any amount of it being experienced is the unseemly thing that we should reject and condemn and say that that's inhuman. People are just acting like animals that don't have control over what they're thinking about and what emotional states they have. If they just go along with how they feel, that's what animals do. That's not what humans do. That's what humans reason about how they react to things. But also in chapter 16 he says that it's okay to take control of someone if you have lost their reading in silence. But as he said, it's about his judgment over what has happened. But he also says that you don't have to be supportive of the encouraging words if you get occasion to suggest it. But also care not to take or also grow on the inside. Just seeing how he said he can console someone else but in the end he shouldn't feel anything himself. Yes, that's crucial. So by the way, the best time to teach somebody this stoic theory of emotion and how they shouldn't be feeling any grief is not right when their sister or their wife has died. Then say, hey, let me tell you what Epictetus would say about this. That's not appropriate. It's too late. That's when you should give the person encouraging words and yes, well, let's get through this and maybe I'll come have some tea on Tuesday and I've got a book I want to love you and so forth. So it's not this cold, heartless thing that any time you see somebody crying in a funeral or any time somebody's acting frustrated or something that you sit down and call up Monty Johnson and have him lecture you about stoicism. The point is that you figure this out before. You figure it out as early as possible and you start living and getting used to that way of thinking things so that because inevitably these will happen, lots of people are going to die unless you die beforehand but whatever the eventuality is, you're going to want to take into consideration these thoughts and start inculcating them as soon as possible but not everybody can do that. Not everybody's been exposed to that and so people need more time and we should feel bad for them. We shouldn't feel pity for them but we should feel bad for them, we should help them. So it's perfectly okay to put your arm around somebody who's suffering from some emotional state but if you really want to help them then start to get at what they're thinking about. What's really bothering them is what they're thinking about and what values they have and so if you really care about them, right? Again, if you don't really care about them then just say, oh don't worry, you'll find somebody else or you'll get better soon and I'm sure about it. If you don't really care how they feel about it you're just trying to get out of an awkward situation but if you really care how they feel about it then figure out what is causing the pain and on this theory it's thoughts that are causing the pain and specifically thoughts that have false value judgments. Okay, but then there was a problem with chapter 33 in chapter 16, he said it's dangerous to use the frame later so when some story occurs if the time is right, it's a whole different person but if it's not the right time, I'm sure you discussed this castle by the side of this play or something, it's scowling. If we're to remain different to other people's actions then we should discuss it. So your in chapter 33 which is one of the longest chapters and you're at the very end, right? Yes. Section 16. And it's in the read and go? It's also dangerous to use the frame language so when some story occurs if the time is right, it's a whole different person but if it's not the right time I'm sure you discussed this castle by the side of this play or something, it's scowling. So why is that? Now that's supposed to be some huge contradiction of what I was just talking about. It seems counter-intuitive to the earlier point about how we just kind of this is your song from things you can control. No, go control. He's talking about somebody swearing or the meaning I'm seeing in speaking and giving a lecture or giving a comedy routine or something like that. He's not talking about somebody swearing because they just hit their thumb with a hammer or something like that. Right, but it's not under your control so why would you be disgusted or discomforted by it? Well, disgust is sort of like blinking. It's not something I have control over. Somebody does something and you feel disgust. Now, it's sort of like embarrassment i.e. the part of embarrassment where your face turns red. You don't have any control over that part. But you have control over whether, for example, you stand up and denounce the person immediately that you feel disgusted at or whether you just sit there silently under control and sort of scoff. I think maybe scoffing is how I would put that, but scowling happens a lot too in these situations. So I think we have to interpret that as being one of these preliminary stages that's not under our control. There's a kind of reaction. Like if I eat bad food and I react to it that's not into my control. You shouldn't say, oh, come on, be stronger about that. That part I can't deal with. If I say, oh, I don't like food unless it has to be nice sauce or unless it's served with really nice silverware, then you've got a problem and that person needs to be corrected. But if they're having a reaction, an involuntary physiological reaction, and disgust is sort of presenting that like one of them. I don't know what his problem with language is. I love profane language and profsinity. So I disagree with him entirely on this. I think it's funny, I think it's good, and I think people that denounce it and say there are certain words we can't use and that sort of thing is ridiculous. So I actually don't have a huge stake in defending that claim, but I think that what he's doing is really trying to point out you can get really upset with somebody while you're sitting there thinking of something they're saying that you might disagree with but you can control how you react and how you deal with that. For example, you could bring a gun to campus and threaten people. This happened last week. That's not the kind of that kind of reaction shouldn't happen. That's a bad thing. That's a bad way to deal with that. You should sit silently, display your discomfort and scowl instead. Can you read in the same way as the section that it was supposedly supposed to counter is just how the stoic is supposed to communicate with the uninitiated person who isn't the stoic or isn't the stoic yet? Yes. It does seem that you mean that's essentially what all this section is about dealing with non-polar schools? Do you agree with that? By the way, I do agree with what he says in section 11 of this. Don't go to people's lectures carelessly or casually. But when you do, guard your decency and stay calm and at the same time don't be irritating. That's like genius. So, I think the situation there is annoyance felt at academic talks and things like that. And you should keep your cool and let the person speak. I think this referenceable behavior of preventing people from speaking, preventing Nazis and so forth from speaking and punching them and depriving them of the ability to make their case is a really stupid thing to do. They should be allowed to speak so that we can hear what they're saying and then counteract the claims and the arguments they're making. So, that's the kind of thing he's talking about is really how to handle yourself when you're in this kind of context. And by the way, this is still something under a lot of dispute. So, now in the philosophy department we have various hand signals and support that we use about how you can intrude into a discussion or interrupt an argument or ask for a clarification and things like that because it can get very touchy. By the way, there's a talk, there's a philosophy colloquium this Friday on Plato's Theory of the Soul from 4 to 6 p.m. in the seminar room of the philosophy department 7th floor and they're all invited if anybody wants to combine here the talk from 4 to 5 and or say for the discussion from 5 to 6. Okay. Who else had a hand up? Yes, and so have you, Hunter and Esther. Actually, I missed you from way back, right? Yeah, but... Go ahead. Okay, so I was just wondering when you were talking about death is it possible for a stoic to not ascend to the belief that death is bad, yet still grieve for the loss of that friendship? It didn't really talk about someone who considered like friendship a virtue and being and like living other people. Well, stoics. I remember exactly who we were talking about. So, is that would a stoic be in line with their beliefs if they did that? Because I think it's possible to grieve someone without actually believing their death is bad. Well, and what is... What do you mean by grief? A sense of loss over there. A bad, painful feeling. Yes. And so you should have that bad, painful feeling in response to this event, this person dying. That could be appropriate in your view. Yes. Okay, and that... So, the first thing they say is no, you shouldn't. This is a school life where you don't feel bad. Right, so do... And so, if... Imagine the implications of what you're saying. Then the people that we're most aware and most keyed into the suffering that people experience. You know, the people that are really working with people that are suffering and dying and things like that. The nation experience massive grief and turmoil constantly, right? I mean, how would it be bearable to be a nurse or something in that situation if they should feel grief at seeing... at seeing death constantly and inevitably happening? Um... That would mean... that would be to take the best people and say that they should feel the worst of all. And then bad people who don't think of this stuff and don't care about this stuff, then they have the most enjoyable lives. Because they don't give any consideration to that. And this is with what assumption are you making? So, I'm making the assumption that if it's true that we should feel that there's some amount of grief that one should feel, okay, that it's appropriate to feel a certain amount of grief, then those people who are more keyed into situations where people are suffering and dying will consequently have a much higher level of grief that's appropriate for them to feel. And it'll actually be absolutely unbearable for them. So, you might be giving yourself permission to feel a little bit of grief because this friend of yours happened to die. Well, how much grief is appropriate for somebody who's working at a hospice and like people are dying every day that they're working? That's what I'm saying, grieving the loss of a relationship. If you're a nurse, many nurses feel grief over loss of patients, but these are not people that they're necessarily close to, and so the relationship they're grieving is necessarily smaller. So their grief is smaller. Hypothetically. They're forming relationships with all these people before they die and so forth. They're becoming friends with these people before they die. And should the mother that has 10 children feel 10 times as much grief as each of her children dies than just one mother that has one child. Now we're leaving in the hands of Fortune how much grief and misery we feel. Like we're letting things that aren't up to us like how many close friends we have. You only have one close friend so you don't feel that much grief except when she dies but you may actually die before her. But I have 100 close friends and a lot of them are suffering from different terminal illnesses and so forth. And they tell me about it and I learn about it. So I should be suffering like 50 or 100 times as much grief as you. Well actually the idea is let's not leave it up to external chance how much grief and how upset we feel. Since it's in our control to feel it or not. And it's not an appropriate thing. Yes we can memorialize our friends. Yes we can wish that we can think it would be nice if our friend was here having a cup of coffee with us or discussing philosophy with us or whatever. But don't think it's bad. Just don't think that it's a bad thing that they don't. That was my point. Is it appropriate to feel that feeling? Oh I kind of wish they were here. Yes. That seems like a you-pathea to me. Wouldn't this be a great situation for John Wrist to be able to be here and participate with us. It's like somebody who's not here that's alive. Isn't that an unfortunate that they aren't. And we should have that kind of feeling about it. That would be an appropriate response. It would be so awesome if William Stevens was here right now and we could be talking to him about it. But let's not lament that old father is dead and can't be here and so forth. There's other translators of Epictetus that came before him because then we're leaving how much grief and how upset we are into the hands of things totally outside of our control. Okay. Okay, now, yes. So, similarly about the friendship and the relationship in chapter 13, Epictetus says that if you appear to anybody to be someone important, just trust yourself. It's like it's still not to make strong relationship with a friend and each other. It's that if you have a real relationship and a real friend you will be more like and disturbing. Well, I don't see that either in what you said here or in anything else we've read. Although I think the point could theoretically be made. But Stoics would say now no school values friendship more than anything and we consider friendship a virtue and so forth. But here, this does not say what this says is that if you appear to anybody to be something important, just trust yourself. Okay. So that is not the same as saying don't make friends with people. Okay, that's if somebody says, oh, wow you're a professor at a university, that's really important then I should think, okay something's wrong. As I give more talks, the introduction to these grow longer and more profusive with praise about my publications and so forth, the appropriate reaction to have to that is go, okay this is becoming increasingly detached from reality as well. That's the appropriate response to have to that. Not to think, wow maybe I really am great. Maybe I'm really a philosopher and people really look up to me and want to know about this stuff. Instead you should doubt yourself in that situation. So that passage doesn't actually talk about friendship. Okay, Hunter. Okay, so in chapter seven he talks about there's this captain that you should follow I guess like an M.L.B. y'all and in relation to like other things that he made like a family or like vegetables or something like that. Yes. So he is comparing the captain with because I was thinking maybe like death or reason, but like so death would work as it says like should he call the Mrs. Carter on all food so that you're not tied up and thrown back on board like the ship, so like that could be like I don't know the ship of death where it's the captain. My interpretation of this is that the captain of the ship is gone. And the ship leaving is like death. Okay. And that because and so just as you go ashore to get fresh water, you might also find some other things that you can take, but it would be it would be a problem to dilly-dally and be so concerned about those that you missed the call back to the ship when it's the appropriate time. And so you ought to think about these other things in your life as being like them. And then when it says if you're given a spouse and a child instead of shellfish and vegetable, there is no trouble with that. That's the strange part that makes us wonder what exactly is he kidding at. He's not saying they should just be discarded like shellfish and vegetables and run over the ship. He's saying you should be just as willing to leave them and to die and not be overly concerned about how they are reacting to your death or things like that. So then in that case at least at the end, if you're old and don't stray far from the ship so that when you hear the calls return you aren't left behind. That's pretty much like don't stay longer than you're supposed to at the time of death. I think so.