Was in one of those chain book stores recently and decided to stop by the philosophy section. It was tiny, only taking up part of a single shelf in a huge store. I was surprised to find about half of the titles were on Stoicism and closely-related topics. There were many pop-psych texts about applying Stoicism to modern life. I guess it's been having a moment? Interestingly, it was right next to the massive self-help section.
I have a notion that both the ancient West and East experienced a chance to align with systems of thought that reject desire, either in part or whole. In the East, that was more successful and stuck around longer. Unfortunately for us, it remained a fringe notion (think how we would react to a modern Diogenes). However, we never completely forgot, flirting with similar ideas from the direction of Christian piety, the synthesis of Eastern thought that occurred in the counter-culture era, and the psychoanalytic frameworks of Lacan, Deleuze+Guattari, and others. Now that our desires are being exploited against us by the tech that mediates our very existence, it makes sense we would seek defense mechanisms. There's trillions of dollars of economic force out there creating, curating, and capturing desire. It's probably worth stepping back and asking how being embedded in that structure is actually affecting us and the degree it's aligned with our innate interests.
In the west, we've had a long, deep split between what ordinary people rely on (religion and self-help) and respectable academic philosophy. Philosophy rooted in religion has a strict requirement to scale down to serve masses of people. Philosophy rooted in academia has a strict requirement to scale up to allow practitioners to flex their elite skills and show that they are worthy of scarce academic positions. Academic philosophers pay lip service to the idea that philosophy can and should be for everyone, but in practice, they shy away from anything that could compromise their primary pursuit of a career and academic prestige.
As a result, they mostly respond to efforts to reach a lay audience by distancing and criticizing. They are really harsh on the compromises inherent in meeting lay audiences where they are.
That seems like a rather cynical take. I think you’re conflating philosophy as guidance for how to live (stoicism etc) and philosophy as more of a science to explore unanswered questions, which are naturally going to have very different practitioners and audiences?
The latter can be applicable to the former. Traditionally the connection was acknowledged, with Socrates the prototype of the philosopher who believed that happiness, ethical living, and philosophy were inextricably linked. Obviously philosophy has come a long way since Socrates, but academic philosophers continue to give lip service to the idea that philosophy can be valuable in everyday living, if not in ethics then in processing information, critiquing arguments, and understanding the origins and limitations of ideas.
I think we've known since the time of Socrates that the practice of philosophy is not the practice of happy living. Philosophers tend to be miserable. Socrates himself chose to drink poison over moving to a different city. I think most philosophies, despite their myriad differences, agree that what people tend to want is not what philosophy will give them. Maybe some of the answers philosophy yields can be applied to increase happiness, but philosophy in practice tends to produce questions.
Most philosophers would not agree that yielding questions instead of answers makes philosophy unhelpful, nor that the happiest life is necessarily the one in which pain is most successfully avoided.
Strictures which successfully regulated desire crystallized over the ages into particular forms of tradition and morality. Hence early conservatives like Carlyle and Chesterton were anti-capitalist: they saw the economics of desire as a corrosive force that would break down and nullify the experience of centuries as encoded in customs, tradition and other social bonds.
An "enchiridion" is a manual or primer. Interestingly, in both ancient and modern Greek, ἐγχειρίδιον / εγχειρίδιο also means "dagger." Because both a small manual and a dagger were things that could fit comfortably in (εγχ / εν) your hand (χείρ / χέρι).
Not all that relevant to Epictetus, just wanted to add a little linguistic note.
Absolutely love this book. The discourses are great reads as well.
It's wild how the human psyche barely changed since the time of Epictetus.
P.S. If you're a follower of Stoicism, I've been working on a community platform/forum: https://stoacentral.com (there's still a lot of work to be done, but I've been pushing along).
I have read this and love it. Besides being good practical advice, it's fun to read just how sassy Epictetus could be with his students. He doesn't hesitate to call people fools when they deserve it, and it makes him seem a lot more human and relatable as a result.
bm3719's observation about Stoicism as a defense mechanism resonates with me. I've found it genuinely useful, not as self-help packaged for tech bros, but as practical mental infrastructure.
The core idea is simple. You separate what you can control from what you can't. Then you stop burning energy on the second category. Easier said than done, but the framework helps.
I keep coming back to "How to Think Like a Roman Emperor" as a practical companion to the original texts. It's Marcus Aurelius filtered through modern psychology, with concrete exercises instead of just principles.
The danger is treating Stoicism as emotional suppression. It's not. It's about choosing where to direct your attention and energy. That's genuinely useful when you're surrounded by systems designed to capture both.
Was in one of those chain book stores recently and decided to stop by the philosophy section. It was tiny, only taking up part of a single shelf in a huge store. I was surprised to find about half of the titles were on Stoicism and closely-related topics. There were many pop-psych texts about applying Stoicism to modern life. I guess it's been having a moment? Interestingly, it was right next to the massive self-help section.
I have a notion that both the ancient West and East experienced a chance to align with systems of thought that reject desire, either in part or whole. In the East, that was more successful and stuck around longer. Unfortunately for us, it remained a fringe notion (think how we would react to a modern Diogenes). However, we never completely forgot, flirting with similar ideas from the direction of Christian piety, the synthesis of Eastern thought that occurred in the counter-culture era, and the psychoanalytic frameworks of Lacan, Deleuze+Guattari, and others. Now that our desires are being exploited against us by the tech that mediates our very existence, it makes sense we would seek defense mechanisms. There's trillions of dollars of economic force out there creating, curating, and capturing desire. It's probably worth stepping back and asking how being embedded in that structure is actually affecting us and the degree it's aligned with our innate interests.
In the west, we've had a long, deep split between what ordinary people rely on (religion and self-help) and respectable academic philosophy. Philosophy rooted in religion has a strict requirement to scale down to serve masses of people. Philosophy rooted in academia has a strict requirement to scale up to allow practitioners to flex their elite skills and show that they are worthy of scarce academic positions. Academic philosophers pay lip service to the idea that philosophy can and should be for everyone, but in practice, they shy away from anything that could compromise their primary pursuit of a career and academic prestige.
As a result, they mostly respond to efforts to reach a lay audience by distancing and criticizing. They are really harsh on the compromises inherent in meeting lay audiences where they are.
That seems like a rather cynical take. I think you’re conflating philosophy as guidance for how to live (stoicism etc) and philosophy as more of a science to explore unanswered questions, which are naturally going to have very different practitioners and audiences?
The latter can be applicable to the former. Traditionally the connection was acknowledged, with Socrates the prototype of the philosopher who believed that happiness, ethical living, and philosophy were inextricably linked. Obviously philosophy has come a long way since Socrates, but academic philosophers continue to give lip service to the idea that philosophy can be valuable in everyday living, if not in ethics then in processing information, critiquing arguments, and understanding the origins and limitations of ideas.
I think we've known since the time of Socrates that the practice of philosophy is not the practice of happy living. Philosophers tend to be miserable. Socrates himself chose to drink poison over moving to a different city. I think most philosophies, despite their myriad differences, agree that what people tend to want is not what philosophy will give them. Maybe some of the answers philosophy yields can be applied to increase happiness, but philosophy in practice tends to produce questions.
Most philosophers would not agree that yielding questions instead of answers makes philosophy unhelpful, nor that the happiest life is necessarily the one in which pain is most successfully avoided.
Ryan Holiday has really popularized Stoicism in the last decade.
Strictures which successfully regulated desire crystallized over the ages into particular forms of tradition and morality. Hence early conservatives like Carlyle and Chesterton were anti-capitalist: they saw the economics of desire as a corrosive force that would break down and nullify the experience of centuries as encoded in customs, tradition and other social bonds.
Wonderfully put.
An "enchiridion" is a manual or primer. Interestingly, in both ancient and modern Greek, ἐγχειρίδιον / εγχειρίδιο also means "dagger." Because both a small manual and a dagger were things that could fit comfortably in (εγχ / εν) your hand (χείρ / χέρι).
Not all that relevant to Epictetus, just wanted to add a little linguistic note.
Interesting. I thought it was a new menu item from Taco Bell.
So the more accurate English word for enchiridion in the book sense is probably handbook?
Sure. Though "manual" actually shares the same kind of root as well (from Latin "manus" [= hand]).
manus, mens et. one each.
Absolutely love this book. The discourses are great reads as well.
It's wild how the human psyche barely changed since the time of Epictetus.
P.S. If you're a follower of Stoicism, I've been working on a community platform/forum: https://stoacentral.com (there's still a lot of work to be done, but I've been pushing along).
I made a website for comparing the translations: https://enchiridion.tasuki.org/
Ever considered to add the Greek text?
It looks like the Greek text is there. You have to click "Compare Translations" on the top left -> Top Result.
Standard Ebooks version:
https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/epictetus/short-works/geor...
…also available as Kindle, ePub and Kobo-flavoured ePub as part of a longer compilation at https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/epictetus/short-works/geor...
The Perseus Project has a more advanced presentation of the text (including the Teubner edtion), for those interested: https://scaife.perseus.org/library/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0557....
I have read this and love it. Besides being good practical advice, it's fun to read just how sassy Epictetus could be with his students. He doesn't hesitate to call people fools when they deserve it, and it makes him seem a lot more human and relatable as a result.
I enjoyed this book greatly, I do not enjoy how Stoicism has become the basic meaning of philosophy.
Meditations is also a decent read.
Related: Sorry, but as an AT fan I couldn't resist: https://adventuretime.fandom.com/wiki/The_Enchiridion_(book)
I am actually exited to read this.
I read this in my early 20's and it had such a profound effect on me. It's so hard to truly put it all into practice though.
bm3719's observation about Stoicism as a defense mechanism resonates with me. I've found it genuinely useful, not as self-help packaged for tech bros, but as practical mental infrastructure.
The core idea is simple. You separate what you can control from what you can't. Then you stop burning energy on the second category. Easier said than done, but the framework helps.
I keep coming back to "How to Think Like a Roman Emperor" as a practical companion to the original texts. It's Marcus Aurelius filtered through modern psychology, with concrete exercises instead of just principles.
The danger is treating Stoicism as emotional suppression. It's not. It's about choosing where to direct your attention and energy. That's genuinely useful when you're surrounded by systems designed to capture both.
It's choose your battles