WEBVTT 00:01.040 --> 00:06.780 PROFESSOR: So what I want to talk about in today's lecture 00:06.780 --> 00:11.650 is a strand in the philosophical tradition that 00:11.650 --> 00:16.820 looks not at the ways in which human interconnectedness can 00:16.820 --> 00:20.980 provide meaning and the possibility for flourishing, 00:20.980 --> 00:26.210 but which looks rather at a certain sort of psychological 00:26.210 --> 00:32.370 detachment as a way of dealing with the inevitable 00:32.370 --> 00:36.290 vicissitudes of lived experience. 00:36.290 --> 00:41.020 And the clearest articulation of the outlook that we'll be 00:41.020 --> 00:44.610 considering today in the context of the Western 00:44.610 --> 00:50.230 tradition can be found in the writing of 00:50.230 --> 00:53.250 the philosopher Epictetus. 00:53.250 --> 01:00.350 Here's a wonderful imaginary portrait of him from 1715, 01:00.350 --> 01:05.200 sitting at a table, famously with his cane, which he used 01:05.200 --> 01:08.440 to walk as the result of his limp. 01:08.440 --> 01:14.260 As you know from the reading guide, Epictetus lived at the 01:14.259 --> 01:17.629 beginning of two millennia ago. 01:17.630 --> 01:22.960 He lived roughly from 50 to 130 in the common era. 01:22.955 --> 01:31.315 He was born in Greek-speaking Asia Minor, and spent his life 01:31.320 --> 01:35.010 living in the Roman Empire during that era. 01:35.010 --> 01:38.910 He spent the early portion of his life as a slave. There's 01:38.910 --> 01:42.080 some dissent as to whether he spent it until the age of 01:42.080 --> 01:45.790 thirteen or until the age of twenty seven, but in any case, 01:45.790 --> 01:50.350 a significant portion of his life was spent in slavery. 01:50.350 --> 01:53.980 But he eventually gained freedom, and at some point, 01:53.980 --> 01:58.980 either before or after gaining freedom, he studied the works 01:58.980 --> 02:05.560 and philosophical outlook of a tradition known as Stoicism. 02:05.560 --> 02:10.320 And the works that were produced on his behalf that 02:10.320 --> 02:13.340 have survived are two. 02:13.340 --> 02:18.710 The first is a major four volume collection of his 02:18.710 --> 02:21.990 discussions of a range of topics: questions in 02:21.990 --> 02:24.830 metaphysics, questions about the way the world is, 02:24.830 --> 02:27.580 questions in epistemology--how we should understand the 02:27.580 --> 02:30.470 world--and also questions in ethics. 02:30.470 --> 02:34.860 And in addition to that has survived the extraordinary 02:34.860 --> 02:37.180 book that we read for today. 02:37.180 --> 02:43.290 The little forty-five epigraph essay known as The Handbook, 02:43.290 --> 02:47.860 which was, as in the case of Aristotle, apparently recorded 02:47.860 --> 02:53.350 by one of Epictetus's students and preserved in that way. 02:53.350 --> 02:56.980 Now, the work that Epictetus produced in the context of The 02:56.980 --> 03:01.260 Handbook was enormously influential for most of the 03:01.260 --> 03:04.840 two thousand years that it has been part 03:04.840 --> 03:06.620 of the Western tradition. 03:06.620 --> 03:10.590 In particular, the frontispiece that I used to 03:10.590 --> 03:15.970 show you a picture of Epictetus is drawn from the 03:15.970 --> 03:21.760 library of none other than John Adams, the second 03:21.760 --> 03:26.410 president of the United States, who had this book in 03:26.410 --> 03:35.230 his collection in its 1715 Latin edition. 03:35.230 --> 03:39.480 (Wait until the eclipse passes.) 03:39.480 --> 03:43.790 Another interesting thing to know, historically, about the 03:43.790 --> 03:46.620 volume that we're reading is that the first English 03:46.620 --> 03:52.270 translation of it was, in fact, done by a great 03:52.270 --> 03:56.180 eighteenth century woman of letters, Elizabeth Carter. 03:56.180 --> 03:59.580 Though the translation that we're reading is a more modern 03:59.580 --> 04:01.280 version of it. 04:01.280 --> 04:06.910 So in this work, Epictetus takes on many of the tenets of 04:06.910 --> 04:08.730 classical stoicism. 04:08.730 --> 04:12.500 So we've been introduced in this class so far first to the 04:12.500 --> 04:16.970 writings of Plato, who is a systematic philosopher. 04:16.970 --> 04:20.530 He has views about everything, and his commitments are to a 04:20.530 --> 04:24.190 certain kind of rationalist, formalist, idealist 04:24.190 --> 04:25.310 philosophy. 04:25.310 --> 04:29.440 And we've been introduced to the work of Aristotle through 04:29.440 --> 04:34.180 one of his writings, the Nichomachean Ethics. 04:34.180 --> 04:37.640 But alongside those two traditions, the Platonic 04:37.640 --> 04:40.590 tradition and the Aristotelian tradition, the ancient 04:40.590 --> 04:45.120 philosophical world produced a number of other systematic 04:45.120 --> 04:48.320 philosophical outlooks--outlooks that had 04:48.320 --> 04:52.790 views about almost any question you could ask. 04:52.790 --> 04:57.760 And among those was the view known as Stoicism. 04:57.760 --> 05:03.090 So Stoics held, with respect to the underlying metaphysical 05:03.090 --> 05:09.940 facts about reality, that the world itself is an organic 05:09.940 --> 05:14.130 physical totality that's governed by what they called 05:14.130 --> 05:16.980 logos or divine reason. 05:16.980 --> 05:21.810 There is an order to the world. 05:21.810 --> 05:26.740 And that the responsibility of human beings, given that 05:26.740 --> 05:33.830 order, is to cultivate a particular kind of virtue. 05:33.830 --> 05:41.030 Virtue on the Stoic picture is acting in accord with what 05:41.030 --> 05:44.910 reason tells you nature demands. 05:44.910 --> 05:51.410 It's going along with this grand scheme of things, and 05:51.410 --> 05:59.300 not trying to fight against what is predivined for you. 05:59.300 --> 06:04.360 So it's not surprising that elements of the Stoic 06:04.360 --> 06:09.230 tradition get picked up in subsequent theistic 06:09.230 --> 06:10.640 traditions. 06:10.640 --> 06:15.470 In some ways, the Stoic view that the world is a 06:15.470 --> 06:21.630 well-ordered entity governed by divine reason lies at the 06:21.630 --> 06:27.220 heart of many of the religious traditions that are familiar 06:27.220 --> 06:29.310 to you today. 06:29.310 --> 06:33.120 The question, then, becomes, what is demanded of you 06:33.120 --> 06:33.970 prescriptively? 06:33.970 --> 06:38.850 What should you do if these two things are the case? 06:38.850 --> 06:42.360 And what the Stoics suggest is that you need to accept your 06:42.360 --> 06:48.040 fate, that it is the consequence of the power and 06:48.040 --> 06:50.940 goodness of the logos, even though the ways in which it is 06:50.940 --> 06:55.210 good for you may be unavailable to you to see, and 06:55.210 --> 06:59.170 that in order to do so, you need to moderate your desires, 06:59.170 --> 07:04.630 you need to avoid excess emotion, and thereby come to 07:04.626 --> 07:07.356 act in accord with reason. 07:07.360 --> 07:11.860 So the contemporary use of the term Stoic, one who doesn't 07:11.860 --> 07:16.950 express suffering in the face of pain, is picking up on the 07:16.950 --> 07:20.240 second of these prescriptive aspects. 07:20.240 --> 07:23.880 But it's important to recognize that as with all of 07:23.880 --> 07:26.780 the philosophers that we're reading, this is part of a 07:26.780 --> 07:28.580 systematic worldview. 07:28.580 --> 07:31.280 The idea is not, we pick a little bit here and a little 07:31.280 --> 07:34.950 bit there and we don't worry about how they go together. 07:34.950 --> 07:39.140 The idea is we have an idea about the fundamental nature 07:39.140 --> 07:42.860 of reality, a view about how we know that, and then views 07:42.860 --> 07:46.120 about what we ought to do as a consequence. 07:46.120 --> 07:51.020 Now, Epictetus, in The Handbook, is concerned only 07:51.020 --> 07:54.620 with a small portion of the Stoic picture. 07:54.620 --> 08:00.160 He's concerned, basically, with writing the very first 08:00.160 --> 08:02.630 self-help manual. 08:02.630 --> 08:10.380 He's trying to tell you, Mr. or Ms. Citizen of ancient 08:10.380 --> 08:16.020 Roman world in about the year 100, what to do if you would 08:16.020 --> 08:17.580 like to flourish. 08:17.580 --> 08:21.090 And here's what he tells you need to do. 08:21.090 --> 08:24.900 You need to learn how to respond appropriately to 08:24.900 --> 08:28.480 experience by doing three things. 08:28.480 --> 08:31.850 You need to alter your perceptions of the world so 08:31.850 --> 08:36.310 that you come to apprehend things in such a way that they 08:36.310 --> 08:39.370 don't influence you harmfully. 08:39.370 --> 08:45.390 You need to alter your desires with respect to the world. 08:45.390 --> 08:50.860 And you need to structure your life in such a way that you 08:50.860 --> 08:55.280 stay on the straight and narrow: you need to structure 08:55.280 --> 08:59.750 your social relations in ways that will help you sustain 08:59.750 --> 09:01.890 your commitments. 09:01.890 --> 09:06.460 And in the next slide, in an attempt to help you read 09:06.460 --> 09:11.740 through the text that we have, I suggested ways of putting 09:11.740 --> 09:16.130 each of the subpassages of the book into one of these 09:16.130 --> 09:17.530 categories. 09:17.530 --> 09:21.180 So, for example, when Epictetus tells us that we 09:21.180 --> 09:24.760 need alter our perception of the world, there are three 09:24.760 --> 09:28.300 specific ways that he thinks we might go about doing it; 09:28.300 --> 09:32.350 three components to this instruction. 09:32.350 --> 09:36.810 The first is that we need to properly classify things into 09:36.810 --> 09:41.400 two categories: things over which we have control-- and 09:41.400 --> 09:43.520 we'll talk more about that in a moment-- 09:43.520 --> 09:47.160 and things over which we don't have control. 09:47.160 --> 09:52.110 So we need to get our taxonomy down. 09:52.110 --> 09:56.390 We need also to anticipate the way the 09:56.390 --> 09:59.310 world typically unfolds. 09:59.310 --> 10:02.020 So we need not only to know what is up to us and what 10:02.020 --> 10:06.160 isn't up to us, but among the things that aren't up to us, 10:06.160 --> 10:09.430 we need to structure our expectations in such a way 10:09.430 --> 10:12.420 that we are emotionally prepared for 10:12.420 --> 10:13.510 what will befall us. 10:13.505 --> 10:15.825 And again, I'll talk more about that 10:15.830 --> 10:17.930 in a couple of slides. 10:17.930 --> 10:20.520 And we need to recognize-- 10:20.520 --> 10:23.570 in some ways this is a subpoint of the first-- 10:23.570 --> 10:30.080 the role that judgment and choice play in determining 10:30.080 --> 10:36.010 whether it is the case that experiences affect us. 10:36.010 --> 10:39.050 So those are the three things that Epictetus says we need to 10:39.050 --> 10:42.790 do with respect to perception, and again, I'll give examples 10:42.790 --> 10:45.920 of each of them in a moment. 10:45.920 --> 10:48.310 In addition, we'll go on to the second thing 10:48.310 --> 10:50.040 that we need to do. 10:50.040 --> 10:54.220 He tells us that we need to cultivate appropriate desires. 10:54.220 --> 10:57.390 We need to get our desires lined up with the world in 10:57.390 --> 11:00.420 such a way that we aren't subject repeatedly to 11:00.420 --> 11:02.110 frustration. 11:02.110 --> 11:06.460 And the way we do this is by inverting the standard 11:06.460 --> 11:10.700 relation between desire and the world. 11:10.700 --> 11:16.500 Usually, desires express a way things aren't, but 11:16.500 --> 11:18.280 you wish they were. 11:18.280 --> 11:23.590 I desired firmly yesterday that there not be the eighth 11:23.590 --> 11:27.130 snow day in three weeks for my children. 11:27.130 --> 11:32.430 But the world refused to cooperate on that question. 11:32.430 --> 11:35.900 Had I instead adjusted my desires to the world-- 11:35.900 --> 11:40.540 I desired that things go on exactly as logos predicts-- 11:40.540 --> 11:44.100 then I would have been content with their 11:44.100 --> 11:46.070 presence in my office. 11:48.740 --> 11:52.600 The second thing that Epictetus tells us we can do 11:52.600 --> 11:56.990 in strategizing how to cultivate appropriate desires 11:56.990 --> 12:00.740 is to make use of this extraordinary human capacity 12:00.740 --> 12:04.240 to assimilate things from one category 12:04.240 --> 12:07.130 to things from another. 12:07.130 --> 12:11.440 So remember when I showed you the Wason selection task, that 12:11.440 --> 12:16.740 funny thing which had an A, and an F, and a 4, and a 7, 12:16.740 --> 12:20.290 and I asked which card we had to turn over to determine 12:20.290 --> 12:23.820 whether it was true that if there's an A on one side, 12:23.820 --> 12:26.250 there's a 7 on the other. 12:26.250 --> 12:32.320 Doing that task was hard, but when I showed you that it was 12:32.320 --> 12:35.860 structurally identical to another task, the task of 12:35.860 --> 12:40.130 being shown four cards which had ages and alcoholic or 12:40.130 --> 12:43.460 nonalcoholic drinks, and I asked you, which cards do you 12:43.460 --> 12:47.260 need to turn over to verify the truth of, if somebody is 12:47.260 --> 12:51.560 drinking a beer, then she is over 21. 12:51.560 --> 12:55.380 All of a sudden, you were able to understand the difficult 12:55.380 --> 12:59.500 problem in light of the problem with respect which you 12:59.500 --> 13:01.840 had traction. 13:01.840 --> 13:06.980 Epictetus points out to us that we have a skill set for 13:06.980 --> 13:08.290 letting go. 13:08.290 --> 13:12.850 We have a skill set for psychological distancing. 13:12.850 --> 13:15.540 We have a skill set for saying, "Hah! 13:15.540 --> 13:18.530 Stuff happens, and it doesn't matter". 13:18.530 --> 13:21.360 And what he suggests we do, and again, I'll give an 13:21.360 --> 13:26.290 example of this, is to learn how to assimilate the things 13:26.290 --> 13:31.210 which we find hard to let go of to the things which we find 13:31.210 --> 13:36.720 easy to let go of, and thereby exploit this capacity that we 13:36.720 --> 13:41.260 have for metaphoric understanding. 13:41.260 --> 13:43.860 Finally in this category, Epictetus points out the 13:43.860 --> 13:46.720 importance of habituating yourself to the 13:46.720 --> 13:49.540 inevitability of loss. 13:49.540 --> 13:52.690 Here's some bad news for all of you. 13:52.690 --> 13:56.380 You're going to die. 13:56.380 --> 14:00.730 Shelly Kagan has an entire course about this, about 14:00.730 --> 14:04.050 coming to terms with this inevitable 14:04.050 --> 14:06.490 fact about human existence. 14:06.490 --> 14:11.860 But Epictetus suggests that by taking this on board 14:11.860 --> 14:18.030 profoundly, in a way affects you not just at the level of 14:18.030 --> 14:22.180 being able to utter the words, "I will die someday," but at 14:22.180 --> 14:26.670 the level of really habituating it to your 14:26.670 --> 14:28.780 relations to things. 14:28.780 --> 14:33.920 All of a sudden, things that seemed incredibly important 14:33.920 --> 14:37.640 loom less so. 14:37.635 --> 14:41.655 Finally, Epictetus points out the importance, if you're 14:41.660 --> 14:46.530 going to act in ways that run counter to the norms of your 14:46.530 --> 14:50.210 culture, the importance of realizing that you're going to 14:50.210 --> 14:53.360 get negative social feedback. 14:53.360 --> 14:58.210 So passage after passage describes the importance of 14:58.210 --> 15:00.390 resisting social pressure. 15:00.390 --> 15:02.950 When people say of you, "You aren't 15:02.950 --> 15:04.360 seeking honor and glory! 15:04.360 --> 15:08.380 You must be a loser!" Epictetus says, "Let them say 15:08.380 --> 15:14.110 so, and care not what they say about you." And as I point out 15:14.110 --> 15:17.160 here, there are almost fifteen passages that 15:17.160 --> 15:20.340 identify this strategy. 15:20.340 --> 15:23.990 Finally, Epictetus gives you a kind of trick, a persona that 15:23.990 --> 15:25.400 he wants you to cultivate. 15:25.400 --> 15:29.180 You're supposed to be a kind of silent type: people say 15:29.180 --> 15:33.340 stuff, and you just calmly don't respond. 15:33.340 --> 15:38.300 So this strategy that he's presenting to us has these 15:38.300 --> 15:39.880 three main parts. 15:39.880 --> 15:43.310 And what I want to do in the next bit of lecture is to run 15:43.310 --> 15:47.710 through some specific examples of this, looking first at 15:47.710 --> 15:52.140 Epictetus's text, quoting it directly, and then suggesting 15:52.140 --> 15:55.130 some contemporary analogues for what it is that Epictetus 15:55.130 --> 15:57.370 is talking about. 15:57.370 --> 16:01.800 So the opening paragraph of Epictetus's handbook is one of 16:01.800 --> 16:05.380 the most famous bits of philosophical writing in the 16:05.380 --> 16:07.560 Western tradition of the last 2000 years. 16:07.560 --> 16:09.410 It begins as follows. 16:09.410 --> 16:13.730 "Some things are up to us and some things are not up to us. 16:13.730 --> 16:19.270 Our opinions are up to us, and our impulses, our desires, our 16:19.270 --> 16:20.350 aversions-- 16:20.349 --> 16:24.599 in short, whatever is our own doing. 16:24.599 --> 16:28.609 But our bodies are not up to us, that is, the physical 16:28.609 --> 16:32.459 parts of ourselves, nor our possessions, our reputations, 16:32.460 --> 16:37.750 our public offices, whatever is not our own doing." 16:37.750 --> 16:40.260 Now he's going to go on and point out a 16:40.260 --> 16:42.520 mistake you can make. 16:42.520 --> 16:45.390 "The things that are up to us are by nature free, 16:45.390 --> 16:48.630 unhindered, and unimpeded, whereas the things that are 16:48.630 --> 16:51.790 not up to us are naturally enslaved, 16:51.790 --> 16:54.780 hindered, and not our own. 16:54.780 --> 16:58.270 But if you think that things that are naturally enslaved, 16:58.270 --> 17:02.970 things that are not up to you, are your own, if you think 17:02.970 --> 17:06.150 things naturally enslaved are free, or that things that are 17:06.150 --> 17:13.210 not your own are your own, you will be thwarted, miserable, 17:13.210 --> 17:17.830 upset..." and walking around blaming the world for 17:17.830 --> 17:21.700 everything that's going wrong with you. 17:21.700 --> 17:28.060 The mistake of confusing that over which you have control 17:28.060 --> 17:33.700 and that over which you lack control leads to thwarted, 17:33.700 --> 17:38.600 upset, miserable, blamingness. 17:38.600 --> 17:43.280 By contrast, keeping these categories straight brings the 17:43.280 --> 17:47.490 greatest prize: "If you think that only what is yours is 17:47.490 --> 17:52.660 yours, and that what is not your own is not your own, then 17:52.660 --> 17:56.990 no one will ever coerce you, no one will ever hinder you. 17:56.990 --> 17:58.250 You will blame no one. 17:58.250 --> 18:00.290 You will not accuse anyone. 18:00.290 --> 18:05.080 You will do not a single thing unwillingly..." because the 18:05.082 --> 18:10.572 only things over which you seek to have control are the 18:10.570 --> 18:14.380 things over which you do have control. 18:14.380 --> 18:18.180 And as a consequence, "no one can coerce you," because 18:18.180 --> 18:21.830 you're only concerned about the things that are up to you. 18:21.830 --> 18:26.250 "No one can hinder you," because nobody can get in the 18:26.250 --> 18:30.570 way of the things that are up to you. 18:30.570 --> 18:36.920 Now, any of you who has experience with a friend or 18:36.920 --> 18:43.270 relative or an acquaintance who has taken part in one of 18:43.270 --> 18:49.180 the many contemporary versions of Epictetus in the form of a 18:49.180 --> 18:54.960 self-help program knows that at the heart of the 18:54.960 --> 19:00.400 contemporary twelve step tradition lies a version of 19:00.395 --> 19:04.375 this Epictetan thought, articulated in prayer form, 19:04.380 --> 19:08.360 most likely first by Reinhold Niebuhr. 19:08.360 --> 19:13.140 And that is the serenity prayer, which you can find 19:13.140 --> 19:17.410 decorated with hummingbirds and daffodils-- 19:17.410 --> 19:20.470 "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot 19:20.470 --> 19:24.940 change, courage to change the things I can't, and wisdom to 19:24.940 --> 19:27.970 know the difference." If morning glories aren't your 19:27.970 --> 19:33.040 style, you can find it decorated with a dog. 19:33.040 --> 19:36.030 Or an angel. 19:36.030 --> 19:39.500 Or a young child. 19:39.500 --> 19:46.710 You can find it on a bowl, or, most strikingly, you can find 19:46.710 --> 19:54.700 it tattooed upon your arm, or your thigh, or your side. 19:54.700 --> 20:00.310 So clearly, there is something in the Epictetan picture that 20:00.310 --> 20:04.720 speaks to the contemporary mind. 20:04.720 --> 20:09.250 And speaks to it in a way that when I did a Google image 20:09.250 --> 20:15.250 search for "serenity prayer," I found thousands and 20:15.250 --> 20:20.330 thousands of images like this in any language 20:20.330 --> 20:23.640 you can think of. 20:23.640 --> 20:28.010 So this idea that we need to distinguish between things 20:28.010 --> 20:32.080 that we can change and things that we can't, and that an 20:32.080 --> 20:35.010 attitude of acceptance is what's appropriate towards 20:35.010 --> 20:39.380 things that we can't change, whereas an attitude of effort 20:39.380 --> 20:43.240 is what's appropriate towards things that we can, is a 20:43.240 --> 20:47.230 lesson that Epictetus has offered 20:47.230 --> 20:50.940 to the Western tradition. 20:50.942 --> 20:51.932 Second example. 20:51.930 --> 20:57.150 Epictetus talks to us about the importance of emotional 20:57.150 --> 21:01.910 regulation through anticipating what will happen 21:01.910 --> 21:05.110 to you in a particular setting. 21:05.110 --> 21:11.980 So he says, suppose you are going to go to the baths. 21:11.980 --> 21:14.790 When you are about to take some sort of action, he says, 21:14.790 --> 21:17.240 remind yourself what sort of action it is. 21:17.240 --> 21:18.650 "You're going to take a bath? 21:18.652 --> 21:21.432 Put before your mind what happens at baths! 21:21.430 --> 21:24.270 There are people who splash, there are people who jostle, 21:24.270 --> 21:26.350 there are people who are insulting." If you're going to 21:26.350 --> 21:28.920 go to the airport, remember, you're going to have to wait 21:28.920 --> 21:30.000 in a long line. 21:30.000 --> 21:32.070 If you're prepared for the fact that you're going to be 21:32.070 --> 21:35.760 sitting there, needing to wait for your ticket, you can 21:35.760 --> 21:38.440 adjust your emotions. 21:38.440 --> 21:42.630 "Say to yourself, I want to take a bath." I want to go to 21:42.630 --> 21:43.650 the airport. 21:43.650 --> 21:48.800 I want to walk across campus on the icy sidewalks. 21:48.800 --> 21:53.700 "I want to do so in a way that keeps my choices in accord 21:53.700 --> 21:59.170 with nature." If you appropriately expect things to 21:59.170 --> 22:04.100 be as they are, then you will not be frustrated. 22:04.100 --> 22:06.100 I want to walk across campus. 22:06.100 --> 22:07.690 It's an icy day. 22:07.690 --> 22:11.750 I realize that in walking across campus on an icy day, 22:11.750 --> 22:17.120 I'll need to slide my feet rather than lift them. 22:17.120 --> 22:23.110 That which had previously been an annoyance comes to be a 22:23.110 --> 22:28.980 fact about the world which is not up to me, and 22:28.980 --> 22:33.580 consequently, something which does not perturb 22:33.580 --> 22:38.010 my feeling of calm. 22:38.010 --> 22:43.630 Third thing Epictetus suggests we do is to recognize that 22:43.630 --> 22:49.850 what is upsetting to us are not things that happen, but 22:49.850 --> 22:54.960 rather our judgments about those things. 22:54.960 --> 22:58.540 And you recall when I showed you that image from the 22:58.540 --> 23:03.730 Metropolitan Museum of Socrates's death upon drinking 23:03.730 --> 23:11.430 the hemlock, and told you that a death done with nobility, 23:11.430 --> 23:17.790 recorded by a good PR agent--something true both of 23:17.790 --> 23:25.940 Socrates and of a carpenter from Nazareth--in such cases, 23:25.940 --> 23:33.950 one can serve as a touchstone for people's thought about how 23:33.950 --> 23:38.810 to deal with human life and its inevitabilities. 23:38.810 --> 23:42.270 So Epictetus says, what upsets people are not things, but 23:42.270 --> 23:43.860 their judgments about those things. 23:43.860 --> 23:49.300 For example, "death in itself," he says, "must be 23:49.300 --> 23:51.290 nothing dreadful. 23:51.290 --> 23:56.290 For if it were dreadful, then Socrates, the great wise one, 23:56.290 --> 24:01.120 would have felt it to be dreadful." What's scary about 24:01.120 --> 24:04.190 death, says Epictetus, is not death itself. 24:04.190 --> 24:09.280 What is dreadful about death is the judgment about death 24:09.280 --> 24:12.310 that it is dreadful. 24:12.310 --> 24:16.730 Nothing is harmful in itself. 24:16.730 --> 24:21.920 It's up to you whether you let it harm you. 24:21.920 --> 24:26.850 When you teach your children not to be upset by the 24:26.850 --> 24:31.510 thoughtless taunts of their classmates, what you point out 24:31.510 --> 24:34.790 to them is, what their classmates say about them 24:34.790 --> 24:38.220 can't hurt them unless it's emotionally 24:38.220 --> 24:40.790 disturbing to them. 24:40.790 --> 24:46.130 If you don't let it hurt you, it can't hurt you. 24:46.130 --> 24:50.160 And we find voice given to this-- here's Laurence Olivier 24:50.160 --> 24:51.470 playing Hamlet-- 24:51.470 --> 24:57.230 in the famous Rosencranz and Guildenstern scene of Hamlet, 24:57.230 --> 24:59.680 which I put up here for you, because I understand that 24:59.680 --> 25:02.260 there's a production of Hamlet happening in one of the 25:02.260 --> 25:04.720 colleges in a couple of weeks. 25:04.720 --> 25:09.070 So Hamlet is in conversation with these two emissaries, and 25:09.070 --> 25:15.070 complaining about what a rotten place Denmark is, and 25:15.070 --> 25:16.300 they disagree. 25:16.300 --> 25:21.010 They say, Denmark doesn't strike us as so bad, and 25:21.010 --> 25:26.860 famously, Hamlet says back, "Why then, 'tis none to you! 25:26.860 --> 25:31.330 For there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes 25:31.330 --> 25:32.720 it so." 25:32.720 --> 25:36.070 When you walk around the world, things 25:36.070 --> 25:38.790 have shape and sizes. 25:38.790 --> 25:42.420 This table is rectangular. 25:42.420 --> 25:45.340 These walls are white. 25:45.340 --> 25:47.540 The temperature is such and such. 25:47.540 --> 25:50.010 These are facts about the world. 25:50.010 --> 25:54.450 Things in the world don't have valences attached to them. 25:54.450 --> 26:01.100 It's not attached to an event that it is good or bad. 26:01.100 --> 26:05.150 It is your assessment of the event that 26:05.150 --> 26:07.880 gives it that valence. 26:07.880 --> 26:11.970 That's the third Epictetan point. 26:11.970 --> 26:14.800 Fourth point. 26:14.800 --> 26:18.470 Epictetus points out that there are two 26:18.470 --> 26:21.750 ways of having desires. 26:21.750 --> 26:25.730 One can, on the one hand, ask the world to conform to what 26:25.730 --> 26:30.320 you want, or one can ask what you want to 26:30.320 --> 26:32.910 conform to the world. 26:32.910 --> 26:34.970 Epictetus favors the second. 26:34.970 --> 26:38.050 "Do not want to have events happen to you as you want them 26:38.050 --> 26:46.220 to, but instead, want them to happen as they do happen, and 26:46.220 --> 26:47.950 your life will go well. 26:47.950 --> 26:51.200 Here's a way to get a 100% guarantee that you'll 26:51.200 --> 26:53.260 get what you want. 26:53.260 --> 26:56.970 Want what you get. 26:56.970 --> 27:02.370 If you want what you get, you will get what you want. 27:02.370 --> 27:07.430 So contemporary philosophy has a way of describing this. 27:07.430 --> 27:09.840 And one of the ways of thinking about it--they use 27:09.840 --> 27:13.220 this notion that they call direction of fit --is to think 27:13.220 --> 27:16.400 about what a shopping list is. 27:16.400 --> 27:19.530 So because I had some parchment left over from that 27:19.530 --> 27:23.180 contract that we signed with the devil a few weeks ago, I 27:23.180 --> 27:27.130 thought I'd use it for my shopping list. So here I am, 27:27.130 --> 27:30.110 unenlightened by Epictetus, and I write on my shopping 27:30.110 --> 27:33.560 like that I would like apples, broccoli, and lemons. 27:33.560 --> 27:37.480 And so I go to the store, and the fulfillment of my desire 27:37.480 --> 27:44.010 depends upon there being apples, broccoli, and lemon. 27:44.010 --> 27:49.750 You, enlightened by Epictetus, go to the store, look and see 27:49.750 --> 27:53.780 what's there, pull out your parchment paper, and make your 27:53.780 --> 27:57.890 list. Apples, broccoli, and lemons. 27:57.890 --> 28:01.730 So far there's no difference between us, even though your 28:01.730 --> 28:06.990 strategy was to shape your desire to fit the world, and 28:06.985 --> 28:09.865 my strategy was to try to shape the 28:09.870 --> 28:14.270 world to fit my desire. 28:14.270 --> 28:20.810 But what happens to us when the store is out of broccoli? 28:24.250 --> 28:29.000 I have on my list apples, broccoli, and lemons. 28:28.996 --> 28:32.216 But there is no broccoli. 28:32.220 --> 28:36.210 I'm set up for frustration. 28:36.210 --> 28:40.830 You, by contrast, conform your desires to the world. 28:40.830 --> 28:44.090 You want what you get. 28:44.090 --> 28:50.240 So you change your shopping list, and everything is fine. 28:50.244 --> 28:55.974 The Epictetan idea here is that if you shape your desires 28:55.970 --> 29:00.650 to the way things actually are, you will never be 29:00.650 --> 29:01.900 frustrated. 29:03.900 --> 29:05.530 Fourth suggestion. 29:05.530 --> 29:06.140 Fourth? 29:06.140 --> 29:07.080 Fifth? 29:07.080 --> 29:09.080 One of you must be keeping count. 29:09.080 --> 29:11.150 Proper perspective. 29:11.150 --> 29:16.890 So Epictetus offers this extraordinary analogy in 29:16.890 --> 29:18.700 paragraph seven. 29:18.700 --> 29:22.360 He says, "On a voyage when your boat has anchored, if you 29:22.360 --> 29:26.800 want to get fresh water, you may pick up a small shellfish 29:26.800 --> 29:29.530 and a vegetable by the way. 29:29.530 --> 29:33.160 But you must keep your mind fixed on the boat, and look 29:33.160 --> 29:36.590 around frequently, in case the captain calls. 29:36.590 --> 29:40.400 If he calls, you must let all those other things go, so you 29:40.400 --> 29:44.170 will not be tied up and on the ship like livestock." 29:44.170 --> 29:48.800 The idea is, sure, go around, enjoy stuff in the world, but 29:48.800 --> 29:51.700 don't let yourself get attached to it. 29:51.700 --> 29:56.650 When a major priority occurs, keep things in 29:56.650 --> 29:59.440 order in your mind. 29:59.440 --> 30:04.380 "But," he continues, "This is how it is in life." You know 30:04.380 --> 30:08.260 how to relate to shellfish and tomatoes. 30:08.260 --> 30:11.070 "This is how it is in life, too." I'm quoting again. 30:11.070 --> 30:16.910 "If you are given a wife and a child, instead of a vegetable 30:16.910 --> 30:22.820 and a small shellfish, that should not hinder you either. 30:22.820 --> 30:28.540 But if the captain calls, let all things go and run to the 30:28.540 --> 30:34.030 boat without turning back." Take the strategies that you 30:34.030 --> 30:38.100 have available for you for dealing with things whose 30:38.100 --> 30:43.360 transience you recognize, and adopt those attitudes towards 30:43.360 --> 30:49.160 things who's transience is painful to you. 30:49.160 --> 30:52.620 "When your jug breaks," he says, "you say: That is but a 30:52.620 --> 30:54.050 broken jug. 30:54.050 --> 31:01.770 When your child is lost, say: That is but a lost child." 31:01.770 --> 31:07.300 This is the logical consequence of the outlook 31:07.300 --> 31:13.170 that I've been presenting to you from Epictetus. 31:13.170 --> 31:17.970 It sounded really good when it was the serenity prayer. 31:17.970 --> 31:22.540 It sounded pretty good at the grocery store. 31:22.540 --> 31:28.620 It sounds pretty disturbing when it's the wife and child. 31:28.620 --> 31:31.310 What is it that's going on? 31:34.290 --> 31:39.850 I leave that for you as a question, and turn now to the 31:39.850 --> 31:47.040 second text that we read for today, a great work composed 31:47.040 --> 31:52.910 in the sixth century, in around 524, by somebody whose 31:52.910 --> 31:57.230 life trajectory went almost invertedly to the way that 31:57.230 --> 31:58.870 Epictetus's did. 31:58.865 --> 32:03.745 Epictetus, you'll recall, was born a slave, and tried to 32:03.750 --> 32:08.300 make sense of his life experience of suffering once 32:08.300 --> 32:10.470 he became free. 32:10.470 --> 32:17.520 Boethius, by contrast, was born into a noble family, was 32:17.520 --> 32:20.580 enormously successful politically in his early 32:20.580 --> 32:25.830 years, had two sons who went on to be enormously successful 32:25.830 --> 32:27.930 political figures. 32:27.930 --> 32:36.460 And in his later years, was imprisoned for treason. 32:36.460 --> 32:41.060 And because The Consolation of Philosophy was one of the most 32:41.060 --> 32:45.890 widely read and reproduced works of its era-- 32:45.890 --> 32:49.020 it was read for centuries and centuries by almost everyone-- 32:49.020 --> 32:52.360 we have gorgeous illuminated manuscripts 32:52.360 --> 32:55.560 that show us the story. 32:55.560 --> 33:00.530 So in this one, here's Boethius beforehand, teaching 33:00.530 --> 33:07.030 people, and here he is afterwards, locked up in jail. 33:07.030 --> 33:15.380 Now in jail, in prison, where he is tortured and suffering, 33:15.380 --> 33:22.250 Boethius consoles himself by engaging in an imaginary 33:22.250 --> 33:27.290 conversation with a figure that he calls Philosophy. 33:27.290 --> 33:33.660 So here is Philosophy, come to visit Boethius in his prison. 33:33.659 --> 33:41.829 And what Philosophy says to him is, in many ways, like 33:41.830 --> 33:44.920 what Epictetus was talking about. 33:44.920 --> 33:51.230 There is, she says, a wheel of fortune. 33:51.230 --> 33:55.420 Sometimes things start off badly and get better. 33:55.420 --> 33:59.950 Sometimes things start off better and get bad. 33:59.949 --> 34:06.049 But there will inevitably be a circle to what comes to you 34:06.050 --> 34:10.810 and to what is taken from you. 34:10.810 --> 34:19.760 And recognizing that there is nothing to be done, other than 34:19.760 --> 34:25.940 to recognize that this is the pattern that life takes, is, 34:25.940 --> 34:31.470 to Boethius, enormously liberating. 34:31.470 --> 34:36.300 Recognizing that what goes along with having things is 34:36.300 --> 34:42.110 the possibility of losing them allows him to come to terms 34:42.110 --> 34:47.910 with the experience of having lost all that 34:47.910 --> 34:51.250 he previously had. 34:51.250 --> 34:56.610 What I want to do in the final section of the lecture is to 34:56.610 --> 35:01.680 return to a theme that we discussed previously, the 35:01.680 --> 35:06.190 question of what philosophical utility there is to these 35:06.190 --> 35:11.190 works during times of extreme duress. 35:11.190 --> 35:16.680 So my hope, because you read an essay by him, is that even 35:16.680 --> 35:19.310 if you don't recognize this gentleman, you can 35:19.310 --> 35:20.650 guess who he is. 35:20.650 --> 35:25.390 This is Admiral James Stockdale, who was, among 35:25.390 --> 35:31.780 other things, imprisoned alongside John McCain in Hanoi 35:31.780 --> 35:35.610 during the Vietnam War, and who was also the Vice 35:35.610 --> 35:40.110 Presidential candidate running on the independent ticket, I 35:40.110 --> 35:44.110 understand, before you were born. 35:44.110 --> 35:48.450 So James Stockdale, as he explains to you in the 35:48.450 --> 35:54.340 incredibly moving memoir that we read for today, studied the 35:54.340 --> 35:57.140 works of the classical tradition. 35:57.140 --> 35:58.410 He read Epictetus. 35:58.410 --> 36:00.900 He read a bunch of the other Stoics. 36:00.900 --> 36:02.230 He read the Iliad. 36:02.230 --> 36:03.730 He read the Odyssey. 36:03.730 --> 36:08.960 And all of these were part of his cognitive and emotional 36:08.960 --> 36:12.440 repertoire when, in Vietnam, the following 36:12.440 --> 36:14.490 thing happened to him. 36:14.490 --> 36:19.610 "It was September 9, 1965." I'm reading now from his book. 36:19.610 --> 36:24.180 "I flew at 500 knots right into a flak trap at treetop 36:24.180 --> 36:28.230 level in a little A4 airplane, the cockpit walls not even 36:28.230 --> 36:30.630 three feet apart, which I couldn't steer 36:30.630 --> 36:31.770 after it was on fire. 36:31.770 --> 36:34.390 Its control system shot out. 36:34.390 --> 36:37.590 After ejection, I had thirty seconds to make my last 36:37.590 --> 36:41.020 statement of freedom before I landed in the main street of a 36:41.020 --> 36:44.820 little village right ahead, and so help me, I whispered to 36:44.820 --> 36:47.700 myself, 'Five years down here. 36:47.700 --> 36:52.510 At least I'm leaving the world of technology, and entering 36:52.510 --> 36:56.430 the world of Epictetus.' 36:56.430 --> 37:00.970 "Ready at hand," he said, now quoting from The Handbook, 37:00.970 --> 37:05.980 "Ready at hand from the Enchiridion, The Handbook, as 37:05.980 --> 37:10.610 I ejected from that airplane," was that opening paragraph 37:10.610 --> 37:13.180 that we read a few moments ago. 37:13.180 --> 37:17.030 "The understanding that a Stoic always keeps separate 37:17.030 --> 37:21.120 files in his mind for A, those things that are up to him, and 37:21.120 --> 37:23.530 B, those things that are not up to him. 37:23.530 --> 37:26.460 Another way of saying this," says Stockdale, "is those 37:26.460 --> 37:29.740 things that are within his power, and those things that 37:29.740 --> 37:31.630 are beyond his power. 37:31.630 --> 37:33.430 Still another way of saying it. 37:33.430 --> 37:37.040 Those things that are within the grasp of his free will, 37:37.040 --> 37:41.040 and those that lie beyond it." 37:41.040 --> 37:45.280 All of the things over which you do not have control, 37:45.280 --> 37:50.370 which, in the contact of tortured imprisonment, are a 37:50.370 --> 37:56.310 huge number, are external. 37:56.310 --> 38:02.280 And, says Stockdale, it will doom me to fear and anxiety if 38:02.280 --> 38:04.340 I covet them. 38:04.340 --> 38:09.040 I need to let go of the thought that 38:09.040 --> 38:11.990 those things will change. 38:11.990 --> 38:16.290 However--and this is crucial--everything in 38:16.290 --> 38:19.160 category A is up to me. 38:19.160 --> 38:23.890 Within my power, within my will, and those are the things 38:23.890 --> 38:27.340 that are properly subject for my total concern and 38:27.340 --> 38:29.060 involvement. 38:29.060 --> 38:32.750 These matters include my opinions, my aims, my 38:32.750 --> 38:37.730 aversions, my grief, my joy, my judgments, my attitude 38:37.730 --> 38:41.250 about what is going on, my own good, my own evil. 38:41.250 --> 38:45.410 "My internal character," says Stockdale, "in circumstances 38:45.410 --> 38:49.250 which are almost unimaginably difficult. 38:49.250 --> 38:56.320 My character and my response to those things are up to me." 38:56.320 --> 39:05.400 And he goes on to describe the experience of torture using a 39:05.400 --> 39:07.760 trope that we've seen repeatedly in 39:07.760 --> 39:09.820 the texts we've read. 39:09.820 --> 39:16.380 He says, "When tortured, and released from the torture, 39:16.380 --> 39:21.330 what we contemplated was that we had engaged in a certain 39:21.330 --> 39:25.590 sort of betrayal of ourselves and what we stood for. 39:25.590 --> 39:29.430 It was there that I learned what Stoic harm"-- 39:29.430 --> 39:32.780 echoes of the moral harm that we talked about when we 39:32.780 --> 39:35.050 discussed the Jonathan Shay work-- 39:35.050 --> 39:38.930 "a shoulder broken, a bone in my back broken, a leg broken 39:38.930 --> 39:43.340 twice, were peanuts in comparison." 39:43.340 --> 39:47.310 Epictetus: "Look not for any greater harm than this 39:47.310 --> 39:52.700 destroying the trustworthy, self-respecting, well-behaved 39:52.700 --> 40:01.160 man inside you." Situations of extremity that force people to 40:01.160 --> 40:05.500 discover in themselves aspects of what they are capable that 40:05.500 --> 40:11.570 they don't wish to see, are what is most harmful. 40:11.570 --> 40:15.870 When Plato says, "It will do you no good to gain gold by 40:15.870 --> 40:18.560 selling or enslaving your daughter. 40:18.560 --> 40:21.700 Why, then, gain gold by selling or enslaving your 40:21.700 --> 40:27.090 soul?", he's expressing the thought that we hear here. 40:27.090 --> 40:32.820 When we read in the discussions of Jonathan Shay 40:32.820 --> 40:38.250 about the experience of feeling that one has betrayed 40:38.250 --> 40:40.490 what one stood for-- 40:40.490 --> 40:44.350 that is what led to a feeling of moral harm. 40:44.350 --> 40:48.700 And when Milgram's subjects found themselves doing things 40:48.700 --> 40:53.950 that they felt repulsive to them, they shivered, they 40:53.950 --> 40:58.810 shook, they felt a disorder in their soul. 40:58.810 --> 41:04.710 Here, again, is an answer to Glaucon's challenge. 41:04.710 --> 41:09.480 But notice that though Stockdale is taking on board 41:09.480 --> 41:14.850 much of the Epictetan picture, he's rejecting the bit about 41:14.850 --> 41:18.030 the tomato and the wife. 41:18.030 --> 41:24.600 That is, he rejects in Epictetus the idea that social 41:24.600 --> 41:28.520 relations aren't important. 41:28.520 --> 41:31.490 In the paragraph following the one that I just read to you, 41:31.490 --> 41:34.190 he writes as follows. 41:34.190 --> 41:37.130 "When people are released from solitary confinement, when put 41:37.130 --> 41:40.810 back in a regular cell block, hardly an Americans came out 41:40.810 --> 41:43.190 of that experience without responding something like 41:43.190 --> 41:46.240 this, when first whispered to by a fellow prisoner next 41:46.240 --> 41:48.610 door. 'You don't want to talk to me. 41:48.610 --> 41:56.310 I am a traitor.' But," says Stockdale, doing this sort of 41:56.310 --> 42:00.730 listening whose importance Shay emphasized in our reading 42:00.730 --> 42:07.850 for last week, "But because we were equally fragile, it 42:07.850 --> 42:12.480 seemed to catch on that we all replied something like this. 42:12.480 --> 42:13.920 'Listen, pal. 42:13.920 --> 42:15.930 There are no virgins here. 42:15.930 --> 42:18.880 You should have heard the kind of statement I made. 42:18.880 --> 42:19.870 Snap out of it. 42:19.870 --> 42:21.820 We're all in it together. 42:21.820 --> 42:23.650 What's your name? 42:23.650 --> 42:26.550 Tell me about yourself.'" 42:26.550 --> 42:31.570 To hear that last, to hear that you are accepted and that 42:31.570 --> 42:35.590 there are others around you willing to listen to the 42:35.590 --> 42:39.950 experience which you found painful, was for, I'm now 42:39.950 --> 42:42.550 quoting again, "most new prisoners just out of initial 42:42.550 --> 42:49.080 shakedown and cold soak, a turning point in their lives." 42:49.080 --> 42:53.980 So the question that Stockdale's text raises for us 42:53.975 --> 42:58.885 is the question of whether it is possible for us to take on 42:58.890 --> 43:02.690 board some of the Epictetan picture without 43:02.690 --> 43:04.620 taking on all of it. 43:04.620 --> 43:08.660 Is it possible to regulate our desires so that we don't 43:08.660 --> 43:12.770 expect more from the world that it's possible to get, but 43:12.765 --> 43:16.875 to do so in such a way that we don't thereby lose the 43:16.880 --> 43:20.330 possibilities for the most profound types of human 43:20.330 --> 43:22.120 connectedness? 43:22.120 --> 43:25.270 To that, I don't know the answer, but I think it's worth 43:25.270 --> 43:28.090 thinking about as a question. 43:28.090 --> 43:37.150 I look forward to seeing many of you at 2:30 this afternoon. 43:37.150 --> 43:38.400 Are there questions? 43:44.440 --> 43:45.690 We have a minute.