Discourses and Selected Writings

Founded by Diogenes in the fourth century BCE, Cynicism was one of the major philosophical schools of ancient Greece and Rome. They believed in detachment from material possessions, permanent social ties, and social conventions and lived as wandering beggars. While similar in some respects to Epictetus’s Stoic philosophy, Epictetus discourages his students from becoming Cynics, especially because he claimed that the Cynics of his day no longer lived up to the ideals of Diogenes.

In logic, an enthymeme is a syllogism (logical argument) that has a premise that is not immediately evident. Like syllogisms in general, Epictetus suggests that students of philosophy become adept at using them in order to support the fundamental beliefs of their philosophy, even to themselves.

Externals are any circumstance, object, authority, or person that people either desire or that causes anxiety, despair, and fear. The purpose of Epictetus’s philosophical training is to be able to overcome the emotions provoked by externals through training people to remember that all externals are outside their control.

Key to Epictetus’s understanding of philosophy, impressions are how people interpret events, other people, and the world around them. Learning how to control our impressions and make them rational and align with natural law is how Epictetus’s philosophy is applied.

Devised by the Greek philosopher Diodorus Cronus sometime in the late third/early fourth century BCE, the Master Argument was a logical paradox based on the proposition that if every past event is necessary and a possibility cannot result in an impossibility, then something is possible which is neither true nor ever will be true. Epictetus holds the Master Argument up as an example of the frivolous uses of philosophy.

Named for the philosopher Socrates, the Socratic method is an educational or debate method where at least two individuals try to come to conclusions by asking and answering a series of questions. Epictetus often uses the Socratic method throughout the Discourses and occasionally in the Enchiridion.

An important school of philosophy and the most popular one among the elite of the Roman Empire, Stoicism was the school to which Epictetus belonged. Stoicism taught that the only way to achieve lasting happiness is through self-control of emotions and desires.