Epictetus, Discourses 1.20.2

Again, sagacity has been given us. To take cognizance of what? Things good and bad and indifferent.

 

What is it then itself?

 

Good.

 

And what is folly?

 

Bad. 

 

Do you see then that of necessity sagacity has the power of taking cognizance of itself and its opposite? Therefore, the primary and highest task of the philosopher is to test impressions and distinguish them and to make use of none which is untested. 

 

Consider how we have invented an art to test the currency, in which we are admitted to have some interest. Look how many means the assayer uses to test the coin—sight, touch, smell, finally hearing: he breaks the penny and attends to the sound, and is not content with hearing its note once, but by much attention gets an ear for music. 

—from Epictetus, Discourses 1.20

 

Where only instinct is present in a living being, all action will proceed from impulse without reflection. But where mind is joined to passion, impressions are subject to judgments, such that how I feel is relative to how I understand.

 

It shouldn’t be so cryptic that a rational animal is naturally ordered by its thoughts, yet we too often permit ourselves to be swept away by emotion loosed from awareness and choice, ironically deciding that we do not have the power to decide. 

 

The very standards of the true and the good are functions of judgment; whenever I say something “feels good” I am already employing a conscious measure of the beneficial as distinct from the harmful, however lazily I may be doing so. Advancing the thinking is precisely what gives greater meaning and value to the feeling. 

 

It isn’t just that wisdom may eventually lead to some later advantage, but rather that wisdom is itself the greatest good of human nature, that by which everything else acquires purpose for us.  

 

By extension, it isn’t just that ignorance may eventually cause some later injury, but rather that ignorance is itself the greatest evil of human nature, that by which everything else is deprived of purpose for us. 

 

All my perceptions of right and wrong arise out of my ability to be aware of myself, to know my own nature and only thereby to work in harmony with the whole of Nature. 

 

How often the Stoics, or any insightful philosophers, will encourage us to look within, to ponder our own essence, to meditate upon who we are and where we are intended to go! They do so for good reason, since all other endeavors must center around such self-consciousness. 

 

And what a remarkable faculty it is that permits us to learn more deeply about ourselves on the inside as we simultaneously reach out further on the outside! The active mind is so much more subtle and encompassing than any passive matter—it not only moves of itself, but also embraces and contains itself. 

 

Given the current fashion for skepticism and relativism, I may well be wasting my time, but I still insist on beginning any introductory class in philosophy with Plato’s Meno: it seems to me an ideal model for both sound method and substantial content. 

 

Can virtue be taught? We must first know what virtue is. After much back and forth, half the fun of the dialectic, Socrates offers the following account of virtue:

 

Soc. If then virtue is a quality of the soul, and is admitted to be profitable, it must be wisdom or prudence, since none of the things of the soul are either profitable or hurtful in themselves, but they are all made profitable or hurtful by the addition of wisdom or of folly; and therefore if virtue is profitable, virtue must be a sort of wisdom or prudence?

 

Men. I quite agree.

 

Soc. And the other goods, such as wealth and the like, of which we were just now saying that they are sometimes good and sometimes evil, do not they also become profitable or hurtful, accordingly as the soul guides and uses them rightly or wrongly; just as the things of the soul herself are benefited when under the guidance of wisdom and harmed by folly? 

 

Men. True.

 

Soc. And the wise soul guides them rightly, and the foolish soul wrongly.

 

Men. Yes.

 

Soc. And is not this universally true of human nature? All other things hang upon the soul, and the things of the soul herself hang upon wisdom, if they are to be good; and so wisdom is inferred to be that which profits—and virtue, as we say, is profitable?

 

Men. Certainly. 

 

The Stoic is only following through on what Socrates, the grandfather of Stoicism, had taught him. Know yourself, and the rest falls into place. Be ignorant of yourself, and you’re in for a world of grief. 

 

Law enforcement exerts tremendous efforts to intercept counterfeit currency, and my bank seems to demand a new layer of identity verification every time I try to access my account. 

 

If only we put as much work into confirming our moral worth, we might not need so much policing from the outside—character flows from the inside. 

—Reflection written in 2/2001 

IMAGE: Jusepe de Ribera, An Allegory of Wisdom and Ignorance (1640)