Episodi
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“When an official came to see him, Epictetus, after making some special enquiries about other matters, asked him if he had children and a wife, and when the other replied that he had, Epictetus asked the further question, What, then, is your experience with marriage? — Wretched, he said. — To which Epictetus, How so? For men do not marry and beget children just for this surely, to be wretched, but rather to be happy. — And yet, as for me, the other replied, I feel so wretched about the little children, that recently when my little daughter was sick and was thought to be in danger, I could not bear even to stay by her sick bed, but I up and ran away, until someone brought me word that she was well again. — What then, do you feel that you were acting right in doing this? — I was acting naturally, he said. …
This is the way, said the man, all, or at least most, of us fathers feel. — And I do not contradict you either, answered Epictetus, and say that it is not done, but the point at issue between us is the other, whether it is rightly done.”
(Discourses, 1.11)
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“If we philosophers had applied ourselves to our own work as zealously as the old men at Rome have applied themselves to the matters on which they have set their hearts, perhaps we too should be accomplishing something. I know a man older than myself who is now in charge of the grain supply at Rome. When he passed this place on his way back from exile, I recall what a tale he told as he inveighed against his former life and announced for the future that, when he had returned to Rome, he would devote himself solely to spending the remainder of his life in peace and quiet, ‘For how little is yet left to me!’ — And I told him, ‘You will not do it, but when once you have caught no more than a whiff of Rome you will forget all this.’ …
Well, now, what did he do? Before he reached Rome, letters from Caesar met him; and as soon as he received them, he forgot all those resolutions of his, and ever since he has been piling up one property after another. I wish I could stand by his side now and remind him of the words that he uttered as he passed by here, and remark, ‘How much more clever a prophet I am than you.’”
(Discourses, 1.10)
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Episodi mancanti?
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“If what is said by the philosophers regarding the kinship of Nature and people be true, what other course remains for us but that which Socrates took when asked to what country he belonged, never to say ‘I am an Athenian,’ or ‘I am a Corinthian,’ but ‘I am a citizen of the universe’? For why do you say that you are an Athenian, instead of mentioning merely that corner into which your paltry body was cast at birth? …
As soon as you have had your fill to-day, you sit lamenting about the morrow, by which means you shall be fed. Man, if you get it, you will have it; if you do not get it, you will depart; the door stands open. Why grieve? Where is there yet room for tears? What occasion for flattery? Why shall one person envy another? Why shall we admire those who have great possessions, or those who are stationed in places of power, especially if they be prone to anger? For what will they do to us? …
How did Socrates feel with regard to these matters? … ‘If you tell me now,’ says he, ‘We will acquit you on these conditions, namely, that you will no longer engage in these discussions which you have conducted hitherto, nor trouble either the young or the old among us,’ I will answer, ‘You make yourselves ridiculous.’ …
We, however, think of ourselves as though we were mere bellies, entrails, and genitals, just because we have fear, because we have appetite, and we flatter those who have power to help us in these matters, and these same people we fear.”
(Discourses, 1.9)
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“Was not Plato a philosopher? Yes, and was not Hippocrates a physician? But you see how eloquently Hippocrates expresses himself. Does Hippocrates, then, express himself so eloquently by virtue of his being a physician?
Why, then, do you confuse things that for no particular reason have been combined in the same man? Now if Plato was handsome and strong, ought I to sit down and strive to become handsome, or become strong, on the assumption that this is necessary for philosophy, because a certain philosopher was at the same time both handsome and a philosopher?
Are you not willing to observe and distinguish just what that is by virtue of which men become philosophers, and what qualities pertain to them for no particular reason?
Come now, if I were a philosopher, ought you to become lame like me? What then? Am I depriving you of these faculties? Far be it from me! No more than I am depriving you of the faculty of sight.
Yet, if you enquire of me what is humanity’s good, I can give you no other answer than that it is a kind of moral purpose.”
(Discourses, 1.8)
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“Most people are unaware that the handling of arguments which involve equivocal and hypothetical premisses, and, further, of those which derive syllogisms by the process of interrogation, and, in general, the handling of all such arguments, has a bearing upon the duties of life. For our aim in every matter of inquiry is to learn how the good and excellent person may find the appropriate course through it and the appropriate way of conducting themselves in it. …
For what is the professed object of reasoning? To state the true, to eliminate the false, to suspend judgement in doubtful cases. …
[Therefore] one must learn in what way a thing follows as a consequence upon certain other things. …
There has consequently arisen among us, and shown itself to be necessary, a science which deals with inferential arguments and with logical figures and trains people therein. …
Why are we still indolent and easy-going and sluggish, seeking excuses whereby we may avoid toiling or even late hours, as we try to perfect our own reason? — If, then, I err in these matters, I have not murdered my own father, have I? — Slave, pray where was there in this case a father for you to murder? What, then, have you done, you ask? You have committed what was the only possible error in the matter. Indeed this is the very remark I made to Rufus when he censured me for not discovering the one omission in a certain syllogism. ‘Well,’ said I, ‘it isn’t as bad as if I had burned down the Capitol.’ But he answered, ‘Slave, the omission here is the Capitol.’”
(Discourses, 1.7)
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“‘Shall we assume, then, that … the bad is akin to the bad; the good to the good; and what is neither good nor bad to what is neither good nor bad?’
They said they thought it was so: each was akin to its counterpart.
‘In that case, boys,’ I said, ‘haven’t we fallen back into those first statements of ours about friendship, which we rejected, since one unjust man will be a friend to another unjust man, a bad man to another bad man, no less than one good man to another good man?’
‘It would appear so,’ they said. …
‘Then I don’t know what more to say.’
With that I was intending to provoke another of the older men into speaking. Just then, like evil spirits, Lysis’s and Menexenus’s tutors came over with the boys’ brothers, called to them, and told them to come home; it was already late. …
However, I did say, just as they were leaving, ‘Lysis and Menexenus, we’ve now made utter fools of ourselves, an old man like me and you, since these people will go away and say that we think that we’re friends of one another – for I consider myself one of your number – though we were not as yet able to find out precisely what a friend is.’”
(Lysis, 222c-223b)
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“‘All right then,’ I said. ‘Now that we’ve got as far as this, boys, let’s be careful not to be deceived.’ …
‘Let’s consider the following case: medicine, we say, is a friend for the sake of health.’
‘Yes.’
‘Is health a friend too, then?’
‘Of course.’
‘If it is a friend, it is so for the sake of something.’
‘Yes.’
‘And that something is a friend, if it is to be consistent with what we admitted earlier.’
‘Of course.’
‘And that too, in its turn, will be a friend for the sake of a friend?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well then, aren’t we bound to get tired going on like that and give up, or else arrive at some point of origin which will not refer us to yet another friend, but which will constitute the first thing that is a friend, for the sake of which we say that all the others too are friends?’
‘We are.’ …
“Admittedly, we do often say that we value gold and silver highly, but that hardly comes any nearer the truth. What we value most highly is that thing (whatever it may reveal itself as being) for the sake of which both gold and everything else that is procured are procured. Shall we settle for that?’
‘Of course.’”
(Lysis, 219c-220a)
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“‘That’s why we’d say that those who are already wise, whether they are gods or men, no longer love wisdom, and that those who are so ignorant that they are bad do not love wisdom either, because no bad or stupid man loves wisdom.
So, we’re left with those who possess that bad thing, ignorance, but have not yet been rendered foolish or stupid by it, in that they still believe they don’t know what they don’t know.
Consequently those who are still neither good nor bad do, in fact, love wisdom; whereas all those who are bad, as well as all those who are good, do not, because, as we decided earlier in our discussion, neither is opposite the friend of opposite, nor like of like. Don’t your remember?’
‘Of course,’ they said.
‘So now, Lysis and Menexenus,’ I said, ‘we’ve done it! We’ve discovered what a friend is and what it is not. We say that in the soul, in the body and anywhere else, it is what is neither bad nor good that is the friend of the good because of the presence of bad.’
The two of them agreed wholeheartedly, admitting that it was so.”
(Lysis, 218a-218c)
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“‘Have you come across the writings of our wisest men, which say that like must always be friend to like? These are, of course, the men who discuss and write about nature and the universe.’
‘That’s true,’ he said.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘are they right?’
‘Possibly,’ he replied. …
[But] ‘We think that the closer one wicked man gets to another wicked man and the more he associates with him, the more he becomes hated by him, because he wrongs him; and it is, of course, impossible for wronger and wronged to be friends, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ he replied. …
‘Well then, in my opinion, Lysis, this is what people mean when they say, in their cryptic way, that like is friend to like: friendship exists only between good men, whereas the bad man never achieves true friendship with either a good or a bad man. Do you agree?’
He nodded assent.”
(Lysis, 214b-214d)
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“The justice that seeks nature’s goal is a utilitarian pledge of men not to harm each other or be harmed.
Nothing is either just or unjust in the eyes of those animals that have been unable to make agreements not to harm each other or be harmed. …
Justice was never an entity in itself. It is a kind of agreement not to harm or be harmed.
It is impossible for a person who underhandedly breaks the agreement not to harm or be harmed to feel sure that he will escape punishment, even though he manages to do so time after time; for up to the very end of his life he cannot be sure that he will actually escape.
In its general meaning, justice is the same for all because of its utility in the relations of men to each other, but in its specific application to countries and various other circumstances it does not follow that the same thing is just for all.
If somebody lays down a law and it does not prove to be of advantage in human relations, then such a law no longer has the true character of justice.”
(Leading Doctrines, 31-38)
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“Of all the things that wisdom provides for the happiness of the whole man, by far the most important is the acquisition of friendship.
It is the same judgment that has made us feel confident that nothing fearful is of long duration or everlasting, and that has seen personal security during our limited span of life most nearly perfected by friendship.”
(Leading Doctrines, 27-28)
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“It is necessary to take into account both the actual goal of life and the whole body of clear and distinct perceptions to which we refer our judgments. If we fail to do this, everything will be in disorder and confusion.
If you reject all sensations, you will not have any point of reference by which to judge even the ones you claim are false. …
If at any time you fail to refer each of your acts to nature’s standard, and turn off instead in some other direction when making a choice to avoid or pursue, your actions will not be consistent with your creed.”
(Leading Doctrines, 22-25)
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“Bodily pleasure is not enlarged once the pains brought on by need have been done away with; it is only diversified. And the limit of mental pleasure is established by rational reflection on pleasures themselves and those kindred emotions that once instilled extreme fear in human minds.
Infinite time contains no greater pleasure than does finite time, if one determines the limits of pleasure rationally. …
One who understands the limits of the good life knows that what eliminates the pains brought on by need and what makes the whole of life perfect is easily obtained, so that there is no need for enterprises that entail the struggle for success.”
(Leading Doctrines, 18-21)
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“The pleasure or pain that accompanies someone’s deeds ought to be taken as a sign of his characteristics: he who abstains from bodily pleasures and enjoys this very abstention is moderate, but he who is vexed in doing so is licentious; he who endures terrifying things and enjoys doing so, or at any rate is not pained by it, is courageous, but he who is pained thereby is a coward. …
For moral virtue is concerned with pleasures and pains: it is on account of the pleasure involved that we do base things, and it is on account of the pain that we abstain from noble ones. Thus one must be brought up in a certain way straight from childhood, as Plato asserts, so as to enjoy as well as to be pained by what one ought, for this is correct education. …
That [virtue and vice] are concerned with the same things might become manifest to us also from these considerations: there being three objects of choice and three of avoidance—the noble, the advantageous, and the pleasant together with their three contraries, the shameful, the harmful, and the painful—in all these the good person is apt to be correct, the bad person to err, but especially as regards pleasure.”
(Nicomachean Ethics, 2.3)
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“Ever since I was a boy I’ve always desired to acquire a certain thing. You know how different people desire different things: for example one man desires to acquire horses; another, to acquire dogs; another, gold; another, honors. I’m quite indifferent to those things, but I do passionately love acquiring friends. I’d rather get a good friend than the best quail or cock in the world. …
When I see you two, you and Lysis, I’m amazed, and think you must be very happy because, though you are so young, you’ve been able to acquire that possession quickly and easily: you’ve acquired Lysis as a friend so quickly and firmly; and he, you. Whereas I’m so far from acquiring one that I don’t even know how one man becomes the friend of another. That’s what I want to ask you about, in view of your experience.
Tell me, when a man loves someone, which is the friend of which? Is it the one who loves who is the friend of the one who is loved? Or is it the one who is loved who is the friend of the one who loves? Or is there no difference?
[After a spirited back and forth, Socrates concludes:]
Then, Menexenus, it would appear that what is loved is dear to what loves it whether it loves what loves it or whether it actually hates it. For example, some newly born children do not yet love, while others actually hate their mother or father when they are punished by them. None the less they are most dear to their parents at the time they actually hate them. …
That will mean, then, that we must allow exactly what we allowed earlier in our discussion, that a man is often the friend of what is not his friend, and often of what is actually his enemy, when he either loves what doesn’t love him, or loves what actually hates him; and that a man is often the enemy of what is not his enemy, or of what is actually his friend, when he either hates what does not hate him, or hates what actually loves him. …
‘Heavens, Socrates,’ he said, ‘I don’t know what to say.’
Can it be that we were not conducting our investigation properly at all, Menexenus?, I asked.”
(Lysis, 211d-213d)
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“The simplest means of procuring protection from other men (which is gained to a certain extent by deterrent force) is the security of quiet solitude and withdrawal from the mass of people. …
Nature’s wealth is restricted and easily won, while that of empty convention runs on to infinity. …
Bad luck strikes the sophisticated man in a few cases, but reason has directed the big, essential things, and for the duration of life it is and will be the guide.”
(Leading Doctrines, 14, 15, and 16)
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“Who is it, then, that has fitted this to that and that to this? And who is it that has fitted the sword to the scabbard, and the scabbard to the sword? No one? Assuredly from the very structure of all made objects we are accustomed to prove that the work is certainly the product of some artificer, and has not been constructed at random. …
And the male and the female, and the passion of each for intercourse with the other, and the faculty which makes use of the organs which have been constructed for this purpose, do these things not reveal their artificer either? …
Else let them explain to us what it is that produces each of these results, or how it is possible that objects so wonderful and so workmanlike should come into being at random and spontaneously.”
(Discourses, 1.6)
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“This is the effect of philosophy, which is the medicine of our souls: it banishes all groundless apprehensions, frees us from desires, and drives away fears: but it has not the same influence over all people; it is of very great influence when it falls in with a disposition well adapted to it. …
For how few philosophers will you meet with, whose life and manners are conformable to the dictates of reason! who look on their profession, not as a means of displaying their learning, but as a rule for their own practice! who follow their own precepts, and comply with their own decrees. …
For just as if one who professed to teach grammar should speak with impropriety, or a master of music sing out of tune, such conduct has the worst appearance in these people, because they blunder in the very particular with which they profess that they are well acquainted. So philosophers who err in the conduct of their life are the more infamous because they are erring in the very thing which they pretend to teach, and, while they lay down rules to regulate life by, they are irregular in their own life.”
(Tusculan Disputations, 2.4)
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“Now, since the present subject is taken up, not for the sake of contemplation, as are others—for we are conducting an examination, not so that we may know what virtue is, but so that we may become good, since otherwise there would be no benefit from it—it is necessary to examine matters pertaining to actions, that is, how one ought to perform them. For these actions have authoritative control over what sorts of characteristics come into being, just as we have said. …
This, then, is the first thing that must be contemplated. Such things [as the virtues] are naturally destroyed through deficiency and excess, just as we see in the case of strength and health. …
Excessive as well as deficient gymnastic exercises destroy strength, and, similarly, both drink and food destroy health as they increase or decrease in quantity, whereas the proportionate amounts create, increase, and preserve health. So it is too with moderation, courage, and the other virtues: he who avoids and fears all things and endures nothing becomes a coward, and he who generally fears nothing but advances toward all things becomes reckless. Similarly, he who enjoys every pleasure and abstains from none becomes licentious; but he who avoids every pleasure, as the boorish do, is a sort of insensible person. Moderation and courage are indeed destroyed by excess and deficiency, but they are preserved by the mean.
Strength comes into being as a result of taking much nourishment and enduring many exertions, and he who is strong would especially be able to do just these things. So too in the case of the virtues, for as a result of abstaining from pleasures, we become moderate; and by so becoming, we are especially able to abstain from them. Similar is the case of courage as well: by being habituated to disdain frightening things and to endure them, we become courageous, and by so becoming, we will be especially able to endure frightening things.”
(Nicomachean Ethics, 2.2)
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“I put my questions to Lysis: ‘I suppose, Lysis, your father and mother love you very much?’
‘Of course,’ he replied.
‘Then they’d want you to be as happy as possible?’
‘Naturally.’
‘Do you think that a man is happy when he’s a slave and allowed to do nothing he desires?’
‘Heavens, no, I don’t,’ he said.
‘Then if your father and mother love you and desire your happiness, it’s absolutely clear that they must do their best to make you happy.’
‘Of course,’ he said.
‘So they let you do what you want and don’t scold you at all or stop you doing what you desire?’
‘Heavens, no, Socrates, there are lots and lots of things they stop me doing.’
…
‘So your father deliberately sets lots and lots of bosses and masters over you. But when you go home to your mother, she lets you do what you want with her wool or her loom when she’s weaving, so that she can see you perfectly content.’
Lysis laughed and said, ‘Heavens, Socrates, not only does she stop me, but I’d actually be beaten if I touched any of that.’
…
‘Well then, what have you done to make them behave so oddly and stop you being happy and doing what you want, and bring you up by keeping you all day long in a state of constant subjection to someone else and in short doing virtually nothing you desire.’
…
‘It’s because I’m not yet of age, Socrates,’ he said.
‘I’m not sure it’s that that stops you, Lysis, since both your father, Democrates, and your mother trust you to some extent, I imagine, without waiting until you’re of age. For example, when they want things read to them or written for them, I imagine they give that job to you before anyone else in the house. Don’t they?’
‘Of course,’ he replied.
…
‘So, Lysis, what on earth can be the reason for their not stopping you in those cases, whereas they do stop you in the ones we were speaking of just now?’
‘I suppose it’s because I know about those things but not the others,’ he replied.
‘Well,’ I said. ‘Excellent! So your father is not waiting for you to come of age to trust everything to you, but on the day he considers that you know better than himself, he’ll trust both himself and his property to you.’
‘I expect so,’ he said.”
(Lysis, 207d-209d)
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