Logical Reformulation: Epictetus, Discourses 3.8 - Training Against Sense Impressions

Stage One: Systematic Reformulation

Section One: The Necessity of Daily Exercise Against Impressions

Th 1) As we exercise ourselves to meet sophistical interrogations in logic, so we ought to exercise ourselves daily to meet the impressions of our senses.

  1*) Sophistical interrogations in logic put questions to us that test our reasoning.

  2*) Impressions of the senses likewise put interrogations to us—they present events and demand our assent.

  3*) Just as we train to answer logical puzzles correctly, we must train to respond to sense impressions correctly.

  4*) Ergo, daily exercise in responding to impressions is necessary for philosophical progress.

Th 2) The impressions of our senses present events demanding interpretation and value judgment.

  1*) When an impression arises ("So-and-so's son is dead"), it implicitly asks: "Is this good or evil?"

  2*) The untrained person immediately assents to the false judgment: "This is evil; I should grieve."

  3*) The trained philosopher examines the impression and distinguishes fact from value judgment.

  4*) Ergo, training consists in learning to separate what happened from judgments about whether it is good or evil.

Section Two: The Method of Training—Distinguishing Prohairesis from Externals

Th 3) The standard for correct response is: Does this lie within or outside the sphere of prohairesis (moral purpose)?

  1*) Prohairesis is the faculty of rational choice, encompassing beliefs, desires, judgments, and assents.

  2*) What lies within prohairesis is in our control and can be good or evil (virtue or vice).

  3*) What lies outside prohairesis is not in our control and cannot be good or evil (externals are indifferent).

  4*) Ergo, to respond correctly to impressions, determine whether they concern internals or externals.

Th 4) Example: "So-and-so's son is dead." Correct answer: "That lies outside the sphere of prohairesis; it is not an evil."

  1*) The death itself is an external event, not within anyone's rational control.

  2*) Death is natural, inevitable, and neither good nor evil in itself.

  3*) To judge it evil is to make a false value judgment about an external.

  4*) Ergo, the correct response withholds the judgment "this is evil" from the fact of death.

Th 5) Example: "His father has disinherited So-and-so." Correct answer: "That lies outside the sphere of prohairesis; it is not an evil."

  1*) Disinheritance concerns wealth and family relations, which are externals.

  2*) Whether one possesses wealth or familial favor is not in one's control.

  3*) These are neither good nor evil but indifferents (though dispreferred).

  4*) Ergo, disinheritance cannot be correctly judged as evil.

Th 6) Example: "Caesar has condemned him." Correct answer: "That lies outside the sphere of prohairesis; it is not an evil."

  1*) Caesar's judgment and its consequences (imprisonment, death) are externals.

  2*) Another's condemnation and its effects on one's body or property are not in one's control.

  3*) No external harm can touch prohairesis or virtue.

  4*) Ergo, condemnation by Caesar is not an evil.

Section Three: Internal Responses and Their Moral Quality

Th 7) Example: "He was grieved at all this." Correct answer: "That lies within the sphere of prohairesis; it is an evil."

  1*) Grief is a pathos—an irrational emotion arising from false value judgment.

  2*) Grief arises from judging externals as genuinely evil.

  3*) This judgment is within prohairesis; it is a use of the rational faculty.

  4*) Because the judgment is false (externals are not evil), the resulting grief is morally bad—it is vice, not virtue.

  5*) Ergo, to grieve at external events is an evil because it manifests false judgment and vice.

Th 8) Example: "He has borne up under it manfully." Correct answer: "That lies within the sphere of prohairesis; it is a good."

  1*) Bearing up manfully means maintaining correct judgment and rational equanimity under difficult circumstances.

  2*) This response lies within prohairesis—it is a virtuous use of the rational faculty.

  3*) Maintaining correct judgment (that externals are indifferent) while facing difficult circumstances is virtue.

  4*) Virtue is the only good.

  5*) Ergo, bearing up manfully is genuinely good because it is virtuous exercise of prohairesis.

Section Four: The Habit and Its Result

Th 9) If we acquire this habit of responding correctly to impressions, we shall make progress in philosophy.

  1*) Progress (prokopē) consists in approaching the condition of the sage.

  2*) The sage distinguishes infallibly between what is and is not in his control, and between what is and is not good.

  3*) By daily practice of correct responses to impressions, we habituate ourselves to make these distinctions automatically.

  4*) Ergo, habitual correct response to impressions produces philosophical progress.

Th 10) Through this habit, we shall never give our assent to anything except that of which we get a convincing sense-impression.

  1*) A convincing sense-impression (phantasia katalēptikē) is one that accurately represents reality and warrants assent.

  2*) The impression "his son is dead" is convincing regarding the fact of death.

  3*) The added judgment "this is evil" is not warranted by the sense-impression and should not receive assent.

  4*) By training, we learn to assent only to what the impression actually warrants (the fact), not to the added value judgment.

  5*) Ergo, correct training produces disciplined assent, giving assent only to accurate impressions and withholding it from false value judgments.

Section Five: Stripping Away Added Judgments

Th 11) The method is to identify precisely what happened, without additions.

  1*) "His son is dead. What happened? His son is dead. Nothing else? Not a thing."

  2*) The fact is: death occurred. This is all that the sense-impression warrants.

  3*) Everything beyond the bare fact ("he has fared ill") is an addition made by the person receiving the impression.

  4*) These additions are value judgments imposed on the facts, not given by the facts themselves.

  5*) Ergo, correct analysis strips away additions and identifies only what actually occurred.

Th 12) Examples of proper analysis without additions:

  1*) "His ship is lost. What happened? His ship is lost."—The fact is material loss, nothing more.

  2*) "He was carried off to prison. What happened? He was carried off to prison."—The fact is confinement, nothing more.

  3*) The observation "He has fared ill" is an addition that each person makes on his own responsibility.

  4*) This addition is not given by the sense-impression but imposed by false value judgment.

  5*) Ergo, to respond correctly, report only the fact and recognize that all evaluations beyond the fact are our own additions, not objective truths.

Section Six: Divine Providence and Human Freedom

Th 13) Someone objects: "But Zeus does not do right in all this—allowing death, loss, imprisonment."

  1*) This objection assumes that Zeus (divine providence, nature) should prevent external harms.

  2*) It assumes that death, loss, and imprisonment are genuine evils that a good god would prevent.

  3*) But this assumption rests on the false belief that externals are good or evil.

  4*) Ergo, the objection arises from false value judgment and should be rejected.

Th 14) Zeus has done right because He has given us the capacity to respond virtuously to all external events.

  1*) Zeus has made us capable of patient endurance (karteria)—we can bear external difficulties without vice.

  2*) Zeus has made us capable of being high-minded (megalopsychia)—we can maintain dignity and rational perspective.

  3*) Zeus has taken from death, loss, and imprisonment the quality of being evils—they are indifferents, not genuinely bad.

  4*) Therefore, these events cannot harm us in the only way that matters: they cannot make us vicious.

  5*) Ergo, Zeus has done right by giving us the capacity for virtue regardless of external circumstances.

Th 15) Zeus permits us to suffer these things and still be happy.

  1*) Happiness (eudaimonia) consists in virtue, not in favorable external circumstances.

  2*) Because virtue is in our control (within prohairesis) and externals are not, happiness is in our control.

  3*) One can be virtuous and therefore happy whether one's son lives or dies, whether one is rich or poor, free or imprisoned.

  4*) Zeus has structured reality such that happiness depends only on what is in our control.

  5*) Ergo, Zeus has given us the most important gift: the capacity for happiness under all external conditions.

Th 16) Zeus has opened the door whenever external circumstances are not to our good.

  1*) "The door" is death—the natural exit from life.

  2*) If life becomes unbearable, death is always available as an option.

  3*) But properly understood, life is never genuinely unbearable, because external circumstances cannot make us vicious or unhappy if we maintain correct judgment.

  4*) The availability of the door (death) is a guarantee of freedom: no one can force us to live in vice.

  5*) Ergo, Zeus has ensured our freedom by making death available, though the wise person recognizes that this freedom is unnecessary because externals cannot harm what truly matters.

Th 17) Therefore, the proper response to difficulties is: "Man, go out, and do not complain."

  1*) If external circumstances seem intolerable, one is free to exit through death.

  2*) But if one chooses to remain in life, one should not complain about circumstances that are neither good nor evil.

  3*) Complaining presupposes that externals are evil and that Zeus has done wrong—both false beliefs.

  4*) The rational person either accepts circumstances with correct judgment or exits without complaint.

  5*) Ergo, there is never rational justification for complaint: either circumstances are bearable (because they are indifferent) or exit is available.

Section Seven: Philosophical Progress and Social Mockery

Th 18) The philosophical life practiced consistently appears strange and even absurd to non-philosophers.

  1*) Italicus, a philosopher of great reputation among Romans, was with Epictetus when his friends angered him.

  2*) Italicus complained: "I cannot bear it: you are the death of me! you will make me just like him," pointing at Epictetus.

  3*) This complaint reveals that even one reputed a philosopher may not have internalized Stoic principles.

  4*) Italicus treated his friends' behavior as unbearable—judging an external as evil.

  5*) He feared becoming like Epictetus—someone who consistently maintains that externals are indifferent.

  6*) Ergo, even among those called philosophers, few practice the radical indifference to externals that Stoicism requires.

Th 19) This episode illustrates the difficulty and rarity of consistent philosophical practice.

  1*) To say "his son is dead, but this is not an evil" seems inhuman to most people.

  2*) To maintain rational equanimity under loss, condemnation, or imprisonment appears cold and unfeeling.

  3*) Yet this is precisely what Stoic training aims to achieve: correct judgment maintained under all circumstances.

  4*) The fear of "becoming like Epictetus" is the fear of losing conventional emotional responses to externals.

  5*) Ergo, philosophical progress requires willingness to appear strange, unfeeling, or absurd to those who have not examined their value judgments.

Section Eight: Conclusion

Th 20) The essence of Stoic training is daily practice in responding correctly to impressions.

  1*) Impressions present events and implicitly demand value judgments.

  2*) Correct response distinguishes: (a) what happened (fact), from (b) whether it is good or evil (value judgment).

  3*) The standard is: Does this lie within prohairesis or outside it?

  4*) What lies within prohairesis (our judgments, desires, responses) can be good or evil and is in our control.

  5*) What lies outside prohairesis (death, loss, others' actions) is indifferent and not in our control.

  6*) Ergo, by habitually applying this standard, we make progress toward wisdom and freedom.

Th 21) This training produces freedom from disturbance and enables eudaimonia.

  1*) By judging correctly that externals are indifferent, we eliminate pathē (grief, fear, anger) that arise from false judgments.

  2*) By maintaining virtue regardless of external circumstances, we secure happiness.

  3*) By disciplining assent, we assent only to truth and avoid error.

  4*) By recognizing divine providence in the structure of reality, we eliminate complaint and accept what occurs.

  5*) Ergo, daily exercise against impressions is the path to freedom, virtue, and happiness—the complete Stoic life.

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Stage Two: Evaluation Against Sterling's Principles

Scope Assessment

Focused. This passage addresses practical training in the discipline of assent, specifically how to respond correctly to sense impressions by distinguishing facts from value judgments and internals from externals. It is pedagogical instruction on daily Stoic practice, not a comprehensive treatment of all doctrine.

Consistency with Sterling's Criteria

1. ✓ **Cognitive theory of emotion:** Explicitly central. Theorem 7 identifies grief as a pathos arising from false value judgment about externals. The entire method rests on the claim that correct judgment about good/evil prevents disturbance.

2. ✓ **Foundational value theory:** Explicitly present. Theorems 7-8 state that virtue (within prohairesis) is good, vice is evil, and externals (death, loss, imprisonment) are neither good nor evil but indifferent. This is the foundation of the entire training method.

3. ✓ **Status of externals:** Explicitly and repeatedly present. Theorems 4-6, 11-12, 14-15 systematically identify death, disinheritance, condemnation, imprisonment, and loss as externals that are not evil. The entire passage trains this distinction.

4. — **Preferred indifferents:** Not addressed. The passage focuses on the discipline of assent (recognizing externals as indifferent) rather than the discipline of action (appropriate selection among indifferents). Death and loss are identified as indifferent but not explicitly as "dispreferred indifferent" requiring rational selection.

5. ✓ **Logical order:** Correct. The passage derives claims about what to care about from value theory (Theorems 3-8): because only virtue is good and externals are indifferent, we should direct concern only to prohairesis. Control follows from value, not vice versa.

6. ✓ **Sufficiency of virtue:** Explicitly stated. Theorem 15: "Zeus permits us to suffer these things and still be happy" because happiness depends on virtue (within prohairesis), not externals. Virtue is sufficient for eudaimonia regardless of external circumstances.

7. ✓ **Psychology of assent:** Explicitly central. Theorems 10-12 describe the mechanism: impressions present facts; we add value judgments; correct training means assenting only to what the impression warrants (the fact) and withholding assent from added judgments. This is the discipline of assent applied systematically.

### Translation Assessment

Appropriate translations:

- "Moral purpose" (Oldfather) → prohairesis (correct: Oldfather's standard translation)

- "Bear up manfully" → "virtuous exercise of prohairesis" (warranted: describes virtue under difficulty)

- "Patient endurance, high-minded" → karteria, megalopsychia (accurate Greek terms)

- "Convincing sense-impression" → phantasia katalēptikē (correct technical term)

- Grief → pathos (correct: identifies grief as irrational emotion from false judgment)

The reformulation makes explicit what Epictetus assumes: the Stoic causal chain (false judgment → pathos), the prohairesis/externals distinction as grounded in value theory, and the discipline of assent.

### Essential Omissions

None. The passage is pedagogically focused on one specific practice (training against impressions) and contains all doctrine necessary for that purpose.

### Scope Limitations (Not Deficiencies)

- **Preferred indifferents and kathēkonta:** The passage identifies externals as indifferent but doesn't address appropriate action toward them (rational selection, pursuit of preferred indifferents). This belongs to the discipline of action, outside this passage's focus on the discipline of assent.

- **Oikeiōsis and social dimension:** The passage focuses on individual responses to impressions, not on social duties or natural affection. The examples (son's death, disinheritance) could relate to oikeiōsis but are treated purely as tests of correct value judgment.

- **Positive psychology (Joy):** The passage emphasizes negative freedom (eliminating pathē through correct judgment) but doesn't develop positive eudaimonia or eupatheia beyond "still be happy" (Theorem 15).

### Contradictions

None. The passage is fully orthodox Stoicism, consistent with Sterling's formalization in all respects.

### Classification

**Fully consistent with Sterling's formalization.** This passage exemplifies orthodox Stoic training in the discipline of assent, correctly grounded in value theory, and accurately describing the cognitive theory of emotion.

### Additional Analysis (200 words)

All arguments are logically valid. Key inferences: externals lie outside prohairesis → externals are not good/evil (Theorems 4-6); grief arises from judging externals evil → grief is vice (Theorem 7); habitual correct response → philosophical progress (Theorems 9-10). Each Ergo follows necessarily from stated premises.

The passage maps directly to Sterling Excerpt 7 (psychology of assent and impressions) and Excerpt 9 Sections 1-2 (value theory grounding the discipline of desire and elimination of pathē). The method Epictetus prescribes—daily practice identifying what lies within/outside prohairesis—is practical application of Sterling's systematic formalization.

Significant interpretive move: Theorem 16's "door" metaphor (death as exit) could be read as endorsing suicide. However, context suggests it's a guarantee of freedom rather than a recommendation: "go out, and do not complain" means either accept circumstances rationally or exit, but complaint (presupposing externals are evil) is never rational. The reformulation preserves this nuance.

The Italicus episode (Theorems 18-19) illustrates the difficulty of consistent practice even among philosophers, showing that reputation doesn't guarantee internalization of principles. This validates the need for daily exercise.

### Conclusion

This passage is exemplary Stoic pedagogy: practical training in the discipline of assent through daily exercise responding to impressions. It correctly grounds practice in value theory (only virtue good, externals indifferent), accurately describes the cognitive theory of emotion (pathē from false judgments), and provides concrete method for philosophical progress. Fully consistent with Sterling's formalization.