Does Epictetus Say We Should Desire Nothing? Enchiridion 2 in Corpus Terms v0.1
Does Epictetus Say We Should Desire Nothing? Enchiridion 2 in Corpus Terms v0.1
Theoretical foundations: Grant C. Sterling (Eastern Illinois University). Analysis and synthesis: Dave Kelly. Prose rendering: Claude (Anthropic). 2026.
Does Epictetus say that we should desire nothing? For now, yes. But he does not say it because nothing is worth desiring. He says it because the beginner cannot yet desire the one thing that is.
The Beginning
Everyone wants happiness. Incomplete happiness is not worth accepting if complete happiness is available. Complete happiness must therefore lie wholly within our control. Only assent lies wholly within our control. Happiness is therefore correct assent, correct when it matches the truth about value. The truth about value is that only virtue is good and only vice is evil. Everything else is indifferent.
From CDV/DTI Reference Suite v0.5.4 — Three Worked Cases.
Key
- Th 3, Th 7, Th 10, Th 25, Th 27: lines of Sterling’s Core Stoicism (International Stoic Forum, 19 September 2005). Sterling calls the lines marked Th “the basic principles of Stoicism, for which I give no argument here.”
- Lines 4, 5, 13, 15, 29: lines of Core Stoicism that Sterling draws from earlier ones (“Ergo”).
- Enchiridion 1 and 2: Epictetus’ Handbook, in W. A. Oldfather’s translation, as given in The Little Enchiridion.
- Seddon: Keith Seddon, Epictetus’ Handbook and the Tablet of Cebes (2005), pp. 41–42.
Definitions
- Desire: “You desire what you judge to be good, and desire to avoid what you judge to be evil” (Core Stoicism, Th 7).
- Under our control: “conception, choice, desire, aversion, and, in a word, everything that is our own doing” (Enchiridion 1).
- Virtue: “Th 27) Virtue consists of rational acts of will, vice of irrational acts of will” (Core Stoicism).
- Correct assent: assent “correct when it matches the truth about value” (the chain). Correct judgment, correct choice and the proper use of impressions are this one act named from different sides.
1. What Enchiridion 2 Says
But for the time being remove utterly your desire; for if you desire some one of the things that are not under our control you are bound to be unfortunate; and, at the same time, not one of the things that are under our control, which it would be excellent for you to desire, is within your grasp. But employ only choice and refusal, and these too but lightly, and with reservations, and without straining.
(Enchiridion 2, Oldfather.) Where Oldfather has “excellent,” Seddon has “proper” and George Long has “good.”
2. What Is Restrained
All desire, for now. That includes desire for things not under our control, and also desire for the things under our control that would be excellent to desire.
3. Why Desire for Externals Is Restrained
Sterling gives two reasons.
The first is disappointment. “Th 3) All human unhappiness is caused by having a desire or emotional commitment … to some outcome, and then that outcome does not result.” So “4) … if you desire something which is out of your control, you will be subject to possible unhappiness.”
The second is false judgment, and it decides the matter. “Th 10) The only thing actually good is virtue, the only thing actually evil is vice.” So “13) … Desiring things out of our control is irrational, since it involves false judgment.”
The first reason alone leaves a man thinking health is good and merely not counting on keeping it. The second removes the judgment that it is good.
4. What Is Excellent to Desire
Seddon says the things “in our power which it would be proper to desire” are “the virtues, the components of a wholly virtuous disposition.” In the corpus, virtue is correct assent: correct judgments, correct choices, the proper use of impressions. Not everything under our control qualifies. Aversion goes “to what is unnatural among those which are under our control” (Enchiridion 2).
5. Why Even That Desire Waits
Seddon says the beginner holds off “because at such an early stage of training we simply do not properly understand what that disposition is like: we cannot direct our desire towards an object that we cannot represent to ourselves.” Core Stoicism gives the condition under which the desire arrives: “15) Ergo, if we truly judge that virtue is good, we will desire it.” The beginner does not yet know what virtue is, so he cannot yet desire it.
6. What Is Kept
Two things are kept. Aversion stays, aimed only at what is unnatural among the things under our control. And “choice and refusal … lightly, and with reservations” stays. That is aim at appropriate objects that are not good: “Th 25) Some things are appropriate objects at which to aim, although they are not genuinely good.” Virtue lies in that aim: “29) Ergo, virtue consists of the pursuit of appropriate objects of aim, not the pursuit of the [external] objects of our desires.” So withholding desire is not passivity. The man acts fully and desires nothing he cannot have.
7. The Order
The judgment about value does not wait. Epictetus states it in Enchiridion 1, before any practice: the things under our control are those “which alone bring freedom and happiness,” and if you hold only your own as your own, “neither is there any harm that can touch you.” What waits in Enchiridion 2 is the desire for virtue. It comes once the man can represent virtue to himself.
8. The Answer
Epictetus says to desire nothing for the present. Never desire externals, because they are not good. Hold off for now on desiring virtue, because the beginner cannot yet represent it. Meanwhile, avert from vice only, and aim lightly and with reservation at what is appropriate. When he can see what virtue is, correct assent becomes the one thing he desires.
Sources
- Epictetus, Enchiridion 1 and 2, trans. W. A. Oldfather, in The Little Enchiridion.
- Grant C. Sterling, Core Stoicism, International Stoic Forum, 19 September 2005.
- Keith Seddon, Epictetus’ Handbook and the Tablet of Cebes (2005), pp. 41–42.
- CDV/DTI Reference Suite v0.5.4 — Three Worked Cases.
- Related: Epictetus’ Own Summary: The Value Doctrine in Enchiridion 1 v0.1; Correct Judgment, Correct Choice and the Proper Use of Impressions: One Act v0.1.
Theoretical foundations: Grant C. Sterling (Eastern Illinois University). Analysis and synthesis: Dave Kelly. Prose rendering: Claude (Anthropic). 2026.
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