The Little Enchiridion
Theoretical framework: Grant C. Sterling. Analysis and synthesis: Dave Kelly, 2026. Prose rendering: Claude.
Introduction
“Right from the first sentence, Epictetus was the first person I had ever encountered who challenged this entire structure. The distinction is sharp, ‘harsh’—things not in our control are enslaved, things in our control are free. And almost everything is not in our control, including our own bodies—but that’s ok, because those things are not who we really are. We are enslaved to those external things only because we enslave ourselves. It is never the events that happen that upset us—the Vikings losing, a friend dying—it is our own judgements about those events, and those judgements are in our control. Change our judgements and we will be free of all grief, all sadness, all fear, all psychological pain. Free. Not ‘you’ll still feel grief, but not as much’. Not ‘you’ll be sad, but you won’t let your pain get too strong’. Not ‘you’ll be tempted to steal, lie, commit adultery, etc., but you won’t act on those temptations as often as you do now.’ No, Epictetus says ‘you’ll be free’. The harshness is part of the beauty—we will never achieve eudaimonia by holding on to the old view and making some little modifications—that will only make the chains more comfortable, and tempt you even more strongly to stay enslaved.
“All of this happens within the first 5 sections. No mention of being forced to accept pantheism (or any kind of theism at all), or fiery pneuma, or Chrysippus’ determinism (which most certainly was hard core determinism) or any other metaphysical notions beyond the dichotomy of internals and externals, and real good and bad all on one side of the chasm. Of course, the theory does need some more stuff. Although E. doesn’t use the language of ‘preferred indifferents’, the theory needs something like that, because otherwise how could any choices at all ever be coherent? Later on we get role-duties, and we get E’s (apparent) monotheism. But, really, we get that beautiful worldview in the first 5 sections, and after that just elaboration.”
— Grant C. Sterling, Harshness and Beauty in Epictetus
Enchiridion Sections 1–5
Epictetus. Trans. W. A. Oldfather.
1. Some things are under our control, while others are not under our control. Under our control are conception, choice, desire, aversion, and, in a word, everything that is our own doing; not under our control are our body, our property, reputation, office, and, in a word, everything that is not our own doing. Furthermore, the things under our control are by nature free, unhindered, and unimpeded; while the things not under our control are weak, servile, subject to hindrance, and not our own. Remember, therefore, that if what is naturally slavish you think to be free, and what is not your own to be your own, you will be hampered, will grieve, will be in turmoil, and will blame both gods and men; while if you think only what is your own to be your own, and what is not your own to be, as it really is, not your own, then no one will ever be able to exert compulsion upon you, no one will hinder you, you will blame no one, will find fault with no one, will do absolutely nothing against your will, you will have no personal enemy, no one will harm you, for neither is there any harm that can touch you.
With such high aims, therefore, remember that you must bestir yourself with no slight effort to lay hold of them, but you will have to give up some things entirely, and defer others for the time being. But if you wish for these things also, and at the same time for both office and wealth, it may be that you will not get even these latter, because you aim also at the former, and certainly you will fail to get the former, which alone bring freedom and happiness.
Make it, therefore, your study at the very outset to say to every harsh external impression, “You are an external impression and not at all what you appear to be.” After that, examine it and test it by these rules which you have, the first and most important of which is this: whether the impression has to do with the things which are under our control, or with those which are not under our control; and, if it has to do with some one of the things not under our control, have ready to hand the answer, “It is nothing to me.”
2. Remember that the promise of desire is the attainment of what you desire, that of aversion is not to fall into what is avoided, and that he who fails in his desire is unfortunate, while he who falls into what he would avoid experiences misfortune. If, then, you avoid only what is unnatural among those things which are under your control, you will fall into none of the things which you avoid; but if you try to avoid disease, or death, or poverty, you will experience misfortune. Withdraw, therefore, your aversion from all the matters that are not under our control, and transfer it to what is unnatural among those which are under our control. 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.
3. With everything which entertains you, is useful, or of which you are fond, remember to say to yourself, beginning with the very least things, “What is its nature?” If you are fond of a jug, say, “I am fond of a jug”; for when it is broken you will not be disturbed. If you kiss your own child or wife, say to yourself that you are kissing a human being; for when it dies you will not be disturbed.
4. When you are on the point of putting your hand to some undertaking, remind yourself what the nature of that undertaking is. If you are going out of the house to bathe, put before your mind what happens at a public bath—those who splash you with water, those who jostle against you, those who vilify you and rob you. And thus you will set about your undertaking more securely if at the outset you say to yourself, “I want to take a bath, and, at the same time, to keep my moral purpose in harmony with nature.” And so do in every undertaking. For thus, if anything happens to hinder you in your bathing, you will be ready to say, “Oh, well, this was not the only thing that I wanted, but I wanted also to keep my moral purpose in harmony with nature; and I shall not so keep it if I am vexed at what is going on.”
5. It is not the things themselves that disturb men, but their judgements about these things. For example, death is nothing dreadful, or else Socrates too would have thought so, but the judgement that death is dreadful, this is the dreadful thing. When, therefore, we are hindered, or disturbed, or grieved, let us never blame anyone but ourselves, that means, our own judgements. It is the part of an uneducated person to blame others where he himself fares ill; to blame himself is the part of one whose education has begun; to blame neither another nor his own self is the part of one whose education is already complete.
A Chapter on Indifferents: Preferred and Dispreferred
Theoretical framework: Grant C. Sterling. Analysis and synthesis: Dave Kelly, 2026. Prose rendering: Claude.
The argument of the first five sections of the Enchiridion rests on a distinction that Epictetus himself does not name in those sections: the distinction between what is genuinely good or evil, and what is merely an indifferent. That distinction needs to be made explicit, because without it a serious problem arises. If everything external is neither good nor evil, what basis is there for any choice at all? Why prefer health to sickness, food to starvation, honesty to deception? Why do anything? The doctrine of indifferents is the answer.
The Fundamental Division
Sterling states the core propositions directly. Theorem 10 of Core Stoicism: the only thing actually good is virtue, the only thing actually evil is vice. Theorem 12 follows: things not in our control—externals—are never good or evil. This is not a hedged claim. It does not say externals are less good than virtue, or good only in a derivative sense. It says they are neither good nor evil at all. The Vikings losing is not bad. A friend dying is not bad. Your own death is not bad. None of these things belongs on the good-evil axis.
But this creates an immediate question. Acts of will must have content—they must aim at something. Sterling’s Theorem 24 states this plainly: in order to perform an act of will, the act must have some content, composed of the result at which one aims. If nothing external is good or evil, what are we to aim at?
Appropriate Objects of Aim
The answer is Theorem 25: some things are appropriate objects at which to aim, although they are not genuinely good. And Theorem 26 names them: things like life—our own or others’—health, pleasure, knowledge, justice, truth-telling, and so on. These are the preferred indifferents. They have a rational claim on our aim-setting without having genuine value. We should pursue them—we should aim at health rather than sickness, at feeding ourselves rather than starving, at telling the truth rather than lying—but we must do so without desiring them in the technical sense, because desire involves the judgement that the thing is genuinely good, and that judgement is false.
The dispreferred indifferents are the mirror image: sickness, poverty, pain, death, disgrace. We should aim away from them—we should rationally prefer not to be sick, not to be destitute, not to die prematurely—but without judging any of them to be genuine evils, because that judgement is also false.
The practical difference between preferred and dispreferred is real and governs action. It is not a performance. The Stoic who chooses the safer road over the icy one is not being irrational. He is aiming rationally at a preferred indifferent—physical safety—while holding no desire that he arrive safely, and no dread of ice as a genuine evil. The aim is rational. The desire is absent. These are two different things, and keeping them distinct is the whole work.
The Critical Distinction: Aim versus Desire
Sterling’s Excerpt 7 states what the correct propositional form looks like in practice: “I should report truthfully to my boss regarding the sales numbers from the last quarter: truth-telling is virtuous, and I have a duty to act faithfully at work. If my boss fires me, I should remember that my job is an external, neither good nor evil.” The agent aims at truth-telling and job-faithfulness—preferred indifferents. He does not desire the outcome of keeping his job, because that would constitute a false value judgement that the job is a genuine good.
This is the knife-edge the doctrine requires one to walk. An agent who has eliminated all desire for externals but retains the rational capacity to distinguish preferred from dispreferred will act, in most cases, very much like an ordinary person of good judgement. He will seek food, maintain his health, keep his promises, tell the truth, care for his family. What will be absent is the emotional stake in outcomes—the grief when the preferred indifferent is lost, the fear when the dispreferred approaches, the elation when things go well. None of that is gone because he has become cold. It is gone because he has stopped making false judgements.
Virtue as the Pursuit of Appropriate Objects of Aim
Theorem 29 ties the threads together: virtue consists of the pursuit of appropriate objects of aim, not the pursuit of the objects of our desires. Such virtuous acts will give us good feelings—because pursuing what is genuinely good (virtue) produces the appropriate positive feeling of joy—and since we have no desires regarding the actual outcome, they will never produce unhappiness for us. The preferred indifferent functions as the vehicle of virtuous action, not as its goal. I aim at my colleague’s health because that is the appropriate object of aim given my role and my rational assessment of the situation. Whether his health is restored is entirely outside my purview. What is inside my purview—and what constitutes the virtue—is the quality of my aim and the rationality of my choice of means.
Sterling’s Excerpt 10 gives the most concrete illustration of this: choosing to go to lunch with a colleague involves identifying a rational goal (food, exercise, collegial conversation), selecting rational means, and making those choices with the conscious recognition that outcomes are never really under our control. If the restaurant is closed, the agent is not in the least upset—because he was never aiming at the outcome of eating at that restaurant as a genuine good. He was aiming at it as a preferred indifferent, with reservation.
The Reserve Clause
The phrase “with reservation” is not decorative. It is architecturally essential. Every pursuit of a preferred indifferent must be made with the explicit recognition that the outcome is not in one’s control and is in the hands of Providence. This is what prevents the preferred indifferent from sliding back into a disguised desire. The moment one begins to require the preferred outcome—to stake one’s equanimity on it—one has converted a preferred indifferent into an object of desire, and the false value judgement has re-entered.
Epictetus does not use the phrase “preferred indifferents” in the first five sections of the Enchiridion. But the doctrine is already fully present. The things not in our control—body, reputation, property, office—are enumerated in Section 1. The instruction not to say “I have lost” but “I have restored” belongs to the same structure. The technical vocabulary comes later. The governing logic is already in place from the first sentence.
Enchiridion Section 30
Epictetus. Trans. W. A. Oldfather.
30. Our duties are in general measured by our social relationships. He is a father. One is called upon to take care of him, to give way to him in all things, to submit when he reviles or strikes you. “But he is a bad father.” Did nature, then, bring you into relationship with a good father? No, but simply with a father. “My brother does me wrong.” Very well, then, maintain the relation that you have toward him; and do not consider what he is doing, but what you will have to do, if your moral purpose is to be in harmony with nature. For no one will harm you without your consent; you will have been harmed only when you think you are harmed. In this way, therefore, you will discover what duty to expect of your neighbour, your citizen, your commanding officer, if you acquire the habit of looking at your social relations with them.
Theoretical framework: Grant C. Sterling. Analysis and synthesis: Dave Kelly, 2026. Prose rendering: Claude.
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