Encheiridion 1 focuses on what is up to us and contrasts the tranquil psychological state of those who focus their attention and impulse only on those things and events within their control with the troubled mind of those who attempt to control what is not in their power. The second chapter of Encheiridion further defines the concepts of desire and aversion and adds another important concept: things contrary to Nature. Encheiridion 2 opens with the following advice:
Keep in mind that desire presumes your getting what you want and that aversion presumes your avoiding what you don’t want, and that not getting what we want makes us unfortunate, while encountering what we don’t want makes us miserable.
We have a few things to unpack in this passage. First is that we should “keep in mind” the lesson of Encheiridion 2. This means we should memorize it, remember it, and regularly remind ourselves about it. The phrase “keep in mind” is translated from the Greek word Μέμνησο, which appears sixteen times within fourteen different chapters of the Encheiridion. As I noted in the introduction to this series, Arrian created the Encheiridion to serve as a handbook that can be kept close at hand or carried in the hand. Arrian filled it with reminders that help us “keep in mind” those Stoic doctrines that are essential to our practice. So, what is so important about the lesson of Encheiridion 2 that warrants keeping it in mind? In short, this lesson defines the key distinction between true freedom and slavery in Epictetus’ teaching, which entails wanting only what is up to us, avoiding only what is contrary to nature, and treating everything else as inconsequential to our goal of developing an excellent moral character and experiencing true well-being. To comprehend this lesson's meaning and its application in our daily lives, we must have a solid grasp of several key concepts, including desire, aversion, things contrary to nature, and reservation.
Desires and Aversions Exist in our Psyche
When we assent to a value judgment attached to an impression of a thing or event—that it is either good or bad—we create a desire or aversion that acts upon us in the form of an impulse to either seek or avoid that thing or event. Therefore, desires and aversions are not external entities that tempt us or frighten us. They do not exist out there in the world; they exist as real mental faculties in our psyche (soul) that we must restrain and ultimately retrain.
The first time I read this new translation of Encheiridion 2 by A. A. Long, his use of the word “presumes” in this passage struck me as odd. I recalled no other translation using that word, so I checked a few others. Pay attention to the language used to describe the activity of desires and aversions in each of these translations:
A. Long:
desire presumes your getting what you want, aversion presumes your avoiding what you don’t want
Robin Hard:
desire promises the attaining of what you desire, and aversion the avoiding of what you want to avoid
Thomas Higginson:
desire demands the attainment of that of which you are desirous; and aversion demands the avoidance of that to which you are averse
W.A. Oldfather:
the promise of desire is the attainment of desire, that of aversion is not to fall into what is avoided
The language being used here is rather curious. It describes desires and aversions as real entities with the ability to make presumptions, promises, and demands. However, according to Stoicism, to act on us in this way, these desires and aversions and the impulses they produce must be real physical faculties in our psyche. In fact, they are. As Marcus Aurelius notes repeatedly in his Meditations, those impulses created by our desires and aversions control us like puppets (2.2; 6.16; 6.28; 7.3; 7.29; 12.19). We must be careful here lest we misinterpret this language to support a form of dualism where a separate mind acts upon our body. That is not the case in Stoic theory. As Christopher Gill, professor of ancient thought at Exeter University, points out:
The normal Stoic standpoint is what we might call psychophysical monism or holism: the psyche is conceived as physical and identified with one of the natural elements, pneuma, a mixture of fire and air.[1]
In Stoic theory, desires, aversions, and impulses are not external to our psyche; they are natural emotional states that get corrupted and become dysfunctional passions. This occurs when natural desires and aversions that can benefit us and promote our survival are transformed into passions that pull us around like puppets and leave us with troubled minds. We simply learned to value and fear the wrong things.[2] Simplicius, the sixth-century Neoplatonist, wrote the following about this chapter and the concepts of desire and aversion in his famous commentary on the Encheiridion:
The promise and goal of desire is the attainment of what is desired, and the ‘fortunate’ are those who attain this. The promise and goal of aversion is that you will not encounter what you flee from, and this (i.e. not encountering it) is being ‘of good fortune’. Similarly, not attaining the object of your desire is ‘unfortunate’ (because you didn’t attain it), while encountering the object of your aversion is ‘ill-fortuned’–the contrary of good fortune–(because you attained something, but what you attained was bad).[3]
The Presumption of Desires and Aversions
Again, when I first read Long’s new translation of Encheiridion 2, I was struck by the word “presumes” in reference to desires and aversions. Therefore, after I read other highly regarded translations, I looked up the definition of presume and here is what I found. The Oxford online dictionary defines presume as a verb that means to “Suppose that something is the case on the basis of probability.”[4] My hardbound version of the Oxford English Dictionary defines presume as a verb that means to “Undertake without adequate authority or permission.”[5] Both of those definitions are quite helpful for the unpacking of this passage from Encheiridion 2, which reads:
desire presumes your getting what you want, aversion presumes your avoiding what you don’t want (Ench 2)
Using the first definition, a desire or aversion must have some reasonable probability of success otherwise it is nothing more than a pipe dream or whimsical fantasy. However, if we combine this with A.A. Long’s definition of desire, we get “a strong acquisitive attitude toward what appears good,” and we have a reasonable chance to obtain, like a better paying job, good health, a good reputation, etc. Likewise, an aversion is “a strongly negative attitude toward what appears bad,” and we have a reasonable chance to avoid, like poverty, sickness, public shame, etc. As we will learn in Exploring Encheiridion 15, it is acceptable to stretch out our hand and take a portion of any preferred indifferent providence has brought into our lives. However, we become enslaved by those externals when we stretch our desire out for them as things that are good in themselves. The opposite is true of those externals we wish to avoid. Why? The answer to that question invokes the second definition from above. Our desires and aversions entail the presumption there is a good probability we can obtain or avoid the externals we consider good or bad. However, as the Stoics make quite clear, Nature does not grant us the authority or permission to presume that we can obtain or avoid those externals—they are not up to us.
Things Contrary to Nature (para phusin)
This brings us to the next passage from Encheiridion 2, which reads:
So if, among the *things contrary to nature you restrict aversion to those that are up to you, you will experience none of the things you don’t want, but if you are averse to sickness or death or poverty, you will be miserable. So move aversion away from everything that is not up to us and transfer it to the things contrary to nature that are up to us.
This passage deals with the intersection of two sets of things and events. The first set includes those things and events that are contrary to nature. This refers to things contrary to our human well-being such as sickness, poverty, social isolation, and emotional disturbances (pathê). The second set includes only what is up to us, which includes our assents, desires and aversion, and impulses toward action. Epictetus is advising us that among those things contrary to nature, we should seek to avoid only that which is up to us—our passions (strong emotions). If we seek to avoid the others—sickness, poverty, a bad reputation, etc.—we will be miserable. As Keith Seddon writes:
And this is what we must train ourselves in: we must let everything happen as it will with an open acceptance (Discourses 1.12.15–17), even those things to which we are usually averse, seeking to avoid only ‘those things contrary to nature amongst the things that are in our power’, and these are the passions (pathê), the ‘disturbing or violent emotions’ that constitute our misery. Passions are excessive impulses, ‘contrary to nature’ because they are ‘contrary to correct and natural reasoning’ (Stob. 2.7.10a), in that any one passion is, or is dependent upon, a false judgement concerning what is good and bad for us (see DL 7.111; LS 65G3); they are ‘excessive’ because they are ‘disobedient to the choosing reason or an irrational motion of the soul’ (Stob. 2.7.10, trans. Pomeroy; see also DL 7.110); and they are ‘in our power’ because it is entirely up to us how we evaluate things, and whether we assent to the judgements that sanction (or comprise) the passions...[6]
Likewise, in Simplicius’ commentary on the Encheiridion we read:
if you avoid disease or poverty, since fleeing from them is not completely up to us (because even if we have a power which some times helps us escape them, still it won’t always hold good, or do so entirely),
