Classic Stoics On Grief And Grieving (part 3)

going further into Epictetus' texts to see what he has to teach us about dealing with grief

The previous post in this series brought in a number of Stoic perspectives on grief and grieving drawn from Epictetus’ works. Although we went into considerable depth in that post, some features of his treatment of the topics could use further exploration before we move on to looking at other thinkers and texts. What else do we need to discuss? Several portions of his texts are worth examining, either in greater detail, or in addition to the portions brought up in the previous post. These are:

• book 1, chapter 4, where Epictetus mentions grief as an example of a problematic state we can fall into when we haven’t made sufficient progress

• book 1, chapter 27 (mentioned in the earlier post), where Epictetus suggests to us what we need to do in order not to view our own death as an evil, and thus not die grieving and lamenting

• book 2, chapter 17, where Epictetus suggests a person might read Chrysippus “in sorrow”, and references key Stoic conceptions already brought up in previously discussed passages

• book 3, chapter 12, which doesn’t mention grief or grieving, but focuses specifically on training or discipline (askēsis), and discusses what this looks like in ways applicable to dealing with grief

• book 3, chapter 24 (mentioned in the earlier post), which contains a good bit of additional discussion well worth looking at

Let’s work through each of these in turn, filling out the picture of how a Stoic ought to deal with, understand, prepare for, and perhaps even prevent the emotion of grief.

Progress, Virtue, Prohairesis, and Grief

The title of Discourses book 1 chapter 4 is “On Progress” (peri prokopēs), and setting out what progress actually looks like for a Stoic is the topic that chapter is concerned with. This is a particularly important discussion because it ties together several different key concepts of Stoic ethics, showing that for Epictetus, these aren’t separate or even separable from each other.

Epictetus does not discuss or even mention virtue anywhere near as often as other Stoic authors, including his own teacher Musonius Rufus, but this is one of the places in his work where he does bring it up explicitly.

If it is virtue (aretē) that holds out the promise to create happiness and calm and serenity, then certainly progress towards virtue is progress (prokopē) towards each of those. For it is always the case that whatever goal towards which perfection in anything leads, progress is an approach towards that.

He notes a disconnect that takes place for many people. If we agree that virtue is this sort of thing, why do we look for progress and make a display of it in other matters, for example, being able to read the ancient Stoic philosopher Chrysippus. Instead, we ought to be correlating what virtue produces with what the approach to virtue, namely progress, produces. And that, Epictetus tells us, is the work (ergon) of virtue.

So what is this work (or activity or function) of virtue? Epictetus frames it in terms that will be familiar to his readers. Just earlier in that chapter, he speaks of desire and aversion, the central matters of the first field or discipline of study for the Stoic. He also spoke of matters that involve choice (prohairetika) or that are not matters of choice (aproheiretiōn).

Setting out what the work of virtue is, Epictetus explicitly references the three disciplines:

Where is your work? In desire and aversion, that you may not miss what you desire and encounter what you would avoid. In choice and refusal, that you may commit no fault therein (anarmatētos). In giving and withholding assent (en prostheisei kai epokhē), so that you may not be deceived.

Notice what he says immediately afterwards: “If you are in a state of fear (tremōn) and grief (penthōn) when you seek not to fall into [what you are averse to], how are you making progress.

Experiencing grief, in this passage, seems to interfere with making progress, as does “trembling” (a closer translation of tremōn). And being impeded by these reflects a person not even making much progress in the first field or discipline, which has to do with desires, aversions, and emotions.

Prohairesis, generally translated (imperfectly) as “faculty of choice”, “moral purpose”, or even “the will”, is an absolutely central concept in Epictetus’ interpretation of Stoicism. And it plays a significant role in this chapter. If you want to know what making progress towards virtue actually looks like, he suggests we need to look at a person’s prohairesis. Among other conditions we can ascertain whether a person

withdrawing from external things, has turned his attention to their prohairesis, cultivating (exergazesthai) and working on (ekponein) it so as to make it in the end harmonious with nature, elevated, free, unhindered, untrammeled, faithful, and respectful.

This requires considerable and continuous work. Notice one thing Epictetus says is involved in this: “to study (meletan) how a person can remove from his life grief (penthē) and lamenting (oimōgas). So there are clear connections between virtue, prohairesis, the three disciplines, and grief and grieving for him.

Grieving And Lamenting One’s Own Death

We brought up a passage from book 1 chapter 27 in the previous post, noting that not all grief that we feel is necessarily on account of other people dying. We can even grieve ahead of time over our own death, which we take to be unfair, untimely, or in some other way wrong. Notice that in this passage, we see precisely the same language being used as just earlier in 1.4.

I cannot avoid (apophugein) death. Instead of avoiding the fear of it, shall I die in grief and trembling (penthōn kai tremōn)?

We do have a choice about what we feel when we face, or even consider, our own death. We don’t have to fear it. And we don’t have to feel grief, or express that grief and fear in trembling over it. If we wish to avoid these emotions, we can realize that they stem from wishing for (thelein) what is not going to happen. For example, if we wish that we live forever, or even longer than we are allotted, we set ourselves up for feeling that grief.

Earlier in this chapter, Epictetus discusses in broader terms what we need to have “ready at hand” in order to deal with the matters that distress or trouble us. He calls these “reinforcements” (boēthēmata), the things that will come to our aid and help us in our battle. What are these reinforcements? They depend on what sort of problematic matter we are facing. One kind of these is habits (ethos), and Epictetus suggests that in order to oppose and break a bad habit, we need to oppose to it a contrary one.

His discussion of opposing habits makes it clear that this is not just a matter of actions, but also of beliefs, judgements, and even accounts or arguments. When we hear people saying that someone is badly off because they died, their father or mother died, that they died prematurely, or in a foreign place - all potentially cases where grief might seem like the right response - we need to remove ourselves from these expressions, and set against a habit, or rather a habitual way of responding to these ideas, a contrary habit, a new way of responding to them.

In this section, Epictetus uses another key term in his particular interpretation of Stoicism, which we typically translate as “preconceptions” or “general conceptions” (proleipseis). He tells us that we need to have these clear (enargeis) and ready at hand, a process he discusses at greater length in other chapters of his Discourses. So now, we have a number of key interrelated ideas from Epictetus in play bearing on these discussions more specifically focused on grief and grieving: namely virtue, prohairesis, preconceptions, habits, and the three disciplines.

As we get these right, and as we do the work of improving them within ourselves, the implicit promise as far as grief goes is that we will feel it less or perhaps not at all. And this includes the grief we can mistaken feel, ahead of time, so to speak, about our own death.

Reading Chrysippus In Sorrow

Book 2, chapter 17 is one of those important further discussions Epictetus provides about preconceptions. In fact, the chapter title refers to one of the key acts we do with preconceptions, namely apply them to specific cases, often getting them wrong in the process, and ending up in conflicts and contradictions as a result.

Deep in this chapter, Epictetus discusses a mistaken approach that students and would-be-scholars might fall into, going to treatises of Chrysippus for the answers they need. (One gets the idea that in ancient times, Chrysippus was a go-to author for people who like to read about Stoic philosophy but don’t contextualize what they’re reading through practice). He says something very interesting to someone who wants to understand what Chrysippus is saying in a particular text:

What good will knowing that do you? You will read the whole treatise while grieving (penthōn) and with trembling (tremōn) you will talk about it with others.

You notice, no doubt, this third example of Epictetus using this formula of grieving and trembling to describe the negative emotional state of a person who is going wrong. Why would a person read the book, and grieve and tremble, we might ask? Epictetus doesn’t provide an answer at that very point, but perhaps a clue to this is what comes just a bit later. The person remains unchanged in how they desire or are averse, in how they choose, in what they are concerned with and what they prioritize. They are just as much of a mess after reading and discussing Chrysippus’ text, or indeed after reading all of them, as they were at the start. So perhaps this is what they grieve over, their own lack of progress and development, as they study the text.

What does Epictetus think the person ought to be studying instead? If we look at the earlier parts of this chapter, we see once again some of the same basic subjects highlighted. We do need to take the preconceptions which as human beings we possess in a rather raw, underdeveloped form, and clarify them, not least by placing them in relation to each other in a systematic arrangement (diarthrōsin). Giving proper attention (epimeleia) to this will involve the three fields or disciplines, and one of them in particular:

If you apply properly your preconceptions, why are your troubled, why are you hampered? Let us pass by for the moment the second field of study - that which has to do with our choices and what is our duty in regard to them. Let us pass by the third - that which has to do with our assents. . . .Let us confine our attention to the first field, one which allows a proof you do not properly apply your preconceptions.

Where does a person in general go wrong with the matters this first field concerns?

Do you desire what is possible in general and what is possible for you in particular? If so, why are you hampered? Why are you troubled? Are you not at this moment trying to escape what is inevitable? If so, why do you fall into any trouble? Why are you misfortunate? . . . I want something and it does not happen, and what creature is more wretched (athliōteron) than I? I do not want something and it does happen, and what creature is more wretched than I?

We don’t want those we love and care about to die, or even to be absent from us. But they will. And that irrational, counter-realistic aversion takes the form of the passion of grief (and probably lamentation and trembling as well).

We don’t want ourselves to die. And before we even do die, that aversion likewise takes the shape of grief. We can even read a book we hope will steer us right and transform us, feeling grief about the fact that it doesn’t do so (precisely because it can’t do so).

Working Upon Ourselves

As noted above, book 3, chapter 12, which is titled “On training” or “On discipline” (peri askēseōs) does not touch directly on the emotion of grief or on closely related emotional states. But given what we have so far brought to light in chapters of Epictetus that much more explicitly discuss or reference grief, it makes good sense to examine this discussion. It consolidates a number of the ideas central to moral development Epictetus sets out for us.

A significant part of this chapter is arranged sequentially along the lines of the three disciplines. The first, as we know, deals with desire and aversion, and with the emotions. So this is indeed germane to grief. If our goal is not to fall into grief, or at least to feel it less acutely than we do, we must examine what it is that we desire or are averse to. Are our desires and aversions reasonable, or not? Do they bear upon things that actually lie within the scope of our prohairesis, matters that are up to us? Or are they extended out to all sorts of matters that are not up to us? These are all questions we have to ask ourselves generally, and more specifically when it comes to the particular emotion of grief.

It isn’t enough to have the right answers to such questions, though. Epictetus once again stresses the importance of habits:

Since habit is a powerful influence, when we have habituated ourselves (ethismenōn) to employ desire and aversion only upon these externals, we must set a contrary habit to counteract this habit.

He points out that different people will need to engage in different practices in order to face their particular challenges, and provides a number of examples. We might think about what sort of practices we need to employ consistently in order to deal with grief.

He goes on to discuss the other two disciplines:

After desire and eversion, the next field has to do with your choice and your refusal, so that these are obedient (eupeithēs) to reason, not to choose or to refuse at the wrong time, or the wrong place, or contrary to some similar property.

As noted in the previous post about Epictetus and grief, the second discipline does have implications for the expression of that emotion, which often are felt to involve duties on our part in relation to the person who has died or been lost (a topic we will explore much more when we turn to Seneca and Cicero).

The third discipline, which has to do with assent, is also pertinent to grief. The emotion itself arises through the judgements we make, the assumptions we have, the ideas we pick up from other people or our culture, and whether or not we examine these or simply assent to them determines whether and how we feel and act upon grief. All three of the Stoic disciplines Epictetus distinguishes and outlines would be involved in the training a human being needs to engage in in order to deal properly with grief.

More About Stoicism and Grief

We looked at a passage from book 3, chapter 24, in which grief was called a genuine “word of ill-omen”, that is, something that is bad for us. Epictetus also noted a general point about these words. Instead of keeping silent about them, we do need to talk about them, precisely so we can guard against the realities they refer to.

Epictetus says more things relevant to grief in that chapter, however, than just that one passage. The first of these runs:

Don’t let what is in the case of another person contrary to nature (para phusin) become something bad for you. For you were not born to be borne down with them (suntapeinousthai), nor to share in their bad fortune (sunatuhkein), but to share in their good fortune (suneuteukhein). If someone is unfortunate, remember that their misfortune concerns himself.

This might well remind you of the passage from Enchiridion 16 about grieving with someone externally, but not inwardly, and that is indeed one proper context for this advice. The example he uses is of someone who one has left and is now feeling distress or grief (odunatai).

Why did he regard what was not his own as his own? Why when he was glad to see you, did he not reflect that you are mortal, and likely to go on a journey? He is therefore paying the penalty of his own foolishness. But why are you bewailing yourself (klaieis seauton), and to what end?

Epictetus points out that reason hasn’t been given to human beings for misfortune and misery (kakodaimonia), so that we would spend our life in wretchedness (athlioi) and grieving (penthountes).

He proposes to us, as rational beings, that we consider the Stoic cosmopolis, the universe as a a single state or city:

full of friends, first gods and then also human beings, who have been made one household with one another; that some men must remain with each other, while others must depart, and though we must rejoice (khairontas) in those who dwell with us, we must not grieve (akhthomenous) at those who depart.

He considers a possible objection, perhaps one that his students made. “But my mother mourns (stenei) because she does not see me”. Epictetus responds that he isn’t telling anyone that they shouldn’t give thought (epimelēteon) to keep their mother from lamenting (oimōzein). But she is lamenting because she is desiring something out of her power. It may seem harsh, but Epictetus says that another person’s pain (lupē) is their concern, and my own pain is my own. I can put an end to my own, since it is something within the range of my control. Another’s pain I can try to prevent or forestall, but it isn’t rational for me to try to do so at all costs.

Later in the chapter, noting the many different things that people can get upset, even miserable about, he notes that it is up to us whether we get worked up about them, and runs though a number of different negative emotions we might feel. Among them, once again, is grief (penthōn), which we don’t necessarily have to fall into. What gets us into that predicament is making our condition and our responses depend upon things outside of our control.

I’ll close this second post on Epictetus by bringing up three key discussions from later on in this chapter. First, he outlines what sort of disciplined state we ought to be striving for. He suggests we should have

contemned things that are external and not a matter of choice, and have come to view none of them as your own, but only these things as your own, judging rightly (kalōs), assuming (hupolabein), choosing, desiring and avoiding

If we do that, we will be content and happy. If not, we will inevitably weep and lament (klaie kai stene). This then raises a question, since it seems like this could involve disengagement from fellow human beings: “how then will I become affectionate” (philostorgos)? And the answer is “as a person of noble spirit, as one who is fortunate. Practicing Stoicism will hopefully lessen or even remove grief (along with other negative emotional states), but that doesn’t lessen affection for others.

The second discussion has to do with what Epictetus calls the “proper discipline” (askēsis) for dealing with affection well. The most important part of this turns out to be what he suggests in Enchiridion 3. Whenever we are attached to something or someone, we should remind ourselves what they are, something mortal, breakable, vulnerable. He suggests we apply this to our children, our siblings, our friends. We should understand that they are not our possessions, and that expecting them to live or be present when they cannot is like desiring “figs in winter”.

The third point, the one we will finally close on is just something that Epictetus says to us in many places, but which bears reemphasizing. One integral part of Stoic discipline, if our goal is to ready ourselves for grief, is the cognitive practice of deliberately keeping in mind useful teachings. Two passages illustrate this.

Have thoughts like these ready at hand by night and by day; write them, read them, make your conversation about them, communing with yourself or saying to another “Can you give me some help in this matter?”. . . For in every case it is a great help to say, “I knew that the son who I had begotten was mortal.”

And:

If you have these thoughts always at hand and go over them again and again in your own mind, and keep them in readiness, you will never need a person to console you, or to strengthen you.