The Teaching of Epictetus Being the 'Encheiridion of Epictetus,' with Selections from the 'Dissertations' and 'Fragments'

by Epictetus

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Classics

272 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 3, 2009

About the author

Epictetus was a Greek Stoic philosopher. He was probably born a slave at Hierapolis, Phrygia (present day Pamukkale, Turkey), and lived in Rome until his exile to Nicopolis in northwestern Greece, where he lived most of his life and died. His teachings were noted down and published by his pupil Arrian in his Discourses. Philosophy, he taught, is a way of life and not just a theoretical discipline. To Epictetus, all external events are determined by fate, and are thus beyond our control, but we can accept whatever happens calmly and dispassionately. Individuals, however, are responsible for their own actions which they can examine and control through rigorous self-discipline. Suffering arises from trying to control what is uncontrollable, or from neglecting what is within our power. As part of the universal city that is the universe, human beings have a duty of care to all fellow humans. The person who followed these precepts would achieve happiness.

Other language versions:
Epictète
Epícteto
Epiktet

Reviews

[Jared Abbott · Rating 4 out of 5]

The language is archaic, but not too difficult to understand. This book is packed with wisdom, but also mixed with the Greco-Roman paganism of the time. While Epictetus shouldn't be judged too harshly for being a man of his time, the reader must endure some nonsense about God being limited, the universe as some kind of living organism with a rational soul, and humans beings being at least semi-divine.

[Joshua Dew · Rating 5 out of 5]

A concise, profound philosophical outline of Stoicism. I enjoyed Epictetus' matter-of-fact style of speaking which was preserved by his pupil Arrian in these written works.

[Brian Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

This particular version of Epictetus' teachings is an 1888 translation, rearrangement, and abridgement of the three known sources for Epictetus: the Enchiridion (Handbook), Discourses, and Fragments. Rolleston's project consists of five untitled Books, each of which likely had some thematic coherence to Rolleston and was intended to make Epictetus more accessible to the general public. The full Enchiridion is embedded in sequential order within Rolleston's Teachings. The much longer Discourses is abridged and reorganized non-sequentially around each of the Enchiridion's 52 short chapters. For good measure, several of the Fragments are sprinkled through the text. Without referring to the appended Index of References, there is no way to differentiate between the three sources, since Rolleston's text does not include the traditional assignment of verses found in other translations.
I recommend using Amazon's 'Look Inside' feature to get a feel for the text before investing your $0.99. Or, you can view and download the full text on various online repositories of works in the public domain.
Numerous versions of these texts (both individually and as a collection) can be found on Amazon or in public domain collections. I like the Oldfather translation, which is less archaic and stilted, and contains the full Discourses, Fragments, and Encheiridion with the traditional chapter and verse divisions.

[Geoff · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a big fan of Stoic thought and found this to very engaging and enlightening.

As compared with 'Meditations' by Marcus Aurelius, the chapter structure elaborates on a single idea with more continuity than 'Meditations,' rather than being a stream maxims.

Very insightful as a study of Stocism's roots in Socratic thought.

[James]

I basically skimmed a lot of it. It's pretty good, but it does go on a bit.