Talk:Epictetus

Untitled

The suggestions that Epictetus would love the wikipedia are biased, and furthermore unencyclopedic. Therefore I have had them removed. -- Emsworth 00:31, Feb 5, 2004 (UTC)

Good idea

I agree that they should have been removed.

However, the statement is true; Epictetus would have loved wikipedia :)

I added a significant amount of new info, and revised the setup a bit.--Venerable Bede 01:58, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

More Greek than Roman

Here is a sample of sources:

• Encyclopedia Britannica, entry for “Epictetus” begins: “Greek philosopher associated with the Stoics, remembered for the religious tone of his teachings, which commended him to numerous early Christian thinkers.”
• Robert L. Arrington, Western Ethics: An Historical Introduction, p. 114: “Epictetus was a Greek who had been enslaved in a Roman household.”
• Harry Elmer Barnes et al, An intellectual and cultural history of the Western world, p. 218: “Epictetus was a Greek slave who was given his freedom and afterwards taught

philosophy, first at Rome and later in Epirus.”

• Paul Finkelman et al, Macmillan Encyclopedia of World Slavery, p. 313: “Epictetus was a Greek inhabitant inhabitant of the Roman Empire who became a prominent Stoic

philosopher.”

• Anthony Arthur Long, Epictetus: A Stoic and Socratic Guide to Life, p. 113: "Like every Greek philosopher from Socrates onwards, Epictetus takes it to be axiomatic that every person desires happiness."
• Lee Cameron MacDonald, Western Political Theory: From Its Origins to the Present, p. 72: “Epictetus was a Greek slave.”
• David Sansone, Ancient Greek Civilization, p. 206: “Epictetus was a Greek slave in Rome whose Stoic teaching and writings greatly influenced several prominent Greeks and Romans of the second century after Christ, including Marcus Aurelius.”

Now, it is true that there are sources which call Epictetus a Roman philosopher. These sources are, however, mainly of a lower rank, or not about ancient philosophy or society. The grounds on which he can be called Roman are basically that he spent his youth in Rome and studied there. But about the only things we know for certain about him are his name (Greek, but acquired) and the language of his writings (Greek, but he didn't write the texts himself [although note that he lectured in Greek]). That all the texts are Greek is, however, itself a good argument for calling him a Greek philosopher, in the absence of other facts. Where he is born, for example, is not known with any certainty. In short, there are grounds for calling him a Greek and there are grounds for calling him a Roman. Wikipedia cannot solve this question, but the balance of good sources favours calling him a Greek. If you don't find these sources convincing, call him a Roman, but I think this would be a tendentious choice and not the best outcome for Wikipedia. Mtevfrog 01:12, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Have you actually studied Stoic philosophy?; and particularly have you studied Epictetus? I worry when the sources that an editor considers superior are encyclopedias and general studies, such as is the case with all your sources. Those who have translated Epictetus, and who have studied for years to understand, do not call him a Greek. For instance, P. E. Matheson says in the introduction to his excellent translation of the Discourses (page viii): "Like many of the greatest he is almost unknown except his writings. From the scattered statements which have been collected from writers of the second and later centuries, based largely on his own writings, we learn that he was a slave to one Epaphroditus, a freedman of Nero, that he came from Hierapolis in Phrygia, and that he was lame." There is nothing more known about his origin. Phrygia was in Asia Minor, not Greece. There is no source to substantiate the statements that he was Greek. It is just research writers copying the mistake of an earlier research writer. The actual experts in Epictetus do not say he is Greek.

Another source, A.A. Long in his book Epictetus (p. 10): "Little is known of the details of Epictetus' life. He was born probably in the years AD 50-60 in Hierapolis, a major Graeco-Roman city in what is south-western Turkey, 100 miles due east of Ephesus, and connected with that great centre by a Roman road. Probably a slave by birth rather than seizure, he was acquired by Epaphroditus..." Again, nothing about his being Greek.

Since his ethnic origin is unknown, since he studied philosophy in Rome, and since he lived in the Roman part of the Hellenistic era, calling Epictetus Greek is deceptive.

In my view, the biggest problem with Wikipedia is that editors are editing in areas about which they know either little or nothing. Kwork 10:35, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

He was born in Hierapolis in Greek Asia Minor, he became famous as a philosopher in Greek Nicopolis, he taught in Greek and was written about in Greek - surely that should be enough to go with for calling him a Greek philosopher? --194.126.21.5 (talk) 00:03, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Marcus Aurelius "Meditations" is written in Greek, and he spoke Greek. He has been written about in Greek. No one thinks Marcus Aurelius is Greek. 158.174.226.96 (talk) 03:55, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

Thought

I replaced the rather short and garbled stuff (see above) on Epictetus' philosophy with an account drawn (mostly) from Heinrich Ritter. This is an old source now, but I was quite selective in picking which bits from his 25 page account of Epictetus to use, and there are plenty of primary references to back it up. Ritter was the main source used for the philosophy section for the Musonius Rufus page, and it worked quite well there, so I thought a similar approach would represent an improvement on the silly ataraxia stuff we had on this page. Singinglemon (talk) 22:50, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Great Eagle120160 (talk) 14:50, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Not a good idea; refer to my comment under the topic Thought - Part 2 below on this Talk Page. 182.239.146.18 (talk) 12:15, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Thought - Part 2

Despite the Thought topic from 2010 above on this Talk Page, which introduces the work of Heinrich Ritter, Alexander James William Morrison, (1846), The History of Ancient Philosophy, Volume 4 into the Thought section of the article, the only person who should be cited for the thoughts of Epictetus is Epictetus himself, not someone else's reference to it. 182.239.146.18 (talk) 12:13, 20 August 2023 (UTC)