Concerning each of those things that are alluring or have any usefulness or you are fond of, remember to say, what type it is, even beginning from the smallest things: If you are fond of a pot, that, “I am fond of a pot.” For if it breaks you will not suffer. If you kiss your very own little child or wife, that you are kissing a human: because if they die, you will not suffer. Epictetus, Enchiridion I.3
ἐφ᾽ ἑκάστου τῶν ψυχαγωγούντων ἢ χρείαν παρεχόντων ἢ στεργομένων μέμνησο ἐπιλέγειν, ὁποῖόν ἐστιν, ἀπὸ τῶν σμικροτάτων ἀρξάμενος: ἂν χύτραν στέργῃς, ὅτι ‘χύτραν στέργω.’ κατεαγείσης γὰρ αὐτῆς οὐ ταραχθήσῃ: ἂν παιδίον σαυτοῦ καταφιλῇς ἢ γυναῖκα, ὅτι ἄνθρωπον καταφιλεῖς: ἀποθανόντος γὰρ οὐ ταραχθήσῃ.
On my last post on Epictetus, I discussed the therapeutic protocol one is to undertake when encountering an “object” in the world. It is unclear thus far if Epictetus intends for this mental procedure to be a comprehensive categorization of everything in the world which one could desire. But it does, consistent with the all-inclusive calculus of a Stoic, include the seemingly least important (pots) all the way up to the most important “objects” (wives and children).
An interpreter could choose to focus on the subjective element of the choice in Epictetus: It is I, this self, that is choosing to love this pot. And we could, in accord with this view, draw conclusions about foisting our choices promiscuously upon a new object of choice, after the old one has been taken from us. I do not believe this is Epictetus’ view.
Against our expectations of a philosopher who said, in the slanderous paraphrase of the Bard, “there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so”* Epictetus makes it quite clear that we are to focus on “what” our object is (ὁποῖόν ἐστιν). So when it comes to forefending the grief associated with the loss of a wife, we are to remember that she IS a human, but we merely THINK she is our wife. We must disabuse ourselves of erroneous dispositions about the actual world, not, as goes the Stoic caricature, mentally grunt it away.
*Hamlet Act 2 Scene II lines 250-251