Quotation
Last reviewed:
“It is not the person who abuses or strikes you who insults you, but your judgement that these things are insulting.”
Epictetus · Stoicism · Ancient · c. 108 CE
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is that an insult is completed by your judgement that the abuse or the blow degrades you, so the workable part is that judgement. A competing reading says a strike is already a harm and an injustice, and that locating insult only in the victim's mind excuses the striker. The chapter is Enchiridion 20, a hard case of the claim that judgements disturb us. Epictetus, who had been enslaved, is not ignorant of blows, and he is redescribing what can reach the will.
Did Epictetus really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. Close to W. A. Oldfather's Loeb translation of Enchiridion 20. Arrian recorded the Handbook; Epictetus taught it.
Where it comes from
Enchiridion 20
Approximate date: c. 108 CE.
How to use it
A slur in the street or a shove in a queue is real, and you can still report it, leave, or ask for help. His claim is that the further verdict, 'this shows what I am', is the insult you add. Other people can behave vilely without that verdict being compulsory, and nothing in the chapter says the striker was right to strike, and it says they do not get to finish the meaning on their own.
A mindset reading
The habit is to split the act from the verdict that you have been made small. Ask which part is the other person's behaviour and which part is the judgement you are about to assent to. Refusing the second is not a denial of the first, and it is not a duty to stay for more.
Understand the philosophy
Epictetus is answering the feeling of being degraded by abuse. An insult, on this account, requires a judgement that externals can dishonour you. The key term is judgement, hypolēpsis, the same family of words Marcus uses when he says life is opinion. The striker supplies the event, and assent supplies the humiliation; Stoic ethics works on the assent, and it can still call the striker's act vicious.
- mind
- ethics
FAQ
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is that an insult is completed by your judgement that the abuse or the blow degrades you, so the workable part is that judgement. A competing reading says a strike is already a harm and an injustice, and that locating insult only in the victim's mind excuses the striker. The chapter is Enchiridion 20, a hard case of the claim that judgements disturb us. Epictetus, who had been enslaved, is not ignorant of blows, and he is redescribing what can reach the will.
Did Epictetus really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. Close to W. A. Oldfather's Loeb translation of Enchiridion 20. Arrian recorded the Handbook; Epictetus taught it.
Which work is it in?
Enchiridion 20 Approximate date: c. 108 CE.