Quotation
Last reviewed:
“Sickness is a hindrance to the body, but not to the will, unless the will itself consents.”
Epictetus · Stoicism · Ancient · c. 108 CE
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is that illness blocks the body and need not block choice, unless the person assents to being stopped in the will as well. A competing reading says this understates depression, pain, and disability, which can narrow choice itself rather than wait politely for consent. The sentence is Enchiridion 9, a short application of the opening distinction between what is up to us and what is not. Lameness is his other example in the same chapter.
Did Epictetus really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. English in the line of Elizabeth Carter and of W. A. Oldfather's Loeb. Arrian wrote the Handbook down from Epictetus's teaching; Epictetus did not publish it.
Where it comes from
Enchiridion 9
Approximate date: c. 108 CE.
How to use it
A bout of flu can cancel the shift and still leave a smaller choice about how you speak to the people in the house. He does not say the body is fine. He says the hindrance to the body is not yet a decision to become bitter or cruel, and some illnesses do invade the capacity to choose, and the chapter is a hard teaching, not a description of every ward.
A mindset reading
The habit is to ask whether the will has added a surrender to a physical limit. Consent, here, means assenting to the judgement that you are ruined as an agent. Refusing that judgement is not the same as refusing treatment or pretending the fever is a mindset.
Understand the philosophy
Epictetus is answering how externals touch a person. The will, prohairesis, is the moral faculty of choice, the thing he says is truly yours. A hindrance to the body stays outside it unless you agree that your choice is equally blocked. The Handbook is Arrian's notebook of exercises, and it assumes a student who can still practise, which is part of why the line travels badly into every illness.
- resilience
- self
FAQ
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is that illness blocks the body and need not block choice, unless the person assents to being stopped in the will as well. A competing reading says this understates depression, pain, and disability, which can narrow choice itself rather than wait politely for consent. The sentence is Enchiridion 9, a short application of the opening distinction between what is up to us and what is not. Lameness is his other example in the same chapter.
Did Epictetus really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. English in the line of Elizabeth Carter and of W. A. Oldfather's Loeb. Arrian wrote the Handbook down from Epictetus's teaching; Epictetus did not publish it.
Which work is it in?
Enchiridion 9 Approximate date: c. 108 CE.