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INDEX
Index items derived from the General Index of the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. Translator and editor, Martin Hammond.
You can view the indices....Meditations, Index
Judgment(s) 2.15, 3.6.3, 3.9., 3.16, 4.3.4; 4.7, 4.39, 5.19, 5.26, 5.34, 6.52, 7.2, 7.14, 7.16, 7.26, 7.55; 7.62, 7.68, 8.16, 8.28, 8.38, 8.40, 8.47, 8.48, 9.13, 9.21, 9.32, 10.3, 10.33, 11.9, 11.11, 11.16, 11.18.7, 11.21, 12.22, 12.25.
Epictetus [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy] by Keith H. Seddon.
The key to transforming oneself into the Stoic sophos (wise person)
is to learn what is 'in one's power',
and this is 'the correct use of impressions' (phantasiai),
which in outline involves not judging as good or bad anything that appears to one.
Explicating Marcus Aurelius' Meditation XII, 3
, Pierre Hadot (1998, 114-15) circumscribes
what is "in one's power". He calls this exercise the "delimitation of the self."
The general principle
which presides over the exercise of the delimitation of the self,
which I am now describing, was formulated by Epictetus, and placed by
Arrian at the beginning of his Manual [Handbook 1]: the difference between
things that depend on us and the things that do not depend on us.
In other words, it is the difference between inner causality, or our
faculty of choice--our inner freedom--and external causality, that is
to say Destiny and the universal course of Nature (Hadot, 114).
Hadot says, "In the [following] passage from Marcus...one can observe a complete equivalence
between five terms [I've added "moral character" to the list of equivalents
(See Seddon)]:
- the self ["thyself"];
- intellect (nous) ["intelligence"];
- the power of reflection (dianoia) ["understanding"];
- the guiding principle (hêgemonikon) ["ruling faculty"];
- the inner daimôn ["daemon"]."
- moral character (prohairesis) ["will"];
The things are three of which thou art composed, a little body,
a little breath (life), intelligence.
Of these the first two are thine,
so far as it is thy duty to take care of them; but the third alone is properly
thine.
Therefore if thou shalt separate from thyself, that is, from thy
understanding,
--whatever others do or say,
--and whatever thou hast done or
said thyself, and whatever future things trouble thee because they may
happen,
--and whatever in the body which envelops thee or in the breath (life),
which is by nature associated with the body, is attached to thee independent
of thy will,
--and whatever the external circumfluent vortex whirls round,
so that the intellectual power
--exempt from the things of fate
--can live pure
--and free by itself,
--doing what is just,
--accepting what happens, and
--saying the truth:
-----if thou wilt separate, I say, from this ruling faculty the things which are attached to it by the impressions of sense,
and the things of time to come and of time that is past,
and wilt make thyself
like >Empedocles' sphere, "All round, and in its joyous rest reposing;"
and if thou shalt strive
to live only what is really thy life, that is, the present-
-----then thou wilt
be able to pass that portion of life which remains for thee up to the time
of thy death, free from perturbations, nobly, and obedient to thy own daemon
(to the god that is within thee).
3. The things are three of which thou art composed, a little body,
a little breath (life), intelligence. Of these the first two are thine,
so far as it is thy duty to take care of them; but the third alone is properly
thine. Therefore if thou shalt separate from thyself, that is, from thy
understanding, whatever others do or say, and whatever thou hast done or
said thyself, and whatever future things trouble thee because they may
happen, and whatever in the body which envelops thee or in the breath (life),
which is by nature associated with the body, is attached to thee independent
of thy will, and whatever the external circumfluent vortex whirls round,
so that the intellectual power exempt from the things of fate can live
pure and free by itself, doing what is just and accepting what happens
and saying the truth: if thou wilt separate, I say, from this ruling faculty
the things which are attached to it by the impressions of sense, and the
things of time to come and of time that is past, and wilt make thyself
like Empedocles' sphere,
All round, and in its joyous rest reposing; and if thou shalt strive
to live only what is really thy life, that is, the present- then thou wilt
be able to pass that portion of life which remains for thee up to the time
of thy death, free from perturbations, nobly, and obedient to thy own daemon
(to the god that is within thee).
There are three things of which you are composed: your body, your vital breath, and your intellect (nous).
The first two are yours only insofar as you must take care of them. Only the third is yours in the proper sense of the term.
This is why, if you separate yourself from yourself,
that is to say, from your thought (dianoia),
--everything that others may say or do;
--or again, everything that you yourself have said and done (in the past), as well as the things which trouble you because they are still to come;
--and everything that happens to you , independently of your will, because of the body which surrounds you, or your innate vital breath;
--and everything which stirs the waves of the violent sea which bathes you,
in order that
--raised above the interweavings of Fate,
--pure,
--free for itself,
the living intellectual power
--by doing what is right,
--by willing everything that happens,
--by telling the truth,
-----if, I say, you separate from this guiding principle (hegemonikon) the things which have become attached to it, because it has become attached to them,
and if you separate from time that which is beyond the present and that which is past,
and if you make yourself like the Sphairos of Empedocles, "a pure orb, proud of its joyful uniqueness,"
and if you strive to live only what you live--that is to say, the present,
-----then you will be able to live the time that is left to you, up until your death, untroubled, benevolently and serenely with regard to your inner daimon (Hadot, 112-13).
"For Marcus, desire and aversion presuppose passivity.
They are provoked by external events, which are themselves the
product of a cause which is external to us; the tendency
to act or not to act, by contrast, is the effect of that cause
which is within us (IX, 31). For Marcus, these two causes
correspond respectively to common and universal Nature, on
the one hand, and to our nature, on the other" (Hadot, 128-29):
Reflecting on all this,
consider nothing to be great, except to act as thy nature leads thee, and to endure that
which the common nature brings (XII, 32, 3).
"Elsewhere, Marcus writes" (129):
Does another do me wrong? Let him look to it. He has his
own disposition, his own activity. I now have what the universal
nature wills me to have; and I do what my nature now wills me
to do (V, 25).
"And again" (129):
No man will hinder thee from living according to the
reason of thy own nature: nothing will happen to thee contrary
to the reason of the universal nature (VI, 58).
There are three things of which your are composed: your body, your breath, and your intellect (nous).
the first two are hyours only insofar as you must take care of them. Only the third is yours in the proper sense of the term.
this is why, if your separate yourself from yourself,
that is to say, from your thought (dianoia),
---everything that others may say or do;
---or again, every thing that you yourself have said and done (in the past), as well as the things which trouble you because they are still to come;
---and everything that happens to your, independently of your will,
Hadot, Piere (1998). The Inner Citadel: The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. tr. by M. Chase. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
"Many men think that they are seeking happiness when they are only seeking the
gratification of some particular passion, the strongest that they
have" (George Long interpreting Marcus Aurelius).
XXX
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Bryn Mawr Classical Review 98.6.23
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