Discourses · Chapter
How Magnanimity Is Consistent with Care explained
Epictetus explains how to balance careful attention to actions with inner indifference to outcomes, using the analogy of dice and ball games.
What happens
Epictetus explains how to balance careful attention to actions with inner indifference to outcomes, using the analogy of dice and ball games. He argues that externals are indifferent but their use is not, and that one must act with care while remaining detached from results. Socrates is presented as a model of this skill, playing with life-and-death matters as if they were a game. The chapter concludes with the idea that a person is part of a larger whole (humanity and the divine state), and must accept whatever roles and events that whole requires.
Themes in this chapter
Dichotomy of Control
Central to the chapter: externals are not in our power, will is; the use of externals is our business, not the outcomes.
Social Duty and Friendship
Emphasized through the analogy of the foot and the body: a person is part of a whole (state of gods and men) and must accept roles for the good of the whole.
Characters to notice
- Socrates
Cited as an example of playing skillfully with life's trials, using pleasantry during his trial and questioning Anytus about daemons.
- Anytus
Mentioned as Socrates' accuser in the trial, who admitted that daemons are sons of gods or compounded of gods and men.
- Epictetus
The speaker of the discourse, teaching how to combine magnanimity with carefulness.
Key passages
“Things themselves (materials) are indifferent; but the use of them is not indifferent.”
External objects have no moral value in themselves; only how we choose to use them matters.
Opening statement establishing the dichotomy between indifferent externals and non-indifferent use.
“But it is difficult to mingle and to bring together these two things: the carefulness of him who is affected by the matter (or things about him) and the firmness of him who has no regard for it; but it is not impossible: and if it is, happiness is impossible.”
Combining careful attention with inner detachment is hard but essential; without it, happiness cannot exist.
Key challenge of the chapter: balancing care and indifference.
“Socrates then knew how to play at ball. How? By using pleasantry in the court where he was tried.”
Socrates demonstrated skill by joking during his own trial, treating life-and-death matters as a game.
Illustrates the ideal of playing skillfully with serious external events.