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Title: The Art of Living: The Classic Manual on Virtue, Happiness, and Effectiveness by Epictetus, Epictetus, Sharon Lebell Epictetus ISBN: 0-06-251346-X Publisher: Harper SanFrancisco Pub. Date: 04 May, 2004 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.63 (35 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Keep this on your bedstand
Comment: Some people rely on medication (alcohol, tranquilizers, sleeping pills), on mindless television programs, mystery novels, or meditation to escape the traumas of daily living. Anything that is outside our control can be quashed, submerged or forgotten if only we can get to sleep. But here is a tiny book that will change all that for you. Sharon Lebell's "updated" version of the philosophy of Epictetus offers that preferred closure of night with a reminder of our individual worthiness, of what we can and cannot control, how to encounter and embrace living with the feeling of the nuturing support of a mother, father, lover, friend, God, Buddha, etc. At times clumsy in verbiage, at equal times eloquent in simplicity of statement, Lebell allows us to re-enter the journey of life enriched with wisdom from a man of simple secrets. Guaranteed to help you turn out the light ......and to wake up refreshed in the morning. Just keep this little tome at bedside for daily/nightly doses.
Rating: 4
Summary: Epictetus for everybody
Comment: Epictetus is one of the real "greats" in the history of philosophy. From the very bottom of the Roman social ladder, he taught and practiced a philosophy (originally due to Zeno) that came to be called "Stoicism" and influenced Roman society all the way to the very top: Roman soldiers used to carry copies of the _Enchiridion_ into battle, and the emperor Marcus Aurelius's famous "Meditations" consist mostly of his urging himself, apparently with limited success, to come closer to the Stoic ideal.
The people who characterize Sharon Lebell's interpretive rendering as a "self-help" book have at least half a point; the written records of Epictetus's teachings (Epictetus didn't write them down himself) were self-help books in the first place.
And fine ones they were. Oh, there are a few points at which Epictetus counsels heights of detachment suitable only for inhuman monsters, as when he suggests that we remember our wives and children are mortal so that we won't grieve when they die. But on the whole his teachings are firmly founded on the view that absolutely everything occurs by Providence, we are all of us children of God and citizens of the world with natural fellowship with one another, and we should assume responsibility for precisely those things which we can control -- namely, ourselves.
This view, or something very close to it, has grounded religious and philosophical programs from the Torah to Alcoholics Anonymous, from Spinoza to the Musar movement, from antiquity to the very latest modernity (e.g., Mark Rosen's excellent _Thank You for Being Such a Pain_): when you face a challenge, use it to improve yourself; that's what it's for.
And Epictetus's teachings were not assembled into books in order to provide academic employment for classical scholars. They were recorded because Epictetus himself wasn't going to be around to teach forever and it was believed to be important that his influence outlive him. His philosophy, after all, was supposed to be both practical and practiced.
What Sharon Lebell has done in this excellent little volume is skim the very cream of Epictetus's philosophy and make it accessible to the modern reader. And it is worth remembering that Epictetus himself did not teach in writing but spoke directly to his listeners; his students would not have sat in the library poring over long crabbed volumes but sat in the open air listening to popularly accessible discourses.
Lebell does interpret and modify, and she doesn't always say so. For example, she has Epictetus say at one point, "Rationality isn't everything." This is by way of making the entirely unexceptionable point that there are things we're just not going to understand. But there is a good case to be made that, for Epictetus, rationality -- i.e., conformity to "nature" under the governance of reason -- was indeed "everything," not merely a means to an end, as Lebell's rendering suggests, but both means _and_ end.
But this is a piddling objection; Lebell's interpretations stay pretty close to the original, as any reader can verify by actually checking her text against a good translation of the sources. (I like the _Everyman_ edition, but I think it's out of print.)
And before dismissing Lebell's interpretation as just another self-help book, we should ask ourselves how many _other_ "self-help books" include the advice, "Let your reason be supreme" [p. 62].
Rating: 5
Summary: My gift to graduates
Comment: This book makes a wonderful gift for a new graduate. How many high schools teach philosophy these days? The sensible advice and direction that this modern interpretation provides can be an excellent introduction to philosophy and perhaps widen the scope of thought for young people beyond what 'popular entertainment' offers. I've given this book for several years now and although a graduate may not initially appreciate the ideas presented, eventually it gets picked up and enjoyed.
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Title: A Manual for Living by Epictetus ISBN: 0062511114 Publisher: Harper SanFrancisco Pub. Date: 23 June, 1994 List Price(USD): $9.00 |
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Title: Meditations by MARCUS AURELIUS, GREGORY HAYS ISBN: 0812968255 Publisher: Modern Library Pub. Date: 06 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: Enchiridion by Epictetus, George Long ISBN: 0879757035 Publisher: Promethean Books Pub. Date: 01 January, 1955 List Price(USD): $7.00 |
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Title: Handbook of Epictetus by Nicholas P. White ISBN: 0915145693 Publisher: Hackett Pub Co Pub. Date: June, 1983 List Price(USD): $3.95 |
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Title: Stoic Philosophy of Seneca Essays and Letters by Seneca, Moses Hadas ISBN: 0393004597 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: September, 1968 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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