Plato's The Handbook
In High School, I always wished that there was a guide to a teenager’s life that would help me through all those awkward moments in my life. Imagine it: you would know what to do your freshman year, and how to deal with those intimidating seniors; you would know what to do when you fell in love for the first time, and, in turn, when your first love breaks your heart for the first time; you would know what to do about your first party, your first “F”, your first everything. Little did I know, there was already a book kind of like that. Epictetus’ The Handbook guides you with several philosophical points to think about to help you lead a completely tranquil life. Specifically, point number ...
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and your wife and your friends to live forever, since you are wanting things to be up to you that are not up to you, and things to be yours that are not ours. You are stupid in the same way if you want your slave boy to be faultless, since you are wanting badness not to be badness but something else. But not to fail to get what you desire – this you are capable of. A person’s master is someone who has power over what he wants or does not want, either to obtain it or take it away. Whoever wants to be free, therefore, let him not want or avoid anything that is up to others. Otherwise he will necessarily be a slave.” (Epictetus 15)
Epictetus’ philosophical suggestions for a better, happier life can only be fully understood once you grasp a full knowledge of his past. Epictetus was born in 55 CE, and when he arrived in Rome, he became a slave, earning the name Epictetus, meaning slave (Bleiberg 275). Epictetus served his master into his young adulthood, suffering from mistreatment ...
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the difference between what you desire and what is reality.
The passage that has dramatically stuck out like a sore thumb is passage fourteen. This passage blatantly instructs you to not wish that your family not die, and to not morn for long when they do. This may be a bit disturbing, and a tad depressing, however, it has a heartening twist at the end. The first sentences discuss the loss of family members, and slavery, which have been engraved into this history and everyday life of American culture.
When trying to uncover the philosophical for the argument in this specific passage, his claim should be implied instead of taken straight out of the book, because he uses more ...
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Plato's The Handbook. (2011, March 30). Retrieved November 22, 2024, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Platos-The-Handbook/97192
"Plato's The Handbook." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 30 Mar. 2011. Web. 22 Nov. 2024. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Platos-The-Handbook/97192>
"Plato's The Handbook." Essayworld.com. March 30, 2011. Accessed November 22, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Platos-The-Handbook/97192.
"Plato's The Handbook." Essayworld.com. March 30, 2011. Accessed November 22, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Platos-The-Handbook/97192.
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