A The Place of Logic in the Philosophy of Epictetus

Abstract

For the Stoics, logic is a guide that protects the mind from wrong inferences, contains all the virtues and makes people virtuous. Therefore, the Stoics thought that learning logic is compulsory in order to make right decisions, avoid wrong reasoning, and be virtuous. For them, logic is a tool that gives us the ability to distinguish right from wrong. Epictetus, whose thoughts on logic will be discussed in this paper, is one of the late Stoic philosophers. According to him, the universe is good; evil comes from our judgements about things. So, if our judgements about things are true, those judgements make us good, and therefore happy. At this point, for Epictetus, logic also has ethical value as a means of distinguishing good from evil. Epictetus sees logic as a requirement to use language properly. For him, happiness is living in accordance with nature, that is, reason. The secret of living in harmony with nature is to use your own mind, to know yourself through the awareness of your own consciousness, to strive for what you have and surrender to what you do not have. Because that's what makes reasonable. According to him, the body may be a slave, but the thought is free. Therefore, logic is seen as the ability to improve our self-awareness and emancipate our will. In this respect, the aim of this study is to investigate the nature of logic by discussing the problem of the place of logic in the philosophy of Epictetus.