O Bem Humano em Epicteto

In this paper we concentrate our attention on the celebrated distinction between things up to us (eph’ hemin) and things not up to us (ouk eph’ hemin), surveying the distinction between the material (hyle) and its use. According to this distinction, all external things are not up to us and consequently have no intrinsic value, although, as materials for the capacity of choice, their use has value, since humans can use things well or badly. We argue that the use of the materials corresponds to the use of presentations (phantasiai), and link the use of material directly to the three essential preoccupations of Epictetus’ philosophy: the topic relative to desire, the topic relative to impulse and the topic relative to assent. The knowledge contained in these three topics constitute, for Epictetus, what we should know to make good use of presentations, and consequently, to achieve the human good, which is a capacity of choice according to nature that has at its disposal a comprehensive set of correct opinions about reality.