{
    "schema": "prokopton42-public-passage-v1",
    "id": "elizabeth_carter.epictetus_introduction",
    "canonical_url": "https://prokopton42.com/en/works/elizabeth-carter/epictetus-introduction/reference-15/",
    "language": "en",
    "title": "Introduction to the Works of Epictetus, by Elizabeth Carter",
    "author": "Elizabeth Carter",
    "date": "c. 1749-1758; published in 1759",
    "summary": "Elizabeth Carter opens her translation of Epictetus with an account of Stoicism, its three fields of exercise, and its moral vocabulary. She provides readers with orientation while comparing some ancient claims with her Christian commitments.",
    "learning": "Understand Carter’s map of Stoicism, distinguish introduction from translated text, and identify where her Christian interpretation directs the account.",
    "long_summary": "The introduction presents desires and aversions, impulses to act, and assent as fields of progressive training. Carter explains the distinction between what is up to us and external events, then situates duty, providence, and freedom within the Stoic system.\n\nThis paratext is critical work by the translator, not speech by Epictetus. It makes the Discourses accessible to an eighteenth-century English audience while evaluating antiquity from Carter’s own theological horizon. Comparisons and reservations must therefore be attributed to her.",
    "historical_context": "The corpus manifests do not yet establish the precise place and circumstances of composition. The images below document the author’s world or the text’s transmission. They do not claim to show the exact scene of writing.",
    "material_world_label": "18th-century Europe",
    "material_world": {
        "technology": "Printing presses, early steam engines, textile machinery, clockmaking, and metalwork begin an uneven mechanization.",
        "science": "Learned societies, collections, measurement, public experiments, and classification make science more collective and testable.",
        "medicine": "Anatomy and clinical observation advance; variolation and then vaccination appear, but anaesthesia, antisepsis, and microbes are not yet mastered.",
        "transport": "Walking, horses, stagecoaches, barges, and sailing ships. Roads and relays improve, but travel remains slow.",
        "agriculture": "Rotations, animal breeding, drainage, and new foods raise some yields while much labour remains manual.",
        "communication": "Newspapers, books, pamphlets, salons, and post move ideas at a new speed measured in days or weeks.",
        "clothing": "Coats, waistcoats, and breeches dress prosperous men; bodices, skirts, and gowns structure women’s fashion. Working people wear simpler, repeatedly repaired forms."
    },
    "material_world_scenes": [
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/22-1789-ce/world-01.webp",
            "title": "Technology, science, and care",
            "description": "Printing presses, early steam engines, textile machinery, clockmaking, and metalwork begin an uneven mechanization. Learned societies, collections, measurement, public experiments, and classification make science more collective and testable. Anatomy and clinical observation advance; variolation and then vaccination appear, but anaesthesia, antisepsis, and microbes are not yet mastered."
        },
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/22-1789-ce/world-02.webp",
            "title": "Travel and communication",
            "description": "Walking, horses, stagecoaches, barges, and sailing ships. Roads and relays improve, but travel remains slow. Newspapers, books, pamphlets, salons, and post move ideas at a new speed measured in days or weeks."
        },
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/22-1789-ce/world-03.webp",
            "title": "Farming and food",
            "description": "Rotations, animal breeding, drainage, and new foods raise some yields while much labour remains manual."
        },
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/22-1789-ce/world-04.webp",
            "title": "Clothing, women and men",
            "description": "Coats, waistcoats, and breeches dress prosperous men; bodices, skirts, and gowns structure women’s fashion. Working people wear simpler, repeatedly repaired forms."
        }
    ],
    "intellectual_tradition": {
        "id": "stoicism",
        "label": "Stoicism"
    },
    "period": {
        "id": "modern",
        "label": "Modern era"
    },
    "languages": [
        "en",
        "fr"
    ],
    "manifestations": [
        {
            "coverage": "complete_for_acquired_ocr",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/elizabeth_carter/epictetus_introduction/representations/en.ndjson",
            "language": "en",
            "records": 37,
            "role": "original",
            "sha256": "52a11b7f83a45577ea6ed0a8a0efedf3cb77d287090718ac7b92fe15e14fe9fa"
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        {
            "coverage": "complete",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/elizabeth_carter/epictetus_introduction/representations/ai-generated/fr-gpt-5-6-sol-corpus-passage-translation-v1.ndjson",
            "generated_on": "2026-09-11",
            "language": "fr",
            "model": "gpt-5.6-sol",
            "official_status": "non_official",
            "prompt_version": "corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "provider": "codex_subscription",
            "records": 37,
            "role": "ai_generated_translation_non_official",
            "sha256": "0f01db33e5448160cdf4830e424ff1825d54b6cb4de3050d1bf4d5d28ec0e97d",
            "source_id": "prokopton42-codex-translation:gpt-5.6-sol:corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "translation_type": "ai_generated_translation"
        }
    ],
    "concepts": [
        {
            "id": "beneficence",
            "label": "Beneficence"
        },
        {
            "id": "care_of_soul",
            "label": "Care of the soul"
        },
        {
            "id": "death",
            "label": "Death"
        },
        {
            "id": "dukkha",
            "label": "Dukkha"
        },
        {
            "id": "editorial_responsibility",
            "label": "Editorial responsibility"
        },
        {
            "id": "faith",
            "label": "Faith"
        },
        {
            "id": "hope",
            "label": "Hope"
        },
        {
            "id": "intellectual_discipline",
            "label": "Intellectual discipline"
        },
        {
            "id": "pleasure",
            "label": "Pleasure"
        },
        {
            "id": "suffering",
            "label": "Suffering"
        },
        {
            "id": "time",
            "label": "Time"
        },
        {
            "id": "translation_as_interpretation",
            "label": "Translation as interpretation"
        },
        {
            "id": "war_and_peace",
            "label": "War and peace"
        }
    ],
    "source_work_ids": [
        "elizabeth_carter.epictetus_introduction"
    ],
    "passages": 37,
    "word_count": 8770,
    "word_counts_by_language": {
        "en": 8770,
        "fr": 8731
    },
    "editorial_status": "gpt_5_6_semantic_draft_v1",
    "structure": {
        "citation_scheme": "carter-work-unit-v1",
        "kind": "native",
        "levels": [
            {
                "key": "unit",
                "label_fr": "Unité",
                "label_en": "Unit"
            }
        ],
        "leaf_fr": "Unité",
        "leaf_en": "Unit"
    },
    "canonical_passage_id": "passage:elizabeth_carter.epictetus_introduction:15",
    "canonical_ref": "15",
    "canonical_parent_ref": null,
    "canonical_parent_id": null,
    "representations": [
        {
            "language": "en",
            "text": "§. 27. As the Stoics by the Permission of Suicide, plainly implied, that external Inconveniences were not indifferent in the Extremity; it follows, that they must proportionably be allowed not to be indifferent in the inferior Degrees: of which Zeno seemed to be perfectly well convinced by hanging himself when his Finger aked. And where was the Use of taking so much Pains to say, and believe what they knew to be false? It might, perhaps, be thought to be of some Benefit, in the Time of the later Stoics, to the great Men of Rome, whom the Emperors frequently butchered at their Pleasure: and this is the Use, to which Epictetus is perpetually applying it. Yet, even in this Case, the Stoic Doctrine, where Men could bring themselves to act upon it, made them absurdly rough, as appears by the History of Helvidius Priscus and hindered the Good, they might otherwise have done. And, if a Man, taught thus to despise Tortures and Death, should happen at the same time to be wrong-headed, for which he had no small Chance, he would, in one Respect, be a more terrible wild Beast, than an Enthusiast of any other Sect; as he would not think his Sufferings Evils: though in another he would be less so, as he would not hope to be rewarded for them hereafter",
            "source_id": "wikisource-carter-epictetus-introduction-r14410674",
            "translation_type": "original_english"
        },
        {
            "language": "fr",
            "text": "§. 27. Puisque les stoïciens, en permettant le suicide, impliquaient clairement que les inconvénients extérieurs ne sont pas indifférents lorsqu’ils atteignent leur extrémité, il s’ensuit qu’il faut proportionnellement reconnaître qu’ils ne sont pas indifférents à des degrés inférieurs. Zénon semblait en être parfaitement convaincu lorsqu’il se pendit parce qu’il avait mal au doigt. À quoi servait de se donner tant de peine pour dire et croire ce qu’ils savaient être faux ? On pourrait peut-être penser que cela était de quelque utilité, au temps des derniers stoïciens, pour les grands hommes de Rome que les empereurs faisaient fréquemment égorger selon leur bon plaisir. C’est l’usage auquel Épictète l’applique perpétuellement. Pourtant, même dans ce cas, la doctrine stoïcienne, lorsque les hommes pouvaient se résoudre à agir d’après elle, les rendait absurdement intraitables, comme le montre l’histoire d’Helvidius Priscus, et les empêchait de faire le bien qu’ils auraient autrement pu accomplir. Et si un homme ainsi instruit à mépriser les tortures et la mort se trouvait en même temps avoir l’esprit faux, ce qui n’était nullement improbable, il serait sous un rapport une bête sauvage plus terrible qu’un enthousiaste de toute autre secte, puisqu’il ne tiendrait pas ses souffrances pour des maux. Sous un autre rapport, il le serait moins, puisqu’il n’espérerait pas en être récompensé dans l’au-delà.",
            "translator": "Codex gpt-5.6-sol",
            "edition": "Prokopton42 non-official AI translation, 2026-09-11",
            "source_id": "prokopton42-codex-translation:gpt-5.6-sol:corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "translation_type": "ai_generated_translation",
            "official_status": "non_official",
            "generation_model": "gpt-5.6-sol"
        }
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}