Forthcoming in R. Brouwer & E. Vimercati (eds.), Fate, Providence, and Free Will (Brill) Penultimate version 1 Epictetus on what is in our power: modal versus epistemic conceptions Ricardo Salles Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México There is a modal conception of what is ‘in our power’ (ἐφ᾿ἡµῖν) often attributed to Epictetus according to which an activity φ is in our power (ἐφ᾿ἡµῖν) only if nothing external ‘can’ hinder our φ-ing in the modal sense that nothing external could hinder it even if nothing external actually does so. I call this conception ‘MC’. For instance, If I walk now but you could hinder my walking, then, even if you do not actually hinder it, walking now is not in my power. The attribution of MC to Epictetus goes back at least to Simplicius, 1 and has strong advocates in modern scholarship. 2 In this short paper I contend, however, that MC ought to be rejected as an interpretation of Epictetus. As I shall argue in section 1, MC has no strong textual support and, in addition, it presupposes a problematic notion of counterfactual possibility. In section 2, I claim that there is an alternative conception of what is in our power, the Epistemic Conception or ‘EC’ that we may attribute to Epictetus. It is well supported by textual evidence and does not lead to the problems of MC. Its key notion is not modal, but epistemic: an activity φ is in our 1 See in Ep. Ench. 4, 1-4 “By ‘in our power’ he means that of which we are in control and over which we have authority. For we say that those things are in the power of each person which the person does not have from someone else, and which cannot be thwarted by someone else” (Ἐφ’ ἡµῖν ἐκεῖνα λέγει, ὧν κύριοί ἐσµεν, καὶ ὧν τὴν ἐξουσίαν ἔχοµεν. Ταῦτα [γὰρ] καὶ ἐπ’ αὐτῷ ἑκάστῳ λέγοµεν, ἃ µὴ παρ’ ἄλλου ἔχει, µηδὲ ὑπ’ ἄλλου τινὸς ἐµποδίζεσθαι δύναται). 2 See Bobzien 1998: 332: “For Epictetus [walking] does not seem to [be in our power: ἐφ᾿ ἡµῖν], since in principle something could prevent [us] from walking, even if in this case nothing does” Long 2002: 219: “Epictetus is saying that something is ‘ours’ or ‘up to us’ [ἐφ᾿ἡµῖν] only if it cannot be externally impeded. Taking a step can be externally impeded. Therefore, even when we voluntarily walk, we should not say that the only causal factor was our prohairesis, because our body’s parts do not strictly belong to ‘us’ and so do not fall within the unequivocal scope of our agency. In order for something fully to depend on us, Epictetus claims, it must be the kind of thing that is in our power under all possible circumstances, including bodily paralysis or a tyrant’s seizure of all our limbs. The only kinds of thing that qualify are the two mental functions of prohairesis, assent and impulse”, and more recently Coope 2016: 251:“For Epictetus, something only counts as depending on the agent [= ἐφ᾿ἡµῖν] if nothing external to the agent could interfere with it”.