Welcome to this free online course on a classic work of Ancient Stoic philosophy - Epictetus' Enchiridion!

This little "Handbook" is one of the most important and influential books of Western Philosophy, and it's even more central to the tradition of Stoicism. So, in studying it, thinking about its chapters, and trying to apply it to your own life, you're walking a path that thousands of people from all walks of life have trod for close to two millennia!

The Enchiridion itself is absolutely the centerpiece of this course - and to get the full benefit, you should plan to spend a good bit of time studying that short text. But I've also created a lot of cool (and hopefully helpful) resources for you, housed here in this course site. There are 21 lecture videos working their way through the entire Enchiridion, chapter by chapter. I've also created handouts and worksheets that you can download, write on, and do what you like with. You'll find questions for discussion, where you can write down your own responses, see what others have written, and write you own responses to them. And, I'm even creating some quizzes that you can use to check your own developing understanding.

This is a course that you can work through entirely at your own pace. If you want to blaze your way through everything - watching the videos while reading the text, and taking the quizzes, in a blur of activity - well, you can do that (though I don't really advise it!). If you want to watch one video a day, study a few chapters, really mull them over, and get to the end in 21 days, that's a possibility as well. Once you're enrolled - and if you're here, you should be! - you can go back to this material as often as you like. So if you really like the class, and then want to share it with a friend, and go through it again with them, you certainly can.

I've made this class free to enroll in for you for several reasons. The first one is that, as a member of the Stoicism Today project, I'm happy to provide a good class on Stoic philosophy that everyone can have access to. The second is that, here at ReasonIO, we have a long history of offering some of our products and services free to those who could benefit from them, treating education as a common good. If we didn't have to make a living at it, we'd give everything away for free! That brings me to the third reason. This is only the very first of the classes we're developing here in our Teachable academy. We're going to be bringing out many other great philosophy courses as well in the months and years to come. So, if you like this one, keep an eye out for the other courses we offer!

Now it's time for you to start! Again, welcome to the class. I hope it is a great benefit to you. This is a really rich text by a great Stoic thinker, and if you put in the time, you'll be amazed how much you get out of it!