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Question

What is the Stoic teaching of the two handles in Epictetus's Handbook?

A short teaching from Epictetus on choosing how to grasp what happens to you, and why that choice is up to you even when the event is not.

Updated

The short answer

Epictetus teaches that everything has two handles, one by which it can be carried and one by which it cannot (Handbook 43). When someone wrongs you, you can grasp the event by the fact of their wrongdoing, which cannot be carried because it is not yours to control, or by a fact that is workable, such as that the person is your brother. The teaching is a practical application of the dichotomy of control: pick up situations by the handle that corresponds to what is actually up to you.

Key points

  • Epictetus states that everything has two handles, one that carries and one that does not (Handbook 43).
  • His example is a brother's injustice: grasping it by his wrongdoing fails, grasping it by the relationship and shared history works.
  • The teaching applies the dichotomy of control from Handbook 1, which sorts opinion and one's own actions as up to us and other people's actions as not.
  • The two handles are not about which framing feels better, but about which one is actually true and workable.
  • Discourses I 1 explains why the faculty of choice is the one possession fully ours, which is the faculty being used to choose a handle.
  • Applying the teaching means asking, in a moment of friction, which handle is actually yours to hold.

The longer answer

Epictetus states the teaching in a single image. Everything has two handles, one by which it can be carried and one by which it cannot (Handbook 43). His example is direct: if your brother has wronged you, do not pick the matter up by the handle of his injustice, because that handle will not carry. Pick it up instead by the fact that he is your brother, that you were raised together. That handle will carry (Handbook 43).

The common misreading treats this as a trick for staying calm, a kind of mental reframe you perform so the sting goes away. Read that way, the two handles become a coping technique, a way to talk yourself out of being upset. But that flattens what Epictetus is actually claiming. The teaching is not about which handle feels better to hold. It is about which handle actually works, which one lets you carry the situation at all.

This connects directly to the distinction Epictetus draws at the start of the Handbook, between what is up to us and what is not. Opinion, pursuit, desire, and aversion are our own doing and are therefore free and unhindered. Body, property, reputation, and the actions of others belong to a different category. They are not ours to command, and treating them as if they were guarantees disturbance (Handbook 1). Your brother's injustice is his action, not yours. It sits on the side of things not up to you. Grasping the event by that handle means trying to lift something that was never yours to lift, and it will not carry, no matter how justified your grip feels.

The other handle, that he is your brother, that you share a history, is not a comforting story you tell yourself. It picks out what is actually true and actually workable: your relationship to him, and your own response, which are within your faculty of choice. Epictetus elsewhere has Zeus explain why this faculty is the one thing given to us fully and without hindrance, since body and property could not be made free from external interference (Discourses I 1). The two handles teaching is that same principle applied to a single moment of friction. You do not get to choose whether your brother acted unjustly. You do get to choose which fact about the situation you use to lift it.

This is a harder claim than the self-help version suggests. Epictetus is not telling you to look on the bright side. He is telling you that one handle is simply false to grab, because it hands your peace of mind to your brother's choices, and the other handle is the only one connected to something actually in your control, namely your own judgment and response. Choosing the workable handle is not a mood trick. It is accuracy about where your agency actually lies.

In practice, this means pausing before you react to someone's fault and asking which handle you are reaching for. If you reach for their wrongdoing itself, notice that it will not carry, since you cannot lift it or undo it. Look for the handle that is actually yours: the relationship, the shared history, your own next action. Pick the situation up by that one.

Primary passages

Everything has two handles, the one by which it may be carried, the other by which it cannot. If your brother acts unjustly, don't lay hold on the action by the handle of his injustice, for by that it cannot be carried; but by the opposite, that he is your brother, that he was brought up with you; and thus you will lay hold on it, as it is to be carried.

Epictetus, Handbook 43 Read in context

The teaching in full: Epictetus gives one concrete case, a brother's injustice, to show which handle actually works.

Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever are not our own actions.

Epictetus, Handbook 1 Read in context

The founding distinction the two handles teaching applies to a single case: your brother's action is not yours, your response is.

I have given you a small portion of us, this faculty of pursuing an object and avoiding it, and the faculty of desire and aversion, and, in a word, the faculty of using the appearances of things; and if you will take care of this faculty and consider it your only possession, you will never be hindered

Epictetus, Discourses I 1 Read in context

Zeus explains why the faculty of choice, not body or circumstance, is the one thing fully ours, the same faculty at work in choosing a handle.

Important distinctions

A coping trick versus an accurate grip

It is tempting to read the two handles as a technique for feeling better, a way to spin an insult into something tolerable. Epictetus's point is narrower and harder: one handle literally cannot carry the weight, because it depends on something outside your control, namely another person's action. The other handle works because it corresponds to what is actually yours, your relationship and your response. The choice is about accuracy, not mood.

Excusing the wrong versus not gripping it

Choosing the handle of the relationship does not mean denying that your brother acted unjustly. Epictetus does not ask you to pretend the injustice did not happen. He asks you not to lift the situation by that handle, since doing so only strains you without moving anything, since his action is not up to you to undo.

Objections and replies

Isn't this just picking a nicer story to tell yourself?

A skeptic might say the two handles are a rationalization technique dressed up in philosophical language, choosing whichever framing lets you avoid conflict.

Reply

Epictetus's criterion is not which handle feels nicer but which one carries. The handle of the other person's fault fails because it rests on something not up to you, their choices. The handle of the relationship succeeds because it rests on something real and within your power to act on. The test is functional, not emotional.

Doesn't this let people off the hook for real wrongs?

If you always reach for the workable handle, you might never hold anyone accountable, since you keep setting the wrongdoing itself aside.

Reply

The teaching addresses how you carry the situation internally, not whether you address the wrong externally. Epictetus's own example still names the act as an injustice. What changes is where you place your peace of mind, not whether the matter gets addressed through appropriate action.

Practice this in Stoa

Guided courses in the Stoa app that put this into daily practice.

Related questions

Podcast discussions

Concepts

  • The dichotomy of control You will learn why Epictetus draws a hard line between what is up to us and what is not, and why that line is about identity and value, not stress management.

Philosophers

  • Epictetus Epictetus argues that freedom does not come from your circumstances but from correctly sorting what is up to you from what is not.

Works

  • Handbook by Epictetus A short, blunt manual for telling what is up to you from what is not, and building your life on the first.

Sources

  1. Epictetus, Discourses I Primary text, Stoa library
  2. Epictetus, Handbook Primary text, Stoa library