Abstract

Many scholars rely on a passage from Arrian’s Discourses (ii 11.1–6) to interpret Epictetus’ gnoseology as divergent from Stoic tradition. They find in this passage an expression of innatism, starting from the statement that «we come» (to an unuttered whither) carrying certain preconceptions (προλήψεις) or innate conceptions (ἔμφυτοι ἔννοιαι): this would allude to man ‘coming into the world’ not completely ignorant. This reading, relying upon an unlikely translation, finds no parallel elsewhere in our evidences on Epictetus. Contrariwise, it can be undermined by a comparison with one of those, with two excerpts concerning Musonius Rufus and with other evidences on Stoic gnoseology. The new reading of the passage proposed here, justified from a linguistic perspective, enables to preserve Epictetus’ adherence to Stoic gnoseology: here he is not alluding to the genesis of knowledge in man, but to the cognitive condition of one about to embark on his philosophical training.