Oh, Hi, I'm Peter Adamson, and you're listening to the History of Philosophy podcast brought to you with the support of Kings College London and the Lever Hume Trust, online at

W.W. history of philosophy. net. Today's episode, You can Chain My Leg,

Epictetus.

Man is condemned to be free.

So said Jean-Pau-Sart, the French existentialist.

And perhaps only a French existentialist could think that we are condemned to be free.

It's the kind of thing that would occur to you as you sit in a Parisian cafe on a rainy afternoon, smoking unfiltered cigarettes and feeling the enormity

of existence settle upon your shoulders as you gaze in ineffable inexplicable horror at the glass of beer sitting on the table in front of you.

But doesn't Sott have a point?

If we are truly free, free even in chains as the saying goes, then we are also responsible for what we do.

This was Sart's point, or part of his point.

We are irreducibly, unavoidably free, and thus cannot escape responsibility,

cannot blame anyone or anything else for our failings, our impure thoughts, our misguided intentions.

We are in this sense always on our own.

It is a terrifying thought and one that can, paradoxically, be paralyzing.

Towards the end of his enticingly titled novel, Nausea,

Sartz has his main character stop in the street,

alone, contemplating the infinity of choices available to him.

He realizes that his life until now does not determine his next action and this radical freedom

strikes him as being like death.

It's the sort of thought that can make you sick to your stomach.

Of course, Saat was not the first philosopher to worry about freedom of the will. It's one of the oldest philosophical

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