Answer:
What Epictetus means here is that people say things and behave a certain way because of the way they see things. Their statements and beliefs are based on the knowledge and information that they obtain. People say all sorts of things because that is all they know to say and in their mind that is the right thing to say. They don’t see that they could say or do anything else because they are basing their claim off of what they heard from a source they trust. I think that it is hard for people to act in the light of information they don’t have. It is hard to look past only the information that you have. For example, you caught your best friend cheating on a test and you were really upset at them because all you know is that they cheated and that is very wrong, especially because you spent weeks studying. At first, it seems like a really bad thing but then if you look past the information that you don’t have and say that maybe something really bad happened to her that we don’t know about. Perhaps her grandmother died and she just couldn’t study. Because she is your best friend it might be a little easier act in the light of the information you don’t have, but it’s still hard to do in most situations. Yes, cheating is never the right thing but if she would have told the teacher what happened she could have gotten an extension. I feel like people want to believe what they want to happen because that is just how we are wired. If don’t like someone we will take anything we hear and try to make it seem like this person is actually really bad and do everything we can to make it seem that way. If we gave people more of the benefit of the doubt, I think we could be a lot happier in our relationships with people.