It’s not the Chrisippus You Read ...: Epictetus and Stoicism as a Way of Life

AsPro Matthew Sharpe (Deakin University )

*** Please note that the room for this seminar is our regular room, C2.05 ***

This paper will introduce Epictetus as a prime exemplar of a paradigmatic idea of philosophy practiced as a way of life, particularly in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. The five features of this paradigm, which Epictetus (or, rather, what Arian recorded for us of his speeches and actions) will be shown to exemplify, are (i) the primacy of speech over writing (Epictetus never wrote); (ii) the interest of philosophy in paideia, the formation of character (Epictetus at times calls himself a ‘trainer’); (iii) the philosophical (in this case, Stoic and Socratic) criticism of nonphilosophers’ conceptions of happiness, the good life, and its necessary constituents, and of learning and clever speaking for the sake of status, wealth, fame, or political position; (iv) the recommendation of forms of practical exercise to rehabituate our impulses and judgments; and (v) the interest in the persona of the philosopher or sage (sophos) as ethical exemplar (which explains why Arian decided to keep and publish his ‘memory notes’ about Epictetus, as a new Socrates). As Epictetus fairly shouts, in his protreptic mode, at students: it's not about how much Chrisippus you read, or can recite …

Matthew Sharpe is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Deakin University and Discipline Convenor of the Philosophy group. He is a research associate at the Centre for Citizenship and Globalisation at the Burwood campus. He is the author of Slavoj Žižek: A Little Piece of the Real (Ashgate, 2005), the co-author with Geoff Boucher of Žižek and Politics (Edinburgh UP, 2010) and The Times Will Suit Them: Postmodern Conservatism in Australia (Allen & Unwin 2008), and the co-author with Jo Faulkner of Understanding Psychoanalysis (Acumen 2008). He has also published a number of articles on critical and political theory, psychoanalysis, classical philosophy, and the philosophy of culture.