Epictetus and Laypeople. Erlend D. MacGillivray
and in chapter 7 of this book the high estimation he has for several Pre-Socratic thinkers will also be outlined. Comparing Epictetus’ interaction with other schools to that of his Stoic counterparts who have been considered above, there is notable congruence in his appreciation of Platonic, Pythagorean, and Pre-Socratic thought, but not Epicurean or Peripatetic philosophy. The differing philosophical preferences that the Stoic thinkers considered above display likely reveals the flexibility they had—which was mentioned at the start of this discussion—to choose what schools or thinkers they could favor to employ as profitable interlocutors in their deliberations.
Although Epictetus does not explicitly expound upon his perception of the identity of non-Stoic philosophers, despite his firm misgivings about Epicurean philosophy that have just been noted, he does refer to a member of the Epicurean school as being a philosopher (φιλόσοφος), and challenges him for (at least in Epictetus’ opinion) not properly adhering to the behavior that his school would expect of him.184 Elsewhere, Epictetus also asks one of his students whether Plato was a philosopher or Hippocrates a physician, with the anticipated reply being an unhesitating yes.185 Therefore, along with his practice of portraying philosophy in broad terms rather than within scholastic boundaries,186 and in keeping with the prevailing expectation of the time that value might be extracted from other schools’ postulations, it does not appear that Epictetus delimits the identity of being a philosopher only to individuals who are associated with the philosophy of the Stoa.
Philosophical Students
Before our discussion of philosophical identity is concluded, consideration of philosophical students, whose status is obviously more ambiguous than that of professional teachers should also be briefly addressed. To my knowledge only Michael Trapp has directly addressed this topic,187 when he suggests (although without further deliberating upon it) that provided that the schools’ students abided by their philosophy’s ethical standards, they could lay claim to the identity of being philosophers during and after the completion of their philosophical training without much contestation:
The cohorts of pupils they [professional philosophical teachers] send out into the world, moreover, are “fellow professionals” not primarily in the sense that they will themselves claim the status of educators in their own right (though some of course will), but in taking with them a shared dedication to a style of life, and one that claims to provide the governing framework for everything else that they are and do.188
I suggest that Trapp’s proposal is indeed correct. Certainly, with regards to Epictetus it has been established here that he regularly frames his students as being included within the confines of philosophy vis-à-vis laypeople who are outside of its boundaries.189 Furthermore, it has been noted that Epictetus’ concern to include students in his school only if they have more than scholastic aims in mind and his frequent advice to them on how they can continue to live according to philosophical principles once their training has ceased certainly implies his expectation that they will have an enduring affiliation with philosophy.190 On the latter point, he will talk about the moral behavior and philosophical disposition that he expects should mark a person who has come out (ἐκ) of his school.191 Of additional importance, several remarks in the Discourses can be catalogued that reveal Epictetus’ students freely identified themselves as being philosophers, which Epictetus does not protest. For example, they are portrayed as discussing who among them is the best philosopher (τίς ἄριστός ἐστι τῶν φιλοσόφων), and Epictetus can even use their self-identifying as philosophers to spur them to evaluate whether they are truly acting as philosophers should,192 and he notes their frustration if members of the public do not recognize them to be philosophers.193 Finally, relaying his own stance, Epictetus refers to his being in front of his students to be standing in the company of philosophers (φιλόσοφοι) where the easy relaying of truths can be conveyed.194
It would seem, therefore, that for Epictetus provided that a student retains a depth of knowledge about a philosophy’s teachings and behaves in-line, or at least not in an notably discordant manner with its moral expectations, then he would view them as being on the philosophical side of the philosopher–layperson divide.
Conclusion
In conclusion, with their inability to depend upon institutional or formalized means of verification, the criteria by which philosophers, at least after the rise of Roman power, would usually judge the authenticity of another person’s philosophical status are, firstly, their depth of knowledge of their chosen school’s tenets, and, secondly, their faithfulness in adhering to its ethical demands. There was, however, no agreed-upon schema that a person could employ to reveal if someone else was a philosopher or not; instead, this evaluation would be decided on a person-person basis and would be prone to variance and be vulnerable to contestation.
Furthermore, a firm distinction is found to have been made by philosophers between people who do, and who do not belong within philosophy’s ranks. Some evidence that laypeople could reciprocate by negatively evaluating the characteristics of philosophy, and that they hold philosophers to be engaged in a largely pointless and needlessly austere pursuit has also been found. Finally, it has been revealed that philosophy’s students, and adherents from rival schools appear to have been widely held to be legitimate claimants of a philosophical identity.
NOTES
1. See Papas (2015).
2. With regards to the Romans’ varied, and occasionally hostile, reception of philosophy, see the discussion in Trapp (2007, 226–257; 2014) and Rivière (2017).
3. Scholarly reflection on this area is, of course, substantial, but in particular see the useful discussions in Rawson (1985, 282–297) and MacGillivray (2012). Sedley (2003a, 186) also asserts: “It is difficult to think of a society where members of the upper class were more generally aware of philosophy than seems to have been the case in Imperial Rome.”
4. On philosophical sculpture and art, see Zanker (1995); the touring of philosophical schools, Cicero Fam. 13.1.2, Fin 1.16, Brut. 89.306-91.316, Lucian Menipp. 4-5, cf. Diss. II.14; and on Roman patrons of philosophy, see Damon (1997, 235–252). On the diffusion of philosophy across Roman society, see the important collection of essays in Vesperini (2017).
5. On abridged philosophical texts, consider Thom (2012), MacGillivray (2015), as well as numerous studies of interest in Horster and Reitz (2010). Regarding the popularity of public talks on philosophy, see the extensive and insightful discussions in Maxwell (2006, 11–41) and Wright (2017, 63–115).
6. See Sedley (2003b).
7. That identifying an ancient philosopher should be done on a case-by-case basis, see Curnow (2006, 1), Trapp (2008, 1, 21), Goulet (2013, 13), and the discussion in Lauwers (2015, 183–190).
8. On this, consider the excellent discussion from (Glucker 1978), as well as from Trapp (2014, 45–47). Ahlholm (2017, 7–15) remarks upon the difficulty we have in establishing whether many epigraphs which depict people as having a philosophical identity were intending to portray themselves as being professional philosophers, or, in Ahlhom’s words (2017, 10), rather “intellectual laypeople.” For similar reflections, consider also Dillon (2002, 29, 33), Haake (2008, 151), and Lauwers (2015, 27, 265). See also Cicero Off. 2.5 and Tusc. 1.1 along with the comments of Hine (2015, 15). Barnes (2002, 304) argues that in antiquity the title of philosopher could be used to: “designate non-professionals . . . part-time amateurs, men of diverse talents,” while Goulet (2013, 38) notes that poets, musicians, historians, architects, and even shoemakers and barbers (etc.) could identify themselves as being philosophers. Regarding Stoic philosophy, Rist (1982, 23) claims: “Many Stoics had merely read their Stoicism or talked to Stoicizing individuals, and then claimed to be Stoics or desiderant Stoics.” In this regard, see also Mann’s (2011, 89) insightful comments on the Stoic astronomer Manilius (fl. first century CE).
9. For example, see Lucian Fug. 4.14, Peregr. 24, Pisc. 31; Philostratus VA 2.29, 6.3.
10. Respectively, Or. 70.10, and 49.12, 70.8, cf. Lucian Pisc. 42.
11. Flor. 7.9-10.