Book Club: The Inner Citadel, 5, The beautifully coherent Stoicism of Epictetus
The Inner Citadel, Pierre Hadot’s classic that helped putting Stoicism back on the map of practiced philosophies, is an in-depth commentary on Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. But we have seen last time that this in turn cannot be done without taking in due consideration the enormous influence Epictetus had on the emperor-philosopher. The fifth chapter of the book is, accordingly, devoted to an overview of Epictetus’ philosophy, which is followed by three more chapters each dedicated to one of the three Epictetean disciplines: desire & aversion, action, and assent. Let’s take a look at the overview first.
Hadot begins without mincing words:
Ancient philosophy had nothing in common with our contemporary philosophers, who imagine that philosophy consists, for each philosopher, in inventing a ‘new discourse’ or new language, all the more original the more it is incomprehensible and artificial. (p. 73)
Although he has a point, this isn’t quite fair. Yes, modern academic philosophy has gotten carried away doing precisely what Hadot is charging it with, and moreover has pointedly ignored any practical application of philosophy for real people in real life. But most of the Pre-Socratics also invented new discourses and new language, and they too were fairly…
