“Never call yourself a philosopher, and do not talk at length among non-philosophers about your principles.”

What does it mean?

The mainstream reading is a warning against the costume: do not wear the name, or lecture outsiders, while your actions still belong to the old desires. A competing reading takes it as anti-intellectual, a ban on explaining ideas, whereas he wants the deeds to speak and allows talk when it is not showing off. The chapter mocks people who can discourse on virtue and then fail at the table. It is advice for progress, not a rule that philosophy is private.

Did Epictetus really say this?

The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. Close to W. A. Oldfather's Loeb translation of Enchiridion 46. Arrian condensed Epictetus's teaching into the Handbook; this chapter warns the student against the costume of philosophy.

Where it comes from

Enchiridion 46

Approximate date: c. 108 CE.

How to use it

Announcing in a group chat that you are 'very Stoic now', and then delivering a lecture at dinner, is the behaviour he is puncturing. The principles are allowed to exist. They are not allowed to be a performance for people who did not ask, and if someone wants the argument, the ban on length is about boasting, not about answering a real question.

A mindset reading

The habit is to check whether the talk is a substitute for the practice. Ask who the speech is for, and what an observer would see in the next ordinary choice. A name you give yourself is, on this page, a temptation to skip the work.

Understand the philosophy

Epictetus is answering the student who wants the reputation of wisdom. Calling yourself a philosopher is empty while you are still caught by externals, his word for things not up to you. The chapter says sheep do not bring grass to the shepherd to prove they have eaten; they digest it and produce wool. Action is the wool, and talk among non-philosophers is the undigested grass.

Related

• “Some things are up to us and some are not. Up to us are judgement, impulse, desire, aversion — in a word, whatever is our own doing. Not up to us are our body, our property, reputation, office — in a word, whatever is not our own doing.”

  Paraphrase or translation

• “If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid with regard to externals.”

  Paraphrase or translation

• “Sickness is a hindrance to the body, but not to the will, unless the will itself consents.”

  Paraphrase or translation

Related fallacy. Appeal to authority. Citing an expert is reasonable when the person is expert on this question, the field has real standards, and serious disagreement is not hidden. The appeal fails when the authority is in the wrong field, is unnamed, or is treated as settling a question experts still dispute.

Practise the nine skills