philosophy as a way of life, metaphilosophy by Matthew J Sharpe
Draft of piece, pre the major changes for format, which will appear in The Philosopher in altered... more Draft of piece, pre the major changes for format, which will appear in The Philosopher in altered form. Relevant now especially with the Louis Theroux documentary on "the manosphere". The manosphere promotes self-comparison, doesn't question absolute value of money, status, physical appearance, and sex in "succeeding" in a world defined by scarcity, zero sum, and endless struggle ("you're on your own, bro!") Whilst making a tiny minority very wealthy, this effective online-mediated cult is producing misogynistic young men and adolescents full of resentment and prey to depression. But the "red pill" manospheric stance is in many ways the opposite of any Stoicism that is more than a cardboard cutout version. Stoicism as a Socratic philosophy holds such external things as the manosphere gurus promote as having incontestable value ("everybody wants ...") to be "indifferent." At best, they are "preferred", but not to be desired with more than sage reserve: one can flourish without them, and without any larger wisdom, they become forces of ethical corruption. Contra Tate or Peterson, Stoicism sees the cosmos as fundamentally ordered and beneficent. It has furnished us with what we need to flourish--that is, if human beings don't conceive of daft or hateful ideas. Unfortunately, from a Stoic perspective, the tendency of many people to mistake the appearance of "authenticity" for wisdom, and the phenomenon of large numbers of people, hungry for meaning and orientation, being taken in by conmen who present a false veneer of authenticity, are recurrent human realities. As Theroux's doco shows, these human propensities are now being supercharged (they have "gone viral") by algorithmic selection for "shocking" and "edgy" contents. So, we all need to take the "manosphere" seriously today, which is very different from being taken in by its essentialising simplifications.
This paper [draft only, for conference presentation in April, Verona] examines Zadig, ou destinee... more This paper [draft only, for conference presentation in April, Verona] examines Zadig, ou destinee, by Voltaire, as an idealised depiction of a sage figure. The paper highlights the continuities and discontinuities with ancient philosophical idealisations of the figure of the sage. The unanswered last "but" Zadig protests against the angel Jezrad's theodicy is emblematic of Voltaire's scepticism surrounding the metaphysical foundations of morale. Here it serves to mark Voltaire's "yes, but" engagement with ancient philosophical representations of the sage. The connection between Stoic nonattachmant to externals and Voltaire's deism, which supports toleration of competing faith traditions, is also stressed, as it is dramatised in Zadig's enlightened actions.
Conference paper delivered Nov 25 in Xufu, China. At present, universities are a tail, being wagg... more Conference paper delivered Nov 25 in Xufu, China. At present, universities are a tail, being wagged by big tech's dog, supremely indifferent to their traditions and values, so that we are facing daily and short term challenges to reshape classrooms and assessment in the face of this "destiny" delivered from Silicon Valley. But there is also a global need to think critically through what AI means for HE (higher education), in a medium- and longer-term horizon. Indeed (and this is my main argument), it seems to me, if we can stand back from the reactive rush which AI has occasioned, that the advent of these technologies needs to be considered—to borrow an image from philosopher of science, Imre Lakatos—as a challenge not only to the “auxiliary belt” of HE, its daily, more or less readily alterable operations, but to its “core”: the very goals and business of teaching, learning, researching, assessing, and credentialising student. The essay argues that the humane purpose of education in cultivating students not simply to think for themselves, and be holders of (possibly redundant in future) skills, must return to the fore of thinking about what we are doing. The Confucian tradition in the East, and the Stoics (among others) in the West's conceptions of education as paideia can be sources of inspiration.
Draft only of chapter for upcoming Brill recueil on Attention. Part 1 situates prosoche in the a... more Draft only of chapter for upcoming Brill recueil on Attention. Part 1 situates prosoche in the ancient Stoic texts, led by Epictetus' Discourses IV.12, in light of its classification as a good en schesei (not en hexei) in Arius Didymus. Then, building on existing literature on the role of prosoche esp. in Epictetus (notably Ierodiakonou and Sellars), we adduce four modulations of prosoche in the Stoics: examining representations, internalising and recalling principles, attention in Marcus to the present and one's prohairesis, and prosoche as in effect the material cause (condition) of all the Stoic exercises.
Philosophy as a Way of Life: New Research Directions, 2025
Introduction to Philosophy as a Way of Life: New Research Directions, which sets out the state of... more Introduction to Philosophy as a Way of Life: New Research Directions, which sets out the state of the field, and introduces what is the first edited collection, as against journal edition, bringing together contributions by leading experts in the growing global field of philosophy as a way of life (PWL) on new research directions in the field: the Interpretation of new texts and figures using PWL (Aristotle’s Protrepticus, ancient scepticism, Augustine, Alberti, Astell), the implications of PWL themes and concepts for research in cognate fields (mindfulness research, intercultural philosophy, the historiography of philosophy), and metaphilosophical issues raised by the work of Pierre Hadot and others working in his wake (how PWL is to be defined, what place systematic theorising can take within PWL, and how different forms of PWL are to be evaluated as competing ways of life, as well as theoretical understandings of nature and human nature). This volume brings together contributions by established leaders in the field, Michael Chase, John Sellars, Stephen Grimm, Marta Faustino, Caleb Cohoe, with emerging scholars, Matteo Stettler, Laura Mueller, Pawel Odyniec, and Eli Kramer, together with a reflective introduction by the editor, as well as a Q&A with several of the authors around their contributions.
**author's copy of chapter for upcoming collection on 'Stoicism, Buddhism, and Psychotherapy', ed... more **author's copy of chapter for upcoming collection on 'Stoicism, Buddhism, and Psychotherapy', ed. S. Woen (Karus press).** As Donald Robertson particularly has explored, Stoicism did not have far to travel to speak to modern psychotherapists and counsellors in the 21 st century. Through Albert Ellis and Aaron Beck, key figures behind the development of CBT, it had been present in this field for decades. Yet the decade since the formation of the Modern Stoicism organisation in 2013 has seen the extraordinary global rebirth of Stoicism in the internet age, as a source of regimens of practices for 'self-help,' combating negative emotions like anxiety, anger and fear. It can also provide therapists with a range of psychological insights and practical exercises for moderating these affects, fostering emotional intelligence and promoting committed action.
Philosophy as a Way of Life: New Research Directions, 2025
A brief "Introduction" to upcoming Philosophy as a Way of Life: New Research Directions collectio... more A brief "Introduction" to upcoming Philosophy as a Way of Life: New Research Directions collection, featuring articles by Michael Chase, John Sellars, Massimo Pigliucci, Stephen Grimm, Eli Kramer, Marta Faustino, and others. The Introduction offers an assessment of the scholarship, as of 2023, in the field of PWL, with a focus on the questions and avenues of research that it has opened in the history of philosophy, history of ideas, ancient philosophy, comparative philosophy, and metaphilosophy. It then summarises the chapters which make up the collection in three parts: art 1, on history of philosophy; Part 2, on the scope and boundaries of PWL; and Part 3, on metaphilosophy. [DRAFT ONLY-AUTHOR'S COPY]
Why Camus Matters, 2025
-- unformatted author's draft chapter of 2025-26 book, Why Camus Matters (Bloomsbury), on "post-t... more -- unformatted author's draft chapter of 2025-26 book, Why Camus Matters (Bloomsbury), on "post-truth". Politically, I argue that post-truth is not a metaphysically deep notion, but a political strategy to muddy the epistemic waters and normalise forms of cynicism and misinformation, whose flipside is conspiratorial "hyper-truth"-people who believe too strongly in the truth of poorly supported, politically-divisive "narratives". The chapter shows that Camus' postwar writings, including his reflections and activities as a journalist, anticipate today's post-truth" situation: what he called a mediatic world of "polemic and insult". His philosophical defence of post-metaphysical human solidarity however supports a principled opposition to the kinds of misinformation on which authoritarianisms thrive, defending a "right not to lie". Camus' analysis of why media collapses into sensationalism and hyper-truth argues that this reflects economic concentration, including in media ownership, of just the kind that has developed in the neoliberal era. To oppose "post-truth" will hence involve political-economic opposition to the economic settings which have engendered mass inequality, alienation and rage, since the 1970s. (But those arguments are in other chapters)
This paper will critically assess the interpretation of one modern thinker associated with later ... more This paper will critically assess the interpretation of one modern thinker associated with later modern virtue ethics who positions the Stoics as decisively what we will call “proto-Kantians”, Julia Annas. Annas’ Morality of Happiness presents the Stoics as ethical eudaimonists who, nevertheless, ask the virtuous agent to “override” or put aside their natural impulses to adopt “what is nowadays called the moral point of view”, in a way which sees her severally compare the Stoics’ position to Kant’s, not always favourably (MH 170; 410). Annas is certainly right that the Stoics stress a difference in kind between virtue as a source of benefit and well-being, and other putative “goods” (the famous “indifferents” (ta adiaphora)). The Stoics, as Annas credits, also see the motivational set of a virtuous sage as differing from the untutored natural impulses with which we all begin life as children, because of the supervening of reasoned reflection (DL VII 86) integrated into a regimen of life (Sellars 2013). But this paper proposes that to interpret these defining Stoic positions in the proto-Kantian frame which Annas constructs for them in Morality of Happiness is importantly mistaken. To make this case, Part 1 of the essay examines Annas’ reading of the Stoics as in decisive respects proto-Kantians. Part 2 provides criticisms of Annas’ two core claims: the first, that the Stoics provide no argument that does not beg the question for their conception of virtue as necessary and sufficient for happiness, but assume this “moral point of view” as an unargued datum; the second, that Stoicism accordingly asks subjects to adopt an ethical stance in which they are moved by a set of motivations which do not represent the transformation, harmonization or perfection of their natural impulses, but their over-riding or denial, in the name of the proto-Kantian moral point of view of rational consistency.
This talk, on the occasion of the launch of two newly-translated texts by Polish philosopher and ... more This talk, on the occasion of the launch of two newly-translated texts by Polish philosopher and history of philosophy, Juliusz Domanski: namely, Philosophy, Theory or Way of Life? and Erasmus and Philosophy (both, Brill 2024). Something of the history of the translation of the former work is given, seven 'chapter headings' marking its contributions to the present growing literature on philosophy as a way of life are proffered; before the larger part responds to the monumental study, Erasmus and Philosophy. The paper tries to reconstruct Domanski's sense of Erasmus' notion of philosophia Christi, and how it brings together a renewed sense of ancient philosophy as a way of life, and Erasmus' ambition to return to a Christianity as yet uncorrupted (in his view) by scholastic intellectual cultures. Then, I recount Domanski's argument that this critique of scholasticism, and recovery of ancient philosophical "practicism", is not contradicted by Erasmus' definitively humanistic cultivation and recommendation of bonae litterae (classical learning). Erasmus sees parallels in the literary forms employed by ancient philosophers, and biblical authors, whose legibility is enhanced by studies in grammar (poetics) and rhetoric--it is not intellectualism as such, but the prioritisation of dialectics in scholasticism, which is Erasmus' target. The talk closes by suggesting that Erasmus and Philosophy shows the great benefits conferred by Hadot's and Domanski's work, in remaking legible philosophers like Erasmus presently sidelined in most histories of the discipline.
Journal of Ancient Philosophy, 2024
Lucian has often been treated as a sophist, and his most Socratic dialogue, the Hermotimus, has b... more Lucian has often been treated as a sophist, and his most Socratic dialogue, the Hermotimus, has been dismissed as a sceptical dismissal of the possibility of philosophy. This paper contends that the dialogue is a critique of dogmatic or sectarian forms of philosophy, not philosophy per se. It shows that there are five points in the dialogue wherein Lycinus presents a positive conception of philosophy as a way of approaching inquiry. Key to discerning Lucian's critical but constructive philosophical intention, the paper shows, are Lucian's clear references to the educational program in Plato's Republic VI-VII, notably the association of sectarian philosophers with the forms of inquiry characteristic of geometry: that is, unable to call into question dialectically its own first principles, which is what philosophy proper should do, up to and including the openness to admitting that we may previously have been wrong.
Draft of presentation on the Western conceptions of liberal education, and its relationship(s) wi... more Draft of presentation on the Western conceptions of liberal education, and its relationship(s) with philosophy in different models, for June 2024 conference, "Bridging Chinese and Western Perspectives: Advancing Global Liberal and Humane Higher Education" at Hangzshou Normal University. The paper suggests that, alongside Kimball's (Platonist) dialectician-philosopher/scholastics and the Isocratean orator-citizens, the Stoic-Hellenistic philosophers present a third model, which places ethical formation as the highest end.*
* Draft only for possible comment: pls email at my acu address.
The publication of a new translation of Epictetus' Encheiridion (Manual or Handbook) with a schol... more The publication of a new translation of Epictetus' Encheiridion (Manual or Handbook) with a scholarly introduction represents by itself a real event for people interested in Stoic philosophy. Compiled by the Roman Stoic's student, Arrian, this little book has played an outsized role in the history of Stoicism, up to the present day. It was beloved already in late antiquity, amongst Neoplatonists and the Church fathers (54 [1]). Subsequent Christian authors paid it the highest tribute of all: not simply that of flattery, with the Encheiridion becoming a genre adapted by authors from Augustine to Erasmus, but through some monastics actually reproducing the pagan text, replacing the name of "Socrates" with that of "Saint Paul", and packaging it as a guide to the holy life (55). Epictetus's text's rediscovery in the renaissance saw Latin translations by Niccolo Perotti (1450), Angelo Poliziano (1479), and several later humanists. Epictetus' recommendations of practical philosophical
Author's draft only [ of review essay for Stoicism Today] on Christopher Gill's Learning to Live ... more Author's draft only [ of review essay for Stoicism Today] on Christopher Gill's Learning to Live Naturally: Stoic Ethics and its Modern Significance (Oxford University Press, 2023). Gill's groundbreaking book is arguably the most important scholarly book on Stoic ethics which has been written for a generation. After and including in the exhaustive reconstruction of Stoic ethics in parts 1 and 2, Learning to live Naturally is dialectical, and presents a sustained apology for Stoic ethics. It aims to establish Stoicism's credentials in dialogue with academic work on virtue ethics, as well as in the light of contemporary ecological debates. With decisive recourse to Cicero and the doxographic sources, Gill shows how Stoicism is deeply misunderstood as egoistic and unsociable. Indeed, in his reconstruction, it provides a profoundly humane, coherent ethical perspective which avoids tensions in Aristotle's position (on the happiness-virtue relationship, and relation between the theoretical-practical virtues) whilst sharing his naturalistic conception of ethics, and which can provide better responses to criticisms of virtue ethics than better-known forms of neoAristotelianism. The review examines the book's exegeses of Stoic ethics (1), Gill's presentation of Stoic ethics as a more attractive and coherent form than the regnant neoAristotelianisms (2), before closing remarks critically examine Gill's intervention in the debate surrounding Stoic naturalism, prompted by Julia Annas' work (!993).
Religions, 2023
This paper [*post-print only, links to published version below] addresses John M. Cooper's critiq... more This paper [*post-print only, links to published version below] addresses John M. Cooper's critique, and related critiques, of Pierre Hadot's conception of philosophy as a way of life for collapsing the distinction between philosophy and religion, via the category of "spiritual exercises". The paper has two parts. Part 1, a pars destruens, will show how Hadot presents three cogent rebuttals of these charges, with which he was familiar as early as the 1980s, following the publication of the first edition of his 1981 collection, Exercises spirituels et philosophie antique. In part 2, a pars construens, putting aside the vexed category of "religion", we will examine how Hadot reconsiders the place of the sacred in ancient philosophy, positioning the latter as not the attempt to rationally dispel any sense of the sacred in the world, but to relocate it from within the sanctioned cultic places and temples of traditional Greco-Roman religion to within the inner life of the godlike sage.
* For published version, see <https://aus01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mdpi.com%2F2077-1444%2F14%2F8%2F998&data=05%7C01%7Cmatthew.sharpe%40acu.edu.au%7C572cc1b746cc4cad7cbe08db94084afc%7C429af009f196448fae7958c212a0f2ce%7C0%7C0%7C638266535561505036%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=L1N%2B2Z0PCh2A0DZ2PiDrry%2BSLSQuu9WISI68mUADVaU%3D&reserved=0>
[Draft of keynote address for “Philosophy as a Way of Life in Hyper-Connected Age”22-24/7/2023, X... more [Draft of keynote address for “Philosophy as a Way of Life in Hyper-Connected Age”22-24/7/2023, Xi’an, China] This paper contends that to talk of Stoicism as a way of living with digital hyperconnectivity has to involve more than just the canny prescription of exercises ("life hacks") for addressing some of the distressed and fearful symptoms of the over-investment in others’ opinions and being prompted to endlessly compare ourselves with others, that social media usage promotes. It has to involve a fundamental reorientation of values, asking people to find their primary source of worth not in what myriad virtual others think of them, but in their own actions and intentions. From a Stoic perspective, a person need not literally unplug from all devices and internautic platforms. But they need to philosophically unplug their sense of self and worth—of what they think they need to live well—from the values effectively coded into social media, which turn the wheels in the engines of “the attention economy”, at human costs we are increasingly cognisant of. Rather than making our senses of our own selves turn upon others’ views of us, from the outside, we should let the world turn as it will, but do things which serve our communities, which foster virtues in others, and which cultivate the virtues in ourselves. And rather than supposing that online “connectivity” could ever be more than one more tool to use in service of independently conceived values, but the indispensable, inevitable means or even actualisation of excellence, happiness, flourishing, sociability, and salvation--as the hype surrounding the net suggests--Stoicism as a way of living with digital hyperconnectivity proposes a thoughtful, critical reservation (hypexairêsis).
This essay takes it bearings from Hadot’s singling out of the moment of German idealism, and the ... more This essay takes it bearings from Hadot’s singling out of the moment of German idealism, and the foundation of the modern research university (first of all, that of Berlin in 1809), as especially significant in the history of the eclipses and recurrences of PWL in the West. Proffered as a draft for an as-yet-unwritten, decisive chapter on the history of PWL [to be delivered in Lisbon at "Mapping PWL" event), it closely examines the texts by Schleiermacher, Fichte, Humboldt and Schelling that Hadot mentions en passant in “Enseignement ancient et moderne de la philosophie” (Hadot 2020, 149-178; cf. 305-322). These texts represent studies of great significance for the history of PWL, the paper suggests, insofar as they are philosophical reflections on the university, its necessity and its purpose, as well as metaphilosophical reflections more specifically on philosophy, its nature and role, within the universities. In part 2, we will show how Hadot’s claim that these texts inaugurate a subordination of philosophy to the state, even in its qualified form, needs to be revised. What stands out is rather the attempt, sketched already in Kant (1794), of trying to grant philosophy a new autonomy within the modern university, as the sole faculty ideally governed by reason alone, not by external authorities. In part 3, we will critically pursue Hadot’s comments linking the advent of the modern research university with the construction of philosophy as a system. Our argument contra Hadot is that the classical idealistic texts on the university also each envisage philosophy as implicating a form of pedagogy and Bildung, and with Hadot, that this Bildung is nevertheless subordinated to the pursuit of systematic, pure, or absolute knowledge in ways which pave the way to today’s almost-unchallenged expectations around what "serious philosophy" must always be (that is, theoretical, written, publishable in peer reviewed formats). In conclusion, we proffer three observations raised by our analysis, concerning Hadot’s presentation of the idea of university philosophy as one the one hand a philosophy of civil servants, teaching other civil servants, and how it relates to the longer history of, and continuing contemporary research on, PWL.
This paper [draft only for book chapter, do not cite, but pls feel free to contact with comments*... more This paper [draft only for book chapter, do not cite, but pls feel free to contact with comments*] challenges the standard image of Stoicism as a pitiless philosophy of self-perfection, enshrining what Martha Nussbaum calls a "radical detachment" from others. After examining Nussbaum's critique of the Stoics in "Pity and Mercy: Nietzsche's Stoicism" (part 1), we present the counterevidence attesting to the primacy of other-relatedness in Stoicism, in their accounts of the emotions and virtues (part 2). Part 3 presents the theoretical basis for a more adequate account of Stoic sociability, in the doctrine of oikeiosis, drawing on the work of figures led by Reydams-Shils and Johncock. On this basis, in part 4, we revisit the question of Stoicism's supposed detachment, arguing that the Stoics' devaluation of externals, to 'beneath good and evil', is carried out precisely in order to make possible more generous, sociable relations to others untroubled by such destructive affects as envy, jealousy, anger, hatred, and spite. *Feedback welcome at my email address [email protected].
[Draft only for Stocism Today] After around a decade of unlooked-for popular growth, it may no lo... more [Draft only for Stocism Today] After around a decade of unlooked-for popular growth, it may no longer be too soon to say that we could be approaching "peak Stoic". The reader in search of practical guidebooks on "how to live like a Stoic" is faced with an embarrassment of riches. But does the focus on self-care minimize ancient Stoicism's deeply social ontology, which is foregrounded in the Hellenistic sources as well as a text like Cicero's De Finibus? Will Johncock's Beyond the individual examines this question, and seeks to recover a sense of Stoicism which doesn't exclude the practical, but which responds more completely to the ancient sources. In this way, the book proffers a needed challenge to some images of Stoicism within and outside the academy today.
Stoicism Today, 2022
Aristotle and the Stoics agree on a lot. Above all, for both, virtue is the primary thing a perso... more Aristotle and the Stoics agree on a lot. Above all, for both, virtue is the primary thing a person needs to be happy. But they also differ in key ways. Aristotle thinks external things like fame, power, money, and looks are also goods that a person will need. The Stoics disagree. Moreover, they each conceive virtue, or the virtues, differently. For Aristotle, virtue is about choosing a "mean" (meson) between extremes, in terms of the emotions we feel, and the actions we undertake. For the Stoics, it involves forms of episteme about what to select and avoid. Taking the case of courage, this short piece (draft for Stoicism Today) examines the differences, and looks at the five forms of courage Chrysippus identified in contrast to Aristotle on andreia.
Uploads
philosophy as a way of life, metaphilosophy by Matthew J Sharpe
* Draft only for possible comment: pls email at my acu address.
* For published version, see <https://aus01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mdpi.com%2F2077-1444%2F14%2F8%2F998&data=05%7C01%7Cmatthew.sharpe%40acu.edu.au%7C572cc1b746cc4cad7cbe08db94084afc%7C429af009f196448fae7958c212a0f2ce%7C0%7C0%7C638266535561505036%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=L1N%2B2Z0PCh2A0DZ2PiDrry%2BSLSQuu9WISI68mUADVaU%3D&reserved=0>