ON NOT BEING A PHILOSOPHER | Summary | Questions-Answers | AHSEC | HS 2ND YEAR

Simply, Robert Lynd, the Irish essayist and journalist, became interested in Epictetus in his essay On Not Being a Philosopher. He wanted to read his works. He wonders if in the words of Epictetus, was the book of wisdom that he had been looking for at intervals ever since he was at school. He never lost his early faith that wisdom could be found somewhere in a book. He desired wisdom. He wanted to get it at the cost of a few shilling. So he read the books of Emerson and Marcus Aurelius. He thought to become wise by reading. But when he finished reading, he was the same man that he had been before. Still he never lost faith in books.

Lynd read Epictetus. He agreed with nearly everything he said. He found close resemblance between the opinions. Epictetus held the same opinions. He felt death, plan and poverty as real evils except when he was in arm-chair reading a book by a philosopher. Even in the small things of life, he failed to comfort himself like a philosopher of the school of Epictetus. He commands a spiritual attitude of which nature is incapable. He has failed to achieve his imperturbability in small affairs.

When Epictetus expresses his opinions on material possessions and counsels us to be so indifferent to then that we should not object to their being stolen, the writer agrees with him in theory and yet in practice he is unable to obey and follow him. There is nothing more certain than that a man whose happiness depends on his possessions is not happy. He is sure, a wise man can be happy on a pittance-neither Epictetus nor he believes happiness to be the aim of life. But Epictetus holds up an ideal of imperturbability. He assures us that we shall achieve this if we care so little for material thing. “Stop admiring your clothes and you are not angry at the man who steals them.”

The writer fells that he could imitate Epictetus if he lives in a world in which nothing happened. But in a world where disagreeable things happen, it is not possible. In spite of this, most of us cannot help believing that the philosophers were right that most of the things we bother about are not worth bothering about. The truth is that such men as Socrates and Epictetus were right in their indifference to external things, yet most of us would be alarmed if one began to put philosophy of Epictetus into practice too literally. What we regard as wisdom in Epictetus, we should look on as insanity in an acquaintance, or perhaps, not in an acquaintance but at least in a near relation. The reasoning of Epictetus may be sound but neither individually nor as a society we live in, can we follow him. We should be fools to imitate philosophers like Epictetus. We are convinced that, while philosophers are worth reading, material things are worth bothering about. It is as though we enjoyed wisdom as a delightful spectacle on a stage which it would be unseemly for the audience to attempt to invade. Lynd remarks, “To become wise without effort by listening to a voice, by reading a book – it is at one the most exciting and the most soothing of dreams.” He took down Epictetus in such a dream.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ans: No, in spite of not being any wiser, Lynd doesn’t lose faith in books. Rather he kept on reading more and more books, from one philosopher to another, in search of wisdom. He believes that, in books, there is some kind of wise presence that would enrich the reader with philosophical depth and the strength of character. And all this can be gained by the reader while he may be relaxing in an armchair and smoking.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After reading Epictetus, Lynd drew a conclusion that philosophy is not possible in real life situations even though we believe that philosophers however diverged, their philosophy is right.