Epictetus, Discourses 1.8.3

And there is more—not only should we have less leisure for more necessary things, but we should give uncommon occasion for conceit and vanity. For the faculty of disputative and plausible reasoning is a powerful one, especially if it should be developed by training and gain further dignity from mastery of language. 

 

For indeed generally every faculty is dangerous when it comes into the hands of those who are without education and without real force, for it tends to exalt and puff them up. For how would it be possible to persuade the young man who excels in these arguments that he ought not to become dependent upon them, but to make them depend upon him? 

 

Instead of this he tramples under foot all we say to him and walks among us in a high state of elation, so puffed up that he cannot bear that anyone should remind him how far he has fallen short and into what errors he has lapsed.

 

Virtue and vice are not in the skill, but rather in the use or the abuse of the skill. Reason joined to humility will lift us up, while reason joined to pride will pull us down. 

 

Nothing good will come from training a mind in the rigors of argumentation and the charms of fine speaking without first building a sense of moral reverence. Not only will the effort have been wasted, like throwing pearls before swine, but the powers of intellect divorced from conscience are likely to do grave harm, like giving a handgun to a toddler. 

 

Mere knowledge must be elevated to the level of wisdom, driven on by love.

 

I have unfortunately seen what happens when this warning isn’t heeded, and I need look no further than some of the colossal blunders of my own life. I am working to transform them into something good, a hard lesson learned, but their weight can still haunt me. 

 

A little learning is a dangerous thing . . . 

 

Provide me with an interesting fact here, an obscure reference there, and suddenly I may believe that I have become an expert in all things. Instead, I should freely admit that I don’t know, and stop insisting that mucking about in the foothills is like climbing the loftiest peaks. 

 

A first exposure to formal logic, and all the impressive terminology that goes with it, might tempt me to think that I can argue circles around anyone. I greedily memorize the moods of syllogisms, and I am sure that I am invincible. Instead, I should worry more about making simple decisions in my life than spouting the grandest theories. 

 

I stumble across some clever rhetorical device, I then find that people are suitably impressed when I use it, and it all goes to my head. I confuse appearances with truths, and I become convinced that a sharp wit is sufficient for any task. Instead, I should shut my mouth and clean out my ears.

 

If I go down this sort of seductive path, what sort of person will I become? The most horrible sort of intellectual snob, who thinks he is the master of everything, while actually being a slave to his vanities. It was all made possible by hastily grabbing on to one part or another, while neglecting to take any note of the whole. The dialectic and the rhetoric are treated like parlor tricks, because I’ve misplaced that moral compass. 

 

Do you know the sort of fellow who has carefully crafted an image for himself, who is arrogant and aloof but still demands your attention, who tells you that your argument isn’t valid, when what he really means to say is that your argument isn’t sound? 

 

Don’t be that fellow. Do your philosophy in the dirt, and don’t fret about polishing up your fork and trowel; they are meant to be used, not to be seen. 

Written in 11/2000