The Character Sketch as Philosophy: Manners, Mores, Types
ISBN
Publisher
Imprint
Year Published
Print Length
Format
SKU
9780674294127
Harvard University Press
N/A
2025
408 pages
Paperback
25687
Original price was: ₨14,195.00.₨1,795.00Current price is: ₨1,795.00.
An insightful exploration of the moral and political power of the character sketch in early modern Europe―and the implications for our own relationship to this genre today.
Description
In the fourth century BCE, the philosopher Theophrastus, a student of Aristotle, composed thirty character sketches depicting ordinary Athenian vices: idle chatter, bad timing, cowardice, shamelessness, and superstition, among others. Centuries later, this enigmatic text―known as the Characters―was feverishly translated and imitated by early modern Europeans convinced of its moral and political importance. Tracing this resurgence of the Theophrastan tradition, Katie Ebner-Landy sheds new light on the role of the character sketch as a philosophical tool.
Ebner-Landy shows that the original Characters is best understood as a work of political philosophy, designed to urge Athenians toward civic virtue. It is this quality that made the text so resonant in early modern Europe, where the character sketch again served as a means of encouraging ethical behavior and cultivating political knowledge. During the English Civil War, for example, the character sketch was used to diagnose new political types such as the Roundhead and the Cavalier. By the era of the Enlightenment, however, moral philosophy’s long association with the character sketch began to break down. A different approach to philosophy took hold, one that spurned literary descriptions of manners, mores, and types and instead emphasized the principles underlying knowledge itself. This shift, in turn, helped to drive a broader separation between literature and philosophy.
A revealing intellectual history, The Character Sketch as Philosophy also encourages us to consider what literary description might contribute to ethics and political thought today―and to think critically about the kinds of character sketches on which we still rely, from the snob to the mansplainer.
Praise and Reviews
“With wit and erudition, Katie Ebner-Landy charts an unexpected course through the history of philosophy. The character sketch appears in her account as a lost philosophic art ripe for revival, dedicated to deriving moral benefits from bad examples. From ancient oligarchs to modern mansplainers, this is an arresting and delightful debut.”―Teresa M. Bejan, author of Mere Civility: Disagreement and the Limits of Toleration----------------------
“So much more than a reception history, The Character Sketch as Philosophy makes the case for the signal importance of Theophrastus’s Characters―and its all-but-lost method of philosophizing―in early modern Europe. As Ebner-Landy argues with clarity and force, writers of the period deployed the character sketch as a pedagogical tool, an instrument of moral reform, a vehicle for political activism, and a provocation to religious belief―all while struggling against the forces of empiricism that eventually prevailed. Anyone interested in the history of European philosophy, literature, and political theory will want to read this book.”―Kathy Eden, author of Rhetorical Renaissance: The Mistress Art and Her Masterworks----------------------
“The Character Sketch as Philosophy elegantly illuminates a lost tradition of ethical reflection. With exemplary erudition and grace, Katie Ebner-Landy recovers Theophrastan character-writing from the condescension of philosophy to argue persuasively for its contemporary relevance as a genre of virtue politics."”―David Armitage, author of Civil Wars: A History in Ideas--------------------
“In this compelling literary history of the character study, Katie Ebner-Landy rediscovers a distinctively political moral philosophy. Brilliantly illuminating the conjunctures of rhetoric with empirics, writing with reading, and politics with religion and society, The Character Sketch as Philosophy makes the urgent and timely case that the health of political systems rests not only on their institutions but also on the character, spirit, and relationships of the people they regulate.”―Jill Frank, author of Poetic Justice: Rereading Plato’s "Republic"-----------------
“An elegant and erudite study of a moral and political tradition that was once central to European culture but has been largely neglected in modern scholarship. Ebner-Landy’s exploration of Theophrastan character sketches as a set of flexible, socially embedded ethical resources is subtle, penetrating, and insightful. It not only offers a wide-ranging history of an important tradition of virtue ethics, but also shows how the revival of this tradition might productively reintegrate our fragmented domains of moral philosophy, politics, and aesthetics.”―Angus Gowland, author of The Worlds of Renaissance Melancholy
About the Author
Katie Ebner-Landy is Assistant Professor of Aesthetics in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Utrecht University. She has been a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows, and her articles have appeared in The Guardian, Le Monde, and the New Yorker.
The Character Sketch as Philosophy: Manners, Mores, Types
By : Katie Ebner-Landy
An insightful exploration of the moral and political power of the character sketch in early modern Europe―and the implications for our own relationship to this genre today.
Description
In the fourth century BCE, the philosopher Theophrastus, a student of Aristotle, composed thirty character sketches depicting ordinary Athenian vices: idle chatter, bad timing, cowardice, shamelessness, and superstition, among others. Centuries later, this enigmatic text―known as the Characters―was feverishly translated and imitated by early modern Europeans convinced of its moral and political importance. Tracing this resurgence of the Theophrastan tradition, Katie Ebner-Landy sheds new light on the role of the character sketch as a philosophical tool.
Ebner-Landy shows that the original Characters is best understood as a work of political philosophy, designed to urge Athenians toward civic virtue. It is this quality that made the text so resonant in early modern Europe, where the character sketch again served as a means of encouraging ethical behavior and cultivating political knowledge. During the English Civil War, for example, the character sketch was used to diagnose new political types such as the Roundhead and the Cavalier. By the era of the Enlightenment, however, moral philosophy’s long association with the character sketch began to break down. A different approach to philosophy took hold, one that spurned literary descriptions of manners, mores, and types and instead emphasized the principles underlying knowledge itself. This shift, in turn, helped to drive a broader separation between literature and philosophy.
A revealing intellectual history, The Character Sketch as Philosophy also encourages us to consider what literary description might contribute to ethics and political thought today―and to think critically about the kinds of character sketches on which we still rely, from the snob to the mansplainer.
Praise and Reviews
“With wit and erudition, Katie Ebner-Landy charts an unexpected course through the history of philosophy. The character sketch appears in her account as a lost philosophic art ripe for revival, dedicated to deriving moral benefits from bad examples. From ancient oligarchs to modern mansplainers, this is an arresting and delightful debut.”―Teresa M. Bejan, author of Mere Civility: Disagreement and the Limits of Toleration----------------------
“So much more than a reception history, The Character Sketch as Philosophy makes the case for the signal importance of Theophrastus’s Characters―and its all-but-lost method of philosophizing―in early modern Europe. As Ebner-Landy argues with clarity and force, writers of the period deployed the character sketch as a pedagogical tool, an instrument of moral reform, a vehicle for political activism, and a provocation to religious belief―all while struggling against the forces of empiricism that eventually prevailed. Anyone interested in the history of European philosophy, literature, and political theory will want to read this book.”―Kathy Eden, author of Rhetorical Renaissance: The Mistress Art and Her Masterworks----------------------
“The Character Sketch as Philosophy elegantly illuminates a lost tradition of ethical reflection. With exemplary erudition and grace, Katie Ebner-Landy recovers Theophrastan character-writing from the condescension of philosophy to argue persuasively for its contemporary relevance as a genre of virtue politics."”―David Armitage, author of Civil Wars: A History in Ideas--------------------
“In this compelling literary history of the character study, Katie Ebner-Landy rediscovers a distinctively political moral philosophy. Brilliantly illuminating the conjunctures of rhetoric with empirics, writing with reading, and politics with religion and society, The Character Sketch as Philosophy makes the urgent and timely case that the health of political systems rests not only on their institutions but also on the character, spirit, and relationships of the people they regulate.”―Jill Frank, author of Poetic Justice: Rereading Plato’s "Republic"-----------------
“An elegant and erudite study of a moral and political tradition that was once central to European culture but has been largely neglected in modern scholarship. Ebner-Landy’s exploration of Theophrastan character sketches as a set of flexible, socially embedded ethical resources is subtle, penetrating, and insightful. It not only offers a wide-ranging history of an important tradition of virtue ethics, but also shows how the revival of this tradition might productively reintegrate our fragmented domains of moral philosophy, politics, and aesthetics.”―Angus Gowland, author of The Worlds of Renaissance Melancholy
About the Author
Katie Ebner-Landy is Assistant Professor of Aesthetics in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Utrecht University. She has been a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows, and her articles have appeared in The Guardian, Le Monde, and the New Yorker.