Who is ptahhotep

Silence is better than chatter. Speak when you know you have a solution. The skilled should speak. Speaking is harder than all other work. Those who understand use it well. When you talk to the angry, tilt your face and keep hold of yourself.

The flame of hot hearts spreads. Those who step gently have paved paths. Those who worry all day never have a happy moment. Epilogue The wise are known by wisdom, the great by good actions. Their heart match their tongue, lips straight when they speak. If hearing enters those who hear, the hearer becomes a listener.

Hearing well is speaking well. Hearing is useful to those who hear. Hearing is better than all else. Imagined communities: Reflections on the origins and spread of nationalism. London: Verso. Arngart, Olaf. Proverbs of Alfred. Lund: Gleerup. Bernal, Martin. Black Athena. Bourdieu, Pierre. Logic of practice. Cambridge: Polity Press. The discursive construction of society. Burke, Peter. The Art of conversation.

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They are mainly showing offerings bearers. The only family member preserved in the tomb decoration is the son Akhhotep. The name of the wife is not preserved. For a long time it was believed by many scholars that Ptahhotep wrote the first book in history.

His book was entitled The Maxims of Ptahhotep. As the Vizier, he wrote on a number of topics in his book that were derived from the central concept of Egyptian wisdom and literature which came from the goddess Maat. She was the daughter of the primordial and symbolized both cosmic order and social harmony.

Ptahhotep also wrote more social instructions such as ways to avoid argumentative persons and cultivate self-control.

If the universe is moral, how is it the case that self-interest seems to lead to gain and profit? Ptahhotep's response to this problem holds fast to the idea of a moral order to the universe, but is not entirely convincing. He argues that such gains are only ever short-term. What those who do immoral acts don't realise is that ultimately 'wrongdoing does not result in success'; because, he writes, 'in the long run it is Ma'at which endures.

The Maxims are full of advice about how to manage our lives in accord with this moral order, both individually and in relationship to others. Ptahhotep advises us not to work too much. What is important in human life is 'the time of following the heart. As for our relationships with others, Ptahhotep is preoccupied with how to manage our interpersonal difficulties: in particular how to engage in disputes without leading to their escalation, and how to manage destructive anger.

But Ptahhotep's recommendations are also rooted in a keen awareness of how flawed our knowledge of others is. This is a consequence of the fact that none of us ever attain full competence in any domain. Ptahhotep takes as an example somebody who is childless. In Ancient Egypt, it was important to have descendants. Our judgements about others, and how well or badly their lives are going, may be wide of the mark.

And we are wrong precisely because of the things we think we know about the world, or because we assume that we have expertise that we do not have.

Ptahhotep's Maxims remind us that the long search for wisdom reaches back far into our shared past. And the fact that one of humanity's first named philosophers was from Africa offers a challenge to ethnocentric notions that restrict the practice of philosophy to only a few cultures: because, as Ptahhotep tells us, the emeralds of wisdom can be found everywhere.

Join the community and help support the long-term growth of Looking for Wisdom. As a community member, you will get access to the Agora community forum, where you can participate in guided discussions, as well as getting free access to our monthly Sunday Salons. You'll also get an exclusive community-member newsletter, and the warm glow of knowing that you are supporting independent publishing. How nice is that? You can read extracts from the Maxims on the UCL website. For a more meaty philosophical discussion of Ptahhotep, see this paper by Joan Mulholland, exploring the Maxims through conversation analysis.