Epicurus in 60 Minutes E-Book

Walther Ziegler

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Seitenzahl: 70

Beschreibung

The philosopher Epicurus (341-270 BC) has been controversial since antiquity. His provocative key idea is of compelling simplicity. Every human being possesses, by nature, an internal compass. In order to be happy he must do what causes him pleasure and joy and avoid what causes him unpleasure and harm. He writes: "Pleasure is the starting point and goal of living blessedly [...] (It is) our first innate good, and [...] our starting point for every choice and avoidance." Already newborns follow this "pleasure principle". But this discovery, which might at first seem so obvious, struck Epicurus's contemporaries as a monstrous provocation. The notion that the highest goal of life is enjoying pleasure stands in stark contrast to the then-established teachings of Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics. These latter saw reason and a life lived by reason as the highest goal of Man. Because Epicurus accepted women into his school and even had a love affair with one of them, his contemporaries called him a "glutton" and "sex fiend". The Greek poet Timon described him as "doggish", the Stoic Epictetus as a "wastrel". Christian authors later even called him the Antichrist. But these critiques are fundamentally false, because beyond a superficial striving for pleasure, Epicurus's deeper concern was a lifelong, painstaking "care of the self". His questions, then, remain burningly relevant. What are the basic human needs whose satisfaction yields a happy life? Which needs are really necessary to life and which not? How, concretely, should we deal with these needs: for example with the need for food, drink, sexual intercourse and friendship? The book contains almost a hundred quotes from this charismatic ancient philosopher. It appears as part of the beloved series "Great Thinkers in 60 Minutes" which has now been translated worldwide into six languages.

Leseprobe

My thanks go to Rudolf Aichner for his tireless critical editing; Silke Ruthenberg for the fine graphics; Lydia Pointvogl, Eva Amberger, Christiane Hüttner, and Dr. Martin Engler for their excellent work as manuscript readers and sub-editors; Prof. Guntram Knapp, who first inspired me with enthusiasm for philosophy; and Angela Schumitz, who handled in the most professional manner, as chief editorial reader, the production of both the German and the English editions of this series of books.

My special thanks go to my translator

Dr Alexander Reynolds.

Himself a philosopher, he not only translated the original German text into English with great care and precision but also, in passages where this was required in order to ensure clear understanding, supplemented this text with certain formulations adapted specifically to the needs of English-language readers.

Contents

Epicurus’s Great Discovery

Epicurus’s Central Idea

The Five Sources of Pleasure: Food, Drink, Sexuality, Friendship and Philosophy

To Enjoy Properly Is To Enjoy Intelligently – The Philosopher’s Way of Dealing With Pleasure

The Avoidance of Unpleasure, Pain and Fear

The Insignificance of the Gods for Happiness in the Here and Now

Hedonism as an Art of Living – Enjoyment, Friendship and Ataraxy

Of What Use Is Epicurus’s Discovery For Us Today?

Lust for Life! – Epicurus’s Speech in Defence of The Joys of the Senses

Enjoyment, Not Renunciation; Freedom, Not Fate! Epicurus Against the Stoics

“Death Is Nothing to Us” – Directing One’s Focus on Life

Epicurus’s Timeless Message: Make the Best of the One Life We Have!

Bibliographical References

Epicurus’s Great Discovery

Epicurus (341-270 BC) is, along with Plato and Aristotle, one of the great charismatic philosophers of the ancient world. He counts among those thinkers whose key idea has remained a living one across a span of several millennia. Just as the word “stoic” has characterized, for over two thousand years now, people who tend to remain calm and relaxed in situations of tension and pressure, we still today speak of someone as an “epicurean” or a “hedonist” if they openly declare that their chosen style of life is one oriented to the pursuit of pleasure. Hedone is, in fact, the Greek word for “pleasure”. And it is Epicurus who counts as the founder of so-called “hedonism”. A large number of people today choose to describe themselves as “hedonists”.

We may say that Epicurus long preceded Freud in formulating the notion of a “pleasure principle” playing a crucially important role in our lives. This “pleasure principle” runs simply: “seek always to increase your pleasure and avoid anything by which pleasure is diminished!” Epicurus’s key idea, then, appears initially to be one of seductive clarity: Nature itself, he maintains, provides human beings, right at their birth, with a sort of “inner compass” by the guidance of which they can lead a happy life. It is a kind of intuitive guidebook which stands by us in all decisions, great and small. In order to be happy, Epicurus says, a human being has simply to do what gives him joy and pleasure and avoid whatever is likely to cause him displeasure or pain:

But this discovery of Epicurus’s, which on a first reading strikes one as a matter of common sense, something that almost “goes without saying”, was in fact perceived already by the philosopher’s contemporaries as a monstrous provocation. The fulfilment of the desire for pleasure as the highest of life’s goals stands in sharp contrast and opposition to the other well-established doctrines of that day, such as those of Plato, Aristotle or the Stoics. These latter doctrines had praised, ever since their first foundation, reason and a life lived according to reason as the highest goals for Man. But now, suddenly, along came Epicurus with his claim that the highest good for Man was not Man’s reason at all but rather his body, his sensuality, his desire and pleasure.

Not that “thought” which had hitherto stood in such high moral regard but, on the contrary, those drives and needs hitherto looked on as “lower” things, such as eating, drinking and sexuality, show us, according to Epicurus, the right road to take through life. Expressed in its most radical and shocking form, Epicurus’s basic thesis ran: human beings will be happy only when they cease trying to pose as virtuous beings consisting essentially of mind and confess to others and to themselves all the powerful desires and needs that inhabit and motivate them. Pleasure, argued Epicurus, is, in the final analysis, such an elevated and indispensable good that it would be impossible to live without it:

In direct contrast to Plato and the Stoics, Epicurus places not the mind but rather the body in the centre of his philosophy. Basing himself on the forms of pleasure characteristic of the body, he develops a comprehensive philosophical notion of “the good life”. He even finds a way to place morality and ethics under the sway of the pleasure principle. Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics he dismisses as “worshippers of reason” blinded by their own dogmas. These philosophers, he contended, had entirely failed to recognize the true end and aim of life and had devoted themselves exclusively to the admiration of the morally or ethically honourable. But this, for Epicurus, was absolutely the wrong attitude to take:

Epicurus, then, took a passionately contrary position to that form of ethics predominant in Classical Greece whereby “the good life” consisted only in bringing to realization such “cardinal virtues” as courage, fortitude and prudence:

Epicurus also points out that the citizens of Athens were deeply dishonest, as was their professed canon of moral principles. The things, he noted, that they raised to the status of high moral virtues tended always to be things which brought them, in any case, the greatest possible material advantage. If, for example, a muscular, athletic boxer praises courage and fortitude as the highest virtues, what lies behind this praise is, in the last analysis, only yet another form of pleasure: in this case pleasure at triumph in sporting contests:

This, his polemical attitude toward the classical doctrine of virtue created many enemies for Epicurus in Athens. It did not improve his reputation among the Athenians that he also accepted women into his philosophical school and was even known to have a regular sexual partnership with one of these, a highly educated hetaira called Leontion. (A hetaira was a type of sex-worker characteristic of ancient Greece who performed not just the work of a prostitute but acted also as an entertainer and conversation-partner). His relationship with this remarkable woman, known to some as “the lioness”, along with the general rumours about the sensual self-indulgence tolerated in Epicurus’s school, acquired him such nicknames among the Athenians as “the glutton” and “the sex fiend”. The Greek poet Timon described him as “piggish and doggish” and the Stoic Epictetus called him a “debauched man”. Later, among Christian authors, he even came to be declared an “enemy of humanity”. Epicurus, claimed the Scholastics, was the Antichrist, since he did not believe in God and took delight in animalistic impulses.

The provocation represented by Epicurus’s recommendation that we live according to the “pleasure principle” finds external expression already in the name of his school. It was called the Kepos, from the ancient Greek word for “garden”. And Epicurus did indeed instruct his pupils in a garden. We see a sharp contrast here to the pupils of Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoic Zeno, all of whom were obliged to meet in large, covered stone buildings. Both Plato’s “Academy” and Aristotle’s “Lyceum” had been temples respectively to Athena and Apollo before becoming gymnasiums. Zeno’s “Stoa”, from which the Stoic school took its name, literally means “covered walkway”. Epicurus’s pupils, however, met and learned together in the open air, under the shade of the trees. The choice of this milieu as a “classroom” clearly signified that in Epicurus’s school everything should be allowed to freely blossom and unfold, just as in Nature. Epicurus purchased this small plot of garden-like land along with the small house that stood on it and turned it immediately into a school. After the academies of Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics, it took its place as the fourth and last great school of philosophy in Athens. It has endured through the ages, its influence extending far beyond the Classical age of Greece into that of the Roman Empire.