Epicurus
Part of Hellenism
We have 3 letters that Epicurus wrote himself.
Demokrit was very influential for his philosophy.
Epicurean view of the world (no purpose, just randomness)
Epicurean view of reason
Epicurean view on pleasure: Hedonism
Impact
He founds his school in Athens shortly after Plato's Death.
He is almost a religious master to his followers. His followers act as if Epicurus would be there to judge.
Julius Ceaser was a fan (check that)
Demokrit
He is a part of Presocratics and is the founder of Atomismus
Atomismus
Dtomiemocritus had the idea that atoms float in a void. These atoms have shapes and can cling together. Everything happens randomly and there is no design → Epicurean view of the world
Hellenism
3 Major Schools
(newly founded in Hellenism, very connected to early philosophers including Plato and Aristotle, but independent own philosophies)
Epicurus
What happens to Aristotle and Plato
Plato's Acedemy persists, but it isn't dominant in the period.
Aristotles Academy also persists, but it isn't as important.
They come back into fashion afterwards.
Epicurean view of the world
things are not "arranged for the best" - they are not arranged for anything. There is no purpose in the world, no design. In fact, the world is clearly imperfect.
They are irreligious.
Compared to Stoic view of the world
Stoic view of the world
- Stoics: things are arranged for the best by the world-minded
Compared to Epicurean view of the world
Epicurean view of Reason
Reason is not of divine origin/affiliation. Reason does not have power to understand any divinely ordained truths - it is not authoritative about the human good. It is a natural power which is grounded and limited by our powers of sensation and feeling. Its authority concerns only what it can derive from these sources - truth is only in sensation and in feelings of attraction and aversion that are 'unavoidable'.
Compared to Epicurean view of the world
Stoic view of Reason
Reason finds, explains, and justifies the best life as well as guides us. It is also a divine power and so worthy of devotion. Doing philosophy is an essential part of the best life.
Compared to Epicurean view of Reason
Hedonism
Epicurus' Conception of Pleasure
Pleasure
a single state of feeling that we are immediately aware of and, in being aware of it we also immediately know its goodness.
(Demokrit might have thought this but it isn't clear)
Experience shows that there is only one thing valuable in iteslf - pleasure.
Pleasure is the only thing, which is good by its own nature.
The best life must be learnt by experience.
They all strive for ataraxia → peace of mind. Minimise desires. → Katastematic Pleasures
The cradle argument of pleasure
kinds of pleasure
Kinetic Pleasure
Katastematic Pleasures
Kinetic Pleasure
or Restorative Pleasure
pleasure that arises in circumstances of bodily and psychic movements (food, drink, sex, learning, discovery, etc.) If you lack something and fulfil that lack, that is kinetic pleasure.
You should not get attached to fulfilling them and do so in the simplest way possible. → The happy life according to the Epicureans
We can desire these things as preferred, but ultimately we need to recognize that the pleasures associated with them are mere variations of one's enjoyment of the katastematic awareness of one's healthy natural constitution of oneself.
In a well-lived life life, kinetic pleasures are additions ot the katastematic pleasures insofar as they provide variety. But they don't increase the katastematic pleasures, and so do not increase the highest good.
Katastematic Pleasures
or Static Pleasure or Rational Pleasure
It is something that you can always do more of while feeling good. There's no lack to be restored.
Idea from Epicurus
- Pleasure arising in circumstances in which one is free from bodily and mental movements, but one is a natural, self-maintaining condition of readiness for sensory engagement - such awareness, relaxed and undisturbed, is pleasant in itself.
- The Katastemattic pleasures are in principle available all the time provided one is in the right bodily and mental condition
- According to Epicurus the katastematic pleasures are the greatset pleasures that can be experienced
→ They are free of all bodily and mental disturbandes (and so of pains, discomfort, distress, etc.) since they occur only in heatly state.
→ They are free of pleasurable excitation that are characteristic of kinetic pleasures. These excitations are always mixed with pains. Thus, they are free of imure pleasures
→ Therefore only in experiencing katastematic pleasures, we also experience what is truly the highest good and what we feel is good about pleasure. In fact, being in that condition we find that the pleasure we experience cannot be further exceeded (though it can be extended)
How to achieve them?
How to achieve them while normally leading our lives? We have to engage in some kinetic pleasure inevitably.
Epicurus does think that we can achieve katastematic pleasures as an ongoing pleasurable awareness of our own healthy, well-functioning natural constitution. How?
The main trick is not to create in ourselves desires that would, due to their intensity, lead inevitably to pain and so undermine the katastematic pleasures (these are empty or goundless desires):
- Attachments to specific foods and drinks
- Attachments to sex of certain sort or with certain people (love)
- All these desires are self defeating
What about intensity?
Taking the intensity of pleasure as the measure of quantity of pleasure.
But intensity is just a consequence of our experience of pleasure being mixed with pain. It's not a mark of pleasure, but a mark of pain and distress of intense desires underlying the pleasurable experience
→ We should aim at the greatest actual quantity of pleasure in our lives - and this is to be found in katastematic pleasures.
The happy life according to the Epicureans
The happy life according to the Epicureans
the goal of a well-lived life is to always live, so far as possible, in the katastematic condition of freedom of all pain, bodily or mental, and from all pleasures that bring along with them distress to any degree
- this is because such pleasures (kinetic) are based on harmful intense desires that in fact prevent us from having katastematic pleasures
How to achieve it?
Happy life is to be attained in a number of individual favorite ways of varying one's pleasure.
some of these will be be inevitably kinetic (hunger, thirst, sexual desires), some of them kinetic though not mixed with pain (music, garden).
The key is not to let oneself develop intense, destructive desires for these things (and so never to be too hungry, and so on).
What to do in case of bodily or mental distress?
- Mental distress is never justified
- Bodily distress can be opposed by one's overall state of mind.
Is this life virtuous? Virtue According to Epicurus
The Cradle argument of Pleasure
Epicurean Conception
Opinions color your perception. You develop them as an adult. The purest form of pleasure is the impulses of a baby.
Cicero recounts it in fragment I-21
As soon as each animal is born, it seeks pleasure and rejoices in it as the highest good, and rejects pain as the greatst bad thing, driving it away from itself as effectively as it can; and does this while it is still not corrupted, while the judgment of nature herself is unperverted and sound. Therefore, he says that there is no need of reason or debate about why pleasure is to be pursued and pain to be avoided. [Epicur] thinks that these things are perceived, as we perceive that fire is hot, that snow is white, that honey is sweet. None of these things requires confirmation by sophisticated argmuntation; it is enough just to have them pointed out. For there is a difference between rational conclusion of an argument and simly pointing something out; for the former reveals certain hidden and, as it were, arcane facts, while the latter indicates things which are evident and out in the open.
What did Epicureans thought of it
- Probably, the cradle argument was used as a reminder of what we know and knew from the start, namely that pleasure is our natural good, rather than argument that it is so: it was supposed to show us the "child" within us at the stage in which it was not yet corrupted by socialization and upbringing.
- This happens because in learning how to value other things (virtue, health, etc.) and so postpone gratification of immediate desires, we forget that those other things are ultimately only good if they secure later and greater pleasures.
Stoics accept the argument, but disagree on the conclusion
The first impulses of the newborn are towards self-preservation (since they have an innate, however inarticulate, awareness of themselves and an innate desire to sustain themselves)
Pleasure is the way in which nature points out what is good.
Virtue according to Epicurus
Generally
Virtues are valuable as a means to attaining and sustaining katastematic pleasures. Only pleasure is good in itself.
Epicurus claimed that a life according to his precepts is a fully virtuous one fulfilling all four principal virtues in greek ethics (Practical wisdom, Temperance, Courage, Justice)
Temperance
general restraint in assesing the values of immediately available pleasures, avoidance of overindulgence.
Courage
Not avoiding tasks that one sees as important merely because they involve threats of bodily harm and pain, or threats to one's life.
Justice
avoiding criminal behavior, cheating lying, deceit, rhirking, responsibility, etc.
Practical Wisdom
- "...practical wisdom is the source of all the other virtues, teaching that it is impossible to live pleasantly without living wisely, honourably, and justly, and impossible to live wisely, honouably, and justly, and impossilbe to live wisely, honourably, and justly without living pleasantly. For the virtues are natural adjuncts of the pleasant life and the pleasant life is inseparable from them." (Letter to Menoeceus, 132).
- Practical wisdom corresponds to the knowledge that katastematic pleasure, varied appropriately by kinetic pleasures, is the highest good.