Virtue according to Epicuru
Courage (minimse fear!)
Just as you should minimise wants, you should also minimise any fear.
What reason would an Epicurean have to risk bodily harm or pain?
- There does not seem much to defend - Letter to Menoeceus 130-1.
- But we do need future and continued security and this seeems to require continued support of our property, friend, family, and country. Thus, courageous behavior might be part of an Epicurean life, even if the things it would defend are of only instrumental value.
→ Cowardace is probably way more painful than experiencing bodily harm.
Justice
(Justice as a pledge among the members of society not to harm and so not to be harmed by, one another. (Principal Doctrines, 31-33)
- But why act on this in cases our interests conflict with the interests of others if, as Epicurus claims, virtue is not valuable in itself?
- "It is impossible for one who violates any of the things agreed for the sake of not harming or being harbmed by one another t obe confident that he will escape detention, even if from the present time forward he has tens of thousands of escapes. For it is unclear up to death whether he will in fact escape detention" (Principal Doctrines, 35)
- So, injustice would do away with peace of mind and so with katastematic pleasures.
Epicurean Way of Life
Virtue according to Epicurus
Features
Irreligion
(Letter to M. 123)
we could not have a concept of gods, if they didn't exist. Everything we think must be based in reality.
→ Gods exist, but they have nothing to do with our lives and ours not with theirs. Gods like Unicorns lol
Freedom from fear of death
(Letter to M.,124-125; Principal Doctrines 2)
If you're dead, there is no pain and therefore nothing to fear. There might also be no pleasure, but that's alright.
Do you fear the time before you were born?
→ When there is death, there's no us. When there's no death, there is an us. Death has nothing to do with our lives.
Living unnoticed,
i.e., to live a private, retired life, with no involvement, beyond what might be obligatory to all citizens, in the public life: "There is not need for things that involve struggle and conflict" (Principal Doctrines, 21)
→ Public living is inherintly unpleasant.
Friendship is best, because it isn't competitive. Relationships are stressful and competitive.
Don't preach the philosophy. Activism is just to stressful, man
Skeptics
somewhat similar to the Epicurean Way of Life?
They deny Katastematic Pleasures to actually be pleasure. They don't think that pleasure is good or bad. But some think it's better to be in Ataraxia.
Have no believes!
Having any sort of believes is a source of stress and thus bad. We shouldn't believe in anything. Be on both sides of any argument. Humans have no idea of what's right or wrong.
Way of Life
Don't stick out of the society. Just go along with everything, but don't believe any of it. Everyone is going to let you be.
Just be private within yourself and continue looking for truth while acknowledging that we haven't proven anything to be true yet.
Ataraxia
The goal of a lot of hellenist philosophies.
Go through life in peace of mind, worryfree
It's the goal of the
- Epicurean Way of Life (Epicurus)
- Skeptics (Only some believe that, others deny that even that is good)
- Stoic way of life (Stoics)
Stoics
Important Thinkers
Chronologically
Early Stoicism
Zeno
Zeno's Students
Chrysippus
After Chrysippus (206-129BCE): Zeno of Tarsus and and Diogenes of Babylon, and Antipater (increased influence of Platonic heritage)
Stoic view of Reason
Stoic view of the world
Zeno of Citium
- born around 333 BCE in cyprus
- He comes to Athens at around 311BCE (very likely he met Socrates)
- He begins "pacing up and down" at Stoa Poikile at around 300 BCE.
- First contact with philosophy: Socrates in Xenophon and, subsequently a pupil of Crates, a cynic philosopher.
- From them - knowledge and goodness are intimately connected.
- Second stage: The Megarians (Stilpo and Diodorus Cronus) and the Academy (Polemo)
- From the Megarians: interest in logic and language & in monism
- From the academy: psychology and moral they; theology (Timaeus)
- Influence of Heraclitus: acknowledged by Zeno
- He dies 261 BCE in Athens.
- Works: Life According to Nature, Emotions, Taht which is appropriate, Homeric Problems, Universals, Greek Culture, and so on
Zeno's Students
Zeno's Students
- Aristo of Chios - a student and rival at the same time. His students include a major Stoic philosopher Apollophanes as well as the famous scientist Eratosthenes (leap day, Earth's Circumference, the tilt of Earth's axis, latitude & longitude)
- Cleanthes becomes the scholarch of the Stoic school after Zeno's death (261-230BCE).
Chrysippus
(The scholarch from 230 to 260 BCE) - the most important Stoic philosopher. He would be about the same level of recognition of Aristotle and Plato today, if his works were preserved, but they aren't and very hard construct.
Roman Stoicism
They are all very concerned with the practical apllication of Stoicisim. They see the physics as implied and focus on ethics (Epictetus excluded somewhat)
Cicero preserves a lot of the greek works in order to convey them to a roman audience.
Important Thinkers
- Seneca (a generation after Arius Didymus, dies - by suicide in 65CE). Tutor and adviser to Nero
- Musonius Rufus (30-100CE), active in politics, twice exiled
- Epictetus (student of M. Rufus) (50-130CE)
- Marcus Aurelius (emperor of Rome, 161-180 CE)
- Other important figures: Hierocles (ethics), Cornutus (physics), Cleomedes (astronymy), and so onMarcus Aureliuso
Stoic Way of Life
Stoic view of the World
Living like a dog on a leash.
Chrysippus: Everything is controlled by Zeus (the world mind) who is rational and nature itself and gave humans a rationality of their own and their own thoughts.
Also The way the world is, is already the best → Stoic Livin in Accordance with Nature and you should just fit yourself into it Stoic Living in Agreement with Oneself
Stoic Living in Agreement wih Oneself
alias Origin of Moral Duty
Fully virtuous living (or happy living) involves agreement with oneself.
Homologoumenos: "having reasoned thoughts that are the same or in common". This then includes following Zeus' wishes as to how one should live - and so doing the god-given duties
The goal is living thinking in some way the same thoughts that the world itself does
The highest good, as the Stoics conceive of it, can be characterised as a life devoted to moral duty → The first conception of moral duty
This characterization of the life of virtue which they, as well as Plato and Aristotle regard as the highest good, is a novelty.
Moral Duty ≠ Religious Duty at first. Gods can demand bad things.
Stoic Living in Accordance with Nature
alias Stoic conception of Science, Stoic ethical naturalism
There is no book of how things you should do things. Science is just discovering the divine Plan
- Not the same as Stoic Living in Agreement with Oneself
- "Nature" here is not the world-mind itself. It means living in accordance with the natural outcomes, caused by God's thought (which is great in the end)
- These we can observe occuring over time and we can, on the basis of our observation, infer to what God or nature thinks of as the proper behavior for all living thins (including ourselves).
- This is the bsasis of Stoic "ethical naturalism".
Stoic Eudaimonism
- The end (telos) or the highest good is "being happy" (eudaimonia)
- The end is iteslf an action - but a naction not done for the sake of anything else.
- It is, as Aristotle said, "living in accordance with virtues"
Two further characterizations:
- The activity of the virtues is the same as living "in agreement"(homologoumenos)
- and as livin "in accordance with nature"