Psychology Today re-discovers Epicurus
In an anonymous article that is “adapted” from Neel Burton’s ‘The Art of Failure: The Anti Self-Help Guide’ Psychology Today re-discovers Epicurus.
It is an excellent summary of the main points of the Epicurean philosophy. The author debunks a lot of the myths people believe when the say they are “Epicureans” but two widespread errors are not corrected:
- Right at the beginning of his article the author asserts that “According to Epicurus, reason teaches that pleasure is good and that pain is bad, and that pleasure and pain are the ultimate measures of good and bad.” This is an error and it is corrected by Cassius Amicus in an analytic comment on Facebook: “Epicurus’ rejected Plato’s espousal of “reason” as a tool of knowledge over the senses/anticipations/plain-pleasure mechanism. The point is that in order to be valid, ALL conclusions from reason must arise from and be constantly checked against the reality we judge from the three legs of the canon of truth. The modern tendency of many of us (including me) is to presume that “reason” is the key to correct thinking and living, but that is not what Epicurus said. Yes, properly applied, reason will validate the conclusion, but the real tools of determining truth are the information derived from the three legs of the canon. There are many citations for this, but the one I use most often is in Cicero’s De Finibus where in the Epicurean argument Cicero records that Epicurus held logic to be virtually worthless, and stressed how it is meaningless unless it starts from correct premises — from the three legs of the canon, to which reason is subordinate.’
- The author of the article in Psychology Today commits the “summum bonum” fallacy when he asserts that “Epicurus agrees with Aristotle that happiness is an end-in-itself and the highest good of human living. However, he identifies happiness with the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain rather than with the pure exercise of reason.” Norman W. DeWitt has convincingly demonstrated in his ‘Epicurus ad His Philosophy’ that “to Epicurus pleasure was the telos ['finis' in the sense of 'the goal'] and life itself was the greatest good.”
Epicurus developed an impressive range of training and coaching tools to enable his followers to live a happy life in accordance with his philosophy. These techniques had been successfully used unchanged for an almost unimaginably long span of time: 800 years. Many of themhave been ‘borrowed’ by the Stoics, and from them, by many Christians, re-branded as “spiritual exercises” – for instance by Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus (better known as the “Jesuit order”.) as demonstrated by Paul Rabbow in his ‘Seelenfürung’ and by Pierre Hadot in his ‘Exercises Spirituels et Philosophie Antique’.The author of the article in Psychology Today does not mention this fact.
emotional well-being taught in schools? AGAIN?!
Jules Evans informs us that the London Philosophy Club has scheduled a special event on this topic Should we teach emotional well-being in schools?
Emotional well-being (aka happiness / eudaimonia) was the only subject taught in the Epicurean garden schools. For 800 years: from 300 BE to 500 CE. The Christian Emperors changed the topic for the next 1500 years: unhappiness has been taught in school ever since the cultural takeover by Church(es) and Platonic Academia.
Are we contemplating an eudaimonistic revolution?
Message to the Friends of the Epicurean Philosophy
Today like-minded friends gather together in Athens, Greece, to exchange their thoughts and experiences: the Second Panhellenic Symposium of Epicurean Philosophy takes place between February 11-12, 2012. The organizers asked me to send a message to the participants of the symposium. This is what I sent them:
Dear Friends of the Epicurean Philosophy, I am happy that you make Epicurus’s voice heard again.
His is the only Gospel that has been valid unchanged for 2300 years.
He has taught us how to break free from our fears and from the slavery of unnecessary and unnatural desires by finding out what we really need.
Epicurus has shown us the proven pathway from pain to pleasure and how we can lead a happy life by cultivating mental peace (ataraxia) and companionate love (philia).
His teachings will never lose their liberating relevance because they are based on the study of the nature of things.
The more people follow in his footsteps the better place our world will be to live in.
Stefan Streitferdt
author of the Epicurean happiness guidance
“From Pain to Pleasure: The Proven Pathway to Happiness”
like my book? or like me, too?
If you like my Epicurean happiness guidance “From Pain to Pleasure: The Proven Pathway to Happiness” you can click on the ‘like’ button on Amazon’s page.
If you like my book AND its author you will buy it from my own eBook-store where you can get besides the paperback edition also the eBook version for half the price.
From Amazon’s sales I get almost no royalties whereas if you buy directly from me a small amount will remain to help foot my huge hospital bills.
You can dissolve all your fears when you realize how little you really need to lead a blissful life
Epicurus’s core teaching in a nutshell: “You can dissolve all your fears when you realize how little you really need to lead a blissful life.”
To encapsulate a felling or a thought in as few words as possible: this endeavor engendered the literary genre of the Japanese haiku. It also produced the famous four-fold cure (tetrapharmakos) of Epicurean practical wisdom :
- There is nothing to fear from God
- There is nothing to feel from death
- Good things can be acquired
- Bad things can be endured
It sounds simple. It shows the state of mind you can reach after consciously practicing the Epicurean conduct of life by daily reflections and mental exercises under the guidance of an Epicurean coach as Epicurean self-educating communities were practicing it unchanged in 800 years (300 BCE – 500 CE). It has been boiled down to this concentrated formula by the Epicurean community in the famous Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum, maybe by their in-house instructor, the philosopher and poet Philodemus of Gadara, or his disciples, but more probably obtained collectively, as happiness itself is obtained.
Today I tried to boil it down further, the way cooks keep on reducing their stock. What I found at the bottom of my mental saucepan was this:
You can dissolve all your fears when you realize how little you really need to lead a blissful life.
My goal was to show not only the end-result but also indicate that it takes your individual decision and efforts to reach that state. The three-letter word ‘can’ must hint not only at the individual’s responsibility in making choices that further his own happiness but also at the fact that it might take the assistance of like-minded friends and experienced guides and coaches to reach that goal. And maybe long years of dedicated practice.
Ravishing Russian Choir
During my early morning walk I heard Russian choir on radio WORT http://www.wort-fm.org/ . It was ravishing, it made my day.
It turned out what I actually heard was ‘ ‘Ravishingly Russian’ http://www.msrcd.com/catalog/cd/MS1311
FREE Report about stress
Download instantly your copy!