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.
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”
stress-FREE eating can reduce your weight more than diet
German physician and nutritionist Gunter Frank demonstrated that your weight has more to do with stress than with what you eat and advises to stop getting stressed about food. The book entitled “Lizenz zum Essen: Warum Ihr Gewicht mehr mit Stress zu tun hat, als mit dem, was Sie essen” (meaning “License to Eat – Why Your Weight Is More Related To Stress Than To What You Eat” -not published so far in English) is called “revolutionary” by its German publishers (Piper) – but only because they have not studied and applied Epicurean practical stress-FREEDOM philosophy.
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