Epicurean Desire Therapists
The Epicureans would not recommend that we be “Epicures”, as we understand the term today. Why not?
Jennifer Baker published an enlightening article on real Epicureanism in the online blog of “Psychology Today”:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-love-wisdom/201105/the-real-epicures/comments
which I commented as follows:
The real Epicureans walked their talk – for 800 years. No other philosophical school has kept its tenets unchanged for such an impressively long span of time. The ancient Epicureans had their own education system and sustainable communities. As do today’s body-builders, they built their chosen attitudes through daily exercise. Many of their ‘spiritual exercises’ were shared by the other character builder guild, the Stoics. Although the systematic communal and individual practice was interrupted when the Roman emperor Justinian closed the four still-existing philosophy schools in Athens, many of their tenets and attitudes were later studied and cultivated by philosophers, statesmen and psychologists. Their habit-forming practices of self-scrutiny are at the very basis of ‘modern’ behavior therapies . Martha Nussbaum’s “The Therapy of Desire” is an excellent illustration of the ancient desire therapies.
Alain de Botton gives a visually palatable introduction to Epicurus’s original philosophy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20LTTRQcZ8c
whose reading?
“Galenian” Epicureanism is my reading of Epicurus and his interpreters.
My own (mis-?)understandings and (mis-?)interpretations of the Epicurean texts differ from Cicero’s, Porphyrius’s and others’ (mis-?)understandings and (mis-?)interpretations
I agree with almost all of Norman Wentworth DeWitt’s interpretations of the Epicurean texts (in his “Epicurus and His Philosophy”) and Martha Nussbaum’s interpretations of Epicurean psychological procedures (in her “The Therapy of Desire” ). In some specific issues I accept the pertinent interpretation of one or the other expert’s, like Vincent Cook, Tim O’Keefe, D.S. Hutchinson, Victor Kioulaphides, Steven Ikier, Robert Hanrott, Tom Merle and some others.
For this reason I cannot speak of “Epicureanism” as such.
For me the Epicurean texts are less a raw material for interpretation or explanation than a source of inspiration and practical roadmap for a stress-FREE, truly happy life together with like-minded friends, using all the resources of modern science I have access to, especially pedagogy, psycho-sociology, organizational development and project management. I will go into details in my book “…live stress-FREE and happily ever after“.
Epicurean texts and some of their interpretations – like e.g. Michel Foucault’s interpretation of Epicurean “parrhesia” ( a special form of giving feedback, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parrhesia ), or Christoph Horn or Paul Rabbow’s or Pierre Hadot’s reconstructions and interpretations of Hellenistic philosophical exercises and practices, or the strong ecological interpretation of Stephanie Mills’s ”Epicurean Simplicity” -serve as foundation and ingredients for my personal stress-FREEDOM guidance and are part of my reading of Epicurean stress-FREEDOM practice and stress-FREE lifestyle – as described in more detail in my book under construction “Epicurus reloaded”
For this reason it would be incorrect – and in my value scale: dishonest – to call my stress-FREEDOM guidance “Epicurean”. It is much more correct and modest to call it “mine”, i.e. “Galenian”, i.e. Galenios’s reading of Epicurus and of the world.
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