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.
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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