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Epi-curious about the Epicureans (self.badhistory)

GrandMoffTargaryen が 投稿

Long time lurker first time poster here ready to actually contribute to the Sub I love so much. The source of my bad history is something I haven’t seen on this sub before; a church sermon. Unfortunately due to the nature of this bad history I cannot directly link the offending piece and we must unfortunately rely on a transcription.

”Now the important thing to understand is that the stoics and epicureans were in many senses opposed to each other… the epicureans on the other hand were complete hedonists. Now I don’t mean that as an insult, they were literally hedonists in the classical sense of the word. They didn’t believe in the Greek gods or if they did they didn’t think they were worthy of worship or responsible for creating our world. Left without a divinely inspired meaning for life they took the opposite view of the stoics deciding that pleasure was the chief and only good in this world. Now does that sound familiar? laughs They indulged in the pleasures of the flesh with the best wine, the best clothes, the best food, the best everything. Now if I had to sum them up in one phrase it would be “if it feels good do it.” Now like most schools of post Aristotelian philosophy there was a brilliantly describes and intellectual rational for this life style but if I go into that we’ll be here all day laughs”

Now unfortunately for me I haven’t stumbled across some rare new breed of historical understanding merely a rehash of centuries old plan vanilla understanding of how exactly the Epicureans defined hedonism. Hedonism in the classical sense is the belief that pleasure is the sole good to pursue, (so far so good) but pleasure being such a nebulous concept allowed Epicurus to define it in a manner much different then our modern ideas of hedonism would suggest. While the pastor appears to be describing a philosophical movement comprised entirely of the Hedonismbot from futurama Epicurus instead proposed a life devoted to simple pleasures and indeed defined the simple absences of negative stimuli such as pain, fear, or anxiety as the greatest pleasure. Also important was intellectual stimulation and friendship, this lead logically to the rejection of stereotypically “hedonistic” practices such as over indulgence on wine or rich food. In his own words

“I am thrilled with pleasure in the body when I live on bread and water, and I spit on luxurious pleasures, not for their own sake, but because of the inconveniences that follow them”

” Of all the means which wisdom acquires to ensure happiness throughout the whole of life, by far the most important is friendship”

“By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul. It is not by an unbroken succession of drinking bouts and of revelry, not by sexual lust, nor the enjoyment of fish and other delicacies of a luxurious table, which produce a pleasant life; it is sober reasoning, searching out the grounds of every choice and avoidance, and banishing those beliefs through which the greatest tumults take possession of the soul.”

” It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and honorably and justly, and it is impossible to live wisely and honorably and justly without living pleasantly. Whenever any one of these is lacking, when, for instance, the man is not able to live wisely, though he lives honorably and justly, it is impossible for him to live a pleasant life.”

In the end a simple life spent with family and friends without the pressures of political or civil involvement was seen as the highest good a man could strive for. The life advocated by the Epicureans was a far cry from the constant drunken orgy some people seem to think it was (possibly why they became less popular).

As I said before this is my first post here so I am positive I have not reached the quality levels you masters of pedantry have. I welcome any criticism or recommendations you all can provide on how to improve.

Sources

History of Western Philosophy By Bertrand Russell

The Stoics, Epicureans and Sceptics By Eduard Zeller

History of Philosophy By William Turner, S.T.D.

Stoics, Epicureans and sceptics: an introduction to Hellenistic philosophy By R.W. Sharples.

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[–]TiakoTevinter apologist, shill for Big Lyrium 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

Now this is vintage! The Stoic/Epicurean dichotomy is literally ancient in its origin even though, as you note, it was basically a strawman. This is from Lucian's "Sale of Philosophies" (which I promise is very funny if you read enough ancient philosophy), which interprets the picking of phhilsophies as a slave auction:

Hermes ...Now I want Epicureanism. Who offers for Epicureanism? He is a disciple of the laughing creed and the drunken creed, whom we were offering just now. But he has one extra accomplishment--impiety. For the rest, a dainty, lickerish creed.

Sixth D. What price?

Her. Eight pounds.

Sixth D. Here you are. By the way, you might let me know what he likes to eat.

Her. Anything sweet. Anything with honey in it. Dried figs are his favourite dish.

Sixth D. That is all right. We will get in a supply of Carian fig-cakes.

Zeus. Call the next lot. Stoicism; the creed of the sorrowful countenance, the close-cropped creed.

Her. Ah yes, several customers, I fancy, are on the look-out for him. Virtue incarnate! The very quintessence of creeds! Who is for universal monopoly?

Seventh D. How are we to understand that?

Her. Why, here is monopoly of wisdom, monopoly of beauty, monopoly of courage, monopoly of justice. Sole king, sole orator, sole legislator, sole millionaire.

Seventh D. And I suppose sole cook, sole tanner, sole carpenter, and all that?

Her. Presumably.

Seventh D. Regard me as your purchaser, good fellow, and tell me all about yourself. I dare say you think it rather hard to be sold for a slave?

Chrys. Not at all. These things are beyond our control. And what is beyond our control is indifferent.

Seventh D. I don't see how you make that out.

Chrys. What! Have you yet to learn that of indifferentia some are praeposita and others rejecta?

Seventh D. Still I don't quite see.

Chrys. No; how should you? You are not familiar with our terms. You lack the comprehensio visi. The earnest student of logic knows this and more than this. He understands the nature of subject, predicate, and contingent, and the distinctions between them.

Seventh D. Now in Wisdom's name, tell me, pray, what is a predicate? what is a contingent? There is a ring about those words that takes my fancy.

Chrys. With all my heart. A man lame in one foot knocks that foot accidentally against a stone, and gets a cut. Now the man is subject to lameness; which is the predicate. And the cut is a contingency.

Seventh D. Oh, subtle! What else can you tell me?

Chrys. I have verbal involutions, for the better hampering, crippling, and muzzling of my antagonists. This is performed by the use of the far-famed syllogism.

Seventh D. Syllogism! I warrant him a tough customer.

Chrys. Take a case. You have a child?

Seventh D. Well, and what if I have?

Chrys. A crocodile catches him as he wanders along the bank of a river, and promises to restore him to you, if you will first

guess correctly whether he means to restore him or not. Which are you going to say?

Seventh D. A difficult question. I don't know which way I should get him back soonest. In Heaven's name, answer for me, and save the child before he is eaten up.

Chrys. Ha, ha. I will teach you far other things than that.

Seventh D. For instance?

Chrys. There is the 'Reaper.' There is the 'Rightful Owner.' Better still, there is the 'Electra' and the 'Man in the Hood.'

Seventh D. Who was he? and who was Electra?

Chrys. She was the Electra, the daughter of Agamemnon, to whom the same thing was known and unknown at the same time. She knew that Orestes was her brother: yet when he stood before her she did not know (until he revealed himself) that her brother was Orestes. As to the Man in the Hood, he will surprise you considerably. Answer me now: do you know your own father?

Seventh D. Yes.

Chrys. Well now, if I present to you a man in a hood, shall you know him? eh?

Seventh D. Of course not.

23Chrys. Well, but the Man in the Hood is your father. You don't know the Man in the Hood. Therefore you don't know your own father.

Seventh D. Why, no. But if I take his hood off, I shall get at the facts. Now tell me, what is the end of your philosophy? What happens when you reach the goal of virtue?

Chrys. In regard to things external, health, wealth, and the like, I am then all that Nature intended me to be. But there is much previous toil to be undergone. You will first sharpen your eyes on minute manuscripts, amass commentaries, and get your bellyful of outlandish terms. Last but not least, it is forbidden to be wise without repeated doses of hellebore.

Seventh D. All this is exalted and magnanimous to a degree. But what am I to think when I find that you are also the creed of cent-per-cent, the creed of the usurer? Has he swallowed his hellebore? is he made perfect in virtue?

Chrys. Assuredly. On none but the wise man does usury sit well. Consider. His is the art of putting two and two together, and usury is the art of putting interest together. The two are evidently connected, and one as much as the other is the prerogative of the true believer; who, not content, like common men, with simple interest, will also take interest upon interest. For interest, as you are probably aware, is of two kinds. There is simple interest, and there is its offspring, compound interest. Hear Syllogism on the subject. 'If I take simple interest, I shall also take compound. But I shall take simple interest: therefore I shall take compound.'

Seventh D. And the same applies to the fees you take from24 your youthful pupils? None but the true believer sells virtue for a fee?

Chrys. Quite right. I take the fee in my pupil's interest, not because I want it. The world is made up of diffusion and accumulation. I accordingly practise my pupil in the former, and myself in the latter.

Seventh D. But it ought to be the other way. The pupil ought to accumulate, and you, 'sole millionaire,' ought to diffuse.

Chrys. Ha! you jest with me? Beware of the shaft of insoluble syllogism.

Seventh D. What harm can that do?

Chrys. It cripples; it ties the tongue, and turns the brain.25 Nay, I have but to will it, and you are stone this instant.

Seventh D. Stone! You are no Perseus, friend?

Chrys. See here. A stone is a body?

Seventh D. Yes.

Chrys. Well, and an animal is a body?

Seventh D. Yes.

Chrys. And you are an animal?

Seventh D. I suppose I am.

Chrys. Therefore you are a body. Therefore a stone.

Seventh D. Mercy, in Heaven's name! Unstone me, and let me be flesh as heretofore.

Chrys. That is soon done. Back with you into flesh! Thus: Is every body animate?

Seventh D. No.

Chrys. Is a stone animate?

Seventh D. No.

Chrys. Now, you are a body?

Seventh D. Yes.

Chrys. And an animate body?

Seventh D. Yes.

Chrys. Then being animate, you cannot be a stone.

Seventh D. Ah! thank you, thank you. I was beginning to feel my limbs growing numb and solidifying like Niobe's. Oh, I must have you. What's to pay?

Her. Fifty pounds.

Seventh D. Here it is.

Her. Are you sole purchaser?

Seventh D. Not I. All these gentlemen here are going shares.

Her. A fine strapping lot of fellows, and will do the 'Reaper' credit.

Zeus. Don't waste time. Next lot,--the Peripatetic!