>Nooooo, you can't just be satisfied with simple pleasures and an absence of pain!!!
Why is he so hated? This sounds like common sense.
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>Nooooo, you can't just be satisfied with simple pleasures and an absence of pain!!!
>Nooooo, you can't just be satisfied with simple pleasures and an absence of pain!!!
Why is he so hated? This sounds like common sense.
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Ape Out Shirt $21.68 |
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Large numbers of people thought so in the ancient world. Epicurus was the most popular philosopher in terms of sheer quantity of followers.
Yet he still had many haters and slanderers. Why did those people hate him so much?
Because there was a distinct lack of gay sex in his writings.
I thought Epicurus would be one of the philosophers more open to gay sex than others
Because he widdled down the meaning of all existence to what is merely on the physical plane before us. While avoiding pain is good it is also not an original idea as even Platonists would tell you to avoid pain while having the added benefit of not impotently decrying ideas such as soul and afterlife as useless blabber.
His haters were all learned men like Galen aka men who saw through his materialist chicanery.
Part of me wishes Epicureanism would get more popular interest the way stoicism has recently, but I worry hedonism is kind of a dangerous idea because morons will misunderstand it as "yeah just smoke every day" or, worse, take it as license to be a jerk instead of pursuing the true happiness that comes from virtue. In fact, to answer your question, a lot of the hate for him comes from his opponents misinterpreting him that way.
>While avoiding pain is good it is also not an original idea as even Platonists would tell you to avoid pain
The fact that practically everyone agrees that experiencing pleasure and avoiding pain are good seems like a point in favor of hedonism.
>while having the added benefit of not impotently decrying ideas such as soul and afterlife as useless blabber.
I think the progress of science has been much kinder to Epicurus's view of human consciousness than Plato's. They both got plenty of things wrong of course.
Most of the interest for "Stoicism" I see are tik tok videos of greek statues with advice on how to be a sociopath
> The fact that practically everyone agrees that experiencing pleasure and avoiding pain are good seems like a point in favor of hedonism.
If you read On Natural Faculties which is admittedly very boring, it does also have some interesting refutations of materialist and hedonist philosophy. The materialist does not even consider pleasure, pain, justice, good and other emotional concepts to have actual definitions but to depend entirely on the whims of whichever individual. You can’t base your life on avoiding pain when your concept of pain and of bad is just whatever you arbitrarily feel like. Bdsm is pain which has been requisitioned to be pleasure. Any person could take the life they are already living and redefine everything about it so that they are actually living a pleasurable life which avoids pain. There isn’t a substantial basis with which to base your definitions when you are a materialist who reduces everything to brain chemicals.
>NOOooooo I cannot live without sky daddy telling me what to do
>Heh, let me invent an unobservable alternate dimension so that I can pretend sky daddy is not just my own delusion
Okay, I see why you think that but I’m not a Christian. I am repeating Galen’s argument against both the sophists and Epicurus. If nothing culturally on earth has metaphysical bearing then what is stopping you from just redefining your current life to be the just one? There are men who get off on nailing their scrotums to pieces of wood? Are they avoiding pain in the Epicurean sense if they are sexually aroused by that? The same with good and bad. If you think these words mean nothing then you can’t really moralize to the rest of us how we’re living our lives wrong. That’s how I feel.
I think the problem that I see, from my perspective, is that you and Galen are overthinking it.
Like you are, adding, unnecessary complexity onto a simple thing, or a thing that should be simple to understand.
It really shouldn't be that hard to comprehend.
“Avoid pain”
Okay, so if men are into bdsm, being paypigs for women who cheat on them, cutting themselves, you get the point. If they truly get off on that and it causes them pleasure then in the Epicurean sense they are living a good life and avoiding pain? The materialist believes that all morality and sense of self is dependent on chemicals in the mind and that they are free of any independent, metaphysical bearing.
Is this the part where you get mad at rich boomers in leather hats because you can't get any?
What? My issue is that Epicurus heavily moralized and talked down to others while as Galen noted, the man who believes metaphysical truths are uncertain relegates everything to physical brain functions. I mean, your life is already perfect in some sense to somebody but you just need to get in the head space and recontextualize it to be perfect.
>you should change your life so it is pleasurable and avoids pain
To a materialist, this just means changing your outlook. It doesn’t even mean doing anything differently.
On the Natural Faculties is an incredibly difficult read but I recommend it if you are really into Epicurus or the sophist school or Greece and want to read a refutation of them.
>To a materialist, this just means changing your outlook. It doesn’t even mean doing anything differently.
And, so what?
I dont get why you fixate on epicurus materialism, so much.
Avoid pain simply means avoid pain.
>Pain is a distressing feeling often caused by intense or damaging stimuli. The International Association for the Study of Pain defines pain as "an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with, or resembling that associated with, actual or potential tissue damage."[1]
>Pain motivates organisms to withdraw from damaging situations, to protect a damaged body part while it heals, and to avoid similar experiences in the future.[2] Most pain resolves once the noxious stimulus is removed and the body has healed, but it may persist despite removal of the stimulus and apparent healing of the body. Sometimes pain arises in the absence of any detectable stimulus, damage or disease.[3]
>Pain is the most common reason for physician consultation in most developed countries.[4][5] It is a major symptom in many medical conditions, and can interfere with a person's quality of life and general functioning.[6] People in pain experience impaired concentration, working memory, mental flexibility, problem solving and information processing speed, and are more likely to experience irritability, depression and anxiety.
Again you are overthinking it.
Here is the main point from Galen’s own words I wanted to post. He mentions Epicurus’ own words later in the text to refute them but that part is more the actual outdated science which Epicurus pushed and I bet you have zero interest in defending iron corpuscles or whatever. THIS section from Galen is the main point I wanted to show.
>What, then, are these sects, and what are the logical consequences of their hypotheses? The one class supposes that all substance which is subject to genesis and destruction is at once continuous and susceptible of alteration. The other school assumes substance to be unchangeable, unalterable, and subdivided into fine particles, which are separated from one another by empty spaces.
>All people, therefore, who can appreciate the logical sequence of an hypothesis hold that, according to the second teaching, there does not exist any substance or faculty peculiar either to Nature or to Soul, but that these result from the way in which the primary corpuscles, which are unaffected by change, come together. According to the first-mentioned teaching, on the other hand, Nature is not posterior to the corpuscles, but is a long way prior to them and older than they; and therefore in their view it is Nature which puts together the bodies both of plants and animals; and this she does by virtue of certain faculties which she possesses- these being, on the one hand, attractive and assimilative of what is appropriate, and, on the other, of what is foreign. Further, she skilfully moulds everything during the stage of genesis; and she also provides for the creatures after birth, employing here other faculties again, namely, one of affection and forethought for offspring, and one of sociability and friendship for kindred. According to the other school, none of these things exist in the natures [of living things], nor is there in the soul any original innate idea, whether of agreement or difference, of separation or synthesis, of just
How is that refuting anything??
It just says, that galen dosen't understand the epicurean school's ideas.
Is your problem the lack of a Soul idea, in epicurus philosophy?
>Hippocrates took the first-mentioned. According to this teaching, substance is one and is subject to alteration; there is a consensus in the movements of air and fluid throughout the whole body; Nature acts throughout in an artistic and equitable manner, having certain faculties, by virtue of which each part of the body draws to itself the juice which is proper to it, and, having done so, attaches it to every portion of itself, and completely assimilates it; while such part of the juice as has not been mastered, and is not capable of undergoing complete alteration and being assimilated to the part which is being nourished, is got rid of by yet another (an expulsive) faculty.
I had to really cut it to make it fit in these posts but the full text is far more in depth on ancient sophistry and their sciences. I didn’t include the actual outdated science of Epicurus and the like because I figured you didn’t want to discuss that.
The actual soul and metaphysical being of the animal is what drives day to day interactions and issues like justice and virtue. Being a materialist means you take the second path Galen mentions, that all virtue must be arbitrary and reduced to the emotions of the animal.
Here is all of book one. Please read when you have the time to. It is mainly focused on Epicurean science which is why I only cited this brief passage.
http://classics.mit.edu/Galen/natfac.1.one.html
>The actual soul and metaphysical being of the animal is what drives day to day interactions and issues like justice and virtue. Being a materialist means you take the second path Galen mentions,
Full of unproven assumptions.
We don't even have evidence of a Soul, in the way galen mentions, we don't, im sorry.
>that all virtue must be arbitrary and reduced to the emotions of the animal.
Like i said, the first one was full of unproven assumptions but this one, actually maps more onto our current understanding of humanity position, and the fact that we indeed evolved from animals.
So actually, it's epicurus understanding that's probably more closer to correct, and not the opposite.
Okay, well if you believe our ideas of virtues are dependent on the sense I get that. What I don’t get is how you can decipher virtue when it is supposedly arbitrary?
>virtue when it is supposedly arbitrary?
Both can be true, at the same time.
From Philodemus recently newly discovered papyrus:
>Don't fear god,
>Don't worry about death;
>What is good is easy to get, and
>What is terrible is easy to endure.
>Philodemus, Herculaneum Papyrus, 1005, 4.9–14
I dont get how this dosen't sound like a virtorius warrior.
Virtues don't get destroyed by applying arbitrism they get strengthted.
>Some of these people have even expressly declared that the soul possesses no reasoning faculty, but that we are led like cattle by the impression of our senses, and are unable to refuse or dissent from anything. In their view, obviously, courage, wisdom, temperance, and self-control are all mere nonsense, we do not love either each other or our offspring, nor do the gods care anything for us. This school also despises dreams, birds, omens, and the whole of astrology, subjects with which we have dealt at greater length in another work, in which we discuss the views of Asclepiades the physician. Those who wish to do so may familiarize themselves with these arguments, and they may also consider at this point which of the two roads lying before us is the better one to take.
>Some of these people have even expressly declared that the soul possesses no reasoning faculty
I've never seen an Epicurean deny the existence of a reasoning faculty, on the contrary they extol the value of reason.
>nor do the gods care anything for us. This school also despises dreams, birds, omens, and the whole of astrology
Based and correct.
>Whoever, therefore, wishes to expose the absurdity of their hypotheses, must, if the argument be in answer to Asclepiades, keep in mind his disagreement with observed fact; or if in answer to Epicurus, his discordance with his principles.
-Galen on Epicurus’ tendency to hide things which disagree with his stated principles
Are you saying the ability to reason is inconsistent with Epicurus's principles?
The quote is from Galen if you search it on Google. He is saying that Asclepiades of Bithynia (a now irrelevant doctor and philosopher from that era) tended to change the facts around and omit facts which disagreed with his theories while Epicurus tended to ignore his own stated principles when he came across facts which contradicted him. Both philosophers are garbage tier sophists.
and therefore in their view it is Nature which puts together the bodies both of plants and animals; and this she does by virtue of certain faculties which she possesses- these being, on the one hand, attractive and assimilative of what is appropriate, and, on the other, of what is foreign. Further, she skilfully moulds everything during the stage of genesis; and she also provides for the creatures after birth, employing here other faculties again, namely, one of affection and forethought for offspring, and one of sociability and friendship for kindred. According to the other school, none of these things exist in the natures [of living things], nor is there in the soul any original innate idea, whether of agreement or difference, of separation or synthesis, of justice or injustice, of the beautiful or ugly; all such things, they say, arise in us from sensation and through sensation, and animals are steered by certain images and memories.
Some of these people have even expressly declared that the soul possesses no reasoning faculty, but that we are led like cattle by the impression of our senses, and are unable to refuse or dissent from anything. In their view, obviously, courage, wisdom, temperance, and self-control are all mere nonsense, we do not love either each other or our offspring, nor do the gods care anything for us. This school also despises dreams, birds, omens, and the whole of astrology, subjects with which we have dealt at greater length in another work, in which we discuss the views of Asclepiades the physician. Those who wish to do so may familiarize themselves with these arguments, and they may also consider at this point which of the two roads lying before us is the better one to take. Hippocrates took the first-mentioned. According to this teaching, substance is one and is subject to alteration; there is a consensus in the movements of air
>EpicureanGODS doing away with superstition and inventing clinical medicine over two thousand years ago
I kneel.
If they're enjoying it, good for them. If they aren't, that's unfortunate and I hope they stop hurting themselves. The things in life I dislike are sometimes better dealt with by moving my body through space differently and sometimes better dealt with by recontextualizing them and focusing on the parts that can be enjoyable. If you're 5 miles away from home and it's pouring rain, you've still gotta walk those miles whether you sing in the rain or curse your luck, so I sing, and walk as quick as I can. Yes, one can just redefine all pain as pleasure, but that's waaaaay more difficult than just physically changing things in most cases
He's talking about pain in the sense of emotional suffering you fricking moron.
I don't think nailing your balls to a piece of wood would engender any virtue, so as far as I know Epicurus would simply point out that such short sighted activities would make you suffer in the future.
But that's the thing, it's all brain chemicals and you can't just alter your brain chemicals at will. Well, to a small extent you can, but generally you can't just define your way out of pain, it is what it is.
Yet Epicurean hedonism exists.
I feel bad for epicurus because i intuitively get his philosophy.
I really don't get what was the problem of his haters.
>Why is he so hated?
I didn't know he was.
You clearly haven't read his multiple critics, then.
>IQfy
>reading
Because many people feel life kind of sucks. And man has some desires other than being just another beast.
>Nooooo, you can't just be satisfied with simple pleasures and an absence of pain!!!
this is the philosophy of a redditor smoking dispensary weed before tucking into a bowl of fruit loops and the latest rick and morty episode
At long last, a new ancient text has been deciphered! What does it say?
VIVERE... RIDERE... AMARE
>Why is he so hated?
He isnt.
Youre taking the opinions of less than a handfull of people (most likely on this shie) and extrapolating it as if its a popular thought.