Reading & the Good Life
Join the conversation! Every Friday at Noon EST, Perennial Meditations readers are welcome to gather for Reading & the Good Life (Register here), a casual space for connection, contemplation, and conversations on the art of living.
Who is Epicurus?
Epicurus's (341–270 B.C.E.) philosophy was a complete and interdependent system that involved a view of the goal of human life (happiness resulting from the absence of physical pain and mental disturbance). Epicurus believed that, based on a radical materialism that dispensed with transcendent entities such as the Platonic Ideas or Forms, he could disprove the possibility of the soul’s survival after death. He regarded the unacknowledged fear of death and punishment as the primary cause of anxiety among human beings and anxiety, in turn, as the source of extreme and irrational desires. The elimination of the fears and corresponding desires would free people to pursue the pleasures, both physical and mental, to which they are naturally drawn and to enjoy the peace of mind consequent upon their regularly expected and achieved satisfaction. …
Epicurus was aware that deeply ingrained habits of thought are not easily corrected, and thus, he proposed various exercises to assist the novice. His system included advice on the proper attitude toward politics (avoid it where possible) and the gods (do not imagine they concern themselves about human beings and their behavior). Although the overall structure of Epicureanism was designed to hang together and to serve its principal ethical goals, there was room for a great deal of intriguing philosophical arguments concerning every aspect of the system, from the speed of atoms in a void to the origin of optical illusions. […]
Source: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Dear Readers,
This Friday, we will continue our exploration of Epicureanism by reading The Art of Happiness, a collection of writings by the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus. At our meetup, we'll discuss the passages below (Register here). As you read these passages, consider reflecting on the following questions:
(1) How can you begin to embody these lessons in daily life?
(2) What might stand in the way of implementing these ideas?
(3) How can the following insights help you to live the good life?
Both Epicurus and Lucretius held that the stock of our general ideas is derived from experience rather than from innate a priori concepts and that our judgments and beliefs are true or false insofar as they correspond or do not correspond to our sensations, feelings, and general conceptions. To attach the modern label “empiricist” to both these thinkers seems, then, wholly justifiable, although it has been called in question on technical grounds. …
For example, we read in the authoritative Letter to Herodotus that ‘we must keep all our judgments in line with our sensations (specifically our immediate perceptions, either of the mind or of any particular sense organ) and also in line with our actual feelings of pleasure and pain, in order to have the means with which to interpret a sense datum awaiting verification or a problem involving imperceptibles.’ Here only three of the tests are listed: sensations, direct perceptions of the mind, and the feelings. […]
— The Art of Happiness (Introduction, Part V)
