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Am I missing something about the title - because I've never seen Epicurus associated with hedonism until I read this article. In fact, I don't think anything a
by vivekd 9y ago
Am I missing something about the title - because I've never seen Epicurus associated with hedonism until I read this article. In fact, I don't think anything about his philosophy or lifestyle can be associated with the term hedonism as it is commonly used.
He was a vegetarian, never married and never had any children. I don't see any evidence of him being a sex maniac or advocating free sex or anything like that.
He simply believed that the good life is the absence of suffering and that ethics means minimizing suffering for both oneself and society at large. There is nothing hedonistic about that.
I think there might be a little bit of clickbate going on in the title. The article itself doesn't really elaborate on why Epicurus was criticized by medieval christian philosophers or where their differences were. In fact I think it does more to misrepresent Epicurus than it does to actually edify about him. I think this is just a really bad article.
- freeflight 9y ago>He was a vegetarian, never married and never had any children. I don't see any evidence of him being a sex maniac or advocating free sex or anything like that. What definition of hedonism are you using that necessarily involves marriage, eating meat or being a sex maniac? The very basic definition of hedonism is this: >He simply believed that the good life is the absence of suffering Nothing more and nothing less because "suffering" and "good" can actually be quite subjective. A masochist might enjoy being degraded and hurt, it's his/her part of the definition of "good", while non-masochists would probably put many SM practices into the category of "I wouldn't want to suffer trough that". If not eating meat makes you suffer less, on account of empathy for the animals that didn't need to be slaughtered for your nutritious needs, then that fits pretty perfectly into decreasing the suffering around you and for yourself.
- vivekd 9y ago>What definition of hedonism are you using that necessarily involves marriage, eating meat or being a sex maniac? the google definition: the pursuit of pleasure; sensual self-indulgence. The sex maniac part was from the article.
- narag 9y agoUnfortunately those ancient greeks didn't have Google to know better ;)
- narag 9y agoExactly and, as the article suggests, rival schools made all they could to give hedonism a bad name, equalling it to seeking raw pleasure over any other thing. Enemies include two millenia of Christianism, so no wonder "hedonist" is not a compliment now.
- freeflight 9y agoImho in that regard Hedonism is quite similar to Satanism: Both are often very misunderstood due to massive stigmatization and misrepresentation throughout history by "ideological rivals", like more fundamental schools of Christianity where "suffering" is often seen as something necessary for people. Makes sense from the religious view: Tell people they need to suffer for growth, people keep on suffering looking for a reason behind the suffering, religion offers a reason while at the same time justifying it's own dogma. Any animal in the wild, that actively goes out of it's way looking for pain and suffering, is an animal that most likely ain't around anymore, yet somehow exactly that behavior is often expected from humans to show their "virtues".
- narag 9y agoI heard that Satanism was kind of a conflation of biblic character with paganism, the beliefs of the dwellers of the pagos, the country, as opposed to the cities, where Christianism was striving with rulers' support.
- igk 9y agoAt least in germany we also refer to Epicureanism as "negative hedonism", i.e. finding the good life by becoming content with less and less, and then not saying "no" to stuff which is nice without any negative long term effects
- elindbe2 9y agoThat is sometimes also called "enlightened hedonism" in opposition to "naive hedonism"
- lmm 9y agoEpicurean ˌɛpɪkjʊ(ə)ˈriːən/ noun 1. a disciple or student of the Greek philosopher Epicurus. 2. a person devoted to sensual enjoyment, especially that derived from fine food and drink.
- vivekd 9y agothe article was about definition #1, the Greek philosopher