What do you know of Epicuros?

Epicurus said that before thinking of what we will eat and drink, we first should ask ourselves with who we will sit on table, cause if we eat meat without presence of our friends, than we live like lions and wolfs. Question is not how much, but how. Quality.

PS When you asked this question, did you want that someone tell you what know in his own words or to copy/paste something from internet? I hate when people do that. I think that Adolfo gave great and simple answer, in his own words.

Epicurus: Greek philosopher who advocated the search for pleasure as the maximum drive in life (not carnal pleasue or libertinage but real pleasure). Such as intellectual pleasure, friends, the satisfaction of doing what is right and nliving today the best we can without fear or dread of death. He thought to develope "ataraxia" meanng a sort of inmunity against life's troubles and missfortunes by concentrating on our experience of being alive and that we are the owners of our own life. his famous line read:

"Life should not concern us! When i am, death is not, and when death comes, I am not!"

many people confuse his philosophy with one advocating pure pursuit of selfish carnal or physical pleasure, which he did not.

I guess that to quote him in modern words, it would go something as "Don't worry....be happy'

Epicuros from Samos, an island city state in Asia Minor, (341-270 B.C.) developed an interesting, rather moderate and philosophically acceptable moral theory based on hedonism. That is why perhaps when we talk about Hedonism, we think of Epicurianism, which is different from the rather naive, radical hedonism of Aristippos. His father had gone to Samos as an Athenian colonist ten years before Epicuros was born. Therefore Epicuros was able to retain the citizenship of Athens, thanks to this circumstance. Being an Athenian youth, Epicuros also had the obligation to serve two years of military service. So in 323 B.C.he went from Samos back to Athens at the age of 18 and completed this training in military service for two years. This was very a very turbulent period of Athens as a city state. Alexander the Great engulfed Athens and destroyed the basis of the city state, which was the indubitable basis for Plato’s and Aristotle’s philosophical understanding of society and state. Some patriotic Athenians organized a revolt against Alexander’s Macedonian army, which turned out to be a complete failure. Epicuros participated in this revolt and had a bitter, disgraceful experience, which taught Epicuros quite well the futility of the political ambition.

Epicuros was well trained by proponents of Plato’s and Aristotle’s philosophies (they both had died). At first he was quite critical of Plato’s philosophy, then later he dissociated from the philosophers of Lyceum. Nevertheless, he hardly acknowledged his learning from any of these and even later contended his scholarship was self-taught. According to some of the recent Epicuros scholars, he attempted a reform of moral philosophy with a new message of “philosophical salvation...”

Athens was, despite being in such political turmoil, still the cultural center of Greece. The Academy of the Platonists and Lyceum of the Aristotelians were still centers of philosophical activity. Quite independent of them, Epicuros gradually established himself as a philosopher and a teacher, and in 396 B.C. purchased a home in Athens with a large garden. Here he founded a new school of philosophy at the age of 36. Soon Epicuros and his school became known as the Garden of Epicuros with almost equal status with the Academy and Lyceum.

In contrast to the Academy and Lyceum, The Garden of Epicuros was known as the people of “good living” and “pleasant companionship” as well as their philosophical thought. It was also known that some of the fellows of The Garden were women as in the Pythagorean Cult. In either case, it was said that women and men are on equal basis in their associations. Epicuros was famous for his generosity (providing his private money as the means to maintain the Garden) and reasonsonableness.

Epicuros’s philosophy deals with one’s own very practical concerns, a way of living, not an abstract system of thought. Perhaps it may be said that the greatest appeal of Epicuros’ philosophy lay in its simplicity and common sense.

In fact, Epicuros defined philosophy as “the daily business of speech and thought to secure a happy life.” Furthermore, he had no doubt about the thesis that pleasure must be the major elements of one’s happy life. According to Epicuros, pleasure is our first and kindred good. It is the starting point of every choice and every aversion, and to it we come back and make feeling the rule by which to judge every good thing....Wherefore we call pleasure the Alpha and the Omega of a blessed life.

Epicuros supposedly outlined his basic thought into forty Cardinal Principles, which were preserved by Diogenes Laertius in his Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers. The most interesting ideas on Epicuros’ hedonism may be found in his Letters rather than in his formal treatise. The best introduction to his philosophy may be found in his letter to Menoeceus, a young disciple to whom he is giving initial instruction in the way of life that will bring greatest happiness.

Let no one delay to study philosophy while he is young nor weary in philosophy when he is old, for no one is either short of age or past the age for enjoying health of the soul. And the man who says the time for philosophy has not yet come or is already past may be compared to the man who says the time for happiness is not yet come or is already gone by. So both the young man and the old man should philosophize (search for wisdom), the former that while growing old he may be young in blessings because of gratitude for what has been, the latter that he may be young and old at the same time because of the fearlessness with which he faces the future. Therefore the wise plan is to practice the things that make for happiness, since possessing happiness, we have everything and not possessing it, we do everything to have it.

Both practice and study the precepts which I contiguously urged upon you, discerning these to be the ABC’s of the good life. First of all, believing the divine being to be blessed and incorruptible, just as the universal idea of it is outlined in our minds, associate nothing with it that is incompatible with incorruption nor alien to blessedness. It is not the man who would abolish the gods of the multitude who is impious but the man who associates the beliefs of the multitude with the gods; for the pronouncements of the multitude concerning the gods are not innate ideas but false assumptions....

When.... we say that pleasure is the aim (of life), we do not mean the pleasures of profligates and those that consist in high living..., but we mean freedom from pain in the body and turmoil in the soul. For it is not protracted drinking bouts and revels nor ye sexual pleasure nor rare dishes of fish and the rest—all the delicacies that the luxurious tale bears—that beget the happy life but rather sober calculation which searches out the reasons for every choice and avoidance, and expels false opinions, the source of most of the turmoil that seizes upon the souls of men.

Meditate therefore by day and by night upon these percepts and upon the others that go with these, whether by yourself or in the company of another like yourself, and never will your soul be in turmoil either sleeping or waking but you will be living like a god among men, for in no wise does a man who lives among immortal blessings resemble a mortal creature.

Epicuros maintained that if the life which contains the greatest amount of happiness and the least pain should be every human-being’s goal, then by pursuing the impulsive pursuit of immediate and intense pleasure, such a life cannot be achieved. Although Epicuros believed that the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain led to the genuine greatest happiness to the human being, he also realized clearly the shortcomings and defects of Cyreniacs, which could not see the painful consequences of dissipation and overindulgence in the natural drive and pursuit of sensuous, immediate pleasure.

According to Epicuros, the ideal human being may be such a person that is indeed wise enough to avoid cheating himself with short-lived pleasures that cost too much, is prudent enough to choose simple pleasures that will endure longer and cost less, and intelligent enough to be free from all possible envy or ambition that would deeply trouble his soul.

For the genuine Epicurean, as Epicuros showed by leading his own life, such a person’s life is the “quiet, cultured life of a country gentleman, surrounded by congenial friends, far removed from the disturbing turmoil of politics or harassing anxiety of economic strife and competition.

This hedonism may be called more restrained, intelligent, prudent. In other words, Epicuros’ moral doctrine or his doctrine of how to live is rightly called the philosophy of living, or you may call it a pursuit of pleasure guided by reason and intelligence in that she/he is the master of his pleasure rather than blindly enslaved by intensity and glamour of the immediate, sensuous pleasures. Intelligence indeed controls emotion and desire, which allows this person to be genuinely free.

And again self sufficiency or self-contentment we believe to be a great good, not that we may live on little under all circumstances but that we may be content with little when we do not have an abundance, being genuinely convinced that they enjoy living most who feel the least need of it; that every natural appetite is easily gratified but the unnatural appetite is difficult to gratify. So plain foods bring a pleasure equal to that of a luxurious diet when once the pain due to need has been removed. And bread and water bring utmost pleasures when one who is hungry brings them to his lips.

Thus, the state of one’s own control of one’s soul in that it is freed from the blind thrust of sensuous pleasure and bodily ill and pain as well as the mental turmoil of everydayness. In other words, the tranquility of the soul and the health of the body must be the greatest happiness one is able to achieve as the highest good.

Therefore, it is said, ‘Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you may die’ is really a travesty of Epicurianism, the revels in the Garden seem mainly to have centered on mathematics which can be pursued without emotional involvement and entail no hang-over...

Furthermore, Epicuros laid great emphasis on the pleasure derived from having a great friendship:

Of all things that wisdom provides for the happiness of life as a whole, by far the greatest is the possession of friendship. We ought to look around for people to eat and drink with, before we look for something to eat and drink; to feed without a friend is the life of a lion and a wolf.

The well-born man occupies himself chiefly with wisdom and with friendship; of these the one is a mortal good, the other an immortal good.

The significance of Epicuros: hedonism does not lie in the qualitative distinctions among pleasures, but rather, for example, friendship is so important and singled out not because pleasure of the soul is in itself superior to pleasures of the senses. All pleasures are, still according to Epicuros, equally good, qualitatively indistinguishable. According to Epicuros, it is the amount of pleasure that is important.

The intelligent hedonist simply seeks to secure for himself the most pleasure in life and the least pain. He will frequently choose to suffer momentary pain if it enables him to gain more lasting pleasure, and he will always avoid an over-indulgence of physical appetite or desire that brings an unpleasant consequence.The temporary pain of a surgical operation, for instance, is more

than compensated for by the permanently improved health it can produce. Epicuros describes quite explicitly the conduct that wisdom (fronhsis) dictates:

Even though pleasure is our first and native goal, for that reason we do not choose every pleasure whatsoever but oftimes pass over many pleasures when a greater annoyance issues from them. And oftimes we consider pain superior to pleasures, and submit to pain for a long time when it is attended for us with greater pleasure. While, therefore, all pleasure because it is naturally akin to us is good, not all pleasure is worthy to be chosen, just as all pain is evil but all pain is not shunned. It is by measuring one against the other and looking at the conveniences and inconveniences that all those matters must be judged...

pick the bones out of that!

of course this is just copt/pasted nonsense, but hopefully it will encourage you to study philosophy not mearly long dead philosophers.

if you are hooked on your books or can't find a good starting point try anything by edward de bono or my personal favorite 'sophie's world' by norwegian philosophy teacher jostien gaarder.