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Epicurus's Accomplishments

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In 341 B.C., during the time age of the Hellenistic philosophy, Athenian parents gave birth to a son named Epicurus. As he grew up, historians say Epicurus may have moved to the island of Samos, but soon Epicurus decided to leave for Colophon in Asia Minor where he began developing an interest in Democritus’ philosophy. While spending time in that study, he began to find others that were interested in the studies of Democritus and used them to help begin in his teachings and to show his ability in forming a community of disciples and students. Years past while in Colophon, and in 307 B.C. Epicurus returned to Athens and stayed until he his last breath. While living in Athens, he began to form another community outside the city in a place …show more content…

When someone, commonly other philosophers, tried to prove his philosophy wrong, he was said to have “come down heavy... because he had little use for traditional knowledge and culture.” All other philosophies of reality were inaccurate to him. The only way for him to approve one’s philosophy was through the study of nature because he believed only the human knowledge and understanding of the physical life allowed freedom from unfounded fears and gave peace to those who were in search of …show more content…

Through the pain of having multiple kidney stones, leading to death because of the inability to urinate for fourteen days, Epicurus stayed calm, kept his composure, and had an evenness of temper during the excruciating pain. Warren quoted D.L. 10.15-16, where Epicurus is recorded being in a bronze bath filled with hot water, asking for a cup of unmixed wine and quaffing it down during his time of death. Though he was in pain, Epicurus did not take the fear of death. Which lead to helping support the belief that pleasure is found in being free from physical pain and an unrested soul. Through his time of death, the lifestyle and philosophy that Epicurious carried became an inspiration toward those who followed under his

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934 Words | 4 Pages

Epicurus states this because he believes that death does not involve pleasure or pain, and that the only thing that is bad for man is pain. Death, as described, by Epicurus does not mean the physical act of dying, and/or the moment in which a person would die, but instead meant death as what happens when a person is no longer living or alive.” ...death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist.” (pg. 7)

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The first paragraph talked about the mind of the enlightenment. It is the laws of nature and natures

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The reason he characterizes nature like this is so that we will take his word and go out to view and appreciate nature. 2.

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1135 Words | 5 Pages

Epicurus rejected the existence of spiritual forms and an immaterial soul (e.g. gods), and he said that the gods have no influence on our lives. The Epicureans also said that when we die that our soul should die with our bodies. This is because he believed that we are made of atoms that would be broken up and made into other things when we die. He said that therefore people should not be afraid of dying or worry about what would happen to them after they die. The Epicureans also said not to be afraid of the gods, because the gods did not interfere with our daily lives.

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545 Words | 3 Pages

Epictetus, the stoic philosopher had a passion for the ideology of freedom. His teachings were based on internal and external desires and how one’s response toward the situation trigged the consequences. Epictetus asserted that human beings had a fundamental choice to understand the difference between what can be controlled and what cannot; also, to pay attention to concerns that truly deserved recognition. He pointed out some various aspects that pertained to happiness and liberty for example, Epictetus claimed some things that we have individual control of is our judgments and desires; however, things beyond our control consist of materialistic values. “When something happens, the only thing in your power is your attitude toward it; you can either accept or resent it” (reading from Epictetus excerpt).

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1555 Words | 7 Pages

While reading about Epicurus it's easy to tell he's a realist. The blunt statements made by Epicurus make him trustworthy and relatable, this also makes his ideas interesting to me. For example, on page 169 he makes an obvious quote stating, "once born make haste to pass the gates of death." His ideas were all relatively clear and understandable except for an idea proposed on page 168 where it claims, "...death is deprivation of sensation. " I personally have never viewed death from this perspective.

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591 Words | 3 Pages

Stoicism was an influential philosophic outlook on existence. It essentially taught its adherents to find and follow the divine will of the universe, which was embodied in nature. Stoicism is characterized by acceptance of nature or, in other words, acceptance of things beyond one’s own power, while seeking self refinement. Epictetus was a prominent Stoic in the 2nd century CE, who focused his teachings on ethics (“Epictetus (55–135 C.E.)”). Among his Moral Discourses, he teaches how Stoics treat and feel about death.

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In order for his opinions and knowledge not to interfere with his perception, he chose to doubt everything. And so, he even chose to doubt the existence of the physical body and continued to stay

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To understand all natural science is to know that not everything can be explained. According to Maimonides, those matters are too closely connected with the secrets of divine

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What he is saying is that it is a waste of time to value capitalistic ideologies, for example, wealth and fame. He implies that we are so wrapped up in our unnecessary desires that it just clouds our minds with things that really aren't important. By giving into temptations one has lost the ability to have self control. Epicurus tells us that when it comes down to it we will always pick things that bring us pleasure. He says what we don't think about is that a lot of our decisions we have made in hopes of the pleasure we were looking for only caused us pain in the end.

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People of the time gradually became more scientifically literate and held more reasonable understandings of how the world worked based on science rather than on faith alone. Prior to the Scientific Revolution people viewed nature with a high spiritual value. The scientists believed that something viewed with such high spirituality could not be observed and measured objectively. However, after a few began to persist in their studies on nature and publish their findings and explanations, people began to realize that they can view nature as both a product of God and as something independent of God that could be studied and even controlled. These scientists and interested people soon came to the conclusion that with all the new discoveries and knowledge of the world, which was different from their previous understandings, the scientific approach of observing, measuring, and objectively studying nature would prove to be more efficient.

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In that respect, Stoicism parallels the idea of quietism, in which denotes ignorance towards worldly factors that have more or less affected humans, for by rejecting,” the view that our emotions has imposed on us,” in turn allows an individual to neglect pain and forget about the source of the named pain. Neglecting pain wouldn’t evaporate it, since pain is an intrinsic respondent of the human anatomy to signify the brain that the body is threatened, and therefore disapproves the idea of even rejecting pain, or rather where the pain stems from. To be ignorant to the entity deliver the pain establish you, as a human, being to be a idiotic, nonchalant scapegoat. Moreover, when Epictetus’ focuses merely on one’s emotions on matters, hinted in, “What disturbs men’s minds is not events but their judgments on events,” he develops a blind eye towards ways to deal with immoralities , and that thinking pattern can only indicate the concept of escapism, which is a form of running away from one’s

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726 Words | 3 Pages

Epictetus’s way of philosophy is one that is purely Stoic, imploring that the solution to human finitude is one where humans can live life without showing feeling or complaining about pain and hardships towards unsavory situations. Each of his rules in his handbook offers advice in which the subject simply “deals” with disappointment, or rather, doesn’t expect something out of the scopes of reason and logic, so that, figuratively, when occurrences don’t go their way, they aren’t disappointed. This is because to Epictetus, all external events in life are pre-determined by fate, so it’s already out of our hands from the beginning. With a calm dispassion, or indifference, we approach our fate and accept it. This is shown in his rules in The Handbook,

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In order to understand Epicurus’ pursuit for the most valuable pleasure it is necessary to explain the notions of pleasure and desires. Pleasure is defined negatively as absence of physical

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1419 Words | 6 Pages

That which cannot be known does not exist for us. Nature is the designation of the totality of things, ranging from the purely creative but uncreated (that is, God) through the creative and created (the Logos or the realm of types of things), to the realm of phenomena which are created but do not create anything. Beyond this is the uncreated which is God as the end to which all things finally return. (Are you still with us?) The tone of this philosophers work was so Pantheistic* that it was condemned in the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries, but

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