Epicurus Essays

Epicurus was an ancient Greek philosopher. His thoughts became known as the philosphy Epicureanism. “It teaches that the greatest good is to seek modest pleasures in order to attain a state of tranquility, freedom from fear (‘ataraxia’) and absence from bodily pain (‘aponia’)” (2-Epicureanism). Epicurus studied the philosophies of Plato, Aristotle and Democritusin in Athens. Afterwards, he moved back to where he grew up on the island of Samos and started his own school named The Garden. Along

bad to those who experience it and therefore it is a harm to them. The term “harm” can be attributed to an abundance of situations, but here it will be solely referring to events that cause an individual suffering and are overall bad for them. Epicurus challenges the harm argument in his Letter to Menoeceus where he states that “Death … the most awful of evils, is nothing to us, seeing that, when we are, death is not come, and, when death is come, we are not.” Which could be reiterated as follows:

analyzing some of Epicurus' main thoughts on human nature in The Therapy of Desire by Martha Nussbaum. I will examine and assess what Epicurus thinks human nature is made of, what goes wrong, and how we can find freedom. Our human nature is based from our natural, uncorrupted desires while the empty desires cause destruction but we can eliminate them and thus remove misery by distinguishing them. I will now look at a passage focusing on Epicurus' ideas by Martha Nussbaum. "Epicurus is suggesting that

Consequentialists are a group of philosophers who asses whether an act is right or wrong based on the consequences of the action. There are different types of consequentialism including: ethical egoism, act-utilitarianism and rule-utilitarianism. These three branches of consequentialism will be discussed later in this paper. A supererogatory act is something that is good but is not obligatory; these acts involve rendering aid to others that go above moral requirement. Consequentialists claim that

As a 17th century philosopher, Thomas Hobbes was best remembered for his work Leviathan. Hobbes had a large impact on the political views of society. He held the view that humans were able to thrive in harmony whilst avoiding fear of social conflict. Coming off of this idea of harmony and avoiding social conflict, Hobbes coined and established the social contract theory. This theory has been laid as the bedrock for most Western political philosophy. The social contract is a construct in which persons

Epictetus was a Greek philosopher who was originally a slave in what today is called Turkey. After gaining his freedom he began to share his principles on how to live life with his students. The lessons/principles he taught is what makes him significant to still talk about him today. In the “Discourses and Selected Writings of Epictetus” he teaches the true meaning of happiness, ways to reason in certain scenarios, valuing material things, self-worth, your physical being and most importantly the

Epicurus has a set argument for what he believes death means to us. He makes this argument clear through his two premises and the conclusion that he reaches. What his argument is for what death means to us might possibly change if he were to consider in relation to not only a positive harm, but also a harm of deprivation. In this paper I am going to explain and discuss Epicurus’ argument for what death means to us, explain what positive harms and harms of deprivation are and the difference between

In the letter to Menoeceus, Epicurus begins by saying that happiness and death play hand-in-hand. Epicurus also states that there are gods, but they are not around to be concerned with humane problems. I will argue that Epicurus is right about happiness coming from pleasure and that death is nothing to fear, however I will also argue that Epicurus is wrong about the gods not existing to maintain humanity.     Epicurus believed that happiness and death go hand-in-hand because happiness and death

Critique of the Epicurus’ theory of the most valuable pleasure The goal of this essay is to provide an argument against possibility of Epicurus’ attempt to determine the most valuable pleasures. Through the analysis of the key concepts and their relation in Epicurus’ theory I will try to show that his concept of pleasure does not take into account basic human psychology and that this oversight leads to faulty generalization about human nature. I will argue that it is not possible to identify the

Epicurus’ ethics is one of egoistic hedonism, i.e. “the theory that one ought to only pursue one’s pleasure as an ultimate end” (Larveson, L7). He proposes that since sensations are what define us, which include pleasure and pain, learning how to maximize pleasure and minimize pain is how to live a virtuous life or the good life (Epicurus, pg. 59). Thus, our actions that we do lies in that it maximizes pleasure and minimizes pain for us. Although he did say only rightfully act if it would result

Epicurus states that humans cannot be unjust to animals because to be unjust we would need to have a contract with the animals and because they do not speak we can’t do that. However even if we do not have a moral contract we should still look at the way we treat animals as many ways are too cruel and we don’t blink an eye but we need to. Epicurus says that justice is a contract or an agreement to neither harm nor be harmed. Humans invent justice by making contracts with each other. The purpose

find friendship with like-minded people. He supposed if a being chess friends that are not like-minded there would be uncessuery compition. Unceccery comptions throws off the focuses of inner tranquillest and creating an obstruction with happiness. Epicurus though people that were like-minded could benefited one another by sharing wisdom. Like-minded friend wouldn’t have to worry about curity a friend could carry out to fulfill their pleasures. Friendship is a bond between like-minded people. Both

Epicurus made the following argument in his letter to Menoeceus, “So death, the most terrifying of ills, is nothing to us, since so long as we exist, death is not with us; but when death comes, then we do not exist. It does not then concern either the living

of vital processes in a cell or tissue. Many philosophers have expressed their opinions on this frequently debated topic. A philosopher with a strong viewpoint on this is Epicurus. Epicurus was an empiricist, which means he thought that the only valid way to learn about the universe is through the senses. According to Epicurus, fear of death is irrational because the universe is limitless and eternal. Lucretius is a philosopher who holds a strong opinion on this subject. Lucretius was an atheist

In the pursuit of defining happiness, ancient Greek philosopher made a huge progress, but it is clear that nor all the progress made by different perspectives are always in parallel with each other. In fact, Aristotle and Epicurus are two philosophers who were in conflict with each other in the search of defining happiness. For Aristotle, happiness, in its simple terms, “a happy man, Aristotle would say, is the man who has everything he really needs. He has those things which he needs to realize

Both Socrates and Epicurus have different but similar views on how we should view death, but come to the conclusion that we should not worry when the time comes to die. Within the next paragraphs I will compare and contrast each viewpoint. First of all, Socrates’ views on death are that death should not be feared because nobody but the Gods know what happens to us after we die. Therefore it would not be wise for someone to fear the unknown: “...death is a blessing, for it is one of two things: either

Epicurus questions how and why evil exists if God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent. He understands that God cannot be both all-powerful and all-loving if evil exists since s/he would then be limited in power and love. This means that God either does not have the power to stop evil or God is no so loving and will allow evil in the world. I will analyze Epicurus’ question through John Hick’s theodicy of soul making. Argument Because of imperfections in the world and humanity, evil exists. God created

life is to feel happiness, but humans rather focus on materials from this world to make them happy. Happiness is within them already; the problems being people looking in the wrong place for happiness. The philosophers like Aristotle, Boethius, and Epicurus had three different points of view on happiness, which helps people understand. For example, going to the claw machine; people don't only look from one view to get the prize. People often look from the sides of the machine and the front to get a

Letter to Meneoceus Epicurus’ views are the views of a hedonist; the only thing that is intrinsically good is pleasure. By pleasure, Epicurus did not mean a sexual pleasure, but the “absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul” (Epicurus, n.d., p. 3), which meant that pleasure is the absence of pain, so removal of pain equals pleasure. Epicurus believed that living a calm life was better than living a thrilling life. However, a calm life would be boring and without purpose compared to

In his Letter to Menoeceus, Epicurus discusses pleasure and desire and the human need to seek out pleasure. Epicurus explores the different kinds of desire and how they affect happiness. Happiness is the main goal. And happiness, is the maximization of pleasure. According to Epicurus there are three categories of desire that lead to pleasure. There are the natural and necessary desires, unnecessary and natural desires, and unnatural and unnecessary desires. Epicurus makes the difference between