To the Stoics, who were influenced by both Socrates and the Cynic tradition, equating pleasure with the Good and pain with Evil was just poor thinking.
They took a more austere path to happiness, focusing instead on virtue alone as the way, denying that the Epicurean pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain could ever bring true happiness. For their part, the Epicureans rejected this kind of asceticism, but they still were not unregulated hedonists. They shared the Stoic belief that wisdom and virtues like self-control and moderation are a necessary part of happiness but disagreed that virtue alone could guarantee it.
This difference led the Epicureans to emphasize the private virtues, urging their adherents to withdraw from the illusions of the political world, joining together with like-minded friends in a garden where they could practice a regimen of modest pleasures and fellowship.
Here, they felt, one could avoid all the pains of life—hunger and thirst, heat and cold, the fear of war and death. To the Stoics , whose philosophy was formed not in the refuge of a garden but in the open market of the Athenian agora, this kind of retreat into a private morality made no sense.
They felt that the fullness of virtue encompassed our social roles and duties and involved justice as more than a mere byproduct of some utilitarian social contract. So, the two schools set different goals for the art of living. Part of the reason for this came from their understanding of nature. Their physics, while both materialist, were quite different. Both schools believed that material bodies were the only thing that existed, and denied any realm of forms or immaterial things.
Our senses depend on these atoms, and every sensation is a true event—error only arises in our judgments about these events. We are living in a random swirl of atomic interactions and must use our senses and judgments to gain better knowledge about the world. In addition to our senses and judgments, we have our feelings by which we apprehend pleasure and pain. For Epicureans , the gods were merely a construct of our minds.
However, Epicurus taught that atheism itself is a form of lunacy that only brings trouble. In practice, he was an agnostic for the purpose of less conflict. Stoic physics, while sharing a belief in material bodies, rejected random movements of atoms and instead saw a fiery divine rationality thoroughly mixed throughout the entire material universe. God and nature were one and the same thing.
They saw an order and purpose to the universe, and that we as individuals shared in this rational order. The Stoics believed there was a pre-determined quality to the cosmos, but insisted that within it, we very much have a free will to choose whether our individual natures will be in accord with nature or not.
Stoic and Epicurean —two words that do not mean what people think they mean. The image of the Stoic is the unfeeling, emotionless brute and the Epicurean as the pleasure-loving, self-indulgent hedonist.
Stereotypes always fall short, but in this case, the common understanding of what it means to be a follower of the Stoics or Epicureanism has dealt two vibrant philosophies a grave injustice. Both philosophies were founded in Athens around B. C as the lives of both Zeno and Epicurus , the founders of the two schools, overlapped. They both counseled that we should avoid excessive pleasure and desires. And to settle an important point early on, Epicureanism did not advocate for excessive self-indulgence the way we may think they did.
Just as the Stoics were not unfeeling and reject emotions. One starting point, which might surprise many, is that it is worth noting just how much the Stoics borrowed from the opposing and rival philosophical school.
While the Stoic philosopher Seneca did offer a critique of Epicurus in his Letters from a Stoic , it would be unfair not to mention the numerous times he positively quoted him. In one letter, he writes,. This was of course a question he had foreseen:.
But why should you think of them as belonging to Epicurus and not as common property? He was looking for wisdom, period. This is something that a lot of fundamentalists— in religion, philosophy, anything— seem to miss. Who cares whether some bit of wisdom is from a Stoic or an Epicurean, who cares whether it perfectly jibes with Stoicism? Both philosophies teach that there is no true evil. Both philosophies champion the pursuit of knowledge, though they also both stress the importance of being self-sufficient and loving oneself before others.
Before we can determine which philosophy is better, we should first ask, what is it that makes a philosophy good or bad? Is it best to pursue wisdom or pleasure? Is pursuing virtue worth the trouble of trying to control what you can and accepting the rest? Are physical pleasures fleeting, while mental pleasures last forever? Are you ultimately alone in the world, or does a divine being listen to your prayers and wishes? Are things in this world just as they are, or are things here because of a higher.
Or are things just matter in motion? They have different values, but both teach us how to live a life full of meaning. Which philosophy is better is up to each individual person to decide. Both philosophies are thought to be good, but more importantly, they teach us how to live and be wise. There is no perfect way of living a life of meaning and virtue. Every day we can choose to be an Epicurean or a Stoic, taking what we find useful from both philosophies.
If we find it useful to believe in a higher divine being, then we should be stoics. If we prefer to live a life of pleasure and joy, then we should come to the Epicurean path. Taking up the practice of the stoic philosophy is easier than it seems.
It can seem a bit odd to do, to stand back and think, but we are living in a fast-paced world, filled with responsibilities that take up our time and energy. When we let our worries and stress take over, we are not being stoic. We are merely running around like a chicken with its head cut off. We are going to have to face our own mortality at some point in time. We have no control over when this happens and so we should remember that as stoic, accepting things that happen can actually be beneficial to us and those around us.
These are the things we should learn to let go of. The stoics say that if we allow ourselves to react emotionally and negatively to every single situation in life, we are less likely to be successful in life. All of our actions are a reaction to something or someone. When we are stressed, we react in a negative way towards those around us.
We become angry, upset and defensive. Stoicism tells us that when these things happen, we should not give in to them. When life throws at us a difficult situation that we cannot control, we should not give in to stress.
Instead, the stoics tell us to accept the situation as it is and do our best with what is in our control at the time. We do not have to accept everything that happens as it is, nor do we have to react with anger or frustration.
Learning how to let go and move on is a very important step in the stoic life and if we can master this, we will be much more successful than those who allow themselves to get caught up in the small things of life. Many people are under the false impression that there is more to life than what is right in front of them. Many people have lost sight of the fact that they are living a life of their own, free from outside influences and expectations.
The stoics stress upon us to remember that we are living a life of our own design and that we should be happy with this fact. Not all things are going to go our way, but if we have hope in our ability to live a better life, we will be much happier.
We should always remember that while there is going to be a lot of pain and suffering in life, there is also going to be joy and happiness. In the balance of these two forces, stoicism teaches us that we can live a good life that is worth living no matter what happens. The Stoics tell us that we should never feel bad for being different from other people. That is if a momentary pleasure brought greater suffering in the future; the sensible thing was to avoid it.
Likewise, if momentary suffering brought with it a greater pleasure in the future; well worth suffering. Although Epicurus could not be considered atheist, since it did not deny the existence of the gods;.
He affirmed that the gods had no interest in intervening in human affairs and that the sacrifices and superstitions of the people were of no avail. That said that in order to achieve happiness, it was necessary first to ataraxia to live without worries. The epicurean ethical philosophy was egocentric since it looked for pleasure and individual well-being;.
Nevertheless, Epicuro gave great importance to friendship and in practice stood out for being highly prized among his disciples. To achieve happiness, Epicurus proposed that preference should be given to the pleasures of the soul rather than to those of the body.
In conclusion, the philosophy of Epicurus was focused especially on the practice, rather than on the theoretical part. His theory was empiricist since it affirmed that all knowledge comes from the senses and that in them is to be trusted.
He said that the source of the errors was not in the senses, but the judgments that were formulated. Epicureanism lasted for a long time, until the arrival of Christianity. It was a widely accepted philosophy that had many followers. Epicurus was characterized by his kindness and his openness to the fact of allowing women and slaves something not very common in his Garden.
Stoics vs. Epicureans Difference between Stoics and Epicureans : — From the conquests of Alexander the Great, Greece started began its greatest cultural expansion in history.
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