
How to Be an Epicurean - nocoder
https://aeon.co/essays/forget-plato-aristotle-and-the-stoics-try-being-epicurean
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polytronic
How to be an Epicurean? That's easy! Start by using his Tetrapharmakon (means
the quadruple remedy) to live a happy life, which is the following:

Θεός Άφοβον - God is not to be feared

Θάνατος Αναίσθητον - You don't feel (sic or meet with) death

Τ'αγαθόν μεν εύκτητον - It is easy to acquire goods

Το δε δεινόν ευκαρτέρητον - So is easy to withstand rough times

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thope
Absolutely. Also, a point I found interesting is that we can classify desires
in three categories:

\- natural and necessary, e.g drink, eat

\- natural but not necessary, e.g sex

\- not natural and not necessary, e.g smartphones

Epicure advised to fulfill only the first type of desires, that is, drink
water and eat bread, period.

As a sidenote, the goal of his philosophy was not to experience pleasures, but
instead to avoid pain, which is quite different.

~~~
mcguire
Well, in comparison with stoicism, epicureanism is more about experiencing
pleasure than avoiding pain, given that the latter tries to avoid all feeling.
But yeah, they're more fundamentally alike there.

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gtirloni
About Stoics:

 _> The world, they thought, is ruled by providence; all that happens is fated
to happen, and we must embrace our individual fates and the past and the
future that has been determined for us._

That's not the understanding I got from reading about Stoicism. Sure, some of
it could be "fate" and out of your control but there is a lot of emphasis on
what you can control. I think the author simplified this too much to the point
of making it incorrect.

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the_bowme
It was in the stoicism I studied in college, and stoics took it to be
important to justify why their prescriptions were valid.

But nowadays we don't need an argument, we can just point out that ancient
people believed it and that's difficult convincing.

~~~
shantly
Yeah, the difference between Stoicism-as-philosophy and Stoicism-as-self-help-
book is that the former finds it necessary to justify the accuracy or
reasonableness of its advice, starting from fundamentals like what physical
reality consists of. Most people interested in Stoicism don't really care
about that part now.

~~~
gtirloni
I never heard of this distinction (self-help vs "true" philosophy).

Wikipedia[0] has this:

 _Stoics outlined what we have control over categories of our own action,
thoughts and reaction. The opening paragraph of The Enchiridion states the
categories as; "Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion,
and, in a word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are
body, property, reputation, command, and, in a word, whatever are not our own
actions.". These suggest a space that is within our own control._

Is that based on the self-help book approach?

0 -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism)

~~~
shantly
It's more about how much you care that things like that are logically
supported by and can be derived from the answers to questions like "what is
physical reality?" For ancient Stoics—the ones who developed the
philosophy—this was more important than for most people reading it today to
learn how to be happier or whatever. So a modern reader might say "it's weird
that this writer emphasizes determinism in their description of Stoicism"
while an ancient Stoic might think it's weird that (basically) everyone
interested in Stoicism today minimizes or ignores their physics.

[EDIT] not to say their physics & metaphysics were constant over
time—Stoicism's period of serious activity spanned centuries, after all—and
that much of their "lower level" philosophy wasn't _very likely_ produced by
working backward from their conclusions, which is common in philosophies that
attempt to prove or support their ethical beliefs in such manner (see also:
"natural law" or "natural rights")

[EDIT EDIT] and I'm not claiming that original approach is the superior one.
It's just why there might be a difference in opinion over what's essential
about Stoicism. The utility of a Stoic mindset may well be pretty unrelated to
an underlying approach to the problem of evil, a statement about the nature of
the divine, claims about what reality actually is, and so on.

~~~
gtirloni
Got it, thanks for clarifying.

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viburnum
I read about Epicurus when I was a little kid and it really resonated with me
(basically, the “hang out with your friends and don’t get too worked up about
things” part). Now that I’m getting old and basically wasted most of my life,
I wish I had done the “have a mission in life” track. But really I think
people are born with a temperament and personality that mostly shapes how they
react to their environment, and I’m not sure I could have ended up any
different.

~~~
mcguire
Me, as well. I wanted a "mission", but everything I've done is more about the
content, quiet life.

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mcguire
" _Epicurus was notorious for his nonmarital relationships that combined sex
and philosophy._ "

The major problem of studying Epicurean philosophy is that few original
sources have survived and almost all of the writing about it is from its
opponents.

As far as I have ever seen, the only source for sexual promiscuity is that
women were allowed in to his school.

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mjfisher
A nicely entertaining read. Does anyone else find the author's
characterisation of Stoicism a little reductive? My reading of the Stoics has
been limited so far, but at least as far as Marcus Aurelius writes one of the
primary Stoic paths to peace and virtue is through helping others.

~~~
Tim0theus
Yes I did, I think the contrast is much better explored in this lecture:
[http://rickroderick.org/102-epicureans-stoics-
skeptics-1990/](http://rickroderick.org/102-epicureans-stoics-skeptics-1990/)

Worth listening if you have the time.

~~~
mjfisher
That looks absolutely perfect for me.

I've found some Stoic attitudes and practices a great help over the past year
or so, but suspect there's some really valuable knowledge from the other
schools I've yet to learn about.

I'm working my way through Seneca's letters at the moment. He keeps quoting
Epicurus, so that's a pretty decent recommendation right there! Anything that
builds out context around that era of philosophy is massively interesting to
me.

Thank you very much :)

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earthboundkid
BRB, buying some barrels and lanterns for the revival of cynicism. I’ll sell
them as “honest philosopher’s goods” and make a fortune.

~~~
FranzFerdiNaN
Im sure you could build a lucrative career out of giving workshops and talks
about how to incorporate cynic attitudes in your daily life to combat burnouts
and stress. Or how to be a cynic business leader trying to extract as much
productivity out of people.

~~~
whatshisface
Why is it better to extract more productivity than it is the extract less
productivity? I think the only thing that's really worth doing is sleeping in
a barrel.

~~~
mcguire
I'm sorry, I can't hear you. My lantern went out.

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hunterloftis
> Fame and wealth are zero-sum. For some to be wealthy, powerful and famous,
> others must be poor, obedient and disregarded.

Is this accurate? My understanding of wealth might be simplistic or reductive,
but I have equated it to two neighbor craftsmen producing and trading goods.
Each benefits from the other’s specialty and increases overall wealth, which
is not zero-sum.

I can agree with the statement regarding fame, since fame is more directly
correlated with time, which is strictly zero-sum.

~~~
woadwarrior01
One could argue that fame too is not a zero-sum game. With increasing
populations, wouldn’t it be easier to have a million fans today than say
during Shakespeare’s times? This could be one possible explanation for the
rise of the influencers on YouTube, Instagram and the ilk.

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pyyding
I feel bad I only found out about this "ism" now because it aligns with many
of my values I've had to figure out myself. Thanks for posting!

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HNLurker2
Epicurean said something and the sceptic showed a middle finger.

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myusername334
Hacker news censors 100 percent of my posts for three years running folks
including the one previous to the above, which of course you can't see. But
they let ONE post through, mocking them for censorship, just so I look like a
fool..

Clever, No?

