Epictetus was a philosopher that was born in 50 C.E.and died in 130 C.E., Epictetus was famous for his strong belief in self discipline. Unlike fellow philosopher Epicurus Epictetus does not believe that matter is the most important thing in the universe and that people should try to fulfill their pleasures. Epictetus believes that the most important thing in the universe is God. He believes that people should live their entire lives understanding where they stand in the cosmic universe. As stated in the book Great Traditions In Ethics Epictetus believes “That we are first to learn that there is a god; and that his providence directs the whole” (Denise, White, & Peterfreund, 50) Epictetus wants humans to devote their lives to God instead …show more content…
An example of this is “God bids the plants to blossom, to bud and they bud, to bear fruit and they bear it, to ripen it and they ripen it” (Denise et al., 51). Epictetus feels that God is synonymous with this universe. Not only is God apart of the universe that we live in but he is inside us as well. He say’s “Our souls are thus connected and intimately joined to God, as being indeed members and distinct portions of his essence” (Denise et al.,51). Due to the fact that God is the ruler of our universe Epictetus does not believe that humans should act on their own but rather humans should do what is best for the collective. Each individual should realize what their point in society is and fulfill their duty to that society. Epictetus believes that each man is important to the collective of people as show when he say’s “You are a citizen of the universe, and a part of it; not a subordinate, but a principle part.” (Denise et al.,52). Epictetus thinks that we each have a purpose in society and it is our responsibility to make sure we do it. People are not to act for themselves but to help the …show more content…
He also wants us to know that we should understand what is in our power and what is not. When something is not in our power we should just accept it and move on with our lives. It’s very important that in life we conquer our will and use our “Rational Nature.” (Denise et al., 52). Epictetus believes that we should avoid frustration and disappointment. This goes along side his idea of not taking to heart what is out of our control. We should try to avoid the feelings of frustration and disappointment and instead use our will power to overcome it. Epictetus argues that everything that happens in life is because of the divine beings will for it to be so. We should act logically and just trust that everything happens for a reason. “[ Remember ] that such is, and was, and will be, the nature of the world, nor is it possible that things should be otherwise than they now are.” (Denise et al., 52). It is important that humans just accept everything as is and try their best to fulfill their duty to the city of God. Epictetus warns that a person who chases after pleasures will feel more sorrow than someone
This man had spent the better part of a year reading and rereading the Handbook of Epictetus, throughout that book the message is similar to one of the topics Sherman touches on, “Some things are up to us and some are not up to us,”(pg 2). Basically the circumstances maybe beyond our control, but ultimately what affects us is our judgements and the way we react. She makes a great point that we underutilize our ability to control ourselves when we let external things drive our happiness and that is the difference in so many people's lives, they wager their happiness and satisfaction on factors that should not ultimately
contrast the God of Epictetus, and the God of Augustine, and in the end, my stand will
I only see him being right if you look at death as something that is a positive idea. When death gets looked at as nothing but not looked at as something positive in the same sense, people are going to grieve about it. Epictetus’ argues we should not grieve because death is natural. Well if we look at it that way, then grieving is a natural emotion also. We cannot control what comes to us naturally. The grieving process can end up becoming a long stressful process. Therefore grieving can become a huge problem in someone’s life that can cause him or her to become irritable and intolerable to others. According to Epictetus’ philosophy, the point of life is to be happy. Grieving is going to cause your life to be the opposite. Attempting to ignore death is only going to cause us to think about it more. Constantly thinking of the loss of your loved one is going to cause you to think of them. Most likely, he or she will go on to think of the memories they had with their loved one and then continue to go through the grieving
As said before, this is an unanswerable question, but to find a few conclusions it would be essential to look back at what Epicurus thought of what was life all about and to look back at what Gramsci meant about be a partisan. Equally important, is to look back at how these two philosophies influenced literature and art, by reading Sartre's thoughts on the engaged writer and by recalling to our minds some i...
There have been many attempts at formulating a theory that accounts for our intuitions regarding the harm of death. Most theories attempt to account for this intuition by attributing the harm of death to a deprivation of some sort. That is a person is harmed when she dies because she is deprived of some good thing. This paper is a defense of Epicurius's argument regarding death as a response to deprivation theories.
Epicurus was admittedly a Hedonist, and this philosophy has had a huge influence on his work. Especially so on his death argument. Hedonism is, “the doctrine that pleasure is the only thing that is good in itself for a person, pain the only thing that is bad in itself for a person.”
Epicureanism, founded by Epicurus, and Stoicism, founded by Zeno of Citium, gave the Greeks an attempt to have meaning in their lives. Although the two philosophies competed with each other, they had similarities along with their differences. As Hicks briefly describes, “Both schools sought by devious paths one and the same goal” (v). Epicureanism and Stoicism conceived the universe in different ways, which ultimately led to more differences than similarities between the two philosophies. However, the two schools coincided in their views of life’s purpose – achieving happiness throughout life.
In Plato’s The Republic, we, the readers, are presented with two characters that have opposing views on a simple, yet elusive question: what is justice? In this paper, I will explain Thrasymachus’ definition of justice, as well as Socrates’s rebuttals and differences in opinion. In addition, I will comment on the different arguments made by both Socrates and Thrasymachus, and offer critical commentary and examples to illustrate my agreement or disagreement with the particular argument at hand.
In the approximate year of 320 B.C., one could be walking down the street with a high probability of passing a house where several men would be gathered out on the porch. It is likely that this was a gathering of individuals discussing philosophy. The gatherings became a more common occurrence, and since they would take place out on the porches, the school of philosophy derived from them takes its name from the Greek stoa, or porch. The ideology of that movement is henceforth known as Stoicism. Also, the Stoics have come to use the statement made by Socrates as the cornerstone of their judgments, being that "no harm can come to a good man." However, this concept is taken a bit further by the Stoics, as they deduce it to symbolize the eventually complete rejection of worldly things. These things they also deem "things which cannot be controlled."
In the world there are two distinct types of things. There are things that exist external to us, such as one's reputation or a relationship. We do not have direct control over these things since they exist outside of us. Then there are internal things that we do have control over, like out desires, or things we dislike. The internal things can be controlled, while the external can be harder to control. Some philosophers even believe that the external things cannot be controlled, and attempting to control them will just bring unhappiness.
‘By contrast slavery, poverty, wealth, freedom, war, peace, and all other things whose arrival and departure a thing’s nature survives intact, these it is our practice to call, quite properly, accidents’.
In this paper I am going to deal with Epicurean ethics. More specifically, I am going to center around the nature of pleasure and its connection with desire-satisfaction. Throughout the paper I will argue, the only thing we desire for its own sake is pleasure. Thus it is best to keep our desires simple in order to achieve the greatest feeling of pleasure. I will accomplish this by first giving arguments for why the only thing we desire for its own sake is pleasure, as well as arguments for why it is best to keep our desires simple. I will then take a look at a number of objections and give some reasons as to why these objections are unconvincing.
During the age of Epicureanism, people questioned the philosophy of Epicurus. In order to understand the history of Epicureanism, the person must first understand the knowledge of how and why it came to be. The how part which helps people to better understand the teachings of Epicureanism is “the art of making life happy.” To people in Athens this was reflected by the people as to why they not live their lives to fully while they are in this world. As for the why part, Epicurus decided in 310 B.C that people should want to live their lives knowing that they are living for themselves and not the purpose of pleasing others or society. Epicurus then began to form a new school which would explain why someone would want to live for themselves and not for the satisfaction of someone else. Epicurus said, “We cannot live pleasurably without living prudently, gracefully, and justly; and we cannot live prudently gracefully, and justly, without living pleasurably” (newadvent.org). This made people think that Epicurus was correct. Why should someone live life to in submission when, in fact, if he/she lives life to be fulfilled then they would feel better about their life and not have so many worries. Thus, the Epicurean way isn’t too far from today’s world views on how Americans live. Thomas Jefferson, during the history of Ame...
The theme that the lives of humans are controlled by the gods, in Oedipus, show that everything humans do are futile and result in no gain but only loss. This theme is mainly shown by the character Oedipus, king of Thebes. In the beginning of his life, Laius the king planned to kill his son by leaving him on Mount Cithaeron to die. "...at the moment I was your savior."
Epicurus was ascetic to his theories about pleasure and how a person should live their life. If pleasure is a source of enjoyment and delight then Epicurus believed that we should live our lives happy and to the fullest. Living in 2004--today--and reading about what philosophers wrote about long ago about how to life a pleasure-full life makes people reflect on their own lives and see if they are living a "good life."