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.
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.
>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.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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.
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.
If I'm not wrong, the author is a noted critic of the Stoics and especially of the recent revival of interest in Stoicism, and their promotion of Epicureanism may well be originating from that end.
So I guess we can't trust them to give an impartial view of Stoicism.
I agree, my understanding of Stoicism leads me to the same conclusion. Epicureans and Stoics seem to have always had a friendly rivalry going on, though they feel a lot like two sides to the same coin. In some ways, to me, Epicureanism is what a Stoic does on their day off.
The rivalry isn't always friendly. If your connotation of epicureanism involves "pleasures of the flesh", it's probably because stoics painted them as hedonists.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
Consider the extremes: if everyone only has $1, they are all objectively "poor", but without a comparison, they do not feel any difference. If they all have a great deal of resources, again, they have no grounds to compare.
On the other hand, if one has great resources and the others little, then they have a noticable in wealth and power.
> 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.
It's accurate for the society we live in, but not for all possible societies.
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..
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