Epicurean Research Articles

The Partisans of Death

Abstract This article considers the relationship between the “impious” (ἀσεβείς) of Wisdom of Solomon 1:16–2:24 and Epicurean philosophy. Though most recent commentators reject the idea that the impious are portrayed as Epicureans, they fail to consider this passage within the context of Hellenistic Epicureanism (Lucretius, Philodemus) and its discontents (e.g., Epictetus, Plutarch). The author shows that the impious’ materialistic account of the human soul and its destruction at death draws heavily on Epicurean ideas and imagery and that aspects of their exhortation to hedonism recall Epicurean sexual ethics. Furthermore, though the way of life that the impious endorse does diverge significantly from Epicurean hedonism properly understood, such caricatures of Epicurean philosophy are themselves common tropes of anti-Epicurean polemic. It is concluded that the sage has chosen to present a hostile group of advocates of Epicurean philosophy as the paradigmatic adversaries of true wisdom and justice.

Applying Epicurean Philosophy to Managing Modern Pursuits of Happiness and Life Satisfection – An Analytical Perspective

Applying Epicurean Philosophy to Managing Modern Pursuits of Happiness and Life Satisfection – An Analytical Perspective

ردِ پای حکمتِ یونانی در اشعار عبدالواسع جبلی غرجستانی

Philosophy is the co-born of humankind and philosophizing is also a manifestation of human thinking. It must be said with certainty that no historical period has been without philosophy. There is no doubt that Western philosophy has reached us in written form from Greece and then to the whole world. At the beginning of Islam, many Greek ruling sources were translated by Islamic thinkers, and caused the emergence of various scholars in the field of Islamic philosophy and the spread of philosophical propositions among the Persian poets and writers. Abdul-Wase Jabali Gharjistani, is one of the poets of the 6th century of Hijri, while he was fully familiar with his contemporary sciences, he had a remarkable knowledge of Greek wisdom and reflected it in his poetry. In the present article, with the aim of showing the subtleties of the poet's philosophical vision, the writer is more interested in answering the question of whether it is possible to consider Jabali as a follower of Greek philosophical thought. Because as appearing from his poems, The Jabali's way of thinking in addition to Epicureanism is thinking of happiness; In general, it is similar to the ideas of Hellenism. In order to provide an answer to the above question according to the indicators and components of Greek philosophy, in an inductive way using a descriptive-analytical method, among all the poems of Divan Jabali, there are poems with a way of thinking Greek that is classified, adapted and analyzed. The result of the research shows that Jebeli's thought is in the components of the materials of existence; Epicurean philosophy or honoring the soul, seizing the opportunity, paying attention to worldly pleasures and the influence of the stars and the heavens on humans is consistent with the Greek philosophy

Стратегии освоения страдания в культуре

The article is devoted to the study of suffering as a component of human subjectivity. The factors that determine the unavoidability of suffering in human life are highlighted. The dynamics of the meanings of the word "suffering" are shown from the original meanings associated with the concepts of "death" and "hard work" to modern meanings grouped around the experience of pain, death, and guilt. At the same time, the essential features of existential suffering are a lack of freedom and destructiveness. The features of the strategy of avoiding suffering as an experienced state are analyzed: at the early stages of historical development; in religious concepts; in Epicurean philosophy; in hedonistic theories. Using the example of the analysis of archaic initiation practices that determined the life cycles of an individual and society, the ambivalent role of the painful trials and sufferings that accompanied them is described: as an indicator of readiness to transition to a new status and as a factor of coercion in an undesirable social role. The tendencies of rethinking suffering in the period of Axial time are shown (the formation of a "suffering person"; voluntary acceptance of suffering; the appearance of a bundle of "suffering and redemption" in the Abrahamic religions). A feature of religious strategies of escape from suffering is the withdrawal of a state without suffering beyond the real world and the promise of existence without suffering after death. The consequences of the reinterpretation of suffering, characteristic of modern society, as an existential experience that adjusts a person to a passive life position and the living of pleasures are considered. The positive and negative aspects of suffering are highlighted, as well as the dual relationship of suffering with meaning: on the one hand, suffering itself assumes the existence of a meaning that must be discovered; on the other hand, the subject himself is called upon to fill the meaning of the suffering situation. The meaning here is what helps to survive the irremediable suffering. Giving a situation of suffering meaning changes the personal attitude of the sufferer, increasing his chances of overcoming the situation and, more importantly, ensuring his moral safety. Personal strategies for understanding suffering are described. The conclusion is made about the ambivalence of the phenomenon of suffering, its dialectical connection with pleasure, its dependence on the spiritual mood, as well as the influence of meaningful suffering on the processes of personal development.

Analysis of the Relationship between Marx's Doctoral Thesis and Modern Enlightenment Thought

Marx's Doctoral thesis, as the starting point of Marx's thought, has always been the focus of domestic scholars' attention. Marx's thought is the product of enlightenment, although Marx did not specifically discuss the inheritance of Enlightenment thought in the texts left by Marx, so in what sense Marx's thought inherited the Enlightenment thought is a topic worth exploring. In his Doctoral Thesis, Marx's analysis of Epicurean philosophy in ancient Greece is a key to understanding the relationship between Marx and Enlightenment thought, and the principle of agency in Epicurean philosophy can be regarded as the key to Epicurean philosophy. The relationship between Epicurus, enlightenment and Marx has become an inescapable topic in understanding Marx's thought.

Between Nature and Spirit: Lucretian Resonances in Paulinus’ Carmen 23

Abstract This paper contributes to the reassessment of the role of Lucretius’ De rerum natura and Epicurean philosophy in early Christian writings by conducting a close study of Carmen 23 composed by the poet Paulinus of Nola. While previous scholarship has examined classical influences on Paulinus’ poetry, especially from Vergil, no existing study has attended to Paulinus’ incorporation of Epicurean elements. This paper argues that in Carmen 23 Paulinus incorporates Epicurean doctrines and Lucretius’ poetic imagery to appeal to an audience familiar with Epicurean ideas. Through the creative fusion of Epicurean physics with Christian metaphysics, Paulinus conjures up a poetic world in which the natural and spiritual realms constantly interact. While using Lucretian imagery to direct his audience’s gaze toward the natural world, Paulinus nevertheless reveals a higher reality in which the invisible operation of God’s spirit governs and perfects the mechanism of nature. In thus stretching his poetic imagination to encompass the working of nature and spirit, Paulinus invents a new eclectic literary form and a kind of physiological miracle account that blends naturalism and mysticism. As such, Carmen 23 attests to Paulinus’ literary achievement in repurposing a classic of Epicurean philosophy and Latin poetry for Christian panegyric and hagiography.

The Pleasure to Smile: A Review Article

Most people find happiness by making money, eating good food, or spending time with friends. Epicurean philosophy provides an explanation of what makes people happy and how to experience joy and pleasure in life. Gossipiboma is a rare complication that can occur due to human negligence. Gossipiboma’s form as a complication of inflammatory reaction to a surgical sponge or a laparotomy pad left mistakenly in the body of the patient after a surgical procedure. The term Gossipiboma is a combination of two words from two different languages; Gossypium a Latin word which mean cotton and boma a Kiswahili word which means plan of concealment. Their incidence is reported to be 1 in 1000 to 1500 surgery. We present here a case of a 67-year-old male who had a history of right-sided Percutaneous Nephrolithotomy (PCNL) five years back. No immediate post procedure complications occurred however the patient presented to the Outpatient Department (OPD) with left flank pain and his Computed Tomography (CT) scan was done which showed an organized Gossipiboma.Most people find happiness by making money, eating good food, or spending time with friends. Epicurean philosophy provides an explanation of what makes people happy and how to experience joy and pleasure in life. It focuses on the absence of pain as the path to happiness and advocates leading a simple lifestyle. There are people in the world who are happy just because they live and they live much longer without cancer, cardiovascular or other social important diseases. The material measurability of the timelessness in which we live does not exist, and the virtues have preserved them above all as human beings. They have the ability to enjoy the simple things in life, which in most cases are not financially commensurate. The connection between the beauty of the smile, positive health and longevity has been consciously sought. All aspects of the life of the Bulgarian population are outlined, which are positive and could lead them out of the black rankings for morbidity and mortality in Europe and the world. Questions are raised related to the health and activity of long-lived and centenarians and what in the modern way of life turn this trend into a negative one.

Blake, Lucretius, and Prophecy: <i>The Book of Los</i>

In recent years historians of the Renaissance and Enlightenment have paid increasing attention to the influence of Epicureanism upon European thought. As a result, Lucretius, the Roman who expounded Epicurean philosophy in his epic poem De rerum natura, has come to assume a foundational role in accounts of the development of modern science and philosophy. This change has been reflected within the world of Blake criticism, where, as scholars have become more interested in Blake’s complex response to materialism, so the presence of Lucretius, as both a focus for Blake’s hostility and as a shaping influence on his mythology, has become a subject of detailed scholarly investigation. We now have two studies specifically devoted to Blake and Lucretius. Stephanie Codsi has considered how Blake’s hostility to Epicurean Deism could help to explain his depiction of absent fathers in Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Joshua Schouten de Jel, in a book-length study, develops a comprehensive account of the sources from which Blake could have learned about Lucretius and a detailed view of particular areas of his response (focused upon figures that he associated with Epicurean atheism, Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton, and on specific areas of thought, including epistemology and cosmology). Since these studies have shed much light on this area, I need to explain why we need another discussion of Blake and Lucretius. In focusing upon the grounds of Blake’s hostility it is easy to overlook or underestimate the ambivalence that haunts his understanding of error and of prophecy. In this essay I shall argue that Blake saw in Lucretius not only a materialistic cosmology that he felt compelled to attack, but also a form of prophecy that represented an alluring alternative to his own prophetic mission, one whose malign influence could embroil those who tried to contain or oppose it—​including John Milton. The work that deals with this issue most directly is Blake’s creation myth, The Book of Los—​a work that seems to be nobody’s favorite, and that can appear frustratingly obscure.

Philosophical Management of Stress: An Introduction

All human needs are compromised by everyday stressful conditions, which may be objectively devastating or subjectively augmented due to idiosyncratic way of thinking. Unmanaged acute stress can affect emotions, thinking and behavior and chronic stress can result in several severe health problems. Philosophy may provide a frame of thinking that may help in managing everyday stress. There are personal dimensions in the philosophical management of stress based on examples of Aristotle’s eudaimonia consisted of morality and pleasure, Plato’s transcendence aiming to join with the supreme good, Pyrrho’s serenity through suspension of judgement and the Stoics’ rational attachment to virtue. Furthermore, there are social dimensions of philosophical management of stress, since there is abundant scientific evidence that stress affects moral decision-making and therefore an ethical theory of life may not be sufficient in stressful conditions. In this context, such social aspects include the relationship of eudaimonia with community life, the artistic practice and the virtual eroticism in the contemporary world of digital media as a stress relief from physical confrontation with other persons in real life, the empathy and care as a crucial quality for stress relief and social change, as well as the Epicurean approach of stress management that may have both personal and social utility. Intervention programs of stress management combining many lifestyle techniques have been shown to enhance resilience and decrease stress for a period of time, based on systematic behavioral change. Two successful novel empirical pilot studies of pure philosophical management of stress based on cognitive psychotherapy and modification of mentality have been presented, both of them realized in the COVID-19 pandemic period: a three-month positive psychology intervention combined with Epicurean and Stoic concepts was provided to adolescent students and a month-long philosophical management of stress program based on Science and Epicurean Philosophy was offered to public sector professionals.

Epicurean Stability (eustatheia): A Philosophical Approach of Stress Management

Epicurus used an empirical and sensualistic approach to knowledge, creating a consistent, naturalistic, pragmatic and consequentialistic philosophy. The scientific observations of the last centuries have confirmed the basic principles of Epicurean physics, as well the psychotherapeutic approach of Epicurean ethics, which fits human nature. We know from the work “On Frank Criticism” of Epicurean philosopher Philodemus of Gadara, that the teaching methodology of Epicureans included psychoeducational counseling through therapeutic criticism based on friendly freedom of speech and aiming at τῆς ψυχῆς θεραπείαν (psychotherapy) and at knowledge of maintaining mental health and well-being. The Epicureans called εὐστάθεια (eustatheia, “stability”) the psychosomatic balance (τὸ τῆς σαρκὸς καὶ ψυχῆς εὐσταθὲς κατάστημα), which today we call homeostasis (ὁμοιόστασις), and considered it the basis of true happiness. They recognized empirically the stress that disturbed psychosomatic homeostasis as an agitation of the psyche or a painful feeling of the body and used a number of mental and affective techniques (including the tetrapharmakos) to manage stress at its onset, so that it does not evolve into the particularly troublesome conditions of anxiety and/or depression, which may become chronic psychosomatic disorders with significant social consequences. The article discusses the relation of the main ethical teachings of Epicurus with the biological basis of human brain functions and with the management of stress by cognitive and behavioral psychotherapy.

Paul and the Philosophers: Intercultural Communication in Hellenistic Athens (Acts 17:18)

In this article, an encounter of the apostle Paul with Stoic and Epicurean philosophers in Athens during his second missionary journey is interpreted as an instance of intercultural communication in the Hellenistic world. This is shown in only two illocutions which the authorial narrator of the Acts ascribes to narrative charactersrepresenting the two philosophical schools. The article aims at showing what is to be perceived and interpreted as intercultural communication, how textual pragmatics conveys interculturality in communication, and which theoretical concepts of this kind of verbal interaction are visible in the examples.

Asclepiades of Bithynia: Greek physician and medical reformer.

Asclepiades of Bithynia (124-40 BC) was a Greek physician who practised and taught Greek medicine in Rome. Among his many contributions, Asclepiades challenged the long-standing Hippocratic doctrine of the four humours. Influenced by Epicurean philosophy, he sought to construct a new theory of human disease, derived in part from atomic theories of chance and evolution earlier described by Democritus and Epicurus. In clinical practice, Asclepiades's approach to physical and mental illnesses was reasoned, humane, and, in many ways, ahead of its time. As a result of his many contributions and his overall approach to care, Asclepiades is now considered a pioneer of modern physical therapy, the progenitor of a more humane approach to mental illness, and, as highlighted by Yapijakis, the father of modern molecular medicine.

‘Last of the Schoolmen’: The Young Marx, Latin Culture, and the Doctoral Dissertation

ABSTRACT This article examines Marx’s earliest writings, especially his doctoral dissertation on “The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature” and the notebooks he kept while preparing it. Previous commentators on this material have tended to take one of two approaches: either they have used it to associate Marx with an expansive and abstract Western Tradition of philosophical inquiry, or they have located it in the narrow context of the intellectual culture of the German Vormärz. Here I seek to mediate between these extremes. These documents, I argue, suggest that Marx was less a part of a Western Tradition, or a set of abstract normative debates that ostensibly stretches from the ancients to modernity, than of what I call Latin Culture, or a Latin-speaking culture that was inscribed in practices, norms, and institutions, and that persisted in Europe from late antiquity into the nineteenth century. Placing Marx’s early writings in this context helps explain some of the tensions that characterise his thought and to clarify the practical consequences of what might otherwise appear as purely theological and metaphysical speculations.

More's Life of Pico: a Christian Epicureanism?

This essay examines More's engagement with Epicurean philosophy in his Life of Pico. In the Life, More enters the humanist debate on the possibility of a synthesis between Christianity and Epicureanism using Pico as a model. More's method imitates the eudaimonism of his classical sources insofar as it employs human happiness as a standard for examining the best way of life. In his evaluations of Pico, More uses the concept of the summum bonum and a hierarchy of human goods in order to show that Epicureanism mistakes the nature of the greatest good: in positing that the best life entails withdrawal from political community and social duties in order to enjoy the pleasures of philosophy, Epicureanism undermines the equanimity that it aims to achieve. As an alternative, More upholds the life of piety and Christian service as the source of “solid” happiness.

Thought and reality in Marx's early writings on ancient philosophy

AbstractThere is little agreement about Marx's aims, or even his basic claims, in his Notebooks on Epicurean Philosophy and Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature. Marx has been read as an idealist, or as a materialist; as praising Epicurus, or as criticizing him. Some have read Marx as using ancient philosophers as proxies in a contemporary debate, without demonstrating how he does so in detail. I show that Marx's dialectical reading of Epicurus's atomism aims at transcending the dichotomy between idealism and materialism; that on Marx's reading Epicurus deserves praise for thinking through atomism to its “highest” conclusion, but criticism for not embracing this conclusion; and that Marx's intervention in contemporary debates takes the form of revealing a dialectical relationship between “liberal” and “positive” philosophers. I conclude that the importance of these texts is to be located in their original stance on the problematic of the relation of thought to reality, common to what Marx finds in ancient philosophy and in his contemporary environment.

The Tetrapharmakos (Fourfold Cure) and the Sober Reasoning in Epicurus: A Critical Philosophical Paradigm against the Politicization of Medical Truth?

In the present paper, we will discuss how the therapeutic effect of Epicurean philosophy as a pharmakon for human passions constitutes a critical philosophical paradigm against the politicization of medical truth. More specifically, we will argue that the concept of correcting habits of thought, which confers a philosophical meaning on the Greek word pharmakon, constructs a dialectical relationship of unity between nature and man. Then we will show that this conception is in contrast to the traditional meaning of pharmakon as an artificial means of therapy, which is ideologicalised in the politicization of medical truth, since it presupposes a technocratic conception leading to a dualism between superior technology, which rules, and inferior human nature, which is ruled. We will argue that establishing an enhancement of human nature as it ensues from the Epicurean ethics of the tetrapharmakos constitutes a critical philosophical paradigm against the politicization of medical truth.

Semina morbi or seeds of disease

Already in ancient times there was the idea that tiny animals or insects could cause diseases when ingested or breathed. In parallel, several philosophers developed the concept of seeds to explain the composition of the world. Both concepts were amalgamated in the brilliant idea of seeds of disease that was spread in the famous poem "De rerum natura" by the Epicurean philosopher Lucretius. The idea was refined in the Renaissance by the prominent physician Girolamo Fracastorius with his famous semina morbi (seeds of disease) that explained contagion. The germinal theory of microbes of the s. XIX did nothing more than assign to this already millenary idea a material substratum.

The Heights of Philosophy: Some Thoughts on Lucretius 2.7–13

In this article I argue against the view that the templa serena in Lucr. 2.7-13 should be exclusively interpreted as a reference to mental realms. Instead, I suggest that Lucretius is intertwining the concept of templa serena as mental sanctuaries with the symbolical image of an 'elevated temple of Epicurean philosophy'. We should take into account both the cognitive and the symbolical meaning of Lucretius' imagery. I point to parallels in the Epicurean tradition, in order to demonstrate that the concept of an elevated sanctuary of philosophy as a spatial entity, rather than a mental realm, may have been a popular topos within Italy's Epicurean circles.

Epicureans and Stoics on the Rationality of Perception

This paper examines an ancient debate over the rationality of perception. What leads the Stoics to affirm, and the Epicureans to deny, that to form a sense-impression is an activity of reason? The answer, we argue, lies in a disagreement over what is required for epistemic success. For the Stoics, epistemic success consists in believing the right propositions, and only rational states, in virtue of their predicational structure, put us in touch with propositions. Since they identify some sense-impressions as criteria of truth and thus as the basis for epistemic success, the Stoics maintain that sense-impressions must be rational. The Epicureans agree with the Stoics that sense-impressions function as criteria of truth, and also agree broadly on what it means for a state to be rational, but deny that sense-impressions are rational because (1) they think that epistemic success must be supported by a state that is necessarily error-free and (2) accept that rational states can be false. In reconstructing this debate, we refine the standard interpretation of the fundamental difference between Epicurean and Stoic epistemology and also develop parallels with epistemological debates today. One upshot is a more nuanced appreciation of the merits of Epicurean epistemology vis-à-vis the Stoics.

الأخلاق في العصر الهلينستي «المدرسة الإبيقورية نموذجًا»

إن البحث الموسوم ب (الأخلاق في العصر الهلينستي, المدرسة الإبيقورية أنموذجا) يناقش المسألة الأخلاقية عند واحدة من المدارس العملية التي تلت أرسطو وهي المدرسة الإبيقورية, وهو محاولة لمعرفة البعد التواصلي بين هذا العصر؛ ممثلا في هذه المدرسة, والعصر الذي سبقه في مباحث الطبيعة والمعرفة والأخلاق ومدى تلاحم هذه المباحث مع بعضها, وأولية بعضها على الآخر, فضلا عن محاولة التعرف على المنهج الذي رسمته هذه المدرسة للوصول للغاية الإنسانية في السعادة, ويترکز بحثنا هذا حول ثلاثة مباحث وهي: 1- الطبيعة وارتباطها بالحياة الإنسانية. 2- المعرفة والأخلاق. 3- الأخلاق في مذهب إبيقور. أما أهم النتائج التي توصلنا إليها من کتابة هذا البحث فهي: إن الفلسفة الإبيقورية أسست الأخلاق على العقل بغض النظر عن دور الدين في تحقيق الغاية الإنسانية. ليجعل الإنسان أمام نفسه فقط وفي مواجهتها. إن القانون الأخلاقي لا يأتي في نظر إبيقورس من قوة مفارقة للإنسان، إنما هو موجود داخليا ومنطق العقل هو الذي يحدده. لقد کانت الأخلاق في هذ العصر أخلاق معاملة لا أخلاق نظريات لذلک نجد أغلب فلاسفة هذا العصر کانوا نماذج أخلاقية لکل الأفکار التي طرحوها. Abstract: The research on ethics in Hellenistic period, the Epicurean school model, discusses moral question at one of practical schools that followed Aristotle, Epicurean school, an attempt to identify communicative dimension of this age, represented in this school, Knowledge and ethics and extent of cohesion of these investigations with each other, and primacy of each other, as well as trying to identify curriculum drawn by this school to reach human purpose of happiness, and focused our research on three topics: Nature and its connection to human life. Knowledge and ethics. Ethics in doctrine of Epicurean. The most important results that we have come from writing this research are: Epicurean philosophy established morality on reason regardless of role of religion in achieving human purpose. To make man in front of himself only and in front of them. The moral law of my sins in eyes of Epicurus is of a paradoxical power of man but it exists internally and logic of reason is what he determines. Morals in this era were morally treated as unethical theories so we find most of philosophers of this age were moral models of all ideas they put forward. The critique of divine thought was not solely religious, but moral. Ie, intention to refine morality through religion.