Epicureanism or Stoicism /lit/?
You many only choose one.
the one that's more epic desu
Stoicism. The epicurean pursuit of pleasure requires a very particular set of circumstances to allow. For many the epicurean garden is an impossibility. It is also fickle since anything can disrupt or destroy the garden. It's an entirely circumstantial philosophy. If one is unable to pursue pleasure, whether they be active or state, positive or negative then one is living a bad life. Asides from that it's effectively egoistic because it requires a withdrawal from politics and general society with complete focus on ones own pleasure. Friends are only worth anything so long as they provide pleasure. While after time the maintaining of that friendship is itself a pleasure all forms of human contact come down to their ability to allow one to feel pleasure.
Since stoicism is grounded in virtue one can flourish even during unpleasant physical or mental states. Before people green text me on the unpleasant mental states part please take the time to read contemporary scholarship on stoicism. One of the big misunderstandings I see on lit and elsewhere (although there are many others) is derived from the Greek word often translated into English as emotion or something similar. The stoic lifestyle prevents passions, that's not the same thing as unpleasant mental states.
Anyhow this pursuit of virtue allows them to be good regardless of circumstance. It is not a philosophy about being mentally imperturbable in the way an epicurean is about this sort of tranquility. For a stoic to be good one must have a good character and do good actions. This concept of character blurs the lines between the inner life and action in a way that is foreign to modern people. It is not a good inner life if one does not act good because they both inform each other.
tldr
Epicurean = wish washy fate dependent, self orientated egoism.
Stoicism = robust, civic minded, externally directed flourishing.
>>7692915
>The epicurean pursuit of pleasure
Stopped reading there pleb.
>>7692917
They viewed the pursuit of negative and static pleasures (although not in every instance) as being the most pleasurable way to live. The means is a negative hedonism, the goal is still pleasure. If by their practicable reasoning they deemed active pleasure to be the most pleasurable then that's the path they would take.
>>7692917
Not him, but from the wikipedia article on Epicureanism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicureanism
>Epicurus believed that what he called "pleasure" is the greatest good...
>Although Epicureanism is a form of hedonism, insofar as it declares pleasure to be the sole intrinsic good...
Are you talking out of your ass? Please explain, if you aren't.
>>7692930
Here is a slightly more reputable source.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epicurus/#6
>... These are powerfully altruistic sentiments for a philosopher who posits as the unique goal in life happiness based on freedom from physical pain and mental anxiety.
>>7692944
He is probably referring to active pleasure since it is usually accompanied by pain rather than the broader definition of pleasure that is being used in this thread. In the Greek of that quote what word is pleasure translated from?
>>7692936
It seems from that link Epicurus' great value on friendship was for the purpose of 'maximizing one's felicity', not from an abstract moral sense, and that he advocated the 'pursuit' of many great friendships. Based on what little I know of his philosophy, if friendship actually caused people to suffer without any form of happiness attached at all, he would advise people to completely abandon it.
>>7692944
I don't think Epicurus is using the word pleasure there in the same meaning as was used earlier in the thread.
>>7692951
kατειρωνεύομαι
Stoicism is more practical and applicable to one's own life. Quite fond of Aristotle's ethics too tbqhwyl (to be quite honest with you lads).
>>7692957
>not from an abstract moral sense
I mean as in altruism, sorry. I don't think he necessarily cared whether things were altruistic or not in the end, just as long as they produced the greatest amount of the 'greatest good'.
>>7692959
For the life of me I cannot understand how kατειρωνεύομαι is meant to be even remotely translatable to pleasure. Whose translation are you using?
>>7692980
Tuft's
>>7692983
I'm guessing it's from Diogenes'
Diogenes Laertius but I can't find a translation by Tuft. I think we have to admit to 4chan not being a particularly good place to be trying to get into the atomic level linguistics of the matter.
>>7692915
>nyhow this pursuit of virtue allows them to be good regardless of circumstance. It is not a philosophy about being mentally imperturbable in the way an epicurean is about this sort of tranquility
Don't the stoics also want ataraxia and tranquility?
>>7693000
;)
kατειρωνεύομαι ,
A.use irony towards, banter, τινας Plu.2.211d, cf. Cat.Ma.11; τινος J.BJ7.8.1, al., Jul.Or.6.198b; “τῆς ἀγνοίας” J.BJ4.3.1: abs., -όμενος jestingly, Parth.7.2, cf. Plu.Agis18.
>>7693000
I wasn't very clear there. We are starting to stretch my knowledge on the subject so it starts to get a bit hazy from here on but (and here you will have to imagine me adding I think or in my opinion to the end of most of my sentences) for the stoic ataraxia natural follows from their practicable reasoning but it's not the end goal of their philosophy.
>>7693014
Did you respond to the wrong person?
>>7693023
yeah lol
>>7693030
I'm just not understanding why anyone would translate that word to be pleasure. If I reread the quote and put ironic banter or something like that instead of pleasure the sentence means something very different.
I need to sleep, it's 3:30AM. Hopefully surprising shitpost lacking thread keeps going good while I'm away.
You might as well give yourself a frontal lobotomy to go with your autism, if you chose stoicism.
>>7693345
Lad I've been shitposting throughout this thread.
>>7693382
And yet it was better than when lit tries.
Why not a little bit of both
>The stoic lifestyle prevents passions
Could you elaborate on this? My understanding of stoicism is that on the way to achieving true stoicism is to not focus on the externals, but once you've made it, you're free to pursue anything because you have a strong foundation in yourself.
>>7692915
The problem with this is that 'pleasant things feel pleasant and unpleasant things feel unpleasant' is a very agreeable stance to most while stoicism is completely arbitrary in its goals.
>>7694266
To continue on this: Epicureanism is a secular stance while Stoicism enters the domain of religion, it requires a certain pantheistic worldview in which there is a divine order with which one either does or does not live in accordance with.
If I were to be religious, I'd turn towards the Church, not to Greek pantheists.
would it be a bastardization of stoicism to apply it's teachings for an ever positive view. I understand that much of stoicism is the practice of changing your perspective on external events. With this in mind, could you choose to let passions about various externals in only to detach yourself from them if they become unpleasant? Would this weaken the overall armor of the stoic? I feel a little silly trying to describe this idea, if anyone can interpret or respond to this, please do.
>>7694299
You can't get attached without getting hurt if the object of attachment gets fucked, anon. It's like gambling, you have to invest to win which implies the possibility of losing as well. The chances are even worse than at the casino, though. You will inevitably lose everything.
>>7694312
thanks anon
>>7694266
Stoicism is a lot of things, but "arbitrary" isn't one of them.
>>7694327
Their main values are completely unfounded to be honest.
Of course in the strictest sense so are hedonistic approaches (or any at all, for that matter), but most people at least feel an intuitive connection with the notion of avoiding suffering and achieving pleasure while Stoic 'virtue' is such an ambiguous abstraction that it has little going for it.
The idea that one can either live in accordance with nature or not live in accordance with nature is in itself silly, by the way. It's like telling a rooster he's not crowing roosterly enough and that he should look towards the divine order which encompasses everything as it is already in order to discover how to act more roosterly. It's pretty absurd.
>>7694254
When you say pursue anything do you mean like a stoic could be a farmer, general, tax accountant if he wanted? In that sense a stoic can live any sort of lifestyle so long as it is virtuous. However the mindset will be the same for all of them. If you are talking about being able to do what they want including having passions that is impossible. Stoics can prefer, but they can't passionately want.
>>7694349
Their virtues are all tied to a sense of human teleology which can still be made functional without their cosmological teleology. In that sense it isn't so different from the Aristotelian sense of virtue (although they would disagree on what some of the virtues and vices would be). Considering that virtue ethics has exploded in academia in the last 50ish years, with lots of really interesting things happening right now (which most people outside of academia won't learn about for another 20 years) I think it's a bit presumptuous to just say that virtue has little going for it. I may be a virtue ethicist but I can't just hand wave deontology or utilitarianism away.
I think virtue is a far more intuitive notion than pleasure. After all even an epicurean has to be fairly virtuous in order to be able to pursue pleasure in the way they do. Without virtuous character it is impossible to have any consistent ability to live pleasurably.
Stoicism is easily co-opted into modern virtue ethical systems.
The answer is objectively stoicism, though it's worth noting that almost everyone ITT doesn't understand Epicurus' notion of pleasure.
How can you even pick one when you're just piecing together a bunch of fragments?and the answer is epicureanism anyways because there's no god
>>7695438
The term God is misleading here. Also stoicism can be made to function without a universal telos. I've said this in several stoic threads already but read Becker's A New Stoicism as he outlines what stoicism might look like if it were a tradition that lasted until the modern day. He makes a very compelling case for stoicism that is fully integrated with modern philosophy.
>>7695702
>Becker's A New Stoicism
I'll check it out thanks for the recommendation. I love reading Epictetus being all preachy and shit but I have a hard time the God/determinism stuff. I guess that's two separate issues.
>>7694611
Which interesting things happening are you referring to? I haven't studied contemporary ethics in some years but I don't recall coming across any game changers.
>>7695438
Fragments? Lucretius' work survives in fulland it's far better than any stoic shite
Pyrrhonism
