Essays on Epicurus

[Class Title]

Introduction Conscience is one of the most commonly experienced psychological faculty of an individual, but is also one of the least understood. For many years, little attention have been given towards understanding conscience; particularly on how it is shaped and who influenced the modern understanding of this concept. Nevertheless, conscience is an important phenomenon that requires significant attention primarily because it impacts all human judgment. The manifestation of conscience delineates man from other animals species as conscience is proof of man’s self-consciousness; an attribute that is only observable among human species. As a learned psychological faculty, ...

Alain de Botton in his book, ‘The Consolations of Philosophy’ attempts to help his readers understand and deal with everyday problems by quoting six philosophers- Nietzsche, Seneca, Socrates, Montaigne, Epicurus and Schopenhauer- and interjecting their teachings with anecdotes and his ideas. Botton deals with the topics of unpopularity (Socrates), not being rich (Epicurus), Frustration (Seneca), Inadequacy (Montaigne), Heartbreak (Schopenhauer) and Difficulties (Nietzsche). The book is a veritable mix of the philosophies exposed by these philosophers as well as anecdotes and quips from the author. In the chapter about Seneca, Botton not only explains Seneca’s views on frustration and ...

Is Death an Evil?

Death, the most bitter and debilitating aspect of human life, is also a moot question among scholars. While some view it as a 'normal' part of human existence in this materialistic world, others dread it and prefer to avoid discussing this bleak end of human life. This paper sides with the optimistic viewpoint. It considers death as the end of only organic survival, not the suspension of the eternal soul that soon starts its 'another' journey. Even if we shun the soul immortality and consider death as the permanent end of life, there is no point in considering it ...

Most people do not realize the nature of fear and the reasons for its occurrence. Fear cannot be explained with a rational explanation as it is virtual in most cases, the fear of death or Thanatophobia is justified by its connection with disease, pain, loneliness, and suffering. Epiricus represents the first premise that death is not something one should fear death is no misfortune and being dead does not affect one who is dead therefore it is not bad for a dead man.as the fear of death is vain. According to them, human life is limited to the moment ...

Jesus Christ is, regardless of what one believes about his divinity, undoubtedly one of the most important historical figures in human history. His legacy today is indicated by the 34,000 different denominations and sects of Christianity comprising 2.4 billion Christians—a full third of the world’s population (Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, n.p.). But in order to fully appreciate what it means to follow Jesus, one has to look at the world in which he preached, and the state of his following by the end of the first millennium. Jesus’s teachings had unique features that stood ...

Precisely, most people do not realize the nature of fear and the reasons for its occurrence. The reason is that a fear deadens mind, thus, a person cannot oppose it with rational explanation. In most cases, the fear of death or thanatophobia is justified by its connection with any disease, pain, loneliness, and suffering. There is also a belief that death is not bad and people should not be afraid of it because fear is a burden for a human being. For example, Epicurus and his followers believed that a person does not feel pain or suffering at the ...

Slide 1 – Epicurus

With your permission, I will begin. Today I would like to speak to you about a greek philosopher who left a mark in the history of this subject – Epicurus.

Slide 2 – Index

My presentation will consist of several parts. I will start with a small introduction and then tell you more about this philosophy. You will learn about what was considered the pleasures of life and what were the true virtues as seen by this philosopher. In the end I would like to challenge you to a discussion about a quote of Epicurus. And of course give you places to look for more information.

Slide 3 - Introduction

Epicurus was an ...

Ethics and the role of ethics in almost every field have made its position either it is the field of philosophy or it is the field of modern capitalist organizations. The concept of ethics in philosophy and in the business organizations is different, but the purpose of emphasizing on ethics is for the benefits of the people either in the form of student or the form of customer. The concept of ethics is as old as the epistemology of philosophy is. The ancient philosophers including Aristotle and Epicurus have touched in their theories on it. The philosophy of ...

Introduction

Throughout the historical background of humankind, numerous scholars, researchers, and theologians have pondered the idea of evil, the presence of God, and even if God exists, whether He posses supreme and illustrative powers of unending goodness. After the first individual looked up to the sky and mulled over the origination of natural occurrences or the reasons why unpleasant things occur to good individuals, mankind has gotten affianced in a constant discussion over problem of evil and its connection to God's presence and whether He epitomizes unfathomable worthiness or tempered retaliation (Ryan). Various researchers and logicians have contended that the vicinity ...

In this paperwork, I am going to respond to the following questions-the problem of change and how Aristotle come up with a solution, the differences between Aristotle’s conception of cause ad the modern one, the final causes according to Aristotle, the virtus dormitiva objection, and the reason why Epicurus think it does not matter to us when we die.

I am now going to state the differences between Aristotle’s conception of cause and the modern one. Competent causation, whereby, he argues that causation has to be a relation among events, since the modern one argues that things can ...

Two different moral philosophies, utilitarianism and Kant’s categorical imperative are utilized for analyzing whether J.’s action of embezzling her employer was correct, even if the end was to provide a better private tuition for her son. The utilitarianism philosophy is based on the principle of doing the greatest good for the biggest amount of individuals, while being free from pain and engaging in pleasure (Mill 220). However, the utilitarianism ethics provides that there should be clearly specified between simple, animal pleasures, and elevated pleasures, of which individuals with high intellectual capacities are capable. In this sense, Mill ( ...

Introduction and thesis statement

Human action and society have been molded upon generations of interaction between past inhabitants of this planet. It is upon this richness and growth that practices are recognized as best practices or as out-rightly wrong. The presence of such guiding principles is useful in leading of the present organized lives that we enjoy. In this progression, philosophy has played a key role in formulating principles or guidelines upon which we can understand our actions, their implications, their motivation and the interdependence between various actions. The formulation of philosophies such as utilitarianism has acted as a base upon which philosophers can examine ...

Epicureanism is a philosophical system of teachings that were advanced by an atomic materialist known as Epicurus. The teachings of Epicurus suggested that pleasure is the greatest good and it is important that one achieves this pleasure by living a modest life and trying to achieve knowledge and education about different mechanisms of this earth and limiting one’s longings. Epicurus taught that if happiness is present in our lives then we have in our possession all we require but if we lack happiness then we do all we can in order to achieve it. He argued that for one to ...

In point of fact, that which defines eudemonia today is different from what defined the same centuries ago. This is the main reason why some of the views of different philosophers are applicable to different extents in the contemporary world. Speaking of eudemonia, Aristotle and Epicurus are among the most noteworthy philosophers. On the topic of the relationship between eudemonia and virtue, the two philosophers agreed to a certain extent. For instance, they both subscribed to the fact that the two concepts had a positive relationship. However, they differed at some point with Aristotle arguing that virtue was a constituent of eudemonia ...

ABSTRACT

Larry Gopnik was an ordinary, average ‘good man’ who tried to live an ethical life while advancing his mediocre life as a physics professor, when his personal and professional life fall apart on him completely. Nothing makes sense or has meaning any more, and Larry struggles to find out why all these disasters have occurred to him. No one can tell him why, though, not even the rabbis at the synagogue. It just seems that God and the universe are completely arbitrary and unjust, and Epicurus would have told him this was because there was no God. There was no ...

In the field of ethics, intrinsic value refers to a property that is philosophical in nature, that an object or individual possesses within itself, for the sake of its well-being. Intrinsic value is fundamentally an unseen characteristic that exists within the fields of an individual’s psychology. Intrinsic properties are mental in nature. On the other hand, instrumental value that is basically the opposite of the intrinsic value refers to the outer and in most cases visible property that reflects the mental and psychological state of a person. For instance, the possession of vast amounts of wealth reflects happiness and satisfaction. ...

1. Introduction This thesis shall be limited to a critical analysis of Alain de Botton’s book, The Consolations of Philosophy; of the year 2000 which introduced a new perspective not only to the study of philosophy but also its application in our day to day lives. It is significant to point out that this book was a follow-up of the original Consolation of Philosophy that was written by Boethius in 524 A.D. basically, Boethius personified philosophy as a woman whereby he asserted paradoxical relationship between fortune and misfortune especially in relation to the phenomenon of human happiness. Therefore whilst the latter ...

Abstract

Ancient Greek Philosophy has many implications in numerous spheres of modern life, such as psychology, communication, leadership, economics and others. It is very important to learn ancient philosophy in order to be able to explore scale thinking because many contemporary ideas take their roots in ancient philosophical concepts. The current paper is devoted to the research of two questions. The first one relates conversation between Socrates and Simmias regarding primary nature of body and soul. The problem of mutual influence of body and soul was raised and discussed in detail. In the second part of the paper ...

Meaning of Life

I am sure that everyone thinks over the questions of life meaning from time to time, someone more seriously, while others just in a matter-of-fact way. One of the characteristic features of such questions is that answers to them are constantly changing along with the way a person evolves and develops. Moreover, this question is largely influenced by the person’s environment and the time period, in which he/she lives. Although there are major differences between different world views, it is possible to single out certain tendencies in the life meaning perceptions that are prevalent among people. And these tendencies don’ ...

The philosophy of Epicureanism was founded around 307 BC and it was based upon the teachings of Epicurus, a Greek philosopher. The philosophy of Epicureanism was that pleasure was the greatest good and the means of doing so were by leading a modest life, knowing the limits of one’s desires, understanding the workings of the world as well as through friendship. By doing so, a person would achieve a state of tranquility (ataraxia) and be free from fear as well as physical pain (aponia). Hermarchus carried on the philosophy of Epicurus and also headed his school after his demise. The existing writing ...