Monday, February 15, 2010
From what i've learned both philosophys invlove life-avoidance.Epicureans believe their purpose in life should be based souly on peace of mind, happiness, and pleasure. Epicureans favored living in a way as to obtain the greatest amount of pleasure possible during one’s lifetime, yet doing it reasonably in order to avoid suffering.For them it is best to maximize pleasure so one does not feel fear or pain. They believe nothing lasts forever so why not make the most of it. But how can one say their lived life if they never felt pain. fear,pain,suffering; those are the things that causes us to grow and learn from our mistakes. And learning and growing is indeed apart of life. Honestly, how would one truly know happiness if they never experienced pain. I beleive if we do not open ourselves to even the idea of pain the possiblity of reaching our higher self diminishes.I would like the idea of not feeling pain i mean who wouldn't but realistically life is not life without suffering. Stoics on the other hand emphasizes self- control and believe all things happen for a reason. For them it is not what a person said but how they behaved. To Stoics certain emotions were the result of bad judgement and errors. They too are avoiding life. Stoics cherish the happiness afterlife more then anything. by concentrating so much on the after life, they are unable to see the true joy of their present life. Why wait for happiness when you could have it now? I think by following these ways one is cheating themsleves and life and those are two things that shouldn't be cheated.
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I don't think Epicurean's would claim that they've "lived life" but rather they've made the best of their situation (a life that contains pain) by trying to minimize the amount of pain they feel in life. They don't deny that there is pain in life or that it is a part of life; they just don't want anything to do with it. If you said to an Epicurian that a certain kind of pain makes you happy, he might look at you and say that what you're describing, by definition, cannot be pain since happiness is the absence of pain.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe that stoics focus that much on an afterlife but instead they try to keep their life in balance by approaching events as they happen and do not focus so much on if something is "good" or "bad" because to them it is just another event in an eventful life. Also epicureans do not dismiss pain completely but they try to have as little of it as possible. i believe that they acknowledge that there will be pain throughout life but that it make life less complicated and more joyful if they didn't focus on the bad parts.
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