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5

I believe that the Stoic point of view makes more sense in this situation because from personal experience i can vouch that overcomingadversity and accomplishing a dificult task does bring happiness. I believe to go through life tryin avoid pain is hardly living at all. Pain is just another aspect of life that everyone has to experience. Avoiding pain is avoiding many situations that help you learn adapt and in the end succeed. I dont know one successful person that has gone without avoiding pain. Avoiding things that are difficult will not help you grow and gain knowlege of things where as one who fights and overcomes adversity will in the long run, be happier.

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.

Blog Post #5

Despite being similar in seeking avoidance of life, Stoics and Epicureans differ in their approaches to reach happiness. Epicureans live a very active lifestyle in always doing things for pleasure and making the most out of pleasurable opportunities because they believe nothing lasts forever. Their goal is to seek maximum pleasure and completely avoid pain in order to reach happiness. Although this seems like an ideal lifestyle, it is not a viable philosophy because it's impossible to avoid pain. Avoiding pain is like avoiding life because pain is a part of life. A Stoic would probably criticize an Epicurean for always living in the moment.. On the other hand, Stoics use happiness as a strategy for survival, which means that they are not likely to live in the moment, but wait until they're life is over to find happiness. They are willing to sit back and accept pain, unlike the Epicureans. Yet Stoics are still avoiding life because they believe whatever they do now doesn't really matter because they'll end up achieving happiness when they get to the afterlife. So essentially, it seems that both philosophies end up backfiring on the individuals themselves because making the most out of life's pleasures and avoiding pain isn't going to help one achieve happiness, nor is passively allowing whatever happen happen because in the end happiness will come in the afterlife. Neither philosophy is realistic. Epicureanism would only be fun for a short time but since you're avoiding pain, nothing will benefit from or learned. Stoicism is wasting your life being stolid and never experiencing the excitements of life. So basically, avoiding life isn't going bring you happiness.

Epicurianis vs. Stoicism

Although both Epicureanism and Stoicism both have important ideas to offer and some good practices which should be brought into our everyday lives, I see Stoicism as a philosophy of life avoidance. I do not believe that there is one person ever that has not felt emotions which the Stoic philosophy seems to condemn. There was never a person who did not at least feel a small twinge of regret at having lost something or remorse for having done something because the people that seems to be true stoics merely exists in Hollywood films and ancient myths. I believe that even if you are looking at something in the best of lights, there is no way to block out the feelings which human nature provides. How can everything always happen for the best when so many things are wrong? How can genocide be for the best? How can a plane crash be for the best? How can a war be for the best? It makes no sense to me, because you can rationalize it any way you want but the fact is that bad things happen and they are not always for a good reason. Passion and emotion are important traits that make humans what we are. If we were to erase emotion then we couldn’t say that we are even alive. you might as well be shut up in a cardboard box alone because there would be no point to life if you felt one monotonous emotion all the time, you would just be a sack of flesh, aimlessly wandering wherever you are told duty calls. Epicureanism on the other hand does not suppress emotions but instead promotes happiness and peace of mind. Epicureans do not face every day with the same somber outlook because they only want to be happy. If all people only wanted to be happy, than there would be less anger, less war and less suffering in the world. I believe that people as epicureans would find happiness in other peoples joy and society would become stronger as a whole.

Blog Post 5

Both epicurean and stoic philosophies aim to live life in the best way possible. In a way, they thus also aim to attain the greatest amount of happiness from life, albeit in different ways. Both philosophies center around how to live one's life in the best, fullest way possible, and as both cater to different people's subjective views on what exactly the best way to live is, neither philosophy should have an issue with the other.

I doubt an epicurean could legitimately criticize a stoic for living their life in the manner of their philosophy; an epicurean's attempts to maximize pleasure in the long term, and if a stoic finds pleasure in overcoming difficulties and challenges, then an epicurean should encourage that stoic to do so. Similarly, an epicurean might find pleasure through hard work and overcoming adversity. If this is so, a stoic would have no problem with that epicurean. However, he or she should still have no problem if the epicurean derived pleasure from simple, natural, and easier life occurrences. The stoic seems to place great value in the end achievement, particularly if that achievement happened after overcoming adversity. This fails to acknowledge that the epicurean's "smaller" pleasures make the large successes worthwhile, and therefore just as valuable.

Personally, neither philosophy seems complete. While it's true that an ideal epicurean would help others (foreseeing that giving help would make him/herself more likely to receive help, etc.), the assistance would be not out of a sense of charity, but out of a cold, calculated decision to further personal gain. Truly caring about others is deemed silly.

An epicurean might counter that as there's only this life, one's own pleasure is the only thing that matters. And if it gives one pleasure to help others, then by all means one should. I get that argument, to a certain extent, but I still feel that through our common humanity there lies at the very least a duty to help and care for others. At best, we help others because we truly care about others, not out of self interest or a resigned sense of duty. Why must there be a reward in an afterlife to make charity necessary or worthwhile?

And that's where the stoics join in the fray. They believe that all events happen for the best, that neither failure nor success should faze one, and that people have a duty to be a force for good. It seems inexplicably passive to unblinkingly accept that all events happen for the good of all (the earthquake in Haiti, for example) and unnecessarily and purposefully cold to force oneself to not be excited or saddened by the events in one's life. What's the point in living if people frown upon and discourage emotions and emotional reactions? Humans (clearly) are not robots; the memorable moments in our lives are the emotional ones. Sadness makes happiness that much sweeter by comparison, and avoiding the worst of the emotions isn't worth discarding the best.

Epicureans and stoics aim to live life to the fullest. They both want to get the most possible out of their lives, but because of their goal both philosophies end up avoiding key parts of life. Epicureans, through their selfishness, miss genuine connections to others. Stoics, through their focus on achievement, miss simple, natural pleasures. In the end, both philosophies are ones of life-avoidance.

Even though Epicureans and Stoics differ in their points of view, I think that they both end up achieving the same thing. Stoics achieve happiness over a long time and work, while Epicureans achieve happiness by living in the moment. a Stoic would criticize an Epicurean for maybe having fun by going out to bars every night with friends and having a job that doesnt really go anywhere. An epicurean would criticize a Stoic for working really hard to get that promotion so they can retire comfortably. Both views however lead to happiness which is the important thing.