Expository Response Assignment - Virtual High School (VHS) - HZT4U

PanHelp
HZT4U c2, Philosophy: Questions and Theories, 12, University - Virtual High School (VHS)
Unit Assignment: Expository Response
Assignment Help | 100% Plagiarism Free | Success Assured | Email Now to get quote – admin@panhelp.com

For this assignment you are asked to read and respond to David Suits’ article entitled “An Epicurean Ideal” found :
'An Epicurean Ideal' by David Suits
An Epicurean Ideal
David Suits fearlessly pursues a materialistic life of simple pleasures.
In 306 BCE, Epicurus, who was then about 35 years old, purchased a house on the outskirts of Athens. He invited
people to stay in this Garden (as it came to be called) in order to discuss philosophy and to live a relatively simple and
self sufficient life in the company of friends and fellows.
The Garden was the first of many such Epicurean communities, and was still in existence five hundred years later.
The promise of the Garden was simple: happiness. This Epicurus described (somewhat misleadingly) as a kind of
pleasure.
Apparently all people were welcome, including slaves and women. The fact that some of the participants were
women, and the fact that the Epicurean message had something to do with pleasure, were no doubt important
reasons why some outsiders sought to characterize the Epicureans as wanton pleasure seekers – a reputation which
Epicureans were constantly having to fight against, even down to the present day.
Pleasure was indeed a key concept in Epicurus’ teachings, but it was precisely not the pleasure of orgies or of
fancy food and drink or other luxuries. (Nothing on epicurus.com or associated web sites would be pursued by an
Epicurean.) Rather, to an Epicurean, a pleasurable life was one free from physical pain, and much more importantly,
free from anxiety and mental turmoil. A wise Epicurean would be a careful and prudent person who maintained a life
of calm simplicity.
The ultimate goal for Epicurean philosophy was ataraxic, which is peace of mind, or tranquillity – characteristic of a
life which perceives no serious problems. Ataraxic requires above all the removal of certain very disturbing fears found
in most people and in most cultures: fear of the gods, fear of the afterlife, and fear of death. Let’s consider them in
order.

FEAR OF GODS
Like Democritus a generation earlier, Epicurus was an atomist. Atomists said that the universe consists of an infinity of
indivisible (= Greek atom) particles moving about in nothingness. Everything is a combination of atoms – usually a temporary
combination, because the impact of free atoms crashing into something will eventually break it up. Since there is an infinity of
atoms, there are an infinity of worlds, many of which are like our own. In between the worlds is mostly empty space.
If everything is made of atoms then the gods are made of atoms too. But the gods have a unique feature: they inhabit
the space between the worlds. So the gods are free from the hazards of wayward atoms. Thus the gods are eternal. But this
also means that they can receive no information from the worlds, and they can have no causal effect on any world.
These Epicurean gods, then, are quite unlike the usual Greek conception of gods as super beings, focusing their
attention on humans in order to cause them fortune or disaster and requiring humans to offer sacrifices or other propitiations,
which sometimes seemed to work and sometimes not. Epicurean gods were not to be feared, because they could do nothing
to you. They could not even know about you. The gods were rather to be emulated: the gods remain undisturbed, and that is
precisely what we ought to strive for.
FEAR OF THE AFTERLIFE
Many people think and thought that after death there will be another life, possibly an unpleasant life in the underworld.
Uncertainties about what this afterlife will be and what miseries it might bring are grounds for anxiety, and such anxiety
interferes with a serene life. Epicurus had a remedy: if everything is made of atoms, then so are we. We are different from
other things in having a soul, but the soul, too, is made of atoms. (Apparently they were exceedingly fine, slippery atoms,
and difficult to contain.) At death both the body and soul are dissolved. There can be no such thing as life after destruction.
Consequently there is no afterlife to be afraid of.

FEAR OF DEATH
But annihilation without an afterlife is precisely what many people dread. Epicurean theory provides a remedy for this
tranquillity disturbance: everything which is good or bad, desirable or undesirable, can ultimately produce pleasure or
pain, either directly or indirectly. But death, which is the destruction of a material entity, cannot result in pain, simply
because after the destruction of the experiencing being there is no longer any being to experience anything. Other
people might regret your death, of course, but you will not be able to. Once you realize that your death will have no
consequences for you because there will no longer be a you, then you should realize that there’s nothing to fear, not
even in advance. That is to say, there’s no point in fearing (or regretting, worrying, or being anxious about) something if
you know that when it happens it cannot possibly cause you any pain, either directly or indirectly. “Death,” Epicureans
say, “is nothing to us.”
THE SIMPLE LIFE
Once these three most serious fears have been dealt with, only relatively trivial problems remain – trivial in that they are
usually solved without much difficulty: enough food to keep the body healthy, and a community of friends to help with
the life of the mind. Friends also make the necessities of life easier to get, and so friends are useful for many ordinary
situations, and for an occasional emergency. Friendship is therefore important for purely egoistic, instrumental reasons.
But good friends eventually become valuable ‘in themselves’, as we sometimes say. A simple life is easy to achieve and
easy to maintain in the company of friends. This is not to say that luxuries and special pleasures are to be avoided. A
prudent person will not go looking for them, but will enjoy them if the opportunity presents itself. The general Epicurean
principle is, if you discard all desires which are difficult to satisfy, you will probably be exempt from anxiety and
frustration. This means you should avoid public life, which tempts you with power and riches. The pursuit of these easily
causes mental turmoil and the loss of friends, and usually you feel unfulfilled even if you do get the power you wanted.
In any case, there’s no end to it: you always want more. “Live unknown” is an injunction attributed to Epicurus.

ANARCHY IN ARCADIA
Just as Epicurean friendship has an instrumental value, Epicurean social justice has to do with the utility of social
relationships. Epicurus is quite clear that any concept of justice as something more or other than what is useful, for
mutual associations, and ultimately, for tranquillity, is, well, useless. In particular, laws inconsistent with utility are not
part of justice. For Epicurus, justice involves a contract (or agreement or understanding) of mutual non interference – a
contract ‘not to harm or be harmed’. A just society would require a great tolerance of others, then. If people act in ways
that don’t interfere with you directly or indirectly, the Epicurean response is to leave them alone to pursue their own
goals in their own ways. One of the greatest modern advocates of personal liberty, J. S. Mill, was explicitly indebted to a
rich Epicurean tradition.
If a society were populated with only wise Epicureans, there would be no need for an explicit contract not to
harm, because wise Epicureans would have no motive to harm. So not only are Epicureans tolerant, they also have no
desire for power, whether power to obtain goods or power over others. Since such desires interfere with tranquillity,
wise people would not be motivated by them. Epicurean theory, then, seems to lead to a vision of utopia where fairly
satisfied people live in security with each other, dealing with each other when and how it would be in their interests to
do so, and otherwise leaving each other alone.
This sounds anarchical. But Epicurus was not explicitly an anarchist, and so we may wonder whether an ideal
Garden type community might instead have a very limited government, whose main function would be to help resolve
disagreements and to keep potential troublemakers in line. This seems unlikely. For one thing, it’s not clear why a
government would be the preferred tool for resolving any disputes. And in any case, wise Epicureans – satisfied,
prudent people living amongst friends – would not look for coercive solutions. In an ideal society, the coercive power of
a government would be worse than useless; it would be an interference in the good life and antithetical to Epicurean
principles. This is why Epicurus founded his Garden as a retreat from, and an alternative to, the polis [Greek city state]
as a community ruled by force.

On the other hand, any less than ideal society would contain many people who were not wise Epicureans. In
such a society, prudent people will want security not from each other but from these imprudent people –
people who do not know their own long term interests and who might pursue power and therefore interfere in
the lives of others. In this case, perhaps some sort of very minimal government could have a peacekeeping
role. However, it is not clear that even this limited role should be given over to a government rather than to
private security forces, say, or perhaps to ad hoc committees or vigilante groups whose members would come
together temporarily in order to confront a particular breach of the peace.
THE IDEAL IS NOT SOCIAL
The Epicurean agreement not to harm might seem rather incomplete: it seems to leave out some issues which
people usually think of as important for justice, such as public happiness or social welfare. An agreement not
to harm is not an agreement intended to ensure the general welfare; it is not for the sake of the community,
but only for the benefit of individuals qua individuals. So Epicureans seem to be merely self interested and not
truly social. Epicurean communities, such as the Garden, did indeed tend to be somewhat self sufficient and
isolated, and therefore seen by outsiders as being disinterested in others, as not participating in the larger
social structures. So Epicureans were seen as poor citizens. Probably most people would not find Garden life
very attractive; it could seem ultimately unfulfilling. But that would not surprise Epicurus. He knew that most
people are raised to believe that power and riches are desirable, that death is to be feared, and that a life of
simplicity amongst friends would be unsatisfying.
It may be true that most Epicureans were mediocre citizens, but it was not their intention to participate in
civic affairs. The purpose of the Garden was simply to show how personal happiness can be achieved. It was
to be achieved not by trying to create a utopia, nor by reorganizing society, but rather by reorganizing a
person’s knowledge and beliefs – which is to say, by giving the person instruction in philosophy.

Please contact to get complete assignment
Email - admin@panhelp.com
Most importantly, your response must
be expository meaning that your
main aim should be to explain and
describe the article as if the reader of
your work has never read it before.
This is not the time to raise your
opinion and, instead, you should stick
to representing strictly the facts and
main ideas of the article. You will be
graded on your ability to explain the
article accurately and in your words
and to present your findings in a clear
and organized format.
The overarching goal of Epicurean philosophy was something called
ataraxic,
which revolves around the peace of mind. Ataraxic requires the
removal of certain fears found in the majority of people such as the
fear of gods, fear of the afterlife, and fear of death. Fear of gods can
be easily removed because “Epicurean gods were not to be feared,
because they could do nothing to you. They could not even know
about you” (Suits, 2008). By the same token, fear of the afterlife could
also be removed because Epicurus believed that both the body and
soul dissolve at death – there can be no such thing as life after
destruction. Hence, “there is no afterlife to be afraid of” (Suits, 2008).
The fear of death can be removed because death (which is the
destruction of a material entity) cannot result in pain or any other
experience because after death you can no longer experience
anything. Hence, as Suits argues, there is no point in fearing or
regretting something if you know that when it happens it cannot
possibly cause you any pain. Likewise, Epicureans believed that
“death is nothing to us” (Suits, 2008).

Please contact to get complete assignment
Email - admin@panhelp.com
The assignment should be 12 pages in
length, double spaced and written
in Times New Roman font, size 12.

Expository Response Assignment - Virtual High School (VHS) - HZT4U

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

More from Michael Taylor

More from Michael Taylor (9)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)