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Emily Austin on Stoicism's Rival (Episode 34)
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In this episode, I speak with Emily Austin. Emily is the professor of philosophy at Wake Forest University and she's also the author of Living for Pleasure, which is an introduction to the ancient philosophy of Epicureanism, and that's what we'll be focusing on today.
Ancient Stoics, like Seneca, found a lot of wisdom in Stoicism’s philosophical rival, we can do the same today. We talk about Stoicism’s ancient rival, whether it makes sense as a philosophy today, and what the Epicurean life would look like.
(01:30) What is Epicureanism?
(08:11) Misinterpreting Epicureanism
(12:09) Epicureanism vs Utilitarianism
(15:52) What makes Epicureans different
(29:09) Does Epicureanism defeat itself?
(35:03) Living the Epicurean life
(40:21) Why aren't we happy all the time
(42:27) Learning how to die
(49:40) Takeaways
***
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Transcript
The Importance of Choosing Good Friends
00:00:00
Speaker
So I think that a lot of people want friends and don't have them. And I think it's because for various reasons, we choose our friends badly. We focus on the wrong things and friendship and, and then the good friends we have, we failed to prioritize them. And so I think the centrality of friendship and the need for friends and Epicureanism really appeals to me, especially as I age and, you know, various friends go through difficult
Introduction to 'Stoa Conversations' & Epicureanism
00:00:25
Speaker
times.
00:00:25
Speaker
Welcome to Stowe Conversations. In this podcast, Michael Trombley and I discuss the theory and practice of stoicism. Each week we'll share two conversations, one between the two of us, and another we'll be an in-depth conversation with and experts.
Emily Austin on Epicureanism
00:00:43
Speaker
In this episode, I speak with Emily Austin. Emily is a professor of philosophy at Wake Forest University, and she is also the author of Living for Pleasure, which is an introduction to the ancient philosophy of Epicureanism. Ancient Stoics, like Seneca, found a lot of wisdom in Stoics' philosophical rival. We can do the same today.
Epicureanism vs. Stoicism
00:01:08
Speaker
Emily and I talk about what Epicureanism is, what the Epicurean life would look like, and why it matters. Here is our conversation. Welcome to Stoa Conversations. My name is Caleb Ontiveros, and today I am speaking with Dr. Emily Austin. Thanks for joining. Yeah, thanks for having me. So let's start with a broad question. What is Epicureanism?
00:01:34
Speaker
That's a big question. I'm sure you get that when you, when people ask you what Stoicism is. But Epicureanism and Stoicism are actually more head-to-head competitors. They started in Athens at roughly the same time. So Zeno of Chitium and Epicurus were both founding their schools in Athens.
00:01:53
Speaker
And so they're both systematic philosophies, so in that sense, Epicureanism and Stoicism are similar. But Epicureanism is sort of distinguished on two fronts. One is that it grounds everything in a very specific account of natural science that greatly resembles modern natural science, actually.
00:02:11
Speaker
And then as an outgrowth of that natural science, it's a hedonistic philosophy. So since it sees human beings as animals among other animals and animals explore the world by means of their five senses and pleasure and pain, Epicurus thinks that's the way we discover the world as well. And so he roots his
00:02:32
Speaker
natural science of human beings and hedonism.
Epicurus' Philosophical Views
00:02:36
Speaker
But he thinks that unlike other animals, we have the sophisticated rational capacities that animals, so to speak, lower order animals don't. So we have an awareness of ourselves in time. We have a past, a present, and future. We can anticipate the future, remember the past, and enjoy or savor the present.
00:02:56
Speaker
And so he thinks these special capacities give rise to another sort of complex set of pleasures and pains. And he thinks that by and large, if we're living prudentially, what we want to do is lessen those anxieties and hopefully that will free up mental space and time to pursue various kinds of pleasures.
00:03:16
Speaker
And so his system actually was not simply about what we think of as sort of whether or not I should order takeaway today because it costs a lot of money and I could cook in the kitchen. So it's not simply prudential things. It's also big picture things like the relationship between humans and gods and the nature of death. And so in that respect, it's also a lot like stoicism. It's not just about daily living. It's about the big questions that we have.
00:03:42
Speaker
So one quick way to think about Epicureanism was not made by Epicurus himself. It was made by some of his later followers. But they distilled much of his teaching into what's sometimes called the fourfold remedy. And the fourfold remedy is that God presents no fears, death no evils, the good is easy to get, and the bad is easy to endure. So let me just walk you through those really quickly. And then any follow-up questions, of course, to expand them is great.
00:04:10
Speaker
So the Epicureans think God presents no evils, and some people think that's because the Epicureans were atheists, but Epicurus insists he's not,
Managing Pain and Mental Tranquility
00:04:19
Speaker
and I take him at his word. That says his account of the gods is very uncommon, so he doesn't think the gods create the world or make it go into non-existence. The gods didn't create the world for our benefit, and they don't intervene in the world either to punish or reward.
00:04:35
Speaker
And so they don't create or destroy, punish or reward. And Epicurus thinks that that's an outgrowth of his physics. So that's not how the world came into being. But he also thinks it's sort of impious to think that the gods would reward or punish human beings. So it's kind of beneath them. And so he thinks that we can live a good life on our own without dependence on the will of the gods, and they don't need anything from us because they're self-sufficient.
00:05:03
Speaker
So he thinks we can live a perfectly good life free of fears of the gods, though they do again exist. And then the second is death. Death presents no evils or death is no reason for fear. And there he has kind of two accounts. Again, some people might think that you shouldn't fear death because we're immortal. And again, Epicurus is going to deny that much like most of the Stoics did. So he thinks that death is annihilation.
00:05:29
Speaker
But that because pleasure and pain are our sources of good and badness and annihilation has no pleasure or pain, then death can't be bad for us. And it makes no sense to fear what's not bad. But he also thinks that there's a sense in which we harm ourselves by desiring to live as long as possible.
00:05:46
Speaker
So part of his philosophy, which we can talk about is actually getting rid of these unlimited desires to live as much as possible because that causes us a lot of anxiety. So he thinks that if we, you know, if we get these right attitudes towards death, that will also get rid of a great source of our anxiety.
00:06:04
Speaker
And then the second part, the second two parts of the fourfold remedy are that the good is easy to get and the bad is easy to endure. So when Epicurus says the good is easy to get, he doesn't mean anything good is easy to get because that would be ridiculous.
00:06:19
Speaker
But he does have this class of what you might call natural and what he calls natural and necessary desires. And they're both simple things like avoiding starvation by having food and water and shelter, but also things that are necessary for achieving
Misconceptions of Epicureanism
00:06:36
Speaker
what he considers a kind of tranquil state. So that would include friends, supportive friends, and a working knowledge of science that will help you come to realize that God presents no fears and death knows evils, for example.
00:06:49
Speaker
So he thinks those things, if we prioritize them, are within reach and that most of the other stuff we want is actually a source of anxiety. And so we need to assess which of those desires can stay and which ones we need to eliminate.
00:07:04
Speaker
And then because he thinks pain is bad in the same way that pleasure is good, he wants to give people tools for managing pain because he can't make it disappear. That would be a ridiculous theory, right? So he thinks that there are some bad things that happen to us that lie beyond our control and they're genuinely bad. There's no account according to which the death of a child is good or providential for him.
00:07:26
Speaker
And so what he thinks is we develop and structure our lives in a way that when those things happen, we have the tools for managing them. And one of the main ways we do that again is through these friendships we have that are necessary for living well. And another way that's kind of distinctive to him is by replaying memories of pleasure, many of which we've
00:07:47
Speaker
acquired through these friendships. So I guess in Psalm, and a very long answer there, Epicurus is a system. It's based in natural science, and that natural science gives rise to his hedonism and his account of our relationship between the relationship to the gods, our mortality, and then how we can navigate life, effectively getting what we need and enduring the stuff that's bad that happens to us. What do you think are some of the most common misinterpretations of Epicureanism?
00:08:16
Speaker
It's interesting because I think there are kind of two misinterpretations, one of them sort of deeply uncharitable and the other one motivated by a kind of perverse kind of charity. So when people hear the word Epicurean, they often think frat parties or sex drugs and rock and roll, or even just really high fine dining, someone who always goes to Michelin-starred restaurants.
00:08:40
Speaker
And Epicurus is clearly, he makes it abundantly clear that that's not his hedonism. He even complains that people are already mocking him for that while he was alive. He's like, they think that we're obsessed with fish. And so he's definitely not a kind of rampant hedonist of
Epicurean vs. Utilitarian Hedonism
00:09:01
Speaker
the sex, drugs, and rock and roll variety.
00:09:03
Speaker
But I think one of the other interesting understandings of Epicurus is that he's a radical ascetic, right? So people who defend Epicurus against this charge of extreme bodily hedonism sometimes go over-correct to the opposite extreme, where he's like a hunger artist who starves himself and eats only bread and water. And it's really actually something more in the middle, right?
00:09:27
Speaker
He tries to make it so that you can live a good life, should circumstances or scarcity make it the case that your options are limited. But if you have an attitude according to which that's enough, then all sorts of other pleasures are also acceptable and worth choosing if you do it the right way. And so sometimes I think people go to the opposite extreme and turn him into
00:09:52
Speaker
someone who's really abstemious when in fact, he just thinks you should be able to handle it if things get bad. Got it. Yeah, perhaps I'm guilty of that latter charge. So of course, Seneca has the quotes about Pythaglies, which is something to the effect of if you wish to make Pythaglies rich, do not add to his store of stuff, but subtract from his desires.
00:10:16
Speaker
which he attributes to Epicurus, which sort of suggests a, if not a radical aesthetic view, one that leans towards reducing your desires and being satisfied with the little that you have, bread, water, and the friends around you or something like this. And that would be the picture of the Epicurean.
00:10:38
Speaker
Yeah, I think one of the things that's interesting, right, is that Epicurus definitely thinks we should not need other stuff, right? So we should never think that our lives will be not worth living or that we will lead some sort of like deeply dissatisfied life.
00:10:55
Speaker
if we don't have other things. So if you can't get yourself in that headspace, then it's a problem. So in fact, yes, if you can't get yourself that these luxuries are not necessary, then Epicurus will find that problematic. So you do have to understand what's necessary, but there are lots of things that are available to you once you get yourself in that headspace. So Epicurus says, we don't accustom ourselves to
00:11:24
Speaker
living on very little just for that sake alone, right? Because there are moments when extravagance is possible. And he thinks that when that happens, the Epicureans enjoy it more. So he's like that sort of almost smug person who's like, I enjoy fine dining more than everyone else because I never expect it. And I don't think it's necessary for happiness. Whereas you all, right, you think, oh, this is
00:11:52
Speaker
super important for my happiness and when the dish isn't exactly the way I want it, I will be upset. And in fact, I need these sorts of things. And so he does make it clear that Epicureans enjoy extravagances, but it's because they don't need, right? And it doesn't stress them out not to have them.
00:12:09
Speaker
Right. So key part of Epicureanism, of course, is that we're talking about where they believe that pleasure is the only good. So you could call that normative hedonist picture of value, if you like. There's a more recent
00:12:25
Speaker
View, of course, utilitarians were also hedonists where they thought what you should do is classically maximize the amount of pleasure in the world and minimize the amount of pain. What makes Epicureans different from this other utilitarian view?
Social Connections in Epicureanism and Stoicism
00:12:42
Speaker
Yeah, that's a really good question. So this is going to be my take on it. One thing is that I think Epicurus is a classical, you know, he's a classical psychological hedonist. So he thinks that what we do is pursue our own pleasure.
00:12:58
Speaker
and avoid our own pain. And then everything else built into that, right? So it just turns out that we are evolved or the sorts of creatures who gain a lot of pleasure from helping others, especially people we tend to know, granted, and we are communal creatures, so we have
00:13:17
Speaker
you know, we gain security from living in communities and that's a great, you know, diminishes our anxiety and provides a great source of joy, right? But all of this is fundamentally for Epicurus grounded in our own desires for pleasure and pain.
00:13:36
Speaker
And at least utilitarianism, it's essentially asking you, at least one criticism of utilitarianism is that it's asking you to minimize the good of others over and above your own, right? So it's an impartial theory. It's like, I guess some people call it the view from nowhere, right? So there's this idea in a lot of modern ethics that thinks is impartial and you just count for one among lots of other people.
00:14:03
Speaker
And so I think that even though they're both concerned with pleasure and pain, and even though they both agree that mental pleasures are superior to physical pleasures, they definitely think that, they differ in that, I guess, utilitarian is really like they get criticized because they think, let's say that you confront a burning building and there are two rooms and you can only open one door and behind one is like 20 kids playing and behind the other is your kid.
00:14:32
Speaker
So the question is which door do you open and utilitarianism says save the 20 kids who are not your own. And so they have to do all this really fancy rhetorical or conceptual work to say, no, it's okay to save your own kid. And so I think that's one pretty significant difference is epicureanism is not an impartial theory.
00:14:56
Speaker
Yeah, that's helpful. They have different standpoints on the ethical question, if you will. The utilitarian is thinking we're almost standing outside the world thinking about how can we make it such that if you assign some number to pleasure, that number goes up.
00:15:13
Speaker
And, you know, you're just thinking about these different states of affairs, different policies, different life plans, what have you. Whereas Epicurean is starting with, okay, given that I am this kind of being that pursues pleasure, how can I live a fulfilling life with these other beings who are also situated similarly to me, instead of trying to, you know, maximize pleasure across the whole world or what have you.
00:15:38
Speaker
Right. I mean, I'm not sure that, I mean, obviously the Epicureans given a choice between two worlds, one where, you know, there is more pleasure than the other. They're not going to say, but that pleasure needs to include them. Right, right. To answer this question a little bit, but what exactly is distinctive about the Epicureans opposed to some of these ancient schools of philosophy?
00:16:02
Speaker
Yeah, so in a lot of ways, Epicureanism and Stoicism are very similar, which is why, in some sense, why they resent one another. They're competitors who agree about a lot of stuff. And one thing that they share, let's say by comparison to some of the other ancient schools, is that they're dogmatic. So they think they've got
00:16:25
Speaker
you know, they're confident in their beliefs, whereas a skeptic is going to be diametrically opposed to dogmatists like the Stokes and the Epicureans. So at least if you read someone like Marcus Aurelius, he says all sorts of nice things about Epicurus, right? Epicurus died really admirably. Epicurus, you know, Senecus' Epicurus was very good at handling scarcity. So they actually admire Epicurus as a person.
00:16:53
Speaker
And it seems like most of what they dislike, honestly, is Epicurus's rejection of providence, right? So the idea that the world is not structured for the good with humans in mind, such that humans are superior and have some ontological superior status, and that the events of the world are structured for the good. Epicurus just flat out rejects that, right? So he thinks the world wasn't created by anyone, we're here
00:17:22
Speaker
by some combination of consistent causation and chance.
00:17:28
Speaker
And so when things that are bad happen, there's no account according to which they're good. So at least for the ancient Stoics, I think that was just almost a breaking point. So when Marcus Aurelius says, it's essentially providence or atoms, what he means is Stoicism or Epicureanism. And in fact, Marcus even says, I would fall into despair if it turned out.
00:17:55
Speaker
that there were no providence. So I think that's actually probably one of the biggest differences. And then the other big one, I think, is just that they overlap despite the fact that they have very different starting points. So the stoics will say the only good thing, the only truly good thing is virtue, and the only bad thing is vice, and everything else isn't different. Selectable, perhaps.
00:18:20
Speaker
but indifferent. And so the Epicureans, by contrast, say the only good thing is pleasure, the only bad thing is pain. And so that sounds like a really radical view. But in theory, they both think it kind of works out the same, whether that's
00:18:36
Speaker
you know, legitimate or not. But the Epicureans seem far more committed to the idea that human beings have needs, and that when they're not satisfied, that will undermine their tranquility. Whereas the Stoics sort of want to argue that, or they do argue that, if you have virtue, you have everything you need, regardless of everything else. And that the Epicureans deny that. So they think we have physical needs, and without them being satisfied confidently,
00:19:06
Speaker
you know, tranquility is difficult, perhaps impossible. And so that leads to, you know, some commitments on the stoic that people find counterintuitive or at least difficult with the stoics, you know, that your child is an indifferent, preferable, but an indifferent that doesn't, you know, your child doesn't contribute to your happiness. And so we think the Epicureans are really sort of, they're more about
00:19:32
Speaker
you know, withstanding bad things, but treating them as bad. And the Stoics, at least the ideal Stoic, would see those things as indifferent in a way that the Epicureans would find problematic, at least according to Plutarch.
00:19:51
Speaker
Right. Yeah. So I suppose there's this question, is virtue sufficient for living a good life? And the cynics and the stoics would say yes to that question. And the Epicureans would probably say it's a very good rule, very good route to likely get you to lead a good life, but it's not sufficient.
00:20:12
Speaker
Right. So yeah, that's, that's a really good way of thinking of it. Right. So they are both going to think that virtue is necessary for happiness. Right. But the Stoics are going to say it's sufficient and the Epicureans will say no.
00:20:26
Speaker
Right. So where do they disagree on? Of course, the Stoics and Epicureans disagree in theory and their philosophical grounding of value. But where do they disagree in action in your picture? You know, how would an Epicurean and a Stoic live differently?
00:20:46
Speaker
So Epicureans are very social. And so they take that to be essential. But I get the impression that Stoics are also social, right? They just don't consider it essential. And so they like it. It's not like they reject people. But the Epicureans take that to be essential. And so, I mean, this at least is reflected in Epicurus' project of setting up what's called the Garden, which was a community outside of Athens, where Epicureans
00:21:13
Speaker
lived and socialized. Epicurus also had a house in town, so it's unclear exactly how much time he spent there or how his time was divided. But they were a very social group of people and they took that to be the heart of their philosophy. And I'm not sure to what extent that would be true of the Stoics' daily existence.
00:21:34
Speaker
But I guess also, I mean, there are smaller things, right? So at least the Stoics thought it was good, all things considered, at least under certain circumstances, to participate in politics. And the Epicureans thought, only participate in politics if you absolutely have to, to keep yourself alive or to protect your vital interest.
00:21:57
Speaker
So that would be a big difference, right? You wouldn't find the Pecurians running for Senate, whereas, you know, Stoics were keen to do that often. And at least, you know, the standard story is that Stoics would be more engaged in public life in general, right? So they would be in the heart of the city and the Pecurians wouldn't. But maybe you have something more specific in mind. I'm sure you have a kind of sense of how they differ
00:22:24
Speaker
Yeah, well, so just before I forget, on the social side,
00:22:29
Speaker
I wouldn't see too strong of a difference there, although it's true that Stoics might not ground the good life in a way in human sociality. Of course, they ground it in virtue, and in order to express virtue, you need to use indifference well. So probably in action, they'll look pretty similar, which is one reason why you see Stoics go into politics so much, for better or worse. What do you think about that?
Practical Aspects of Epicureanism
00:22:57
Speaker
What do you think about that line on why Stoics would not necessarily in action be less social than Epicureans? Yeah, I think that's true. One question I have a little bit about that. So one of the things I find fascinating about Seneca, he's a bit of a mess. I think everyone kind of agrees that he shoots from the hip sometimes, but he thinks that he has this one line where he says something like,
00:23:24
Speaker
Stoics don't need friends, they're essentially preferred in difference. And he says something like, not that a stoic might decide to not live if there were a world without friends. He might commit suicide if there were no friends, but he doesn't need them.
00:23:43
Speaker
And I find that to be just really fascinating, right, this idea that these, that at least Seneca will say these, and actually this is in Cicero too, right, that these preferred indifference make no difference. And yet, when the preferred indifference go away, that's a reason to commit suicide.
00:24:04
Speaker
And so I do think, I even think that there's something weird about that for the Stoics. I think they are more attached to the preferred and different sometimes than we give them credit for, but at least the early Greek Stoics were pretty stark about that. But yeah, I think that actually when push comes to shove, they're gonna choose a lot of the same things. The Stoics are probably more likely to, and this could be the right thing to do, I'm not saying it's not, but they might be a little more willing to sullied themselves and
00:24:32
Speaker
social interactions with non Stoics or others for long-term aims. I get the impression that one of the advantages of getting not involved in politics for the Epicureanism is for the Epicureans is that they kind of want to keep a cleaner conscience, which might be a bit precious, I guess. Right. Yeah, I think Stoics, just both in the modern times and ancient times, did not have
00:25:02
Speaker
a consistent politics like many other groups of course and there are clear strands but you see although you don't see so much of an exodus from politics like you do in the Epicureans of course you have people like Seneca who are much more willing to
00:25:18
Speaker
go along or appease, compromise different views as opposed to a stoic opposition or a Cato or much more. Well, I find that essay that Seneca wrote later in his life, actually towards the end of it on leisure when he was trying to drop out of politics.
00:25:35
Speaker
I'm super fascinating because he says, you know, I should be able to do this leisure. And he imagines an imaginary objector who says something like, what are you doing saying these epicurean things? You've let the enemy into our camp. And we're the sort of people who, you know, throw our battle helmet on over our gray hair, right? So we all retire. What do you mean?
00:25:57
Speaker
And he interestingly kind of by the end works himself into the view that the original Stoics would not have in politics because they would not have had a suitably just society to participate in.
00:26:14
Speaker
And I find that really fascinating. It's almost like at the very end, he thought, Epicurus could be right. And more importantly, the Stoics probably agree with Epicurus. And maybe I shouldn't have, you know, gotten too deep into real men politics.
00:26:33
Speaker
Yeah, I find that view very plausible. Quite often modern Stoics will be criticized on the view that the philosophy is too individualist and doesn't pay attention to politics. And a move that many modern Stoics make is to say, no, look, we're not like the Epicureans. We don't hang out in the garden. We live in the city. And look at all these books who had all these political adventures.
00:26:58
Speaker
In general, I think there is a strong advantage to that procuring view that some stoics underrate and it might be better to bite the bullet and say, look, not a lot of political engagement just is not very good for ourselves or for the world. And we need to be clear on what we mean by politics and focus our efforts.
00:27:20
Speaker
Yeah, I think, I mean, one of the things that fascinates me about, you know, because I'm, I work within, I work with Stoicism very much within the ancient tradition. I don't know a lot about modern Stoicism. And, you know, I think that in a lot of ways it gets, there is even a cartoon a few people sent me today about, you know, various ways it gets.
00:27:41
Speaker
misrepresented or harnessed to bad ends. I know what people say about modern Stoicism, but I admit I don't know a whole lot about it because I work in the ancient tradition. But one of the things that strikes me as good about the ancient tradition is they even had a disagreement about whether it made sense to call any indifference preferred.
00:28:03
Speaker
Because there are always times when you should choose the opposite of what might seem naturally or on the whole preferable. So it might be preferable, all things considered, to be healthy. But if the tyrant is...
00:28:19
Speaker
rounding up people for his unjust war and wants the healthiest people there, you might prefer to not be healthy. Because having that puts you in a condition where you're being coerced or put in a position where you'll have to act viciously. And so there's a sense in which the art of stoicism to me is choosing among the options
00:28:43
Speaker
And sometimes those options are not to have money and not to participate in politics and not to do these things because they diminish or threaten your virtue. So in some sense, there's sometimes this move like, oh, well, money is always preferable. It's like, no, no, no, it's not. So yeah, I do think that there's a sense in which I think they would think politics, right? Politics is not always preferable. In fact, they make that abundantly clear.
00:29:09
Speaker
So here's one question I have about epicureanism, which is the question, is epicureanism self-effacing? So by that, I mean a view can be self-contradictory in the sense that every truth is relative.
00:29:25
Speaker
that is plausibly a self-contradictory claim. Of course, you could argue about that, but the idea would be that very idea just sort of refutes itself. Is that idea relative? What does that mean to say then that every truth is relative? So self-defeating and the way skepticism is self-defeating.
00:29:41
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And then, of course, you can have self-effacing, which is just the idea that it could be true, but you shouldn't believe it. Because if you believe it, then that would harm your project to get to the aim or actually harm your ability to live it out. So sometimes people say this about utilitarianism, which is what we were discussing earlier. But the thought would be that in epicureanism, what you're aiming to do is live a pleasurable life.
00:30:07
Speaker
But, possibly, the most pleasurable life isn't one that directly aims at pleasure, of course, various. Philosophers say that, psychologists, religious traditions. So I'm curious what you think about that general issue.
00:30:21
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, so I think that there's a, you know, sort of like the hedonistic paradox or like, but I think that, so I guess I'm curious when you say, is itself a facing, would that be any, in some sense significantly different from saying that sometimes in order to pursue pleasure, you have to choose pain? Because I think in that sense, the Epicureans truly believe that, you know, we are calculating pleasure and pain over the long term.
00:30:50
Speaker
So we're not promised tomorrow, but if we're reasoning prudently, then we might want to be strong so that we should exercise, or we might want to travel so we might learn the language. So in that sense, they're not going to choose the immediate pleasure when it would have bad long-term consequences or where avoiding it would give you a really good payoff in the end.
00:31:18
Speaker
And I guess if that's what self-effacing is, then yes. But I tend to think of it as indirect hedonism, right? So it's just prudent calculation. And the idea is that not so much that you're, again, a maximizer, right? It's just that you're trying to achieve a kind of equilibrium where you feel satisfied and then can indulge in things that don't undermine your satisfaction.
00:31:43
Speaker
Right? So if you think, oh, if I chase this thing, it will undermine my satisfaction, then you shouldn't chase it.
00:31:49
Speaker
But I guess sometimes I feel like people say something is self-effacing or sometimes even people will use the term schizophrenic sort of in a way that makes it sound like you have to pretend you're not that in order to succeed. And so I guess I think that Epicureans, they definitely admit that they're long-term planners. And if that makes them self-effacing, then they are kind of like at least a prudent hedonism rather than a strict hedonism.
00:32:15
Speaker
Yeah, prudent hedonism makes sense to me, and I don't think that would be much of a practical objection to the philosophy. I suppose what I have in mind is, look, Epicurus says that in order to live the happy life, you should be virtuous. Why not just think virtue is the most, you know, the highest good if it turns out that people who tend to think virtue is the highest good act more virtuously and are happier in the Epicurean sense. There's some evidence to think that
00:32:44
Speaker
even on the long-term planning side, trying to live a pleasurable life may not in fact be what leads to the most pleasurable life. Yeah, I mean, part of me thinks that a lot of this is just rooted in Epicurus' theory of psychological motivation, that we're animals and that we can gain a great deal of pleasure from assisting others and acting virtuously at root what
00:33:12
Speaker
keeps us going or motivates us or gives us the sense of well-being is that it generates the pleasure. And he thinks that actually virtue does do that. In fact, it does it better than other things, and that's why we have reason to choose it. But
00:33:28
Speaker
But what's driving for him is still the pleasure. And so in some sense, it's just a claim about motivation, right? So it's like we could tell ourselves we're pursuing virtue and that might lead to this really great joy, but we're still just like really pursuing pleasure, even though we're telling ourselves we're pursuing virtue. But I do think that there's something to be said for not focusing on a kind of happiness or hedonism that Epicurus rejects, right? So there's lots of psychological evidence that if you just try to maximize
00:33:58
Speaker
pleasure or that if you just become obsessed with it, it will be very problematic. So I think he shares some of your concerns, but then also just thinks, yeah, we're still looking for pleasure. It's just that virtue really is a good way to do it.
00:34:17
Speaker
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00:34:36
Speaker
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00:34:49
Speaker
With Stoa, you can really get a sense of how to take yourself out of your thoughts and get a sense of how to handle different, difficult situations. Find it available for a free download in the Play Store and App Store. I see. This might be a good transition then into some of the practical questions of, you know, how does one in fact live an Epicurean life and what do the Epicureans have to say about that?
00:35:13
Speaker
Yeah, so I mean, I guess the best way to kind of get a sense of what they're about is to think that Epicureanism is about choices and avoidances. And they do want a certain kind of state. Some people will call it tranquility. The Greek was Ataraxia. It's a lack of disturbance in the soul.
00:35:34
Speaker
And Epicurus thinks that the best way to achieve that is to sort of look at your life through the lens of desires, and he divides them into three types. So unfortunately, he has very cumbersome names for them. They're the natural and necessary, natural and unnecessary, and unnatural and unnecessary. So in order to not write that over and over again, or have to say it over and over again, I call them necessary, extravagant, and corrosive desires.
00:36:01
Speaker
And Epicurus thinks that the necessary desires are all we need for wellbeing. And so I've told you about those, right? It's not just food and shelter, but friends, a working knowledge of science, a set of beliefs about how the world works.
00:36:17
Speaker
And then he has these extravagant desires, which are kind of like nicer versions of those things for the most part, right? So they're not necessary, but when opportunity presents itself and it's not a lot of struggle and you don't think it's necessary and you remain satisfied without it.
00:36:34
Speaker
then sure, go for it. These are often more memorable pleasures. He will say they vary tranquility, they deepen or enrich it. And he thinks life affords lots of opportunities for those, especially in their more simple forms. So a conversation with friends, a walk in the park, those sorts of things are memorable. And while they're not strictly necessary in any individual case, they actually add to our sense that life is going well.
00:37:03
Speaker
His main focus for getting rid of stuff are these, what I call the corrosive desires, the unnatural and unnecessary. And the unnatural there doesn't mean artificial, it means more like contrary to our nature, right? So just having the desire undercuts our tranquility. So it's anything that's unnatural for him is unnecessary.
00:37:23
Speaker
These desires share a set of features. So sometimes there are even things that's okay to want in moderation. It's that you have a desire that's unlimited. It doesn't have a limit. And so if you have an unlimited desire, one way to think of that is just sort of like, you can never have too much. You can never have too much money, too much respect, too many clicks, too many likes, too many days of your life.
00:37:48
Speaker
And the problem with unlimited desires is there's always more and you don't have it. And so those desires can't be satisfied. So you're always left with the idea that this is not enough. And the curious things also really unhealthy mindset for facing both your daily life and the future.
00:38:06
Speaker
So these would be desires for sort of limitless profit, limitless fame, et cetera. And it's not just that they can't be satisfied, but they're often, they come in degrees so you can compare yourself, right? I've got more of this and they've got more of that.
00:38:21
Speaker
That makes one of us better or worse. It destabilizes relationships if you base them in those things, right? So if I find friends with you, because you have some position of power and you lose that position of power, right, then our friendship is going to found her. So corrosive desires kind of, they leave us dissatisfied and they poison social interactions and they leave us prey to envy and resentment. And so he just thinks like, cut those out.
Understanding Human Failings and Mortality
00:38:49
Speaker
But it's not like he thinks you should get rid of money. He just thinks you should get rid of a desire for unlimited money or whatever will make you, whatever is more than is necessary to feel satisfied with what a human being should be satisfied with. Now, in daily life, that just means when you pursue something, you desire it, you can actually tell yourself, am I
00:39:16
Speaker
Why am I doing this and what do I expect to get? He says something like, ask yourself, what happens if I get this and what happens if I don't? But the main thing is that he thinks we need to focus on necessary desires. They don't come easily, right? So you can be very, very wealthy and have your necessary desires met if you don't have friends and you don't care about science.
00:39:35
Speaker
Right. And so if if you're focusing on these other things and you're neglecting your relationships, then you're going to be dissatisfied for curious. So he says prioritize the necessary things. Right. So given a choice between this and a dinner with friends or conversation with friends, choose your friends because they're more memorable and they add this deep sense of satisfaction and they contribute to the joys of your life. And so mainly it's about, you know, when I'm presented with a
00:40:02
Speaker
choice or presented with something I'm going to do, what attitude am I taking towards it? Is it something that will really make my life better in a way that doesn't undercut my tranquility? And do I want it in a way that threatens my satisfaction?
00:40:21
Speaker
Right, very good. One of the questions I had here is, what's the epicurean view of sin? There's a question, why isn't everyone happy? What's the feature of humanity that leads us astray?
00:40:33
Speaker
So he actually, you know, he doesn't say a lot about this. One thing that's interesting is kind of in a way that maybe he borrows from Plato, he thinks we're not very good at reasoning with time in mind, right? So over temporal distances, in the same way that you might think the tower in the distance is, you know, smaller and not the right shape, right? We tend to be really bad about, you know, reasoning with a future in mind. So we like,
00:41:01
Speaker
we run up credit card debt, we get really drunk knowing there'll be hangover. It's like we almost don't think in terms of, you know, long term, and that that's just like kind of a, maybe an evolutionary failing that we've been correct for, but we tend to sink into it really quickly.
00:41:19
Speaker
I think Epicurus actually does have a pretty decent sense of the idea that people have addictions and that those addictions are specific to individuals, right? So that some people struggle more with some things than other things. And so, you know, like he might think, oh yes, it's great for so-and-so. They really relax if they have a glass of wine, but this person is going to completely
00:41:43
Speaker
derail their relationships. And so I think a lot of it he just thinks are like prudential errors, some of them arising from our human nature, some of them from our individual natures. But I don't think he's going to associate it with any kind of like, sort of like, cosmic failing, right? Some sort of way in which, you know,
00:42:04
Speaker
the world is imperfect or in a fallen state or he just thinks that, yeah, we have impediments of both reason and biology and sometimes just misfortune. Those things, you know, we can adapt to them and we can plan our lives to try to insulate ourselves from them. But yeah, sometimes it's our nature is working against them.
00:42:28
Speaker
Yeah, to what extent do you think Epicurus agrees with the idea that to philosophize is to learn how to die? Yeah, so I actually wrote my dissertation, and in fact, all of the stuff I wrote pre-tenure with one exception was about Plato, and a lot of it was about death. And so, of course, that's attributed to Socrates as a character in Plato's veto. And when I would mention that in talks, people would say, oddly, they'd say, like, he doesn't really mean that.
00:42:58
Speaker
And in part, they thought something like, well, look, I think about substance, or I really like to think about the meaning of words, and that has nothing to do with preparing to die, or just all this other stuff to philosophy. But I kind of think that Epicurus does think that philosophy is about living and dying, and that the only
00:43:22
Speaker
the only way to live to kind of get the right attitude towards living is to make peace with or sense of mortality. Epicurus is actually pretty distinctive at least for this quote that often gets brought out which is that he says you know basically this translated as vain but anything a philosopher says is useless unless it makes you
00:43:44
Speaker
live a better life. Like quiet's the, you know, the anxiety in your soul. And so all that other stuff, unless it does that, it's just like, it's wasted energy. It's extravagant.
00:43:58
Speaker
Yeah, well, and Seneca has that view, right? So he's just like, all of these, I mean, the Stoics were, they invented propositional logic. But Seneca is like, I don't want to hear your syllogisms. I don't, you know, unless it's going to make somebody's life better, just shut up about it, right? But I do think, you know, Epicurus didn't, as far as we know, say, eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die.
00:44:23
Speaker
But he might as well love. I mean, so there's a quote, Metrodorus says that the person who least needs tomorrow goes most happily to it. And so I think, yeah, there's a sense in which he thinks that once you realize life is limited and you make peace with that, you stop treating it like you'll have as much time as you want. If you tell yourself a person can live happy within the limits of a human life.
00:44:50
Speaker
and that I should live my life with the idea that I want to feel like each day is good enough. Then I think it prioritized, it resets your priorities and it removes a lot of the anxiety. I mean, this is funny because I, you know, I wrote the book, it's not like when I wrote the book, I was like, wow, I'm an Epicurean and I wrote myself into it, kind of. And so there were things that I found myself writing about Epicurus and I thought, oh, that's really interesting.
00:45:19
Speaker
And the idea of Epicurus saying the desire for limitless life is unhealthy. It's not just like immortality is metaphysically impossible. It's not sort of like immortality is not going to happen, so stop wanting. Immortality is, right? So there's a piece by Bernard Williams to this effect, but I don't think it's actually not the same reason that Epicurus thinks this. But it's sort of like once you
00:45:49
Speaker
you focus on each day, you can kind of appreciate that you've, my theory is something like you've made a good run, right? This has been a really good life. More would be fine, but wow, this has been really good. And if you can get yourself in that headspace, it's actually, it does feel really empowering. And so in that sense, I think Epicurus is focusing on making your peace with death because it helps you like enjoy your life more.
00:46:18
Speaker
Right. Yeah. I think he and the Stoics agree 100% on that, on that thought that you can live well, no matter how long you live, as long as you know, you are virtuous or in the Epicurean case, your basic needs are met and that one can become preoccupied with a need to extend your life or indeed any other good thing in that that is can easily turn into a failing.
00:46:44
Speaker
Yeah, I think on that, I would say that of the many things that the Stoics share, their views on death are probably the closest. I mean, there were a few. Stone system is, it's a more diverse group of people. They didn't agree with one another as much as the Epicureans, which really, they kind of towed the party line. But by and large, very few Stoics thought we were immortal.
00:47:10
Speaker
And even they tended to think that only sages were immortal, but kind of just they had an afterlife for a while.
Modern Relevance of Epicureanism
00:47:17
Speaker
So they both kind of made sense of mortality in very similar ways, in part because they both had material souls or minds. Yeah, they had a philosopher's afterlife, which is maybe not what everyone else has in mind when they think of an afterlife.
00:47:33
Speaker
Probably not. Although people often, if you introduce them to the idea that, you know, sort of like their children or their ideas or their friends or their projects are a kind of immortality, that makes sense to them. It's just not what most people these days think about. They think about personal immortality in a different place.
00:47:56
Speaker
Right, right. One of my favorite books is a book called Surviving Death by a philosopher named Mark Johnston. Yeah, I skipped ahead in that. Like the first hundred pages are about, do we survive death? And I got to the part where he said, no, I like his, I liked his book Saving God too. They kind of came out together. They're very, they're very much kind of paradigmatic analytic philosophy, but they're defending really fascinating claims.
00:48:26
Speaker
Yeah, I prefer saving God. So I'd advise you to check that book out if they're in the mood for Mark Johnston's thought or more analytical. How would you say it? Naturalist ideas of making sense of religion and saving God is a more approachable book.
00:48:41
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, in some sense, one of the interesting things is that Epicureans, I do think it's sort of regrettable in a lot of ways that the Epicureans got just sort of pegged as these atheists, right? So they, in fact, Christopher Hitchens starts the atheist reader with a passage from Lucretius, even though Lucretius says like, look, I'm not in Pius and I believe in the gods and here's why.
00:49:04
Speaker
But they were, like many ancient philosophers in particular, super revisionist and they thought popular conceptions were mistaken. But it is interesting to just explore what kind of conception of God they had given these kind of limitations on God's interests and powers.
00:49:27
Speaker
So yeah, I actually find that a kind of, there's, there is some literature on it, but people just don't really head in that direction scholarly wise.
00:49:39
Speaker
Right. So after learning more about Epicureanism, writing this book, what would you say are one of the main takeaways or maybe a set of main takeaways that you think more people would get a lot of value out of learning about Epicureanism?
00:49:56
Speaker
So I think that a lot of people want friends and don't have them. And I think it's because for various reasons, we choose our friends badly. We focus on the wrong things and friendship. And then the good friends we have, we fail to prioritize them. And so I think the centrality of friendship and the need for friends and epicureanism really appeals to me.
00:50:18
Speaker
especially as I age and various friends go through difficult times. So I think the focus on friendship is awesome. I think it's just really good. I guess the other things that resonate with me are the fact that we do have needs, but we don't need as much as we think we do.
00:50:39
Speaker
So that, and we don't always know what those, we don't always appreciate what the needs are. So that, you know, we, we can have what we need and be satisfied and other things become more pleasant if they're not needed. I think that that's really actually true to my experience.
00:50:55
Speaker
But I think, you know, there's a lot of stuff I cover in the book, some of it, you know, more handling standard objections to Epicureanism. But, you know, part of friendship for Epicureanism is a mutual self-improvement. I found that really fascinating. I think it's interesting that it's ethics grounded in a much more modern conception of science. So sort of.
00:51:19
Speaker
account of the natural world that includes evolutionary science and, or at least accommodates it and treats us as animals. So yeah, I think Epicureanism has a lot going for it, despite whatever reservations I have about it. I think it's, I mean, I think it's, there's a lot of overlap with Stoicism and then depending on kind of your world, you'll gravitate towards maybe one over the other.
Epicureanism and Modern Stoicism
00:51:45
Speaker
Right. Yeah, I do think there are, of course, serious philosophical differences, but in practice, the two philosophies are very similar to each other with respect to other life philosophies that are roaming around these days.
00:51:56
Speaker
Yeah, I think they are. I mean, it would be hard in some sense to distinguish them. I find it funny, I think of this, the Stoics often as using other people too, using the, even the Epicureans move, right? So it's sort of like, this is true of us and even the Epicureans agree. And it's amazing when you get right down to it how many times they say, even the Epicureans believe this, right? And they often think of them as like, they'll refer to them as like the lovers of pleasure or something.
00:52:21
Speaker
But they'll say like, ah, why fear death? Even the Epicureans don't over. So yeah, it is fascinating how they are kind of difficult to differentiate. Right. Well, one last topic to chat about is you wrote a piece entitled, Are Modern Stoics Epicureans? I wonder if you could say a bit about why you might think modern Stoics are modern Epicureans and then we can wrap up.
00:52:50
Speaker
Yeah, I guess this actually kind of started because of a conversation I had with my neighbor. I was out of town this summer and ended up somehow the camp post at a park, a National Forest campground in Wyoming. And so he came back and I was talking to him about that and my book had arrived and he said, oh, you know, you would be really interested in this. I'm listening to this podcast.
00:53:13
Speaker
And it's called Waking Up, and it's run by Sam Harris. And after the first meditation, they encouraged me to read this book on stoicism.
00:53:23
Speaker
And it just occurred to me that it was somewhat surprising to me that someone who's so clearly associated with like a rejection of things like Providence would choose such a philosophy so deeply enmeshed in Providence. And so I kind of wanted to read like, what do these modern Stoics say about this topic? And often they're just silent on it.
00:53:45
Speaker
or I think Irvine actually, his way of addressing it sounds exactly like Epicureanism. He's like, actually we evolved and it's all based on pleasure and pain. And then we learned these things and then we stopped focusing on them and life got better. And I'm like, but that's kind of Epicureanism.
00:54:00
Speaker
And so I started wondering whether it was just that people didn't know about Epicureanism. And so I think there's a sense in which some of these people have reason to at least investigate Epicureanism because it's built on a foundation of things that they reassert whenever they dismiss these other features of Stoicism. Of course, Stoics were providence, but here's an evolutionary count according to pleasure and pain. And I thought,
00:54:28
Speaker
So, yeah, that's kind of where it came from. And, you know, I don't think it's sort of like that modern Stoics are Epicureans because that would be weird. It's like they don't know it. Right. But it was a good title. And so I think I think it's sort of like, you know, if you have these beliefs.
00:54:43
Speaker
you should investigate Epicureanism because it's really hard to disentangle provenance from Stoicism. It's really hard to make sense of the Stoic view on why we should care about others without those kinds of providential commitments and the Roman Stoics who kind of feature in a lot of these discussions really like that's where they saw themselves diverging from.
00:55:03
Speaker
And so I just think it's, it's kind of worth, worth it for people to explore it and see to what extent, you know, uh, stoicism overlaps, but also like whether the views on Providence and suffering might resonate more with some of the people who currently are sort of engaged with stoicism.
Further Reading and Closing Remarks
00:55:24
Speaker
So I think it's complimentary, but it is interesting that some people who are really drawn to stoicism have commitments that are more in line with the curianism.
00:55:34
Speaker
Yeah, I think the book A Guide to a Good Life by Bill Irvine, I think there's a very reasonable reading of that book where he's philosophically an epicurean. It's hard not to read it that way. Or practically he's, you know, he focuses on premeditatio malorum, negative visualization.
00:55:50
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, so Irvine is interesting because, I mean, so the Epicureans did reject that pre-rehearsal of evils, right? And he does rely on it a lot. And the Picliucci book is interesting because he just kind of says, we'll just agree to disagree about that, about providence. And so I thought, well, I mean, it's, I think it's to their credit that they address it.
00:56:14
Speaker
so that they don't pretend it's not there. Whereas I think sometimes when you look at some of the modern Stoics, you would never know they believed that, right? So I think the effort to disentangle some of the practical stuff from some of the metaphysical stuff
00:56:31
Speaker
I respect that they try to do it and I'm on the fence about whether it can be done. But I do think that Epicureanism doesn't present that challenge for people who don't want to have to wrangle with that puzzle.
00:56:47
Speaker
Right. Yeah. For people who are interested in this issue, there's a nice series on a website called Sideways View, I believe, and there's an opening essay by Brittany Polat. We've chatted with on Stoic conversation on whether the Stoics need God, how they should think about that, where the Stoic God is, of course, different than the Christian God, but still includes these ideas of providence. And there's some nice follow-ups by Massimo Piliucci and another fellow named James Galtry arguing different sides of that.
00:57:16
Speaker
perspective. So it's an interesting question. My personal view is that the Stoics don't need God, but they should have question marks about whether there is a Stoic God or not at this point in time. But that's my take on that. And it's certainly interesting. Yeah, I haven't gotten too far deep into it. I've talked to people who are on both sides of that. I respect both of them. I would have to really think hard to figure out who is the most convincing.
00:57:43
Speaker
But yeah, I'll check that out because it's a puzzle that really fascinates me. Excellent. Well, is there anything else you'd like to add? No, this has been fun. Thanks. This is my first discussion with a stoic. So hopefully you enjoyed it as much as I did. Of course. Excellent. Is there anywhere you'd like to point people or? I guess, you know, to my book.
00:58:08
Speaker
Everything else I wrote is about Plato. So, but yeah, so the book Living for Pleasure, it's out with Oxford. It's part of their really great series on guides to the good life. And, and so it's, yeah, it's part of a really good series. And if you want to know more about Epicurus, that would be a good place to start, I hope. Excellent. Well, thanks so much for joining. Yeah, this was fun.
00:58:30
Speaker
Thanks for listening to Story Conversations. If you found this conversation useful, please give us a rating on Apple, Spotify, or whatever podcast platform you use, and share it with a friend. We are just starting this podcast, so every bit of help goes a long way.
00:58:45
Speaker
And I'd like to thank Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music. Do check out his work at ancientliar.com and please get in touch with us at stoameditation.com if you ever have any feedback or questions. Until next time.