Epicureanism: The Basic Idea
Is it so hard to satisfy our senses?
Ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus (341–270 BC) believes that the way to ensure happiness throughout life is to reduce one’s desires so that they can be easily fulfilled.
What is happiness?
We begin our exploration of the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus (341–270 BC) with a very high-level look at what he wants to do with his theory — and we will see why this is still incredibly important for our lives two thousand years later. In fact, Epicureanism may be more necessary today than it ever was before in human history: Our modern version of capitalism has brought about exactly those conditions that Epicurus himself saw as the greatest obstacle to a truly happy life — and in this, Epicurus would readily agree with Fromm and also with Bertrand Russell, although their reasons to criticise modern life would be different.
When we ask what makes us happy, we can give many different answers.
Throughout history, philosophers have tried to argue that perhaps it is fulfilling our duty to others that makes us truly happy; or developing our own potential to its highest degree, and achieving a kind of flourishing as a human being; or perhaps happiness is nothing more than having pleasurable experiences, of enjoying the world and all…
