In one sense they are political in that you're arranging the basic economy of the home, which is where we all begin. But in the other sense you have to utilize the system of private property rights in order to establish a space for those who fit in, which is actually quite insular rather than addressing the needs of people at large. — Moliere
So if there is a higher ethic, something beyond human beings seeking pleasure, due to us being human we have to find a way to satisfy our hedonism regardless. — Moliere
And to say that the season for studying philosophy has not yet come, or that it is past and gone, is like saying that the season for happiness is not yet or that it is now no more. Therefore, both old and young alike ought to seek wisdom, the former in order that, as age comes over him, he may be young in good things because of the grace of what has been, and the latter in order that, while he is young, he may at the same time be old, because he has no fear of the things which are to come.
Then for all my studying you are more devout than me, and you'd still ask "Why not hedonism?" where I would say "well, sometimes anxiety is worth it -- and not because it leads to a calmer state of mind" — Moliere
I don't think I would, actually. I don't reject or renounce my negative feelings. They're not pleasant, but they're reasonable, necessary; they serve a function and fill a need I could probably explain if I took the time and attention to articulate it - probably; not really sure. — Vera Mont
But then another aspect of my life has changed over time: my physical world, and especially my social world, has shrunk, even as my info-sphere has expanded. Perspective is skewed; it's an entirely different configuration and dimensions from what it was 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago. — Vera Mont
Further Epicurus' theory gets at something fundamental about desire -- that our desires can be the reason we are unhappy, rather than us being unhappy because we're not satisfying those desires, and so the cure of unhappiness is to remove the desire rather than pursue it. — Moliere
Which is a very different kind of hedonism from our usual understanding of the word since it's centered around limiting desire such that they can always be satisfied and you don't have to worry about them rather than pursuing any and all of them. — Moliere
I think the misunderstanding arises in no small part from amateur hedonists who, while trying to defend their theory, end up falling back into something which is so safe as to be merely descriptive. — Leontiskos
.So maybe Epicurus is odd to us in part because we are surrounded by such lazy hedonists. :grin: — Leontiskos
A good point. I think of them as untheorized hedonists - they are more likely to be using the term in an undifferentiated fashion to describe 'pleasure seeking' despite the consequences. Dissipated voluptuaries tend to have a limited shelf life. — Tom Storm
What I've liked about Epicurus is the setting of achievable standards for hedonism... — Tom Storm
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