Epicurus’ view on the worth of mates has typically been romanticised and equally typically misunderstood. Epicurus himself appears to current contradictory views concerning the worth of friendships. So does Epicurus need us to take advantage of our mates for our personal good or not?
This text is a part of The Ultimate Guide to Epicurus.
Epicurean friendship
A lot has been mentioned about Epicurus and the worth of friendship in his philosophy. In accordance with some commentators, Epicurus was so related to the idea of friendship within the historic world, that when the Christians got here round, they averted speaking about friendship, in order to not be confused for Epicureans.
All people with a passing curiosity in Christianity most likely is aware of the well-known passage of St Paul on love:
Love is affected person, love is sort. It isn’t jealous, is just not pompous, it isn’t inflated, it isn’t impolite, it doesn’t search its personal pursuits, it isn’t quick-tempered, it doesn’t brood over harm, it doesn’t rejoice over wrongdoing however rejoices with the reality. (First letter to the Corinthians)
In distinction, St Paul never uses the words “friend” or “friendship” in his writings, and the almost certainly clarification is that these had been simply too firmly related to the Epicurean neighborhood. (To not point out that the picture of the bearded, serene sage was well-known everywhere in the Greek world and bears an uncanny resemblance to what we think about Christ to have seemed like).
However what precisely does Epicurus say about friendship?
Romanticising Epicurus
There’s a tendency to romanticise Epicurus and his little circle of mates. Sure, they met in stunning backyard, during which they received drunk on happiness, water and plain bread. Sure, they lived collectively in peace, oblivious to the struggles of the world past their backyard. Sure, they had been an egalitarian neighborhood, during which slaves and girls had the identical rights as free males, which was revolutionary for the time.
However we have to be cautious to not learn an excessive amount of into Epicurus’ concepts on friendship. Stephanie Mills, whose fantastic and tender e book “Epicurean Simplicity” we discussed previously, writes:
My mates have given such items to me — laborious truths that I might in some way hear; succor; hilarity; tales; and firm. Longtime friendships are supremely valuable: To help mates in triumph and sorrow, to idiot round with them, to please of their items, be taught from their virtues and their offhand remarks… (Stephanie Mills, Epicurean Simplicity)
And Daniel Klein, in his “Travels with Epicurus,” praises the fantastic thing about friendship, particularly in previous age:
Wanting nothing from one’s mates is essentially totally different from the orientation of an individual who continues to be immersed in skilled life and its relationships. … Treating somebody as and finish slightly than as a way seems to be as a lot a deal with for us as for the particular person to whom we’re relating. Tasso doesn’t need something from his good friend the fisherman besides his firm. … By the thrill of friendship, Epicurus means a full vary of human interactions starting from intimate and sometimes philosophical discussions along with his dearest companions … to impromptu exchanges with individuals, identified and unknown, on the street.
That is all very good, the image of Epicurus’ mates flourishing in everlasting friendship within the grasp’s Backyard, below the shade of the olive bushes. Sadly, Epicurus himself doesn’t appear to fairly agree.
Old Age and Death
The traditional Greek thinker Epicurus emphasises that, in a world that works in keeping with bodily legal guidelines, no one should be afraid of both the gods or one’s personal demise.
Epicurean friendship
We noticed already in the beginning of this text the well-known Epicurean quote:
- Of all of the means that are procured by knowledge to make sure happiness all through the entire of life, by far crucial is the acquisition of mates.
However that’s not all. Epicurus tells us extra particularly what friendship is all about:
- The identical conviction which evokes confidence that nothing now we have to worry is everlasting and even of lengthy length, additionally permits us to see that even in our restricted circumstances of life nothing enhances our safety a lot as friendship. (Principal Doctrines)
And if this isn’t clear sufficient, the grasp can say it much more bluntly:
- Each friendship in itself is to be desired; however the preliminary explanation for friendship is from its benefits. … 34. We don’t a lot want the help of our mates as we do the boldness of their help in want. (Vatican Sayings)
So is Epicurus actually saying that we must always make mates solely as a result of they could come to our assist after we want them? Is he actually so calculating? Many, even in historic instances, have criticised him for this.
Daniel Klein: Travels with Epicurus.
A splendidly human meditation on previous age. A person travels to a Greek island with a suitcase filled with books, in the hunt for a greater, extra dignified technique to age.
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Examine Epicurus’ views with Aristotle:
For this trigger it might appear that we should summon our mates readily to share our good fortunes (for the beneficent character is a noble one), however summon them to our unhealthy fortunes with hesitation. (Nicomachean Ethics, Ebook IX, 11)
How totally different this sounds! Aristotle would keep away from to summon his mates in instances of want, as a result of hesitation in annoying one’s mates with one’s personal issues is the mark of the sensible man.
Aristotle’s idea of happiness rests on three ideas: (1) the virtues, that are good properties of 1’s character that profit oneself and others; (2) phronesis, which is the flexibility to make use of the virtues to the correct quantity in any explicit state of affairs; and (3) eudaimonia, which is a life that’s pleased, profitable and morally good, all on the similar time. This month, we focus on methods to really go about dwelling a life like that.
Epicurus is basically an egoist. That is laborious to keep away from in his system, because the foundation of his entire philosophy is the concept we must always goal to maximise our personal happiness, which is equal to eradicating “pain in the body and trouble in the soul.” The happiness and welfare of others is simply related insofar because it contributes to our personal.
Is Epicurus actually such a foul good friend?
However issues aren’t fairly so bleak. The traditional statesman and scholar Cicero wrote:
Some Epicureans … retain an egoistic place on friendship. They argue that consideration for a good friend’s pleasure is subordinate to that of 1’s personal, however a good friend’s pleasure brings about one’s personal pleasure and so one ought to deal with a real good friend as a second self. (On Ends)
So if we take into account the opposite as a second self, then egoism turns into, within the phrases of Erich Fromm, an “egoism for two”. Hardly a lot nicer, however at the least now the good friend is just not solely a device, however an individual, to be handled himself as an finish.
However maybe now we have misunderstood Epicurus. In spite of everything, Epicurus additionally writes, within the Vatican Sayings:
- We present our feeling for our mates’ struggling, not with laments, however with considerate concern.
And in addition:
- The noble man is mainly involved with knowledge and friendship; of those, the previous is a mortal good, the latter an immortal one.
These aren’t the phrases of somebody who’s calculating the advantages he can reap from his mates. Epicurus right here locations friendship even above knowledge… for whereas knowledge is mortal, friendship is immortal. That is, after all, an echo of Plato’s eternal love, the want to possess the beloved endlessly, and that may solely be fulfilled by realising that there’s something that exists outdoors time, a world of concepts which might be everlasting and unchanging and which an eternity of time can not put on down or destroy.
Right here is Stephanie Mills’ e book “Epicurean Simplicity.” It’s a tender meditation on what makes life price dwelling and a declaration of affection to nature and to life.
Amazon affiliate hyperlink. In the event you purchase by way of this hyperlink, Every day Philosophy will get a small fee without charge to you. Thanks!
And so, in the long run, Epicurus can nonetheless shock us with an announcement so fashionable and so stunning that it’s laborious to imagine that somebody wrote it down two thousand and 300 years in the past:
“Friendship,” Epicurus writes, “dances all over the world bidding us all to awaken to the popularity of happiness.”
As a result of, in spite of everything, there is no such thing as a happiness with out friendship.
Return to The Ultimate Guide to Epicurus.
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Thanks for studying! Cowl picture by Janko Ferlič on Unsplash.
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