The last couple of days have been a good time to think about what Epicurus had to say about the principles involved in personal security. I posted a couple of the main Epicurean cites in another thread, and I see Alexander Rios did the same. Ive summarized several below, and if anyone can think of others feel free to post them here. Everyones personal context is going to vary widely, and so how these are applied will also vary widely. Success is never guaranteed, and in applying these or any other general principles about how we relate to other men, remember PD36: In general justice is the same for all ... but in its application to particular places or other circumstances the same thing is not necessarily just for everyone. Also, remember that Epicurus was not like those other philosophers who focused on *reacting* to what happens *to* us. Instead, the whole of Epicurean philosophy is geared toward taking the appropriate mental and physical actions to shape our own contexts. As Lucretius said in regard to sallying out from the proper gates: Lucretius Book 6: He [Epicurus] therefore cleansed men’s breasts with truth-telling precepts and fixed a limit to lust and fear and explained what was the chief good which we all strive to reach, and pointed out the road along which by a short cross-track we might arrive at it in a straightforward course; he showed too what evils existed in mortal affairs throughout, rising up and manifoldly flying about by a natural – call it chance or force, because nature had so brought it about – and ***from what gates you must sally out duly to encounter each***... Heres a partial list of relevant Epicurean sayings: PD 6. In order to obtain security from other men any means whatsoever of procuring this is a natural good. PD 33. There never was such a thing as absolute justice, but only agreements made in mutual dealings among men in whatever places at various times providing against the infliction or suffering of harm. PD 39. The man who best knows how to meet external threats makes into one family all the creatures he can; and those he can not, he at any rate does not treat as aliens; and where he finds even this impossible, he avoids all dealings, and, so far as is advantageous, excludes them from his life. PD 40: Those who possess the power to defend themselves against threats by their neighbors, being thus in possession of the surest guarantee of security, live the most pleasant life with one another; and their enjoyment of the fullest intimacy is such that if one of them dies prematurely, the others do not lament his death as though it called for pity. VS 13. There is no advantage to obtaining protection from other men so long as we are alarmed by events above or below the earth or in general by whatever happens in the boundless universe. VS 14. Protection from other men, secured to some extent by the power to expel and by material prosperity, in its purest form comes from a quiet life withdrawn from the multitude. VS 31. It is possible to provide security against other things, but as far as death is concerned, we men all live in a city without walls. Ciceros Epicurean speaker Torquatus, from On Ends - Yet nevertheless some men indulge without limit their avarice, ambition and love of power, lust, gluttony and those other desires, which ill-gotten gains can never diminish but rather must inflame the more; inasmuch that they appear proper subjects for restraint rather than for reformation. All of the above come from the translations available either at epicurus.net/ or newepicurean/lucretius
Posted on: Tue, 16 Dec 2014 16:00:54 +0000
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