What Would Epicurus Say About Us Today?

The Modern Soul

It is funny how we gave the torch of what constitutes the “good” to those who misuse this ideal for their own egoistic improvement. Epicurus, for example, said that philosophy (and by implication philosophers) is supposed to do this. Accordingly, his famous statement follows:

“Vain is the word of a philosopher which does not heal any suffering of man. For just as there is no profit in medicine if it does not expel the diseases of the body, so there is no profit in philosophy either, if it does not expel the suffering of the mind.”

We are thus told that philosophy is a medicine for our soul, but in modern times what does this even mean? Medicine for the soul is a contradiction: medicine as something which targets biological (physical) entities cannot contravene on the non-physical which is our soul. That is if we take the soul to be non-physical. Epicurus, for example, took the soul to be something physical, but this is not our current understanding of the soul. The soul today is not something we accept in the physical realm, we rather push it towards religious scholars, or worse, we give the “right” to these scholars so that they can tell us if we are living a good life or not. The modern equivalent being, for example, “social media influencers” who bears the torch of what medicine we need for our souls.

Let us rephrase this. Today we do not believe in the soul like Epicurus did. Nor do we believe in the Medieval notion of the soul as something separate to the body. The soul is more of an archaic term that still pervades our language, but which does not have any referent (if we use Fregean terminology). One might say that today there is an exclusive focus on the body because we don’t have the mind/body split anymore. Yes, some people still hold the notion, but medicine and science does not hold this split anymore. Philosopher Mary Midgley holds an interesting idea. She states in her book “Are you and illusion?” that science still operates as if there is a mind/body duality, except that they simply deny the first and focus on the latter. By doing this, according to her, they miss a valuable part that can enhance, say, happiness. Happiness in our own times are sometimes linked to pleasure and this pleasure is always physical. One might state the following: Those who bear the torch of what constitutes to be happy sometimes equate this with material pleasure; how many likes does my post get? How many followers do I have? How should I live in order to get likes? Others will see this and follow suit. The modern “good life” might look like a materialist pleasure seeking machine one enters.

A Means Toward an End

But is this what really constitutes happiness? Or is this the illusion we are fooled by because those who bear the torch are in it for the egoistic improvement? We can make a distinction between doing something in order to achieve something and doing something for the doing of that thing itself. Kant’s distinction of means to an end and the end itself is also a way of understanding the distinction. Modern happiness almost exclusively focused on doing something in order to find happiness. This is the problem with equating happiness with the physical. Happiness is then seen as something one can actively strive for, I can act in such a way as to get people to like my post or follow me so that I might find happiness in this. But Epicurus (and other philosophers from his time) did not think of happiness in this way. See, for example, the following:

“In other activities, the rewards come only when people have become, with great difficulty, complete [masters of the activity]; but in philosophy the pleasure accompanies the knowledge. For the enjoyment does not come after the learning but the learning and the enjoyment are simultaneous.”

Philosophy is thus something one cannot do in order to gain something else; philosophy is an activity one should only do for the sake of philosophizing. Given this, one might bring the conversation back to philosophy being medicine for the soul. Can philosophy be medicine for the soul today, for the modern individual who seeks constant acceptance from others? Can the modern individual conceptualize doing something for the sake doing the thing itself? In other words, are we even able to enjoy a plate of food for the plate of food without some ulterior motive? Granted, this might not be a modern problem, just an old problem with a new face, but one cannot ignore the fact that this problem is at a rate much worse than ever before. Again, can philosophy be of help? What might Epicurus say about our modern way of life?

Ataraxia, Apatheia, Eudaimonia, and Philosophia

The Greek words for a state that one might call Happiness can help us in our modern times. Philosophy is a compound between philo which means love and sophia which means wisdom. One might say wisdom is something we need in order to live a good life. Searching for wisdom to achieve it (like happiness) is futile; you cannot get wisdom like reading a book to acquire knowledge. Knowledge and wisdom are two different things. 2000 years ago, this search started, and we are still searching, but, we might use Epicurus’ quote above, it is not the state of achievement that brings happiness, but the act of philosophizing (whatever it constitutes). It is not a road that leads towards some end destination, it is rather a road one walks on for the sake of walking and enjoying the walk as a walk. It may lead to a dead end, but this will not trouble one because there was never an end in thought.

The next two terms are understood negatively, there is an absence of something. Ataraxia, which means freedom from anxiety, and Apatheia, which means freedom from suffering, are understood as states one finds oneself in when there is no anxiety or suffering. In other words, the absence of anxiety and suffering is desirable states. There is no search for a state to be in (like pleasure) it is rather the absence of an undesirable state.

This brings one to eudaimonia, or what the Greeks called happiness. The literal meaning is to be good with one’s daimon or spirit. There are many ways one might reach this “at homeness with oneself”, but the absence of the two states discussed above, might constitute this feeling. Again, think of the road one walks on. The absence of anxiety related to the end destination and the absence of suffering because of the journey towards the end destination might lead one to take the journey with a state of eudaimonia, one of well-being or happiness. This journey is done for the sake of the journey itself, philosophizing is done for philosophy’s sake, eating food is done for eating the food’s sake, there are no ulterior motive behind these actions. It is only when we do these things for the sake of something else that suffering, and anxiety starts to creep in.

What might Epicurus say about our modern way of life?

Epicurus lived in his garden with his friends and fellow philosophers. There they “moulded” the world in such a way that it always brought happiness. This happiness is not something we might in modern times understand. This happiness was explicitly the absence of pain. They moulded reality in such a way that happiness, as the absence of pain, always resulted. What might Epicurus say about our modern way of life? Our modern way of life is moulded around what others say constitutes happiness. Social media, as the current bearer of “goods”, mould our understanding of happiness and this does not seem to do us any good. We are living in depressing times, not because the times have changed, but because we try and conform to what this faceless other try to tell us. We should take a step backwards and ask ourselves, like Epicurus constantly did, how might I mould the world so that I can achieve happiness?