Nietzsche's Positive References to Pleasure

    "An action prompted by the life-instinct proves that it is a right action by the amount of pleasure that goes with it: and yet that Nihilist, with his bowels of Christian dogmatism, regarded pleasure as an objection… What destroys a man more quickly than to work, think and feel without inner necessity, without any deep personal desire, without pleasure—as a mere automaton of duty? That is the recipe for decadence, and no less for idiocy…" [Referring to Kant, but is the basic point not fundamentally Epicurean?]


    Nietzsche, Antichrist, 11 - http://4umi.com/nietzsche/antichrist/11

    I see a connection between Epicurus' dethroning of Reason (Athena) by Pleasure / Nature (Aphrodite) and Nietzsche's balancing of Apollonian and Dionysian qualities. Nietzsche gave huge importance to INSTINCT and GUTS as a source of meaning and as a manner of philosophizing.


    But we haven't really delved too much into the Dionysian theme in the Epicurean group. It would imply a willingness to engage in ritual, and in play, and in dance, and other activities that are pleasurable ways of creating values.

    "Please always remember my doctrines!" - Epicurus' last words

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