Articles and Blog Entries On Ethics

06/21/17 - The following is excerpted from two posts on the Facebook Group : I continue to believe that formulations of ataraxia that imply that passivity (all we have to do is suppress pain) is sufficient are overly bro

"When the Gospel of Minimalism Collides With Daily Life" New York Times: ".... But those who have tried the minimalist way have found that it’s not always as satisfying as design websites and tiny-house blogs insist. For

A Neighbor And His Dog I have a story to tell you about a neighbor and his dog, but first I would like to share with you some thoughts on Epicurean Doctrine 40: “As many as possess the power to procure complete security

Elli Pensa has translated for us the following article by a Greek student of Epicurus, Dimitris Liarmakopoulos.

Epicurean Philosophy or Epicureanism? \n In\na recent conversation to the Garden of Thessaloniki, a question was raised\nwhether the Epicureans could participate as a party to the political scene of\nthe Country. The fri

JC: Hi Cassius. I'm sorry to badger you about this again, but I'm still trying to get my head around the pleasure principle. From my reading, all scholars agree that Epicurus divides pleasure into kinetic and katastemati

Bailey, Epicurean Fragment 87 . "We must say how best a man will maintain the natural end of life, and how no one will willingly at first aim at public office." \n Lucretius Book 3 : And while men driven on by an unreal

Inspired by the considerations on the Epicurean friendship of Phillp Mithis in the book "The Ethical Theory of Epicurus - The pleasures of Invulnerability," I want to summarize the thought of Epicurus on friendship, tryi

From Diogenes Laertius, Book 10 (The Biography of Epicurus), we read something that may lead us again to revisit the matter of the apparent chronic ill health of Epicurus, and how the great philosopher confronted and dea

As much as Epicurus advised against devoting life to politics, it appears that the politicians cannot return the favor and leave Epicurus alone. On both left and right, partisans of every cause except that of Epicurus hi

Haris Dimitriadis is author of “ The Pleasant Life – The Philosophy of Epicurus .” Born in Greece, Haris studied Mathematics at the Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki as well as Economics at the London School of Eco

"Epicurean Philosophy and the Deception of Modern Globalist Ideologues", by Elli Pensa When you write a book and reference Epicurean philosophy as if it were nothing more than…“stones, bricks, wood, and tiles—(these) are

PD 40: “As many as possess the power to procure complete immunity from their neighbours, these also live most pleasantly with one another, since they have the most certain pledge of security, and after they have enjoyed

This work was authored by George Kaplanis, a retired notary and founding member of the Group for the Analysis and Experiential Application of Epicurean Philosophy Today ( http://www.epicuros21.gr ) The work is structured

Between night and day lie twilight and dawn - moments that belong neither to light nor to darkness, yet honor both as complementary shades of our natural, tangible, and shared reality. These moments transcend - or rather

An Analysis of a Father’s Death Sentence Against His Own Son - Torquatus and the Roman Recasting of Epicurean Philosophy. Titus Manlius Torquatus, as portrayed in Cicero’s De Finibus , appears as a defender of Epicurean

Friedrich Nietzsche, in his work The Antichrist , denounces Paul as the inventor of Christianity and an enemy of Rome’s grandeur. But perhaps Nietzsche himself misunderstood what Paul truly fought against. Rome may have

An Epicurean response to Massimo Pigliucci’s March 3, 2026. article on Epicurus, the Stoics, and political engagement Massimo Pigliucci’s essay “The Garden Or The Forum: Epicurus, The Stoics, And The Duty To Engage” repr

There are as many opinions about happiness as there are people. Everyone has their own idea of what happiness is or should be. Some say that we should look to religion for happiness. Others say that there are no hard and

A friendly but direct word to young people searching for solid ground and thinking they might find it in the old but newly trendy Catholic Church Something is stirring among young people in the West, and it deserves to b

“For this reason we call pleasure the beginning and end of the blessed life. For we recognize pleasure as the first good innate in us, and from pleasure we begin every act of choice and avoidance, and to pleasure we retu

“For this reason we call pleasure the beginning and end of the blessed life.” — Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus Is The “Emphasis” In Epicurean Philosophy On Relief From Pain? In a separate article I have made the case that

The Letter of Epicurus to His Mother Diogenes of Oinoanda (fr. 125–126) – Free rendering Mother, concerning everything that troubles you, I want you to form clear and confident thoughts. The images we see in dreams - esp

“I know not how to conceive the good, apart from the pleasures of taste, of sex, of sound, and the pleasures of beautiful form.” – Epicurus, in Diogenes Laertius, Book X Introduction Epicurus declared pleasure to be the

The Current Establishment View - Which It Is the Editorial Policy Of EpicureanFriends.com to Reject With only a few notable exceptions, practically every modern account of Epicurean ethics repeats the same claim: Epicuru

The Words You’ve Seen a Thousand Times, and What It Actually Says You have almost certainly seen this sentence before, even if you’ve never read a word of it: “Neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum, quia dolor sit,

“The removal of all pain is the limit of the magnitude of pleasures.” – Epicurus, Principal Doctrine 3 Centuries of commentators have treated this and similar statements as an invitation to make something other than plea

“Academic Questions” sounds like exactly what a modern reader expects from ancient philosophy: a dry, technical argument about definitions, conducted by men with nothing better to do, over a question no one outside a cla

A transcription of Don Boozer's presentation showing that Epicurus's 'bread and water' was the ordinary, everyday diet of ancient Greeks -- not a punitive or ascetic deprivation, but nourishing barley bread and spring water.

Epicurus advocated prudence (phronēsis) — practical wisdom in judging particular pleasures and pains — not the vague, borrowed idea of “moderation in all things.”

Happiness is the overall target across an entire life -- a life in which pleasure predominates over pain -- distinct from pleasure itself, which is the moment-to-moment guide used to reach it.

With no supernatural gods or absolute virtue to appeal to, Nature gives us only Pleasure and Pain by which to determine what to choose and what to avoid.

Since Nature gives us only two feelings, whatever is not painful is in fact pleasurable -- making "Absence of Pain" and "Pleasure" exactly the same thing, and a pleasant life available to nearly everyone.

Virtue is not a divine or absolute ideal but a set of tools for living well -- and good and evil are not abstractions, but consist in sensation itself.

Since pleasure involves intensity and completeness as well as duration, an unlimited lifespan could add nothing to a life that is already, in the relevant sense, complete.

Plato as the Mainstream

Say the word “pleasure” in connection with Epicurus and many people picture the same narrow thing: If they have a positive outlook on pleasure, they think of a good meal, a warm bath, a moment of bodily comfort. If they have a negative outlook on pleasure, they think of conspicuous consumption, self-indulgence, and luxurious pampering. Rarely today is “pleasure” the first word associated with art, science, literature, exploration, or human achievement.

This bipolar…