Goal of Life (Telos)

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  • The end or goal of life: that for the sake of which everything else is chosen. For Epicurus the telos is pleasure, "the beginning and end of the blessed life." Cicero's On Ends is a debate among the schools about exactly this question.

    Greek τέλος (telos); Latin finis, as in Cicero's On Ends (De Finibus)

    1. Key Texts

    Quote from Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus 128

    And for this cause 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 return again, using the feeling as the standard by which we judge every good. (Bailey)

    2. See Also

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