Epicurus Belief In Aristippus's Intellectual View Of
Epicurus Epicurus (342.-270 B.C), unlike Aristippus had a more intellectual view of pleasure, and he was mainly concerned with the pleasures of the mind. Epicurus felt that man's insecurity could be partly traced to his false opinions regarding God: "First of all, believe that God is a being incorruptible and happy, as the common opinion of the world about God dictates; and attach to your idea of him nothing which is inconsistent with incorruptibility or with happiness; and think that he is invested with everything which is able to preserve to him this happiness, in conjunction with incorruptibility .For there are Gods; though our knowledge of them is indistinct .But they are not of the character which people in general attribute
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'Accustom yourself also to think death a matter with which we are not at all concerned, since all goods and all evil is in sensation, and since death is only the Privation of sensation. On which account, the correct knowledge of the fact that death is no concern of ours, makes the mortality of life pleasant to us, in as much as it sets forth no illimitable time, but relieves us from the longing for immortality. For there is nothing terrible in living to a man who rightly comprehends that there is nothing terrible in ceasing to live; so that he was a silly man who said that he feared death, not because it would grieve him when it was present, but because it did grieve him while it was future. For it is very absurd that that which does not distress a man when it is present, should afflict him when only expected. Therefore, the most formidable of all evils, death, is nothing to us, since, when we exist, death is not present to us, and when death is present, then we have no existence". …show more content…
It is the result of mutual contracts, so whenever there is a mutual engagement, there is justice to avoid doing or sustaining mutual injury: "Injustice is not intrinsically bad, it has this character only because there is joined with it a fear of not escaping those who are appointed to punish actions marked with that character. It is not possible for a man who secretly does anything in contravention of the agreement which men have made with one another to guard against doing or sustaining mutual injury, to believe that he shall always escape notice, even if he has escaped notice already ten thousand times; for, till his death, it is uncertain whether he will not be detected. In a general point of view, justice is the same thing to everyone; for there is something advantageous in mutual society. Nevertheless, the difference of place, and divers other circumstances, make justice
'Accustom yourself also to think death a matter with which we are not at all concerned, since all goods and all evil is in sensation, and since death is only the Privation of sensation. On which account, the correct knowledge of the fact that death is no concern of ours, makes the mortality of life pleasant to us, in as much as it sets forth no illimitable time, but relieves us from the longing for immortality. For there is nothing terrible in living to a man who rightly comprehends that there is nothing terrible in ceasing to live; so that he was a silly man who said that he feared death, not because it would grieve him when it was present, but because it did grieve him while it was future. For it is very absurd that that which does not distress a man when it is present, should afflict him when only expected. Therefore, the most formidable of all evils, death, is nothing to us, since, when we exist, death is not present to us, and when death is present, then we have no existence". …show more content…
It is the result of mutual contracts, so whenever there is a mutual engagement, there is justice to avoid doing or sustaining mutual injury: "Injustice is not intrinsically bad, it has this character only because there is joined with it a fear of not escaping those who are appointed to punish actions marked with that character. It is not possible for a man who secretly does anything in contravention of the agreement which men have made with one another to guard against doing or sustaining mutual injury, to believe that he shall always escape notice, even if he has escaped notice already ten thousand times; for, till his death, it is uncertain whether he will not be detected. In a general point of view, justice is the same thing to everyone; for there is something advantageous in mutual society. Nevertheless, the difference of place, and divers other circumstances, make justice