Seneca, On the Happy Life 27: Epicurus and the Stoic Comrades

I myself believe, though my Stoic comrades would be unwilling to hear me say so, that the teaching of Epicurus was upright and holy, and even, if you examine it narrowly, strong: for this much talked of pleasure is reduced to a very narrow compass, and he bids pleasure submit to the same law which we bid virtue do—I mean, to obey Nature.

Luxury, however, is not satisfied with what is enough for nature. What is the consequence? Whoever thinks that happiness consists in lazy sloth, and alternations of gluttony and profligacy, requires a good patron for a bad action, and when he has become an Epicurean, having been led to do so by the attractive name of that school, he follows, not the pleasure which he there hears spoken of, but that which he brought there with him, and, having learned to think that his vices coincide with the maxims of that philosophy, he indulges in them no longer timidly and in dark corners, but boldly in the face of day.

I will not, therefore, like most of our school, say that the sect of Epicurus is the teacher of crime, but what I say is: it is ill spoken of, it has a bad reputation, and yet it does not deserve it. . . .

—Seneca the Younger, On the happy life, Chapter 13 (tr Stewart)

I have never had much patience for any philosophy that is dogmatic and exclusive, since the truth should be acquired through reasoning, not by authority, and it should be something shared, not something fractured. This should apply especially to Stoicism, ordered as it is toward the harmony of all things, and not toward conflict.

I learned to deeply respect the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas precisely because he was a thinker who was always willing and able to see the different senses of meaning, and would always strive to point out what was common before he explained a disagreement. I was always saddened by the sort of Thomists who completely missed this point.

A respect for others means that we can begin with what is shared, and then use our own errors as a means to improvement. Seneca knows that there will be some Stoics, perhaps more interested in the name than the task, who prefer to condemn instead of understand. Seneca, however, is willing to give credit where credit is due.

Epicurus did indeed hold pleasure to be the highest good, but his conviction was that such pleasure must always be calm and moderate, and should obey Nature. If this is indeed the case, Seneca argues that passion must therefore actually follow reason and virtue, because any pleasure is qualified and conditioned by whether it is understood to be good or bad. Epicurus may have gotten the order of priority wrong in his thinking, but he modeled a very similar way of living in his practice.

This, of course, isn’t true of many of his followers, then and now, who would have reason and virtue as slaves to unbridled desire. To be fair, such a misunderstanding might be similar to that of an extreme Stoic who thinks that virtue is just toughness, or that possessions are evil, or that pleasure should be repressed.

I have always hoped to discover something bigger than myself in a philosophy, and not just impose my own preferences upon it. 

Written in 8/2011

Image: Marble Bust of Epicurus (3rd c. BC)