display all the ideas for this combination of texts
5 ideas
| 13291 | Slavery to philosophy brings true freedom [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: To win true freedom you must be a slave to philosophy. | |
| From: Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]), quoted by Seneca the Younger - Letters from a Stoic 008 | |
| A reaction: A lovely idea. It is one thing to free the body, or to free one's social situation, but the challenge to 'free your mind' is either romantic nonsense or totally baffling, apart from the suggestion offered here. Reason is freedom. Very Kantian. |
| 20772 | Three branches of philosophy: first logic, second ethics, third physics (which ends with theology) [Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: There are three kinds of philosophical theorems, logical, ethical, and physical; of these the logic should be placed first, ethics second, and physics third (and theology is the final topic in physics). | |
| From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1035a | |
| A reaction: [in his lost 'On Lives' Bk 4] 'Theology is the final topic in physics'! That should create a stir in theology departments. Is this an order of study, or of importance? You come to theology right at the end of your studies. |
| 22758 | Philosophy aims at a happy life, through argument and discussion [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy is an activity which secures the happy life by arguments and discussions. | |
| From: Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]), quoted by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Ethicists (one book) VI.169 | |
| A reaction: Presumably this aims at the happiness of the participant. Universal happiness would need to be much more political. If this is your aim then you can't just follow the winds of the argument, but must channel it towards happiness. No nasty truths? |
| 14523 | We should come to philosophy free from any taint of culture [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: I congratulate you, sir, because you have come to philosophy free of any taint of culture. | |
| From: Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) | |
| A reaction: [source: Athenaeus, 'Deipnosophists' 13 588b] No one nowadays thinks such an aspiration remotely possible, not least because the culture is embedded in your native language, but I find the idea very appealing. |
| 22240 | The aim of medicine is removal of sickness, and philosophy similarly removes our affections [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: Just as there is no benefit to medicine if it does not heal the sicknesses [nosos] of bodies, so too there is none to philosophy unless it expels that affections of the soul. | |
| From: Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE], fr 221), quoted by James Allen - Soul's Virtue and the Health of the Body p.78 | |
| A reaction: This sounds rather Buddhist, if the only route to happiness is to suppress the emotions. Epicurus probably refers to the more extreme desires, which only lead to harm. Galen quotes Chrysippus as endorsing this idea (see footnote 5). |