HELLENISM
WEEK 5
What is Hellenism?
• After the death of Aristotle, Greek civilization
entered what historians call the Hellenistic
era, a period of cultural decline
• The Greek city-states, unable to solve the
problem of political disunity, were decimated
by the Peloponnesian War and ravaged by the
plague
• This philosophical schools ought to find the
greatest happiness
What are the events that led to
Hellenism?
• First they fell under Macedonian rule; then,
after the death of Alexander the Great, they
eventually were absorbed into the newly
emerging Roman Empire
• Many of the philosophies of this “decadent”
period began in Greece but received their
greatest exposure in Rome
What are the Hellenistic
philosophies?
• Epicureanism
• Cynicism
• Stoicism
• Neo-platonism
• Skepticism
Epicureanism
“The highest good is pleasure, the greatest evil is
pain.”
-EPICURUS
What is Epicureanism?
• This philosophical school was named after its
founder Epicurus
• Epicureanism was grounded in the atomic
theory of Democritus, but, in fact, Epicurus,
like all post-Alexandrian philosophers, does
not seem to have been really interested in
science but in finding out about the good life
What is Epicureanism?
• Like Aristotle, Epicurus believed that the goal
of life was happiness, but happiness he
equated simply with pleasure
• Epicurus further explained that no act should
be undertaken except for the pleasure in
which it results, and no act should be rejected
except for the pain that it produces
Epicurean View of Death
• According to Epicurus, one of the obstacle in
attaining happiness is the fear of death
• He also added that fear is increased by the
religious belief that if you incur the wrath of
the gods, you will be severely punished in the
afterlife
• He tried to answer the issue of the fear of
death in the next slide
Epicurean View of Death
Epicurean View of Happiness
• According to Epicurus, there are two kinds of
desires, hence, two kinds of pleasure as a result of
gratifying those desires: natural desire (which has
two subclasses) and vain desire
I. Natural desire=Natural Pleasure
A. Necessary (e.g., desire for food and sleep)
B. Unnecessary (e.g., desire for sex)
II. Vain/Temporary desire=Vain/Temporary Pleasure
(e.g., desire for decorative clothing or exotic food)
Epicurean View of Happiness
• Natural necessary desires must be satisfied
and are usually easy to satisfy. They result in a
good deal of pleasure and in very few painful
consequences
• Vain desires do not need to be satisfied and
are not easy to satisfy. Because there are no
natural limits to them, they tend to become
obsessive and lead to very painful
consequences.
Epicurean View of Happiness
• The desire for sex is natural but usually can be
overcome; and when it can be, it should be,
because satisfaction of the sexual drive gives
intense pleasure, and all intense emotional
states are dangerous
• Also, the desire for sex puts people in
relationships that are usually ultimately more
painful than pleasant and that are often
extremely painful
Cynicism
“Wealth and poverty do not lie in a man's
estate, but in men's souls.”
-Antisthenes
What is Cynicism?
• It is a school of thought of ancient Greek
philosophy founded by Antisthenes and
further developed by Diogenes
• Antisthenes was inspired by the frugality of his
teacher, Socrates after the latter made a
striking comment on a carriage store saying:
“What a lot of things I don’t need!”
Cynicism and Happiness
• For the Cynics, the purpose of life is to live in
virtue, in agreement with nature
• As reasoning creatures, people can gain
happiness by rigorous training and by living in
a way which is natural for themselves,
rejecting all conventional desires for wealth,
power, sex, and fame
• Instead, they were to lead a simple life free
from all possessions
Cynicism and Happiness
• The happiest person, who in Diogenes’ phrase,
“has the most”, is therefore someone who
lives in accordance with the rhythms of the
natural world, free from the conventions and
values of civilized society, and “content with
the least.”
Stoicism
“The goal of life is living in agreement with
nature.”
-Zeno of Citium
What is Stoicism?
• Stoicism was another important Hellenistic
philosophy that was transported to Rome
• Stoicism was founded in Greece by Zeno of
Cyprus (334–262 B.C.E.), who used to preach
to his students from a portico, or stoa (hence
the term “stoicism,” literally, “porchism”)
What is Stoicism?
What is Stoicism?
• Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy
that flourished throughout the Roman and
Greek world until the 3rd century AD
• Stoicism is predominantly a philosophy of
personal ethics which is informed by its
system of logic and its views on the natural
world
Stoicism and Happiness
• According to its teachings, as social beings,
the path to happiness for humans is found in
accepting that which we have been given in
life, by not allowing ourselves to be controlled
by our desire for pleasure or our fear of pain,
by using our minds to understand the world
around us and to do our part in nature's plan,
and by working together and treating others
in a fair and just manner
Stoicism and Happiness
• Everyone is a part of the same common sense
or “logos”.
• There exists a universal rightness or the
“Natural Law”
• It teaches that nothing happens accidentally,
everything happens through necessity
• In order to achieve happiness, one must have self-
control and accept his/her fate
Neoplatonism
“Wherever it lies, under earth or over earth,
the body will always rot.”
-Potinus
What is Neoplatonism?
• The most prominent philosophical religious
competitor with Christianity during the third
century C.E.was a mystical form of
Platonismknown today as Neoplatonism,
espoused by Plotinus (204–270)
• For Plotinus, as for Plato before him, absolute
truth and certainty cannot be found in this
world
What is Neoplatonism?
• Plato had taught a purely rational method for
transcending the flux of the world and
achieving truth and certainty, but Plotinus
preached that such a vision can only be
achieved extra-rationally, through a kind of
ecstatic union with the One
• The One was for Plotinus the Absolute, or God
Neoplatonism and Happiness
• According to Neoplatonism, one can only achieve
true happiness of there will be union of the soul
with the One
• That union can be achieved in this life in
moments of mystical rapture, but in the long run
the goal can only be achieved in death
• It was the chief rival of Christianity and some of
its teaching were later integrated in Christianity
by medieval Christian philosophers
Neoplatonism and Happiness
• Plotinus’s own version of the Line is based on
his idea that God, or the Absolute, does not
perform acts of creation (that would sully
God’s unchangeableness); rather, God
“emanates.”
• That is, God is reflected onto lower planes,
and these reflections represent kinds of
imitations of God’s perfection in descending
degrees of fragmentation
Neoplatonism and Happiness
Skepticism
“Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy
of truth.”
-Albert Einstein (A skeptic quote)
What is Skepticism?
• It was a Hellenistic philosophy inspired by
Pyrrho of Ellis
• He was exposed to Asian culture while serving
on Alexander the Great’s military campaigns,
and was also the first noted philosopher to
place doubt at the center of to his thinking
What is Skepticism?
• Pyrrho treated the suspension of judgment
about beliefs as the only reasonable reaction
to the fallibility of the senses, and to the fact
that both sides of any argument can seem to
be equally valid
• It is an approach that requires all information to be
well supported by evidence
Skepticism and Happiness
• According to this philosophical though, the
highest form of happiness is a tranquil mind or
“Ataraxia” which can only be attained by the
suspension of one’s belief
References
• Stumpf, Samuel Enoch, FROM SOCRATES TO
SARTRE: A History of Philosophy. New York Mc
Graw, 2008
• Palmer, Donald, LOOKING AT PHILOSOPHY:
The Unbearable Heaviness of Philosophy
Made Lighter. McGraw-Hill, 2005
• Buckingham, Will et al, THE PHILOSOPHY
BOOK: Big Ideas Simply Explained. DK, 2011
• Google Images
