The moral collapse that had already occurred in the time of Socrates became more obvious in the time of Epicurus and Zeno. This is closely related to the weakening of Greek national power and the deviation of democratic politics. connected. This has also led to a change in the development direction of philosophy: philosophy has added more content to guide life, that is, how to preserve oneself and realize oneself in such a chaotic era of mental decline. Epicurus and Zeno gave two completely different answers to this question: Epicurus said I want to be happy! Zeno said I should be temperate! Both of them formed their own philosophical schools and had a profound influence on later generations.

First of all, let’s talk about Epicurus. In my graduation thesis, I once talked about the change of Virgil’s philosophical concepts. In his youth, he believed in Epicureanism, but in his middle age, he turned to Epicurus. Stoicism. For this reason, he also carried private goods in "The Aeneid", using the death of Dido and the final success of Aeneas to imply the failure of Epicureanism in the mechanism of controlling people's anger, and to Readers of the time promoted the Stoic lifestyle. The Epicureanism we know is actually very complicated. After the development of later philosophers, the Epicureanism we call "happy philosophy" is quite different from the views put forward by Epicurus himself. In Luke With the dissemination of Lyceum's "On the Nature of Things", Epicureanism was naturally divided into vulgar Epicureanism and true Epicureanism. Let us not talk about it for now.

Regarding the life of Epicurus, it is difficult to determine. There is one school that says he lived a dissolute life, and another school that said he lived a restrained and frugal life. He believes that the most essential thing in life is the pursuit of happiness, but happiness first means freedom from pain. Happiness is the origin and purpose of a happy life. Happiness = pleasure. Of course, it does not refer to vulgar sensory pleasure, but pleasure. It refers to the pleasure brought by high-level taste. Real pleasure and happiness come from inner balance and tranquility, so fanatical passion must be restrained and not allowed to explode, so that the turmoil in the soul will disappear. Keywords: happiness, happiness. , pleasure, passion

The answer is to use reason and let reason dominate thoughts. I found that philosophers in earlier times advocated rationality, whether it was logos or logic. Temperance is actually a disguised way to achieve rationality. Emotions or passions are often encircled and suppressed. So I asked my senior about the works of philosophers who regard passion as positive emotions. The senior recommended: Nietzsche and Rong. The works of Georg, Marcuse, and Foucault are all relatively modern.

This is how Epicurus designed such a safe and happy castle for himself and his followers. . The first purpose is to pursue happiness and joy, which can be achieved by engaging in high-level interests and exercising rationality to restrain fanatical passions. Then he built a protective shield: related to the political situation at the time, he believed that people should not actively participate in politics or politics. When the reality is mediocre, one should live in seclusion, but this does not mean completely cutting off contact with the outside world. It is very interesting to develop friendship after cutting off the complicated external contacts, because friendship is more selective than family ties, and it is very interesting. More stable than love. After making these preparations, Epicurus began to help everyone eliminate their fears, that is, gods and irresistible and unpredictable death. This is not an accident. For the purpose of consciously developing science, he just needs to construct a new explanation for the things that are difficult to explain in the universe, or at least try to use science to resist the variables in reality. But in fact, he uses the power of science to defeat it. God, at least, expels God into the gap between the power of natural science and the human world, so that God’s anger or punishment can no longer be the fear in people’s hearts. As for death, he said very cleverly: “Death will not come while we exist. . When death comes, we no longer exist. "So there is no need to be afraid of something that we will not get along with for a long time.

The space is a bit beyond the limit. Tomorrow I will devote an article to Zeno, the founder of Stoicism.