As I was reading yesterdays homework assignment, Epicurus’ “Principle Doctrines,” I had trouble getting past the first doctrine. Don’t get me wrong, I think it is a really powerful doctrine and I would like to believe that this doctrine is possible, however, I do not think in reality it can apply. Epicurus claims that, “A blessed and indestructible being has no trouble himself and brings no trouble upon any other being; so he is free from anger and partiality, for all such things imply weakness.” This claim, however outlandish it may be, has many unanswered and vague connotations. Epicurus used the words trouble and anger and then tied them together as though anger is what we need to stay away from in order to maintain a trouble-less existence.
Is it possible to maintain a completely level head at all times? Yes, I think this is a feasible task. I think that it is very possible for one to remain even-tempered throughout his or her own live and not experience any anger. However, I have difficulty fathoming a trouble-less life. Even if one does remain completely empty of anger and partiality, troubles still seem to appear. Troubles appear to be a staple in everyone’s lives. Although a person might be without anger and may be able to address the troubles that come into their life with a composed mentality, the troubles still exist.
Epicurus addresses trouble again with his eleventh doctrine, “If we had never been troubled by celestial and atmospheric phenomena, nor by fears about death, nor by our ignorance of the limits of pains and desires, we should have had no need of natural science.” This is another doctrine I have difficulty with. Why would we not at some point in time end up questioning the world around us and asking questions about the very things that compose the world? Why does Epicurus claim that “trouble” is the explanation to blame for our desire to learn natural sciences? I find the fact; we would have no natural science if we didn’t have trouble, difficult to reason. Perhaps I cannot reason this fact simply because I’ve never lived in a time without trouble, but I believe that the human race would have eventually have become curious about the world around them and eventually developed natural sciences. I may be stretching with this analogy, but look at Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve were in a utopian place and their curiosity led to the development of knowledge (although not natural sciences per say). It would seem with this example that actually Epicurus had it backwards, trouble didn’t lead to the existence of knowledge in natural sciences, but rather curiosity of the world around them and the knowledge of natural sciences led to trouble.
“If we had never been troubled by celestial and atmospheric phenomena, nor by fears about death, nor by our ignorance of the limits of pains and desires, we should have had no need of natural science.”
ReplyDelete“Why does Epicurus claim that “trouble” is the explanation to blame for our desire to learn natural sciences?”
This is a very interesting question Liz.
From my understanding, Epicurus believes troubles lead to an interest in natural science. “How does this work” or “Why?” might now be our next question. This is probably because he believes troubles to be to be that ‘thing’ that sparks curiosity, that ‘thing’ that causes us to wonder. For it truly is curiosity, as you stated, that drives our interest in the natural sciences. Now I guess we can rephrase what he theorized by saying “if there were no troubles we would not be curious, and without curiosity there would be no need for the natural sciences.”
In this case, I think it is important to mention that ‘troubles’ is anything that would cause us discomfort: wonder, pain, doubt, uncertainty etc…
It’s like that saying “don’t fix it if it is not broken.” Why would we want to change things if everything worked just fine? The reason we are constantly finding new ways to do things, is because we are unsatisfied with what we have now, so we wonder “how do we improve it?” But without these "troubles" why would we need natural sciences?