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Epicurus and Friendship

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 April 2010

Suzanne Stern-Gillet
Suzanne Stern-Gillet
Affiliation:
Bolton Institute of Higher Education
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Extract

Ever since classical times, both Greek and Roman, friendship as a philosophical topic has been on the wane. The only notable exception is Montaigne's essay which, however, owes much to classical treatments. This decline of philosophical interest in friendship is not easy to account for. Alasdair McIntyre's overall thesis in After Virtue seemingly affords him with a ready interpretation. The progressive atomization of society, together with the concurrent growth of individualism that characterizes the modern era, claims McIntyre, are responsible for the demotion of friendship from the public to the private sphere.

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , Spring 1989 , pp. 275 - 288
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1989

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References

1 McIntyre, A., After Virtue (London: Duckworth, 1985), 156Google Scholar, my italics.

2 Sententiae Vaticanas, LVIII, in Epicurus: The Extant Remains, ed. and trans. 1926 Bailey, C. (Hildesheim and New York: Georg Olms Verlag, 1970)Google Scholar. Unless otherwise indicated all references to Epicurus' text will be to the Bailey edition and translation.

3 Kuriai Doxai, XIV, my translation. The obscurity of this aphorism reflects the poor state of the manuscripts, and any translation is bound to be an interpretation. I favour Von der Muehll's, and Bollack's, reading of euporia (dative) over Bailey's euporia (nominative) since: (1) it allows for a ready translation of the first kai and (2) it makes the point that protection from men will be most complete when it comes about through the agent himself rather than when it is due to (external) circumstances such as exile or prosperity. In that respect, my translation is closer to M. Solovine's: “Bien qu'on puisse jusqu'à un certain point se mettre en sécurité contre les hommes au moyen de la force et de la richesse, on obtient cependant une sécurité plus complète en vivant tranquille et loin de la foule”, in Epicure: Doctrines et Maximes (Paris: Hermann, 1939)Google Scholar. Unfortunately Solovine leaves exoristike untranslated.

4 Politics, I, 1.Google Scholar

5 Kuriai Doxai, XXXIII.

6 Politics, 1280b, trans. Jowett, B. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1905).Google Scholar

7 Nicomachean Ethics, 1155a24, trans. Irwin, T.'s (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1985).Google Scholar

8 Kuriai Doxai, XXVII.

9 Forster, E. M., Two Cheers for Democracy (London: Edward Arnold, 1952), 66.Google Scholar

10 McIntyre, , After Virtue, 156.Google Scholar

11 Kuriai Doxai, XXXI–XXXVIII.

12 Sententiae Vaticanae, XXIII. It is interesting to note that Kant, Lectures on Ethics, trans. Enfield, L. (New York and Evanston, IL: Harper Torchbooks, 1963), 203–204Google Scholar, was to put forward the same view in similar terms: “The friendship of need … was the original form of friendship amongst men” and “the friendship of need is presupposed in every friendship, not for enjoyment, but for confidence”. The Kantian view that the friendship of need is genetically prior to fully-fledged friendship closely matches the Epicurean use of archē.

13 Ibid., XXVIII.

14 Ibid., XXXIX.

15 Ibid., LVI.

16 Rist, J. M., Epicurus: An Introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 129.Google Scholar

17 Long, A. A., Hellenistic Philosophy (London: Duckworth, 1974), 72.Google Scholar

18 Long, A. A. and Sedley, D. N., The Hellenistic Philosophers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), vol. 1, 138, and vol. 2, 132Google Scholar. Bollack, Like M., La Pensée du plaisir. Epicure: textes moraux, commentaires (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1975), 451Google Scholar, they reject Usener's emendation of arete (virtue) into hairetē (choiceworthy) in Sententia XXIII. Both interpretations of the Sententia have much to recommend themselves and it is difficult to find conclusive arguments for either reading. I am inclined to think that the problem of interpretation of this aphorism is caused by the undisputed di heauten (in itself). Whether or not we accept Usener's emendation, we still have the problem of explaining how and why Epicurus came to invest something else than pleasure with intrinsic value.

19 Letter to Menoeceus, 128.Google Scholar

20 Sententiae Vaticanae, XXXIII; see also Kuriai Doxai, XXI.

21 Letter to Menoeceus, 130.Google Scholar

22 Ibid.

23 For a detailed discussion of the concepts of needs, wants and lacks cf., e.g., White, A. R., Modal Thinking (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1975)Google Scholar, chap. 8, passim.

24 Nicomachean Ethics, 1156a17–21.

25 Sententiae Vaticanae, XXVIII.

26 Ibid., LVI.

27 Sententiae Vaticanae, XXVII, as analyzed infra.

28 Ibid., XXIII.

29 Ibid., LXXVIII.

30 Festugière, A. J., Epicurus and His Gods, trans. Chillon, C. W. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1955), 32–33.Google Scholar

31 Ibid., 36–37.

32 Cf. Cooper, J., Reason and Human Good in Aristotle (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975), 19ff.Google Scholar

33 Letter to Menoeceus, 135.Google Scholar

34 Bailey, , Epicurus, 382.Google Scholar

35 DeWitt, N. W., Epicurus and His Philosophy (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1954), 218–219.Google Scholar

36 It should here be mentioned that, unlike Bailey, Arrighetti, G., Epicurus Opere (Torino: Giulio Einaudi, 1960)Google Scholar, and Bollack, , Pensée, 486–488Google Scholar, both reject Usener's emendation. According to Bollack, this Sententia makes the point that the greatest good should be conceived of as outside time, i.e., as immune to generation and corruption. Though this interpretation is ingenious, it is convoluted. Besides, it fails to dispel the obscurity of the text since it raises the further question as to why Epicurus should have recourse to a temporal notion, i.e., that of simultaneity, to make the point that the greatest good is atemporal.

37 Cf. also Fragment 54.

38 Cicero, De Amicitia, trans. Falconer, W. A., Loeb Classical Library (London: Heinemann, 1923), XII, 40Google Scholar, my italics.

39 de Montaigne, M., Essays, trans. Florio, J., 1603, repr. Everyman Library (London: Dent, London, 1900), 202.Google Scholar

40 De Amicitia, VIII, 28.Google Scholar

41 Sententiae Vaticanae, XV. I have amended Bailey's translation of epieikeis as “well-disposed to us” into “decent” since his rendering prejudges the issue of the egoistic nature of mature inter-personal relationships.

42 Cf. also Letter to Herodotus, in Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, X, 82Google Scholar. The significant role of the notion of individual in Epicurus' thought is stressed, though not fully substantiated, in Harrington, B., The Faith of Epicurus (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1967), 100–104.Google Scholar

43 Sententiae Vaticanae, LXXVII.

44 Lysis, 215a–b.

45 Kuriai Doxai, XXVIII.

46 Ibid., XL. Cf. also Fragment 50.

47 Sententiae Vaticanae, LV.

48 I should like to thank Gordon Neal and Axel Stern, as well as the two anonymous Dialogue referees, for perceptive comments on earlier drafts.