I've been going through a total existential crisis for awhile. I'm terrified of death. Both for myself and my loved ones. And because of this pandemic, every time I feel weird I get a panic attack. I've run through every single religion desperate to find some way to find peace with my mortality, but nothing felt right. Is there any philosophy out there that can help me find peace?
wow, and yet it seems like he is barely taught in universities since undergrads are only dimly aware of him as a contemporary of Plato and not much else. Would be interesting to learn why he didnt get more recognition and academic prestige to be studied alongside Plato and Aristotle.
Well for one 90% of his work is lost because it was destroyed by Roman Christians who deemed it heathen. What we know of Epicurus is often in short epistles or secondhand from his followers. Cicero devotes a few chapters to him but really strawmans him and is quite uncharitable. The elite of Athens were quite hostile to his thinking, which was mostly to not own slaves, do the minimum required for content conditions and then gain friendships. Those things made it quite the punching bag for the government and the aristocracy, which preferred Plato.
Ah, the base-superstructure relationship strikes again lol