Could Epicurus save us?

A philosophy of pleasure could cure our modern ills

Steven Gambardella
The Sophist
Published in
12 min readFeb 2, 2019

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Rome During the Decadence, Thomas Couture, 1847. Epicureanism for a long time had a reputation as a philosophy that encouraged reckless and immoral hedonism. Epicurus was a hedonist, but encouraged the pursuit of a natural state of pleasure that comes when we free ourselves of desire. His philosophy was very popular throughout the Roman Empire. (Image source: Wikipedia)

For over a hundred years archaeologists have been reconstructing, piece by piece, a message of hope from the ancient past.

The message is estimated to comprise of 25,000 words inscribed in 260 square meters of stone. That stone crumbled and was scattered about the ruined site of the ancient Greek-speaking…

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Steven Gambardella
The Sophist

History PhD. The lessons of history and philosophy for your life and work. Writes The Sophist: https://sophist.substack.com/