Grief in Epicureanism

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Although the last few decades have seen a growing interest in ancient theories of the emotions, the topic of grief in ancient philosophy has not received the attention it deserves.[1] The situation is even worse when it comes to Epicureanism, for the studies on the Epicurean view on grief remain largely underrepresented in the scholarly literature despite significant interest in their treatment of the fear of death.[2] For some reason, grief has not generated in scholars the level of interest generated by other emotions,[3] which is all the more surprising if we consider that the complex and ubiquitous character of grief, together with its significance to human experience, makes it ripe for philosophical analysis.[4] Thus, in this project I propose to conduct a systematic and in-depth examination of the Epicurean view on grief, which would fill a gap in the existent literature.

 

It is often thought that Epicureanism was an ancient philosophical doctrine unsympathetic to grief and grieving individuals. On this picture, this antipathy was in line with the characteristic negative attitude of ancient philosophers towards emotions (especially those associated with pain and anxiety), which was grounded in the view that emotions (παθή) are bad for us insofar as they constitute a threat to our ultimate goal of happiness.[5] If ancient philosophers were interested in grief, the thought goes, that is because they considered it a malady that has to be cured as soon as possible.[6] Within ancient philosophy, the philosophers of the Hellenistic period have a reputation of being particularly harsh towards the grieving subject, for they are portrayed as endorsing the view that “we ought not to grieve at all, or failing that, to grieve as little as possible.”[7]

 

Once we take a closer look at the relevant passages, however, the Epicurean view on grief does not seem to fit into this general picture, which is indeed painted with a too-broad brush. An important piece of evidence is Plutarch’s Non Posse 1011a4-b4,[8] where we are told that, far from seeking to eliminate grief (λύπη), the Epicureans do not condemn the distress that arises from the loss of a loved one—a humane attitude for which they seem to have been mocked as soft and affectionate. In contrast with the advice we usually find in the ancient genre of consolation, the Epicureans seem to have written consolatory letters in which they do not criticise the beavered for being weak and self-indulgent, but rather tell them that there is nothing wrong with their grieving (λυπεῖσθαι).[9] The sorrow that is part of grief is not alien to the community of Epicureans, including the Epicurean wise person;[10] for, as Philodemus tells to their Epicurean fellows, “our death will cause pain to many good people” (λυ[ησομ]έ[ν]ους τε πολλοὺς καὶ / ἀγαθοὺς έ[ξομεν] τελευτήσαντες, De Morte col. 21.12–15 Henry), where ‘good people’ is a clear reference to the Epicureans. Indeed, if the Epicurean sage feels sorrow (λυπηθήσεσθαι τὸν σοφόν) and is more susceptible to emotions (πάθεσι μᾶλλον συσχεθήσεσθαι) than other people (as we are told in DL 10.117 and 119), it is reasonable to expect her to be affected by the loss of those that are close to her.[11] Additional support to this interpretation is provided by the extant remains of the second book of the Philista (PHerc 1012), a treatise where the Epicurean Carneiscus (probably born between 325 and 300 BCE) not only states that for the Epicureans the loss of a friend is an inevitable event worthy of grief, but also sheds light on how Epicureans should deal and assuage that natural sorrow, whilst criticising the Peripatetic Praxiphanes’ view of friendship.[12]

 

Now, whereas all this makes clear that on the Epicurean view subjects are allowed to grieve,[13] other passages suggest that the permissible emotion is a particular kind of grief. For example, KD 40 tells us that the Epicureans “did not mourn as pitiful someone’s dying before them” (οὐκ ὠδύραντο ὡς πρὸς ἔλεον τὴν τοῦ τελευτήσαντος προκαταστροφήν, tr. Warren), which suggests that the kind of grief the Epicureans are allowed to experience at the death of a loved one is a kind of grief that does not contain feelings of pity (ἔλεος) towards the deceased.  If this is correct, then there is every reason to think that the Epicureans distinguish between natural and unnatural (or ‘empty’) grief, just as they do with anger. Indeed, in his treatise devoted to anger (De Ira XXXVII.20–XLVI. 13), Philodemus distinguishes between ‘empty anger’ (κενὴ ὀργή), sometimes also called simply ‘θυμός’, which is illegitimate and indeed avoidable, and ‘natural anger’ (φυσικὴ ὀργή), which is inevitable (ἀνέκφευκτον) given both the inescapable character of death and our attachment to friends and relatives (φιλία), and compatible with the sage’s wisdom (De Ira XL.20–6).[14] On the Epicurean view, then, whether grief should be condemned depends on the kind of grief we are talking about, for there is a kind of unperverted grief whose painful character does not threaten our happiness.

 

When it comes to examining the structure of grief, the focus of the scholarly analysis is invariably placed on its cognitive elements, that is, on the kind of beliefs that grief is taken to involve; for, just as in the case of other emotions such as anger and fear, the Epicureans think that grief has both cognitive and non-cognitive elements.[15] Although the Epicureans do not provide us with a definition of grief, it is clear that they take both natural and unnatural grief to involve a kind of mental pain (λύπη) that arises from the belief that certain individual—someone with whom we had an affective relationship—has ceased to exist.[16] In other words, grief is grounded in the belief that one has been deprived, for at least for the Epicureans grief is about a loss or deprivation suffered by the bereaved subject, not about a deprivation (if any) suffered by the deceased.[17] For the Epicureans, then, the loss of a loved one is an appropriate object of distress because it deprives us of something we value (and to which we are attached). Now, in addition to the belief that the death of a loved one constitutes a loss of something valuable, unnatural grief involves the belief that death is bad for the deceased—a belief the Epicureans considered an empty or ungrounded belief (κενὴ δόξα) because death cannot really harm the person who has died: for the Epicurean, death is nothing to us (e.g. KD 2; Ep. Men. 124-5, Lucretius, DRN 3.830-31, 3.870-83; Philodemus, De Morte XIX 30–33).[18] Thus, in contrast with the natural version of grief, which is compatible with the Epicurean view that the dead should not be pitied because death constitutes no harm for them,[19] unnatural grief is unnatural partly because it involves an irrational opinion about death which, on the Epicurean view, reveals a failure to understand the nature of things, and partly because the irrational opinion generates a characteristic overwhelming anxiety.[20]

 

In this project, I will study certain aspects of the Epicurean position with respect to grief that have been overlooked in the existent scholarly literature. Although commentators of Epicureanism have opportunely highlighted the subtlety of the Epicurean view by explaining the distinction between natural and unnatural emotions,[21] there are important aspects of the Epicurean view on grief that still need clarification. In particular, what remains obscure are issues concerning (i) the different strategies implied in the Epicurean consolatory therapy of both natural and unnatural grief, and (ii) what we might call the desiderative aspect of grief and its relation with the Epicurean taxonomy of desires.

 

(i) Grief therapy. A close examination of the Epicurean position will allow us to shed light on certain aspects of the Epicurean techniques of treating grief.[22] To begin with, it is worth noting that the fact that the Epicureans think it is natural and necessary for us to grieve at the death of a loved one does not mean that we should not put an end to that natural emotion. As I will argue, on the Epicurean view every kind of grief is to be addressed but, given their different components, natural and unnatural grief should be treated in different ways. Since unnatural grief involves the empty belief that the deceased has been harmed by her own death (e.g. the deceased has been deprived of goods that she cannot enjoy anymore), the appropriate therapy consists in making it natural by eradicating the empty belief that is at work.[23] Once this belief is extirpated from the soul of the beavered, the intensity and excessiveness of the anxiety generated by that belief is assuaged and kept within certain boundaries, and thus unnatural grief turned into natural grief.

 

Natural grief, in turn, should be overcome at a later stage of the grieving process because, although rational and necessary, it is still a painful emotion.[24] But since natural grief is not grounded in an empty belief (the grieving subject grieves for the right reasons), the appropriate treatment does not consist in eliminating its cognitive element, but rather in replacing (or at least counterbalancing) natural grief gradually with pleasure and emotions such as gratitude. The relevant therapeutic strategy here seems to be that of focusing our attention on something pleasant that took place in the past. It is worth noting, however, that although this therapeutic strategy involves the technique of shifting attention, it does not consist in distracting us by thinking something pleasant that is unrelated to the deceased, which would be the kind of evasive move to which Epicurus did resort in order to counterbalance the bodily pain produced by his terminal illness.[25] Indeed, whereas this strategy consists in ‘calling away’ (avocare) our mind from sources of anxiety (e.g. bodily pain, distressing thoughts), the strategy to treat natural grief consists in ‘redirecting’ our mind (revocare) to sources of pleasure that are related to those that we love but are not with us anymore.[26] Thus, the deceased continues to be the object of our thoughts and memories, but the way in which we think of and remember the deceased becomes pleasant.[27] Putting the emphasis on our pleasant memories, for example, helps us not to get fixated on the lamentation of our loss, but to feel grateful for the deceased’s love and friendship, which is something that not even death can take away from us: “misfortunes must be cured by a sense of gratitude for what has been and the knowledge that what is past cannot be undone” (θεραπευτέον τὰς συμφορὰς τῇ τῶν ἀπολλυμένων χάριτι καὶ τῷ γινώσκειν ὅτι οὐκ ἔστιν ἄπρακτον ποιῆσαι τὸ γεγονός, VS 55, tr. Inwood and Gerson).[28] This is in line with the different stages of the Epicurean treatment of grief, as distinguished by Capasso (1988: 77) in his introductory study of Carneiscus’ Philista, an important work which remains largely overlooked. According to this model, there are three fundamental phases in the κατάστασις of the Epicurean facing the death of a friend: (i) acknowledging that death is not a bad thing for the one who has died; (ii) refraining from eliminating the natural grief brought about by the loss; (iii) overcoming the affliction by means of the pleasant memories of the deceased. It is in this last stage that “the recollection of a dead friend is pleasant in every way” (ἡδὺ πανταχόθεν ἡ φίλου μνήμη τεθνηκότος, Plutarch, Non Posse 1105e = Us. 213).[29]

 

(ii) Grief and desire. Analysing natural and unnatural grief in terms of their cognitive element is illuminating insofar as it allows us to strengthen our understanding of some of the main differences between these different kinds of grief; for example, the different beliefs implicit in natural and unnatural grief, as well as the different experiential qualities (e.g. intensity) of those emotions correlated with those different beliefs.  However, analysing these kinds of grief exclusively in terms of the beliefs involved in them does not suffice to have a full understanding of the Epicurean account of the structure of grief, for grief seems to have both cognitive and non-cognitive elements. In this regard, I will explore the possibility that the different kinds of grief are rendered ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’ partly in account for the different kinds of desires involved in them. For, given that there is evidence that the classification ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’ (i.e. ‘empty’) was indeed a classification of different kinds of desire (Ep. Men. 127-8; KD 29), it might be that the fact that the Epicureans distinguished between natural and unnatural grief responds not only to their view that these kinds of grief involve different kinds of beliefs but also to the thought that they involve different kinds of desires. If this is so, then natural and unnatural grief are different in part because they involve different kinds of desires (a natural and an unnatural or empty desire, respectively).[30] Thus, I will investigate whether an analysis of grief in terms of desires can be squared with the Epicurean taxonomy.

 

Let us assume for a moment that the Epicureans take the distress of grief to come from the frustration of the relevant desire.[31] Suppose that natural grief involves a natural desire whose satisfaction depends on the existence of the deceased (something like a desire to be with that friend). Since that desire cannot be satisfied, the Epicurean strategy to overcome grief would probably consist in the elimination of that desire, for extirpating a desire that cannot be satisfied seems to be the only way to alleviate the pain that comes from its unsatisfaction. If this is so, then the claim that the Epicureans at some point stop grieving implies that they eliminate the desire at the basis of their grief: if they stop grieving, that is because they have extirpated the desire to be with the deceased, which cannot be satisfied. But this need not mean that with the passing of time the Epicureans lose their affection for their deceased friends, which would not sit well with the Epicurean idea of friendship as an immortal good (ἀγαθὸν ἀθάνατον),[32] nor with the importance that Epicureans gave to honouring the memory of their friends by means of commemorative rituals.[33] Perhaps the idea is that the kind of affection the Epicureans maintain towards their friends even after they die is not an emotion based on a desire to be with the deceased (which eventually should be eliminated), but rather an emotion that involves, among other things, profound gratitude.

 

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Footnotes

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[1] Notable exceptions are Austin 2016; Baltussen 2009a; Baltussen 2009b; Erskine 1997; Konstan 2018; Konstan 2016a; Konstan 2016b; Konstan 2006a: 244-58; Machek 2018; Wilson 1997.

[2] Fewer than a handful of articles have been devoted to the study of grief in Epicureanism: Konstan 2013; Luciani 2017. Although these studies tackle some aspects of grief in Epicureanism, they do not intend to be exhaustive treatments of the topic. Whereas Konstan 2013 argues that for the Epicureans grief is in part an instinctive reaction shared by rational and non-rational animals alike, Luciani 2017 stresses the consolatory orientation of Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura. LaBarge 2012 is only concerned with Epicureanism insofar as it allows him to paint a general (and for the most part, negative) picture of the ancient attitudes towards grief. For general studies of the emotions in Epicurean philosophy, see e.g. Konstan 2006b; Annas 1989; Gill 2009; Tsouna 2007b.

[3] In this regard, there is a stark contrast with anger, which is the predominant focus of the discussions of emotions in Epicureanism: e.g. Asmis 2011; Fowler 1997; Nussbaum 1994: 239-79; Sorabji 2000: 201-3; Harris 2001: 99-104, 372-3; Sanders 2007; Tsouna 2007a: 195-238; Tsouna 2011: 184-96; Procopé 1998.

[4] This negligence is not exclusive to the subarea of ancient philosophy, for the topic of grief remains for the most part unattended to in modern analytical philosophy.

[5] According to LaBarge 2012: 328, Epicurus “seems to have held the stronger line of apatheia, at least where grief is concerned” for he “clearly thought that grief was never rational or warranted […]”

[6] That ancient philosophers were interested in grief is made clear by the numerous consolatory texts they wrote: e.g. Plutarch, Consolatio ad Uxorem; Consolatio ad Apollonium; Seneca, Ep. 99; De Consolatione ad Marciam; De Consolatione ad Polybium (for a study of the consolatory tradition, see the papers collected in Baltussen 2013).

[7] LaBarge 2012: 321. This idea has become a commonplace also in the modern literature about grief. See e.g. Cholbi 2015: 4-5; Cholbi 2018; and Cholbi (forthcoming).

[8] Plutarch, Non Posse 1101a4-b4 (fr. 120 Usener): “They [sc. the Epicureans] disagree with those who would do away with grief and tears and lamentation (ἀναιροῦσι λύπας καὶ δάκρυα καὶ στεναγμοὺς) at the death of friends (ἐπὶ ταῖς τῶν φίλων τελευταῖς), and say that an absence of grief (ἀλυπία) that renders us totally insensible (τὸ ἀπαθές) stems from another greater evil: hardness or a passion for notoriety so inordinate as to be insane. Hence they say that it is better to be moved somewhat (πάσχειν τι) and to grieve (λυπεῖσθαι) and even, by Zeus, for one’s eyes to glisten and melt with tears (λιπαίνειν τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς καὶ τήκεσθαι) and so with all the maudlin sentiment they feel and put on paper, getting themselves the name of being soft-hearted and affectionate characters (ὑγροί…καὶ φιλικοί). For this is what Epicurus has said not only in many other passages but in his letter on the death of Hegesianax to Dositheus the father and Pyrson the brother of the deceased” (tr. Einarson/DeLacy, modified).

[9] That this is the content of the Epicurean consolatory letters and other writings is suggested not only by Plutarch’ testimony (which tells us that this was the Epicurus’ approach in his consolatory to Dositheus and Pyrson upon the death of Hegesianax) but also by other extant texts, such as Carneiscus’ Philista.

[10] Warren 2004: 195; Tsouna 2007a: 258n78; Armstrong 2004: 54.

[11] Note that “the (Epicurean) sage is also said to feels no less pain when he is tortured <than when his friend is tortured>” (ἀλγεῖ μὲν ὁ σοφὸς οὐ μᾶλλον στρεβλούμενος <ἢ στρεβλουμένου τοῦ φίλου>, VS 56).

[12] See also Philodemus, Epig. 29 Sider (AP 9.412), with commentary in Sider 1997: 164-9.

[13] Konstan 2013: 205: “In acknowledging that sorrow for the departed is understandable and acceptable, Epicurus was in line with the basic tradition of consolation literature, which to be sure discouraged an enduring fixation on mourning, but did not disapprove of or seek to hinder the anguish that follows immediately upon loss.” See also Konstan 2006: 244-58.

[14] Note also that, despite the Epicurean view that death should not be feared, Philodemus does not conjure the natural distress that stems from the thought that our own death may affect or cause difficulties for our loved ones (see De Morte XXV.2-36; Tsouna: 2007a: 285-7).

[15] Tsouna 2007b: 222 argues that, the Epicurean account, both beliefs and feelings are the essential components of all emotions.

[16] Thus, grief can be conceptualised as a specific kind of pain (Erskine 1997: 41). Tsouna 2007a tends to use the English term ‘grief’ indiscriminately to refer to different types of distress related to death (e.g. 2007a: 264-302), thus applying it even to the metal pain that arises from considerations about the future (e.g. the prospect of dying prematurely). By contrast, my use of the term ‘grief’ is restricted to the kind of pain that arises from the realisation that someone else has died, which means that grief is a necessarily a response to a past event.

[17] See Nussbaum 2001: 19-88; Warren 2004: 40n58. Note that the adjective ‘bereaved’ emphasises precisely that the subject has been deprived by death of something, that death has robbed her something valuable, perhaps a special kind of relation she had with the deceased whilst the latter was still alive.

[18] For a thorough analysis of the Epicurean view that death is nothing to us, and the arguments supporting it, see Warren 2004.

[19] See Warren 2004: 2 and 40.

[20] More generally, the kind of belief involved in an emotion has an impact on what we might call the experiential quality of the emotion (ποιότης), i.e. its felt character. In the case of anger, fear, and grief, the unnatural version is more intense than the natural one, and perhaps excessive. For the case of anger, see Tsouna 2001: 238 and 2009: 252n11.

[21] Armstrong 2004; Cairns 2016: 402-3; Konstan 2013, 2018; Tsouna 2007a; Warren 2004: 40.

[22] In the scholarly literature, the discussion of the Epicurean therapy tends to focus on the way in which Epicureans try to eradicate fear of death (either one’s own or the death of someone else) or unnatural anger, thus failing to address the issue of grief. See e.g. Tsouna 2009.

[23] Tsouna 2001: 257: “the method of supplying a rational basis for some kinds of sorrow about death also implies changes in the nature of that sorrow.”

[24] The same goes for natural fear of death which, although a human and permissible emotion, it should also be treated (De Morte XXV.2-36). For analysis, see Tsouna: 2007a: 285-7.

[25] As is well-known, Epicurus tells Idomeneus that his bodily pain is compensated with the pleasant memories of their philosophical conversations (DL 10.22).

[26] For these different techniques, see Cicero, Tusc. 2.17, 3.28, 3.32-5; Seneca, Ep. 66.18; Plutarch, Non Posse 1091b (fr. 423 Usener) and 1105e (fr. 213 Usener). See also Sorabji 2000: 233-4. Unfortunately, the exciting new studies on the fundamental role that memory plays in Epicureanism and the achievement of happiness (e.g. Spinelli 2019; Masi 2014) do not address the issue of the impact that memory and recollection have on our emotions and attitudes towards the death of those dear to us.

[27] Graver 2009: 249 touches upon the issue but does not go on to elaborate on it: “Epicurus seems to have conceded that the pain occasioned by the death of a close friend or family member is a veridical pain which cannot be eliminated simply by correcting one’s false assumptions about value. But his own recommendation for counteracting this pain was that one should “direct the mind away” from the evil and “redirect” it towards goods, by remembering the pleasure experienced through the friendship.”

[28] Compare with Ep. Men. 122 and Plutarch, Non Posse 1091b (fr. 423 Usener). For a similar idea in the context of consolation, see Plutarch, Cons. ad uxorem 610d-e. As LaBarge 212: 334 comments on Plutarch’s bereaved wife, “[t]o grieve as though she had suffered a loss that made her miserable would imply that she was worse off than she had been before their daughter’s birth, and for Plutarch that would also imply the unacceptable conclusion that they would have been better off if their daughter had never been born at all.”

[29] As Armstrong 2016: 189 explains, it is “once our necessary and natural grief at our loss has run its course” that remembering our friends keeps generating affection towards them even after death. Konstan 2013: 204: “nothing prohibits a sense of loss accompanied by a true awareness of the joy that one had experienced in the other’s company, and that one will have no more.”

[30] Tsouna 2009: 252: “The Epicureans strongly suggest that the emotions consist of cognitive and non-cognitive elements. This applies to all kinds of emotions healthy or destructive, passionate as well as mild. All emotions comprise desires, and desires are classified into natural and empty depending on the kinds of beliefs on which they are based (KD 29); therefore, emotions too are probably classified in a similar manner” (italics mine). For a modern account of grief involving a combination of belief and desire, see Gustafson 1989. On this proposal, however, grief is irrational insofar as it is structured by an internal contradiction, namely the conflict between the belief that the subject has suffered an irreparable loss, on the one hand, and the desire that this should not be the case, on the other. For criticisms, see Price 2010.

[31] Taking the distress of grief to come from the frustration of a desire whose object is the deceased would allow the Epicureans to explain, for example, why we do not grieve the death of any given individual. If we did not generate the relevant ties with the deceased when she was alive, we will probably lack the relevant desire whose frustration generates the characteristic feeling of sorrow.

[32] Epicurus, VS 78 (tr. Inwood and Gerson): “The noble man is most involved with wisdom and friendship, of which one a mortal good, the other immortal” (ὁ γενναῖος περὶ σοφίαν καὶ φιλίαν μάλιστα γίγνεται, ὧν τὸ μέν ἐστι θνητὸν ἀγαθόν, τὸ δὲ ἀθάνατον). The importance of friendship in Epicureanism should not be understated. On the basis of book 3 of Philodemus’s On the Gods and his On Property Management, Armstrong 2016 (esp. pp. 182-3) argues that Epicureans have a three-tier model of friendship in which the highest kind, which goes beyond a relation of mere utility, is possible only to gods and to us humans in relation to our dead friends. In this sense, there is an interesting parallel between Epicureanism and Solomon 2004: 90 who characterises grief as ‘the continuation of love’: “Grief is often described as a consequence of love, its downside. (It is this painful downside that the Stoics wanted to eliminate, even at the cost of abandoning all loving attachments.) But the thesis I am arguing here, following Janet McCracken, is that grief is the continuation of love, and it shares its object with love. This is what makes it not only painful but personally obligatory as well, for the obligations of grief are the obligations of love.” See also Capasso 1988: 71-82; Konstan 1997: 208-14; Long 2006; Tsouna 2007a: 27-31

[33] See e.g. Clay 1986.

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