Heroic-Idyllic Philosophizing: Nietzsche and the Epicurean Tradition

Abstract

AbstractThis essay looks at Nietzsche in relation to the Epicurean tradition. It focuses on his middle period writings of 1878–82 – texts such as Human, all too Human, Dawn, and The Gay Science – and seeks to show that an ethos of Epicurean enlightenment pervades these texts, with Epicurus celebrated for his teaching of modest pleasures and cultivation of philosophical serenity. For Nietzsche, Epicurus is one of the greatest human beings to have ever graced the earth and the inventor of ‘heroic-idyllic philosophizing’. At the same time, Nietzsche claims to understand Epicurus differently to everybody else. The essay explores the main figurations of Epicurus we find in his middle period and concludes by taking a critical look at his later and more ambivalent reception of Epicurus.