Living for Pleasure: An Epicurean Guide to Life

Epicurus' philosophy of pleasure without anxiety can help us achieve lasting pleasure and well-being. Emily Austin's book "Living for Pleasure" offers strategies for diminishing anxiety, achieving satisfaction, and relishing joys, such as making and keeping good friends, preparing for suffering, combatting imposter syndrome, building trust, recognizing personal limitations, valuing truth, cultivating healthy attitudes towards money and success, managing political anxiety, developing gratitude, savoring food, and facing death.

Format: Hardback
Length: 256 pages
Publication date: 09 February 2023
Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc

Why are we so bad at getting happiness and pleasure?

Pleasure feels amazing! Anxiety, however, does not. The Ancient Greek Philosopher Epicurus rolled these two strikingly intuitive claims into a simple formula for happiness and well-being--pursue pleasure without causing yourself anxiety. But wait, is that even possible? Can humans achieve lasting pleasure without suffering anxiety about failure and loss? Epicurus thinks we can, at least once we learn to pursue pleasure thoughtfully.

In Living for Pleasure, philosopher Emily Austin offers a lively, jargon-free tour of Epicurean strategies for diminishing anxiety, achieving satisfaction, and relishing joys. Epicurean science was famously far ahead of its time, and Austin shows that so was its ethics and psychology. Epicureanism can help us make and keep good friends, prepare for suffering, combat imposter syndrome, build trust, recognize personal limitations, value truth, cultivate healthy attitudes towards money and success, manage political anxiety, develop gratitude, savor food, and face death.

Readers will walk away knowing more about an important school of philosophy, but moreover understanding how to get what they want in life--happiness--without the anxiety of striving for it.

Weight: 330g
Dimension: 137 x 186 x 33 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780197558324