According to Epicurean philosophy, desire is intended primarily to satisfy a pleasure that if not satisfied causes pain, therefore, happiness is a plenitude that implies the absence of desire. Thus, for Epicurus the concrete experience of happiness is not having fulfilled desires, but rather their silence and the absence of desires in life.
The dynamic of desire is incessant, it runs the risk of making us prisoners in an endless process, so only with the absence of desire is pain avoided. In this Psychology-Online article, we will explain to you what the types of human desires according to Epicurus with examples
What are wishes
Desire is a state of affection Ispecifically, a impulse directed toward an external object of which contemplation is desired, or, more easily, possession and/or availability. The condition of desire involves sensations that can be painful or pleasant for the Idepending on the satisfaction or not of the desire itself.
Since the origins of the philosophical discipline, experts have asked what space to give to desires. The answers are very varied:
- Plato: exposes the idea of an ascetic path, or how man must fight against the turbulent desires of his own body
- The Cyrenaeans: they make the satisfaction of all desires the supreme good.
All these reflections lead to establishing numerous distinctions such as that of Epicurus. Specifically, he formulates the theory of pleasure, understood as the absence of pain. For Epicurus, pleasure is the end of human life and is divided into kinetic pleasure, which accompanies a process and is mixed with pain, and catastematic pleasure, which, being stable, has no pain.
According to Epicurus, pleasure coincides with the satisfaction of desires. Thus, he divides the types of desires as follows:
- Natural and necessary desires.
- Natural desires not necessary.
- Desires neither natural nor necessary.
Natural and necessary desires
One of the types of desires according to Epicurus that refers to the wishes that relieve pain. In essence, these desires identify with primary needs. Here are some examples:
- Eat when you are hungry.
- Drink when you are thirsty.
- Sleep when you are tired.
They must always be satisfied, since they are closely linked to the preservation of the individual’s life. Otherwise, existence itself would be seriously compromised. Therefore, These pleasures must always be satisfiedgiven the precise natural limit that allows the elimination of pain.
Unnecessary natural desires
Non-necessary natural desires include pleasures that, although in accordance with the natural instincts, can be eliminated of existence without it suffering. For example, preferring tasty and refined foods and sleeping comfortably is certainly natural, but it is not at all necessary. This category also includes sex, which Epicurus does not condemn, but does not consider necessary except for reproductive purposes.
These types of desires may or may not be satisfied, depending on individual temperament. Each person must judge himself/herself. Let’s look at some examples to understand it better:
- Gluttony of eating refined foods.
- Have sexual instincts.
- Not being able to sleep if it is not in a comfortable bed.
If an individual is not able to master these and other non-necessary natural desires, it is better that he abstain from these pleasures, because they are designed to create in him or her a form of dependency. This means that the day he is deprived of them, pleasures will become a source of suffering.
Desires neither natural nor necessary
Within the types of desires according to Epicurus, these are what we define as pleasures, but they are nothing more than false needs induced by social conventions. Clear examples of desires that are neither natural nor necessary would be power, wealth, social prestige, luxury, beauty, culture or .
For example, he states that love, understood as overwhelming passion (èros) is above all a lie. Nothing is real other than the sexual drive from which it is born and according to which it exists. In essence, it is a “strategy” of matter to perpetuate itself through reproduction. Everything else derives from man’s imagination and is totally negative for the individual, since it envelops him in a inextricable network of dependencies.
In this sense, every form of , if not in the present certainly in the future, when we are deprived of the source of our illusory happiness. From this point of view, love is one of the most insidious false needs, as demonstrated by the pain felt by the abandoned lover and the extreme difficulty he feels in returning to a “normal” mood.
This suffering is evident proof that love is not a source of happiness. True happiness never depends on something external, but always and only on our inner disposition. Definitely, desires of this third category should be avoided, since the disturbance they cause is always greater than the satisfaction they give. In other words, they are destined, sooner or later, to become a source of pain.
This article is merely informative, at Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
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Bibliography
- Tresguerres, AF (2007). Desires and pleasures. El Catoblepas: Critical Magazine of the Present.