The Comparison Of Happiness Between Epicurus And Chuang Tzu

Happiness is one of the eternal themes pursued by mankind.The happiness of Epicurus and Chuang Tzu is focused on the inner feelings of the individual,and their happiness is fundamentally individualistic.They are in the pursuit of happiness,rather than "not tempted" by the outside world."no music" and "solo music" is their two basic characteristics of happiness.Their understanding of happiness is more of a reflection of the times,facing life itself,seeking a reasonable life pattern,and returning to the real existence.Epicurus and Chuang Tzu were in the era of wars,and the darkness of the outside world made people flee to the inner world of individuals.Epicurus and Chuang Tzu conformed to the needs of the times and put forward their own theories of happiness.Epicurus thought happiness was to relieve the pain from the body and the trouble from the soul;happiness was the first and natural good.The pain of the body came from the endless desire,while the trouble of the soul from the misunderstanding of the natural phenomena,God and death.However,in Chuang Tzu’s view,happiness is divided into three categories,vulgar happiness,tian le and human happiness.The vulgar happiness was just what Zhuangzi thought of the great suffering,instead,Chuang Tzu was yearning for tian le and human happiness,and Human happiness was the implementation and display of tian le.the root of pain People feel lies in the interference caused by false ideas,therefore,to walk onto the road of happiness is to change the self-awareness,to look at the world from a different perspective,to get rid of the habitual perceiving patterns and the bondage of prejudice,to live in the present and to experience life itself.Epicurus’ epistemology is the norm,attaching importance to feeling,experience and rationality,while Chuang Tzu’s epistemology is the combination of skepticism and intuition,which attaches importance to intuition,understanding and wisdom.The difference in Epicurus and Chuang Tzu’s happiness view is mainly on views of virtue and freedom.Happiness is inseparable from virtue,and Epicurus had it that happiness is the ultimate goal,while virtue is a servant to happiness,following the happiness’s leadership;Chuang Tzu criticized the moral value of the morality,having it that human moral degradation results from one’ s deviation of the Taoism,and thus he advocated the combination of morality and goodness.The core of happiness is freedom,and with that in mind,Epicurus creatively put forward the "skew movement" doctrine,affirming the free will of the people,which opened a door for positive freedom,and happiness is the queen sitting on the throne.The freedom of Chuang Tzu is the negative freedom of inner transcendence,and the absolute freedom spirit of exclusively connection with the God and the Earth is to be pursued only by the solution of the external contradictions.The epistemology of Epicurus and Chuang Tzu always runs through the concept of pleasure.Philosophy should have a therapeutic effect,or it cannot be called a real philosophy.Physicians can treat diseases of the body,and philosophers treat the disease of the individual mind by changing people’s perception,replacing one concept by another,keeping up with subtraction treatment,and in this way,people can rationally get rid of inner pain and make the soul peaceful.In contemporary society,people are generally in the "the vacuum of existence",unable to find their spiritual home.Epicurus and Chuang Tzu’s happiness healing philosophies point out a treatment for the contemporary people.