Peace and Safety For Your Twentieth of June: Haris Dimitriadis’ “Epicurus And the Pleasant Life”

Peace and Safety to the Epicureans of today, no matter where you might be – Happy Twentieth!

This twentieth of June brings us to the edge of seeing the release of a major new aid in the spread of Epicurean philosophy in the modern world:  Haris Dimitriadis’ new book “Epicurus and The Pleasant Life – Living By The Philosophy of Nature.”

As of this writing I have seen only the brief material available at the Amazon link, but it’s clear from what is already available that Haris has put in a tremendous amount of effort in preparing this work for publication.  Although I hope to meet Haris one day in his native Greece, we’ve never even spoken personally, and most of what I know about him comes from his book’s bio:

“Born in Greece, Haris studied Mathematics at the Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki as well as Economics at the London School of Economics.  His career spanned the business and banking industries and has settled into retirement. Through climbing the corporate ladder he found it brought little peace of mind and turned his attention to the philosophy of Epicurus. He has devoted the last decade of his life to studying, reconstructing and practicing the ancient Epicurean philosophy. Stunned by its effectiveness, he felt compelled to share his learnings with the world by publishing this very book in Greek three years ago. With the publication of this English edition, he endeavors to disseminate the healing philosophy to the world in accordance with Epicurus’ own aspiration. Haris’ vision is to revive people’s interest in and practice of the comprehensive and practical philosophy of Epicurus and re-establish the “Epicurean Garden” in a contemporary context. Haris lives a simple and pleasant life in Athens with his family and friends seeking peace of mind, freed by the anxieties and fears that the established philosophies of material welfare and religious faith declare.”

Even a quick review of the book’s table of contents shows that Haris has not written superficially about the topic, but broken it down into a full discussion of “What is Happiness? and the Epicurean basis for answering that question.  A taste of that organizational method can be found in the introductory video that Haris has prepared, which is easily one of the best short presentations of Epicurean philosophy now available on the internet:

There is no doubt in my mind that Haris’ book, and his associated website and youtube videos, are going to provide the basis for many posts here for months and probably years to come.

But for every project there is a starting point, and in this case the starting point is getting and reading the book!  Haris says that the book will be rolling out over the period from June 21-23, so we have a few short days to anticipate the coming pleasure.

In the meantime, enjoy the audio-video presentations that Haris has made available, and be happy that we’re about to add to our arsenal of pro-Epicurean literature a groundbreaking new work!

Thanks Haris!

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As Seneca recorded: Sic fac omnia tamquam spectet Epicurus! So do all things as though watching were Epicurus!

And as Philodemus wrote: “I will be faithful to Epicurus, according to whom it has been my choice to live.”

Additional discussion of this post and other Epicurean ideas can be found at the Epicurean Philosophy Facebook Group and EpicureanFriends.com