Info On Martha Nussbaum's Therapy of Desire here. More info and links will be added to this thread but in the meantime please search Nussbaum. Please be sure to see THIS thread where many of the same comments are made: http://www.epicureanfriends.com/index.php?thre…71HbJQAeGapTLTQ
Also, see the presentation by Elena Nicoli Reassessing Nussbaum's Interpretation of Epicurean Therapy.
I've been meaning to go through Nussbaum's "Therapy of Desire" to pull out some quotes relevant to that, and I will post a couple here.
Each of these points can be argued, without doubt. My main purpose in pointing these out is that if someone wants an appreciation for Epicurus without devoting a life to debating philosophy, Nussbaum is not a good place to start, and DeWitt is far preferable.
Let's start first with a statement by her with which I agree, that Epicurus was not proposing a "return to the simple life of nature" from page 109 --
From page 139, Nussbaum compares Epicurus unfavorably to Aristotle in that she thinks dialectic is essential, that the Epicurean pupil is passive, that the pupil is not suited for critical thinking...
Nussbaum takes the side of reason as an end in itself:
Nussbaum says Epicurean pupil has no autonomy and that autonomy is not valued by Epicurean philosophy:
Nussbaum thinks that the Epicurean view of friendship is at tension with itself:
