And Why Ataraxia Is the Ultimate Cool
By Dr Neel Burton — Psychiatrist, philosopher, and wine writer; Fellow of Green Templeton College, University of Oxford; author of over twenty books.
Ataraxia—literally, ‘lack of disturbance or trouble’—was the Holy Grail of ancient philosophy: a state of profound mental tranquillity in which a person was no longer tossed around by anxiety, anger, desire, and the vicissitudes of fortune. For what is the point of wealth, power, pleasure, or even freedom if we ourselves remain in a state of inner turmoil?
Prior to the advent of Christianity, there were, of course, the pagan gods, but, especially for the high-minded, there were also a number of philosophical schools.
Aside from the more academic Platonism and Aristotelianism, the four major philosophical schools of Western antiquity were Cynicism, Stoicism, Skepticism, and Epicureanism.
Despite each having their own outlook and approach, all four schools emphasised the attainment of mental tranquillity and mastery, or ataraxia—making them, in my view, much more similar than different. If you like, ataraxia was to the Western schools what liberation was to the Indian schools.
The best way to grasp the concept of ataraxia is to look at how it fitted into each of the four schools, starting with Cynicism.
Cynicism
The first Cynic appears to have been the Athenian philosopher Antisthenes (d. 365 BCE), who had been an ardent disciple of Socrates. Then came Diogenes (d. 323 BCE), the paradigm of the Cynic, who took the simple life of Socrates to such an extreme that Plato called him ‘a Socrates gone mad’.
Diogenes held that human beings had much to learn from the simplicity and artlessness of dogs, which, unlike human beings, had not ‘complicated every simple gift of the gods’. In fact, the term ‘Cynic’ derives from the Greek kynikos, which is the adjective of kyon, or ‘dog’.
Diogenes placed reason and nature firmly above custom and convention, which he held to be incompatible with happiness. Rather than pursuing wealth, renown, and other worthless things, people should have the courage to live like animals or gods, partaking in life’s simplest pleasures—which are also its greatest—without bond or fear.
The stories surrounding Diogenes, though embellished, or because embellished, help to convey his spirit. Diogenes wore a simple cloak which he doubled up in winter, begged for food, and sheltered in a tub. He made it his mission to challenge custom and convention, famously ‘defacing the currency’—that is, overturning the false values that governed society. Upon being challenged for masturbating in the marketplace, he mused, ‘If only it were so easy to soothe hunger by rubbing an empty belly.’ He used to stroll about in broad daylight brandishing a lit lamp. Whenever people gathered around to gawk at him, he would explain, ‘I am just looking for a human being.’
His fame spread far beyond Athens. One day, Alexander the Great came to meet him. When Alexander asked whether he could do anything for him, he replied, ‘Yes, stand out of my sunlight.’
For Diogenes and the Cynics, much of our disturbance is self-inflicted. We surrender our peace of mind to things we do not need: money, possessions, and the good opinion of others. The less we depend upon such things, the less power they have to disturb us.
Stoicism
Diogenes was followed by Crates of Thebes (d. 285 BCE), who renounced a large fortune to live the Cynical life of poverty. Crates married Hipparchia of Maroneia, who, uniquely, adopted male dress and lived on equal terms with her husband.
By the first century, Cynics could be found in cities throughout the Roman Empire. At that time, Cynicism vied with Stoicism, a broader philosophical system that emphasised perspective and clear thinking. Stoicism was popular with leading Romans such as the senator Cato the Younger and the emperor Marcus Aurelius.
Zeno of Citium (d. 262 BCE), the founder of Stoicism, had been a pupil of Crates, and Cynicism came to be seen as an idealised form of Stoicism.
Like their ancestors the Cynics, the Stoics sought freedom by reducing our dependence upon things outside our control. But whereas Diogenes had dramatised this freedom by living in radical simplicity, the Stoics developed a more nuanced, and moderate, psychology of judgement and emotion.
Events do not simply make us angry, anxious, envious, or miserable. Between the event and the emotion lies our interpretation of the event. If we can catch and work on that interpretation, we can alter our emotional response. Thus, Stoics such as Epictetus drew a line between things that are ‘up to us’ and those that are not. Our possessions, reputation, and body are vulnerable to fortune. But our mind is more properly our own. Marcus Aurelius often returns to Epictetus in his Meditations, for example, when he says, ‘If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.’
Skepticism
Skepticism and Epicureanism also took off around the time of Alexander. Unlike the sophists whom he opposed, Socrates had skeptical tendencies, claiming that he knew little or nothing and cultivating a state of non-knowledge, or aporia.
Pyrrho of Elis (d. 270 BCE) travelled with Alexander across Persia and into India, where he encountered various schools of thought and ascetics, including the ‘naked wise men’ or gymnosophists (probably Jain monks), with their emphasis on detachment and inner peace.
Blending East and West, Pyrrho came to believe that certain knowledge is impossible and urged suspension of judgement with the aim of exchanging anxiety and dogmatism for ataraxia. After all, if we cannot know what is true or false, or good or bad, why attach so much importance to our opinions? For example, most people are convinced that death is a terrible thing, when it might in fact be the best thing for us.
The Pyrrhonian Skeptic Sextus Empiricus (d. 210 CE) compared Pyrrho’s prescription for ataraxia to a real or fabled episode in the life of the painter Apelles of Kos. One day, Apelles was painting a horse but failed so completely to depict its froth that he gave up and flung his sponge at the picture—thereby accidentally achieving the desired effect. When we stop straining and let go of our judgement, as Apelles did, tranquillity may arrive as if by accident.
In the sixteenth century, the translation of the complete works of Sextus Empiricus led to a resurgence of Pyrrhonian Skepticism, and the work of Descartes—‘I think therefore I am’—can be read as a response to a Skeptical crisis… with roots in Ancient Athens and Ancient India.
Epicureanism
Epicurus of Samos (341–270 BCE) and Zeno of Citium (the founder of Stoicism) were almost exact contemporaries in Athens but may never have met.
A few years before Zeno began teaching, Epicurus founded a school of philosophy in a garden outside the city’s Dipylon gates. This school, called ‘the Garden’, dedicated itself to attaining happiness through the exercise of reason, and, in a highly sexist and stratified society, admitted both women and slaves.
Life in the Garden was not as you might imagine. Epicurus was content with bread and water and famously asked a friend to send him a little cheese so that, when he wished, he might feast. Far more important than luxury was friendship. ‘Of all the things which wisdom provides for the happiness of the whole life,’ he wrote, ‘by far the most important is friendship.’
Like Zeno, Epicurus dedicated himself to attaining happiness through the exercise of reason: reason teaches that pleasure is good and pain bad, and that pleasure and pain are the ultimate good and bad. This has often been misconstrued as a call for rampant hedonism, but actually involves a kind of hedonic calculus to determine which things, over time, are likely to result in the most pleasure and least pain. Epicurus explicitly warned against overindulgence, because overindulgence so often leads to pain; and, rather than pleasure, emphasised the avoidance of pain, the elimination of unnecessary desire, and ataraxia. ‘If thou wilt make a man happy,’ said Epicurus, ‘add not unto his riches but take away from his desires.’
Epicurus divided pleasures and pains into physical and mental, and argued that fear of the future, especially fear of the gods and fear of death, is the greatest obstacles to happiness.
Although the gods exist, they have absolutely no concern for, or even awareness of, humankind. Indeed, for the gods to involve themselves in the menial matters of men would be to perturb the supreme happiness and tranquillity that characterises and defines them. Instead of fearing the gods, we would do better to emulate them in their supreme removal and detachment.
Neither should we fear death, and this for two main reasons. First, Epicurus, drawing on Democritus, held that everything in the universe, including the human body and mind, is ultimately composed of atoms. Our death entails the disintegration of both body and mind and the re-dispersion of their atoms. As there is no longer any person to be troubled, death cannot trouble us after we are dead. And if death cannot trouble us after we are dead, neither should it trouble us while we are still alive. Second, the eternity that comes before our birth is not regarded as an evil; therefore, neither should the eternity that comes after our death. These two arguments are early formulations, respectively, of the ‘no subject of harm’ argument and the ‘symmetry’ argument, which have both, more or less, withstood the test of time.
Where the Cynic says, ‘free yourself from convention and artificial wants,’ the Stoic says, ‘stop trying to control what you cannot control,’ the Skeptic says, ‘stop demanding certainty where certainty is unavailable,’ and the Epicurean says, ‘simplify your desires and free yourself from unnecessary fears.’ Different diagnoses, different methods, but a remarkably similar destination: ataraxia, freedom from disturbance.
The Ultimate Cool
As a psychiatrist, I find the concept of ataraxia especially appealing. Psychiatry is chiefly concerned with the treatment of mental disorder, as of course it ought to be. Once a person has stopped taking the tablets, surely, that cannot be the end of their journey. I believe that there is much more to mental health than the mere absence of mental disorder. Mental health is not just about surviving, but about thriving, about developing and expressing our highest, fullest potential as human beings.
The concept of ataraxia is so important to me that I named my six-book Ataraxia series after it. Like each of the ancient philosophical schools, each book in the series adopts a distinct but complementary approach to peace of mind: exploring the deep origins of our distress in The Meaning of Madness; defending against the demons of self-deception in Hide and Seek; understanding and refining our emotions in Heaven and Hell; regulating our relations with others in For Better For Worse; developing our cognitive capacities in Hypersanity; and, finally, rethinking success and failure in The Art of Failure.
These books are not only about achieving tranquillity but also about expressing our full potential as human beings. Ataraxia is closely linked with eudaimonia, which is often translated as ‘happiness’ but which is, in fact, a much deeper, fuller, and richer concept, sometimes articulated in terms of flourishing, or living a life that is both fulfilling and fully realised.
Ataraxia may be more difficult to attain today than it was in Ancient Athens. In our economy of disturbance, the danger is not merely that we become more restless, but that we have become so accustomed to disturbance that we cease even to notice it. Younger people in particular, who may have spent their whole lives answering, reacting, worrying, scrolling, and striving, may not even know what it is like to enjoy an undisturbed mind.
Ataraxia is not indifference or disengagement. Diogenes was anything but disengaged, and Marcus Aurelius led armies and governed an empire. It is the ability to engage fully with the world without being continually thrown off balance by it.
The person who needs less, fears less, and is less easily manipulated has achieved a rare kind of freedom.
And that, surely, is the ultimate cool.
Continue Exploring
If this essay spoke to you, you might explore the Ataraxia series.
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