Epicurus and Freud

Epicurus' philosophy was often placed with Stoicism but they are quite different. Freud has been discussed from the position of both these philosophies (Kirsner, 2006). The Stoics saw the attainment of pleasure as solely through the virtues (arete). Epicureans, Aristotle and Freud allowed some material gains or ways of attaining pleasure as also leading to a good life.
The pleasure principle is the cornerstone of Epicurian thinking. This is not the hedonistic pleasure principle and neither was Freud's.It is about the most pleasure, in the long run, not short term pleasures. Pleasure is attained through the virtues.Pleasure is about minimizing pain.
There is also a limit in simple living, and he who fails to understand this falls into an error as great as that of the man who gives way to extravagance
(Epicurus)
For example
Sexual pleasure promotes good things (pleasure, relationships, children), but not in excess, or immoral as this brings pain and suffering.

Friendship is also a pleasure (Epicurus says the greatest) and so short term gains at the expense of your friends means long term loss of this pleasure.

This is about the balance of good and evil or as Moses Maimonides(RaMBaM) says that good and evil are mere facets of the same thing (Moses Maimomides).
So Bentham and Mills also promoted the pleasure principle, the most good, least pain approach to justice and ethical living.
Freud certainly read all 4 writers.He studied classical philosophy at the gymnasium. His family were Hasidic and he would have read Moses as well, it was in his library.
Freud lived in a time of austerity, dictatorship, wars, repression and anti-semitism. There was little in the way of virtues and little in the way of pleasure to be found in Vienna for a Jewish person. There was a long history of little pleasure for Jewish people for some millenia. So Freud balanced the pleasure principle with the reality principle.(Freud, 1911).
Aristotle called pleasure eudaimonia but he saw the happiness as a byproduct of virtue. Epicurus saw virtue as the pathway to eudaimonia.
Thus the id drives are towards eudaimonia. The super-ego applies the virtues. Thus the ego Ich is in balance, not in a struggle between opposing forces but as a complementary drive.Like the 'breaking of the vessels' both good and bad exists and virtue Tikkun holds them together. This leads to the best life in this world and ever after.

Happiness therefore comes from inner reflection, reason, rational thinking and promotion of the virtues. This is an enlightened, humanist approach, promoted by Freud and Epicurus. Irrespective of the gods, Man has the capacity to look inwardly, to know himself, towards the greater good. In some this is called religious experience, to others psychotherapy. Many philosophers have called this looking into the soul, this word is interchangeable with mind. Epicurus saw soul as material, made up of atoms. The concept of mind is therefore equivalent to an atomic concept of soul.
Epicurus stated that the fear of death and eternal punishment by the ongoingness of the soul after death, was the main cause of suffering.He denied that the soul continued after death, thereby reducing this anxiety. He promoted .carpe diem. Freud also saw anxiety, the thanatos drive as the main anxiety, caused unhappiness and illness(Freud, 1915).

Epicurus saw politics as a danger towards achieving happiness, as did Freud in his Civilisations and its discontents (Freud, 1930). Epicurus warns of the danger of blind trust in organisations
We must free ourselves from the prison of public education and politics (Epicurus). and
It is pointless for a man to pray to the gods for that which he has the power to obtain by himself.(Epicurus)
Freud also warned that this was a childish neurosis, wish for paternalism and incorporation of the father figure, rather than relying on one's own rational mind.

Epicurus believed that material objects were never wrong but that the soul/mind may make mistakes based on unconscious (unknown, inner processes) processes. This is a description of the unconscious and Freud's concepts of defense mechanisms, like repression (Freud, 1940).

Epicurus described the civilisation of mankind as the access to the power of fire. This is also reflected in Freud's writing in Totem and Taboo- the acquisition of fire (Freud, 1913).

The interpretation of dreams, the 'royal road to the unconscious' said Freud (Freud, 1900). Epicurus ( in his Vatican aphorisms) also said
Dreams have neither a divine nature nor a prophetic power, but they are the result of images that impact on us. (Epicurus)

To complete this discussion may I quote Epicurus
One must presume that long and short arguments contribute to the same end.
(Epicurus)
List of references
Epicurus, Vatican Sayings. Retrieved 25th April, 2010 from http://www.epicurus.net/en/vatican.html
Freud,S.(1900) The interpretation of dreams Penguin Freud Library.
(1911) Formulations on the two principles of mental functioning in On Metapsychology. PenguinFreud Library
(1913) Totem and taboo. Penguin Freud Library.
(1915) Instincts and their vicissitudes. in On Metapsychology. PenguinFreud Library
(1930) Civilisations and its discontents. Penguin Freud Library.
(1940) Splitting of the ego in the proces of defence in On Metapsychology. PenguinFreud Library
Kirsner, D. (2006). Freud, Civilization, Religion, and Stoicism. Psychoanal. Psychol., 23:354-366.
Konstan, D. (2009)Epicurus Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Retrieved 15th April, 2010 from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epicurus/
Moses Maimonides Guide to the Perplexed. The forgotten books.org.