Three schools that often employed the
term ataraxia within their philosophies were Epicureanism, Pyrrhonism, and Stoicism.
Stoicism
In Stoic philosophy, the mental tranquility that
was ataraxia was not the ultimate goal of life. Instead, a
life according to nature was the goal of life.
Despite
this, ataraxia was still an important part of Stoic
philosophy. Although ataraxia was not an explicit goal of
Stoicism, stoics felt that by living in accordance with nature, one would also
end up in a state of ataraxia. In essence, ataraxia was
a byproduct of a virtuous life.
An important distinction to be made
is the difference in Stoicism between ataraxia and the Stoic
idea of apatheia. While
closely related to ataraxia, the state of apatheia was
the absence of unhealthy passions; a state obtained by the ideal Stoic sage. This is not the same as ataraxia. Apatheia describes
the freedom from the disturbance of emotions, not tranquility of the mind. However, apatheia was
integral for a Stoic sage to reach the stage of ataraxia. Since the
Stoic sage does not care about matters outside of himself and is not
susceptible to emotion because of his state of apatheia, the Stoic
sage would be unable to be disturbed by anything at all, meaning that he was in
a stage of mental tranquility and thus was in the state of ataraxia.
*Erich From's definition of ataraxia is "the stillness of the soul". (To Have or To Be?) Apparently, it cannot be stilled.
