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From: wex@ittvax.UUCP (Alan Wexelblat)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Ascetism (?)
Message-ID: <944@ittvax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 18-Aug-83 10:10:17 EDT
Article-I.D.: ittvax.944
Posted: Thu Aug 18 10:10:17 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 18-Aug-83 21:39:14 EDT
References: grkermit.582
Lines: 17

To be honest, Larry, I never knew that there was such a thing as Ascetism
(with a capital A).  That implies some sort of formal organization which
I'm not familiar with.  Could you provide references, please?

As far as I know, ascetism (little a) is a philosophy that denies that
"pleasure" is of any value whatsoever.  Holders of this thesis believe
that people have been duped (for various reasons) into thinking that
'pleasure' is a worthwhile goal, simply because of what it is.  They
reject this thesis, and therefore do not actively seek pleasurable
things, because they do not value them.

Note that I tried to avoid references to *religious* ascetics, who deny
themselves things that they know are pleasurable, in the hope of earning
heavenly brownie points.  These ascetics are not useful to my argument.

--Alan Wexelblat
decvax!ittvax!wex