Epicurus

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Western philosophy
Ancient philosophy
Name: Ἐπίκουρος Epikouros
Birth: 341 BC
Death: 270 BC
School/tradition: Epicureanism
Main interests: Atomism, Hedonism
Influences: Democritus
Influenced: Hermarchus, Lucretius, Thomas Hobbes, Jeremy Bentham, J. S. Mill, Thomas Jefferson, Friedrich Nietzsche

Epicurus (Greek Ἐπίκουρος) (341 BC, Samos – 270 BC, Athens) was an ancient Greek philosopher, the founder of Epicureanism, one of the most popular schools of thought in Hellenistic Philosophy. He taught that pleasure and pain are the measures of what is good and bad, that death is the end of existence and not to be feared, that the gods do not reward or punish humans, and that events in the world are ultimately based on the motions and interactions of atoms moving in empty space.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Epicurus was born into an Athenian émigré family; his parents, Neocles and Chaerestrate, both Athenian citizens, were sent to an Athenian settlement on the Aegean island of Samos. According to Apollodorus (reported by Diogenes Laertius[1]), he was born on the seventh day of the month Gamelion in the third year of the 109th Olympiad, in the archonship of Sosigenes (about February 341 BCE). He returned to Athens at the age of 18 to serve in military training. The playwright Menander served in the same age-class of the ephebes as Epicurus.

He joined his father in Colophon after the Athenian settlers at Samos were expelled by Perdiccas after Alexander the Great died (c. 320 BCE). He spent the next several years in Colophon, Lampsacus, and Mytilene, where he founded his school and gathered many disciples. In the archonship of Anaxicrates (307 BCE-306 BCE), he returned to Athens where he formed The Garden, a school named for the garden he owned about halfway between the Stoa and the Academy that served as the school's meeting place.

Epicurus died in the second year of the 127th Olympiad, in the archonship of Pytharatus, at the age of 72. He reportedly suffered from kidney stones, and despite the prolonged pain involved, he is reported as saying in a letter to Idomeneus:

We have written this letter to you on a happy day to us, which is also the last day of our life. For strangury has attacked me, and also a dysentery, so violent that nothing can be added to the violence of my sufferings. But the cheerfulness of my mind, which arises from their collection of all my philosophical contemplation, counterbalances all these afflictions. And I beg you to take care of the children of Metrodorus, in a manner worth of the devotion shown by the youth to me, and to philosophy.[2]

[edit] The School

Epicurus' school had a small but devoted following in his lifetime. The primary members were Hermarchus, the financier Idomeneus, Leonteus and his wife Themista, the satirist Colotes, the mathematician Polyaenus of Lampsacus, and Metrodorus, the most famous popularizer of Epicureanism. This original school was based in Epicurus' home and garden. An inscription on the gate to the garden is recorded by Seneca in his Epistle XXI:

Stranger, here you will do well to tarry; here our highest good is pleasure.

The school's popularity grew and it became, along with Stoicism and Skepticism, one of the three dominant schools of Hellenistic Philosophy, lasting strongly through the later Roman Empire. In Rome, Lucretius was the school's greatest proponent, composing On the Nature of Things, an epic poem, in six books, designed to recruit new members. The poem mainly deals with Epicurean philosophy of nature. Another major source of information is the Roman politician and amateur philosopher Cicero, although he was highly critical of Epicureanism. Another ancient source is Diogenes of Oenoanda, who composed a large inscription at Oenoanda in Lycia.

A library, dubbed the Villa of the Papyri, in Herculaneum, owned by Julius Caesar's father-in-law, Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, was preserved by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, and was found to contain a large number of works by Philodemus, a late Hellenistic Epicurean, and Epicurus himself, attesting to the school's enduring popularity. The task of unrolling and deciphering the charred papyrus scrolls continues today.

After the official approval of Christianity by Constantine, Epicureanism was repressed. Epicurus' theory that the gods were unconcerned with human affairs had always clashed strongly with the Judeo-Christian God, and the philosophies were essentially irreconcilable. For example, the word for a heretic in the Talmudic literature is "Apikoros". Lactantius criticizes Epicurus at several points throughout his Divine Institutes. The school endured a long period of obscurity and decline. In 17th century, Pierre Gassendi undertook a rehabilitation of Epicurus' morals and an adaptation of his physical theories to the Christian doctrine. In the following times, there was a resurgence of Epicurean philosophy: in the Modern Age, scientists adopted atomist theories, while materialist philosophers embraced Epicurus' hedonist ethics and restated his objections to natural teleology. In the late 20th Century, the school was revived.

[edit] Teachings

Main article: Epicureanism
Bust of Epicurus
Bust of Epicurus

Epicurus's teachings represented a departure from the other major Greek thinkers of his period, and before, but was nevertheless founded on many of the same principles as Democritus. Like Democritus, he was an atomist, believing that the fundamental constituents of the world were uncuttable little bits of matter (atoms) flying through empty space (void). Everything that occurs is the result of the atoms colliding, rebounding, and becoming entangled with one another, with no purpose or plan behind their motions. His theory differs from the earlier atomism of Democritus because he admits that atoms do not always follow straight lines but their direction of motion may occasionally exhibit a 'swerve' (clinamen). This allowed him to avoid the determinism implicit in the earlier atomism and to affirm free will.[3]

He admitted women and slaves into his school, and was one of the first Greeks to break from the god-fearing and god-worshipping tradition common at the time, even while affirming that religious activities are useful as a way to contemplate the gods and to use them as an example of the pleasant life. Epicurus participated in the activities of traditional Greek religion, but taught that one should avoid holding false opinions about the gods. The gods are immortal and blessed and men who ascribe any additional qualities that are alien to immortality and blessedness are, according to Epicurus, impious. The gods do not punish the bad and reward the good as the common man believes. The opinion of the crowd is, Epicurus claims, that the gods "send great evils to the wicked and great blessings to the righteous who model themselves after the gods.", when in reality the gods do not concern themselves at all with human beings.

Epicurus' philosophy is based on the theory that all good and bad derive from the sensations of pleasure and pain. What is good is what is pleasurable, and what is bad is what is painful. Pleasure and pain were ultimately, for Epicurus, the basis for the moral distinction between good and bad. If pain is chosen over pleasure in some cases it is only because it leads to a greater pleasure. Moral reasoning is a matter of calculating the benefits and costs in terms of pleasure and pain. Although Epicurus was commonly misunderstood to advocate the rampant pursuit of pleasure, what he was really after was the absence of pain (both physical and mental, i.e., anxiety) - a state of satiation and tranquility that was free of the fear of death and the retribution of the gods. When we do not suffer pain, we are no longer in need of pleasure.

Epicurus explicitly warned against overindulgence because it often leads to pain. For instance, in what might be described as a "hangover" theory, Epicurus warned against pursuing love too ardently. However, having a circle of friends you can trust is one of the most important means for securing a tranquil life.

Epicurus also believed (in contradistinction to Aristotle) that death was not to be feared. When a man dies, he does not feel the pain of death because he no longer is and he therefore feels nothing. Therefore, as Epicurus famously said, "death is nothing to us." When we exist death is not, and when death exists we are not. All sensation and consciousness ends with death and therefore in death there is neither pleasure nor pain. The fear of death arises from the false belief that in death there is awareness.

In his epistemology he emphasized the senses, and his Principle of Multiple Explanations is an early contribution to the philosophy of science: if several theories are consistent with the observed data, retain them all.

There are also some things for which it is not enough to state a single cause, but several, of which one, however, is the case. Just as if you were to see the lifeless corpse of a man lying far away, it would be fitting to state all the causes of death in order that the single cause of this death may be stated. For you would not be able to establish conclusively that he died by the sword or of cold or of illness or perhaps by poison, but we know that there is something of this kind that happened to him.[4]

In contrast to the Stoics, Epicureans showed little interest in participating in the politics of the day, since doing so leads to trouble. He instead advocated seclusion. His garden can be compared to present-day communes. This principle is epitomized by the phrase lathe biōsas λάθε βιώσας (Plutarchus De latenter vivendo 1128c; Flavius Philostratus Vita Apollonii 8.28.12), meaning "live secretly", "get through life without drawing attention to yourself", i. e. live without pursuing glory or wealth or power, but anonymously, enjoying little things like food, the company of friends, etc.

[edit] Epistemology-Method On the Canon

According to Epicurus, the basic means and criteria for the acquirement of knowledge are the ‘senses’ (aestheses), ‘preconceptions’ (prolepsis), ‘feelings’ (pathe) and the ‘focusing of thought into an impression’ (phantastikes epiboles tes dianoias). Dialectic, on the contrary, can lead us to draw wrong conclusions.

Epicureans reject dialectic as disoriented (parelkousa). Because, for the physical philosophers is sufficient to use the right words which refer to the concepts of the world. Epicurus then, in his work On the Canon, says that the criteria of truth are the senses, the preconceptions and the feelings. Epicureans add to these the focusing of thought into an impression. He himself is referring to those in his Epitome to Herodotus and in Principal Doctrines.[5]

The senses are the first criterion of truth, since they create the first impressions and testify the existence of the external world. Senses themselves neither are subjective nor deceitful, but the misapprehension comes, when the mind adds to or subtracts something from these images, which have been printed in the form of impressions to our mind. Therefore, the senses cannot lead us to falsehood. Only the judgements and the opinions that stem from the sense impressions can. The senses are the basis upon which we have to rely, in order to proceed to the understanding of the phenomena.

And whatever image we receive by direct apprehension of our mind or our sense organs, whether of shape or of essential properties, that is the true shape of the solid object, since it is created by the constant repetition of the image or the impression it has left behind. There is always falsehood and error involved in importing into a judgement an element additional to sense impressions, either to confirm or deny.[6]

Epicurus said that all the tangible things are real and each impression comes from existing objects and is determined by the object that moves the sense.[7]

Therefore all the impressions are real, while the opinions are not real and are susceptible of changes.[8]

If you battle with all your sensations, you will be unable to form a standard for judging even which of them you judge to be false.[9]

The preconceptions are the conceptions – terms, which have been formed in the mind, concerning each thing, according to the sense data. For example the terms "man", "warm", "sweet", etc. The preconceptions are directly related to memory and can be recalled at any time, only by the use of the respective word. Epicurus also calls them "the meanings that underlie the words" (hypotetagmena tois phthongois: semantic substance of the words) in his letter to Herodotus. The feelings (pathe) are related to the senses and the preconceptions. They are the inner impulses that make us feel like or dislike about certain external objects, which we perceive through the senses, and are associated with the preconceptions that are recalled.

In this moment that the word "man" is spoken, immediately due to the preconception, an image appears to the mind, which is related to the sense data.[10]

First of all Herodotus, we must comprehend the meanings that underlie the words, so that, by referring to them, we may be able to reach judgements concerning opinions, matters of inquiry, or problems and leave everything undecided as we argue endlessly or use words that have no sense.[11]

Apart from these there is the assumption (hypolepsis), which is either the hypothesis or the opinion about something (matter or action), and can be right or wrong. The assumptions are created by the association of the senses, preconceptions and feelings. As they are produced mechanically and automatically, without any rational analysis and verification of its truth, they need to be confirmed (epimarteresis: confirmation), a process which must follow each assumption.

For the opinion they [the Epicureans] use the word hepolepsis, which they claim can be right or wrong.[12]

Referring to the "focusing of thought into an impression" or else "intuitive apprehensions of the mind", they are the printed images on the mind that emanate from the senses, preconceptions and feelings, and form the basis of the assumptions and beliefs. They refer to the images and impressions that appear in the mind, on the occasion of the external events, and are associated with the respective preconceptions and feelings. All this unity (sense – preconception – feeling – focusing of thought into an impression) leads to the formation of a certain assumption or belief (hepolepsis). After Aristotle, with the use of impressions by the desirable part and the intellect, Epicurus is referring to the same subject again, namely to the impressions in the form of images, which are projected on the mind. An element that also the Stoics adopted later, namely the "right use of impressions". So the capacity of knowledge presupposes all the above-mentioned functions, for the perception of the external objects is created by the association of all those factors, in the course that we have already mentioned. As for the assumptions and beliefs, comes into question their ‘confirmation’, which finally proves if the opinions are either right or false. This verification and confirmation (epimarteresis) can only be done by means of the "evident reason" (henargeia), which means the self-evident and obvious through the senses. We can give an example in order to be able to understand better the whole function. When we see somebody, who is approaching us, first through the sense of eyesight, we perceive that an object is coming closer to us, then through the preconception we perceive that it is a human being, afterwards through the assumption we assume that he is our acquaintance e.g. Theaetetus. This assumption is associated with feelings of delight or aversion, accompanied with the respective images and impressions printed on the mind (focusing of thought into an impression), which are related to the feelings of our mutual relationship. In the end, when he is very close to us, it can be confirmed (verification) that he is Socrates and not Theaetetus through the quiet evident proof of our eyesight. Therefore, the same method must be applied to all the phenomena and the terms, which are not observable and obvious (adela, imperceptible), that is to say, the confirmation through the evident reason (henargeia). In the same way we have to reduce (reductionism) each assumption and belief to something that can be proved through the self-evident reason (empirically verified). Verification theory and reductionism have been adopted, as we know, by the modern philosophy of science. In this way, one can get rid of the false assumptions and beliefs and finally to settle on the only real ones (confirmed).

Consequently the confirmation and no dispute is the criterion of truth of one thing, while non confirmation and dispute is the criterion of the falsehood. Basis and foundation of everything is the quiet obvious and the self-evident.[13]

All the above mentioned criteria of knowledge form the basic principles of the method, that Epicurus has followed in order to find the truth, which he called method On the Canon or On the Criteria.

If you reject any sensation and you do not distinguish between the opinion based on what awaits confirmation and evidence already available based on the senses, the feelings and every intuitive faculty of the mind, you will send the remaining sensations into a turmoil with your foolish opinions, thus driving out every standard for judging. And if among the perceptions based on opinion, you affirm both, that which awaits confirmation and that which does not, you will fail to escape from error, since you will have retained every ground for dispute in judgement concerning the right and wrong.[14]

(Excerpt from Epicurus' Gnoseology 'Handbook of Greek Philosophy: From Thales to the Stoics Analysis and Fragments', Nikolaos Bakalis, Trafford Publishing 2005, ISBN 1-4120-4843-5.

[edit] Tetrapharmakos

Main article: Tetrapharmakos.

Tetrapharmakos, or, "The four-part cure," is Epicurus' overall statement of how to live the happiest possible life. This poetic doctrine was handed down by an anonymous Epicurean who summed up Epicurus' philosophy on happiness in four simple lines:

Don't fear god,
Don't worry about death;
What is good is easy to get, and
What is terrible is easy to endure.
(Philodemus, Herculaneum Papyrus, 1005, 4.9-14)

[edit] Early Physics: Epicurean Physics

Epicurus' philosophy of the physical world is found in Letter to Herodotus: Diogenes Laertius 10.34-83. Below is its paraphrase.

If a limited form lives within an unlimited void, the form could only wander aimlessly about, because what is unlimited is ungraspable; meaning, the limited form would travel forever, for it does not have any obstacles. The void would have to be limited in quality and the form of an unlimited quality, for an unlimited form can oscillate and seemingly grasp—practically, but not literally—an unlimited number of spots within the limited void. So therefore all living things on Earth are unlimited, and the Earth on which they live and the universe around it, is limited. (This could be furthered ad nauseam in that the universe is limited and that the galaxy is unlimited, etc.)

Forms can change, but not their inherent qualities, for change can only affect their shape. Some things can be changed and some things cannot be changed because forms that are unchangeable cannot be destroyed if certain attributes can be removed; for attributes not only have the intention of altering an unchangeable form, but also the inevitable possibility of becoming—in relation to the form’s disposition to its present environment—both an armor and a vulnerability to the its stability.

Further proof that there are unchangeable forms and their inability to be destroyed, is the concept of the “non-evident.” A form cannot come into being from the void—which is nothing; it would be as if all forms come into being spontaneously, needless of reproduction. The implied meaning of “destroying” something is to undo its existence, to make it not there anymore, and this cannot be so: if the void is that which does not exist, and if this void is the implied destination of the destroyed, then the thing in reality cannot be destroyed, for the thing (and all things) could not have existed in the first place (as Lucretius said, ex nihilo nihil fit: nothing comes from nothing). This totality of forms is eternal and unchangeable.

Atoms move, in the appropriate way, constantly and for all time. Forms first come to us in images or “films”--outlines of their true selves. For an image to be perceived by the human eye, the “atoms” of the image must cross a great distance at enormous speed and must not encounter any conflicting atoms along the way. The presence of atomic resistance equal atomic slowness; whereas, if the path is deficient of atomic resistance, the traversal rate is much faster (and clearer). Because of resistance, forms must be unlimited (unchangeable and able to grasp any point within the void) because, if they weren't, a form's image would not come from a single place, but fragmented and from several places. This confirms that a single form cannot be at multiple places at the same time.

And the senses warrant us other means of perception: hearing and smelling. As in the same way an image traverses through the air, the atoms of sound and smell traverse the same way. This perceptive experience is itself the flow of the moving atoms; and like the changeable and unchangeable forms, the form from which the flow traverses is shed and shattered into even smaller atoms, atoms of which still represent the original form, but they are slightly disconnected and of diverse magnitudes. This flow, like that of an echo, reverberates (off one's senses) and goes back to its start; meaning, one’s sensory perception happens in the coming, going, or arch, of the flow; and when the flow retreats back to its starting position, the atomic image is back together again: thus when one smells something one has the ability to see it too.

And this leads to the question of how atomic speed and motion works. Epicurus says that there are two kinds of motion: the straight motion and the curved motion, and its motion traverse as fast as the speed of thought.

[edit] Legacy

Elements of Epicurean philosophy have resonated and resurfaced in various diverse thinkers and movements throughout Western intellectual history. The Epicurean paradox is a famous argument against the existence of an all-powerful and providential God. The paradox is quoted as this:

God either wants to eliminate bad things and cannot, or can but does not want to, or neither wishes to nor can, or both wants to and can. If he wants to and cannot, he is weak -- and this does not apply to God. If he can but does not want to, then he is spiteful -- which is equally foreign to God's nature. If he neither wants to nor can, he is both weak and spiteful and so not a god. If he wants to and can, which is the only thing fitting for a god, where then do bad things come from? Or why does he not eliminate them?[15]

Epicurus did not, however, deny the existence of gods, but he did not think of them along the lines that lead to this paradox, but rather as blissful and immortal beings inhabiting the metakosmia, empty spaces between worlds in the vastness of infinite space.

Epicurus was one of the first thinkers to develop the notion of justice as a social contract. He defined justice as an agreement "neither to harm nor be harmed." The point of living in a society with laws and punishments is to be protected from harm so that one is free to pursue happiness. Because of this, laws that do not help contribute to promoting human happiness are not just.

This was later picked up by the democratic thinkers of the French Revolution, and others, like John Locke, who wrote that people had a right to "life, liberty, and property." To Locke, one's own body was part of their property, and thus one's right to property would theoretically guarantee safety for their persons, as well as their possessions.

This triad was carried forward into the American freedom movement and Declaration of Independence, by American founding father, Thomas Jefferson, as "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

Karl Marx's doctoral thesis was on "The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature." [1]

Epicurus was also a significant source of inspiration and interest for Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche cites his affinities to Epicurus in a number of his works, including The Gay Science, Beyond Good and Evil, and his private letters to Peter Gast. Nietzsche was attracted to, among other things, Epicurus' ability to maintain a cheerful philosophical outlook in the face of painful physical ailments. Nietzsche also suffered from a number of sicknesses during his lifetime. However, he thought that Epicurus' conception of happiness as freedom from anxiety was too passive and negative.

In a purposefully unfavourable expression, Epicurus is titled in Modern Greek idiom as the so-called "Dark Philosopher".

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Lives of Eminent Philosophers, book X, 14-15.
  2. ^ Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, X, 22 (trans. C.D. Yonge).
  3. ^ The only fragment in Greek about this central notion is from the Oenoanda inscription (fr.54 in Smith's edition). The best known reference is in Lucretius' On the nature of things, II, 216-224, 284-293.
  4. ^ Lucretius.
  5. ^ Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, X, 31.
  6. ^ Letter to Herodotus, 50).
  7. ^ (Sextus Empiricus, To Rationals, 8.63.
  8. ^ Sext.Empiricus, To Rationals, 7.206-45.
  9. ^ Principal Doctrines, 23.
  10. ^ Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, X, 33.
  11. ^ Letter to Herodotus, 37.
  12. ^ Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, X, 34.
  13. ^ Sextus Empiricus, To Rationals, 7.211-6.
  14. ^ Principal Doctrines, 24.
  15. ^ Epicurus (from The Epicurus Reader, translated and edited by Brad Inwood and L.P. Gerson, Hackett Publishing, 1994, p. 97).

[edit] Works

The only surviving complete works by Epicurus are three letters, which are to be found in book X of Diogenes Laertius' Lives of Eminent Philosophers, and two groups of quotes: the Principal Doctrines, reported as well in Diogenes' book X, and the Vatican Sayings, preserved in a manuscript from the Vatican Library.

[edit] Further reading

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
  • Bailey C. (1928) The Greek Atomists and Epicurus, Oxford.
  • Bakalis Nikolaos (2005) Handbook of Greek Philosophy: From Thales to the Stoics Analysis and Fragments, Trafford Publishing, ISBN 1-4120-4843-5
  • Digireads.com The Works of Epicurus, January 2004.
  • Eugene O’ Connor The Essential Epicurus, Prometheus Books, New York 1993.
  • Edelstein Epicureanism, Two Collections of Fragments and Studies Garland Publ. March 1987
  • Farrington, Benjamin. Science and Politics in the Ancient World, 2nd ed. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1965. A Marxist interpretation of Epicurus, the Epicurean movement, and its opponents.
  • Gottlieb, Anthony. The Dream of Reason: A History of Western Philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance. London: Penguin, 2001. ISBN 0-14-025274-6
  • Inwood, Brian, tr. The Epicurus Reader, Hackett Publishing Co, March 1994.
  • Oates Whitney Jenning, The Stoic and Epicurean philosophers, The Complete Extant Writings of Epicurus, Epictetus, Lucretius and Marcus Aurelius, Random House, 9th printing 1940.
  • Prometheus Books, Epicurus Fragments, August 1992.
  • Russel M. Geer Letters, Principal Doctrines, Vatican Sayings, Bobbs-Merrill Co, January 1964.
  • Diogenes of Oinoanda. The Epicurean Inscription, edited with Introduction, Translation and Notes by Martin Ferguson Smith, Bibliopolis, Naples 1993.

[edit] External links

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