Greek philosopher (c. 341 bc– 270 bc)

Epicurus, who was born on the Greek island of Samos, traveled to Athens when he was about 18 years old, and received military training. He then taught at Mytilene and Lampsacus before returning to Athens (305 bc) where he founded a school of philosophy and attracted a substantial following.

Epicurus revived Democritean atomism and was little influenced by his predecessors, Plato and Aristotle. His work is known through substantial fragments in the writings of Diogenes Laërtius and especially through the long poem, De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things), by his Roman disciple Lucretius. The Epicurean philosophy aimed at the attainment of a happy, though simple, life and used the atomic theory to sanction the banishment of the old fears and superstitions. Epicurus also made important additions to the atomic theory, asserting the primacy of sense-perception where Democritus had distrusted the senses, and he introduced the concept of random atomic ‘swerve’ to preserve free will in an otherwise deterministic system.

Epicurus (ca. 342-270 B.C.) was a Greek philosopher and the founder of Epicureanism. He was the first ofthe overt therapy philosophers and an upholder of the atomic theory.

Epicurus was born either in Samos or in Athens. He spent his youth in the Athenian colony of Samos, and at the age of 18 he made his way to Athens. In the upheaval resulting from the death of Alexander the Great (323 B.C.), the Athenian colonists, including Epicurus's father, Neocles, were driven out of Samos. Epicurus rejoined his father in Colophon and spent the next several years in Colophon, Lampsacus, and Mytilene, gathering disciples to his own emerging philosophical doctrines

About 307/306 Epicurus returned to Athens, and at first, according to Diogenes Laertius, seems to have spent some time with other professional philosophers in the pursuit of philosophy. Soon, however, he founded his own school, which has since borne his name. Epicurus was subject, even in his own lifetime, to opprobrious comment; among other things he was accused of gluttony, womanizing, and unwarranted contempt for other philosophers, antecedent and contemporary. Given the strength of his own convictions, the latter accusation may have had substance; all evidence we have suggests that Epicurus spoke his mind. The other accusations appear to be groundless. He was physically infirm and lived a life of abstemiousness, if not of complete asceticism. He was characterized by his love for his parents, his generosity to his brothers, and his gentleness toward his slaves. He was also respectful to the gods, no doubt on the grounds that they were the example of that freedom from physical pain and mental tranquility that he saw as the supreme human goal.

Written Works

Epicurus's output was very large; Diogenes Laertius, his principal biographer, lists 40 works, one of them, On Nature, comprising 37 books. All that has survived is what seems to be an abridged version of Epicurus's philosophy in the form of three letters, a few fragments, and a collection of his more important sayings entitled Major Opinions. The latter, however, is likely a compendium put together by disciples, as is undoubtedly the case with the Senteniae Vaticanae, discovered in the 19th century. The Letter to Herodotus deals with Epicurus's physics and his theory of knowledge and perception. The Letter to Pythocles deals with his far less confident opinions on astronomy and meteorology. And the Letter to Menoeceus treats his theory of conduct.

Atomic Theory

All that exists, Epicurus says, consists of matter, void, and their accidents, or properties. The universe is infinite in time and space and contains an infinite number of eternally moving indestructible elements called "atoms." The number of types of atom is, he says, "inconceivably large," and there is an infinite number of each type. The atoms are not further splittable, though they are logically divisible into "minimal parts," which serve as integral units of measurement in the distinguishing of different sizes of atoms. The atoms are like sense objects in possessing mass, size, and shape.

"Creation from nothing" and "substantial" change are meaningless terms. Any change in the universe is reducible to alteration of position. Atoms are invisible, by definition; and their motions, be it in the "free fall" of the void, or from mutual collision, or in the "vibration" within a compound body, are of equal velocity, which he equates with the "speed of thought." In this respect size, mass, and other factors are irrelevant. In the matter of speed the only difference between atoms is that, thanks to the deflections consequent upon collisions, the net distance covered by one atom will differ from that covered by another.

In the infinite universe there is an infinite number of earth systems similar to our own, constantly waxing and waning. These earth systems are of various shapes, but in each instance the "earth" is a plane, like our own. "Up" and "down" are apparently meaningful terms to Epicurus, even in an infinite universe; what is "up" for our earth system is "down" for the one immediately "above" us. The universe is an infinity of space "up" and an infinity of space "down."

The question of the first collision of atoms is not discussed in the extant works of Epicurus. The problem is an acute one, since atoms falling eternally "down" at uniform speed will never meet, and the organized world described by Epicurus becomes an impossibility. It seems clear from other ancient sources that Epicurus did in fact postulate a "swerve" of one or more atoms as the initial or eternally recurring source of the collisions that are so crucial to his physical theory.

Whether Epicurus also postulated the existence of such a swerve of one or more soul atoms, early on in life, to account for man's free will is a matter for current conjecture. What we are sure of is that, by apparent contrast with Democritus, Epicurus was an atomist who was also profoundly antideterminist.

Sensations, Feelings, and Concepts

The criteria for judging questions of truth content and moral worth are primitive sensations, primitive feelings, and "concepts" (which ultimately reduce to the first two). A life lived in accord with these will achieve the maximal human good - freedom from bodily pain and freedom from mental anxiety. In the matter of sense perception, truth is attained by direct contact with the shape and qualities of an object, either by physical contact or by apprehension of the "idols" incessantly streaming off all physical subjects and, at least for a time, retaining their form and color.

Error lies in the hasty interposition of opinion into this scheme of things, without waiting for the corroboration of further sense evidence. Concepts, being constructs of sense data and feelings, are meaningful and helpful as criteria to the degree that they stem directly from sense data and feelings, without the interposition of hasty opinion. Among such concepts are the two crucial ones of atoms and void, the existence of neither of which is amenable to empirical demonstration.

Views on the Gods, the Soul, and Death

A crucial exception to all this is constituted by the "idols" of the gods. These penetrate the mind directly to form our concepts, without previously impinging upon the sense organs or influencing our feelings. Our certitude of the gods' existence stems from the clarity of our mental perception of the fact; men's view of their nature, however, says Epicurus, is usually ridiculous - thanks again to the interposition of groundless opinion into the matter. The gods live eternal lives of contentment in the void of the universe and have no concern with men. There are no rewards or punishments after death; death is extinction. Dying might reasonably - though mistakenly, he feels - seem a cause for fear; to fear death itself, however, is absurd, since it brings nothing in its wake.

This cardinal tenet about the nature of the gods and death is bound up with Epicurus's views on the soul. In spite of his physical theory, he is still (perhaps surprisingly) a dualist in matters concerning the mind and the body. Soul or mind, however, he sees as completely material; it is composed of very small, fine, round atoms. It gives sensation to the body and in turn needs the receptacle of the body to exercise its function of sensing. The body, at the same time, is given a degree of sensation by the soul. But neither soul nor body can sense apart; hence the fact that their dissolution at death is immediate annihilation for the whole person.

Epicurus therefore suggests that the end of human life should be pleasure - defining it as freedom from physical and mental pain. The positive delights that other men call "pleasure" are merely variations on the true, basic, contentment man needs and can easily achieve; they in no sense increase his happiness. A good life is guided by practical wisdom, a sense of responsibility for our decision making, self-sufficiency, and the careful application of the hedonistic calculus. This necessarily involves freedom from all fear and knowledge of the limits of our desires. Once we see that only "necessary" and nonharmful desires need be assuaged, we have removed a major obstacle to the achieving of the plenitude of human contentment.

Epicurus advocated (and practiced) a life of withdrawal from politics. The highest human communion was for him the company of friends. The degree of happiness these gave him is eloquently attested to in a last letter to Idomeneus: "On this truly happy day of my life, as I am at the point of death, I write this to you. The disease in my bladder and stomach are pursuing their course, lacking nothing of their natural severity; but against all this is the joy in my heart at the recollection of my conversations with you."

Further Reading

For a fully annotated edition of Epicurus's extant works consult Epicurus: The Extant Remains, edited and translated by Cyril Bailey (1926). This book, while open to criticism on some matters of detail, is still the most reliable edition in English. Bailey's more discursive study, The Greek Atomists and Epicurus (1928), is also recommended. A book notable for the quality of its scholarship and the depth of its sympathy with Epicurus is A.-J. Festugière, Epicurus and His Gods, translated by C. W. Chilton (1955). For a sophisticated study of two basic problems in Epicurus see David J. Furley, Two Studies in the Greek Atomists (1967). Norman Wentworth De Witt, Epicurus and His Philosophy (1954), and Benjamin Farrington, The Faith of Epicurus (1967), should both be used with caution. See also George A. Panichas, Epicurus (1967).

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Epicūrus (Epikouros) (341–271 BC), Greek philosopher of the Hellenistic age and founder of the Epicurean school of philosophy. He was born in Samos, the son of a schoolteacher who had Athenian citizenship. In his youth he studied and was impressed by the atomist philosophy of Democritus, and established his own philosophical circles at Mytilene and Lampsacus. He settled in Athens in 307 and bought a house with a garden (kēpoi), which gave its name, the Garden, to the school of philosophy which he set up in it. At his death he bequeathed this property to his successor Hermarchus. Epicurus resembled Socrates in the affection and respect he inspired among his friends, who sought out his company. His school, perhaps better called a community, consisted of a group of like-minded people, including women and slaves, who lived with him in austere seclusion. It attracted ridicule and accusations of profligacy because of its communal life and Epicurus' philosophical hedonism (see below), the serious aspects of which were ignored. Although Epicurus wrote prolifically most of his work is lost. Diogenes Laertius preserves three important letters summarizing his teaching, together with a collection of forty aphorisms, Kyriai doxai (‘principal doctrines’); some eighty further aphorisms survive in a manuscript. Of the thirty-seven books of his great work On Nature, fairly substantial fragments have been recovered from carbonized papyrus rolls found in a villa excavated at Herculaneum, the study of which is yielding results. For our knowledge of Epicurus' thought we also depend largely on the poem of Lucretius, De rerum natura, which expounds his physical theory and to some extent his moral theory too.

Epicurus' aim was the wise conduct of life, to be attained by reliance on the evidence of the senses, and the elimination of superstition and of the belief in supernatural intervention. He accepted from Democritus that the world consisted of (unchanging and indestructible) atoms and void, change being brought about by the rearrangement of atoms. He gives a strictly mechanistic account of all phenomena: the universe came into being through a chance combination of atoms, and will eventually perish through their dispersal. Gods exist, but have no part in the ordinary processes of nature and take no thought for humankind. The latter is merely an ephemeral compound of atoms, and the human soul, also compounded of atoms, perishes with the body. Epicurus makes atomism serve a moral purpose. Happiness consists in attaining tranquillity of mind, an attainment achieved by a proper understanding of nature. Epicurus' moral theory is summed up in a sentence from one of his letters: ‘We say that pleasure is the beginning and end of living happily.’ Thus for Epicurus pleasure is identical with the good. It is in the nature of people to seek pleasure; pain, which is a disturbance of the natural state, is caused by unsatisfied desire, and pleasure is experienced when the natural state is restored. Therefore one must satisfy desire, and this is pleasure. But some pleasures bring pain in their wake. Therefore one must satisfy desires which are natural and necessary, but accept as the limit of pleasure the onset of pain. Hence pleasure may lie in limiting desire. (Epicurus is perhaps uniting under the term ‘pleasure’ both positive enjoyment and the absence of pain.) Mental pleasure is far greater than physical pleasure (as mental suffering is worse than physical suffering), and is found in ataraxia, ‘freedom from disturbance’. This can be achieved in three ways: by learning the nature of the universe and of death, which removes fear of the supernatural (the worst mental pain), by withdrawing from the turmoils of public life, and by avoiding emotional commitments.

The meaning given in modern times to the word ‘epicure’ (a gourmet or person devoted to sensual pleasures) represents widespread hostility to and misunderstanding of Epicurean philosophy (not helped by Horace's ironic description of himself, Epistles 1. 4. 16, as ‘a hog from the sty of Epicurus’). Particular antagonism was felt by the Stoics; nevertheless Epicureanism spread, first to Antioch and Alexandria, then into Italy, and for a brief time during the late republic it won the adherence of men like Calpurnius Piso, Cassius, and Cicero's friend Atticus. Naturally the early Christians regarded Epicureanism with abhorrence because it stated that there was no providential God and no survival after death, that the universe had been created by accident, and that the aim of life was pleasure. A remarkable testimony to the continuing vitality of the philosophy was a very large public inscription (of which fragments survive) erected in AD 200 at Oenoanda in the interior of modern Turkey by a certain Diogenes, giving passages of Epicurean doctrine together with a concise summary of Epicurus' teaching.

(341-270 BC) Greek philosopher. Epicurus was born on the island of Samos, but moved to Athens in 307/6 BC, where he established a secluded community called the ‘Garden’. His doctrines are known mainly through the account in Diogenes Laertius, and through Lucretius' poem De Rerum Natura, which is believed to be a faithful representation of his thought. Epicurus followed the atomistic metaphysics of Leucippus and Democritus, in particular allowing for empty space, an infinite number of atoms, and the infinite number of worlds their changing combinations produce. Epicurus also had a doctrine of the survival of the fittest in order to account for the evolution of species without appeal to the final causes of Aristotle. However, room is made for gods, although they have no concern at all for this cosmos, and in particular play no role either as first causes or as providing ends for existence. Free will is allowed by the ‘swerve’ or clinamen of atoms in their courses. Another interesting doctrine is that of the prolepsis or way in which experience becomes general, by allowing us to anticipate the kind of object to which terms refer (prolepsis is therefore a solution, or perhaps a labelling, of the difficulty that later bedevilled the British empiricists, of how words become general in their significance).

The aim of all philosophy is, however, to enable us to live well, which is not to live in the hedonistic trough the word Epicureanism now suggests, after centuries of propaganda against the system. Rather, practical wisdom, attained through philosophy, is needed to attain the pleasant life, which consists in a preponderance of katastematic pleasures, capable of indefinite prolongation, over merely kinematic or volatile sensory pleasures. Katastematic pleasures are capable of variation but not of increase, so that one who lives longer does not thereby obtain more of them than one who lives less long, and this is important to the Epicurean attitude towards death. As with other Greek ethical philosophies, ataraxia, is the summit of the katastematic pleasures, and requires understanding the limits of life and removal of the fear of death, cultivation of friendships, and the removal of unnecessary desires and false gratifications.

(ĕpĭkyʊr'əs) , 341–270 B.C., Greek philosopher, b. Samos; son of an Athenian colonist. He claimed to be self-taught, although tradition states that he was schooled in the systems of Plato and Democritus by his father and various philosophers. He taught in several towns in Asia Minor before going to Athens c.306 B.C. There Epicurus purchased the famous garden that has become linked in the annals of philosophy with the Academy of Plato and the Lyceum of Aristotle. He was a generous and genial man who lived on the warmest terms with his followers. Although his writings were voluminous, only fragments remain. Epicurus defined philosophy as the art of making life happy and strictly subordinated metaphysics to ethics, naming pleasure as the highest and only good. However, for Epicurus pleasure was not heedless indulgence but the opposite, ataraxia [serenity], manifesting itself in the avoidance of pain. His hedonism differed from the cruder variety of Aristippus and the Cyrenaics in the emphasis that it placed on ataraxia and on the superiority of intellectual pleasures over bodily pleasures. He also prescribed a code of social conduct, which advocated honesty, prudence, and justice in dealing with others, not because these virtues were good in themselves, but because they saved the individual from society's retribution. While Epicurus appropriated much of the mechanics of Democritus' metaphysics, he deviated from its deterministic implications by the introduction of an element of spontaneity, which allowed atoms to form the objects of the world by chance. The element of freedom in his metaphysics supported and paralleled his notion of the freedom of the will. He held blind destiny to be more dangerous to one's ataraxia than belief in fables about the gods; people could hope to propitiate the gods, but mechanical determinism was inexorable. He denied that the gods had supernatural powers that allowed them to interfere with humanity or nature. The system of Epicurus deemphasized the traditional power of religious and physical forces on human life and emphasized our freedom of action. The work of the Roman poet Lucretius, De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things), contains the finest exposition of Epicurus' ideas.

Bibliography

See studies by E. Asmis (1984), R. M. Strozier (1985), and H. Jones (1989).

Epicurus, a Greek philosopher (341–270 B.C.E.), has involuntarily given his name to the fastidious pursuit of pleasure. Born on the Greek island of Samos, Epicurus lived and taught mainly in Athens, where he was a precise contemporary of the playwright Menander. The Epicurean school of philosophy, which he founded, centered on his house and garden in Athens. He and his pupils, who included slaves and women, followed a secluded and austere lifestyle there.

Epicurus taught that the gods have no effect on human affairs, that the universe was created by the random swerve of an atom, and that pleasure is the goal of a happy life. His definition of pleasure is, however, a rather negative one, the removal of disturbance and pain. Since pain is caused by unsatisfied desire, one must reduce one's desires to the minimum. The unavoidable demands of instinct must be satisfied; philosophical study is the best way to conquer all desires beyond that point.

Epicurus is not an ideal choice as a spiritual patron of gastronomes or hedonists. Yet he invited this view of his philosophy with such pronouncements as, "The beginning and root of all good is to make the stomach happy: wisdom and learning are founded on that" (Athenaeus, Deipnosophists [Professors at dinner], 546 ff.). The belief that Epicurus favored sensual pleasures can be traced to his contemporaries, and to their understandable misinterpretation of his own words.

Bibliography

A few short writings by Epicurus survive. See Eugene Michael O'Connor, trans., The Essential Epicurus: Letters, Principal Doctrines, Vatican Sayings, and Fragments (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1993), and Brad Inwood and L. P. Gerson, trans., The Epicurus Reader: Selected Writings and Testimonia (Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett, 1994). His beliefs are eloquently explained in a Latin poem by Lucretius, Lucretius on the Nature of the Universe, translated by Ronald Latham, with an introduction by John Godwin (London: Penguin, 1994; first published 1951). The papyrus rolls found at Herculaneum in the eighteenth century had come from the working library of an Epicurean teacher of the first century B.C.E. and include some of Epicurus's works. For the Deipnosophists of Athenaeus, quoted above, see vol. 5, pp. 477–481, of C. B. Gulick's translation (London: Heinemann, 1933; New York: Putnam, 1933).

—Andrew Dalby

Quotes:

"I never desired to please the rabble. What pleased them, I did not learn; and what I knew was far removed from their understanding."

"Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little."

"Of all things which wisdom provides to make life entirely happy, much the greatest is the possession of friendship."

"We do not so much need the help of our friends as the confidence of their help in need."

"Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; but remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for."

"If thou wilt make a man happy, add not unto his riches but take away from his desires."

See more famous quotes by Epicurus

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