Epicureanism
This term has two distinct, though cognate, meanings. In its
popular sense, the word stands for a refined and calculating
selfishness, seeking not power or fame, but the pleasures of
sense, particularly of the palate, and those in company rather
than solitude. An epicure is one who is extremely choice and
delicate in his viands. In the other sense, Epicureanism signifies
a philosophical system, which includes a theory of conduct, of
nature, and of mind.
HISTORY
Epicurus, from whom this system takes its name, was a Greek, born
at Samos 341 B.C., who, in 307 B.C., founded a school at Athens,
and died 270 B.C. The Stoic School, diametrically opposite to
this, was founded about the same time, probably 310 B.C. Thus
these two systems, having for their respective watchwords Pleasure
and Duty, sprang up within the first generation after Aristotle
(d. 322 B.C.), each of them holding a half-truth and by
exaggeration turning it into falsehood. The Epicurean School was
rather a practical discipline than a habit of speculation. The
master laid down his principles dogmatically, as if they must be
evident as soon as stated, to any one not foolish. His disciples
were made to learn his maxims by heart; and they acquired a spirit
of unity more akin to that of a political party, or of a sect,
than to the mere intellectual agreement of a school of
philosophers. About a century and a quarter after the death of its
founder, the system was introduced into Rome, and there, as well
as in its native country, it attracted in the course of time a
number of adherents such as moved the astonishment of Cicero. It
had the fortune to be adopted by the finest of didactic poets,
Lucretius (91-51 B.C.), and was expounded by him in a poem (De
rerum natur�) with a beauty of expression and a fervour of
eloquence worthy of a nobler theme. In the latter half of the
second century, when Marcus Aurelius was founding chairs of
philosophy at Athens, that emperor, himself a Stoic, recognized
the Epicurean (together with his own, and the Platonic, and the
Aristotelic systems) as one of the four great philosophies to be
established and endowed on a footing of equality. In modern times
Epicureanism has had many theoretical as well as practical
adherents. In the seventeenth century, when Aristoteleanism and
Scholasticism were assailed by the champions of the new sciences,
Gassendi (q.v.) selected Epicurus for his master; but he seems to
have been attracted chiefly by the physics, and to have aimed at
reforming the moral theory so as to make it tolerable to a
Christian. The numerous editions of the poem of Lucretius which
the present age is producing may be taken to indicate a sympathy
with the philosophy expounded in it.
EPICUREAN ETHICS
Philosophy was described by Epicurus as "the art of making life
happy", and he says that "prudence is the noblest part of
philosophy". His natural philosophy and epistemology seem to have
been adopted for the sake of his theory of life. It is, therefore,
proper that his ethics should first be explained. The purpose of
life, according to Epicurus, is personal happiness; and by
happiness he means not that state of well-being and perfection of
which the consciousness is accompanied by pleasure, but pleasure
itself. Moreover, this pleasure is sensuous, for it is such only
as is attainable in this life. This pleasure is the immediate
purpose of every action. "Habituate yourself", he says,
to think that death is nothing to us; for all good and evil is in
feeling; now death is the privation of feeling. Hence, the right
knowledge that death is nothing to us makes us enjoy what there is
in this life, not adding to it an indefinite duration, but
eradicating the desire of immortality.
His idea of the pleasurable differs from that of the Cyrenaic
School which preceded him. The Cyrenaics looked to the momentary
pleasures of gaiety and excitement. The pleasure of Epicurus is a
state, equably diffused, "the absence of [bodily] pain and
[mental] anxiety".
That which begets the pleasurable life is not [sensual indulgence]
but a sober reason which searches for the grounds of choosing and
rejecting, and which banishes those doctrines through which mental
trouble, for the most part, arises.
The wise man will accordingly desire "not the longest life, but
the most pleasurable". It is for the sake of this condition of
permanent pleasure, or tranquillity, that the virtues are
desirable. "We cannot live pleasurably without living prudently,
gracefully, and justly; and we cannot live prudently gracefully,
and justly, without living pleasurably" in consequence; for "the
virtues are by nature united with a pleasurable life; and a
pleasurable life cannot be separated from these." The virtues, in
short, are to be practiced not for their own sake, but solely as a
means of pleasure, "as medicine is used for the sake of health".
In accordance with this view, he says that "friendship is to be
pursued by the wise man only for its utility; but he will begin,
as he sows the field in order to reap". "The wise man will not
take any part in public affairs"; moreover, "the wise man will not
marry and have children". But "the wise man will be humane to his
slaves". "He will not think all sinners to be equally bad, nor all
philosophers to be equally good." That is, apparently, he will not
have any very exacting standard, and will neither believe very
much in human virtue, nor be very much surprised at the discovery
of human frailty. In this system, "prudence is the source of all
pleasure and of all virtue".
The defects of this theory of life are obvious. In the first
place, as to the matter of fact, experience shows that happiness
is not best attained by directly seeking it. The selfish are not
more happy, but less so, than the unselfish. In the next place the
theory altogether destroys virtue as virtue, and eliminates the
idea and sentiment expressed by the words "ought", "duty",
"right", and "wrong". Virtue, indeed tends to produce the truest
and, highest pleasure; all such pleasure, so far as it depends
upon ourselves, depends upon virtue. But he who practises virtue
for the sake of the pleasure alone is selfish, not virtuous, and
he will never enjoy the pleasure, because he has not the virtue. A
similar observation may be made upon the Epicurean theory of
friendship. Friendship for the sake of advantage is not true
friendship in the proper sense of the word. External actions,
apart from affection, cannot constitute friendship; that affection
no one can feel merely because he judges it would be advantageous
and pleasurable; in fact he cannot know the pleasure until he
first feels the affection. If we consider the Epicurean
condemnation of patriotism and of the family life, we must
pronounce a still severer censure. Such a view of life is the
meanest form of selfishness leading in general to vice. Epicurus,
perhaps, was better than his theory; but the theory itself, if it
did not originate in coldness of heart and meanness of spirit, was
extremely well suited to encourage them. If sincerely embraced and
consistently carried out, it undermined all that was chivalrous
and heroic, and even all that was ordinarily virtuous. Fortitude
and justice, as such, ceased to be objects of admiration, and
temperance sank into a mere matter of calculation. Even prudence
itself, dissociated from all moral quality became a mere balancing
between the pleasures of the present and of the future.
THEOLOGY
Epicurus said that "it was not impiety to deny the gods of the
multitude, but it was impiety to think of the gods as the
multitude thought"; a sound principle, but one which he wrongly
applied, since he got rid of what was true as well as of what was
corrupt in the vulgar religion. Fear of the gods was an evil to be
eradicated, as incompatible with tranquillity. As to their nature,
the gods are immortal, but material, like every other being. He
seems to have held that there was one supreme being; but this god
was not the creator, scarcely the orderer, of the universe, the
gods being only a part of the All. Nor is there a Providence, for
an interest in human affairs would be inconsistent with perfect
happiness. In short, the gods are magnified Epicurean
philosophers.
NATURAL PHILOSOPHY
The physics of Epicurus are in a General sense atomic. He claimed
originality for his theory, asserting that it began with his
reflections upon a passage in Hesiod. As he read in school that
all things came from chaos, he asked, What is chaos?--a question
which his teacher could not answer. It is generally held, however,
that he really learned his atomism from the Democritean
philosophy, modifying it in one important respect; for he supposes
that the atoms in falling through empty space collide by virtue of
a self-determining power, or rather an indetermination owing to
which ii is possible for them by chance to swerve a little from
the vertical direction.
BIOLOGY
In this Epicurus simply followed the view of Empedocles, that,
first, all sorts of living things and animals, well or ill
organized, were evolved from the earth and that those survived
which were suited to preserve themselves and reproduce their kind.
ANTHROPOLOGY
The anthropology of Lucretius may be supposed to have been
derived, like his physics and biology, from Epicurus. According to
the Lucretian theory men were originally savage; the primitive
condition was one of mutual war; in this condition men were like
the wild beasts in strength and cunning; civil society was formed
under the pressure of the evils of anarchy. The reader recognizes
here the ideas indicated by the eighteenth-century phrases "state
of nature" and "social contract". The "golden age" is a dream.
LOGIC
The Epicurean logic is criterional. The test of truth practically
is the pleasant and the painful belief. Theoretically, their
criterion is sensation. Sensation never is deceptive; the error
lies in our judgment. Dreams, the ravings of fever or lunacy, the
delirium of the drunkard are true in their own way. Besides
sensation the human mind has also notions, or anticipations
(prolepseis), as when, seeing an object at a distance, one wonders
whether it is a man or a tree. These notions are the results left
by previous sensations. The notion does not appear to differ from
the internal sense of a brute, such as enables a dog, for example,
to welcome strangers belonging to the profession of his master,
and to bark furiously at a beggar that he has never seen before.
The understanding, then, does not differ essentially from the
internal senses.
PSYCHOLOGY
The human soul is material and mortal, being composed of a finer
kind of atoms, resembling those of air or fire, but even more
subtle. It is the bodily organism that holds together the atoms
composing the soul. Yet the human will is free. "Better were it to
accept all the legends of the gods, than to make ourselves slaves
to the fate of the natural philosophers." Fatalism, which to minds
of a stoical disposition seemed a source of strength, was to those
of an Epicurean temper simply a source of unpleasantness and
helplessness. The freedom asserted by the Epicureans is not
rational freedom in the true sense of the word. It does not
consist in the power of choosing the right and the noble in
preference to the pleasant. It is little better than physical
contingency, and may be described as Casualism. The whole
philosophy may well be described in a trenchant phrase of Macaulay
as "the silliest and meanest of all systems of natural and moral
philosophy".
M. J. RYAN
Transcribed by Rick McCarty
From the Catholic Encyclopedia, copyright � 1913 by the
Encyclopedia Press, Inc. Electronic version copyright � 1996 by
New Advent, Inc.
Taken from the New Advent Web Page (www.knight.org/advent).
This article is part of the Catholic Encyclopedia Project, an
effort aimed at placing the entire Catholic Encyclopedia 1913
edition on the World Wide Web. The coordinator is Kevin Knight,
editor of the New Advent Catholic Website. If you would like to
contribute to this worthwhile project, you can contact him by e-
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