= Epicurus =

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= Epicurus =
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Introduction
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Epicurus (, ; ; 341-270 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher and sage
who founded Epicureanism, a highly influential school of philosophy.
He was born on the Greek island of Samos to Athenian parents.
Influenced by Democritus, Aristippus, Pyrrho, and possibly the Cynics,
he turned against the Platonism of his day and established his own
school, known as "the Garden", in Athens. Epicurus and his followers
were known for eating simple meals and discussing a wide range of
philosophical subjects. He openly allowed women and slaves to join the
school as a matter of policy. Of the over 300 works said to have been
written by Epicurus about various subjects, the vast majority have
been destroyed. Only three letters written by him—the letters to
'Menoeceus', 'Pythocles', and 'Herodotus'—and two collections of
quotes—the 'Principal Doctrines' and the 'Vatican Sayings'—have
survived intact, along with a few fragments of his other writings. As
a result of his work's destruction, most knowledge about his
philosophy is due to later authors, particularly the biographer
Diogenes Laërtius, the Epicurean Roman poet Lucretius and the
Epicurean philosopher Philodemus, as well as the hostile but largely
accurate accounts by the Pyrrhonist philosopher Sextus Empiricus, and
the Academic Skeptic and statesman Cicero.

Epicurus asserted that philosophy's purpose is to attain as well as to
help others attain happy ('eudaimonic'), tranquil lives characterized
by 'ataraxia' (peace and freedom from fear) and 'aponia' (the absence
of pain). He advocated that people were best able to pursue philosophy
by living a self-sufficient life surrounded by friends. He taught that
the root of all human neuroses is denial of death and the tendency for
human beings to assume that death will be horrific and painful, which
he claimed causes unnecessary anxiety, selfish self-protective
behaviors, and hypocrisy. According to Epicurus, death is the end of
both the body and the soul and therefore should not be feared.
Epicurus taught that although the gods exist, they have no involvement
in human affairs. He taught that people should act ethically not
because the gods punish or reward them for their actions but because,
due to the power of guilt, amoral behavior would inevitably lead to
remorse weighing on their consciences and as a result, they would be
prevented from attaining 'ataraxia'.

Epicurus derived much of his physics and cosmology from the earlier
philosopher Democritus ( 460- 370 BC). Like Democritus, Epicurus
taught that the universe is infinite and eternal and that all matter
is made up of extremely tiny, invisible particles known as 'atoms'.
All occurrences in the natural world are ultimately the result of
atoms moving and interacting in empty space. Epicurus deviated from
Democritus by proposing the idea of atomic "swerve", which holds that
atoms may deviate from their expected course, thus permitting humans
to possess free will in an otherwise deterministic universe.

Though popular, Epicurean teachings were controversial from the
beginning. Epicureanism reached the height of its popularity during
the late years of the Roman Republic. It died out in late antiquity,
subject to hostility from early Christianity. Throughout the Middle
Ages, Epicurus was popularly, though inaccurately, remembered as a
patron of drunkards, whoremongers, and gluttons. His teachings
gradually became more widely known in the fifteenth century with the
rediscovery of important texts, but his ideas did not become
acceptable until the seventeenth century, when the French Catholic
priest Pierre Gassendi revived a modified version of them, which was
promoted by other writers, including Walter Charleton and Robert
Boyle. His influence grew considerably during and after the
Enlightenment, profoundly impacting the ideas of major thinkers,
including John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, Jeremy Bentham, and Karl Marx.

Upbringing and influences
===========================
Epicurus was born in the Athenian settlement on the Aegean island of
Samos in February 341 BC. His parents, Neocles and Chaerestrate, were
both Athenian-born, and his father was an Athenian citizen. Epicurus
grew up during the final years of the Greek Classical Period. Plato
had died seven years before Epicurus was born and Epicurus was seven
years old when Alexander the Great crossed the Hellespont into Persia.
As a child, Epicurus would have received a typical ancient Greek
education. As such, according to Norman Wentworth DeWitt, "it is
inconceivable that he would have escaped the Platonic training in
geometry, dialectic, and rhetoric." Epicurus is known to have studied
under the instruction of a Samian Platonist named Pamphilus, probably
for about four years. His 'Letter of Menoeceus' and surviving
fragments of his other writings strongly suggest that he had extensive
training in rhetoric. After the death of Alexander the Great,
Perdiccas expelled the Athenian settlers on Samos to Colophon, on the
coast of what is now Turkey. Epicurus joined his family there after
the completion of his military service. He studied under Nausiphanes,
who followed the teachings of Democritus, and later those of Pyrrho,
whose way of life Epicurus greatly admired.

Epicurus's teachings were heavily influenced by those of earlier
philosophers, particularly Democritus. Nonetheless, Epicurus differed
from his predecessors on several key points of determinism and
vehemently denied having been influenced by any previous philosophers,
whom he denounced as "confused". Instead, he insisted that he had been
"self-taught". According to DeWitt, Epicurus's teachings also show
influences from the contemporary philosophical school of Cynicism. The
Cynic philosopher Diogenes of Sinope was still alive when Epicurus
would have been in Athens for his required military training and it is
possible they may have met. Diogenes's pupil Crates of Thebes ( 365 -
285 BC) was a close contemporary of Epicurus. Epicurus agreed with the
Cynics' quest for honesty, but rejected their "insolence and
vulgarity", instead teaching that honesty must be coupled with
courtesy and kindness. Epicurus shared this view with his
contemporary, the comic playwright Menander.

Epicurus's 'Letter to Menoeceus', possibly an early work of his, is
written in an eloquent style similar to that of the Athenian
rhetorician Isocrates (436-338 BC), but, for his later works, he seems
to have adopted the bald, intellectual style of the mathematician
Euclid. Epicurus's epistemology also bears an unacknowledged debt to
the later writings of Aristotle (384-322 BC), who rejected the
Platonic idea of hypostatic Reason and instead relied on nature and
empirical evidence for knowledge about the universe. During Epicurus's
formative years, Greek knowledge about the rest of the world was
rapidly expanding due to the Hellenization of the Near East and the
rise of Hellenistic kingdoms. Epicurus's philosophy was consequently
more universal in its outlook than those of his predecessors, since it
took cognizance of non-Greek peoples as well as Greeks. He may have
had access to the now-lost writings of the historian and ethnographer
Megasthenes, who wrote during the reign of Seleucus I Nicator (ruled
305-281 BC).

Teaching career
=================
During Epicurus's lifetime, Platonism was the dominant philosophy in
higher education. Epicurus's opposition to Platonism formed a large
part of his thought. Over half of the forty Principal Doctrines of
Epicureanism are flat contradictions of Platonism. In around 311 BC,
Epicurus, when he was around thirty years old, began teaching in
Mytilene. Around this time, Zeno of Citium, the founder of Stoicism,
arrived in Athens, at the age of about twenty-one, but Zeno did not
begin teaching what would become Stoicism for another twenty years.
Although later texts, such as the writings of the first-century BC
Roman orator Cicero, portray Epicureanism and Stoicism as rivals, this
rivalry seems to have only emerged after Epicurus's death.

Epicurus's teachings caused strife in Mytilene and he was forced to
leave. He then founded a school in Lampsacus before returning to
Athens in 306 BC, where he remained until his death. There he founded
The Garden (κῆπος), a school named for the garden he owned that served
as the school's meeting place, about halfway between the locations of
two other schools of philosophy, the Stoa and the Academy. The Garden
was more than just a school; it was "a community of like-minded and
aspiring practitioners of a particular way of life." The primary
members were Hermarchus, the financier Idomeneus, Leonteus and his
wife Themista, the satirist Colotes, the mathematician Polyaenus of
Lampsacus, and Metrodorus of Lampsacus, the most famous popularizer of
Epicureanism. His school was the first of the ancient Greek
philosophical schools to admit women as a rule rather than an
exception, and the biography of Epicurus by Diogenes Laërtius lists
female students such as Leontion and Nikidion. An inscription on the
gate to The Garden is recorded by Seneca the Younger in epistle XXI of
'Epistulae morales ad Lucilium': "Stranger, here you will do well to
tarry; here our highest good is pleasure."

According to Diskin Clay, Epicurus himself established a custom of
celebrating his birthday annually with common meals, befitting his
stature as 'heros ktistes' ("founding hero") of the Garden. He
ordained in his will annual memorial feasts for himself on the same
date (10th of Gamelion month). Epicurean communities continued this
tradition, referring to Epicurus as their "saviour" (soter) and
celebrating him as hero. The hero cult of Epicurus may have operated
as a Garden variety civic religion. However, clear evidence of an
Epicurean hero cult, as well as the cult itself, seems buried by the
weight of posthumous philosophical interpretation. Epicurus never
married and had no known children. He was most likely a vegetarian.

Death
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Diogenes Laërtius records that, according to Epicurus's successor
Hermarchus, Epicurus died a slow and painful death in 270 BC at the
age of seventy-two from a stone blockage of his urinary tract. Despite
being in immense pain, Epicurus is said to have remained cheerful and
to have continued to teach until the very end. Possible insights into
Epicurus's death may be offered by the extremely brief 'Epistle to
Idomeneus', included by Diogenes Laërtius in Book X of his 'Lives and
Opinions of Eminent Philosophers'. The authenticity of this letter is
uncertain and it may be a later pro-Epicurean forgery intended to
paint an admirable portrait of the philosopher to counter the large
number of forged epistles in Epicurus's name portraying him
unfavorably.

I have written this letter to you on a happy day to me, which is also
the last day of my life. For I have been attacked by a painful
inability to urinate, and also dysentery, so violent that nothing can
be added to the violence of my sufferings. But the cheerfulness of my
mind, which comes from the recollection of all my philosophical
contemplation, counterbalances all these afflictions. And I beg you to
take care of the children of Metrodorus, in a manner worthy of the
devotion shown by the young man to me, and to philosophy.

If authentic, this letter would support the tradition that Epicurus
was able to remain joyful to the end, even in the midst of his
suffering. It would also indicate that he maintained a special concern
for the wellbeing of children.

Epistemology
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Epicurus and his followers had a well-developed epistemology, which
developed as a result of their rivalry with other philosophical
schools. Epicurus wrote a treatise entitled , or 'Rule', in which he
explained his methods of investigation and theory of knowledge. This
book, however, has not survived, nor does any other text that fully
and clearly explains Epicurean epistemology, leaving only mentions of
this epistemology by several authors to reconstruct it. Epicurus
rejected the Platonic idea of "Reason" as a reliable source of
knowledge about the world apart from the senses and was bitterly
opposed to the Pyrrhonists and Academic Skeptics, who not only
questioned the ability of the senses to provide accurate knowledge
about the world, but also whether it is even possible to know anything
about the world at all.

Epicurus maintained that the senses never deceive humans, but that the
senses can be misinterpreted. Epicurus held that the purpose of all
knowledge is to aid humans in attaining 'ataraxia'. He taught that
knowledge is learned through experiences rather than innate and that
the acceptance of the fundamental truth of the things a person
perceives is essential to a person's moral and spiritual health. In
the 'Letter to Pythocles', he states, "If a person fights the clear
evidence of his senses he will never be able to share in genuine
tranquility." Epicurus regarded gut feelings as the ultimate authority
on matters of morality and held that whether a person feels an action
is right or wrong is a far more cogent guide to whether that act
really is right or wrong than abstracts maxims, strict codified rules
of ethics, or even reason itself.

Epicurus permitted that any and every statement that is not directly
contrary to human perception has the possibility to be true.
Nonetheless, anything contrary to a person's experience can be ruled
out as false. Epicureans often used analogies to everyday experience
to support their argument of so-called "imperceptibles", which
included anything that a human being cannot perceive, such as the
motion of atoms. In line with this principle of non-contradiction, the
Epicureans believed that events in the natural world may have multiple
causes that are all equally possible and probable. Lucretius writes in
'On the Nature of Things', as translated by William Ellery Leonard:
There be, besides, some thing
Of which 'tis not enough one only cause
To state—but rather several, whereof one
Will be the true: lo, if thou shouldst espy
Lying afar some fellow's lifeless corse,
'Twere meet to name all causes of a death,
That cause of his death might thereby be named:
For prove thou mayst he perished not by steel,
By cold, nor even by poison nor disease,
Yet somewhat of this sort hath come to him
We know—And thus we have to say the same
In divers cases.
Book VI, Section 'Extraordinary and Paradoxical Telluric Phenomena',
Line 9549-9560
Epicurus strongly favored naturalistic explanations over theological
ones. In his 'Letter to Pythocles', he offers four different possible
natural explanations for thunder, six different possible natural
explanations for lightning, three for snow, three for comets, two for
rainbows, two for earthquakes, and so on. Although all of these
explanations are now known to be false, they were an important step in
the history of science, because Epicurus was trying to explain natural
phenomena using natural explanations, rather than resorting to
inventing elaborate stories about gods and mythic heroes.

Ethics
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Epicurus was a hedonist, meaning he taught that what is pleasurable is
morally good and what is painful is morally evil. He idiosyncratically
defined "pleasure" as the absence of suffering and taught that all
humans should seek to attain the state of 'ataraxia', meaning
"untroubledness", a state in which the person is completely free from
all pain or suffering. He argued that most of the suffering which
human beings experience is caused by the irrational fears of death,
divine retribution, and punishment in the afterlife. In his 'Letter to
Menoeceus', Epicurus explains that people seek wealth and power on
account of these fears, believing that having more money, prestige, or
political clout will save them from death. He, however, maintains that
death is the end of existence, that the terrifying stories of
punishment in the afterlife are ridiculous superstitions, and that
death is therefore nothing to be feared. He writes in his 'Letter to
Menoeceus': "Accustom thyself to believe that death is nothing to us,
for good and evil imply sentience, and death is the privation of all
sentience;... Death, therefore, the most awful of evils, is nothing to
us, seeing that, when we are, death is not come, and, when death is
come, we are not." From this doctrine arose the Epicurean epitaph:
'Non fui, fui, non-sum, non-curo' ("I was not; I was; I am not; I do
not care"), which is inscribed on the gravestones of his followers and
seen on many ancient gravestones of the Roman Empire. This quotation
is often used today at humanist funerals.

The Tetrapharmakos presents a summary of the key points of Epicurean
ethics:

* Don't fear god
* Don't worry about death
* What is good is easy to get
* What is terrible is easy to endure

Although Epicurus has been commonly misunderstood as an advocate of
the rampant pursuit of pleasure, he, in fact, maintained that a person
can only be happy and free from suffering by living wisely, soberly,
and morally. He strongly disapproved of raw, excessive sensuality and
warned that a person must take into account whether the consequences
of his actions will result in suffering, writing, "the pleasant life
is produced not by a string of drinking bouts and revelries, nor by
the enjoyment of boys and women, nor by fish and the other items on an
expensive menu, but by sober reasoning." He also wrote that a single
good piece of cheese could be equally pleasing as an entire feast.
Furthermore, Epicurus taught that "it is not possible to live
pleasurably without living sensibly and nobly and justly", because a
person who engages in acts of dishonesty or injustice will be "loaded
with troubles" on account of his own guilty conscience and will live
in constant fear that his wrongdoings will be discovered by others. A
person who is kind and just to others, however, will have no fear and
will be more likely to attain 'ataraxia'.

Epicurus distinguished between two different types of pleasure:
"moving" pleasures (κατὰ κίνησιν ἡδοναί) and "static" pleasures
(καταστηματικαὶ ἡδοναί). "Moving" pleasures occur when one is in the
process of satisfying a desire and involve an active titillation of
the senses. After one's desires have been satisfied (e.g. when one is
full after eating), the pleasure quickly goes away and the suffering
of wanting to fulfill the desire again returns. For Epicurus, static
pleasures are the best pleasures because moving pleasures are always
bound up with pain. Epicurus had a low opinion of sex and marriage,
regarding both as having dubious value. Instead, he maintained that
platonic friendships are essential to living a happy life. One of the
'Principal Doctrines' states, "Of the things wisdom acquires for the
blessedness of life as a whole, far the greatest is the possession of
friendship." He also taught that philosophy is itself a pleasure to
engage in. One of the quotes from Epicurus recorded in the 'Vatican
Sayings' declares, "In other pursuits, the hard-won fruit comes at the
end. But in philosophy, delight keeps pace with knowledge. It is not
after the lesson that enjoyment comes: learning and enjoyment happen
at the same time."

Epicurus distinguishes between three types of desires: natural and
necessary, natural but unnecessary, and vain and empty. Natural and
necessary desires include the desires for food and shelter. These are
easy to satisfy, difficult to eliminate, bring pleasure when
satisfied, and are naturally limited. Going beyond these limits
produces unnecessary desires, such as the desire for luxury foods.
Although food is necessary, luxury food is not necessary.
Correspondingly, Epicurus advocates a life of hedonistic moderation by
reducing desire, thus eliminating the unhappiness caused by
unfulfilled desires. Vain desires include desires for power, wealth,
and fame. These are difficult to satisfy because no matter how much
one gets, one can always want more. These desires are inculcated by
society and by false beliefs about what we need. They are not natural
and are to be shunned.

Epicurus' teachings were introduced into medical philosophy and
practice by the Epicurean doctor Asclepiades of Bithynia, who was the
first physician who introduced Greek medicine in Rome. Asclepiades
introduced the friendly, sympathetic, pleasing and painless treatment
of patients. He advocated humane treatment of mental disorders, had
insane persons freed from confinement and treated them with natural
therapy, such as diet and massages. His teachings are surprisingly
modern; therefore Asclepiades is considered to be a pioneer physician
in psychotherapy, physical therapy and molecular medicine.

Physics
=========
Epicurus writes in his 'Letter to Herodotus' (not the historian) that
"nothing ever arises from the nonexistent", indicating that all events
therefore have causes, regardless of whether those causes are known or
unknown. Similarly, he also writes that nothing ever passes away into
nothingness, because, "if an object that passes from our view were
completely annihilated, everything in the world would have perished,
since that into which things were dissipated would be nonexistent." He
therefore states: "The totality of things was always just as it is at
present and will always remain the same because there is nothing into
which it can change, inasmuch as there is nothing outside the totality
that could intrude and effect change." Like Democritus before him,
Epicurus taught that all matter is entirely made of extremely tiny
particles called "atoms" (; ', meaning "indivisible"). For Epicurus
and his followers, the existence of atoms was a matter of empirical
observation; Epicurus's devoted follower, the Roman poet Lucretius,
cites the gradual wearing down of rings from being worn, statues from
being kissed, stones from being dripped on by water, and roads from
being walked on in 'On the Nature of Things' as evidence for the
existence of atoms as tiny, imperceptible particles.

Also like Democritus, Epicurus was a materialist who taught that the
only things that exist are atoms and void. Void occurs in any place
where there are no atoms. Epicurus and his followers believed that
atoms and void are both infinite and that the universe is therefore
boundless. In 'On the Nature of Things', Lucretius argues this point
using the example of a man throwing a javelin at the theoretical
boundary of a finite universe. He states that the javelin must either
go past the edge of the universe, in which case it is not really a
boundary, or it must be blocked by something and prevented from
continuing its path, but, if that happens, then the object blocking it
must be outside the confines of the universe. As a result of this
belief that the universe and the number of atoms in it are infinite,
Epicurus and the Epicureans believed that there must also be
infinitely many worlds within the universe.

Epicurus taught that the motion of atoms is constant, eternal, and
without beginning or end. He held that there are two kinds of motion:
the motion of atoms and the motion of visible objects. Both kinds of
motion are real and not illusory. Democritus had described atoms as
not only eternally moving, but also eternally flying through space,
colliding, coalescing, and separating from each other as necessary. In
a rare departure from Democritus's physics, Epicurus posited the idea
of atomic "swerve" ( '; ), one of his best-known original ideas.
According to this idea, atoms, as they are travelling through space,
may deviate slightly from the course they would ordinarily be expected
to follow. Epicurus's reason for introducing this doctrine was because
he wanted to preserve the concepts of free will and ethical
responsibility while still maintaining the deterministic physical
model of atomism. Lucretius describes it, saying, "It is this slight
deviation of primal bodies, at indeterminate times and places, which
keeps the mind as such from experiencing an inner compulsion in doing
everything it does and from being forced to endure and suffer like a
captive in chains."

Epicurus was first to assert human freedom as a result of the
fundamental indeterminism in the motion of atoms. This has led some
philosophers to think that, for Epicurus, free will was 'caused
directly by chance'. In his 'On the Nature of Things', Lucretius
appears to suggest this in the best-known passage on Epicurus'
position. In his 'Letter to Menoeceus', however, Epicurus follows
Aristotle and clearly identifies 'three' possible causes: "some things
happen of necessity, others by chance, others through our own agency."
Aristotle said some things "depend on us" ('eph'hemin'). Epicurus
agreed, and said it is to these last things that praise and blame
naturally attach. For Epicurus, the "swerve" of the atoms simply
defeated determinism to leave room for autonomous agency.

Theology
==========
In his 'Letter to Menoeceus', a summary of his own moral and
theological teachings, the first piece of advice Epicurus himself
gives to his student is: "First, believe that a god is an
indestructible and blessed animal, in accordance with the general
conception of god commonly held, and do not ascribe to god anything
foreign to his indestructibility or repugnant to his blessedness."
Epicurus maintained that he and his followers knew that the gods exist
because "our knowledge of them is a matter of clear and distinct
perception", meaning that people can empirically sense their
presences. He did not mean that people can see the gods as physical
objects, but rather that they can see visions of the gods sent from
the remote regions of interstellar space in which they actually
reside. According to George K. Strodach, Epicurus could have easily
dispensed of the gods entirely without greatly altering his
materialist worldview, but the gods still play one important function
in Epicurus's theology as the paragons of moral virtue to be emulated
and admired.

Epicurus rejected the conventional Greek view of the gods as
anthropomorphic beings who walked the earth like ordinary people,
fathered illegitimate offspring with mortals, and pursued personal
feuds. Instead, he taught that the gods are morally perfect, but
detached and immobile beings who live in the remote regions of
interstellar space. In line with these teachings, Epicurus adamantly
rejected the idea that deities were involved in human affairs in any
way. Epicurus maintained that the gods are so utterly perfect and
removed from the world that they are incapable of listening to prayers
or supplications or doing virtually anything aside from contemplating
their own perfections. In his 'Letter to Herodotus', he specifically
denies that the gods have any control over natural phenomena, arguing
that this would contradict their fundamental nature, which is perfect,
because any kind of worldly involvement would tarnish their
perfection. He further warned that believing that the gods control
natural phenomena would only mislead people into believing the
superstitious view that the gods punish humans for wrongdoing, which
only instills fear and prevents people from attaining 'ataraxia'.

Epicurus himself criticizes popular religion in both his 'Letter to
Menoeceus' and his 'Letter to Herodotus', but in a restrained and
moderate tone. Later Epicureans mainly followed the same ideas as
Epicurus, believing in the existence of the gods, but emphatically
rejecting the idea of divine providence. Their criticisms of popular
religion, however, are often less gentle than those of Epicurus
himself. The 'Letter to Pythocles', written by a later Epicurean, is
dismissive and contemptuous towards popular religion and Epicurus's
devoted follower, the Roman poet Lucretius ( 99 BC - 55 BC),
passionately assailed popular religion in his philosophical poem 'On
the Nature of Things'. In this poem, Lucretius declares that popular
religious practices not only do not instill virtue, but rather result
in "misdeeds both wicked and ungodly", citing the mythical sacrifice
of Iphigenia as an example. Lucretius argues that divine creation and
providence are illogical, not because the gods do not exist, but
rather because these notions are incompatible with the Epicurean
principles of the gods' indestructibility and blessedness. The later
Pyrrhonist philosopher Sextus Empiricus ( 160 - 210 AD) rejected the
teachings of the Epicureans specifically because he regarded them as
theological "Dogmaticists".

Epicurean paradox
===========================================================================================================
The Epicurean paradox or riddle of Epicurus or Epicurus' trilemma is a
version of the problem of evil. Lactantius attributes this trilemma to
Epicurus in 'De Ira Dei', 13, 20-21:

God, he says, either wishes to take away evils, and is unable; or He
is able, and is unwilling; or He is neither willing nor able, or He is
both willing and able. If He is willing and is unable, He is feeble,
which is not in accordance with the character of God; if He is able
and unwilling, He is envious, which is equally at variance with God;
if He is neither willing nor able, He is both envious and feeble, and
therefore not God; if He is both willing and able, which alone is
suitable to God, from what source then are evils? Or why does He not
remove them?

In 'Dialogues concerning Natural Religion' (1779), David Hume also
attributes the argument to Epicurus:

Epicurus’s old questions are yet unanswered. Is he willing to prevent
evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing?
then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is
evil?

No extant writings of Epicurus contain this argument. However, the
vast majority of Epicurus's writings have been lost and it is possible
that some form of this argument may have been found in his lost
treatise 'On the Gods', which Diogenes Laërtius describes as one of
his greatest works. If Epicurus really did make some form of this
argument, it would not have been an argument against the existence of
deities, but rather an argument against divine providence. Epicurus's
extant writings demonstrate that he did believe in the existence of
deities. Furthermore, religion was such an integral part of daily life
in Greece during the early Hellenistic Period that it is doubtful
anyone during that period could have been an atheist in the modern
sense of the word. Instead, the Greek word ('átheos'), meaning
"without a god", was used as a term of abuse, not as an attempt to
describe a person's beliefs.

Politics
==========
Epicurus promoted an innovative theory of justice as a social
contract. Justice, Epicurus said, is an agreement neither to harm nor
be harmed, and we need to have such a contract in order to enjoy fully
the benefits of living together in a well-ordered society. Laws and
punishments are needed to keep misguided fools in line who would
otherwise break the contract. But the wise person sees the usefulness
of justice, and because of his limited desires, he has no need to
engage in the conduct prohibited by the laws in any case. Laws that
are useful for promoting happiness are just, but those that are not
useful are not just. ('Principal Doctrines' 31-40)

Epicurus discouraged participation in politics, as doing so leads to
perturbation and status seeking. He instead advocated not drawing
attention to oneself. This principle is epitomised by the phrase
'lathe biōsas' (), meaning "live in obscurity", "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. Plutarch elaborated on this theme
in his essay 'Is the Saying "Live in Obscurity" Right?' (, 'An recte
dictum sit latenter esse vivendum') 1128c; cf. Flavius Philostratus,
'Vita Apollonii' 8.28.12.

Works
======================================================================
Epicurus was an extremely prolific writer. According to Diogenes
Laërtius, he wrote around 300 treatises on a variety of subjects.
Although more original writings of Epicurus have survived to the
present day than of any other Hellenistic Greek philosopher, the vast
majority of everything he wrote has still been lost, and most of what
is known about Epicurus's teachings come from the writings of his
later followers, particularly the Roman poet Lucretius. The only
surviving complete works by Epicurus are three relatively lengthy
letters, which are quoted in their entirety in Book X of Diogenes
Laërtius's 'Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers', and two
groups of quotes: the 'Principal Doctrines' (Κύριαι Δόξαι), which are
likewise preserved through quotation by Diogenes Laërtius, and the
'Vatican Sayings', preserved in a manuscript from the Vatican Library
that was first discovered in 1888. In the 'Letter to Herodotus' and
the 'Letter to Pythocles', Epicurus summarizes his philosophy on
nature and, in the 'Letter to Menoeceus', he summarizes his moral
teachings. Numerous fragments of Epicurus's lost thirty-seven volume
treatise 'On Nature' have been found among the charred papyrus
fragments at the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum. Scholars first
began attempting to unravel and decipher these scrolls in 1800, but
the efforts are painstaking and are still ongoing.
According to Diogenes Laertius (10.27-9), the major works of Epicurus
include:

# On Nature, in 37 books
# On Atoms and the Void
# On Love
# Abridgment of the Arguments employed against the Natural
Philosophers
# Against the Megarians
# Problems
# Fundamental Propositions ('Kyriai Doxai')
# On Choice and Avoidance
# On the Chief Good
# On the Criterion (the Canon)
# Chaeridemus,
# On the Gods
# On Piety
# Hegesianax
# Four essays on Lives
# Essay on Just Dealing
# Neocles
# Essay addressed to Themista
# The Banquet (Symposium)
# Eurylochus
# Essay addressed to Metrodorus
# Essay on Seeing
# Essay on the Angle in an Atom
# Essay on Touch
# Essay on Fate
# Opinions on the Passions
# Treatise addressed to Timocrates
# Prognostics
# Exhortations
# On Images
# On Perceptions
# Aristobulus
# Essay on Music (i.e., on music, poetry, and dance)
# On Justice and the other Virtues
# On Gifts and Gratitude
# Polymedes
# Timocrates (three books)
# Metrodorus (five books)
# Antidorus (two books)
# Opinions about Diseases and Death, addressed to Mithras
# Callistolas
# Essay on Kingly Power
# Anaximenes
# Letters

Ancient Epicureanism
======================
Epicureanism was extremely popular from the very beginning. Diogenes
Laërtius records that the number of Epicureans throughout the world
exceeded the populations of entire cities. Nonetheless, Epicurus was
not universally admired and, within his own lifetime, he was vilified
as an ignorant buffoon and egoistic sybarite. He remained the most
simultaneously admired and despised philosopher in the Mediterranean
for the next nearly five centuries. Epicureanism rapidly spread beyond
the Greek mainland all across the Mediterranean world. By the first
century BC, it had established a strong foothold in Italy. The Roman
orator Cicero (106 - 43 BC), who deplored Epicurean ethics, lamented,
"the Epicureans have taken Italy by storm."

The overwhelming majority of surviving Greek and Roman sources are
vehemently negative towards Epicureanism and, according to Pamela
Gordon, they routinely depict Epicurus himself as "monstrous or
laughable". Many Romans in particular took a negative view of
Epicureanism, seeing its advocacy of the pursuit of 'voluptas'
("pleasure") as contrary to the Roman ideal of 'virtus' ("manly
virtue"). The Romans therefore often stereotyped Epicurus and his
followers as weak and effeminate. Prominent critics of his philosophy
include prominent authors such as the Roman Stoic Seneca the Younger (
4 BC - AD 65) and the Greek Middle Platonist Plutarch ( 46 - 120),
who both derided these stereotypes as immoral and disreputable. Gordon
characterizes anti-Epicurean rhetoric as so "heavy-handed" and
misrepresentative of Epicurus's actual teachings that they sometimes
come across as "comical". In his 'De vita beata', Seneca states that
the "sect of Epicurus... has a bad reputation, and yet it does not
deserve it." and compares it to "a man in a dress: your chastity
remains, your virility is unimpaired, your body has not submitted
sexually, but in your hand is a tympanum."

Epicureanism was a notoriously conservative philosophical school;
although Epicurus's later followers did expand on his philosophy, they
dogmatically retained what he himself had originally taught without
modifying it. Epicureans and admirers of Epicureanism revered Epicurus
himself as a great teacher of ethics, a savior, and even a god. His
image was worn on finger rings, portraits of him were displayed in
living rooms, and wealthy followers venerated likenesses of him in
marble sculpture. His admirers revered his sayings as divine oracles,
carried around copies of his writings, and cherished copies of his
letters like the letters of an apostle. On the twentieth day of every
month, admirers of his teachings would perform a solemn ritual to
honor his memory. At the same time, opponents of his teachings
denounced him with vehemence and persistence.

However, in the first and second centuries AD, Epicureanism gradually
began to decline as it failed to compete with Stoicism, which had an
ethical system more in line with traditional Roman values.
Epicureanism also suffered decay in the wake of Christianity, which
was also rapidly expanding throughout the Roman Empire. Of all the
Greek philosophical schools, Epicureanism was the one most at odds
with the new Christian teachings, since Epicureans believed that the
soul was mortal, denied the existence of an afterlife, denied that the
divine had any active role in human life, and advocated pleasure as
the foremost goal of human existence. As such, Christian writers such
as Justin Martyr ( 100- 165 AD), Athenagoras of Athens ( 133- 190),
Tertullian ( 155- 240), and Clement of Alexandria ( 150- 215),
Arnobius (died 330), and Lactantius (c. 250-c.325) all singled it out
for the most vitriolic criticism.

In spite of this, DeWitt argues that Epicureanism and Christianity
share much common language, calling Epicureanism "the first missionary
philosophy" and "the first world philosophy". Both Epicureanism and
Christianity placed strong emphasis on the importance of love and
forgiveness and early Christian portrayals of Jesus are often similar
to Epicurean portrayals of Epicurus. DeWitt argues that Epicureanism,
in many ways, helped pave the way for the spread of Christianity by
"helping to bridge the gap between Greek intellectualism and a
religious way of life" and "shunt[ing] the emphasis from the political
to the social virtues and offer[ing] what may be called a religion of
humanity."

Middle Ages
=============
By the early fifth century AD, Epicureanism was virtually extinct. The
Christian Church Father Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD) declared, "its
ashes are so cold that not a single spark can be struck from them."
While the ideas of Plato and Aristotle could easily be adapted to suit
a Christian worldview, the ideas of Epicurus were not nearly as easily
amenable. As such, while Plato and Aristotle enjoyed a privileged
place in Christian philosophy throughout the Middle Ages, Epicurus was
not held in such esteem. Information about Epicurus's teachings was
available, through Lucretius's 'On the Nature of Things', quotations
of it found in medieval Latin grammars and 'florilegia', and
encyclopedias, such as Isidore of Seville's 'Etymologiae' (seventh
century) and Hrabanus Maurus's 'De universo' (ninth century), but
there is little evidence that these teachings were systematically
studied or comprehended.

During the Middle Ages, Epicurus was remembered by the educated as a
philosopher, but he frequently appeared in popular culture as a
gatekeeper to the Garden of Delights, the "proprietor of the kitchen,
the tavern, and the brothel." He appears in this guise in Martianus
Capella's 'Marriage of Mercury and Philology' (fifth century), John of
Salisbury's 'Policraticus' (1159), John Gower's 'Mirour de l'Omme',
and Geoffrey Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales'. Epicurus and his followers
appear in Dante Alighieri's 'Inferno' in the Sixth Circle of Hell,
where they are imprisoned in flaming coffins for having believed that
the soul dies with the body.

Renaissance
=============
In 1417, a manuscript-hunter named Poggio Bracciolini discovered a
copy of Lucretius's 'On the Nature of Things' in a monastery near Lake
Constance. The discovery of this manuscript was met with immense
excitement, because scholars were eager to analyze and study the
teachings of classical philosophers and this previously-forgotten text
contained the most comprehensive account of Epicurus's teachings known
in Latin. The first scholarly dissertation on Epicurus, 'De voluptate'
('On Pleasure') by the Italian Humanist and Catholic priest Lorenzo
Valla was published in 1431. Valla made no mention of Lucretius or his
poem. Instead, he presented the treatise as a discussion on the nature
of the highest good between an Epicurean, a Stoic, and a Christian.
Valla's dialogue ultimately rejects Epicureanism, but, by presenting
an Epicurean as a member of the dispute, Valla lent Epicureanism
credibility as a philosophy that deserved to be taken seriously.

None of the Quattrocento Humanists ever clearly endorsed Epicureanism,
but scholars such as Francesco Zabarella (1360-1417), Francesco
Filelfo (1398-1481), Cristoforo Landino (1424-1498), and Leonardo
Bruni ( 1370-1444) did give Epicureanism a fairer analysis than it had
traditionally received and provided a less overtly hostile assessment
of Epicurus himself. Nonetheless, "Epicureanism" remained a
pejorative, synonymous with extreme egoistic pleasure-seeking, rather
than a name of a philosophical school. This reputation discouraged
orthodox Christian scholars from taking what others might regard as an
inappropriately keen interest in Epicurean teachings. Epicureanism did
not take hold in Italy, France, or England until the seventeenth
century. Even the liberal religious skeptics who might have been
expected to take an interest in Epicureanism evidently did not;
Étienne Dolet (1509-1546) only mentions Epicurus once in all his
writings and François Rabelais (between 1483 and 1494-1553) never
mentions him at all. Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) is the exception
to this trend, quoting a full 450 lines of Lucretius's 'On the Nature
of Things' in his 'Essays'. His interest in Lucretius, however, seems
to have been primarily literary and he is ambiguous about his feelings
on Lucretius's Epicurean worldview. During the Protestant Reformation,
the label "Epicurean" was bandied back and forth as an insult between
Protestants and Catholics.

Revival
=========
In the seventeenth century, the French Catholic priest and scholar
Pierre Gassendi (1592-1655) sought to dislodge Aristotelianism from
its position of the highest dogma by presenting Epicureanism as a
better and more rational alternative. In 1647, Gassendi published his
book 'De vita et moribus Epicuri' ('The Life and Morals of Epicurus'),
a passionate defense of Epicureanism. In 1649, he published a
commentary on Diogenes Laërtius's 'Life of Epicurus'. He left
'Syntagma philosophicum' ('Philosophical Compendium'), a synthesis of
Epicurean doctrines, unfinished at the time of his death in 1655. It
was finally published in 1658, after undergoing revision by his
editors. Gassendi modified Epicurus's teachings to make them palatable
for a Christian audience. For instance, he argued that atoms were not
eternal, uncreated, and infinite in number, instead contending that an
extremely large but finite number of atoms were created by God at
creation.

As a result of Gassendi's modifications, his books were never censored
by the Catholic Church. They came to exert profound influence on later
writings about Epicurus. Gassendi's version of Epicurus's teachings
became popular among some members of English scientific circles. For
these scholars, however, Epicurean atomism was merely a starting point
for their own idiosyncratic adaptations of it. To orthodox thinkers,
Epicureanism was still regarded as immoral and heretical. For
instance, Lucy Hutchinson (1620-1681), the first translator of
Lucretius's 'On the Nature of Things' into English, railed against
Epicurus as "a lunatic dog" who formulated "ridiculous, impious,
execrable doctrines".

Epicurus's teachings were made respectable in England by the natural
philosopher Walter Charleton (1619-1707), whose first Epicurean work,
'The Darkness of Atheism Dispelled by the Light of Nature' (1652),
advanced Epicureanism as a "new" atomism. His next work 'Physiologia
Epicuro-Gassendo-Charletoniana, or a Fabrick of Science Natural, upon
a Hypothesis of Atoms, Founded by Epicurus, Repaired by Petrus
Gassendus, and Augmented by Walter Charleton' (1654) emphasized this
idea. These works, together with Charleton's 'Epicurus's Morals'
(1658), provided the English public with readily available
descriptions of Epicurus's philosophy and assured orthodox Christians
that Epicureanism was no threat to their beliefs. The Royal Society,
chartered in 1662, advanced Epicurean atomism. One of the most
prolific defenders of atomism was the chemist Robert Boyle
(1627-1691), who argued for it in publications such as 'The Origins of
Forms and Qualities' (1666), 'Experiments, Notes, etc. about the
Mechanical Origin and Production of Divers Particular Qualities'
(1675), and 'Of the Excellency and Grounds of the Mechanical
Hypothesis' (1674). By the end of the seventeenth century, Epicurean
atomism was widely accepted by members of the English scientific
community as the best model for explaining the physical world, but it
had been modified so greatly that Epicurus was no longer seen as its
original parent.

Enlightenment and after
=========================
The Anglican bishop Joseph Butler's anti-Epicurean polemics in his
'Fifteen Sermons Preached at the Rolls Chapel' (1726) and 'Analogy of
Religion' (1736) set the tune for what most orthodox Christians
believed about Epicureanism for the remainder of the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries. Nonetheless, there are a few indications from
this time period of Epicurus's improving reputation. Epicureanism was
beginning to lose its associations with indiscriminate and insatiable
gluttony, which had been characteristic of its reputation ever since
antiquity. Instead, the word "epicure" began to refer to a person with
extremely refined taste in food. Examples of this usage include
"Epicurean cooks / sharpen with cloyless sauce his appetite" from
William Shakespeare's 'Antony and Cleopatra' (Act II. scene i; 1607)
and "such an epicure was Potiphar—to please his tooth and pamper his
flesh with delicacies" from William Whately's 'Prototypes' (1646).

Around the same time, the Epicurean injunction to "live in obscurity"
was beginning to gain popularity as well. In 1685, Sir William Temple
(1628-1699) abandoned a promising career as a diplomat and instead
retired to his garden, devoting himself to writing essays on
Epicurus's moral teachings. That same year, John Dryden translated the
celebrated lines from Book II of Lucretius's 'On the Nature of
Things': "'Tis pleasant, safely to behold from shore / The rowling
ship, and hear the Tempest roar." Meanwhile, John Locke (1632-1704)
adapted Gassendi's modified version of Epicurus's epistemology, which
became highly influential on English empiricism. Many thinkers with
sympathies towards the Enlightenment endorsed Epicureanism as an
admirable moral philosophy. Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), one of the
Founding Fathers of the United States, declared in 1819, "I too am an
Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not imputed) doctrines of Epicurus
as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greece and
Rome have left us."

The German philosopher Karl Marx (1818-1883), whose ideas are the
basis of Marxism, was profoundly influenced as a young man by the
teachings of Epicurus and his doctoral thesis was a Hegelian
dialectical analysis of the differences between the natural
philosophies of Democritus and Epicurus. Marx viewed Democritus as a
rationalist skeptic, whose epistemology was inherently contradictory,
but saw Epicurus as a dogmatic empiricist, whose worldview is
internally consistent and practically applicable. The British poet
Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892) praised "the sober majesties / of settled,
sweet, Epicurean life" in his 1868 poem "Lucretius". Epicurus's
ethical teachings also had an indirect impact on the philosophy of
Utilitarianism in England during the nineteenth century. Soviet
politician Joseph Stalin (1878-1953) lauded Epicurus by stating: "He
was the greatest philosopher of all time. He was the one who
recommended practicing virtue to derive the greatest joy from life".

Friedrich Nietzsche once noted: "Even today many educated people think
that the victory of Christianity over Greek philosophy is a proof of
the superior truth of the former - although in this case it was only
the coarser and more violent that conquered the more spiritual and
delicate. So far as superior truth is concerned, it is enough to
observe that the awakening sciences have allied themselves point by
point with the philosophy of Epicurus, but point by point rejected
Christianity."

Academic interest in Epicurus and other Hellenistic philosophers
increased over the course of the late twentieth and early twenty-first
centuries, with an unprecedented number of monographs, articles,
abstracts, and conference papers being published on the subject. The
texts from the library of Philodemus of Gadara in the Villa of the
Papyri in Herculaneum, first discovered between 1750 and 1765, are
being deciphered, translated, and published by scholars part of the
Philodemus Translation Project, funded by the United States National
Endowment for the Humanities, and part of the Centro per lo Studio dei
Papiri Ercolanesi in Naples. Epicurus's popular appeal among
non-scholars is difficult to gauge, but it seems to be relatively
comparable to the appeal of more traditionally popular ancient Greek
philosophical subjects such as Stoicism, Aristotle, and Plato.

See also
======================================================================
* Eikas
* Epikoros
* Philosophy of happiness
* Separation of church and state

Further reading
======================================================================
; Texts
*
*
*
*
*
*
* Oates, Whitney J. (1940). 'The Stoic and Epicurean philosophers, The
Complete Extant Writings of Epicurus, Epictetus, Lucretius and Marcus
Aurelius'. New York: Modern Library.
*

; Studies
* Bailey C. (1928). 'The Greek Atomists and Epicurus', Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
* William Wallace. [https://archive.org/details/epicureanism00walluoft
'Epicureanism']. SPCK (1880)

External links
======================================================================
*
*
*
*
* [https://archive.org/details/stoicandepicurea002438mbp 'Stoic And
Epicurean'] by Robert Drew Hicks (1910) (Internet Archive)
* [https://rucore.libraries.rutgers.edu/rutgers-lib/24248/ Epicurea,
Hermann Usener - full text]
*
* .
* [https://societyofepicurus.com/ Society of Friends of Epicurus]
* [https://epicureanfriends.com Discussion Forum for Epicurus and
Epicurean philosophy - EpicureanFriends.com]

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=========
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Original Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicurus