Epicurus

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Epicurus

• Biography
• Historical and Political Context
• Philosophy

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341270 B.C.
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Epicurus in Context

• Out of the 3 ancient Greek philosophers we are
  studying Plato, Aristotle and Epicurus, I think
  that Epicurus comes closest in his conception of
  happiness to our modern assumptions and ideas of
  what the Good Life is. Of the ancients Epicurus
  is the one who resonates most closely with a
  contemporary common world view.
• This can only be accepted if you think that we in
  modern western democracies generally live under
  the influence of the humanist tradition that has
  been dominant since the 17th Century.
• If humanism can be defined as a moral philosophy
  that believes humans can live a moral, happy and
  fulfilled life on the basis of human reason and
  experience without relying on the supernatural,
  then Epicurus can be seen as a precursor to our
  modern conception of the good life.

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Epicurus Biography

• Epicurus was born on February 4th, 341 B.C., on
  the island of Samos in the Aegean Sea just off
  the west coast of what is now Turkey (a region
  called Ionia).
• A a youth he encountered the teachings of Plato
  and Democritus
• In 321 B.C Epicurus was drafted into the Athenian
  army.
• In 310, Epicurus founded a school on the Island
  of Mitylene.
• In 305, Epicurus founded a school in Athens The
  Garden
• In 270 died in Athens and followers continued his
  work across the Mediterranean for centuries.
• Note
• We are still discovering Epicurean philosophy
  today near tPompeii at Herculaneum on the Bay of
  Naples, Italy. See the following site for more
  information on this project
• http//www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/classics/philode
  mus/philhome.htm

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Epicurus Biography
Mediterranean Map
Ionian Map
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Epicurus Historical and Political Context

• The early Hellenistic period of Greek History in
  which Epicurus grew up in was tumultuous with
  political instability.
• During Epicurus's childhood, Alexander of Macedon
  made his remarkable conquest of Greece, the
  Persian Empire, and Egypt. Greek culture was
  spread into various cities as far east as
  Afghanistan and Pakistan. While Alexander died in
  323 B.C., the successor states that eventually
  emerged out of the wars among Alexander's
  generals retained a strong element of Greek
  language and culture, particularly among the
  upper strata of society.

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Epicurus Philosophy

• Epicurus's Letter to Menoeceus illustrates his
  general philosophy
• His world-view is optimistic and explains
• how philosophy can liberate one from
• anxieties and can teach one how to find
  happiness.
• Physics is an atomistic materialism.
• Ethics is a rational hedonism. He emphasizes the
  importance of pleasure and the moderation of our
  desires through reason.

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Epicurus Philosophy Metaphysics

• Epicurus believes that the basic constituents of
  the world are atoms as per the pre-Socratic
  philosopher, Democritus 460-370 BC.
• 2. Atoms are, for Epicurus indivisible,
  microscopic bits of extended matter with physical
  properties moving in empty space.
• 3. Ordinary objects are conglomerations of
  atoms.
• The properties of macroscopic bodies and all of
  the events we see occurring can be explained in
  terms of the collisions, reboundings, and
  entanglements of atoms.
• (from Epicurus on Freedom by Tim O'Keefe
  Georgia State University 2005)

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Epicurus Metaphysics Continued

• Epicurus argued to replace the teleological
  (goal-based) explanations of natural phenomena
  with mechanistic ones.
• But Epicurus moved away from the determinism of
  Democritus. Epicurus allowed for free will by
  postulating that atoms sometimes behave with a
  swerve that allows a randomness to their
  behaviour. E.g. Milo will wrestle (Cicero)
• Epicurus is also against the intrinsic teleology
  of Aristotle. Teeth appear to be well-designed
  for the purpose of chewing. Aristotle thinks that
  this apparent teleology in nature cannot be
  eliminated, and that the functioning of the parts
  of organisms must be explained by appealing to
  how they contribute to the functioning of the
  organism as a whole.
• Epicurus, however, tries to explain away this
  apparent teleology in nature in a proto-Darwinian
  way, as the result of a process of natural
  selection.
• (from http//www.iep.utm.edu/e/epicur.htm)

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Epicurus Philosophy
Optimistic about Philosophy as the way to
Happiness
Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is
young nor weary in the search of it when he has
grown old. For no age is too early or too late
for the health of the soul. And to say that the
season for studying philosophy has not yet come,
or that it is past and gone, is like saying that
the season for happiness is not yet or that it is
now no more.
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Epicurus Letter to Menoeceous - Overview

• Four Topics on the Good Life
• Death
• Gods
• Pleasure
• Prudence
• Each topic is dealt with a mixture of
• psychology and materialism and reflects
  questions
• and concerns which are still very relevant today.
• e.g.
• free from the fear of death
• freedom from anxiety
• freedom from desires

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Epicurus Letter to Menoeceous - Death

• Accustom yourself to believe that death is
  nothing to us
• Does Epicurus offer an argument for this?

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Epicurus Letter to Menoeceous - Death

• Death the most of awful of evils, is nothing to
  us, seeing that, when we are, death is not come,
  and, when death is come, we are not. It is
  nothing , then, either to the living or to the
  dead, for with the living it is not and the dead
  exist no longer.

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Epicurus Letter to Menoeceous - Gods

• Does Epicurus accept the existence of gods?
• 2 aspects evident in his Letter.
• He has a personal idealisation of God. He
  dismisses the commonly held views of the gods and
  the mythological explanations of natural
  phenomena as the will of the gods.
• For truly there are gods, and knowledge of them
  is evident but they are not such as the
  multitude believe, seeing that people do not
  steadfastly maintain the notions they form
  respecting them.

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Epicurus Letter to Menoeceous - Gods

• 2. Epicurus does not wish for us to accept a God
  that intervenes in our life. Epicurus is similar
  to Aristotle, where necessity should not absolve
  one of the responsibility for ones actions. And
  this is the same criticism Epicurus has of
  Democritus mechanistic determinism.
• For he sees that necessity destroys
  responsibility and that chance or fortune is
  inconstant whereas our own actions are free, and
  it is to them that praise and blame naturally
  attach.
• However, Epicurus views differs from the
  Aristotelian doctrine which states that in
  addition to man's capabilities to attain
  eudaimonia, one would also need some good fortune
  in order to achieve happiness.

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Epicurus Letter to Menoeceous - Pleasure

• Pleasure is our first and kindred good.
• Epicurus' ethics starts from the Aristotelian
  view that the highest good is what is valued for
  its own sake, and not for the sake of anything
  else, and Epicurus agrees with Aristotle where
  happiness is the highest good.
• However, he disagrees with Aristotle and Plato
  by identifying happiness with pleasure. Epicurus'
  ethical hedonism is based upon his psychological
  hedonism. Everything we do, claims Epicurus, we
  do for the sake ultimately of gaining pleasure
  for ourselves.

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Epicurus Letter to Menoeceous - Pleasure

• And since pleasure is our first and native
  good, for that reason we do not choose every
  pleasure whatever, but often pass over many
  pleasures when a greater annoyance ensues from
  them.
• Although all pleasures are good and all pains
  evil, Epicurus says that not all pleasures are
  choice worthy or all pains to be avoided.

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Epicurus Letter to Menoeceous - Pleasure

• If pleasure results from getting what you want
  (desire-satisfaction) and pain from not getting
  what you want (desire-frustration), then there
  are two strategies you can pursue with respect to
  any given desire you can either strive to
  fulfill the desire, or you can try to eliminate
  the desire.
• For the most part Epicurus advocates the second
  strategy, that of paring your desires down to a
  minimum core, which are then easily satisfied.

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Epicurus Letter to Menoeceous - Pleasure

• Epicurus distinguishes between 3 types of
  desires
• Natural and necessary desires
• Natural but non-necessary desires
• "vain and empty" desires.

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Epicurus Letter to Menoeceous - Pleasure

• 1. Natural and Necessary Desires
• e.g. food and shelter.
• Epicurus thinks that these desires are easy to
  satisfy, and bring great pleasure when satisfied.
  Furthermore, they are necessary for life, and
  they are naturally limited that is, if one is
  hungry, it only takes a limited amount of food to
  fill the stomach, after which the desire is
  satisfied. Epicurus says that one should try to
  fulfill these desires.

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Epicurus Letter to Menoeceous - Pleasure

• 2. Natural but Non-Necessary Desires
• e.g. luxury food.
• Although food is needed for survival, one does
  not need a particular type of food to survive.
  Thus, despite his hedonism, Epicurus advocates a
  surprisingly ascetic way of life.
• Plain fare gives as much pleasure as a costly
  diet.

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Epicurus Letter to Menoeceous - Pleasure

• 3. Vain and Empty" Desires
• e.g. Power, wealth and fame
• They are difficult to satisfy, in part because
  they have no natural limit. If one desires wealth
  or power, no matter how much one gets, it is
  always possible to get more, and the more one
  gets, the more one wants. These desires are not
  natural to human beings, but inculcated by
  society and by false beliefs about what we need
  e.g., believing that having power will bring us
  security from others. Epicurus thinks that these
  desires should be eliminated.

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Epicurus Letter to Menoeceous - Pleasure

• When we say, then, that pleasure is the end and
  aim, we do not mean the pleasures of the prodigal
  or the pleasures of sensuality, as we are
  understood to do by some through ignorance,
  prejudice or wilful misrepresentation. For this
  reason prudence is a more precious thing even
  that the other virtues.
• One should use ones sober judgment (prudence) to
  calculate what is in one's long-term
  self-interest, and abstain from short-term
  pleasures.

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What advice would you take from Epicurus for the
GOOD LIFE?
Welcome to The Garden
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Epicurus

• Bibliography
• Epicurus on Freedom by Tim O'Keefe Georgia State
  University 2005
• 2. http//www.iep.utm.edu/e/epicur.htm
• 3. http//www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/classics/phil
  odemus/philhome.htm