Epicureanism

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[edit] Definition

Epicureanism is the philosophy or religion founded by Epicurus: its doctrines include Deism, free will, the Social Contract theory of ethics, and disbelief in miracles and in personal immortality. It flourished between the third century BC and the fifth century AD.

[edit] Doctrines

[edit] Ethics

We should begin with the most notorious and most misunderstood opinions of Epicurus, those on happiness or “pleasure”. Epicurus’ answer to that long-standing question in Greek philosophy: “What is the good life?” he answered with “pleasure”: but it is important to appreciate what is meant by that:

“By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul. It is not an unbroken succession of drinking-bouts and of revelry, not sexual lust, not the enjoyment of the fish and other delicacies of a luxurious table, which produce a pleasant life; it is sober reasoning, searching out the grounds of every choice and avoidance, and banishing those beliefs through which the greatest tumults take possession of the soul.” [1]

On this idea he founded a naturalistic theory of ethics, in which just behaviour is best because it brings tranquillity of mind, which to Epicurus is the supreme good:

“The just man is most free from disturbance, while the unjust is full of the utmost disturbance.” [2]

He was one of the first to advance the Social Contract theory of morality:

“Natural justice is a pledge of reciprocal benefit, to prevent one man from harming or being harmed by another … There never was such a thing as absolute justice, but only agreements made in mutual dealings among men in whatever places at various times providing against the infliction or suffering of harm.” [3]

[edit] Religion

The concept of tranquillity of mind as the supreme good lays the foundation for Epicurus' theory of religion. God, he maintains, being perfect, is untroubled by human affairs and can have no wish to meddle in them:

“First believe that God is a living being immortal and blessed, according to the notion of a god indicated by the common sense of mankind; and so believing, you shall not affirm of him anything that is foreign to his immortality or that is repugnant to his blessedness.” [4]
“A blessed and indestructible being has no trouble himself and brings no trouble upon any other being; so he is free from anger and partiality, for all such things imply weakness.” [5]

Epicurus taught that God, being perfect, was worthy of admiration in the eyes of a good man, and that it was therefore natural and pious to worship him; but not to expect any favors of him, and downright blasphemous to believe the traditional stories about the way the Greek gods carried on.

Taking a naturalistic view of the self, he taught that death was final and was not to be feared:

"Accustom yourself to believing that death is nothing to us, for good and evil imply the capacity for sensation, and death is the privation of all sentience." [6]

[edit] Science

Having effectively removed the possibility of supernatural causes for natural phenomena, it is necessary to supply naturalistic explanations:

“If we had never been troubled by celestial and atmospheric phenomena, nor by fears about death, nor by our ignorance of the limits of pains and desires, we should have had no need of natural science.” [7]

The science of Epicurus was based on the atomic theory of Democritus, and so was in many essentials correct. However, we would not consider it science in the modern sense, since it served to give a plausible explanation of various natural phenomena, but offered little in the way of prediction.

[edit] Quotations

“We cannot live pleasantly without living wisely, honorably, and justly; nor live wisely, honorably, and justly without living pleasantly.” (Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus [8])
“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.” (Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus [9])
"Of all the means which wisdom acquires to ensure happiness throughout the whole of life, by far the most important is friendship.” (Epicurus, Principal Doctrines [10])
“For our philosopher has numerous witnesses to attest his unsurpassed goodwill to all men - his native land, which honored him with statues in bronze; his friends, so many in number that they could hardly be counted by whole cities, and indeed all who knew him, held fast as they were by the siren-charms of his doctrine.” (Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Great Philosophers [11])

[edit] History

[edit] Epicurus

Epicurus lived from 341-270 BC. He studied philosophy under a pupil of Democritus before arriving at his system. We know that he was a prolific writer, but the only writings of his which survive, besides a few fragments, are those included in his biography: four letters, his last will and testament, and a collection of his principal doctrines.

The origin of Epicureanism as a religious movement can be identified with Epicurus’ purchase of the garden in which he taught his philosophy: because of this choice of location, Epicureanism is sometimes known as the “Philosophy of the Garden”, just as Stoicism is the “Philosophy of the Porch”. Unlike other philosophers of his time, Epicurus included women and slaves in his circle.

[edit] After Epicurus

On his death, Epicurus willed his Garden to his friends to continue his work: under a series of directors, it would endure as a center for Epicurean teaching for seven and a half centuries.

With the incorporation of Greece into the Roman Empire, Epicureanism flourished as a philosophy and way of life throughout the Roman world, competing with Stoicism to offer a coherent religion as an alternative to the pagan tradition of silly superstitions and X-rated myths.

One Roman devotee of Epicurianism was Titus Lucretius Carus: the De Rerum Natura [12] of Lucretius, a long poem giving the details of the Epicurean system of the world, dating to around 50 BC, is the most important surviving Epicurean manuscript apart from the works of Epicurus himself. The Roman writer Lucius Annaeus Seneca, himself a Stoic, gives a not unflattering description of an Epicurean community:

"When the stranger comes to the gardens on which the words are inscribed: 'Friend, here it will be well for thee to abide: here pleasure is the highest good,' he will find the keeper of that garden a kindly, hospitable man, who will set before him a dish of barley porridge and water in plenty, and say, 'Hast thou not been well entertained? These gardens do not whet hunger, but quench it: they do not cause a greater thirst by the very drinks they afford, but soothe it by a remedy which is natural and costs nothing. In pleasure like this I have grown old.'"

Epicureanism declined in popularity with the adoption of Christianity as the Roman state religion, and was finally formally extinguished when the Emperor Justinian ordered the closure of all four schools of Greek philosophy in 529 AD.

[edit] Epicureanism today

The reputation of Epicurus was eclipsed for centuries by other Greeks, such as Plato and Aristotle, whose religious views were more acceptable to Christian and Muslim scholars. In modern times it is easier to be enthusiastic about the Epicurean achievement in understanding the world they lived in, and the remarkable accuracy of some of their scientific or proto-scientific views.

It is not surprising that Epicureanism should have some modern appeal as a faith, and that some people are attempting to revive it. It has the charm of antiquity to recommend it, and the fact that it was for seven centuries a living faith; unlike most extinct religions, we have a clear idea of what the tenets of Epicureanism were; and its religious and ethical doctrines are compatible with the naturalism of modern science, while their scientific doctrines prefigured it. A partial list of modern Epicurean organisations is given in the links at the end of this article.

[edit] Discussion

[edit] The “Riddle of Epicurus”

Atheists are fond of quoting the “Riddle of Epicurus”, usually in some such form as this:

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”

No-one, however seems to be able to say where in the writings of Epicurus this riddle occurs; and, as we have seen, if Epicurus ever did pose such a question, his solution to it was not atheism.

[edit] Epicureans slandered

One persistent feature in the history of Epicureanism is the accusation that Epicurus’ pleasure means physical indulgence, and particularly the pleasures of the table, so that “epicure” means a gourmet or glutton. Epicurus had to protest about this in his own day:

“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 willful misrepresentation.” [13]

As we have seen, he taught moderation, his biographer gives confirmation that he and his school were abstemious in practice:

“And to the same effect Diocles in the third book of his Epitome speaks of them as living a very simple and frugal life; at all events they were content with a cup of thin wine and were, for the rest, thoroughgoing water-drinkers.” [14]

And Seneca, as we’ve seen, portrays the Epicureans of his day as living on a diet of plain water and barley porridge. Nonetheless, this slur, so contrary to the truth, has so far persisted as to become part of our language: proving, if further proof was needed, the law that mud sticks.

[edit] Links

[edit] Epicurean writings

  • Epicurus, Principal Doctrines (sometimes called the Sovran Maxims).
  • Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus : Epicurus’ teaching on religion and ethics.
  • Epicurus, Letter to Herodotus : described by its author as “the chief doctrines of Physics in the form of a summary”.
  • Epicurus, Letter to Pythocles : Epicurus lists some natural phenomena which he is unable to definitely account for: “celestial phenomena […] at any rate admit of manifold causes for their occurrence and manifold accounts, none of them contradictory of sensation, of their nature”.
  • Epicurus, Letter to Idomenus : a short note written by Epicurus on his deathbed.
  • Epicurus, Vatican Sayings : A collection of maxims ascribed to Epicurus and other Epicureans.
  • Epicurus, Fragments : Bits and pieces of Epicurus preserved from antiquity.
  • Epicurus, Last Will and Testament
  • T. Lucretius Carus, On the Nature of the Universe : Epicurean physics in verse.

[edit] Writings by non-Epicureans

[edit] Epicurean Sites

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