EPICURUS
(342-270 B.C. ; i.e., born fifty-eight years after the death of Socrates)
Popular, well-loved teacher.
His school, the Walled Garden of Epicurus, was one of the several important schools in Athens, along with Plato's Academy, Aristotle's Lyceum, and the Stoics.
His views are based on Democritus' atomic theory of nature...atomistic materialism.
Unlike Democritus, Epicurus focused his interest on 'the good life'.
The goal of life was pleasure……that is where the good life is to be found and cultivated.
Two kinds of desire which lead to our pleasures:
1. natural desires
a. necessary……thirst/hunger/warmth/sex/etc.
b. unnecessary……excesses of the above
2. Vain desires ……luxuries, special food, fine clothing, etc.
Epicurus taught:
1.Physical pleasures, even if necessary, lead to pain.
2.Human relationships lead to emotional suffering.
3.Mental repose....tranquility is preferable. (ataraxia)
Hedonism……a general theory of ‘the good’:
The good = whatever is or makes to pleasure.
Bad/evil = whatever is or makes pain.
Aristippus: a predecessor of Epicurus by 100 years. He was a founder of the school of philosophy called the Cyrenaic School. It took Socrates as its spiritual inspiration.
Aristippus and the Cyrenaics taught that the good is pleasure, and that pleasure was to be understood as intense physical pleasure in this direct moment...the now.
Epicurus believed that the good = pleasure, but that Aristippus was wrong about intensity and duration.
Intensity of physical pleasure results in the even greater intensity of suffering and pain. And lengthy duration of minimal pleasures are superior to brief maximum intensity pleasures. Hence, mental/spiritual pleasures are superior. Emotional and physical pleasures must be controlled, for they lead to suffering.
Epicurus proposed a negative definition of pleasure: "the absence of pain" is the proper meaning of pleasure.
The goal of action is accordingly avoidance of pain. Actions should not be in pursuit of positive pleasures, for that is to pursue pain. Actions should be in the nature of avoidance. The life which is lived thusly will manange to have a minimum of pain in it, and with luck, a slight edge of pleasure over pain in the long run. The only positive pleasures will be those of contemplation, wisdom, meditation. A state of mind of tranquility is the highest form of pleasurable life. This is called a state of ataraxia.
Aim for ataraxia....tranquility through withdrawal from worldly
entanglements....withdraw to the walled garden.
Physical pains which can’t be avoided can be met with by a proper philosophical understanding.
Epicurus' atomism & theory of the soul and body:
Epicurus accepts the atomic theory of Democritus: All of reality consists of material atoms in motion in the void. Hence the soul is also composed of atoms. Death is the dispersal of body/soul atoms back into the moving atoms.
We needn't fear death
no life - no soul - no sensation - no pain
Sensations of pleasure and pain are functions of atoms of body and soul combining within us.
Death is the dispersal of these atoms, and so the end of all sensation. Consequently there can be no pain in death.
And so we should not fear death……"Death is nothing to us."
We needn't fear the action of the gods
The gods do not interfere or intercede in human affairs. If the gods listened to human prayers, we'd all be dead long ago! And, the gods, being perfect, are in a state of ataraxia…so, no concern with human troubles/affairs.
Pay proper respect to the gods, but shun the emotional troubles which result from superstitions, ignorant usage of words in religions.
We needn’t fear fate……(necessity / determinism)
Fate is analyzed away by Epicurus:
By his view of atomism……the atoms in motion do not “fall” uniformly, otherwise complex combinations would never have occurred. Hence, there must be a degree of spontaneity, or randomness in their motion ……and this means there is no strict determinism in nature.
Man is accordingly free to change his so-called fate. He can effect his own life’s quality.
We needn’t fear chance
Chance is not a god nor is it from the gods, for gods would not give good and evil to man randomly, chaotically to help him form a blessed life. Chance events are simply opportunities for great good and great evil. It is therefore “better to be unfortunate in reasonable action than to prosper in unreason. For it is better in a man’s actions that what is well chosen should fail, rather than that what is ill chosen should be successful owing to chance.”
withdraw to the walled garden………this is the motto of Epicureanism. It is symbolic of the mental detachment we should aim for…… from the pursuit of positive pleasures. It is also literally the case that a life lived in isolation from the world’s entangling social, political, and personal activities will be the best life for us...the most pleasurable.
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