About the Author
Epicurus founded his philosophical school and lived with his friends in his "Garden" in Athens when the city was witnessing the rise of Macedonian dominance and Greek politics reflected the ongoing crisis in values and virtues. Many thinkers felt the growing need for intellectual conservatism and show more voluntary withdrawal to secure a life of imperturbability. That his school became a model followed in other cities, including Rome, for more than 500 years is both testimony to the strong appeal Epicurus's ethical doctrines exerted and a sign of the logical conviction the theory of Atomism generated in his followers. Epicurus, who knew the pre-Socratics well, revived and extended the Atomism of Democritus and Leucippus by finding broader applications for Atomism in psychology, physics, and ethics. Although the principles of the physical teachings of Epicurus were destined for a significant revival, and in certain ways, experimental confirmation in modern times, the special appeal of his philosophy was basically ethical. His physics remains the background to support a way of life aiming at the enhancement of pleasure and avoidance of pain. Epicurus's theories sought to reveal the causes of pain, especially fear, whether of death or of divine intervention. He taught that only the acquisition of knowledge helps in the effort to cope with fears and secure a happy life. His influence was felt strongly in Italy and it found in Rome an eloquent spokesman in Lucretius, whose masterwork, De Rerum Natura, is by far the most complete exposition of Epicureanism. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: Image by ChrisO, 18 June 2006.From Wkipedia
Works by Epicurus
The Essential Epicurus: Letters, Principal Doctrines, Vatican Sayings, and Fragments (Great Books in Philosophy) (1993) 733 copies, 12 reviews
Philosophie der Freude: Briefe. Hauptlehrsätze. Spruchsammlung. Fragmente (insel taschenbuch) (1962) 44 copies
De grondbeginselen van het goede leven de brief aan Menoeceus en andere geschriften (2005) 13 copies
Philosophie des Glücks: Niemand ist zu jung oder zu alt um etwas für die Gesundheit seiner Seele zu tun (Kleine Bibliothek der Weltweisheit) (2006) 10 copies, 1 review
Von der Überwindung der Furcht. Bibliothek der Antike. Katechismus. Lehrbriefe. Spruchsammlung. Fragmente. (1990) 10 copies
Von der Überwindung der Angst (Aschendorffs Sammlung lateinischer und griechischer Klassiker) (2004) 8 copies
CARTAS DE EPICURO - EDIÇÃO BILÍNGUE 5 copies
Epikur: Philosophie der Freude – Vom lustvollen Leben (Epikur Gesamtausgabe) (German Edition) (2018) 3 copies
cartas y sentencias 2 copies
Lettera sulla felicità (EASY READING.I grandi classici della filosofia, rivisitati, per una più semplice interpretazione) (Italian Edition) (2012) 2 copies
La felicità 2 copies
Antologia de textos 2 copies
Listy oraz wybór świadectw 2 copies
Lletra a Meneceu i Màxims capitals. 2 copies
The Fundamental Books of Epicurus: Principal Doctrines, Vatican Sayings, and Letters (2021) 2 copies
La felicità duratura 1 copy
Works of Epicurus 1 copy
Letters of Epicurus 1 copy
Fragmente 1 copy
Physica et Meteorologica 1 copy
Epikur : von der Überwindung der Furcht ; Katechismus, Lehrbriefe, Spruchsammlung, Fragmente (1995) 1 copy
Épicuriens, Les 1 copy
Osnovne misli 1 copy
Poslanica Herodotu 1 copy
Poslanica Menekeju 1 copy
Epicurus 1 copy
Epicuro. Tutte le opere 1 copy
Pensieri 1 copy
Priciple Doctrines 1 copy
Seni berbahagia 1 copy
La lettre d'E picure 1 copy
Lettre à Ménécée (GF Philo') 1 copy
AINSI PARLAIT ÉPICURE: Dits et maximes de vie extraits des "Epicurea" d'Hermann Usener (2022) 1 copy
Antologia de texto 1 copy
Aprender a pensar: Epicuro 1 copy
Cartas & Máximas Principais 1 copy
Massime capitali 1 copy
Cartas, Máximas e Sentenças 1 copy
Massime 1 copy
Epicuro [Opere di] 1 copy
Myšlenky 1 copy
Associated Works
The Stoic and Epicurean philosophers; the complete extant writings of Epicurus, Epictetus, Lucretius, Marcus Aurelius (1940) 241 copies, 2 reviews
The Moral Life: An Introductory Reader in Ethics and Literature (1999) — Contributor — 205 copies, 2 reviews
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Epicurus
- Legal name
- Επίκουρος
- Birthdate
- 341 BCE
- Date of death
- 270 BCE
- Gender
- male
- Occupations
- philosopher
- Short biography
- Born at Samos, at 18 visited Athens, and then returned to Asia. Opened a school at Mitylene in 310 BCE and also taught at Lampsacus. Returned to Athens in 305 and established a very successful school of philosophy. According to Diogenes Laertius, he left 300 volumes on Natural Philosophy, Justice, The Chief Good &c. The principal sources of our knowledge of the doctrines of Epicurus are Cicero, Plutarch and Lucretius.
- Nationality
- Greece
- Birthplace
- Samos, Greece
- Places of residence
- Athens, Greece
Samos, Greece
Colophon, Greece
Mytilene, Greece
Lampsacus, Greece - Place of death
- Athens, Greece
- Associated Place (for map)
- Greece
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Reviews
I just read somebody saying that we tend to accept and esteem Epicurus's works uncritically because we love him so much, but I still just got a smile on my face as soon as I started reading this and didn't stop. "Point the first: trust yourself. Point the second: Matter cannot be created or destroyed." Why shouldn't those go together? Man's got nothing to prove to anybody. And I like the extension that probably trust can't be created or destroyed either, just, like matter, show more transformed.
Anyway, this is a précis of Epicurus's atomism prepared for a young ephebe (not the Herodotus you're thinking), and he goes over his atomism, and matter-can-never-be-created-or-destroyedism, and the idea that the universe is infinite and there are an infinite number of worlds in it, which is fine (it's like reading magic words from a religious ceremony in what I imagine a Philip Pullman novel to be like, for me). But the real interest here for me is his linguistic expressivism--what we mean when we communicate, the referents of our words, are rooted not in the physical world per se (because you can never step in the same river twice, per Plato so how can you refer to "the river" in a straightforward way when all that uncreateableordestroyable matter is changing, changing, polutroping all the time), nor in (now pace Plato) abstract forms out there in some abstract world, but in ourselves, our brains, our means of perception. Find me five people who'd argue. Bet you can't.
The body gives knowledge to the soul. People always think of dualism as the spider-mind manipulating the ox-body, but here it's more like two partners who know their roles well, but still haven't figured out which of them is pilot and which navigator. Just like we humans worked together to end up with language, and all of us have our share in the mighty product. Each of us a body and a soul, we give knowledge to each other.
And then it's back to the orbits of the spheres, which aren't because of the gods by the way but beyond them, because you know what Zeus gets up to, man, would you trust him to drive your planets? Look at the spheres, and their perfect motion! Can you truly believe that you will suffer after death? Oh my god this guy's like Buddha or something. He literally just proposes we go to outer space and look around and when we know there's not monsters out there then everyone can relax. And dig up Hades while we're at it. He knows that his infinite pleasant calm interest is the proving of his philosophy. show less
Anyway, this is a précis of Epicurus's atomism prepared for a young ephebe (not the Herodotus you're thinking), and he goes over his atomism, and matter-can-never-be-created-or-destroyedism, and the idea that the universe is infinite and there are an infinite number of worlds in it, which is fine (it's like reading magic words from a religious ceremony in what I imagine a Philip Pullman novel to be like, for me). But the real interest here for me is his linguistic expressivism--what we mean when we communicate, the referents of our words, are rooted not in the physical world per se (because you can never step in the same river twice, per Plato so how can you refer to "the river" in a straightforward way when all that uncreateableordestroyable matter is changing, changing, polutroping all the time), nor in (now pace Plato) abstract forms out there in some abstract world, but in ourselves, our brains, our means of perception. Find me five people who'd argue. Bet you can't.
The body gives knowledge to the soul. People always think of dualism as the spider-mind manipulating the ox-body, but here it's more like two partners who know their roles well, but still haven't figured out which of them is pilot and which navigator. Just like we humans worked together to end up with language, and all of us have our share in the mighty product. Each of us a body and a soul, we give knowledge to each other.
And then it's back to the orbits of the spheres, which aren't because of the gods by the way but beyond them, because you know what Zeus gets up to, man, would you trust him to drive your planets? Look at the spheres, and their perfect motion! Can you truly believe that you will suffer after death? Oh my god this guy's like Buddha or something. He literally just proposes we go to outer space and look around and when we know there's not monsters out there then everyone can relax. And dig up Hades while we're at it. He knows that his infinite pleasant calm interest is the proving of his philosophy. show less
Epicurus was not remembered well by history. Many ancient writers who comment on his thinking have nothing but terrible things to say about him. The Epicureans were ridiculed for being extravagant, over-indulgent, and obsessed with pleasure. However, reading the extant writings of Epicurus introduces us to a much different version of the philosophical school. Epicurus' principle idea was that rational humans seek to avoid pain thoughtfully: we should not, in fact, rush into luxury and show more pleasure because the costs of doing can be quite high. The wise person weighs everything carefully: should I take the easy 'win' and enjoy pleasure now? What are the likely consequences of my indulgence in the long term?
Similar to many of his philosophical contemporaries, Epicurus concludes that we are better off to distant ourselves from the pursuit of pleasure for pleasure's sake. In fact, he sees the life of "one drinking party after another" to be a road to nowhere. Instead, he advocates the simple life: the person who is happy with their barely bread and water possesses a true sense of "pleasure" -- some more like wholesome contentment.
Why Epicurus is so often lambasted for his supposedly hedonistic ideology? This is an interesting question for history. Indeed, many of the other writers who oppose Epicurus would seem to more or less agree with his idea that unbridled hedonism is the game of fools. Why then do so many attack him?
Interestingly, Epicurus seems to have a response for this. He contends that the people who malign his doctrines by painting him as a luxury, sex-obsessed maniac are out to intentionally misrepresent his school of thought. I wonder how much of this goes back to the science of Epicurus, which in his extant writings takes up a far greater degree of his energy than his philosophizing about pleasure. The purpose of science, according to Epicurus, is to explain all natural phenomena without imputing any divine intervention. Thunder, lightning, storms -- everything, he insists, must have a natural explanation. The gods have nothing to do with human affairs, and the people who are terrified of their wrath are foolish, in desperate need of being saved from the "mythologizing" of dominate religious culture. (Epicurus' 'proof' that all things arise from natural causes was something he couldn't actually prove: a theory of atoms.) Fear of the gods, for Epicurus, is the height of irrationality and a principle error of human thought/society.
With a broader perspective on the scope of his ideas, we can imagine how his position on pleasure could be twisted to undermine support for his critical arguments against theism. Fear of divine punishment has a long history imposing moral social norms, and anyone who did not like Epicurus' vision of distant, aloof, non-intervening deities was compelled to either a) logically show his arguments were faulty or b) discredit him and his philosophical school in the eyes of others. I have a hunch that the second option became the easiest way to write him off, and subsequently led to a concept of the 'epicurean' that is more of a straw man than a cogent representation of his actual philosophy.
If you are a reader of classical literature, no doubt you have come across a ridicule or two of Epicurus. If so, it is very much worth reading this book to give the earliest fragments of the Epicurean school a chance to 'speak'. This book is much more about science than a philosophy of pleasure... and one gets the sense that maybe even Epicurus himself was much more concerned about his burgeoning ideas about empiricism and natural causes than he is about anything else. In fact, he virtually says as much in his own words. The reason we do science in the first place, he insists, to rise above the irrational fear that there's some cosmic intelligence pulling the strings on our reality. For him, the drive to study nature and the drive to liberate people from the fear of the gods are part in parcel of one another. From a history of science perspective alone, these texts well worth examining.
Strodach's academic introduction is terrific for getting orientated with Epicurus' writings, and for discovering a version of Epicurus apart from his chorus of critics who get far more airtime in literature than Epicurus himself does to actually plead his case. show less
Similar to many of his philosophical contemporaries, Epicurus concludes that we are better off to distant ourselves from the pursuit of pleasure for pleasure's sake. In fact, he sees the life of "one drinking party after another" to be a road to nowhere. Instead, he advocates the simple life: the person who is happy with their barely bread and water possesses a true sense of "pleasure" -- some more like wholesome contentment.
Why Epicurus is so often lambasted for his supposedly hedonistic ideology? This is an interesting question for history. Indeed, many of the other writers who oppose Epicurus would seem to more or less agree with his idea that unbridled hedonism is the game of fools. Why then do so many attack him?
Interestingly, Epicurus seems to have a response for this. He contends that the people who malign his doctrines by painting him as a luxury, sex-obsessed maniac are out to intentionally misrepresent his school of thought. I wonder how much of this goes back to the science of Epicurus, which in his extant writings takes up a far greater degree of his energy than his philosophizing about pleasure. The purpose of science, according to Epicurus, is to explain all natural phenomena without imputing any divine intervention. Thunder, lightning, storms -- everything, he insists, must have a natural explanation. The gods have nothing to do with human affairs, and the people who are terrified of their wrath are foolish, in desperate need of being saved from the "mythologizing" of dominate religious culture. (Epicurus' 'proof' that all things arise from natural causes was something he couldn't actually prove: a theory of atoms.) Fear of the gods, for Epicurus, is the height of irrationality and a principle error of human thought/society.
With a broader perspective on the scope of his ideas, we can imagine how his position on pleasure could be twisted to undermine support for his critical arguments against theism. Fear of divine punishment has a long history imposing moral social norms, and anyone who did not like Epicurus' vision of distant, aloof, non-intervening deities was compelled to either a) logically show his arguments were faulty or b) discredit him and his philosophical school in the eyes of others. I have a hunch that the second option became the easiest way to write him off, and subsequently led to a concept of the 'epicurean' that is more of a straw man than a cogent representation of his actual philosophy.
If you are a reader of classical literature, no doubt you have come across a ridicule or two of Epicurus. If so, it is very much worth reading this book to give the earliest fragments of the Epicurean school a chance to 'speak'. This book is much more about science than a philosophy of pleasure... and one gets the sense that maybe even Epicurus himself was much more concerned about his burgeoning ideas about empiricism and natural causes than he is about anything else. In fact, he virtually says as much in his own words. The reason we do science in the first place, he insists, to rise above the irrational fear that there's some cosmic intelligence pulling the strings on our reality. For him, the drive to study nature and the drive to liberate people from the fear of the gods are part in parcel of one another. From a history of science perspective alone, these texts well worth examining.
Strodach's academic introduction is terrific for getting orientated with Epicurus' writings, and for discovering a version of Epicurus apart from his chorus of critics who get far more airtime in literature than Epicurus himself does to actually plead his case. show less
It is easy to snigger at Epicurus: there were so many things that we now take for granted that were not understood 2,500 years ago. If one rather tries to think how we would have explained the world, with such limited passed on knowledge, then he becomes pretty impressive.
Admittedly, the idea that everything is made of atoms came from Democritus, but Epi kept it alive in a period when it had become unfashionable. An amazing idea... OK, he got gravity wrong, but so did everyone pre-Newton. show more Epicurus thought the direction of travel was uniform so, if one happened to be upon another world (a pretty radical concept with which to deal) an object might fall upwards, if your planet was on a different plain. His view of items releasing atoms which enter the body and give an impression of the object was a little wide of the mark in the field of sight too, but he nailed thunder as being the rubbing together of clouds!
Epicurus taught that learning needed to go only so far as to discover a theory that could not be contradicted. At first sight, this seems very wrong: the examples that I've quoted where his theories have been superseded would indicate that more work would be valuable. If one looks at this in another light, however, there is some merit: when science moves on to disprove a theory, it will be re-examined. We take more care of our theories nowadays but, once they are enunciated, we tend to cling to them, even when they become questionable.
Epicurus strikes me as an early Hippie; he has a very liaises faire attitude to life. I like this chap. show less
Admittedly, the idea that everything is made of atoms came from Democritus, but Epi kept it alive in a period when it had become unfashionable. An amazing idea... OK, he got gravity wrong, but so did everyone pre-Newton. show more Epicurus thought the direction of travel was uniform so, if one happened to be upon another world (a pretty radical concept with which to deal) an object might fall upwards, if your planet was on a different plain. His view of items releasing atoms which enter the body and give an impression of the object was a little wide of the mark in the field of sight too, but he nailed thunder as being the rubbing together of clouds!
Epicurus taught that learning needed to go only so far as to discover a theory that could not be contradicted. At first sight, this seems very wrong: the examples that I've quoted where his theories have been superseded would indicate that more work would be valuable. If one looks at this in another light, however, there is some merit: when science moves on to disprove a theory, it will be re-examined. We take more care of our theories nowadays but, once they are enunciated, we tend to cling to them, even when they become questionable.
Epicurus strikes me as an early Hippie; he has a very liaises faire attitude to life. I like this chap. show less
I found this book quite perplexing. I expected a hedonistic discussion of the life of reading, conversation, and communal living. Instead, I was learning about atomic theory and the atomic "swerve" (a way to explain randomness in the universe and the subsequent collision of atoms), the logic of the sun, moon,stars, and weather, and the need to be ever-vigilant to ignore the popular gods and to rely on empirical evidence rather than determinism (fate) and mythology to comprehend the otherwise show more unknown. The letters to Herodotus and Pythocles were all about such concepts, with only the letter to Menoeceus even touching upon the concept of happiness. I was surprised by the depth of the logos of Epicurean thought, and the loftiness of its ideals when compared to Stoic philosophy. Physics was originally known as natural philosophy, and out Epicurus' understanding of the universe (based on the ideas of others and not just his own, of course), led to an anti-religious philosophy. Yet God is not absent in Epicurean thought. In the "Leading Doctrines" (pp. 174-5), Epicurus explains:
10. If the things that produce the debauchee's pleasures dissolved the mind's fears regarding the heavenly bodies, death, and pain and also told us how to limit our desires, we would never have any reason to find fault with such people, because they would be glutting themselves with every sort of pleasure and never suffer any physical or mental pain, which is the real evil. 11. We would have no need for natural science unless we were worried by apprehensiveness regarding the heavenly bodies, by anxiety about the meaning of death, and also by our failure to understand the limitations of pain and desire. 12. It is impossible to get rid of our anxieties about essentials if we do not understand the nature of the universe and are apprehensive about some of the theological accounts. Hence it is impossible to enjoy our pleasures unadulterated without natural science.For Epicurus, pleasure is the opposite of pain, rather than the charges of "high living" and debauchery laid by competing philosophies and later, Christianity. To be sure, "moral good" is pleasure, and "moral evil" is pain, but not in the way one might contemporarily view hedonism. Extrapolating from his understanding of atomic theory, Epicurus (p. 58) relates that:
Moral acts involve deliberate "choices" of possible concrete pleasures and "aversions", e.e., the deliberate avoidance of prospective pain. An act is moral if in the long run, all things considered, it produces in the agent a surplus of pleasure over pain; otherwise it is immoral.Our choices, desires, and aversions play a prominent role in Stoic philosophy, too. So too, are our impressions, and Epicurus outlines his theology thus:
The gods do indeed exist, since our knowledge of them is a matter of clear and distinct perception.However, Epicurus warned against anthropomorphising the gods or Gods, and that the gods did not control nature. Rather, their role was ethical, and the gods were abstract (p. 41):
psychological projections of what every good Epicurean wanted himself to be... Thus a relapse into "the old-time religion" of a god-controlled universe has very serious consequences: It cuts the worshipper off from the gods' images - that is, alienates him from the divine communion - and it plunges the naive believer once more into the ancient fears that Epicurus seeks to allay: namely, that the gods will avenge themselves on wicked men by causing natural disasters, political upheavals, and finally the torments of death and hell.For the Roman poet, Lucretius:
True religion is rather the power to contemplate nature with a mind set at peace.Nevertheless, Epicurus was keen to attack other philosophies and religions, so it is not surprising that he got some of his own back! When I was schooled in snippets of Greek philosophy, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle were the godhead "gang of three" (see De Bono), and the Presocratics and others were treated as the great pretenders. Yet Epicurus, too, was asking those two great questions: How to live and what to believe (see Murray in my previous article), and his atomic theory addressed the second question in order to address the first. God exists, but, like the atomic swerve, free will exists otherwise there would be no need for ethics, for our behaviour would be pre-determined. According to Strodach's Introduction, the Epicurean materialism (which was morphed or "garbled" into "eat, drink, and be merry") was "so unpalatable" to the ancient and medieval worlds that Epicurus' atomic theory was lost until the 17th Century (uncovered by "the Jesuit priest Pierre Gassendi, a contemporary of Descartes", see p. 76). And so I find myself in agreement with Daniel Klein (see Foreword):
For a moment, the twenty-first-century mind might recoil at the idea of a self-anointed pundit proclaiming to his students - and to us - exactly how to live. But I, for one, read on for the simple reason that I suspect Epicurus may, in fact, have gotten it right.show less
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