Epicurus

Epicurus (341-270 BCE) - the name is pronounced with the stress on the third syllable, e-pi-KYOO-rers, IPA: /,ɛpɪ'kjuərəs/ - was a Greek philosopher and founder of the Epicurean school or tradition of philosophy which flourished in the ancient world. (Epicurean, the adjective from Epicurus is pronounced with the stress on the fourth syllable, e-pi-kyu-REE-en, IPA: /,ɛpɪkju'riːən/.)

Epicurus, though born on the island of Samos, was an Athenian citizen, the son of Athenian parents who had emigrated to Samos as colonists some ten years before his birth. The family had aristocratic origins but by the fourth century was no longer wealthy, and Epicurus' father, Neocles, was a schoolmaster. Epicurus himself developed an interest in philosophical questions at an early age, and after studying under various teachers established his own school on the island of Lesbos (modern Lesvos) in 311. Some years later, in 306, he moved to Athens, the intellectual centre of the Greek world, where he bought a house with a large garden as a home for himself, his pupils and disciples. Epicurus spent the rest of his life in Athens, living a quiet, secluded life devoted to teaching and writing. (Since Epicurus taught in the garden attached to his house, Epicurean philosophers were sometimes referred to in the ancient world as 'those from the Garden' (οἱ ἀπὸ τῶν κήπων, hoi apo tōn kēpōn). Similarly, Stoic philosophers were sometimes referred to as 'those from the Porch' (οἱ ἀπὸ τῆς στοάς, hoi apo tēs stoas), because Zeno of Citium (?336-?264 BCE), the founder of the Stoic school, taught in the Painted Porch (Stoa Poikilē) in the main square of Athens. Even today these two schools of philosophy are sometimes referred to as, respectively, the Garden and the Porch.)

Very little of what Epicurus wrote has survived; and of his greatest work, On Nature (Περὶ φύσεως, Peri phuseos) we have no more than a few fragments. Still extant, however, are:

• Principal Doctrines (Κύριαι δόξαι, Kuriai doxai) - a collection of 40 ethical maxims which students may have been expected to learn by heart.

• The (so-called) Vatican Sayings (Sententiae Vaticanae) - a collection of about 80 maxims, most of them ethical, which was discovered in a manuscript in the Vatican Library in 1888.

• Three letters to students. The Letter to Herodotus (not the historian Herodotus, who lived in the fifth century BCE) sets out Epicurus' teachings on the nature of the physical world; the Letter to Menoeceus is concerned with moral philosophy; and the Letter to Pythocles gives Epicurus' views on various meteorological questions - a matter of some importance since many in the ancient world attributed certain meteorological events (such as thunder and lightning) to the actions of the gods, and Epicurus was concerned, among other things, to free human beings from fear of the gods.

Epicurus' view of the physical world is heavily influenced by the theories of the Greek atomists Leucippus (fifth century BCE) and Democritus (?460-?370 BCE). The physical world is essentially a collection of atoms whose behaviour is governed by purely physical laws: it does not have a purpose, divine or otherwise, and events in the world are not subject to divine supervision or interference. Human beings are therefore free to decide for themselves how best to live their lives. Epicurus argues that what should matter most to us is pleasure, though (contrary to the claims of his opponents) he interprets pleasure in largely negative terms to mean the absence of pain both physical and mental. What we should aim for is an untroubled state of mind (ἀταραξία, ataraxia, calmness), and Epicurus was particularly concerned to combat what he saw as the principal threats to that desirable state - on the one hand, fear of the gods and a possible after-life and, on the other, ambition and a concern with wealth and status. Epicurus' ethical teaching is admirably summarised in the so-called 'four-part cure' contained in the writings of a later Epicurean, Philodemus of Gadara (c110-c40 BCE) (Herculaneum Papyrus 1005, 4.9-14):

Don't fear god,

Don't worry about death;

What is good is easy to get, and

What is terrible is easy to endure.

Epicurus was remarkable among Greek philosophers for advising his students not to involve themselves in politics - advice which he himself followed - and for admitting women and slaves to membership of his school.

See further Epicurean - epicurean - epicure, Stoic - stoical.