Epicureanism: translation
EpicureanismStephen EversonIt is tempting to portray Epicureanism as the most straightforward,perhaps even simplistic, of the major dogmatic philosophical schools of theHellenistic age. Starting from an atomic physics, according to which ‘thetotality of things is bodies and void’ (
Hdt 39 (LS 5A)),<sup>1</sup> Epicurus proposesa resolutely empiricist epistemology, secured on the claim that everyappearance (and not merely every perception) is true, maintains amaterialist psychology and espouses hedonism in ethics. Indeed, it isperhaps not too far-fetched to see in Epicurus’ work an attempt to returnto the natural philosophy of the pre-Socratics, and especially that of hisatomist predecessor Democritus. However, even if there is some truth inthis, the natural philosophy we find in him is much more sophisticated thanany produced before the work of Plato and Aristotle. Epicurus certainlyeschews dialectic and rejects the central role given to definition in theacquisition of
epistêmê, understanding, but he nevertheless builds on thesophisticated empiricism we find in Aristotle. Again, whilst he returns to anearlier tradition of natural philosophy in denying the place accorded toteleological explanation by Plato and Aristotle, unlike his predecessors heis duly aware of the need to meet the challenge posed by those who denythat natural change and the development of natural substances can beproperly explained without the use of such explanation. Moreover, whilstEpicurus is at pains to reject natural teleology, he seems not to renounceformal as well as final causes: we find no attack on Aristotle’s contentionthat one must distinguish a substance from its material constitution. Mostimportantly, perhaps, Epicurus is concerned to provide the kind ofsystematic ethical theory which was simply unknown before the
Republicand the ethical writings of Aristotle.The temptation to render Epicurus more simple than he actually is isperhaps made more intense by the fact that his philosophical ambitions arecongenial to a scientifically minded contemporary taste.Not least, ofcourse, Epicurus seeks to explain all natural phenomena as the result of themotion of atoms through space. Furthermore, his system is a firmlynaturalistic one. What he attempts is precisely to explain the behaviour ofmaterial substances (including those material substances which are humanbeings) in a way which is consistent with his atomistic materialism.Abstract objects, such as Platonic Forms or the objects of Aristotelian
nousplay no role in his system. His theories are moreover radically constrainedby the available perceptual evidence and he does not seek to crown hisenquiry by the acquisition of the sort of necessary universal knowledgerequired by Plato and Aristotle. In contrast to Plato, who mistrusted theevidence of the senses, and Aristotle, who, whilst renouncing this Platonicmistrust nevertheless denied the ability of the senses to provide genuineknowledge, Epicurus places perception (together with the related capacityfor
prolêpsis) right at the centre of his scientific method and is verycautious about forming beliefs that go beyond what is given in perception.In his espousal of materialism and empiricism, Epicurus seems a verymodern ancient philosopher, someone who rejects precisely those parts ofPlatonism and Aristotelianism which can make them appear alien to thecontemporary reader. Materialism and empiricism can take many forms,however, and, as we shall see, we must be careful not to assimilateEpicurus too quickly to their popular contemporary versions.
LIFE AND WORKS OF EPICURUSAlthough an Athenian citizen, Epicurus was born on the island of Samos in341 BC, where his father had gone from Athens as a settler ten yearsbefore. It is possible that he was first introduced to philosophical enquiryby Pamphilus, a Platonist who also lived on the island, and possible toothat, when still young, he came under the influence of Nausiphanes, afollower of Democritus. Certainly he acquired a knowledge of earlyatomism from Nausiphanes, although this may have been after he visitedAthens. When Epicurus was 18, he went to Athens to do his militaryservice, and it is reported that he went to the Academy to hear Xenocrateslecture. After his two-year stint in the army, Epicurus joined his father inColophon, where the latter had gone after the Athenian settlers had beenordered out of Samos by Perdiccas. Little detail is known of the next fifteenyears of his life. He probably worked as a school teacher in Colophon,before moving to Mytilene in 311 to teach philosophy. A lost polemicalwork,
Against the Philosophers at Mytilene, suggests that he did not fit into the philosophical scene there very happily, and he seems to have leftquite soon for Lampsacus, forming there a philosophical circle aroundhimself. In 307 he returned to Athens, and, in order to set up aphilosophical school, he bought a house which came to be known as the‘Garden’. Epicurus lived there until his death in 271 BC. Although there isstrong secondary evidence that Epicurus was a keen and vitriolic literarypolemicist, there is also compelling evidence that he was a highly goodnaturedman in person, and inspired great loyalty amongst his students.He wrote a great deal. Forty-one works are cited in Diogenes Laertius’biography of him (in book X of his
Lives of the Philosophers), but this listis of Epicurus’ ‘best works’: according to Diogenes, his complete works ranto around three hundred rolls, so that he surpassed all previous writers inthe number of his books (X.26). Unfortunately, very little of this has comedown to us. Diogenes reproduces three philosophical letters written toEpicurus’ followers: the
Letter to Herodotus (Hdt.), in which he providesan epitome of his natural science; the
Letter to Pythocles (Pyth.), an outlineof his theories about celestial phenomena; and the
Letter to Menoeceus(Men.), which gives the basics of his ethics. Diogenes also cites forty‘Principal Beliefs’
(Kuriai Doxai, KD), and a further collection of maximssurvives in a manuscript in the Vatican
(Vaticanae sententiae, VS). Inaddition, some of the papyri found at Herculaneum have containedfragments of perhaps his principal work, the
De Natura, which, accordingto Diogenes, ran to thirty-seven books.In addition to these few works which have survived, we have various othersources for Epicurean doctrine. Most important is the
De Rerum Natura ofthe first-century BC Roman poet Lucretius, in which he sets out Epicureanteaching in helpful detail. The papyri discovered at Herculaneum have alsocontained works by Philodemus, another Epicurean of the first-centuryBC.More bizarrely, many fragments have been found in central Turkey of awall erected by one Diogenes of Oenoanda to set out the principles ofEpicureanism. In addition to these Epicurean sources, there is quite a lot ofevidence for Epicurean philosophy in the work of Cicero and Plutarch, twoopponents of Epicureanism. Given the state of our evidence, we do nothave much reason to find developments either in Epicurus’ own work, oreven in that of his followers. Thus, later writers are generally taken toprovide pretty straightforward evidence for Epicurean claims andarguments. I shall follow that practice here, but it is worth noting at leastthe possibility that later Epicureans may manifest doctrinal shifts fromEpicurus’ own claims.One reason perhaps why Epicurus’ philosophical system has seemedmore simple than those of Plato and Aristotle and of his Hellenisticopponents is that the most accessible of his own writings to have survivedare the letters, which are precisely intended to present introductory outlinesof his views and arguments. It is clear from the works which survive onpapyrus, both those of Epicurus himself and of Philodemus, that there wasa proper place for detailed and technical argumentation withinEpicureanism, but this has so far played a minor role in forming ourgeneral sense of the nature of Epicurus’ work, not least perhaps becausedeciphering the remains of the papyri is a tremendously difficult anduncertain process.
PERCEPTION AND COGNITIONThroughout his work, Epicurus shows himself to be epistemically cautious.He is keenly aware of the danger of holding false beliefs and is dulyanxious to provide a method which, if followed, will allow one to believeonly truths. Central to this method is a reliance on perception—which,together with
‘prolêpseis’ and the ‘primary affections’ of pleasure and pain,provide the ‘criteria of truth’ (DL X.31).Epicurus provides an reasonably elaborate account of what happens inperception, according to which we perceive when we are struck by thefilms of atoms
(eidôla) which are constantly emitted from the solid bodiesaround us. These preserve the shape of the objects from which theyemanate (
Hdt. 46 (LS 15A1)) and it is by coming into contact with these
eidôla that we see and think of shapes (
Hdt. 49 (LS 15A6)), since thesedelineations penetrate us ‘from objects, sharing their colour and shape, of asize to fit into our vision or thought, and travelling at high speed, with theresult that their unity and continuity then results in the impression’ (
Hdt.49–50 (LS 15A8)). Hearing, too, involves the reception of atoms: it ‘resultsfrom a sort of wind travelling from the object which speaks, rings, bangsor produces an auditory perception in whatever way it may be’ (
Hdt. 52(LS 15A14)). Smell, too, ‘just like hearing, would never cause any affectionif there were not certain particles travelling away from an object and withthe right dimensions to stimulate this sense, some kinds beingdisharmonious and unwelcome, others harmonious and welcome’ (
Hdt. 53(LS 15A18)).Thus, we are able to perceive because we are receptive to the variouskinds of atoms emitted by the solid objects around us. Indeed, perceptionjust is the conscious reception of these atoms, its content entirelydetermined by their nature and properties: ‘all perception, says Epicurus, isirrational and does not accommodate memory. For neither is it moved byitself, nor when moved by something else is it able to add or subtractanything’ (DL X.31 (LS 16B1–2)). The content of a perception is thus notto be explained by reference to anything other than what produces thatperception, although the objects of perception are distinct from the directcauses of the perception. In
Hdt. 46, we are told that the
eidôla have thesame shape as the solid objects from which they emanate, but are muchfiner than the things which are apparent—what are apparent in perception,then, are not the
eidôla themselves but the solid objects (cf. Lucretius IV.256 ff.). (It is for this reason, of course, that Epicurus has to argue for hisaccount of how we perceive: if we perceived the
eidôla which cause theperceptions, then the truth of that account would be given in perceptionand not stand in need of argument.)Since the
eidôla in fact preserve the relevant properties of the objectsfrom which they are emitted, the perceptual affection reports correctly thenature of the solid object:And whatever impression we get by focusing our thought or senses,whether of shape or of properties, that is the shape of the solid body,produced through the
eidôlon’s concentrated succession or after-effect. But falsehood and error are always located in the belief whichwe add.(
Hdt. 50 (LS 15A9–10))It is the passivity of perception—its inability to add or to subtract anythingfrom the stimulus—which secures its utter epistemic reliability, and it is notuntil the mind begins to work with the perceptual reports that thepossibility of error arises. Whilst the content of perception is entirelydetermined by the nature of the stimulus which produces it (and so by howthings are), the content of belief is not so constrained and our beliefs canthus mis-report how things are.The claim that all perceptions are true is, of course, an extremely strongone. The occurrence of perceptual conflict was, after all, something whichhad been the subject of epistemological scrutiny since Protagoras’ move toglobal subjectivism in order, if we are to believe Plato’s
Theaetetus, topreserve the reliability of perception despite the occurrence of prima-facieconflicting appearances. Thus, if, for instance, the same wind seems cold toone person and warm to another, the mistake, according to Protagoras,would be to think of these perceptions as both seeking to represent the samestate of affairs—in this case, the temperature of the wind—when, ofcourse, they could not both be true. Rather, each correctly reports adistinct state of affairs; the wind’s temperature relative to the individualperceiver. The wind is in fact warm for the one perceiver and cold for theother. Perceptions report truly how things are for the perceiver (and,importantly, not merely how they seem to the perceiver).Protagoras’ wholesale subjectivism—the account is intended to apply notjust to temperatures and colours but to all properties universally—was anextreme, and not obviously coherent, reaction to the possibility ofperceptual conflict, and it did not find favour with either Plato or Aristotle,who had to find other ways to deal with the problem. Plato did so bydenying that perceptions can be true or false at all: he treats them as meresensations which provide the materials for beliefs. Aristotle, who did allowperceptions themselves to have propositional content, and so to be capableof being true and false, avoided the difficulties of perceptual conflict bydenying that all perceptions are true: thus, in a case of perceptual conflict,at least one of the conflicting perceptions will be false and will be the resultof a defect on the part of the perceiver.Against this background, Epicurus’ re-affirmation of the truth of allperceptions, without a move to any kind of subjectivism, can be seen to bevery bold indeed—so bold, indeed, as to seem like hopeless epistemicoptimism. Moreover, the argument which Diogenes Laertius cites assupporting this claim seems to be clearly insufficient to do this:All perception, he says, is irrational and does not accommodatememory. For neither is it moved by itself, nor when moved bysomething else is it able to add or subtract anything. Nor does thereexist anything which can refute perceptions: neither can like senserefute like, because of their equal validity; nor unlike since they arenot discriminatory of the same things; nor can reason, since all reasondepends on the senses; nor can one individual perception, since they allcommand our attention.(DL X.31–2 (LS 16B1–7))Thus, there is nothing which can convict any particular perception oferror, since in any case where some state seems to cast doubt on the truth ofa perception, that state can itself have no greater epistemic security thanthe perception which it calls into question. Even if this were right,however, it would not give Epicurus the conclusion he needs, since it wouldbe consistent with this that there are indeed false perceptions, even thoughwe can never have sufficient reason to believe of any particular perceptionthat it is false.<sup>2</sup> Since there is nothing here to block the possibility ofconflicting perception, the most sensible response when that possibility isrealised would seem to be that of the sceptic; suspension of judgement.Indeed, in a case of two conflicting perceptions of the same sense, it wouldseem to be impossible to assent to both, since this would be to believe acontradiction.We are given a different argument by Sextus:For just as the primary affections, that is pleasure and pain, comeabout from certain agents and in accordance with those agents—pleasure from pleasant things and pain from painful things, and it isimpossible for what is productive of pleasure not to be pleasant andwhat is productive of pain not to be painful but that which producespleasure must necessarily be naturally pleasant and that whichproduces pain naturally painful—so also with perceptions which areaffections of ours, that which produces each of them is alwaysperceived entirely and, as perceived, cannot bring about theperception unless it is in truth such as it appears.(
Math. VII.203)Here it is the passivity of the senses which secures their veridicality: theyare such as to present the cause of the perception just as it is. This providesa much better route to Epicurus’ conclusion—and, indeed, it accords withthe very start of Diogenes’ report of what Epicurus has to say aboutperception (and also with the remark at Cicero
De Finibus 1.64 that onewill not be able to defend the judgement of the senses without knowing thenature of things). It also provides a rather different kind of epistemologicalstrategy from what we would have if we took the burden of the argumentfor the claim that all perceptions are true to be carried by the argument forthe irrefutability of perceptions. The latter might look very much like an apriori epistemological argument, but the argument from the passivity of thesenses is part of a theory about the way in which we are relatedperceptually to the world—and not itself given in experience. Given this, itis better to take the irrefutability argument as a subsidiary argument, anattempt to show that the universal conclusion—that all perceptions are true—is consistent with the available perceptual evidence, and thus does itselfnot fall foul of Epicurus’ scientific methodology.
Eidôla are theoreticalentities which we have reason to believe in because they explain thingswhich are apparent. It is not part of the content of perception that weperceive because we are struck by atoms from the solid objects around us.His argument for the role of
eidôla in perception, then, is an instance ofhis general method for establishing the truth of claims which are notdirectly supported by the evidence of perception itself. Unfortunately, ourevidence for the details of this method is sketchy. In his brief report,Diogenes simply uses Epicurus’ technical terms without explicating theirmeaning: a belief will be true if it is ‘attested or uncontested’ and false if itis ‘unattested or contested’ (DL X.34 (LS 18B)). There is a much fulleraccount in Sextus, although doubt has been cast on its reliability.According to this, attestation is ‘apprehension through what is evident ofthe fact that the object of belief is such as it was believed to be’, and noncontestation‘is the following from that which is evident of the non-evidentthing posited and believed’. Contestation, alternatively, conflicts with noncontestation,being ‘the elimination of that which is evident by the positingof the non-evident thing’, whilst non-attestation ‘is opposed to attestation,being confrontation through what is evident of the fact that the object ofbelief is not such as it was believed to be’. Sextus concludes his report:‘Hence attestation and non-contestation are the criterion of something’sbeing true, while non-attestation and contestation are the criterion of itsbeing false. And the evident is the foundation and basis of everything’(
Math. VII.211–6 (LS 18A)). One obvious question here is why Epicurusneeded two modes of assessment for beliefs rather than just one. Theanswer to this would seem to be that different types of belief will beassessed in different ways. Thus, if a non-perceptual belief (i.e. one whichdoes not derive directly from perception) is nevertheless about somethingwhich can be perceived, then it should be assessed for whether it is attestedor non-attested by perception. Sextus’ example of this is that of seeingsomeone from a distance: if I believe that the far-off figure is Plato, thenthat belief, which is not currently given by the perception itself, can beattested or non-attested by a later perception when the person is closer. Incontrast, there are theoretical beliefs which can never be directly verified byreference to perception—such as Epicurus’ beliefs about
eidôla—and it isthese which are contested or non-contested by the perceptual evidence.Now, whilst it is reasonably straightforward to understand what it is fora belief to be either attested or contested by perceptual experience, mattersare more difficult when it comes to construing the other two epistemicrelations, those of non-attestation and non-contestation. The trouble is thatwhilst the words themselves, and perhaps also Epicurus’ own practice,suggest that nothing more or less than simple consistency with theperceptual evidence is sufficient for it to be either non-contested or nonattested(depending on what type of belief it is), Sextus’ account clearlyplaces much stricter constraints on what the relations between beliefs andperceptions can be if the former are to be non-contested or non-attested bythe latter. Furthermore, there would seem to be very good reason for thismore restrictive view, since to accept a theoretical belief just on thegrounds that it is consistent with the evidence seems extraordinarily lax,and to reject (rather than merely to hold in doubt) a perceptual belief juston the grounds that it is not attested by perception seems extraordinarilystrict. What we should rather expect are three categories in each case:beliefs which our perceptions provide reason to accept, beliefs which theyprovide reason to reject, and those for which there is not perceptualevidence either way. Diogenes indeed does report a category of beliefs asthose which ‘await’—‘for example waiting and getting near the tower andlearning how it appears from near by’—(DL X.34 (LS 18B)), and thissuggests that Epicurus did allow that there could be beliefs which wereneither contested nor un-contested, nor attested nor un-attested.There is much room for interpretative manoeuvre on this point, but nospace to effect that manoeuvring here. What can be said is that consistencywith the perceptual evidence must certainly be a minimal condition for atheoretical belief to stand as non-contested—and a condition Epicurus isindeed concerned to show is satisfied when arguing for such beliefs—butthat it may be that more is required than this. Indeed, the more minimalthe constraints on what it is for a belief to be non-contested, the lessimportant will be that notion for Epicurean science. Thus, whilst Epicurusintroduces the
eidôla at
Hdt. 46 (LS 15A1), merely by saying that it is notimpossible that there are such delineations of atoms, he continues byclaiming that
eidôla provide the most effective way of producing perception(
Hdt. 49 (LS 15A6–8)). The theory is thus secured by something strongerthan mere consistency with the perceptual evidence—what recommends itis not just that it provides a possible explanation of the evidence, but that itprovides the best explanation of it. Again, at
Hdt. 55–6, when he arguesthat we should not think that there are atoms of all sizes, he supports thisby saying that ‘the existence of every size is not useful with respect to thedifferences of qualities’, where this seems to mean that we do not need toposit all sizes of atoms in order to explain the various qualities of visiblebodies. If the only constraint imposed on theoretical claims was that theyshould not conflict with the perceptual evidence, however, then therewould be no good reason to restrict the range of properties one attributedto the atoms. In the light of this, and of both Sextus’ report and thepresence of the category of ‘that which awaits’ in Diogenes Laertius, thereis some reason to think that non-contestation of a tbeoretical beliefrequires that it should be needed for an adequate explanation of theperceptual evidence. Even if we resist this, however, we can accept that inpractice the Epicurean justification of theoretical beliefs did not stop atshowing the mere consistency of those beliefs with the evidence ofperception, and that if this is indeed all that is required to demonstrate thatthey are non-contested, then Epicurus seems to have required more fortheoretical justification than non-contestation.In any case, the irrefutability argument in Diogenes can now be seen notto be a piece of a priori epistemological reasoning, but rather an attempt toshow that the theoretical claim that all perceptions are true meets theminimal condition for acceptability—that it does not conflict with theperceptual evidence. The best explanatory account of perception gives usreason to think that our perceptions are always true and this claim isconsistent with our perceptual experience itself, despite the fact that onemight think that there are perceptual conflicts.I have so far been contrasting beliefs with perceptual evidence, but this isslightly misleading, since Epicurus’ criteria of truth are not limited toperception itself. The proper contrast is, as we have seen, between beliefand what is evident, and things can be evident to us not merely throughperception, but also through prolêpsis (plural:
prolêpseis). If we are tounderstand Epicurus’ epistemology—and hence his natural science—weneed to have some sense of the cognitive role played by
prolêpsis.Perception is an entirely passive process, and the nature of the perceptualaffection is determined entirely by the nature of the stimulus whichproduces it. In bringing
prolêpseis into his account of cognition, Epicurusis able to extend the range of information the subject is able to receive.According to Diogenes’ brief exposition of
prolêpsis (DL X.33), it is, forinstance, in virtue of having the
prolêpsis of man or horse that one canthink and talk about men or horses and such
prolêpseis are both selfevidentand acquired through perception. Thus, what
prolêpseis someonehas depends upon his previous perceptual experience, and so these willdiffer between subjects. Thus, someone can talk and think about, say, cowsand horses because he has
prolêpseis of cows and horses—and he will havethese if he has had sufficient previous perceptual experience of cows andhorses.This is not, however, to say that he has had previous perceptions whosecontent is about the condition of cows and horses. Thus, the
eidôla flowingfrom a horse will preserve the shape and colour of the horse, and so, inreceiving them, one will have the perception that an object of a certainshape has a certain colour. This is guaranteed by the mechanism of thereception of the
eidôla, but is not yet sufficient for the subject to have anexperience with the content that that horse is that colour. In order to havean experience with that content, the subject must have some concept of ahorse and it is here that
prolêpseis come into play. In acquiring a
prolêpsisof something, the subject acquires a recognitional ability for things of thatkind. This requires repeated perceptual exposure to such things, afterwhich one will be able to recognise newly perceived examples as similar tothe ones he has already seen. This does not require any articulatedtheorising about what it is to be that kind of thing: it is important forEpicurus’ cognitive theory that
prolêpseis operate prior to the level ofbelief, since this is what secures their ability to stand as criteria of truth forbeliefs. People will differ in what
prolêpseis they possess—in virtue ofdiffering in their perceptual histories—but the acquisition of a
prolêpsis isjust as non-rational as having a perception. If someone has sufficientlymany perceptions caused by horse-
eidôla, he will come to have the
prolêpsis of a horse and so will be able to distinguish horses from other typesof thing both when he perceives them directly and when he thinks aboutthem.
ATOMS AND VOIDOur direct experience is of solid objects in the world around us. In virtueof perception proper we can know that these objects have certain properties—such as size, shape and colour—and in virtue of
prolêpsis we can come torecognise what sorts of objects they are (although this will always be interms of properties which are perceptually apparent). Theory is required,however, if we are to come to know how these solid objects are materiallyconstituted and how this explains their behaviour. In this section, I shallprovide a brief outline of Epicurus’ theory of matter, generally citing hisclaims and arguments rather than discussing them. This is not becausethose arguments are uninteresting—indeed Epicurus’ arguments for thenature of the atoms are some of his more sophisticated—but because todiscuss them seriously would require more in the way of historical context(in particular, Aristotle’s arguments for the continuous nature of matterand against the existence of void) than is possible here. As it is, this sectionshould be seen just as an exposition of Epicurus’ basic physical theory.Epicurus begins the exposition of his physical theory in the
Letter toHerodotus by affirming the temporal infinity of the basic constituents ofthe universe. ‘Nothing’, he claims, ‘comes into being out of what is not—forin that case everything would come into being out of everything with noneed for seeds’ (
Hdt. 38 (LS 4A1)). Epicurus thus secures his claim onsomething we observe, which is that when things are generated, they aregenerated from the relevant kind of seed (cf. Lucretius I.169–73 (LS 4B4–5)). Thus, in order to grow an oak tree, we need to start with an acorn—for it is only an acorn which has the potential to generate an oak tree. Ifthings could be generated
ex nihilo, however, then there would be nonecessary determinate conditions for their generation, and so no need forseeds. (Of course, it might be objected that Epicurus moves too quicklyhere from the generation of things with which we are acquainted to theclaim that nothing can be generated
ex nihilo. After all, we have noperceptual evidence that atoms do not come into existence spontaneously,merely that composite bodies do not, and this might be a respect in whichthe non-evident is dissimilar from the evident.) In any case, Epicurus holdsto the analogy between the observed and the unobserved in this respect,and takes the universal need for composite things to be generated frombodies which possess the potential to generate those things to confirm thegeneral thesis that nothing can be generated
ex nihilo. He also maintainsthat nothing can pass away into nothing: if it could, then everything wouldalready have perished. Given these two claims—that things cannot becreated from nothing and they cannot perish into nothing, we can acceptthat the basic constituents of the universe persist for ever, since they willnot have come into existence and cannot go out of existence.Epicurus’ next move is to establish the nature of those basic constituents:Moreover, the totality of things is bodies and void. That bodies existis universally witnessed by perception itself, in accordance with whichit is necessary to judge by reason that which is non-evident, as I saidbefore; and if place, which we call ‘void’, ‘room’, and ‘intangiblesubstance’ did not exist, bodies would not have anywhere to be or tomove through in the way they are observed to move. Beyond thesenothing can even be thought of, either by imagination or by analogywith what is imagined as completely substantial things and not as thethings we call accidents and properties of these.(
Hdt. 39–40 (LS 5A))According to Epicurus, there are two basic kinds of substance (existingthing): bodies and void. Now, this is not yet a statement of atomism, sinceEpicurus tells us that the fact that bodies exist is given in perception, and wedo not perceive atoms. Thus, the bodies which we know throughperception to exist are the solid bodies which, he will argue, are composedof atoms. For Epicurus’ present purpose, however, this is quite sufficient,since we do perceive that there are solid bodies and this is enough to showthat there are bodies which are extended and tangible. In itself, however,this does not show that void exists—what does show
that is not that weperceive material objects, but that we see that they move. What isdistinctive of void is that it is not solid: it offers no resistance. If all space wereoccupied by things which were solid, then solid objects would not be ableto occupy a different space from the one they occupy at any time, and socould not move. Since we know from perception that bodies do move, wecan infer that there is space which offers no resistance to the impact ofbodies, and thus that void exists.Having established the existence of both bodies and void, Epicurusmoves to discuss the nature of bodies. All bodies are either compounds orthe basic constituents of compounds, and the latter are incapable ofeither alteration or dissolution: ‘the primary entities, then, must be atomickinds of bodies’ (
Hdt. 40–1 (LS 8A)). Epicurus’ atoms are uncuttable: it isphysically impossible to split them. This is because, unlike those bodieswhich have atoms as constituents, they contain no void, and it is thepresence of void in a body which renders it vulnerable to alteration (cp.Lucretius I.528–39 (LS 8 B2)). In expounding the existence of bodies whichcould not be divided, Epicurus was returning to the physical theory ofDemocritus and Leucippus in opposition to Aristotle, who had argued thatmatter must be continuous, that is, infinitely divisible. Epicurean atomismwas more radical than that of his predecessors, however, since not only didhe maintain that there are bodies which are physically indivisible, but heargued that there are minima which, whilst extended, have no parts at all—that is, they cannot be divided even conceptually. Each atom is perpetuallyin motion and if it were able to travel through the void withoutinterference from other atoms, it would be carried downwards by itsweight, and all atoms would travel at the same speed.<sup>3</sup> However, thetrajectory of atoms, although not their velocity, can be affected by collisionswith other atoms, so that one can have, for instance a system of atomsconstituting some solid object. Although each atom will indeed beconstantly moving, the trajectories of the constituent atoms will be suchthat the object which is constituted by them remains stationary.The basics of Epicurus’ atomic theory, then, are that matter is notcontinuous, but atomic, and that the physical atoms—the bodies whichcannot be further divided physically—are constituted by minimal partswhich are not even conceptually divisible. Every body—that is, every entitywhich is extended and solid—is either an atom or constituted by atoms.There are infinitely many atoms, and an infinite space for them to occupyand move about in. Each atom, because of its weight, has a naturaltendency to move downwards (at a speed ‘as quick as thought’), but thelocomotive history of many atoms is limited by the fact that they collidewith other atoms. A collection of atoms can constitute a stable solid objectwhen the atoms mutually deflect each other’s motion so as to maintaineach other in a pattern. Even then, the atoms will not be at rest but willoscillate at their natural speed.
SOUL, BODY AND PROPERTIESAtoms and void are the primary entities of Epicurean physics, and bodiesand void are the only things which exist
‘per se’. Although Epicurus doesnot want to deny, for instance, that there are properties, he takes these to beparasitic on the existence of
per se existents. Indeed, he is careful on thispoint:Now as for the shapes, colours, sizes, weights, and other thingspredicated of body as permanent attributes—belonging either to allbodies or those which are visible, and knowable in themselvesthrough perception—we must not hold that they are
per sesubstances: that is inconceivable. Nor, at all, that they are nonexistent.Nor that they are some distinct incorporeal things accruingto the body. Nor that they are parts of it; but that the whole bodycannot have its own permanent nature consisting entirely of the sumtotal of them, in an amalgamation like that when a larger aggregate iscomposed directly of particles, either primary ones or magnitudessmaller than such-and-such a whole, but that it is only in the way Iam describing that it has its own permanent nature consisting of thesum total of them. And these things have their own individual ways ofbeing focused on and distinguished, yet with the whole complexaccompanying them and at no point separated from them, but withthe body receiving its predication according to the complexconception.(
Hdt. 68–9 (LS7B1–2))There are some properties which all bodies must have (shape, size, weight)and some which all visible bodies must have (colour). These are‘permanent’ attributes of bodies: as Lucretius reports, they are thoseproperties which ‘can at no point be separated and removed without fataldestruction resulting—as weight is to stones, heat to fire, liquidity towater, tangibility to all bodies, and intangibility to void’ (I.451–4 (LS7A3)). Such properties are thus not merely permanent, but necessary. Thisnecessity is not merely physical, but conceptual: one cannot conceive of thebody without that property. They are not, however,
per se substances likebodies themselves—they exist only as the properties of bodies, and so theirexistence is in that way derivative. In addition to these permanentproperties, bodies can also have accidental properties: ‘by contrast slavery,poverty, wealth, freedom, war, peace, and all other things whose arrivaland departure a thing’s nature survives intact, these it is our practice tocall, quite properly, accidents’ (I.455–8 (LS 7A4)).Epicurus’ distinction here between visible and invisible bodies makes itclear that he does not think that atoms possess all the properties possessedby complex bodies. The only properties which atoms possess are those ofshape, weight, size and the necessary concomitants of shape (
Hdt. 54 (LS12D1)), and so one cannot in general explain the fact that a complex bodyhas some property by appealing to the possession of that very property byits constituent atoms. This is again made clear by Lucretius, who says that‘you should not suppose those white objects which you see before youreyes as white to consist of white primary particles or those which are blackto be the product of black seeds’ (II.731–33 (LS 12E1)). This, he pointsout, actually allows for a more satisfying explanation of the behaviour ofcoloured objects:Besides, if primary particles are colourless, and possess a variety ofshapes from which they generate every kind of thing and thus makecolours vary—since it makes a great difference with what thingsand in what sort of position the individual seeds are combined andwhat motions they impart to each other and receive from each other—it at once becomes very easy to explain why things which a littleearlier were black in colour can suddenly take on the whiteness ofmarble, as the sea when its surface has been churned up by greatwinds, is turned into waves whose whiteness is like that of gleamingmarble. All you need to say is that what we regularly see as blackcomes to appear gleaming white as soon as its matter is mixed up, assoon as the ordering of its primary particles is changed, as soon assome particles are added and some subtracted. But if the sea’s surfaceconsisted of blue seeds, there is no way in which they could turnwhite. For things that are blue could never change to the colour ofmarble, no matter how you were to jumble them up.(Lucretius
De rerum natura, II.499–514 (LS 12A3))Given that Lucretius allows here that atomic change to a complex body caninvolve not merely the re-arrangement of atoms but also their loss andaddition, the argument here doesn’t quite work—since one could acceptthat individual atoms cannot change, but maintain that when the seachanges colour it is indeed because there are blue atoms on the surfacewhich are displaced by white atoms. Nevertheless, the passage is importantbecause it suggests strongly that Epicurus accepts that the properties of acomplex substance (a substance which has atoms as constituents) aredetermined by the properties—including the arrangement and motion—ofits constituent atoms. For Lucretius infers the claim that the differentatomic shapes and arrangements make the colours of a substance changefrom the general claim that the primary particles ‘possess a variety ofshapes from which they generate every kind of thing’. That Lucretius feelsentitled to infer from this that they are responsible for colours, and changesin colour, shows that what are ‘generated’ by the atoms are not just objects,but their properties as well—that is, that there is a particular arrangementof atoms of particular shapes that will determine not just that there is acertain kind of complex substance, but that that substance has theproperties it does.The Epicurean treatment of the relation between macroscopic andmicroscopic properties can perhaps be best illustrated by considering hisaccount of the
psuchê—the ‘soul’—as this represents his most sustainedattempt to explain the nature and behaviour of complex substances byreference to the nature and arrangement of their constituent atoms. ForEpicurus, an animal body, like all solid objects, is a compound of atoms,and the
psuchê is itself a material part of a living body: it is a ‘finestructuredbody’ diffused throughout the whole (
Hdt. 63 (LS 14A1)).Thus, the
psuchê is itself a body—that is, it is an individuated entity withits own distinctive atomic constitution. According to a report in Aetius,Epicurus took the material constitution of the
psuchê to be specific to it: ‘itis a blend
(krama) consisting of four things, of which one kind is fire-like,one air-like, one wind-like, while the fourth is something which lacks aname’ (Aetius 4.3.11 (LS 14C)). Although it is thus possible to specify theatomic constituents of the matter of the
psuchê, what is important for theexplanation of psychic functioning is that they form a ‘blend’. This isemphasised by Lucretius:The primary particles of the elements so interpenetrate each other intheir motions that no one element can be distinguished and nocapacity spatially separated, but they exist as multiple powers of asingle body…. Heat, air and the unseen force of wind when mixedform a single nature, along with that mobile power which transmitsthe beginning of motion from itself to them, the origin of sensebearingmotions through the flesh.(III.262–5; 269–72 (LS 14D1))Because the elemental atoms are blended, they constitute a body which hasparticular powers lacked by things which are not so constituted—whencontained within a larger body, it is, for instance, capable of sensation andthought.This last qualification is important for Epicurus, who enthusiasticallydenies that the
psuchê can survive the death of the body, and emphasisesthe mutual dependency of psuche and the body which contains it. So,whilst it is indeed the
psuchê which is responsible for perception, it is onlyable to produce that capacity in virtue of being contained within the body.Once the body disintegrates, the atoms of the
psuchê are dispersed and soit loses its own capacities (
Hdt. 63–4 (LS 14A3)). Neither the
psuchê northe body can survive the demise of the other, and it is the combination ofbody and
psuchê which constitutes the living animal, not the
psuchê by itself:‘since conjunction is necessary to their existence, so also theirs must be ajoint nature’ (Lucretius, III.347–8). Thus, it is not just the
psuchê, but thewhole body, which enjoys perception, which is, as Lucretius says, anaffection which is common to the mind and the body (III.335–6).From the mere fact that Epicurus takes the
psuchê to be itself a materialbody, one can tell very little about what relation he postulates between thepsychological properties of the living animal and the movement of theatoms which constitute the
psuchê. However, this becomes clearer if onereflects on his arguments for this materialist thesis.<sup>4</sup> The psuche must bematerial since, if it were not material it would be void, and ‘void canneither act nor be acted upon, but merely provides bodies with motionthrough itself’ (
Hdt. 67 (LS 14A7)). Since it is evident that the
psuchê doesact on things and is, in turn, acted on, the idea that it is incorporeal isincoherent. That is, it is evident that there are psychological causes andeffects, and if this is so, then what is changed and produces change must besomething material, since immaterial things cannot be the agents orpatients of change. The claim that only material things can bring about orundergo change will be well-motivated if it is assumed that all changes areeither themselves atomic events, or are determined by those.That Epicurus accepts that psychological events require the occurrenceof atomic events is clear from his arguments for the nature of the
psuchê’satomic constitution. So, according to Lucretius, the mind is ‘exceedinglydelicate and is constituted by exceedingly minute particles’ (III.179–80):Nothing is seen to be done so swiftly as the mind determines it to bedone and initiates; therefore the mind rouses itself more quickly thanany of the things whose nature is seen plain before our eyes. But thatwhich is so readily moved must consist of seeds exceedingly roundedand exceedingly minute, that they may be moved when touched by asmall moving power.(III.182–8)In accordance with Epicurean scientific method, Lucretius starts off fromsomething evident—that the mind produces its effects more rapidly thananything else does—and infers from this that the atoms of the
psuchê aresmaller and rounder than any other atoms. For this inference to work,however, psychological changes must require atomic changes, otherwisethere would be no necessity that the atoms should be able to move asrapidly as the mind works. Again, when Lucretius comes to explain theoccurrence of emotions, he does so by reference to the atoms whichconstitute the mind. When one is angry this is because of the heat in the
psuchê and when one is frightened, this is the result of its coldness, ‘thecompanion of fear, which excites fright in the limbs and rouses the frame’(III.288–93). Here there is a material explanation for the effects of theemotion. When one is afraid and one’s limbs shake, this can be explainedby reference to the cold, the ‘companion’ of fear. For the emotion to havethe effects it does—and that psychological states have causes and effects isthe datum from which Epicurean theorising about the
psuchê begins—theremust be atomic events which determine those effects.In trying to understand Epicurus’ natural science, it is tempting to thinkthat he must be a reductionist just because he espouses atomism—whichcan strike the contemporary reader as somehow an intrinsically ‘scientific’theory of matter. This temptation should be resisted, however. There is nosign that Epicurus attempted to identify, say, the mental properties orevents of people with their atomic properties or events. The cold is, afterall, only the companion of fear and not the emotion itself. In this respect,Epicurus is perhaps more Aristotelian than he is sometimes given credit forbeing—for Aristotle too accepted a genuine role for material explanationwithin his natural science and psychology. Aristotle distinguished efficientcausation from material causation: changes involving material substancesare to be explained both by reference to the capacities of the agent andpatient of the change and to the underlying material events on which thechanges supervene. That Epicurus maintains an atomic theory of matterrather than one according to which matter is continuous, and that herenounces a teleological explanation of natural phenomena, puts nopressure on him to give up the distinction between efficient and materialcauses—and there is good reason to think that he does not give it up (evenif he does not continue with the terminology). For if it is the properties ofthe
psuchê which have causes and effects, and if Epicurus does not identifythose properties with the arrangements of atoms which generate thoseproperties but still thinks that the operations of the
psuchê can beexplained by reference to the arrangements of its constituent atoms, then,like Aristotle, he must distinguish antecedent causes from material causesand allow both a role in the determination of changes.
ACTION AND RESPONSIBILITYLucretius gives the following account of the causation of action:Now I shall tell you…how it comes about that we can take stepsforward when we want to, how we have the power to move ourlimbs, and what it is that habitually thrusts forward this great bulkthat is our body. First, let me say, images
(simulacra) of walkingimpinge on our mind and strike it, as I explained earlier.<sup>5</sup> It is after thisthat volition occurs. For no one ever embarks upon any action beforethe mind first previews what it wishes to do, and for whatever it isthat it previews there exists an image of that thing. So when the mindstirs itself to want to go forwards, it immediately strikes all the powerof the spirit distributed all over the body throughout all the limbs andframe: it is easily done because the spirit is firmly interlinked with it.Then the spirit in turn strikes the body, and thus gradually the wholebulk is pushed forward and moved.(IV.877–91)Here we have, as we should now expect, an account of what happens whenwe act which makes use of a mixture of both psychological and materialcausation. In order to walk, for instance, the person needs to form theintention to walk, and so needs to think about walking. For this to happen,he must have an image, or images, of walking and these come in the formof
eidôla from outside.<sup>6</sup> These images have both a psychological and amaterial aspect: they are constituted by atoms whose impact on the mind willhave mechanical effects, but they are pictorial in that they present an imageto the mind. As the mind decides to walk, it transmits an impulse to thespirit which in its turn strikes the relevant parts of the body so that theymove. We thus have a story which can be told at two levels. Mechanically,the atoms of the image strike those of the mind which impact those of thespirit which impact those of the body, whilst, psychologically, the mindresponds to the image of walking by deciding to walk, thus causing theperson to walk. The person walks because he decides to (and, in order todecide to, he must think about walking). This causal explanation is takento be consistent with the determination of these psychological events by thematerial events which underlie them.Allowing that psychological events are determined by the movements ofthe atoms which constitute the person’s
psuchê and body, however, wastaken by some to raise the threat of a determinism inconsistent with moralresponsibility. Epicurus deals with this threat in the remnants of Book 25of his
De Natura. There he distinguishes between a person’s atomicconstitution and what he calls ‘developments’—and it is in virtue of thelatter that we are responsible for actions (XXXIV.21–2 Ar2 (LS 20B)). Thepassage is notoriously obscure, but it is most happily read as providing aresponse to someone who seeks to excuse bad behaviour as the result ofmaterial causation, that is, as brought about by the motions of one’sconstituent atoms. Epicurus is thus not concerned with the sort ofdeterminist argument against moral responsibility which has become morefamiliar—that if our actions are caused by our mental states, which arethemselves caused, then we are cannot be held responsible for how we act.Epicurus, like Aristotle, does not think that the fact that our actions are theeffects of our practical deliberations provides any reason at all to deny thatwe are responsible for them. His response to his opponent here is to pointout that our actions are not, or not only, determined by the motions of ourconstituent atoms, but by the ‘developments’, which, presumably, are ourpsychological states. The determinist’s mistake is to seek to explain ouractions only by reference to their material causes, and so to leave out ofaccount the psychological states which are the antecedent causes of ouractions.Some have seen in this an Epicurean rejection of physicalism—a denialthat our psychological states are in fact determined by the motions of ourconstituent atoms.<sup>7</sup> This is not required by the text, however, and would,as we have seen, go against the position we find implied elsewhere.Moreover, when Epicurus does move to deny determinism as such, he doesso by positing indeterminacy at the atomic level. So, Cicero reports that, inorder to avoid ‘the necessity of fate’, Epicurus posits an atomic swerve,fearing that ‘if the atom’s motion was always the result of natural andnecessary weight, we would have no freedom, since the mind would bemoved in whatever way it was compelled by the motion of atoms’ (
De Fato22–3 (LS 20 E2–3)). Thus Epicurus, it seems, modified his atomic theory sothat not only could atomic motion result from the atom’s own weight, andfrom the impacts of other atoms, but it could also occur spontaneously as aminimal deviation from its existing trajectory—a swerve. This wasintroduced in order to preserve the ascription of moral responsibility.Epicurus seems to have accepted that if all atomic events were determinedby previous atomic events, and if psychological events were determined byatomic events, then we could not properly ascribe responsibility to peoplefor their actions. In order to preserve the
prolêpsis that we are soresponsible, he modifies the atomic theory so as to introduce indeterminacyat certain points, so that the chains of causation do not stretch backinfinitely. That he was driven to this, however, confirms rather than castsdoubt on the thesis that atomic events determine psychological events,since, if this were not so, there would be no need to deny that all atomicevents are determined.It is difficult to regard Epicurus’ doctrine of the swerve as a greatsuccess. For, even if it does introduce indeterminacy into his system, itwould not seem to do so in the right way. For, whilst it will serve to denythat there are infinite chains of atomic causes, it does nothing in itself tomake these relevant to the determination of mental events and of actions,and it is difficult to see how Epicurus thought the mere denial of infinitecausal chains of atomic events could make a relevant and constantdifference to the determination of actions.<sup>8</sup> It is hard here not to supportCarneades’ judgement, reported by Cicero, that in fact Epicurus did notneed his swerve, but, having accepted that ‘a certain voluntary motion ofthe mind was possible’, this in itself provided what was needed againstthose who would deny that we are responsible for our actions: ‘a defenceof that doctrine was preferable to introducing the swerve, especially as theycould not discover its cause’ (Cicero,
De Fato, 23 (LS 20E4)).
PLEASURE AND THE GOOD LIFEEpicurus thus sees no conflict between the thought that we are materialsubstances whose behaviour can be explained by reference to themovements of our constituent atoms, and the fact that we are capable ofintentional action and practical deliberation. Such deliberation, accordingto Epicurus, is always conducted by reference to pleasure: ‘we recognisepleasure as the good which is primary and congenital; from it we beginevery choice and avoidance, and we come back to it, using the affection asthe yardstick for judging every good thing’ (
Men. 129). Whenever we act,we do so to gain some pleasure, and our actions will be successful in so faras they achieve this. Pleasure and pain, the ‘primary affections’; are, weremember, Epicurus’ third criterion of truth, along with perceptions and
prolêpseis—they have the same kind of epistemic reliability as these otherstates.<sup>9</sup> If something seems pleasurable to someone, then it is pleasant, andif it seems painful, it is indeed painful.That pleasant things are to be pursued and painful things avoided isevident to anything which is capable of experiencing pleasure and pain: ‘assoon as it is born, every animal seeks after pleasure and rejoices in it as thegreatest good, while it rejects pain as the greatest bad and, as far aspossible, avoids it; and it does this when it is not yet corrupted, on theinnocent and sound judgement of nature itself’ (Cicero
De Finibus 1.30 (LS21A2)). This ‘cradle argument’ should not be taken simply to express anunhappy prejudice in favour of untrained, infantile or animal tastes: thepoint is that the badness of pain, and the goodness of pleasure, are evidentsimply in their perception. The judgement is ‘nature’s’ because it isdelivered by the causal interaction with the world around us: it is notsomething whose truth needs to be established by theorising. ‘[Epicurus]thinks these matters are sensed just like the heat of fire, the whiteness ofsnow and the sweetness of honey, none of which needs confirmation byelaborate arguments’ (I.29).This provides the foundation for Epicurus’ account of the good life,which he identifies with a life of pleasure (properly conceived). Hemaintains, that is, not just that pleasure is a good but that it is the highestgood, the final end of action. This is stated clearly by Torquatus, thespokesman for the Epicurean school in Cicero’s
De Finibus:We are investigating what is the final and ultimate good, which as allphilosophers agree must be of such and such a kind that it is the endto which everything is the means, but is not in itself the means toanything. Epicurus situates this in pleasure, which he wants to be thegreatest good, with pain the greatest bad.(I.29 (LS 21A1))The terms here are Aristotelian, and it was indeed Aristotle’s discussion ofhappiness
(eudaimonia) which set the terms for Hellenistic ethicaldiscussions. According to Aristotle, happiness is formally the final end ofaction: it is something which cannot be chosen for the sake of anythingelse, whereas other things are chosen for its sake. Thus, ‘we call that whichis never desirable for the sake of something else more final than the thingswhich are desirable both in themselves and for the sake of that other thing,and therefore we call final without qualification that which is alwaysdesirable in itself and never for the sake of something else’ (
EthicaNicomachea 1.7, 1097a31–5). That happiness is final without qualificationis a formal condition on any substantive account of happiness, andAristotle’s own substantive account satisfies this by distinguishing betweenthose things which are desirable both for themselves and for the sake ofhappiness—such as virtue, intellectual activity and pleasure—andhappiness, which is only valuable for itself. One achieves happinessprecisely by engaging in those activities and having those things which areintrinsically valuable and are thus the components of happiness.The difference between the Aristotelian and Epicurean conceptions ofhappiness will immediately be apparent. Aristotle, like Epicurus, takespleasure to be something intrinsically valuable (although he would notaccept the claim that our perceptions of what is pleasant are incorrigible),but whilst he places pleasure as a constituent of happiness, along withother goods, Epicurus moves actually to identify it with happiness. Afurther formal condition which Aristotle set down for any account ofhappiness was that a happy life should be ‘self-sufficient’—that is, it mustbe such that it lacks nothing of value (otherwise there would a better goodwhich would consist of happiness together with whatever it lacks, and thisfurther good would then be more final than happiness itself). The dangerfor Epicurus’ identification of happiness with pleasure is that it will fail tomeet this condition, because it will leave out of account those things otherthan pleasure which are intrinsically valuable, thus allowing a life whichincluded these as well to be better than a life of pleasure. To make good hisidentification of the final end with pleasure, Epicurus will need to showeither that other things are not in fact intrinsic goods or that, even if someare, we can, and perhaps always do, also desire these things for the sake ofpleasure.There is no reason in principle why Epicurus’ conception of happinessshould be radically less complex than that offered by Aristotle. Whether itis will depend, in part, on how he understands the relation betweenpleasure and what affords it. So, if he were to think of pleasure as a feelingor sensation which is produced in one by doing things, then his account ofhappiness would certainly be more simple than Aristotle’s: a happy lifewould just be one in which the subject enjoyed a great deal of that feeling,and enjoying that feeling would be the only thing worth pursuing. Otherthings will only be instrumentally valuable—valuable just in so far as theygive rise to this feeling. If, alternatively, he were to identify pleasure withpleasurable activity, or make the degree and quality of the pleasuredependent on the type of activity which produces it, then his idea of whathappiness would be like need not be substantially different fromAristotle’s. The happy life could just be one which involved the enjoymentof valuable activities, where the activities are pleasurable precisely becausethey are themselves valuable. This would allow Epicurus, for instance, totreat virtuous activity as Aristotle does—something which is desirable initself and, for that reason, something which can be chosen for the sake ofhappiness.These different conceptions of pleasure will result in accounts ofhappiness which differ in another respect as well. Treating pleasure as afeeling leads naturally to a subjective account of happiness, for if one takespleasure to be a feeling which can be produced indifferently by variousthings, then those activities will be pleasurable for someone just if theyhappen to produce that feeling in him, and there is no reason to requirethat the same activities will be pleasant for everyone. Although it will bethe case that for everyone to lead a happy life is to enjoy (a great deal of)the feeling, how one acts to achieve that can differ between people. If,alternatively, one takes pleasure to be dependent on the value of theactivities and experiences which give rise to it, then one might be able tospecify those activities and experiences which will be part of a happy forlife for anyone.When we turn to consider what Epicurus has to say about pleasures, itwould seem that he is no subjectivist:So when we say that pleasure is the end, we do not mean the pleasuresof the dissipated and those that consist in having a good time, assome out of ignorance and disagreement or refusal to understandsuppose we do, but freedom from pain in the body and fromdisturbance in the soul. For what produces the pleasant life is notcontinuous drinking and parties or pederasty or womanising or theenjoyment of fish and the other dishes of an expensive table, but soberreasoning which tracks down the causes of every choice andavoidance, and which banishes the beliefs that beset souls with thegreatest confusion.(
Men. 131–2 (LS 21A5))Someone whose life was focused on what are sometimes called thepleasures ‘of the flesh’ would not, according to Epicurus, achieve happinessthrough these. His conceptions of happiness and of pleasure, then, are notsympathetic to the idea that it does not matter how one lives if one is to behappy, so long as what one does produces pleasure.This is not because he thinks, as some have, that such pleasures are notgenuine pleasures or denies that they are good. Rather, as this passagesuggests, they turn out to be the wrong kind of pleasure to be identifiedwith the final end. They are, that is, kinetic pleasures, whereas the states heidentifies with being happy,
aponia and
ataraxia, freedom from bodily andmental pains, are what he calls
katastematic, or static, pleasures. In the
DeFinibus the distinction is illustrated by the difference between the pleasureone gets from quenching thirst and the pleasure of having had one’s thirstquenched (II.9). The first is an active pleasure—a pleasure of doingsomething or, perhaps, having something happen to one—whilst the secondis static and results from the absence of pain or distress. It is not clear fromour sources whether Epicurus thinks that whenever we have satisfied adesire there is a corresponding static pleasure; this would perhaps be asomewhat odd thing to think (how long would such a pleasure last?).Instead of taking the pleasure to be that, for instance, of having quenchedone’s thirst (a different static pleasure from that of, say, having satisfiedone’s hunger), one could rather take it to be the condition one is in whenone has no unsatisfied desires and is not in pain or distress. If one werethirsty, then one would need to drink to achieve this, and if one werehungry, one would need to eat. The static pleasure which would result inthe two cases would be the same (and its achievement would be contingenton the absence of other causes of bodily distress).The importance of the distinguishing between kinetic and
katastematicpleasure is that it makes more plausible the identification of happiness,objectively conceived, with pleasure. According to Torquatus in the
DeFinibus, the greatest pleasure we experience is not any kind ofgratification, but what is perceived once all pain has been removed: ‘Forwhen we are freed from pain, we rejoice in the actual freedom and absenceof all distress’ (
De Finibus 1.37). Pleasure is the necessary consequence ofthe removal of pain, since there are no states which are neither painful norpleasurable. This thesis is central to Epicurus’ hedonism. Whenever one isnot suffering from pain or distress, one will be in a state of pleasure, and,further, this condition is not one which can be made more pleasurable:‘Epicurus, moreover, supposes that complete absence of pain marks the limitof the greatest pleasure, so that thereafter pleasure can be varied anddifferentiated but not increased and expanded’ (
De Finibus 1.38).<sup>10</sup> Thus,the combination of
aponia, the absence of bodily pain, and
ataraxia, theabsence of mental distress, places one in a condition which one cannotrationally wish to improve. Once one has achieved these, life cannot getany better.At first sight this looks very odd. Epicurus accepts that every pleasure issomething good (
Men. 129), and this must include kinetic as well as staticpleasures, but seems to deny that one’s life can be made better by pursuingmore kinetic pleasures. Whilst pleasure is a good, it is not the case thatmore pleasures are better. That one should find this paradoxical is a sign,for Epicurus, that one has misunderstood the nature of pleasure, and sowill not be able to organise one’s life to achieve what he takes everyone toaim at, i.e. the most pleasant life. For to pursue different kinetic pleasuresas a means to achieving a more pleasurable life assumes that one can be ina state which is intermediate between pleasure and pain—and this, ofcourse, is just what Epicurus denies. As long as one is not in pain ordistress, then one is in a state of pleasure, and since there are not degrees—but merely varieties of—pleasure, one’s state cannot be improved byadding particular kinetic pleasures.
Aponia and
ataraxia thus together constitute happiness, which is the finalend of action—that for which everything else is desired. Now, one couldgrant happiness this status without having to claim that whenever one actsone does so in order to achieve it. The claim could merely be that whilst allothers goods can intelligibly be chosen for the sake of happiness, it cannotbe chosen for the sake of anything else. Epicurus, however, seems tomaintain the stronger thesis. Having identified happiness with
aponia and
ataraxia, he claims that achieving these is the goal of every action: ‘this iswhat we aim at in all our actions—to be free from pain and anxiety’ (
Men.127 (LS 21B1)). Again, this seems an absurdly strong thesis to hold. Atleast generally, one’s desires are for more specific things, such as eating orsleeping or listening to music or playing soccer—and even if one were toaccept that in pursuing such things one was thereby aiming at achieving agood life, it is vastly implausible that their role in achieving this higher endis because they free one from pain. Epicurus, however, does not need tomaintain that we always do, in fact, act in order to achieve
aponia or
ataraxia: his claim need be only that when we act, we always do so inorder to get some pleasure or other. However, once we understand thenature of the static pleasures, we will see that these can, and should,provide the goal for our practical reasoning. Thus, he is clear that whilstall pleasures are good, not all are choiceworthy, so that whilst one alwayshas some reason to choose something which will afford pleasure, there canbe stronger reason not to choose it. ‘No pleasure is something bad
per se:but what produces some pleasures produces stresses many times greaterthan the pleasures’ (
KD 8 (LS 21D1)). Thus, the rational agent will resistsome pleasures because satisfying the desire for them will lead to greateroverall distress than leaving it unsatisfied. If such calculations are to beproperly made, the choice must be referred to the goal of achieving
aponiaand
ataraxia.To help with the successful pursuit of that goal, Epicurus classifiesdesires into three classes: ‘Some desires are natural and necessary, somenatural but not necessary, whilst others are neither natural nor necessarybut arise from empty belief’ (
KD 29). This is explicated by a
scholionwhich has survived in our manuscripts of Diogenes Laertius’ text, whichreports that the first class of desires are for things which bring relief frompain, the second for things which will vary pleasure rather than removepain, and the third are for such things as crowns and the erection of statues(DL X.149 (LS 21I)). In the
Letter to Menoeceus, Epicurus himself expandson what it is for a desire to be necessary: ‘of the necessary, some arenecessary for happiness, others for the body’s freedom from stress, andothers for life itself’ (
Men. 127 (LS 21B1). This classification of desires isnot immediately obvious—in particular, it is not obvious how a desire canbe natural without being necessary. If what it is for a desire to be natural isfor it to be such that, given our nature, we cannot avoid having it, thenhow could such a desire not be necessary? Taking our cue from Epicurus’own explication of necessary desires, we should think of necessary desireshere as desires whose satisfaction is necessary for happiness,
aponia orsurvival. These desires will not be as specific as, for instance, is the desirefor some expensive food. What is necessary for survival is just the desire toeat. Nevertheless, the desire to eat an expensive food is clearly notunrelated to that necessary desire but is rather a specific instance or versionof it.<sup>11</sup> Epicurus can thus intelligibly take it to inherit its naturalness fromthe more general desire, although its satisfaction is not necessary for theperson’s survival. Indeed it is not important for its being non-necessarythat it should be a desire for some expensive food: all particular types offood are such that a desire for them is not necessary. This is why Epicurusrecommends that we stick to the more general desires, since the moregeneral the desire, the less likely it is to go unsatisfied.<sup>12</sup> (Of course, desiresfor expensive things are, in the normal course of things, more likely to gounsatisfied than desires for things which are cheap and readily available.)All desires are either natural or empty, and empty desires according to
KD 29 are empty because they are based on ‘empty’ belief. We knowfrom Epicurus’ methodological discussions that empty beliefs are falsebeliefs which are not secured by reference to the criteria of truth. Thus, toreject a perception will be to confound perceptions with ‘empty belief’ andso actually to lose the criterion of perception altogether (
KD 24 (LS17B1)), and if one does not grasp the relevant
prolêpsis, the words one useswill also be ‘empty’ (
Hdt. 37 (LS 17C1)). Emptiness in one’s beliefs andlanguage is the consequence of not securing them on the criteria of truth. Asempty words are words which do not succeed in picking anything out, andempty beliefs are those which do not correspond to how things are, soempty desires will be those which are not for things which are genuinelypleasant. Thus, Epicurus can allow that people can have desires which arisefrom bad evaluative theories of the world—so that, for instance, they arepersuaded, in whatever way, that crowns and public renown arepleasurable things to have—and they will not in fact gain pleasure from thesatisfaction of these desires. Thus, although Epicurus accepts the primaryaffections of pleasure and pain as criteria of truth, this does not force himto accept that anything anyone believes to be pleasant is so, since suchbeliefs can be, and no doubt often are, unsecured by the appearances.<sup>13</sup>
THE GOOD LIFE AND OTHERSFor Epicurus, then, as for Aristotle, happiness is the central notion forpractical reasoning. One worry for a theory of this kind is that it can seemto provide a necessarily selfish account of practical reasoning, since it looksas if all actions are ultimately to be judged by reference to whether theycontribute to the agent’s own well-being. Aristotle escapes this—as do theStoics after him, who identify happiness with virtue—because he takes theconstituents of happiness to be desirable in themselves: they areconstituents of happiness just because their value is autonomous. Thus inorder for virtuous activity to contribute to the agent’s happiness, it must bechosen for its own sake, and not merely as something instrumental to hishappiness. The virtuous person will indeed take pleasure in actingvirtuously, but this pleasure comes from his awareness that he is actingwell, that he is doing what he has reason to do anyway, and does notmotivate his action. It is less clear that Epicurus, in identifying happinesswith pleasure, even the static pleasures of
ataraxia and
aponia, cansimilarly escape the charge that he renders all practical reasoning ultimatelyselfish, concerned only with the good of the agent himself.The difference in principle between the two accounts can perhaps behelpfully illustrated by a non-ethical component of Aristotelian happiness:intellectual activity. Aristotle takes such activity to be the highest activityof which we are capable, and so the most valuable. Because of this, gaininga scientific understanding of the world is the most pleasurable activityand a component of the good life. For Epicurus, in contrast, understandingthe world is not something autonomously valuable: if we were not alarmedby celestial phenomena and the prospect of death, there would be no needto study natural science (
KD 11). Such study is necessary, since ‘one wouldnot be able to banish fear about the most important things, if one did notknow the nature of the whole universe’ (
KD 12). People have a fear of thedivine and of death, and they need to come to understand the nature of thegods and of the
psuchê to see that neither of these fears is justified. If thegods exist at all, they lead a completely happy life, unconcerned withhuman lives and so of no threat to human happiness. Similarly, once onerecognises that the
pshchê perishes at the death of the person, one will seethat one cannot be harmed after death and so death is ‘nothing to us’.<sup>14</sup>However, if we were not inclined to take cosmic events as signs of divinewrath or to think of death as a grave harm, we should have no need tounderstand the nature of the universe. The study of natural science isuseful just because it dispels mental distress and so helps to achieve
ataraxia. Its value is merely instrumental to the achievement of pleasureand thus happiness.Of course, this difference between Aristotle and Epicurus might havearisen just because Epicurus took a more philistine attitude to intellectualactivity than did Aristotle, but it certainly exemplifies a general concernwith his account of happiness. So, he says that ‘if you fail to refer each ofyour actions on every occasion to nature’s end, and stop short at somethingelse in choosing or avoiding, your actions will not be consequential onyour theories’ (
KD 25 (LS 21E)). From this it looks very much as ifEpicurus sets up as the over-arching principle of practical reasoning thatwhenever one acts one should do so in order to achieve pleasure foroneself. This was indeed the view of practical deliberation we findattributed to the Cyrenaics, who denied that happiness was the final end ofaction and who thought that one should act towards other people just soas to gain the most pleasure and least pain for oneself.<sup>15</sup> Epicurus, however,was no Cyrenaic and precisely seems to have wanted to allow that one canrationally be concerned with the good of others. The difficulty is seeinghow this might be so, given his hedonism.Thus, Epicurus placed great store in the importance of friendship, sayingthat even though it will at least initially be motivated by utility, it isnevertheless something intrinsically valuable (
Vatican Sayings 23).However, if one’s relationships with other people are motivated andcontrolled by a concern for one’s own pleasure, then whateverrelationships they are, they won’t be much like friendships. It is clear froma passage in
De Finibus I that the Epicureans were themselves worried bythis, since Torquatus there reports different Epicurean accounts of therelationship between pleasure and friendship (without, unfortunately,ascribing any to Epicurus himself). Some, it seems, bit the bullet andallowed that ‘the pleasures which belong to friends are not as desirable
perse as those we desire as our own’ (
De Finibus 1.66 (LS 2201)). Evenaccording to these Epicureans, however, we come to care about our friendsas much as we do for ourselves, even though our concern is mediated byour own pleasures:Without friendship we are quite unable to secure a joy in life which issteady and lasting, nor can we preserve friendship itself unless welove friends as much as ourselves. Therefore friendship involves boththis latter and the link with pleasure. For we rejoice in our friends’joy as much as in our own and are equally pained by their distress.The wise man, therefore, will have just the same feelings towards hisfriend that he has for himself, and he will work as much for his friend’spleasure as he would for his own.(
De Finibus I.66–7 (LS 22 O))This, however, seems to restate and preserve the problem rather than toresolve it, maintaining both that one has to care about one’s friend for hisown sake and that one’s own pleasures are more desirable
per se than thoseof one’s friend.Of course, the fact that one treats something as having value in itselfdoes not commit one to thinking that it has as much value as other thingsone values: one could accept that one’s friend’s pleasure is
per se desirablewhilst denying that it is as
per se desirable as one’s own pleasure.However, this would not provide a satisfactory reconciliation. One wouldhardly think someone a proper friend if he were willing to promote one’sinterests just so long as they never conflicted with his own. In fact twodifferent strategies are suggested in the text for reconciling hedonism andthe demands of friendship. The first is to maintain both that a friendship issomething which is in one’s own overall interests, but also that it cannot beconducted unless one does take one’s friend’s interests to have equal valueto one’s own. Thus, as a matter of practical rationality, one would decide,in respect of one’s friend, to put into abeyance the general principle ofreferring every action to the criterion of one’s own pleasure, allowing thefriend’s interests equal weight with one’s own. The second way would be toappeal to the psychological fact that one comes to be co-affected with thefriend: one comes to rejoice in one’s friend’s joy as much as in one’s ownand to be equally pained by his distress. Once this has happened, one canin fact appeal to the principle of pursuing one’s own pleasure in order toact in the interests of one’s friend, since, for instance, knowing that he ishungry or thirsty will disturb one’s own pleasure as much as if one werehungry or thirsty oneself.Whilst this is consistent with maintaining that one’s own pleasure ismore desirable
per se than that of other people, one can see why otherEpicureans might have felt it unstable. These Epicureans, according toTorquatus, ‘though intelligent enough, are a little more timid in facing thecriticisms from you Academics: they are afraid that if we regard friendshipas desirable just for own pleasure, it will seem to be completely crippled’(
De Finibus 1.69 (LS 22 O)). It would be at least slightly odd to maintainthat one does have as much reason to promote one’s friend’s interests asone’s own, but only because one will be pained as much as he will if onedoes not. Thus, the second Epicurean response is to allow that whilst onedoes first make contact with people and form relationships with them forthe sake of one’s own pleasure, once ‘advancing familiarity has producedintimacy, affection blossoms to such an extent that friends come to beloved just for their own sake even if no advantage arises from thefriendship’ (
De Finibus 1.69 (LS 22 O)). This is a more interesting, ifperhaps less subtle, position than the first, and accords with what Epicurushimself seems to have said in
VS 23. It is more interesting, because it seemsto allow the extension of the goodness of pleasure from oneself to otherpeople. That is, in coming to love the friend for himself, his interests inthemselves will provide one with reasons for action. One can still referone’s actions to the criterion of whether they produce pleasure, but therange of relevant pleasures will have been extended to include those ofone’s friend. It is not, of course, that one will not take pleasure in his wellbeing,but, in contrast to the first view, this is no longer the motivation forparticular acts of friendship.There is nothing in Epicurus’ account of pleasure to provide an obstacleto such an extension: certainly we need first to experience our ownpleasure in order to understand its nature, but, having grasped that, we canthen understand what it is for someone else to gain pleasure and recognisethis as a good. We do not, however, find in Epicurus any wholesale movein this direction as we do, say, in Mill: there is no attempt to argue thathaving come to recognise the goodness of pleasure, we should recognisethat it is equally good whoever’s pleasure it is. Our ability to love the friendfor himself comes about because we are close to him, and there is noargument to the effect that we should seek to extend this sort of concernbeyond our friends.If Epicurus allowed this move to secure his account of friendship, it wasnot available to him when he came to place the virtues within the good life.This is a particular difficulty in the case of justice, since this requires thatone take into account the interests of other people even when one has noaffection for them. However, just as Epicurus was concerned to reconcilehis official hedonism with the practices of friendship, so he assiduouslymaintained that it was compatible with virtue. Indeed, he maintained thatthe happy life was not possible unless the agent was virtuous. So, prudence‘teaches’ that one cannot live pleasurably without living prudently,honourably and justly, and if one lives prudently, honourably and justly,one must live happily: ‘for the virtues are naturally linked with livingpleasurably, and living pleasurably is inseparable from them’ (
Men. 132(LS 21B6)). One’s first reaction to this, however, is that it is just too blithe:one wants to know how it is that prudence—practical rationality—teachesthis, and Epicurus does not go on to provide an argument here. As we haveseen, Aristotle could allow that acting virtuously can contribute to one’shappiness just because such activity is intrinsically valuable. The virtuousagent will indeed take pleasure in acting virtuously. This is where Epicurus’identification of happiness with the static pleasures causes difficulty—forthe pleasure of acting well, even if he recognised it, would be a kineticpleasure, and thus not something which could be a component ofhappiness. Although he avoids the dangers of subjective hedonism byidentifying happiness with
aponia and
ataraxia, the effect of thisidentification is to make difficult any attempt to bring acting in otherpeople’s interests within the sphere of the agent’s own happiness (except inthe case of friendship).So, although the Epicurean wise man will, we are told, act in accordancewith virtue, this has to be just because he is himself better off by doing so,and not because he recognises any reason to do so which is independent ofhis own well-being. In
De Finibus I (42–54), Torquatus is duly at pains toshow that the Epicurean will act virtuously. So, we are told that vices suchas rashness, lust, cowardice and injustice trouble the mind by their verypresence (50). Moreover, if one acts unjustly, one can never know that thiswill not be discovered, and so one will be troubled by the possibility ofpunishment. As Torquatus points out, reasonably enough, someone whohas attenuated his desires in line with the Epicurean injunction to followonly those which are natural and necessary will in fact have little reason toact unjustly (52–3). Nevertheless, properly speaking, justice is not to bechosen for itself, but because it provides pleasure (53). It does so because ifone treats other people properly, one will gain their affection, which ispleasant in itself, and one’s life will be made more secure. Thus, althoughEpicurus recognises that there are requirements of justice—requirementswhich he seems to have taken to be generated by social contracts—he doesnot allow that these do not provide reasons for action because justice is initself a good thing (or injustice a bad thing,
KD 34 (LS 22A4)) but ratherbecause acting unjustly will produce more distress than acting justly: ‘Thejust life is most free from disturbance, but the unjust life is full of thegreatest disturbance’ (
KD 17 (LS 22B3)).Epicurus’ theory of the good life is thus a strange mixture of therevisionary and the conservative. It is perhaps in its account of pleasure thatit is most revisionary: the states of
aponia and
ataraxia, the staticpleasures, look very unlike the sort of things which had ben taken to bepleasures. Having set these up as the pleasures which are constitutive ofhappiness, however, Epicurus is then able to provide hedonistic argumentsfor restricting the rational agent’s pursuit of kinetic pleasures: once one hasachieved them, one’s well-being cannot be increased through the addition ofmore of the latter. This prevents the Epicurean from espousing a viewaccording to which one will be happier the greater number of pleasures onecan experience. Given this, it is indeed plausible enough to think that theEpicurean wise man will in fact lead a life which does not violate thenorms of virtue (although it will no doubt be easy enough to imaginesituations where he might). However, Epicurus does not manage to showthat his account of the good can accommodate the idea that the virtuespresent reasons for action which are autonomous: when the Epicurean actsvirtuously this is because he regards this as the most effective means ofachieving
ataraxia. In the case of friendship, Epicurus is able to allowgenuinely altruistic action because of the fact that one can come to care asmuch about the friend’s well-being as one does about one’s own. In thecase of justice, however, his motivational concerns are not ultimatelydisplaced from his own well-being.
ABBREVIATIONSSources frequently quoted are abbreviated as follows:
DL Diogenes Laertius,
Lives of the Philosophers. X=book 10
Hdt. Epicurus,
Letter to HerodotusKD Epicurus,
Kyriai Doxai (Key Doctrines)Math. Sextus Empiricus,
Adversus mathematicosMen. Epicurus,
Letter to MenoeceusPyth. Epicurus,
Letter to PythoclesVS Vaticanae sententiae (words of Epicurus found only in a Vatican MS)
NOTES1 Where possible—and, fortunately, this is frequently—I cite the translationgiven by Long and Sedley [6.3] in their
The Hellenistic Philosophers,although I have very occasionally adapted their translations. Thus ‘LS 5A’refers to passage A in section 5 of that work. I have done this not merely outof laziness, but because it seems to me helpful if the texts one cites, even intranslation, have an existence which is independent of their employment in aparticular context, so that the reader can more readily check up on howproperly they are employed. Of course, one still needs to remember that theseare translations of the real thing and not the thing itself.2 In fact the argument as it stands is not a good one, even for the weakerconclusion, since it might well be that a series of perceptions cancumulatively provide compelling evidence against a single deviant perception,particularly if one has a theory of how that perception was produced. Theargument would seem to miss the point, for instance, of Aristotelianwarnings against accepting the perceptions of sick people rather thanproviding a rebuttal of such a strategy.3 For the claim that all would travel downwards see Lucretius I.984–991 (LS1064), and for the claim that all atoms travel at the same speed, see
Hdt. 61(LS 11 E1).4 Perhaps it is helpful here just to clarify a distinction between what I shall call‘materialism’ and what I shall call ‘physicalism’. I take a materialist thesis toconcern substances: materialism about a certain kind of substance requiresthat one accept that substances of that kind have a material constitution.Physicalism, in contrast, is concerned with the relation between events (andperhaps states of affairs), and will give some sort of priority to physicalevents. Although Epicurus is straightforwardly a materialist about the
psuchê,it is not yet obvious whether he thinks that, for instance, psychological eventsare determined by physical (in context, atomic) events.5 Lucretius
De rerum natura IV.722 ff.6 It is not just perception which requires the impact of external
eidôla, but allappearances and thoughts.7 This is argued by David Sedley in his ‘Epicurean anti-reductionism’, in J.Barnesand M.Mignucci (eds) [6.8].8 Long and Sedley argue that volition itself can cause an atomic swerve, butthere is no direct evidence for this, and if it were correct then all Epicurus’opponents on this matter would be guilty of
ignoratio elenchi.9 See Sextus
Math. VII.203, cited above p. 193.10 Cf.
KD 3: ‘The removal of all pain is the limit of the magnitude of pleasures.Wherever pleasure is present, as long as it is there, pain or distress or theircombination is absent.’11 This elucidation here is the same as that offered by Julia Annas [6.18],Chapter 11.12 See
Men. 130–2(LS 2164–6).13 Even non-necessary natural desires can arise from empty beliefs (when,however strongly felt, their frustration would not lead to pain—
KD 30 (LS21E3)): presumably the thought is that one might form a strong desire, say,to listen to minimalist music because it was fashionable, so that this desire,although a specific version of a natural and necessary desire, would not giverise to pleasure when satisfied.14 ‘Accustom yourself to the belief that death is nothing to us. For all good andevil lie in perception, whereas death is the absence of perception. Hence acorrect understanding that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of lifeenjoyable, not by adding infinite time, but by ridding us of the desire forimmortality. For there is nothing fearful in living for one who genuinelygrasps there is nothing fearful in not living’ (
Men. 124 (LS 24A1)).15 Pleasures for the Cyrenaics were firmly of the kinetic kind—they had notruck with taking such things as
aponia and
ataraxia to be genuine pleasures.
BIBLIOGRAPHYITEMS RELEVANT TO CHAPTERS 6–8Texts and translations6.1 Diogenes Laertius,
Lives of Eminent Philosophers, edited and trans. by R.D.Hicks, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1925, reprinted withnew introductory material 1972; especially book 4 (Sceptics), book 7(Stoics), book 10 (Epicurus).6.2 Sextus Empiricus,
Outlines of Pyrrhonism and
Adversus Mathematicos (=
Against the Logicians, Against the Physicists, Against the Ethicists,Against the Professors), trans. by R.G.Bury, Loeb Classical Library, HarvardUniversity Press, 1933–49 (repr. 1976–87).6.3 Long, A.A. and Sedley, D.N.,
The Hellenistic Philosophers, 2 vols,Cambridge University Press, 1987. Selected texts, with English translation,commentary, and bibliography.6.4
Hellenistic Philosophy: Introductory Readings trans. by Inwood, B. andGerson, L.R., Indianapolis, Hackett, 1988.
Proceedings of the Symposium Hellenisticum6.5 Schofield, M., Burnyeat, M., Barnes, J., eds,
Doubt and Dogmatism: Studiesin Hellenistic Epistemology, Oxford, 1980.6.6 Barnes, J., Brunschwig, J., Burnyeat, M., eds,
Science and Speculation:Studies in Hellenistic Theory and Practice, Cambridge/Paris, 1982.6.7 Schofield, M. and Striker, G., eds,
The Norms of Nature: Studies inHellenistic Ethics, Cambridge/Paris, 1986.6.8 Barnes, J., and Mignucci, M., eds,
Matter and Metaphysics, Naples,Bibliopolis, 1988.6.9 Brunschwig, J. and Nussbaum, M., eds,
Passions and Perceptions: Studies inHellenistic Philosophy of Mind, Cambridge, 1993.6.10 Laks, A. and Schofield, M.
, Justice and Generosity: Studies in HellenisticSocial and Political Philosophy, Cambridge, 1995.
Other collections of essays6. 11 Brunschwig, J.,
Papers in Hellenistic Philosophy, Cambridge, 1994.6.12 Flashar, H., Gigon, O. and Kidd, I.G.,
Aspects de la philosophieHellénistique, Geneva, Fondation Hardt, 1986.6.13 Dillon, J.M. and Long, A.A.,
The Question of ‘Eclecticism’: Studies in LaterGreek Philosophy, University of California, 1988.6.14 Griffin, M. and Barnes, J., eds,
Philosophia Togata: Essays on Philosophyand Roman Society, Oxford, 1989. Vol. 2, 1997.6.15 Striker, G.,
Essays on Hellenistic Epistemology and Ethics, Cambridge,1996.
Books on Hellenistic philosophy6.16 Algra, K. and others, eds,
The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy,Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998.6.17 Annas, J.,
Hellenistic Philosophy of Mind, Berkeley and Los Angeles,University of California Press, 1992.6.18 Annas, J.,
The Morality of Happiness, New York, Oxford University Press,1993.6.19 Flashar, H., ed.,
Die Philosophie der Antike, Band 4:
Die HellenistischePhilosophie, Basel, 1994 (with detailed bibliographies).6.20 Hicks, R.D.,
Stoic and Epicurean, London, 1910.6.21 Long, A.A.,
Hellenistic Philosophy, 2nd edn, London/Berkeley/Los Angeles,University of Calilfornia Press, 1986.6.22 Nussbaum, M.C.,
The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in HellenisticEthics, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1994.6.23 Sharples, R.W.,
Stoics, Epicureans and Sceptics: An Introduction toHellenistic Philosophy, London and New York, Routledge, 1994.6.24 Zeller, E.,
Stoics, Epicureans and Sceptics, London, 1880 (translation, byO.Reichel, of Zeller’s
Die Philosophie der Griechen in ihre historischenEntwicklung, vol. 3.1, 1852, rev. E.Wellmann, 1923).
EPICUREAN BIBLIOGRAPHYTexts6.25 Arrighetti, G.,
Epicuro: Opere, Torino, Einaudi, 1st edn, 1960; 2nd ednrevised, 1973. Complete, with Italian translation.6.26 Bailey, Cyril,
Epicurus: The Extant Remains, Oxford, Clarendon Press,1926. Main texts, with English translation.6.27 Bailey, Cyril,
Lucretius: De Rerum Natura, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1947.Latin text with English translation and commentary.6.28 Smith, Martin Ferguson, ed.,
Diogenes of Oenoanda. The EpicureanInscription, Naples, Bibliopolis, 1993. Text with English traslation andcommentary.
BibliographyFull and recent bibliography in [6.16]
Cambridge History of HellenisticPhilosophy. See also Flashar [6.19].
General studies6.29 Bailey, Cyril,
The Greek Atomists and Epicurus, Oxford, Clarendon Press,1928.6.30 Boyancé, P.,
Lucrèce et l’Épicurisme, Paris, 1963.6.31 Rist, J.M.,
Epicurus: An Introduction, Cambridge, 1972.
Collected papersSee above, [6.5–6.15].
Special topics6.32 Asmis, E.,
Epicurus’ Scientific Method, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press,1984.6.33 Clay, D.,
Lucretius and Epicurus, Ithaca, NY and London, Cornell UniversityPress, 1983.6.34 Englert, W.G.,
Epicurus on the Swerve and Voluntary Action, Atlanta, 1987.6.35 Everson, S., ‘Epicurus on mind and language’, in
Companions to AncientThought 3: Language, ed. S.Everson, Cambridge, 1994.6.36 Festugière, A.J.,
Epicurus and his Gods, Oxford, Blackwell, 1955.6.37 Furley, D.J.,
Two Studies in the Greek Atomists: (1) Minimal Parts; (2) TheSwerve, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1967.6.38 Furley, D.J., ‘Democritus and Epicurus on Sensible Qualities’, in Brunschwigand Nussbaum [6.9], 72–94.6.39 Furley, D.J., ‘Nothing to us?’ (on death), in Schofield and Striker [6.7], 75–92.6.40 Mitsis, P.,
Epicurus’ Ethical Theory: The Pleasures of Invulnerability, Ithaca,NY and London, Cornell University Press, 1988.6.41 Nussbaum, M.C., ‘Therapeutic arguments: Epicurus and Aristotle’, inSchofield and Striker [6.7], 31–74.6.42 Sedley, D., ‘Two conceptions of vacuum’,
Phronesis 27 (1982), 175–93.6.43 Sedley, D., ‘Epicurus’ refutation of determinism’,
Syzetesis (Fest. Gigante),Naples, Bibliopolis, 1983, 11–51.6.44 Sedley, D., ‘Epicurean anti-reductionism’, in Barnes and Mignucci [6.8], 295–328.6.45 Striker, Gisela, ‘Epicurus on the truth of sense impressions’,
Archiv fürGeschichte der Philosophie 59 (1977), 125–42.6.46 Taylor, C.C.W., ‘All perceptions are true’, in Schofield
et al. [6.5], 105–24.