Epicurus (341-270 BC)

Sources

• Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers, esp. for E.'s life
• Lucretius, De Rerum Natura ("The Way Things Are") for doctrines

• Founded schools in Lesbos, the Hellespont, and Athens ("The Garden")
• Studied under a disciple of Democritus
• Most prolific Greek philosophical writer

• 37 books On Nature; fragments found in Herculaneum
• Letters and collections of maxims;
• Vatican Sayings,
• Kuriai Doxai ("Authoritative Opinions")

Hellenistic Philosophy (post-Alexander the Great, d. 323 BC)

• "Old World Order" of philosophers: Plato, Aristotle (late 5th c.-early/mid 4th c. BC: importance of the city-state (polis)
• "New World Order," brought about by Alexander's conquests and subsequent demise of polis: focus on individual

• Both focus on happiness for the individual
• Both emphasize ratio, "reason," as the basis for understanding
• Stoics, however, believe in absolute providence of Nature: determinism, no "accidents"

Epistemology ("how we know what we know")

• Senses only accurate guide; their judgment infallible
• Falsehood exists due only to the mind's faulty assessment of the atomistic impressions it receives

• Derived from Leucippus and his pupil Democritus (ca. 430 BC)
• Atoms of varying size and indivisible
• Random combinations of atoms make up all objects
• All space occupied by atoms or by void
• Atoms fall at random speeds and not altogether vertically
• The universe is composed of innumerable other worlds similar to our own, between which lies void space (intermundia)
• "Nothing can be created from nothing" (argument against divine creation)

The Soul (= Bk 3 of The Way Things Are)

• Composed of many indivisible atoms
• Disperses at death: no afterlife
• Complete death inevitable, so not to be feared

• Humans should pursue "pleasure"=absence of pain or disturbance
• Epicureans do not espouse thoughtless, wanton pleasure-seeking (hedonism):
• Humans should strive for ataraxia, absence of mental unrest
• Attainment of ataraxia impeded by fear of gods and death

• Gods are material, i.e. composed of atoms
• Dwell in the intermundia, spaces between various worlds
• Universe created by random atoms, not provident gods
• Gods cannot hear prayers, smell sacrifices, and if they could, would not care: they have achieved ataraxia and remain blissfully uninfluenced by all that surrounds them.
• Epicurus disliked poetry because it encouraged fear of the gods

Combined concern for ethical philosophy with the physical philosophy with which the pre-Socratic philosophers had been concerned: e.g. "Monists" such as Thales (water), Anaximenes (air), Heraclitus (fire), etc.

T. Lucretius Carus (ca. 94-55 BC)

• De Rerum Natura in 6 books
• Poem left unrevised, but basic structure clear
• Conscious innovator
• Complains of lack of philosophical vocabulary in Latin: coins many new terms
• Mentioned by Cicero in a letter to his brother Quintus,
• Acc. to St. Jerome, died after madness caused by love-potion (probably apocryphal)