The Epicurean School

Article 2. The Epicurean. School

a) Name; b) Doctrine; c) Chief Epicureans; d) Remarks.

a) Name : The Epicurean School takes its name from Epicurus, its founder, who lived at Athens 342-270 b. c.

b) Doct r ine: Like the Stoics, the Epicureans divide philosophy into Logic, Physics, and Ethics. Of these Ethics is philosophy proper; the other branches of science serve only in as much as they elucidate ethical doctrine. Logic gives the rules for knowing and testing truth. Knowledge is divided into sensation and representation, the latter being mere collections of remembered sensations. Thus all knowledge is reduced to sensation or sense-knowledge (sensism). Now we cannot know even the objects of sense in a true and adequate manner—we cannot know things as they are. There is, indeed, some resemblance between objects of sense and the sensations which they produce in us, but this resemblance is not perfect, for reasons that are discussed in Epicurean Physics. Universal ideas have no objective value whatever ; they are merely the names we give to collections of remembered sensations (nominalism). Every sensation is productive of pleasure or pain; and this fact is, as we shall see presently, the origin of the Epicurean norm of morality. Physics is developed by the Epicureans after the fashion of the Atomism of Democritus. The world is formed by a sort of rain or mist of an infinite number of tiny particles of matter (atoms). All the atoms have the same nature. Falling downwards in the fashion of raindrops, they collide with one another, impinge upon one another, and cling together to form all the variety of bodily things that make up the world. The deflection and collision of falling atoms is the result of pure chance. There is therefore no design in the world, no end for which it was made. Chance made it as it is, and chance may at any time change it radically. The world could not be the creature of an all-perfect God, for it is full of imperfections and of evil ; besides, the labor of making the world would require an effort on the part of the creator, and this is incompatible with the completeness and perfection and happiness of Divinity. But while Epicurus and his School deny God, they admit the existence of certain gods or supermen, who are above the reach of want or sorrow. Outwardly, however, the Epicureans accepted the current mythology as a matter of policy. The School teaches that man’s soul is made of the more subtle atoms; it dissolves at death. The soul is the seat of sensation in man. Sensation is produced by emanations of bodies, i. e., by outpourings of their own images which bodies cast off. These emanations come through the air, affect the senses, and through the senses enter the reach of the soul. But the emanated images are modified by their passage through the air, and hence do not accurately correspond with their prototypes. For this reason, we cannot know things in the world precisely as they are. Ethics is philosophy proper. The last end which man has to achieve is pleasure. That end man must attain in this life, for the soul is not immortal and it is therefore futile to look for happiness hereafter. Now pleasure does not mean the mere passing delight of the senses; for this is often followed by pain. Pleasure means the sum-total of those enjoyments which keep the mind peaceful and satisfy all desire.\Positive sense pleasure is to be sought only when unsatisfied desire (which is pain) demands it; it is never to be indulged for its own sake. To achieve the peace of mind in which true pleasure consists, man must employ great moderation. Man must learn to limit his desires within the bounds of possibility; he must learn to desire only what he can readily attain. He must fear nothing, for fear is pain ; he must not even fear the gods, for these, like himself, are subject to the cosmic laws and have no power over him.

c) Chief Epicur eans : i. Epicurus, founder of the School.

lived from 342 to 270 b. c., and taught at Athens. He was a superficial philosopher, but was quite prolific as a writer. Only a few fragments remain to us as examples of his style and manner. He attracted many followers because he offered the allurement of moral sensualism as a philosophy. His doctrines, transplanted to the Roman Empire, endured to the 4 century after Christ. ii. Other important Epicureans were Hermarchus of Myti-lene, Polystratus, Zeno of Sidon, and Phaedrus. Roman Epicureans will be mentioned in the Chapter on Roman Philosophy.

d) Remar ks: As the Stoics are connected in Ethics with the Cynic School, so the Epicureans are related to the Cyre-naics. Thus this system, like Stoicism, was a retrograde factor in Greek philosophy, slipping back to the errors of the pre-Socratics. Epicurus, however, was logical, for his ethical doctrine is the inevitable outcome of his materialism. Though wholly false, this doctrine is praiseworthy in that it advocates moderation in the use of things of sense. Epicureanism is not, however, so temperate a thing in practice as in theory. Epicureanism denies the existence of anything but bodily atoms and the things made of atoms (materialism). It holds that all the atoms of the world are of the same nature (monism). It maintains that atoms are arranged in bodies according to no plan and by no force (dynamis) of their own, but merely by an external dropping motion and the results of chance (mechanism). Epicureanism also denies God (atheism).