Epicureanism

Philosopher

2022

We explain what Epicureanism is, its origin and why it focuses on pleasure. In addition, we tell you how it influenced modern philosophy.

Epicurus' school accepted free men, women, and slaves.

What is Epicureanism?

Epicureanism is a philosophical current whose main objective is to seek a pleasure modest and durable. Founded by Epicurus of Samos (341-270 BC) outside of Athens, Epicureanism is often mistaken for a mere hedonism (doctrine philosophy that identifies pleasure with the good). This is due to the fact that Epicurus and his followers, the Epicureans, propagated a philosophy based on the pursuit of pleasure.

Although it is true that Epicurus, like Aristippus (435-350 BC), was a hedonist, his doctrine should not be reduced to a banal and selfish pleasure. The pleasure pursued by the epicureans is a modest and sustainable one over time, whose form is that of ataraxia (tranquility and freedom of fear) and aponia (absence of body pain).

The Epicurean school had an important development in the Ancient Greece, whether in his opposition to Platonism or his later rivalry with the stoicism. Its greatest development occurred in the late stage of Hellenism and during the Roman era.

Both Lucretius and other Roman philosophers compiled and unified the Epicurean teachings until their near disappearance in the third century AD. C. Several centuries later, the epicurean current reappeared in the Illustration and remained in vogue even until the Contemporary age.

History, origin and etymology of the term “epicureism”

The Epicurean school was founded in Athens around 306 BC. C., year in which its founder, Epicurus, settled in the city.It is from him that the Epicureans, his followers, take their name. That this current is called Epicureanism indicates, by the suffix "-ism", that it is a philosophical doctrine. His followers are also known as “the garden philosophers”.

Epicurus founded his school on the outskirts of Athens, on the way to the port of Piraeus. He became publicly known as Garden, or kêpos in classical Greek (κῆπος). The Garden was made up of men and women, which was a novelty at the time. There a simple way of life was promulgated, isolated from everyday life. politics and social, and which encouraged above all the practice of friendship.

The Garden was actually a large rural space, alien to the city, whose practical and hidden life defied the ideas Y teachings of the Platonic Academy and even of the Aristotelian Lyceum, both schools with which it coexisted. At its gates, according to Seneca in his Epistolae morales ad Lucilium, the following was inscribed: “Stranger, your time will be pleasant here. In this place the greatest good is pleasure.”

The school opened its doors to people of all kinds, whether they were free men, women or slaves. Inside, it was organized according to a strict hierarchy, whose main positions or strata are the following:

  • The philosophers or philosophoi.
  • The schoolboys or philologoi.
  • the teachers or kathegetai.
  • The imitators or synethes.
  • Students “in preparation” or kataskeuazomenoi.

Main idea of ​​Epicureanism: pleasure

Epicurus promulgated above all things a constant search for pleasure. Only through pleasure could the healing of the human soul be achieved. A happy and pleasant life could overcome the barriers of physical pain or spiritual discomfort. Thus, philosophy should serve to make man happy: «philosophy is an activity that with words and reasoning procure a happy life» (fragment 219 as compiled by Esteban Bieda in Epicurus).

  • However, the search for pleasure should not be understood as abandoning reason for a life dedicated to leisure. It is about directing intellectual activity to obtain pleasure and tranquility. It does not matter if in this search the teachings of ancient masters must be set aside. It could even be the case that they had to be corrected.
  • The important thing for Epicureanism was to be able to reach the state of ataraxia, and for this reason, in one of its surviving fragments, Epicurus says: «Flee from all education, happy man, unfurling the sails of your boat» (fragment 16 as compiled by Esteban Bieda in Epicurus).
  • In short, the pleasure sought was more inclined to a mental pleasure than a physical one. They were to be removed wishes unnecessary, such as the desire to can, the desire for fame or those that could arise on the occasion of political life.
  • On the other hand, those fears considered to be the main causes of conflict in the life. According to Epicurus, these were the fear of the gods (punishment) and the death (finish).

Epicurus considers that this abandonment of the previous and previous philosophical content occurs because it was nested in a sterile intellectualism and could not account for the path to happiness of the man. Fragment 221 in Epicurus He says:

“Empty is the word of that philosopher by the action of which no affection of man is cured. For just as there is no proper benefit to medicine if it does not expel disease from the body, so it is with philosophy if it does not expel disease from the soul.

Pleasures according to Epicureanism

For Epicureanism, the pleasures of the soul require a process and a state of mind.

Pleasures, according to Epicureanism, can be divided into two broad categories:

  • Body pleasures. They are those that involve pleasurable sensations or freedom from pain. They only exist in the present.
  • Pleasures of the soul.They are those that require a process and mental state, such as the feeling of joy (khara), ataraxia and apony.

These pleasures, and also suffering, as its opposite, are linked to the satisfaction of appetites. Appetites according to Epicureanism can be:

  • Natural and necessary appetites (eat, keep warm, sleep)
  • Natural and unnecessary appetites (sexual pleasure)
  • Unnatural and unnecessary appetites (fame, money, power)

The search and completeness of pleasure as a supreme good depend on the satisfaction of the appetites divided into these three large groups, and their subsequent balance.

Types of knowledge according to Epicureanism

Epicureanism can be divided into a physical, a canonical, and an ethical.

  • Physics was devoted to the study of nature from an atomistic perspective.
  • The canonical, or criteriology, dealt with the criteria by which we can differentiate the false from the true.
  • The ethics It was that branch of thought Epicurean who developed an ethical hedonism, and in whose work one could see the culmination of the entire system of Epicurean philosophical thought.

Influence of Epicureanism on modern philosophers

Epicureanism has reached the most diverse and different corners of the philosophical world. Thus, a list of different philosophers and thinkers goes through those who have collected and claimed part of the Epicurean teachings. Among them we have the following:

  • Walter Charleton
  • Robert Boyle
  • Francisco de Quevedo
  • John Locke
  • Immanuel Kant
  • John Stuart Mill
  • Karl Marx
  • Friedrich Nietzsche
  • Michel Onfray

What does it mean to be an epicure today?

An epicurean person is considered to be one who practices moderate, honest and wise love or enjoyment. An epicure knows about the different arts of life, sexual enjoyment in its moderation, the state of calm or ataraxia and even forms of aponia as the absence of pain and a sign of happiness.

However, it is common to find a misuse of the term, especially when a person of epicurean practices is confused with one who practices hedonism and the search for fleeting pleasures, such as the excesses of the body and mind.

Epicurean documents

We owe to Diogenes Laertius (3rd century BC), a Greek historian, the titles of at least forty of Epicurus's works. As has happened with most of the texts of the Antiquity, Epicurus's teachings survive only in quotations and fragments collected by later philosophers.

Thus, to date, we have three letters (to Herodotus, Pytocles and Menoeceus), a series of maximum capitals, some fragments that appear in the Vatican codex Gnomologium Vaticanum and works by his disciples, such as Philodemus of Gadara or , later, Sextus Empiricus, Plutarch, Cicero and Seneca, among others.

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