Posts by Cassius

This podcast will be released either tonight or first thing in the morning.

One comment while editing is that as we go forward we'll try to focus in on what is meant by "efficient cause" in this text. The word cause tends to get lots of modifiers on it in general conversation, such as "ultimate cause," or - in the legal world - "proximate cause" or "legal cause."

As with the title assigned to this episode, the major issue seems to be the Platonic division of nature into "that which acts" and "that which is acted upon." The implication and danger is that "that which acts" gets endowed with some kind of superior or supernatural or divine nature, such as is implied in discussing a "Prime Mover."

We'll dig further into that but you might want to keep it in mind while listening.

Introduction

A correct understanding of Epicurus' views as to desire and doubt is essential to grasping his philosophy as a whole. These should be considered together because it is thought by some that Epicurus held all doubt and all desire to be undesirable. We will examine first desire and then doubt, following up with a comparison of how in each case some are desirable and some are undesirable for a life of happiness based on pleasure.

Part I: The Classification of Desires

The Three Divisions

Among the most clear and authoritative presentations of Epicurus's doctrine of desire comes to us through Torquatus in Cicero's On Ends, Book One, Chapter XIII. There, Torquatus articulates the essential principle:

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"Nothing could be more useful or more conducive to well-being than Epicurus's doctrine as to the different classes of the desires. One kind he classified as both natural and necessary, a second as natural without being necessary, and a third as neither natural nor necessary; the principle of classification being that the necessary desires are gratified with little trouble or expense; the natural desires also require but little, since nature's own riches, which suffice to content her, are both easily procured and limited in amount; but for the imaginary desires no bound or limit can be discovered."

This tripartite schema—natural and necessary, natural but not necessary, and neither natural nor necessary—is the foundation of Epicurean desire theory. But the crucial and often overlooked point is that the classification is not primarily a moral command ("pursue these, avoid those"), but rather an analytical instrument. Its purpose is to give us clarity about the nature, cost, and potential for satisfaction that attaches to different types of desire, so that we can make wise and informed choices.

NOTE: In case it is not clear already, in the following discussion all specific desires are contextual and relative to the time and place and persons involved. The qualifier GENERALLY should be understood as applying to all specific desires, except insofar as any desire is pursued in UNLIMITED fashion. Depending on context the classification of a particular desire may shift from category to category, but the pursuit of any desire in UNLIMITED fashion is always going to be definitionally unattainable.

Natural and Necessary Desires

Desires that are both natural and necessary are those whose fulfillment removes genuine pain and whose neglect causes real harm. The desire for food when hungry, for shelter from cold and rain, for basic companionship, for freedom from physical suffering—these are desires grounded in our constitution as living beings. They are natural because they arise from what we genuinely are, not from social conditioning or arbitrary convention; and they are necessary because life cannot go well, and in some cases cannot continue, without their satisfaction. Crucially, as Torquatus notes, these desires are satisfied with "little trouble or expense." Nature has arranged it so that what we truly need is, by and large, accessible. A drink of water, a nourishing meal, a warm cloak, the company of a friend— in most situations these are not luxuries but within reach of nearly anyone who reflects clearly.

Natural but Not Necessary Desires

The second category—natural but not necessary—covers desires that arise from our nature but whose specific fulfillment is not required for well-being. The desire for pleasant food, for sexual gratification, for aesthetic enjoyment, for variety and richness in experience—these are genuine desires rooted in human nature and entirely appropriate. They are natural in that they are not fantasies invented by culture or social pressure; but generally they are not necessary in that the specific objects of these desires can be varied, and their absence does not cause the deep pain that the absence of food or shelter would cause. One may desire a particular delicacy, but the desire for nourishment can be met by simpler means. These desires can be pursued when circumstances allow for their pursuit to produce in the end more pleasure than pain.

Neither Natural Nor Necessary: Empty Desires

The third category is the most dangerous. Desires that are neither natural nor necessary are those Epicurus described as empty (kenai). These include the desires for unlimited wealth, for unlimited political power, for immortal fame, or for an inexhaustible parade of novel pleasures. What makes these desires empty is not that they are at first glance unlikely to be satisfied—it is that, by their very definition and inner logic, they are unlimited and thus cannot be satisfied. They are not grounded in nature's real needs; they are generated by false opinion and by social comparison, always promising a satisfaction that perpetually recedes and literally cannot be obtained.

A Critical Clarification: Epicurus Did Not Forbid Pursuit Beyond the Necessary

Here a vital clarification must be made, one that is frequently missed: Epicurus did not command that we only pursue natural and necessary desires. The classification is not a prescriptive law but a tool for understanding the risks and costs of what we pursue. If a person of means and leisure wishes to enjoy fine wine, elaborate cuisine, or beautiful art, Epicurus does not condemn this. What he warns against is allowing the pursuit of such things in an unlimited amount such as to enslave us—to make our happiness dependent upon them. The wise Epicurean uses this classification to navigate life with open eyes and to judge the likely results of the actions that are open to us, not to build a new cage of prohibitions.

The True Meaning of "Bad" Desires

A desire is bad in the Epicurean sense not simply because it fails to be satisfied on a given occasion. All of us experience unfulfilled desires from time to time, and this is a normal part of life. A desire becomes bad—genuinely harmful to flourishing—when it is empty: that is, when it is structured so that satisfaction is permanently impossible, when no amount of its object could ever suffice, and when its pursuit necessarily generates anxiety, envy, and dissatisfaction rather than genuine pleasure. The desire for enough food is natural and good; the desire for a quantity of wealth that by definition can never feel sufficient is empty and bad. The badness lies not in the desire being unfulfilled on one occasion, but in the fact that the desire is constitutionally incapable of fulfillment, and pursuing it is therefore not a path to pleasure but a path to chronic suffering.

Part II: Good and Bad Doubts

Epicurus and the Canonics of Knowledge

Epicurus was not only a philosopher of pleasure and desire; he was a remarkably careful thinker about the nature and limits of knowledge. Two of his Principal Doctrines speak directly to the question of what we can and cannot know with certainty. Principal Doctrine 23 states that if one disputes the testimony of all the senses, one will have no standard by which to judge anything; Principal Doctrine 24 extends this by noting that if we reject without distinction every clear perception, we eliminate the criterion by which we could correct any error at all.

Taken together, these doctrines establish a crucial Epicurean principle: there are things we can determine with certainty. In this category are primarily those things that we directly perceive and feel, but also those which we cannot perceive directly but of which we are persuaded by indirect evidence, such as the existence of invisible but indivisible particles as the natural basis of the universe. In the second category there are things we cannot determine with certainty, particularly the ultimate nature of distant or hidden phenomena about which we have insufficient evidence to choose from among various possibilities that are supported by direct evidence. Prudence requires that we know which is which, and that we refuse to treat uncertain matters with the false confidence that belongs only to the certain.

The Acceptability of Multiple Explanations

This epistemological humility has a direct practical implication that Epicurus stated with clarity. In his writings on natural philosophy, particularly in his Letter to Pythocles, Epicurus repeatedly allows that certain astronomical and meteorological phenomena may have multiple equally valid explanations. When the evidence is compatible with more than one account, it is not only permissible but intellectually required to hold all of them open rather than arbitrarily selecting one. Dogmatic certainty where certainty is not warranted is itself a form of error—an affront to the mind's commitment to truth.

On this position it is essential to be clear. Epicurus was not advocating for radical skepticism or for the view that nothing can be known. He was drawing a precise distinction: some questions have answers that can be determined by sensation and reason, and for these, confident assertion is appropriate and in fact necessary for a happy life. Other questions outrun our evidence, and for these, acknowledging multiple possibilities is the honest and philosophically correct response.

Good Doubts: The Courage to Challenge False Ideas

If there is a form of doubt that Epicurus celebrated, it was the active doubt that challenges false beliefs—particularly those that cause unnecessary fear and distress. The fear of the gods, the terror of death, the superstitious belief in divine punishment, the dread of a cosmos governed by arbitrary fate—all of these were, for Epicurus, false opinions responsible for enormous human suffering. To doubt these ideas, to challenge them with reason and evidence, to subject them to philosophical examination and reject them when found wanting: this was not merely intellectually praiseworthy but therapeutically essential. The entire project of Epicurean philosophy is in one sense an exercise in purposeful doubt—doubt directed against false beliefs that imprison human happiness.

A good doubt in the Epicurean sense, then, is one that challenges false ideas, opens space for accurate understanding, and thereby removes unnecessary suffering. Such doubt is active, reasoned, and courageous. Epicurus himself lived this principle, writing extensively against the prevailing religious fears of his time, against the belief in an afterlife of punishment, and against the view that the gods intervene capriciously in human affairs.

Bad Doubts: Corrosive Uncertainty and Paralysis

Not all doubt is liberating, however. A bad doubt in the Epicurean framework is one that refuses to acknowledge what can in fact be determined with confidence, that treats certain knowledge as if it were uncertain, or that spirals into an anxiety-producing paralysis incapable of any resolution. If a person refuses to trust the testimony of their own senses—if they doubt that they feel pleasure when they feel pleasure, or pain when they feel pain—they have severed the very thread by which they could correct error. This kind of corrosive, excessive doubt is not philosophical honesty but a form of confusion that undermines the foundations of knowledge and judgment.

Similarly, a bad doubt is one that becomes a source of ongoing existential anxiety rather than a productive spur to inquiry. Epicurus was clear that tranquility of mind is desirable. Doubt that perpetually disturbs the mind without moving toward resolution, that treats every question as insoluble and every judgment as arbitrary, is not philosophical virtue but a failure of nerve. The Epicurean wise person doubts when doubt is appropriate, asserts when assertion is warranted, and knows the difference.

Holding Open Questions Honestly

A final and important note: Epicurus did not demand that we always arrive at definitive answers. On questions where the evidence genuinely does not decide between competing accounts—as in many questions about the precise mechanisms of natural phenomena—the correct response is neither false certainty nor despairing agnosticism, but a disciplined openness. This is a form of intellectual integrity, not a failure of knowledge.

Conclusion

What emerges from a careful examination of Epicurus's thought on desires and doubts is a coherent and persuasive picture. The key in both cases is the distinction between what is grounded in reality—what corresponds to genuine nature, genuine evidence, genuine need—and what is empty, either because it is structured by false opinion to be insatiable, or because it mistakenly claims or avoids claiming certainty where the evidence supports one or the other. A good desire is one that is rooted in real human nature, capable of real satisfaction, and pursued without enslaving the soul to an unreachable goal; a bad desire is one that is constitutionally incapable of fulfillment. A good doubt is one that challenges false beliefs or honestly acknowledges genuine uncertainty; a bad doubt is one that corrodes the confidence we legitimately have, or generates anxiety without resolution. Epicurus's philosophy is focused on clarity: clarity about what we want, clarity about what we know, and clarity in understanding the difference.

Summary Table - Good and Bad Desires and Doubts

This thread and its timing was prompted in part by the following post which I saw recently on Twitter/X. I am not posting to approve or disapprove of the writer of the post or the person whose death is being referenced - Ari Larijani, an Iranian military leader. This thread should not be diverted into an assessment of Larijani, the situation in the Middle East, or any other political theme.

But the post is relevant because I was shocked to see that Larijani was apparently a strong admirer of Kant and his categorical imperative. The post states that Larijani authored multiple works on Kant’s philosophy. For those who in opposition to Muller don't like Larijani, I am not trying to imply that Kant should be viewed negatively on a "guilt by association" basis. I post this not to comment on Larijani but to provide a stark example of how Kantian idealism is being explicitly incorporated in consideration of key practical events in the world today.

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Blunt @Shinamuller 12h

As an avid reader of Immanuel Kant during my teenage years, I disciplined myself morally in ways that external chaos could never achieve. Kant’s categorical imperative became my inner compass: act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law. This pure reason-based ethics grounded me, turning personal turmoil into a commitment to principles that transcend circumstances.

The loss of Ali Larijani, a true Kantian thinker who authored multiple works on Kant’s philosophy, including explorations of mathematical method, metaphysics, and synthetic a priori judgments in his thought, feels profoundly personal to me. Here was a man who confronted what he saw as a materialist, genocidal empire on high moral ground, much like Kant’s insistence on treating humanity always as an end in itself, never merely as a means. His death is not just a political event; it is a blow to that rare fusion of philosophical rigor and principled action.

The United States, through its Rewards for Justice program, placed a bounty of up to $10 million on Larijani’s head (along with other senior Iranian officials, including Mojtaba Khamenei) just days before his reported killing in an Israeli strike. This act reduces a human being, regardless of political role, to a price tag, a means to an end in geopolitical maneuvering. If this practice were to become a universal principle, no head of state would ever be safe again. Imagine Donald Trump, or any leader, subject to the same logic: bounties issued by adversaries, turning political opposition into licensed assassination markets. The world would descend into a state where dignity evaporates, reason is subordinated to power, and perpetual insecurity reigns, precisely the antithesis of Kant’s vision of a kingdom of ends, where rational beings coexist under laws they give themselves. Larijani, this committed Kantian (Syed Kantian, as some might say), left a piercing question for the Muslim world in his final public message before his martyrdom: Which side are you on? He framed the confrontation as one between America/Israel on one side and Muslim Iran/forces of resistance on the other, urging Islamic nations to unite rather than remain silent or complicit. He emphasized that true security, progress, and independence come not from narrow nationalism but from solidarity across the Ummah, echoing a bloc-like unity similar to the European Union.

Today’s EU stands, in many ways, on Kant’s anti-nationalist philosophy. Kant viewed nationalism as outdated, a relic of particularism that must yield to cosmopolitan right and perpetual peace through federations of free states. Larijani, in his last message, similarly rejected narrow nationalism for Iran or the Muslim world, advocating instead for a collective strength akin to a supranational bloc that could guarantee dignity and autonomy for all, much like Kant’s ideal of a federation transcending sovereign rivalries. I am in no position to write a full obituary for him yet; the shock is still too raw, the grief too immediate. But I will write one, in time. For now, this is simply an acknowledgment: a Kantian light has dimmed, yet the imperative he lived by, and that he helped instill in me, remains undimmed. We must will a world where such principles prevail, not bounties and eliminations.

Also, in preparing the initial post, I ran AI searches to validate the key points being made. This is a discussion forum and discussion of the points made in the first post are welcome. The issues revolve around the following points, in this case analyzed by Grok:

Outline Of Areas Of Difference Between Epicurus and Kantian Modern Idealism

Core Goal of Life / Highest Good

• Epicurus (Hedonist / Egoistic eudaimonism):
  The ultimate goal is happiness (eudaimonia), defined as a pleasant, undisturbed life. Pleasure is the highest intrinsic good; pain the only intrinsic evil. He prioritizes stable, long-term pleasures — freedom from bodily pain (aponia) and mental disturbance (ataraxia) — through moderation, satisfying natural/necessary desires, friendship, and simple living over luxury or excess.
• Kant (Deontological rationalism):
  The highest good (in terms of moral worth) is a good will — acting purely from duty for duty's sake, independent of inclinations, pleasure, or consequences. Happiness has value but no moral worth unless it flows from virtue/moral action. The good life is one guided by autonomous reason following the moral law.

Basis of Morality

• Epicurus:
  Morality is instrumental/prudential. Rules like justice, honesty, and non-harm promote personal (and communal) pleasure/minimization of pain reliably. There's no absolute, categorical duty detached from consequences — ethical behavior is wise self-interest in a social contract that benefits everyone involved.
• Kant:
  Morality is absolute, a priori, and derived from pure reason via the Categorical Imperative:
  • Act only on maxims you can will as universal laws.
  • Treat rational beings always as ends in themselves, never merely as means.
    Empirical factors (pleasure/pain, consequences) play no role in determining rightness — only reason does.

Role of Pleasure & Desire

• Epicurus: Pleasure is the starting point, criterion, and end of ethics. Manage desires rationally: pursue natural/necessary ones, enjoy natural/non-necessary ones moderately, avoid vain ones.
• Kant: Inclinations (including desire for pleasure) are heteronomous and can undermine moral motivation. Actions done for pleasure or inclination lack moral value. True morality requires acting from respect for the law despite inclinations.

Differences / Incompatibility (fundamental and deep):

• They are largely incompatible at the core level. Epicurus is consequentialist/hedonist (morality serves happiness as the sole intrinsic good), while Kant is strictly deontological (morality is independent of happiness; happiness can even follow virtue but never grounds it).
• Kant explicitly critiques Epicurean ethics as "self-love" or "selfishness" because it makes morality hypothetical/conditional on empirical pleasure — something he sees as incapable of producing truly universal, necessary moral laws.
• Epicurus would view Kant's duty-based system as unnecessarily austere and disconnected from human nature (why ignore pleasure/pain when they're the natural guides?).
• No hybrid is straightforward: You can't fully merge them without undermining one or the other. A "Kantian Epicurean" might try to argue that duty aligns with long-term happiness, but that risks reducing Kant to hypothetical imperatives (which he rejects). Conversely, making Epicurean pleasure secondary to duty would betray Epicurus's hedonism.
• In essence: Epicurus asks, "What rationally maximizes a pleasant, secure life?" Kant asks, "What does pure reason demand of any rational being?" They point in different directions — one naturalistic and empirical, the other rationalist and absolute — so their views are mostly incompatible, though with intriguing points of overlap in promoting rational tranquility and ethical consistency.

Introductory Note

This post is intended to provide an introduction to the issues that exist between Epicurus and modern idealism. For ease of reference it also incorporates discussion of Nietzsche's analysis of Kant, which has substantial similarities to the viewpoint of Epicurus. Nietzsche was not an Epicurean. He had sharp criticisms of what he thought was Epicurus’ "retreat into the garden." In my view Nietzsche was wrong to consider this to be a "retreat." The more appropriate analogy would be that Epicurus erected a "fortress" where he could bring together his students and develop and teach a philosophy that rejected the dominant viewpoints of the day. Yet on at least two crucial issues Nietzshe clearly stood on the same side of history as Epicurus: both affirm the reality and value of sensory experience, and both mount vigorous objections to philosophies that treat an invisible, super-sensory realm as the true foundation of knowledge and morality.

Nietzsche made both positive and negative remarks about Epicurus, but in important ways both center their viewpoints on defense of this world as revealed to us by Nature as against claims of otherworldliness. For example, in Twilight of the Idols Nietzsche traces the entire history of Western philosophy — from Plato through Kant — as a series of moves designed to depreciate this world in favor of another. Epicurus represents, for Nietzsche, the healthier ancient counter-tradition: pleasure-affirming, this-worldly, and against the building of systems based entirely on logic. Against this shared backdrop, we can contrast Epicurean views against Kant and the school of German Idealism he inaugurated.

The Fundamentals of Modern (German) Idealism

Modern idealism emerged in the late 18th and early 19th centuries as the dominant philosophical movement in Europe, springing from the work of Immanuel Kant and carried forward by Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Its central and defining claim is that the structure of reality as we experience it is not simply "out there" waiting to be passively received, but is actively shaped — in part or in whole — by the mind.

For Kant, this meant that the human mind imposes fundamental categories (such as causality, substance, and unity) and pure forms of intuition (space and time) onto raw sensory input. What we perceive is therefore always already processed through these mental filters. The world as it appears to us — the phenomenal realm — is knowable, but the world as it is in itself independent of all perception — the noumenal realm, or Ding an sich (“thing-in-itself”) — forever exceeds our cognitive grasp.

Kant called this reorientation the "Copernican Revolution" in philosophy: just as Copernicus moved the sun rather than the earth to the center of the solar system, Kant moved the knowing subject to the center of the epistemological universe.

Later idealists radicalised this move. Hegel dissolved Kant’s “thing-in-itself” altogether, arguing in the Phenomenology of Spirit that reality just is the self-unfolding of rational Spirit (Geist) through history. The material world is not merely conditioned by mind but is a manifestation of it.

Kant’s Categorical Imperative and Other Key Views

Kant’s ethical philosophy is inseparable from his metaphysics. Because genuine freedom — the kind required for moral responsibility — cannot be located in the phenomenal, causally determined world, it allegedly must be ascribed to the self as a “noumenal” being. Humans can self-legislate because they are citizens of an intelligible realm beyond nature.

From this foundation Kant derived his idea of the Categorical Imperative: what Kant alleges is the supreme principle of morality that commands unconditionally, without reference to desire, pleasure, or consequences. In its most famous formulation: "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." Notice what this excludes. The “good” will, for Kant, has nothing to do with the agent’s happiness or sensory satisfaction. A generous act performed because it produces pleasure is, in Kant’s strict view, morally worthless. Only duty — rational duty, legislated by pure practical reason — carries genuine moral weight.

This yields a vision of the moral agent as a purely rational being straining against natural inclination. Pleasure is, at best, morally neutral; at worst, it tempts us away from duty. Kant further distinguished the highest good (summum bonum), a synthesis of virtue and happiness. Kant alleged crucially that happiness enters only as a consequence merited by virtue, never as its foundation. The architecture of Kantian ethics is resolutely top-down: pure reason commands; the senses obey or are ignored.

The Deep Kinship Between Kant and Platonic Idealism

The structural similarities between Kant’s system and Plato’s philosophy are profound, and not accidental. Kant himself acknowledged Plato’s influence, writing in the Critique of Pure Reason that Plato rightly saw that our faculties of knowledge reach beyond the empirical. Both thinkers cleave the universe into two levels: for Plato, the sensible world of fleeting appearances versus the eternal realm of Forms; for Kant, the phenomenal world of spatiotemporal experience versus the noumenal realm of things-in-themselves.

Both distrust the senses as ultimate arbiters of truth. For Plato, the eyes and ears deliver only shifting, contradictory opinion (doxa); genuine knowledge (episteme) requires ascent to the intelligible. For Kant, the senses supply the raw material of experience, but the cognitive work is done by the understanding’s a priori concepts — and the deepest moral and metaphysical truths lie beyond the reach of sensory evidence altogether. Both philosophies thereby assign decisive importance to an unseen, non-empirical domain as the ultimate ground of value and knowledge.

The ethical parallels are equally striking. Plato’s “Form of the Good” transcends the visible world and grounds all value; Kant’s pure reason issues moral laws that transcend nature. In both cases, right action is defined not by what feels pleasurable or produces happiness but by conformity to something higher, more rational, more permanent than the sensory flux of embodied life.

Epicurus: Embracing the Senses, Rejecting the Ideal

Epicurus would have found this entire picture deeply misguided. Writing in Athens in the late 4th century BCE, he built a philosophy founded frankly and unapologeticly on the senses, anticipations, and feelings of pleasure and pain. For Epicurus, the senses, anticipations, and feelings are the only reliable source of knowledge; they never lie in their immediate deliverances, even when our interpretations of them go wrong. There is no need to posit an invisible realm of Forms to explain why we know what we know. The world perceived through our senses is the world; the attempt to locate reality elsewhere is a flight from nature born of fear or vanity.

Epicurus rejected Platonic idealism on every front. The Forms are false and philosophically redundant: to explain why beautiful things are beautiful, we need only point to their material properties and the natural responses they produce in perceivers — not to a transcendent Form of Beauty.

Epicurus’ atomist materialism held that everything that exists is composed of atoms and void. The soul itself is material, dispersing at death, leaving no residue for a Platonic afterlife.

In ethics, the contrast is equally vivid. Where Plato subordinated bodily pleasure to the care of the soul and its conformity to the Good, Epicurus declared that "pleasure is the beginning and end of the blessed life." The best life according to Epicurus is rooted firmly in natural human experience, not in conformity to transcendent norms. Philosophy is medicine for the soul, but the ailments it cures — fear of death, fear of the gods, insatiable ambition — are identified empirically, by observing what actually causes human misery.

Nietzsche: Siding with the Senses Against Idealism and Stoicism

Nietzsche, writing two millennia later, diagnosed the same pathology in both Plato and Kant. In Twilight of the Idols (1889), his chapter “How the ‘True World’ Finally Became a Fable” is a devastating six-step narrative tracing the concept of a “true world” beyond the senses from Plato through Christianity through Kant, culminating in its eventual abolition. For Nietzsche, Kant’s noumenal realm is Platonism in disguise: another way of downgrading this world in favour of an inaccessible beyond.

Nietzsche’s specific critique of Kant’s ethics is equally pointed. He mocked the categorical imperative as mechanical and life-denying, arguing in Beyond Good and Evil that Kant’s insistence on universalisability ignores the vital particularity of individuals and situations. The very coldness of the Kantian moral demand — its indifference to what we desire, feel, and naturally are — struck Nietzsche as a symptom of the ascetic ideal: the self-lacerating wish to deny nature in favour of an abstract norm.

Against Stoicism — whose demand that we conform our will to the rational order of nature Nietzsche considered nearly as problematic — and against Platonic-Kantian idealism alike, Nietzsche championed what he called the “will to power” – driven by the feelings given by Nature, as the authentic sources of value. His concept of the Ubermensch (the Overman) is a figure who creates values out of the fullness of life rather than deferring to transcendent commands. Nietzsche explicitly commended Epicurus for recognizing that the goal of philosophy is relief from needless suffering and the cultivation of genuine pleasure — a goal achieved not by escaping the material world but by understanding it more honestly.

How Epicurus’ Rejection of Platonism Extends to Kantian Idealism

The argument structure that led Epicurus to reject Platonic idealism would, if extended forward in time, lead him to reject Kantian idealism with equal force. Consider the parallel moves:

First, Epicurus objected to Plato’s noumenal dualism — the claim that there is a higher realm (the Forms) that does the real explanatory and normative work, while the sensory world is demoted to mere appearance. Kant’s thing-in-itself performs the same structural function set out by Plato: it is an unseen, unknowable bedrock invoked precisely because the sensory world cannot, on Kant’s view, supply ultimate grounding on its own. Epicurus’ reply would be the same: the appeal to an inaccessible beyond is false – it is philosophically unnecessary and psychologically motivated by fear rather than evidence.

Second, Epicurus’ ethical naturalism — the view that pleasure and pain are our natural moral guides — directly contradicts Kant’s insistence that inclinations have no moral worth. For Kant, the very fact that an action feels rewarding is a reason to be suspicious of its moral purity. For Epicurus, the fact that it produces pleasure (including that of our friends) is precisely what recommends it. The Epicurean would view Kantian moral straining — duty for duty’s sake, regardless of consequences, regardless of feeling — as a kind of philosophical self-torture with no natural justification.

Third, both Plato’s and Kant’s systems require a self that, at its moral core, transcends the natural order: Plato finds this in an immortal rational soul, Kant finds it in a “noumenal agent.” Epicurus dissolved this duality entirely. The soul is material; death is the ending of sensation, not an supernatural reckoning. There is no noumenal self behind the empirical person. Epicurean psychology is fully continuous with Epicurean physics: one world, all the way down.

Summary: Fundamental Differences and the Superficiality of Apparent Similarities

One might object that Epicurus and Kant both prize reason, both seek human well-being, and both recommend a kind of philosophical self-cultivation. Are these not deep points of convergence? On reflection, they are superficial resemblances masking irreconcilable foundations.

The reason that Epicurus prizes is empirical, corrective, and therapeutic — reason that helps us think clearly about the evidence provided by the senses, anticipations, and feelings, and therefore what actually produces pleasure and avoids pain. The reason that Kant prizes is pure logical reasoning, which issues commands with no reference to sensory experience whatsoever. These are almost antithetical conceptions sharing only a name.

The well-being each seeks is equally divergent. Epicurean eudaimonia is constituted by pleasure widely understood to include all experience that is not painful — it is measured by what we feel. Kantian happiness enters the picture only as the appropriate reward for virtue in a teleological universe governed by moral law; it is never the criterion of right action. To confuse these two conceptions is precisely the error that Kant warned against in his distinction between hypothetical and categorical imperatives.

At the deepest level, the divide is metaphysical. Epicureanism and its Nietzschean echo are philosophies of this world: these bodies and this life are all we have and all we need. German Idealism and its Platonic ancestor are philosophies of otherworldliness: reality’s ultimate character, and morality’s ultimate authority, lie in a domain the senses cannot reach. No amount of terminological negotiation can bridge that gap. When Nietzsche declared that the “true world” had become a fable, he was — consciously or not — continuing with the project that Epicurus had begun twenty-two centuries earlier: the project of bringing defending this world against the claims of mysticism.

Welcome ThomasJ54! That's a path with which many of us can identify! Glad to have you and let us know if we can be of help in your study.

thomasj54 tells us:

HelloI

I'm a 72 year old retired IT professional in Essex England. I've have an intermittent interest in philosophy and religion most of my life. Raised a Catholic I rejected this in my late teens and became agnostic/atheist. I studied the history and philosophy of science at university and was introduced to a variety of western philosophers ancient and modern. I stumbled into Taoism through doing Kung Fu and Tai Chi, and then into Buddhism but didn't like the spiritual/metaphysical aspects. I came across Stoicism (can you avoid it, it seems to be everywhere?) but though it offers a "how to cope with life" philosophy there still seems to be a spiritual/metaphysical aspect to it. Stoicism led me to Epicureanism which I know nothing about, then Google led me to your site. The key words through all this are "intermittent" and "stumbling."

Regards,

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Please understand that the leaders of this forum are well aware that many fans of Epicurus may have sincerely-held views of what Epicurus taught that are incompatible with the purposes and standards of this forum. This forum is dedicated exclusively to the study and support of people who are committed to classical Epicurean views. As a result, this forum is not for people who seek to mix and match Epicurean views with positions that are inherently inconsistent with the core teachings of Epicurus.

All of us who are here have arrived at our respect for Epicurus after long journeys through other philosophies, and we do not demand of others what we were not able to do ourselves. Epicurean philosophy is very different from most other philosophies, and it takes time to understand how deep those differences really are. That's why we have membership levels here at the forum which allow for new participants to discuss and develop their own learning, but it's also why we have standards that will lead in some cases to arguments being limited, and even participants being removed, when the purposes of the community require it. Epicurean philosophy is not inherently democratic, or committed to unlimited free speech, or devoted to any other form of organization other than the pursuit of truth and happy living through pleasure as explained in the principles of Epicurean philosophy.

One way you can be assured of your time here will be productive is to tell us a little about yourself and your background in reading Epicurean texts. It would also be helpful if you could tell us how you found this forum, and any particular areas of interest that you already have.

You can also check out our Getting Started page for ideas on how to use this website.

We have found over the years that there are a number of key texts and references which most all serious students of Epicurus will want to read and evaluate for themselves. Those include the following.

"Epicurus and His Philosophy" by Norman DeWitt

The Biography of Epicurus by Diogenes Laertius. This includes the surviving letters of Epicurus, including those to Herodotus, Pythocles, and Menoeceus.

"On The Nature of Things" - by Lucretius (a poetic abridgement of Epicurus' "On Nature"

"Epicurus on Pleasure" - By Boris Nikolsky

The chapters on Epicurus in Gosling and Taylor's "The Greeks On Pleasure."

Cicero's "On Ends" - Torquatus Section

Cicero's "On The Nature of the Gods" - Velleius Section

The Inscription of Diogenes of Oinoanda - Martin Ferguson Smith translation

A Few Days In Athens" - Frances Wright

Lucian Core Texts on Epicurus: (1) Alexander the Oracle-Monger, (2) Hermotimus

Philodemus "On Methods of Inference" (De Lacy version, including his appendix on relationship of Epicurean canon to Aristotle and other Greeks)

"The Greeks on Pleasure" -Gosling & Taylor Sections on Epicurus, especially the section on katastematic and kinetic pleasure which explains why ultimately this distinction was not of great significance to Epicurus.

It is by no means essential or required that you have read these texts before participating in the forum, but your understanding of Epicurus will be much enhanced the more of these you have read. Feel free to join in on one or more of our conversation threads under various topics found throughout the forum, where you can to ask questions or to add in any of your insights as you study the Epicurean philosophy.

And time has also indicated to us that if you can find the time to read one book which will best explain classical Epicurean philosophy, as opposed to most modern "eclectic" interpretations of Epicurus, that book is Norman DeWitt's Epicurus And His Philosophy.

(If you have any questions regarding the usage of the forum or finding info, please post any questions in this thread).

Welcome to the forum!

Eikadistes' commentary on the poem:

Thread

Seikilos Poem - Discussion

We have a graphic on the forum to which Eikadistes added some commentary. I'm not sure that discussion is findable through the gallery, so I am setting up this thread to make discussion about it easier to find.

Here's the graphic:

https://www.epicureanfriends.com/wcf/gallery/im…oem/#comment777

And I'll paste some of the discussion here too.

Cassius

March 17, 2026 at 2:34 PM

We have a graphic on the forum to which Eikadistes added some commentary. I'm not sure that discussion is findable through the gallery, so I am setting up this thread to make discussion about it easier to find.

Here's the graphic:

Seikilos Poem - Epicureanfriends.com

www.epicureanfriends.com

And I'll paste some of the discussion here too.

Right - the burden of proof issue is certainly relevant to standards of proof so let's discuss that too.

In these philosophic questions does the burden of proof rest on the person asserting something that is contrary to observable evidence? Or on the person asserting what all observable evidence supports? And will we ever allow circumstantial evidence alone to be the basis of "knowledge."

In our courtroom situation, the burden of proof is on the side bringing the charge or claim, and the proof standard is higher in criminal cases than in civil cases due to how much is at stake. Importantly, circumstantial evidence is allowed to be the basis of decision in both circumstances. (In fact I was reading this morning about the Utah woman found guilty this week for murdering her husband with fentanyl. It appears this is an example of a murder conviction based largely or fully on circumstantial evidence. Certainly no one saw her administer the poison.)

The most important questions in life stem from whether we are created and governed supernatural forces, and whether we have supernatural souls that survive after death. It is reasonable to assert that these issues determine everything else in ethics. If there are in fact supernatural forces beyond our senses, those forces would provide benefits or penalties that overwhelm any lesser ethical judgment based purely on sensation. (In this discussion I think Epicurus would include anticipations and feelings of pleasure and pain as also being direct natural faculties equivalent in status to the five senses.)

We do not have control over how long we live. No moment that passes in which we have made choices based on wrong presumptions can ever be retrieved, and in every case our lives are over far too quickly. We only live once, so the need for finality is urgent.

Given the implications of the options and implications as to whether the universe is natural and whether we have souls that survive death., Epicurus held that "I don't know" is not a proper or sufficient answer. I would analogize his decision here to his decision to revolt against his teachers who could not reasonably explain the theory of the universe being organized out of chaos by an outside force.

As to the available evidence, there is no observable evidence of supernatural forces or life after death. We are not born having those conceptions in our minds. If someone is going to argue that we should live life based on those contentions, it is reasonable to take the position, as Epicurus did, that those people provide very strong evidence and meet a very high burden of proof.

And what kind of proof is most important and definitive? This is what book 4 of Lucretius is devoted to, all around the section in which Lucretius discusses the problems of illusions that make proof of things difficult, but that in the end we come to the conclusion that knowledge is possible, and the standard of knowledge is met by the evidence of the sense, from which we can make conclusions based either on direct sensation or reasoning from circumstantial evidence which does come from sensation.

Quote from Lucretius 4:469

"If anyone thinks that he knows nothing, he cannot be sure that he knows this, when he confesses that he knows nothing at all. I shall avoid disputing with such a trifler, who perverts all things, and like a tumbler with his head prone to the earth, can go no otherwise than backwards." (Lucretius 4:469)

Epicurus saw no reason to suggest that supernatural souls or forces are "possible," and thus there is no reason to consider those issues under a standard of probability. And there are many important reasons NOT to do that.

In short I do agree that we need to be clear on who has the burden of proof, what level of "proof" is required, and be clear that we do take the position that knowledge is possible.

If we don't address these then we are left of the position of the person who says that nothing can be known, and we never make any progress towards deciding how to live.

Last comment: And as you also reference, we have to decide who is the factfinder. In court the factfinder is either the judge or jury. In our own lives, we have to decide whether we are going to make decisions for ourselves, defer our decisionmaking to others, or try to avoid decisionmaking completely. Epicurus never appeals to authorities other than the sensations, anticipations and feelings, and I think the strong implication of that is that he thought we have to make these decisions for ourselves.

As in another recent post I just came across this in Nietzsche's "Twilight of the Idols.' It strikes me on first reading as very persuasively consistent with Epicurus' defense of the senses and criticism of what we might call "otherworldliness." I'm posting it here for reference and future comment. Source link.

"REASON" IN PHILOSOPHY

I just came across this biting criticism of Socrates and his embrace of dialectice from Nietzsche's "Twilight of The Idols." I'd say a significant number of these arguments are consistent with the Epicureans' criticisms of Socrates. Posting it here for reference and future discussion. Source.

THE PROBLEM OF SOCRATES

Welcome to Episode 325 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who wrote "On The Nature of Things," the most complete presentation of Epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world. Each week we walk you through the Epicurean texts, and we discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. If you find the Epicurean worldview attractive, we invite you to join us in the study of Epicurus at EpicureanFriends.com, where we discuss this and all of our podcast episodes.
   
This week we start are continuing our series reviewing Cicero's "Academic Questions" from an Epicurean perspective. We are focusing first on what is referred to as Book One, which provides an overview of the issues that split Plato's Academy and gives us an overview of the philosophical issues being dealt with at the time of Epicurus. This week will will continue in Section 6

Our text will come from
Cicero - Academic Questions - Yonge We'll likely stick with Yonge primarily, but we'll also refer to the Rackam translation here:

• Cicero On Nature Of Gods Academica Loeb Rackham : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

And these are those three kinds which most people believe the Peripatetics speak of: and so far they are not wrong; for this division is the work of that school. But they are mistaken if they think that the Academicians — those at least who bore this name at that time — are different from the Peripatetics. The principle, and the chief good asserted by both appeared to be the same — namely, to attain those things which were in the first class by nature, and which were intrinsically desirable; the whole of them, if possible, or, at all events, the most important of them. But those are the most important which exist in the mind itself, and are conversant about virtue itself. Therefore, all that ancient philosophy perceived that a happy life was placed in virtue alone; and yet that it was not the happiest life possible, unless the good qualities of the body were added to it, and all the other things which have been already mentioned, which are serviceable towards acquiring a habit of virtue. From this definition of theirs, a certain principle of action in life, and of duty itself, was discovered, which consisted in the preservation of those things which nature might prescribe. Hence arose the avoidance of sloth, and contempt of pleasures; from which proceeded the willingness to encounter many and great labours and pains, for the sake of what was right and honourable, and of those things which are conformable to the objects of nature. Hence was generated friendship, and justice, and equity; and these things were preferred to pleasure and to many of the advantages of life. This was the system of morals recommended in their school, and the method and design of that division which I have placed first.

But concerning nature (for that came next), they spoke in such a manner that they divided it into two parts,— making one efficient, and the other lending itself, as it were, to the first, as subject matter to be worked upon. For that part which was efficient they thought there was power; and in that which was made something by it they thought there was some matter; and something of both in each. For they considered that matter itself could have no cohesion, unless it were held together by some power; and that power could have none without some matter to work upon; for that is nothing which is not necessarily somewhere. But that which exists from a combination of the two they called at once body, and a sort of quality, as it were. For you will give me leave, in speaking of subjects which have not previously been in fashion, to use at times words which have never been heard of (which, indeed, is no more than the Greeks themselves do, who have been long in the habit of discussing these subjects).

Episode 324 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. This week our episode is entitled: "Is Pleasure The Good, Or The Enemy of The Good?" I want to particularly commend Joshua's references to Socrates' discussion of the cave analogy as important in this episode.

[media]https://www.spreaker.com/episode/70636110/media

As to Emerson's statements about consistency Joshua reminded me in the most recent podcast (324 - not yet posted as of this writing) about what Cicero had to say in Tusculan Disputations. In this section he's arguing against Epicurus, but what he's saying about consistency I think most of us would agree with. I think Epicurus would agree too, and that Epicurus would defend his position on the grounds that he WAS being consistent. This particular argument shows why the meaning of "Good" is so important, and why it is so important to understand Epicurus' argument that all good ultimately resolves down to "pleasure." And that leads us directly to the expansive meaning that Epicurus gives to the term "pleasure," refusing to restrict it to physical stimulation (as Cicero accuses Epicurus of doing) but including within "pleasure" all living experience that is not painful:

Quote from Cicero in Tusculan Disputations

X.

But it is the duty of one who would argue accurately, to consider not what is said, but what is said consistently. As in that very opinion which we have adopted in this discussion, namely, that every good man is always happy; it is clear what I mean by good men: I call those both wise and good men, who are provided and adorned with every virtue. Let us see, then, who are to be called happy. I imagine, indeed, that those men are to be called so, who are possessed of good without any alloy of evil: nor is there any other notion connected with the word that expresses happiness, but an absolute enjoyment of good without any evil. Virtue cannot attain this, if there is anything good besides itself: for a crowd of evils would present themselves, if we were to allow poverty, obscurity, humility, solitude, the loss of friends, acute pains of the body, the loss of health, weakness, blindness, the ruin of one’s country, banishment, slavery, to be evils: for a wise man may be afflicted by all these evils, numerous and important as they are, and many others also may be added; for they are brought on by chance, which may attack a wise man: but if these things are evils, who can maintain that a wise man is always happy, when all these evils may light on him at the same time? I therefore do not easily agree with my friend Brutus, nor with our common masters, nor those ancient ones, Aristotle, Speusippus, Xenocrates, Polemon, who reckon all that I have mentioned above as evils, and yet they say that a wise man is always happy; nor can I allow them, because they are charmed with this beautiful and illustrious title, which would very well become Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato, to persuade my mind, that strength, health, beauty, riches, honours, power, with the beauty of which they are ravished, are contemptible, and that all those things which are the opposites of these are not to be regarded. Then might they declare openly, with a loud voice, that neither the attacks of fortune, nor the opinion of the multitude, nor pain, nor poverty, occasion them any apprehensions; and that they have everything within themselves, and that there is nothing whatever which they consider as good but what is within their own power. Nor can I by any means allow the same person, who falls into the vulgar opinion of good and evil, to make use of these expressions, which can only become a great and exalted man. Struck with which glory, up starts Epicurus, who, with submission to the Gods, thinks a wise man always happy. He is much charmed with the dignity of this opinion, but he never would have owned that, had he attended to himself: for what is there more inconsistent, than for one who could say that pain was the greatest or the only evil, to think also that a wise man can possibly say in the midst of his torture, How sweet is this! We are not, therefore, to form our judgment of philosophers from detached sentences, but from their consistency with themselves, and their ordinary manner of talking.

All these are difficult issues that everyone has to address, but the first step is seeing that they are in fact issues.

Quote from DaveT

OK. But surely you don't have a problem with relying on expert opinion and consensus of experts on any specific issue when we as average people have zero ability to know about the topic. We all have to draw the line somewhere on what we believe is true, like your 1 to 3 above, and where we don't believe them to be true. We have to trust expert consensus on specific topics that are far beyond our knowledge when making important decisions. For example, I don't ingest anything that the experts say causes cancer in mice, even though I have no idea if it is possible I'll get cancer, too.

Certainly if I want brain surgery I am going to look for someone I conclude to be an "expert." Even in recent years regarding such things as diet and covid and many other chemicals there is raging debate on safety. It's probably not useful to get too far into specific examples but when there are experts who say exactly opposite things it's not sufficient to rely on expert consensus. At those points you simply have to bring to do your best to educate yourself on the conflicting opinion and use your best individual judgment on which expert to follow.

And it's good to hear from you DavidN!

Quote from Kalosyni

And, a big challenge is updating the philosophy to make it compatible for modern thinkers (and science).

"Modern thinkers" are in many cases the problem, not the solution, and you can't make opposites compatible. It would be more accurate to say that it is desirable to use new methods and technologies to explain to such "modern thinkers" as are open to the discussion the superiority of the Epicurean viewpoint.

Quote from Kalosyni

mainly the refusal to see how making contracts for peace between countries is the only avenue of peace

That's not the "only" avenue for peace. When people refuse to agree, they can fight and in some cases successfully eliminate the other side. It doesn't help the situation to imagine otherwise - thinking this only makes it more likely that it is YOUR side that is going to eliminated. That's why Epicurus regularly says that all means necessary to preserve your safety are a natural good, and that some people can and do refuse to enter agreements of mutual safety.

Quote from Kalosyni

So Epicurean philosophy which holds that gods/God is not interactive with the world or listening to prayers may appeal to some, but not appeal to others.

That is a fact that always has proven to be the case, and likely will continue to prove to be the case. And therefore those who think as we do have to take all appropriate steps to make sure that we are not eliminated. We've come far too close to exactly that result over the last 2000 years.

Quote from DaveT

In your response to me, you quoted Thos. Jefferson; is he the modern philosopher you referred to and I asked about? I must not understand your train of thought. I was thinking perhaps you were referring to 20th century philosophers as being somehow out in left field.

I am definitely considering Jefferson, who embraced Epicurus in my view very accurately, as correct in most all of his statements on these issues. I have the most relevant of his statements relating to Epicurus here: https://newepicurean.com/jefferson/

And in general it's fair to say that I am speaking against the more modern philosphers, who seem in most cases to be in agreement with Socrates that nothing is really "knowable."

Quote from DaveT

Your referral to radical skeptics, has me confused again. Am I wrong to conclude that in your use of those two words, radical skeptics mean the philosophers of ancient Greece BCE? With respect, you seem to have a bone to pick with the skeptics of old and their influence on some. I believe I understand the battle of ideas between the school of Epicurus and the Skeptics with a capital S.

"radical skeptics" is a term i use to describe anyone who claims that no knowledge of any kind is possible. This would include Socrates, although Socrates apparently was content with the contradiction that he was confident that he know nothing. This does NOT include all Greek philosophers BCE, as some taught specific doctrines. Yes it's bad to be wrong, as many of theme were in arguing things like it is impossible to walk across a room, but worse than being wrong is to take the position that it is impossible ever to be right about anything. As long as you have a standard to declare something to be "right," then you eventually have hope of being right. If you say that it's impossible to be "right" about anything, then you are in the position of the skeptics who Diogenes of Oinoanda criticized when saying that no one will ever seek the truth if they consider it impossible to find.

In general I agree that it is useful to distinguish the worst of the Skeptics with a capital "S", but unfortunately it's not sufficient to do that in many cases because the depth of this problem is not recognized in general conversation. Many people tend to think that ALL skepticism is "good" just like they thing ALL dogmatism is "bad," because they are aren't familiar with the depth of the issue.

We tend to attract here - as is our goal - people with an interest in philosophy but not deep training in it, and this becomes one of the most important initial questions to cover, which is why it's a constant topic of conversation,

Quote from DaveT

However, I'm not clear if you are referring to ancient Skepticism that has at best only a remote similarity to the modern scientific methods of finding truth only after experimental testing of any concepts of any nature until there is a consensus to rule-out or rule-in unproven opinion.

The "until there is s a consensus" illustrates the problem of generic references to "modern science" and "the scientific method" and "experts" as if using those phrases actually means anything final. There are only particular experts and scientists and particular assertions of results using any method at any time. Consensus is not a logical goal, especially in ethics, and often is later decided to be wrong.

The Epicurean viewpoint was never the "consensus" view in the ancient world, and it will never be in the future. Yet it in my view it held and holds the correct answers as to the absence of (1) supernatural forces (2) life after death, (3) absolute standards of virtue. It also presents a practical and logical approach to having confidence in the best way to live in the absence of those fictions. Therefore Epicurus makes many statements to the effect that he prefers to speak and teach correctly rather than to be concerned about the praise and acceptance of the crowd.

The short answer is that I think Epicurus was all in favor of a generic attitude of questioning claims of authority, especially when those claims do not rest on evidence observable to the senses. But Epicurus was strongly against the conclusion that confidence in any conclusion is impossible. Epicurus makes conclusion after conclusion about many topics, but he never takes "because I or he or she said so" as a reasonable basis for those conclusions.

Quote from Pacatus

refers to whatever is completely within my control versus whatever is completely out of my control – then it is an idealistic abstraction, and not useful. (And I suspect that idealism is exactly how the Stoics saw it.)

....ith regard to happiness, I equate it with pleasure (mental or physical, kinetic or katastematic). If I’m happy, I’m enjoying some pleasure. In that sense,

which calls to my mind Pacatus the question of whether to view happiness as *complete* pleasure or as some predominance of pleasure over pain. That seems to be a major point of dispute - whether to consider someone happy even when they are experiencing some degree of pain.

That's a hurdle that has to be overcome in the analysis of "absence of pain." Those who want things COMPLETELY under their control seem likely to insist on happiness being TOTAL absence of pain. I don't think Epicurus viewed it as helpful to see things in such black and white terms. Pleasure may be the "opposite" of pain, and pain not be present when pleasure is present, but if someone thinks that "I can't have any pleasure, or any happiness, at all so long as I am experiencing any pain," then they have set themselves up for failure.

Which I why I don't think Epicurus thought in those terms, and why we have to parse the meaning carefully.