Part of the Other Perspectives section of the outline of Epicurean philosophy. Updated October 24, 2026.
1. Is It True That Epicurus Was Not An Atheist As We Today Understand That Term?
The charge of atheism against Epicurus is understandable but wrong, and Epicurus's own words settle it directly: "gods there are, since the knowledge of them is by clear vision." What Epicurus denied was not the existence of divine beings but the popular mythology attached to them -- the belief that gods are supernatural and punish, reward, or otherwise intervene in human affairs out of anger or favor. He defined piety in reverse: the truly impious person is not the one who denies the gods of popular superstition, but the one who projects human pettiness -- anger, favor, meddling -- onto beings whose blessed and immortal nature, by definition, cannot include those things. This is a correction of theology, not a denial of divinity.
First of all believe that god is a being immortal and blessed, even as the common idea of a god is engraved on men's minds, and do not assign to him anything alien to his immortality or ill-suited to his blessedness: but believe about him everything that can uphold his blessedness and immortality. For gods there are, since the knowledge of them is by clear vision. But they are not such as the many believe them to be: for indeed they do not consistently represent them as they believe them to be. And the impious man is not he who popularly denies the gods of the many, but he who attaches to the gods the beliefs of the many.
It is doubtless therefore truer to say, as the good friend of us all, Posidonius, argued in the fifth book of his On the Nature of the Gods, that Epicurus does not really believe in the gods at all, and that he said what he did about the immortal gods only for the sake of deprecating popular odium. In the first place, a being of this nature is an absolute impossibility, and Epicurus was aware of this, and so actually abolishes the gods, although professedly retaining them.
2. Does Avoiding Politics Mean Passive Withdrawal From The World?
Epicurus's advice to avoid formal office-seeking is often mistaken for a blanket counsel of passivity. But Diogenes Laertius's own description of the Epicurean Wise Man shows an active life: he engages in lawsuits, writes and leaves behind treatises, gathers a school, and lectures in public when asked. What he avoids is the specific mechanism of formal political ambition -- competing for office, delivering set-piece political oratory -- because that mechanism ties one's happiness to the unstable opinions of a crowd. The historical example of Cassius Longinus, an open and self-identified Epicurean who organized armed resistance to Caesar's tyranny, along with other Epicurean figures in Roman public life, puts the passive-withdrawal caricature to rest.
The physical facts of where Epicurus actually lived and worked are further evidence against the recluse caricature. The Garden was not a remote retreat: Diogenes Laertius records that Epicurus paid eighty minae for the property, a substantial sum indicating a sizeable estate, not a modest cottage. Cicero's own dialogue places the Garden on ground his characters pass while strolling from central Athens, treating a visit there as an unremarkable stop along a well-traveled route, not an expedition to somewhere secluded. And the historical record of individual Epicureans confirms the same pattern at the level of lived example: Torquatus's own family was known for battlefield courage, not withdrawal from duty, which is precisely why Cicero chose a Torquatus, of all people, to voice the Epicurean position in *On Ends* -- an Epicurean spokesman whose family history made the passive-withdrawal caricature immediately implausible to a Roman audience.
Nor will he take part in public life, as he says in the first book On Lives. Nor will he act the tyrant, or live like the Cynics... He will engage in lawsuits and will leave writings behind him, but will not deliver speeches on public occasions. He will be careful of his possessions and will provide for the future... He will care more than other men for public spectacles. And he will gather together a school, but never so as to become a popular leader. He will give lectures in public, but never unless asked; he will give definite teaching and not profess doubt. He will pay court to a king, if occasion demands. (Bailey)
The most unalloyed source of protection from men, which is secured to some extent by a certain force of expulsion, is in fact the immunity which results from a quiet life and the retirement from the world. (Bailey)
And he bought the garden for eighty minae; ... Apollodorus in his Chronicles says the Garden was bought for eighty minae. (Bailey)
[Note: this passage is Cicero's own rhetorical challenge to Torquatus in Book II, not Torquatus's own narration in Book I as an earlier version of this entry had it -- corrected against the rendered page, De Finibus II.73.] But I return to old Torquatus. If it was to win pleasure that he accepted the Gallic warrior's challenge to single combat on the banks of the Anio, and if he despoiled him and assumed his necklet and the corresponding surname for any other reason than that he thought such deeds became a man, I do not consider him brave.
3. Does Happiness Require The Complete Absence Of All Pain, And If So How Could Epicurus Say He Was Happy While Dying Of Kidney Disease?
If happiness required the total absence of all pain, Epicurus's own deathbed testimony would be incoherent -- he was dying in severe pain from disease of the bladder and stomach, and he called it "this truly happy day of my life." The resolution is that happiness is a property of a whole, weighed life, not a fragile state destroyed by any pain whatsoever - even a severe one. Principal Doctrine 4 states plainly that chronic illness can still leave a predominance of pleasure over pain in the flesh. The limit of pleasure is reached when all pain is removed, but reaching that limit in the mind, through right understanding of what matters, does not require that the body and mind never experience pain at all.
On this truly happy day of my life, as I am at the point of death, I write this to you. The disease in my bladder and stomach are pursuing their course, lacking nothing of their natural severity: but against all this is the joy in my heart at the recollection of my conversations with you.
[Note: this is Cicero quoting the very same letter to Idomeneus at length, then commenting in his own voice -- while actively disputing Epicurean ethics throughout this book, Cicero nonetheless ranks Epicurus's own conduct in dying alongside legendary heroic deaths. Strong evidence against reading Epicurus as passive or quietist: even a hostile witness treats his end as active, dignified, and admirable rather than merely resigned.]
'...these words,' he says, 'on the happiest, and the last, day of my life. I am suffering from diseases of the bladder and intestines, which are of the utmost possible severity.' Unhappy creature! If pain is the Chief Evil, that is the only thing to be said. But let us hear his own words. 'Yet all my sufferings,' he continues, 'are counterbalanced by the joy which I derive from remembering my theories and discoveries. I charge you, by the devotion which from your youth up you have displayed towards myself and towards philosophy, to protect the children of Metrodorus.' When I read this I rank the death-scene of Epicurus on a level with those of Epaminondas and of Leonidas. Epaminondas had defeated the Lacedaemonians at Mantinea, and perceived himself to be mortally wounded. As soon as he opened his eyes he inquired if his shield were safe. His weeping followers told him that it was. He asked, were the enemy routed? Satisfied on this point also, he bade them pluck out the spear that pierced his side. A rush of blood followed, and so in the hour of joy and victory he died. Leonidas, king of the Lacedaemonians, had to choose between dishonourable flight and a glorious death; with the three hundred warriors that he had brought from Sparta he confronted the foe at Thermopylae. A great commander's death is famous; but philosophers mostly die in their beds. Still it makes a difference how they die. Epicurus counts himself happy in his last moments. All honour to him. 'My joy,' he writes, 'counterbalances the severest pain.' The words of a philosopher, Epicurus, command my attention; but you forget what you logically ought to say. (Rackham)
Pain does not last continuously in the flesh, but the acutest pain is there for a very short time, and even that which just exceeds the pleasure in the flesh does not continue for many days at once. But chronic illnesses permit a predominance of pleasure over pain in the flesh.
Pain in the flesh does not last continuously: extreme pain is present a very short time; pain which only just outweighs pleasure in the flesh does not last many days; and chronic illnesses permit a preponderance of pleasure over pain in the flesh. (Smith)
4. Does "Live Unknown" Mean To Live In Isolation? If Not, What Does It Mean?
"Live unknown" (lathe biosas) is routinely quoted, especially by hostile ancient sources like Plutarch, as if it counseled total withdrawal from the world. But the advice was aimed at the pursuit of political careerism, reputation, and office specifically -- not at social or civic invisibility as such. The historical record contradicts the isolationist reading directly: the Garden sat on Athens's busiest ceremonial road, its gate carried a welcoming sign addressed to strangers, and Epicurus corresponded prolifically with students and friends across the Greek world. Declining to compete for political office and public fame is not the same thing as declining to engage with other human beings.
We must release ourselves from the prison of affairs and politics.
/Hospes, hic bene manebis; hic summum bonum voluptas est./ -- "Stranger, here you will do well to tarry; here our highest good is pleasure."
5. Did Epicurus Live On Bread And Water And Limit Himself To An Ascetic Diet?
Even Epicurus, the teacher of pleasure, used to observe _stated intervals,_ during which he satisfied his hunger in niggardly fashion; he wished to see whether he thereby fell short of full and complete happiness, and, if so, by what amount he fell short, and whether this amount was worth purchasing at the price of great effort. At any rate, he makes such a statement in the well known letter written to Polyaenus in the archonship of Charinus. Indeed, he boasts that he himself lived on less than a penny, but that Metrodorus, whose progress was not yet so great, needed a whole penny.
***** Even Epicurus, the teacher of pleasure, used to observe _stated intervals,_ during which he satisfied his hunger in niggardly fashion; he wished to see whether he thereby fell short of full and complete happiness, and, if so, by what amount he fell short, and whether this amount was worth purchasing at the price of great effort. At any rate, he makes such a statement in the well known letter written to Polyaenus in the archonship of Charinus. Indeed, he boasts that he himself lived on less than a penny, but that Metrodorus, whose progress was not yet so great, needed a whole penny.
6. Did Epicurus And His School Engage Combatively With Rival Philosophers, Or Avoid Public Dispute?
Epicurus is sometimes pictured as a gentle, withdrawn teacher who avoided confrontation. The historical record of how he actually spoke about rival philosophers refutes this directly. Diogenes Laertius preserves a whole catalog of pointed, personal epithets Epicurus coined for his opponents -- epithets that functioned as compact philosophical criticism, not mere name-calling, since each one targeted a specific doctrinal failure alongside the personal jab. This same combative habit continued in the school after him: Philodemus's polemic against the Stoics traces Zeno's doctrine back to the Cynic Diogenes of Sinope specifically to taint the Stoic school at its philosophical root. Later hostile tradition mocked Epicurean atomism itself with the epithet "Power of Air," attacking Epicurus's naturalism directly rather than any supposed passivity -- itself a sign that opponents understood him as an active target worth attacking, not a quietist to be ignored. (This specific epithet is preserved in modern secondary retellings rather than a pinned ancient primary-source line; treat it as a lead for further sourcing, not a settled citation.) A school this willing to mock its rivals by name, in print, was not a school of passive withdrawal.
[Diogenes Laertius's biography preserves a set of personal epithets Epicurus applied to rival philosophers and schools, each doubling as a doctrinal jab: Nausiphanes (Epicurus's repudiated teacher, whose Pyrrhonist-tinged suspension of judgment left him with no genuine perceptive "grip" on reality) was "the Mollusk" (or "Jellyfish"); Plato was "the Golden" or "Gilded" (impressive but unsound); Plato's followers were "Flatterers of Dionysus"; Aristotle was "the Debauchee"; Protagoras was "Basketbearer"; Heraclitus was "the Agitator"; Democritus was "Lerocritus" (nonsense-monger); Antidorus was "Wood-Giver"; the Cyzicenes were "Enemies of Greece"; the Megarian Dialecticians were "the Grand Wreckers"; and Pyrrho was "the Uneducated Fool."]
[Independent, non-Epicurean corroboration of one entry in the Diogenes Laertius catalog above.] Confirms that Nausiphanes was called "the Mollusk" (pleumon) "as one without sensation."
[No personal epithet from Epicurus himself survives against Zeno of Citium -- the two founders were near-exact contemporaries, and the fiercest Epicurean-Stoic rivalry emerged a generation later. The school's anti-Stoic polemic instead survives in this text of Philodemus, which traces Zeno's doctrine back to the Cynic Diogenes of Sinope, tainting the Stoic school at its foundation.]
[No scanned page image located -- this fragmentary papyrus (Dorandi's 1982 critical edition with Italian translation is the standard scholarly text) has no known older English translation avaible. An English rendering of the Diogenes-of-Sinope material does exist online rather than as a page scan:]
7. Is Pleasure -- Or Tranquility -- The Epicurean Goal?
This is the single most consequential point of confusion in the modern reception of Epicurus. Ataraxia (freedom from disturbance) is a genuinely desirable state, but it is not itself the goal. Epicurus is explicit in the Letter to Menoeceus: pleasure is "the beginning and end of the blessed life," the standard by which every other good -- including tranquility -- is measured. Substituting ataraxia for pleasure as the goal quietly converts Epicurus into a Stoic or a Buddhist, trading an affirmative, embracing philosophy of life for one of managed withdrawal. Diogenes of Oinoanda's stone inscription, praising "the fullness of pleasure," stands as one of many persuasive ancient testimonies against the substitution.
The vocabulary of the Principal Doctrines themselves bears this out. Pleasure (hēdonē) and pain are named repeatedly and explicitly as the criterion of choice and avoidance throughout the forty doctrines. Happiness (eudaimonia) does not appear there as a noun at all -- where that idea is gestured at, the text uses "blessed" (makarios) instead, as in PD 1 and PD 27. Ataraxia as an abstract noun likewise is not a headline term the way pleasure is. However PD 17 is built around a cognate of it -- "The just man is most free from trouble, the unjust most full of trouble" -- so undisturbedness does appearin that one doctrine. In the global context, pleasure is named as the criterion in well over a dozen doctrines, while undisturbedness in this technical sense surfaces explicitly only once, and even there it describes a consequence of justice rather than a good ranked above pleasure. Tranquility is never the measuring stick in the Principal Doctrines; pleasure remains that throughout.
The substitution of tranquility for pleasure has a specific philosophical origin, not merely a vague discomfort with hedonism: Plato's argument in the /Philebus/ that pleasure cannot be the highest good because it has no natural limit -- it always admits of "more and less," with no stopping point, so nothing bounded and complete (for Plato, virtue) could ever be reached by chasing it. Seneca restates this argument against Epicurus by name centuries later, insisting that anything capable of further increase is thereby proven imperfect, and reducing Epicurus's own reported two-goods formula (a body free from pain, a soul free from disturbance) to a fixed, static, low bar that mere "seasoning" cannot raise. Read against this background, ataraxia and aponia look like exactly the modest, negative goods that critics from Plato through Seneca said pleasure would have to be reduced to if it were going to have any limit at all -- which is precisely how tranquility gets smuggled in as a substitute for pleasure as the goal. But Epicurus's actual doctrine (PD3, PD18) answers Plato and Seneca on their own terms rather than conceding their premise: pleasure itself has a limit -- the removal of all pain -- so pleasure, not some separate state of tranquility, is the complete and achievable good. Ataraxia is the name for the mind's condition once that limit is reached, not a different, lesser goal substituted in pleasure's place. See the companion article "The Full Cup Model" for the full argument.
(See the page scan below.)
Shortly I will speak about imprudence, but for the present about the virtues and pleasure. Now if, fellow men, the question at issue between these people [the Stoics] and ourselves involved examining 'what is the means of happiness?', and they wanted to say the virtues, as is in fact true, there would be no need to do anything except to agree with them and abandon the matter. But since, as I was saying, the issue is not 'what is the means of happiness?', but what being happy is and what our nature ultimately desires, I affirm now and always, with a great shout to all Greeks and foreigners, pleasure is the end of the best lifestyle, while the virtues which are now being inappropriately fussed about by them (being transferred from the position of means to that of end) are in no way the end, but the means to the end. (tr. Long & Sedley)
We are inquiring, then, into what is the final and ultimate Good, which as all philosophers are agreed must be of such a nature as to be the End to which all other things are means, while it is not itself a means to anything else. This Epicurus finds in Pleasure; Pleasure he holds to be the Chief Good, and Pain the Chief Evil. (Rackham)
If then even the glory of the Virtues, on which all the other philosophers love to expatiate so eloquently, has in the last resort no meaning unless it be based on pleasure, whereas pleasure is the only thing that is intrinsically attractive and alluring, it cannot be doubted that pleasure is the one supreme and final Good and that a life of happiness is nothing else than a life of pleasure. (Rackham)
/Hospes, hic bene manebis; hic summum bonum voluptas est./ -- "Stranger, here you will do well to tarry; here our highest good is pleasure."
"It is for that reason that Homer usually bestows high praise, not by enumerating virtues, but by denying faults; for example: 'And not unwillingly they charged,' and again: 'Not then would you divine Atrides see confused, inactive, nor yet loath to fight.' Epicurus too in a similar way defined the greatest pleasure as the removal and absence of all pain, in these words: 'The utmost height of pleasure is the removal of all that pains.' Again Virgil on the same principle called the Stygian pool 'unlovely.'"
***** English Source at penelope.uchicago.edu - Gellius • Attic Nights — Book II
/On some words which Virgil is asserted to have used carelessly and negligently; and the answer to be made to those who bring this false charge./
Some grammarians of an earlier time, men by no means without learning and repute, who wrote commentaries on Virgil, and among them Annaeus Cornutus, criticize the poet's use of a word in the following verses as careless and negligent: /That, her white waist with howling monsters girt, Dread Scylla knocked about (vexasse) Ulysses' ships Amid the swirling depths, and, piteous sight! The trembling sailors with her sea-dogs rent./
They think, namely, that vexasse is a weak word, indicating a slight and trivial annoyance, and not adapted to such a horror as the sudden seizing and rending of human beings by a ruthless monster.
They also criticize another word in the following: /Who has not heard Of king Eurystheus' pitiless commands And altars of Busiris, the unpraised (inlaudati)?/ Inlaudati, they say, is not at all a suitable word, but is quite inadequate to express abhorrence of a wretch who, because he used to sacrifice guests from all over the world, was not merely "undeserving of praise," but rather deserving of the abhorrence and execration of the whole human race.
They have criticized still another word in the verse:
| Through tunic rough (squalentem) with gold the sword drank from his pierced side, |
on the ground that it is out of place to say auro squalentem, since the filth of squalor is quite opposed to the brilliance and splendour of gold.
5 Now as to the word vexasse, I believe the following answer may be made: vexasse is an intensive verb, and is obviously derived from vehere, p137 in which there is already some notion of compulsion by another; for a man who is carried is not his own master. But vexare, which is derived from vehere, unquestionably implies greater force and impulse. For vexare is properly used of one who is seized and carried away, and dragged about hither and yon; just as taxare denotes more forcible and repeated action than tangere, from which it is undoubtedly derived; and iactare a much fuller and more vigorous action than iacere, from which it comes; and quassare something severer and more violent than quatere. 6 Therefore, merely because vexare is commonly used of the annoyance of smoke or wind or dust is no reason why the original force and meaning of the word should be lost; and that meaning was preserved by the earlier writers who, as became them, spoke correctly and clearly.
7 Marcus Cato, in the speech which he wrote /On the Achaeans/,12 has these words: "And when Hannibal was rending and harrying (vexaret) the land of Italy." That is to say, Cato used vexare of the effect on Italy of Hannibal's conduct, at a time when no species of disaster, cruelty or savagery could be imagined which Italy did not suffer from his hands. 8 Marcus Tullius, in his fourth /Oration against Verres/, wrote: "This13 was so pillaged and ravaged by that wretch, that it did not seem to have been laid waste (vexata) by an enemy who in the heat of war still felt some religious scruple and some respect for customary law, but by barbarous pirates."
9 But concerning inlaudatus it seems possible to give two answers. One is of this kind: There is absolutely no one who is of so perverted a character p139 as not sometimes to do or say something that can be commended (laudari). And therefore this very ancient line has become a familiar proverb:
| Oft-times even a fool expresses himself to the purpose. |
10 But one who, on the contrary, in his every act and at all times, deserves no praise (laude) at all is inlaudatus, and such a man is the very worst and most despicable of all mortals, just as freedom from all reproach makes one inculpatus (blameless). Now inculpatus is the synonym for perfect goodness; therefore conversely inlaudatus represents the limit of extreme wickedness. 11 It is for that reason that Homer usually bestows high praise, not by enumerating virtues, but by denying faults; for example:14 "And not unwillingly they charged," and again:15
| Not then would you divine Atrides see Confused, inactive, nor yet loath to fight. |
12 Epicurus too in a similar way defined the greatest pleasure as the removal and absence of all pain, in these words:16 "The utmost height of pleasure is the removal of all that pains." 13 Again Virgil on the same principle called the Stygian pool "unlovely."17 14 For just as he expressed abhorrence of the "unpraised" man by the denial of praise, 15 so he abhorred the "unlovable" by the denial of love. 16 Another defence of inlaudatus is this: laudare in early Latin means "to name" and "cite." Thus in civil actions they use laudare of an authority, when he is cited. 17 Conversely, the inlaudatus is the same as p141 the inlaudabilis, namely, one who is worthy neither of mention nor remembrance, and is never to be named; 18 as, for example, in days gone by the common council of Asia decreed that no one should ever mention the name of the man who had burned the temple of Diana at Ephesus.18
***** Latin of the key section
Sed enim qui omni in re atque omni tempore laude omni vacat, is "inlaudatus" est isque omnium pessimus deterrimusque est, sicuti omnis culpae privatio "inculpatum" facit. "Inculpatus" autem instar est absolutae virtutis; "inlaudatus" quoque igitur finis est extremae malitiae. 11 Itaque Homerus non virtutibus appellandis, sed vitiis detrahendis laudare ampliter solet. Hoc enim est: to d'ouk akonte petesthen, et item illud: enth'ouk an brizonta idois Agamemnona dion, oude kataptossont', oud'ouk ethelonta machesthai. _12 Epicurus quoque simili modo maximam voluptatem privationem detractionemque omnis doloris definivit his verbis: Horos tou megethous ton hedonon pantos tou algountos hypexaireis_ 13 Eadem ratione idem Vergilius "inamabilem" dixit Stygiam paludem. 14 Nam sicut "inlaudatum" kata steresin laudis, ita "inamabilem" kata amoris steresin detestatus est. 15 Altero modo "inlaudatus" ita defenditur: 16 "Laudare" significat prisca lingua nominare appellareque. Sic in actionibus civilibus auctor "laudari" dicitur, quod est nominari. 17 "Inlaudatus" autem est, quasi inlaudabilis, qui neque mentione aut memoria ulla dignus neque umquam nominandus est, 18 sicuti quondam a communi consilio Asiae decretum est, uti nomen eius, qui templum Dianae Ephesi incenderat, ne quis ullo in tempore nominaret. 19 Tertium restat ex his, quae reprehensa sunt, quod "tunicam squalentem auro" dixit.
*****
'Send me,' he says, 'some preserved cheese, that when I like I may have a feast.' Such was the man who taught that the end is pleasure.
And for this cause we call pleasure the beginning and end of the blessed life. For we recognize pleasure as the first good innate in us, and from pleasure we begin every act of choice and avoidance, and to pleasure we return again, using the feeling as the standard by which we judge every good.
The just man is most free from trouble, the unjust most full of trouble. (Bailey)
Not only Aristippus and his followers, but also Epicurus and his welcomed kinetic pleasure -- I will mention what follows, to avoid speaking of the 'storms' [of passion] and the 'delicacies' which Epicurus often cites, and the 'stimuli' which he mentions in his On the End-Goal. For he says: 'For I at least do not even know what I should conceive the good to be, if I eliminate the pleasures of taste, and eliminate the pleasures of sex, and eliminate the pleasures of listening, and eliminate the pleasant motions caused in our vision by a visible form.'
[One who] ran away to Pleasure of his own free will, cutting the meshes of [Stoic] logic as if they were bonds, because he had the spirit of a human being, not of a dolt, and thought pain painful, as indeed it is, and pleasure pleasant. ... Stoa: Do you consider pain bad? Epicurus: Yes. Stoa: And pleasure good? Epicurus: Certainly so!
[Publius Clodius] praised those most who are said to be above all others the teachers and eulogists of pleasure [the Epicureans].... He added that these same men were quite right in saying that the wise do everything for their own interests; that no sane man should engage in public affairs; that nothing was preferable to a life of tranquility crammed full of pleasures. (Latin: nihil esse praestabilius otiosa vita, plena et conferta voluptatibus.)
'Does not Epicurus recognize pleasure in your sense?' 'Not always,' said I, 'now and then, I admit, he recognizes it only too fully, for he solemnly avows that he cannot even understand what good there can be or where it can be found, apart from that which is derived from food and drink, the delight of the ears, and the grosser forms of gratification.'
In a number of passages where he is commending that real pleasure which all of us call by the same name, he goes so far as to say that he cannot even imagine any Good that is not connected with pleasure of the kind intended by Aristippus.
But fancy his failing to see how strong a proof it is that the sort of pleasure, without which he declares he has no idea at all what Good means, [is] the pleasure of the palate, of the ears -- the kinetic sort of pleasure... he extols it so much that he tells us he is incapable even of imagining what other good there can be.
Nor did he forgo those other indulgences in the absence of which Epicurus declares that he cannot understand what good is.
According to your school, it is right to try to get money even at some risk; for money procures many very delightful pleasures.
Isn't pleasure more desirable the longer it lasts? On what ground then does Epicurus speak of a deity (for so he always does) as happy and immortal? Take away his everlasting life, and Jove is no happier than Epicurus. Each of them enjoys the Chief Good, that is to say, pleasure. Wherein then is he inferior to a god, except that a god lives forever?
It is his habit in all his discussions to attach higher value to the pleasures of the belly than to the delights of the eye and the ear.
Blessed is he who has the enjoyment of present pleasure and the assurance that he would have enjoyment either throughout life or for a great part of life without the intervention of pain, or should pain come, that it would be short-lived if extreme, but if prolonged it would still allow more that was pleasant than evil.
There are four things that men naturally seek... pleasure, which is an agreeable activity of physical perception, or repose, the state in which the individual suffers no bodily discomfort, or both of these (which Epicurus calls by the single name of pleasure).
The Epicureans held that what is first congenial to us, without qualification, is pleasure. But they say that as we get older, this pleasure articulates itself in many ways.
Epicurus has imposed a limit on pleasures that applies to all of them alike: the removal of all pain. For he believes that our nature adds to pleasure only up to the point where pain is abolished and does not allow it any further increase in magnitude (although the pleasure, when the state of painlessness is reached, admits of certain unessential variations). But to proceed to this point, accompanied by desire, is our stint of pleasure, and the journey is indeed short and quick.
- Page scan: Plutarch, That Epicurus Actually Makes a Pleasant Life Impossible 3, 1088C (tr. Einarson & De Lacy)
- Online text: Plutarch, That Epicurus Actually Makes a Pleasant Life Impossible (tr. Goodwin, 1874) -- Perseus Digital Library (same translation used for this project's citation clips; search page for exact passage)
[Describing the Epicurean position] the superiority of the Sage lies above all in this: vividly remembering and keeping intact in himself the sights and feelings and movements associated with pleasure.
It is this, I believe, that has driven them, seeing for themselves the absurdities to which they were reduced, to take refuge in the "painlessness" and the "stable condition of the flesh," supposing that the pleasurable life is found in thinking of this state as about to occur in people or as being achieved; for the "stable and settled condition of the flesh," and the "trustworthy expectation" of this condition contain, they say, the highest and the most assured delight for men who are able to reflect. Now to begin with, observe their conduct here, how they keep decanting this "pleasure" or "painlessness" or "stable condition" of theirs back and forth, from body to mind and then once more from mind to body.
Not only is the basis that they assume for the pleasurable life untrustworthy and insecure, it is quite trivial and paltry as well, inasmuch as their 'thing delighted' -- their good -- is an escape from ills.... Epicurus too makes a similar statement to the effect that the good is a thing that arises out of your very escape from evil and from your memory and reflection and gratitude that this has happened to you. His words are these: 'For what produces a jubilation unsurpassed is the contrast of the great evil escaped; and this is the nature of good, if you apply your mind rightly and then stand firm and do not stroll about, prating meaninglessly about good.' (Einarson & De Lacy)
We are not called to save the nation or get crowned by it for wisdom; what is called for, my dear Timocrates, is to eat and to drink wine, gratifying the belly without harming it.... It made me both happy and confident to have learned from Epicurus how to gratify the belly properly.... The belly, Timocrates, my man of wisdom, is the region that contains the highest end.
- Page scan: Plutarch, same work, 16, 1098D (tr. Einarson & De Lacy) (Quoting Metrodorus, Letter to His Brother Timocrates)
- Online text: Plutarch, That Epicurus Actually Makes a Pleasant Life Impossible (tr. Goodwin, 1874) -- Perseus Digital Library (same translation used for this project's citation clips; search page for exact passage)
Indeed these people, you might say, describing a circle with the belly as center and radius, circumscribe within it the whole area of pleasure.
It is the men who look with contempt on all these things as old wives' tales, and think that our good is to be found in the belly and the other passages by which pleasure makes her entry. ... [And elsewhere] ...by those who keep shouting that the good is to be found in the belly.
- Page scan: Plutarch, Against Colotes 1125A (tr. Einarson & De Lacy, Loeb)
- Page scan: Plutarch, Against Colotes 1108C (tr. Einarson & De Lacy, Loeb)
- Online text: Plutarch, Against Colotes (tr. Goodwin, 1874) -- Perseus Digital Library (same translation used for this project's citation clips; search page for exact passage)
Not even Epicurus believes that men who are eager for honor and glory should lead an inactive life, but that they should fulfill their natures by engaging in politics and entering public life, on the ground that, because of their natural dispositions, they are more likely to be disturbed and harmed by inactivity if they do not obtain what they desire.
[Above is a modern paraphrase; the same real passage in Goodwin's 1878 edition ("Hence it is that Epicurus adviseth those who aspire to glory not to stagnate in their ambition, but be in perpetual motion... because they would be more tormented and would suffer greater damages by idleness") reads below, spanning pp.138-139.]
Of those that are ruled by pleasure are the Cyrenaics and Epicurus; for these expressly said that to live pleasantly was the chief end, and that pleasure was the only perfect good. Epicurus also says that the removal of pain is pleasure. ... [And elsewhere] Epicurus also says that the removal of pain is pleasure; and says that that is to be preferred, which first attracts from itself to itself, being, that is, wholly in motion.
Zenocrates the Epicurean took the harp-girls in his arms, gazing upon them from half-closed eyes with a languishing and melting look, and saying that this was 'tranquility of the flesh' and 'the full intensity of pleasure.'
Epicurus rightly surmised that we should beware of food which we want to enjoy and which we pursue, but find disagreeable once we get it.... For this reason we should guard against excess even of simple things, and in all cases we must examine what happens as a result of enjoyment or possession, how big a thing it is, and whether it relieves any trouble of body or soul.
If Zeno or Chrysippus were asked who the wise man is, he'll reply that the wise man is the one whom he himself has described. In return, Epicurus... will maintain instead that the wise man is the one most skilled at catching pleasures.... Elevating the name of pleasure as agreeableness and calm, with popular support, Epicurus passionately insists that without pleasure nobody could seem happy.
I argued in those days with my friends Alypius and Nebridius concerning the limits of good and evil. Determining, in my judgment, that Epicurus should have won the garland, had I not verily believed that there remained a life for the soul after the body was dead.... And so I put the question: suppose we were to be immortal, and were to live in perpetual enjoyment of bodily pleasures, and that without fear of losing -- why should we not then be fully happy?
Epicurus thinks that the highest good is in the pleasure of the mind. Aristippus holds that it is in the pleasure of the body. ... [And elsewhere, paraphrasing Epicurus] Let us serve pleasure, then, in whatever way we can, for in a short time we will be nothing whatsoever. Let us suffer no day, therefore, no point of time to flow by for us without pleasure, lest, since we ourselves are at sometime to perish, the very fact that we live may perish.
A pleasant physical sensation affects this life of ours; why therefore, do you hesitate to say that all is well with a man just because all is well with his appetite? And do you rate... among men, the person whose Supreme Good is a matter of flavors and colors and sounds?
[The leading ancient Skeptic names "quietude" (ataraxia) as the End of his own system. He says it is reached by abandoning the search for truth, not by knowing it. When modern writers make "ataraxia" or "tranquility" the goal of Epicurus, they are using the Skeptic's word for the Skeptic's goal.]
Our next subject will be the End of the Sceptic system. Now an "End" is "that for which all actions or reasonings are undertaken, while it exists for the sake of none"; or, otherwise, "the ultimate object of appetency." We assert still that the Sceptic's End is quietude in respect of matters of opinion and moderate feeling in respect of things unavoidable. For the Sceptic, having set out to philosophize with the object of passing judgement on the sense-impressions and ascertaining which of them are true and which false, so as to attain quietude thereby, found himself involved in contradictions of equal weight, and being unable to decide between them suspended judgement; and as he was thus in suspense there followed, as it happened, the state of quietude in respect of matters of opinion. ... So, too, the Sceptics were in hopes of gaining quietude by means of a decision regarding the disparity of the objects of sense and of thought, and being unable to effect this they suspended judgement; and they found that quietude, as if by chance, followed upon their suspense, even as a shadow follows its substance. (Bury)
[Sextus is distinguishing Skepticism from the Cyrenaics here, not from Epicurus. But his reasoning applies to anyone who makes pleasure the End: in his own words, "quietude" and pleasure are opposite goals.]
Some assert that the Cyrenaic doctrine is identical with Scepticism since it too affirms that only mental states are apprehended. But it differs from Scepticism inasmuch as it says that the End is pleasure and the smooth motion of the flesh, whereas we say it is "quietude," which is the opposite of their End; for whether pleasure be present or not present the man who positively affirms pleasure to be the End undergoes perturbations, as I have argued in my chapter "Of the End." (Bury)
8. What Does "Absence of Pain" Really Mean?
Epicurus recognized exactly two feelings -- pleasure and pain -- with no third, neutral state between them. Given that framework, "absence of pain" is not a separate, lesser category sitting below pleasure; it is pleasure, described from the negative side, and at its complete extent it is the greatest pleasure there is, since nothing remains to diminish it. Critics ancient and modern have treated this equation as a verbal trick -- a way of smuggling a modest, static condition in under pleasure's name to escape Plato's and the Stoics' objections. But the identification is not a dodge. Aulus Gellius, a literary scholar with no stake in the philosophical dispute, confirms that praising or condemning something by denying its opposite's faults was a completely ordinary rhetorical convention in antiquity, used by Homer and Virgil as readily as by Epicurus. And when Cicero, in Torquatus's own mouth, presses the equation as hard as it can be pressed -- demanding that Torquatus either back down or affirm it outright -- Torquatus does not hedge. He affirms it twice, in the strongest possible terms available to him.
[Cicero:] 'Unless you are extraordinarily obstinate you are bound to admit that "freedom from pain" does not mean the same thing as "pleasure."' [Torquatus:] 'Well but on this point you will find me obstinate, for the fact that freedom from pain means pleasure is as true as any proposition can be.' (Rackham)
[Cicero:] 'Still, granting that there is nothing better, surely it does not therefore follow that what I may call the negation of pain is the same thing as pleasure?' [Torquatus:] 'Clearly the same, and indeed the greatest, beyond which none greater can possibly be.' (Rackham)
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 their combination is absent. (tr. Long & Sedley)
- Page scan: Epicurus, Principal Doctrine 3 (tr. Bailey), same page also carries PD 1-2, 4-6
- Online text: Epicurus, Principal Doctrine 3 -- Perseus Digital Library (Diogenes Laertius X, tr. Hicks, Loeb)
- Online text: Epicurus, Principal Doctrine 3 -- Perseus Digital Library (Diogenes Laertius X, tr. Hicks, Loeb)
[Above: Long & Sedley excerpt. Below: the same passage in Bailey's translation.]
The internal sensations they say are two, pleasure and pain, which occur to every living creature, and the one is akin to nature and the other alien: by means of these two choice and avoidance are determined. (Bailey)
"It is for that reason that Homer usually bestows high praise, not by enumerating virtues, but by denying faults; for example: 'And not unwillingly they charged,' and again: 'Not then would you divine Atrides see confused, inactive, nor yet loath to fight.' Epicurus too in a similar way defined the greatest pleasure as the removal and absence of all pain, in these words: 'The utmost height of pleasure is the removal of all that pains.' Again Virgil on the same principle called the Stygian pool 'unlovely.'"
***** English Source at penelope.uchicago.edu - Gellius • Attic Nights — Book II
/On some words which Virgil is asserted to have used carelessly and negligently; and the answer to be made to those who bring this false charge./
Some grammarians of an earlier time, men by no means without learning and repute, who wrote commentaries on Virgil, and among them Annaeus Cornutus, criticize the poet's use of a word in the following verses as careless and negligent: /That, her white waist with howling monsters girt, Dread Scylla knocked about (vexasse) Ulysses' ships Amid the swirling depths, and, piteous sight! The trembling sailors with her sea-dogs rent./
They think, namely, that vexasse is a weak word, indicating a slight and trivial annoyance, and not adapted to such a horror as the sudden seizing and rending of human beings by a ruthless monster.
They also criticize another word in the following: /Who has not heard Of king Eurystheus' pitiless commands And altars of Busiris, the unpraised (inlaudati)?/ Inlaudati, they say, is not at all a suitable word, but is quite inadequate to express abhorrence of a wretch who, because he used to sacrifice guests from all over the world, was not merely "undeserving of praise," but rather deserving of the abhorrence and execration of the whole human race.
They have criticized still another word in the verse:
| Through tunic rough (squalentem) with gold the sword drank from his pierced side, |
on the ground that it is out of place to say auro squalentem, since the filth of squalor is quite opposed to the brilliance and splendour of gold.
5 Now as to the word vexasse, I believe the following answer may be made: vexasse is an intensive verb, and is obviously derived from vehere, p137 in which there is already some notion of compulsion by another; for a man who is carried is not his own master. But vexare, which is derived from vehere, unquestionably implies greater force and impulse. For vexare is properly used of one who is seized and carried away, and dragged about hither and yon; just as taxare denotes more forcible and repeated action than tangere, from which it is undoubtedly derived; and iactare a much fuller and more vigorous action than iacere, from which it comes; and quassare something severer and more violent than quatere. 6 Therefore, merely because vexare is commonly used of the annoyance of smoke or wind or dust is no reason why the original force and meaning of the word should be lost; and that meaning was preserved by the earlier writers who, as became them, spoke correctly and clearly.
7 Marcus Cato, in the speech which he wrote /On the Achaeans/,12 has these words: "And when Hannibal was rending and harrying (vexaret) the land of Italy." That is to say, Cato used vexare of the effect on Italy of Hannibal's conduct, at a time when no species of disaster, cruelty or savagery could be imagined which Italy did not suffer from his hands. 8 Marcus Tullius, in his fourth /Oration against Verres/, wrote: "This13 was so pillaged and ravaged by that wretch, that it did not seem to have been laid waste (vexata) by an enemy who in the heat of war still felt some religious scruple and some respect for customary law, but by barbarous pirates."
9 But concerning inlaudatus it seems possible to give two answers. One is of this kind: There is absolutely no one who is of so perverted a character p139 as not sometimes to do or say something that can be commended (laudari). And therefore this very ancient line has become a familiar proverb:
| Oft-times even a fool expresses himself to the purpose. |
10 But one who, on the contrary, in his every act and at all times, deserves no praise (laude) at all is inlaudatus, and such a man is the very worst and most despicable of all mortals, just as freedom from all reproach makes one inculpatus (blameless). Now inculpatus is the synonym for perfect goodness; therefore conversely inlaudatus represents the limit of extreme wickedness. 11 It is for that reason that Homer usually bestows high praise, not by enumerating virtues, but by denying faults; for example:14 "And not unwillingly they charged," and again:15
| Not then would you divine Atrides see Confused, inactive, nor yet loath to fight. |
12 Epicurus too in a similar way defined the greatest pleasure as the removal and absence of all pain, in these words:16 "The utmost height of pleasure is the removal of all that pains." 13 Again Virgil on the same principle called the Stygian pool "unlovely."17 14 For just as he expressed abhorrence of the "unpraised" man by the denial of praise, 15 so he abhorred the "unlovable" by the denial of love. 16 Another defence of inlaudatus is this: laudare in early Latin means "to name" and "cite." Thus in civil actions they use laudare of an authority, when he is cited. 17 Conversely, the inlaudatus is the same as p141 the inlaudabilis, namely, one who is worthy neither of mention nor remembrance, and is never to be named; 18 as, for example, in days gone by the common council of Asia decreed that no one should ever mention the name of the man who had burned the temple of Diana at Ephesus.18
***** Latin of the key section
Sed enim qui omni in re atque omni tempore laude omni vacat, is "inlaudatus" est isque omnium pessimus deterrimusque est, sicuti omnis culpae privatio "inculpatum" facit. "Inculpatus" autem instar est absolutae virtutis; "inlaudatus" quoque igitur finis est extremae malitiae. 11 Itaque Homerus non virtutibus appellandis, sed vitiis detrahendis laudare ampliter solet. Hoc enim est: to d'ouk akonte petesthen, et item illud: enth'ouk an brizonta idois Agamemnona dion, oude kataptossont', oud'ouk ethelonta machesthai. _12 Epicurus quoque simili modo maximam voluptatem privationem detractionemque omnis doloris definivit his verbis: Horos tou megethous ton hedonon pantos tou algountos hypexaireis_ 13 Eadem ratione idem Vergilius "inamabilem" dixit Stygiam paludem. 14 Nam sicut "inlaudatum" kata steresin laudis, ita "inamabilem" kata amoris steresin detestatus est. 15 Altero modo "inlaudatus" ita defenditur: 16 "Laudare" significat prisca lingua nominare appellareque. Sic in actionibus civilibus auctor "laudari" dicitur, quod est nominari. 17 "Inlaudatus" autem est, quasi inlaudabilis, qui neque mentione aut memoria ulla dignus neque umquam nominandus est, 18 sicuti quondam a communi consilio Asiae decretum est, uti nomen eius, qui templum Dianae Ephesi incenderat, ne quis ullo in tempore nominaret. 19 Tertium restat ex his, quae reprehensa sunt, quod "tunicam squalentem auro" dixit.
*****
At Athens there is in the Ceramicus a statue of Chrysippus seated and holding out one hand. 'Does your hand want anything, while it is in its present condition?' Answer: 'No, nothing.' 'But if pleasure were a good, it would want pleasure.' 'Yes, I suppose it would.' 'Therefore pleasure is not a good.' This is an argument, my father declared, which not even a statue would employ; it does not touch Epicurus. For if the only kind of pleasure were that which so to speak tickles the senses, neither the hand, nor any other part of the body, could be satisfied with the absence of pain unaccompanied by an agreeable and active sensation of pleasure. Whereas if, as Epicurus holds, the highest pleasure be to feel no pain, the reason why it would not have wanted pleasure is that to be without pain is to be in a state of pleasure. (Rackham)
- Page scan: Cicero, On Ends 1.11 (Torquatus, the Statue of Chrysippus)
- Online text: Cicero, On Ends (De Finibus) 1.11 (Latin text only) -- Perseus Digital Library
- Page scan: Cicero, On Ends 1.11 (Torquatus, the Statue of Chrysippus)
- Online text: Cicero, On Ends (De Finibus) 1.11 (Latin text only) -- Perseus Digital Library
The name of pleasure certainly has no dignity in it, and perhaps we do not exactly understand what is meant by it. Cannot we understand what pleasure is, a thing which is known to every sparrow? At another time you speak of some other highest pleasure, which is susceptible of no addition whatever, but that it is present when every sort of pain is absent, and you call it then a 'state,' not a 'motion.' Let that, then, be pleasure. (Yonge)
For if that were the only pleasure which tickled the senses, as it were, if I may say so, and which overflowed and penetrated them with a certain agreeable feeling, then even a hand could not be content with freedom from pain without some pleasing motion of pleasure. But if the highest pleasure is, as Epicurus asserts, to be free from pain, then, O Chrysippus, the first admission was correctly made to you, that the hand, when it was in that condition, was in want of nothing; but the second admission was not equally correct, that if pleasure were a good it would wish for it. For it would not wish for it for this reason, inasmuch as whatever is free from pain is in pleasure. (tr. Long & Sedley)
[Above: Long & Sedley excerpt. Below: the same passage in full surrounding context, tr. Yonge, On Ends II.23.]
***
9. Is Katastematic Pleasure The Only Pleasure Or The Best Pleasure, Or is It Only One Type Of Pleasure?
Later commentary, especially hostile Stoic and Academic sources, sometimes claims that Epicurus recognized only static (katastematic) pleasure -- the mere absence of disturbance -- as legitimate, treating kinetic pleasures of motion (joy, delight, active enjoyment) as secondary. Diogenes Laertius reports Epicurus's own position directly: he admitted both kinds of pleasure, in both the body and the soul, and named each -- freedom from trouble and pain are static pleasures, while joy and exultation are kinetic ones. Neither kind is elevated as the only pleasure that counts; both are integrated into the full range of pleasurable experience that the complete Epicurean life includes. The static/kinetic distinction describes two different kinds of pleasure -- it is not a hierarchy between a superior and an inferior kind.
Cicero's own writing supplies independent confirmation that this hierarchy was never Epicurus's actual position. Cicero repeatedly contrasts Epicurus with Hieronymus of Rhodes, a genuine "freedom-from-pain-is-the-only-good" philosopher -- a contrast that only makes rhetorical sense if Cicero understood the two men to hold different positions. If Epicurus himself had reduced the good to bare freedom from pain, Cicero's whole device of naming Hieronymus as the separate, more extreme case would collapse.
[Above: Long & Sedley excerpt. Below: the same passage in Bailey's translation.]
Epicurus disagrees with the Cyrenaics on pleasure: they do not admit static pleasure but only the kinetic type, whereas he accepts both types, for soul and for body, as he says in his book On Choice and Avoidance and in On The End and in Book 1 of On Lives. In On Choices he speaks as follows: 'Freedom from disturbance and absence of pain are static pleasures; but joy and delight are regarded as kinetic activities.' He has a further disagreement with the Cyrenaics: they take bodily pains to be worse than mental ones, but he takes the mental ones to be worse, since the flesh is storm-tossed only in the present, but the soul in past, present and future. (tr. Long & Sedley)
'Nothing good but pleasure,' as Epicurus maintains: 'nothing good but a freedom from pain,' as Hieronymus asserts.
Why does he prefer using the term 'pleasure' rather than freedom from pain, as Hieronymus does... he never even reckons pleasure at all among the things which are desirable.
When the emotions which disturb the soul are removed, those which produce pleasure enter into it to take their place.
[Correction: Smith's edition (the master source used for this project's Oinoanda clips) explicitly labels this passage "Formerly fr. 34 VI-VII, now separate fragment" -- Smith no longer classifies it under Fragment 34. The exact new fragment number was not given on the clipped page or found elsewhere in the PDF via text search; flagged here rather than guessed. The quote itself is confirmed genuine and accurately worded.]
10. Is Epicurean Philosophy Straightforward About What It Advocates, or Does It Advocate Something Not Visible On The Surface?
Epicurus deliberately built a philosophy that ordinary people could grasp without technical education: the goal (pleasure), the method (trust the senses, anticipations, and feelings), and the practical guidance (examine your desires; secure the natural and necessary ones first) require no specialized training to understand or to act on. Cicero's own testimony below is the most persuasive evidence for this point precisely because it is hostile: he complains that Epicureans recruit uneducated villagers who somehow grasp Epicurus's meaning while he, a trained orator, professes confusion. The plainness of the philosophy was never a defect in Epicurus's eyes -- it was the point. A system of ethics that requires decades of technical schooling before a person can act on it is useless to the great majority of human beings, who need to live well now.
So you are in the habit of telling us this, very often, that we do not understand what kind of pleasure Epicurus means. Now whenever I have been told this... I have the habit of getting now and then a little angry, though I usually bear myself with tolerable calmness in discussion. Do I not understand what ἡδονὴ means in Greek and voluptas in Latin? Which, pray, of the two languages is it that I do not know? Next, how comes it that I do not know this, though all those are aware of it, whoever they be, that have chosen to become Epicureans? And this is a point argued by your school most admirably, that a man who is to become a philosopher has no need to be acquainted with literature. Thus just as our ancestors brought old Cincinnatus from his plough to make him dictator, so you gather from every village men who are indeed worthies, but surely not very well educated. They then understand what Epicurus means, and I do not?
During this silence, C. Amafinius arose and took upon himself to speak; on the publishing of whose writings the people were moved, and enlisted themselves chiefly under this sect, either because the doctrine was more easily understood, or because they were invited thereto by the pleasing thoughts of amusement, or that, because there was nothing better, they laid hold of what was offered them. And after Amafinius, when many of the same sentiments had written much about them, [these doctrines] spread over all Italy: but that these doctrines should be so easily understood and approved of by the unlearned, is a great proof that they were not written with any great subtlety.
Epicurus, as I imagine, is both willing, if it is in his power, to speak intelligibly, and is also speaking, not of an obscure subject like the natural philosophers, nor of one depending on precise rules, as the mathematicians are, but he is discussing a plain and simple matter, which is a subject of common conversation among the common people.
Cassius to Cicero
Brundisium, latter half of January, 45 B.C.
I hope that you are well. I assure you that on this tour of mine there is nothing that gives me more pleasure to do than to write to you; for I seem to be talking and joking with you face to face. And yet that does not come to pass because of those “spectres”; and, by way of retaliation for that, in my next letter I shall let loose upon you such a rabble of Stoic boors that you will proclaim Catius a true-born Athenian.
I am glad that our friend Pansa was sped on his way by universal goodwill when he left the city in military uniform, and that not only on my own account, but also, most assuredly, on that of all our friends. For I hope that men generally will come to understand how much all the world hates cruelty, and how much it loves integrity and clemency, and that the blessings most eagerly sought and coveted by the bad ultimately find their way to the good. _For it is hard to convince men that “the good is to be chosen for its own sake”; but that pleasure and tranquillity of mind is acquired by virtue, justice, and the good is both true and demonstrable._ Why, Epicurus himself, from whom all the Catiuses and Amafiniuses in the world, incompetent translators of terms as they are, derive their origin, lays it down that “to live a life of pleasure is impossible without living a life of virtue and justice.”
And indeed the Epicureans, those best of men, for there is no order of men more innocent, complain that I take great pains to inveigh against Epicurus. We are rivals, I suppose, for some honour or distinction. I place the chief good in the mind, he in the body; I in virtue, he in pleasure; and the Epicureans are up in arms, and implore the assistance of their neighbours, and many are ready to fly to their aid.
Cicero was a crafty old trial lawyer and he deliberately argued to make points... I do not believe he could have misrepresented the truth so successfully had he not understood it completely.
11. Does Epicurean Physics Remain Valuable, Or Has It Been Made Obsolete By Modern Science?
Epicurean physics is often dismissed as a historical curiosity superseded by modern science, but this confuses two different levels of claim. The specific mechanisms Epicurus proposed for particular phenomena -- the size of the sun, the causes of earthquakes -- were always offered provisionally, and Epicurus said so openly. But the foundational propositions -- that nothing comes from nothing, that the universe is composed of matter and void, that matter is conserved -- are logical arguments from universal experience, not empirical guesses awaiting better instruments. Conservation of matter and energy, atomic theory, and a universe with no true beginning or end (in some form) remain core commitments of modern physics as well. The framework endures because it was never a science textbook to begin with -- it was philosophy's guardrail against superstition, and that job is not finished.
We should not think that any other end is served by knowledge of celestial events... than freedom from disturbance and firm confidence... neither should we force through what is impossible, nor should we in all areas keep our study similar either to discourses on the conduct of life or to those belonging to the solution of the other problems of physics, for example that the totality of things is body and intangible substance, or that there are atomic elements, and all the theses of this kind which are uniquely consistent with things evident. In the case of celestial events this is not the case: both the causes of their coming to be and the accounts of their essence are multiple. For physics should not be studied by means of empty judgments and arbitrary fiat, but in the way that things evident require... Now in respect of all things which have a multiplicity of explanations consistent with things evident, complete freedom from trepidation results when someone in the proper way lets stand whatever is plausibly suggested about them. But when someone allows one explanation while rejecting another equally consistent with what is evident, he is clearly abandoning natural philosophy altogether and descending into myth. (tr. Long & Sedley)
A man cannot dispel his fear about the most important matters if he does not know what is the nature of the universe but suspects the truth of some mythical story. So that without natural science it is not possible to attain our pleasures unalloyed.
12. Are Anticipations True or False, Or Are They Neither As They Are Not Opinions?
Anticipations (prolepseis) occupy a distinct category in the Epicurean Canon, separate from and prior to opinion. A preconception -- the general concept of "man" or "horse" built up from repeated experience -- is not itself a claim that can be true or false; it is the standard against which claims (opinions) are subsequently checked. When someone asks whether the thing standing yonder is a horse or a cow, they can only investigate the question because they already possess, prior to any judgment, the preconception of what a horse and a cow look like. Opinion is the judgment added on top of a preconception or a sensation, and it is opinion -- not the anticipation itself -- that can go wrong. Treating anticipations as if they were themselves opinions collapses a distinction Epicurus considered foundational to the whole theory of knowledge.
The concept they speak of as an apprehension or right opinion or thought or general idea stored within the mind, that is to say a recollection of what has often been presented from without... Therefore the first signification of every name is immediate and clear evidence. And we could not look for the object of our search, unless we have first known it... So the concepts are clear and immediate evidence. Further, the decision of opinion depends on some previous clear and immediate evidence, to which we refer when we express it.
13. Was Epicurus A Complete Empiricist, Or Did He Rely on Reason In Reaching His Conclusions?
Epicurus grounded all knowledge in the senses, but he was not a naive empiricist who accepted only what could be directly observed. His Canon explicitly authorizes reasoned inference about things imperceptible to the senses -- atoms, void, the causes of distant phenomena -- built from analogy, combination, and similarity with what is actually observed. This inferential method, later developed at length by his followers in the debate over sign-inference, is how Epicurus justified confidence in unseen entities like atoms while keeping that reasoning tethered to sensory evidence at every step. The difference between Epicurus and a naive empiricist is that his reasoning about the non-evident was always disciplined by and answerable to direct experience -- never permitted to float free of it, as Platonic or Stoic abstraction did.
Nor is there anything which can refute the sensations... From this it follows that as regards the imperceptible we must draw inferences from phenomena. For all thoughts have their origin in sensations by means of coincidence and analogy and similarity and combination, reasoning too contributing something.
14. Not All Desire Is Itself Painful
It is sometimes claimed that desire itself is inherently a form of suffering, so that the only escape from pain is the extinguishing of desire altogether. Epicurus's own classification of desires refutes this directly: only some desires cause pain if left unfulfilled -- the natural and necessary ones; others, left unfulfilled, involve nothing worse than a craving that is easily dispelled, with no pain attached at all. Desire is not uniformly painful; whether an unfulfilled desire hurts depends on which category it falls into and how firmly it is examined. This is why Epicurus's answer to an unwanted desire was never simply "extinguish all desire," but "examine the desire and ask what will happen if it is, or is not, satisfied."
Of desires, all that do not lead to a sense of pain, if they are not satisfied, are not necessary, but involve a craving which is easily dispelled, when the object is hard to procure or they seem likely to produce harm.
15. Does An Epicurean Limit Himself Only To Desires That Are Natural And Necessary, Or Can He Pursue "Unnecessary" Desires That Lead To More Pleasure Than Pain?
A persistent misreading reduces Epicurus to a philosopher of minimalism, as if only the bare natural-and-necessary desires -- food, shelter, basic security -- are legitimate to pursue. Epicurus's own words say otherwise: Vatican Saying 21 explicitly endorses fulfilling "the physical" desires -- natural but not strictly necessary -- so long as they cause no harm, which is best understood as more pain than pleasure. The Letter to Menoeceus praises the ability to enjoy luxury when it is available without becoming dependent on it. The three-category classification of desires (natural-and-necessary, natural-but-unnecessary, neither natural nor necessary) is a tool for judging which desires are worth pursuing and at what cost -- not a fence restricting the good life to only the first category.
We must not violate nature, but obey her; and we shall obey her if we fulfill the necessary desires and also the physical, if they bring no harm to us, but sternly reject the harmful.
Independence of desire we think a great good -- not that we may at all times enjoy but a few things, but that, if we do not possess many, we may enjoy the few in the genuine persuasion that those have the sweetest pleasure in luxury who least need it... And so plain savours bring us a pleasure equal to a luxurious diet, when all the pain due to want is removed.
16. Are Sex, Marriage, And Children Things To Be Pursued, Or Not, And How Do You Know?
Sexual desire, romantic partnership, and the desire for children belong among the natural desires in Epicurus's own classification -- as natural as hunger and thirst -- and Diogenes Laertius reports that Epicurus taught the wise man will marry and have children, adapting the decision to his own circumstances in life; translators have long disputed the exact force of that passage, but a piece of evidence no translation dispute can touch is Epicurus's own will, which arranges a marriage for Metrodorus's orphaned daughter. Lucretius develops the same point at length in Book IV of *On The Nature Of Things*, tracing sexual desire to nature's own design while distinguishing the natural pleasure of the act from the pathology of obsessive, deranged romantic passion. Nothing in Epicurean philosophy recommends celibacy or withdrawal from ordinary family life as a superior path -- the philosophy was never designed for monks. Nor does the classification of sex as natural rule out caution: Epicurus's own warning that intercourse "has never done anyone any good" is prudential advice about reckless pursuit, not a general suspicion of sex, and is answered the same way any other desire is judged -- by weighing the actual balance of pleasure and pain it produces in one's own circumstances, not by a rule that forbids or requires it in advance.
Amynomachus and Timocrates shall take care of Epicurus, the son of Metrodorus, and of the son of Polyaenus, provided they devote themselves to philosophy and live with Hermarchus. Likewise they shall take care of Metrodorus' daughter, and when she comes of age shall give her in marriage to one of his disciples whom Hermarchus shall choose, provided she is well-behaved and obedient to Hermarchus. Amynomachus and Timocrates shall set aside for the maintenance of these children such sum out of the revenues of my estate as shall seem good to them each year in consultation with Hermarchus. (Bailey)
Moreover, the wise man will marry and have children, as Epicurus says in the Problems and in the work On Nature. But he will marry according to the circumstances of his life.
Sexual intercourse, they say, has never done a man good, and he is fortunate if it has not injured him.
There is stirred in us that seed, whereof we spoke before, when first the age of manhood strengthens our limbs. For one cause moves and rouses one thing, a different cause another; from man only the influence of man stirs human seed. And as soon as it has been aroused, bursting forth it makes its way from out the whole body through the limbs and frame, coming together into fixed places, and straightway rouses at last the natural parts of the body; and there arises the desire to seek that body, by which the mind is smitten with love. For as a rule all men fall towards the wound, and the blood spirts out in that direction, whence we are struck by the blow, and, if it is near at hand, the red stream reaches our foe. Thus, then, he who receives a blow from the darts of Venus, whoso'er it be who wounds him, inclines to that whereby he is smitten; for an unspoken desire foretells the pleasure to come.
Nor is he who shuns love bereft of the fruits of Venus, but rather he chooses those joys which bring no pain. For surely the pleasure from these things is more untainted for the heart-whole than for the love-sick; for in the very moment of possession the passion of lovers ebbs and flows with undetermined current, nor are they sure what first to enjoy with eyes or hands. (Bailey)
17. Does Nietzsche's Philosophy Independently Confirm Epicurean Physics And Canonics, Or Is The Comparison Merely Superficial?
Two thousand years apart and using entirely different vocabulary, Nietzsche arrived independently at several of Epicurus's central conclusions -- and said so himself. Both philosophers reject the idea of a "true world" standing behind or above the world of ordinary sensation and hold that this natural, changing world is the only one there is. Both hold that the senses themselves do not lie -- error enters only through what judgment subsequently adds to a sense-report. And Nietzsche did not merely converge on Epicurus's positions by accident; he named Epicurus directly, and credited him with having already fought and nearly won the battle that Christianity later reopened. The comparison has real limits -- Nietzsche's "will to power" and emphasis on struggle and self-overcoming differ in emphasis from Epicurus's focus on net pleasure and friendship -- but on the core rejection of a "true world" beyond nature, and on the reliability of the senses, the convergence is explicit and, on Nietzsche's own telling, not coincidental.
The senses do not lie. What we make of their testimony, that alone introduces lies.
The true world -- we have abolished it: what world has remained? The apparent world perhaps? But no! With the true world we have also abolished the apparent one.
One has but to read Lucretius to know what Epicurus made war upon -- not paganism, but "Christianity"... Epicurus would have won; each respectable mind was Epicurean in the Roman Empire: and then Paul arrived.