Epicurus

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  • 341–270 BC. Born on Samos, active mainly in Athens. Wrote in Greek. Founder of the school; developed the physics (atomism), canonics (the senses, preconceptions, and feelings as the criteria of truth), and ethics (pleasure as the goal, pain and pleasure as the only guides) that all later Epicureans transmitted and defended.

    341–270 BC. Born on Samos, active mainly in Athens. Wrote in Greek. Founder of the school; developed the physics (atomism), canonics (the senses, preconceptions, and feelings as the criteria of truth), and ethics (pleasure as the goal, pain and pleasure as the only guides) that all later Epicureans transmitted and defended.

    1. From Diogenes Laertius

    Quote from Epicurus - Main Biography

    "Epicurus, son of Neocles and Chaerestrata, was an Athenian of the deme of Gargettus, and the family of the Philaidae, as Metrodorus says in his work on Nobility of Birth. Heraclides in his epitome of Sotion and others say that the Athenians having colonized Samos, Epicurus was brought up there. In his eighteenth year, as they say, he came to Athens, when Xenocrates was at the Academy and Aristotle was living in Chalcis. After the death of Alexander of Macedon, when the Athenians were driven out of Samos by Perdiccas, he went to join his father in Colophon. Having stayed there some time and gathered disciples he returned again to Athens in the archonship of Anaxicrates. For a while he joined with others in the study of philosophy, but later taught independently, when he had founded the school called after him. He tells us himself that he first made acquaintance with philosophy at the age of fourteen. Apollodorus the Epicurean in the first book of his Life of Epicurus says that he took to philosophy because he despised the teachers of literature, since they were not able to explain to him the passage about Chaos in Hesiod. Hermippus says that Epicurus was at one time a schoolmaster and then after he met with the writings of Democritus, he took eagerly to philosophy." [Diogenes Laertius 01-02]

    2. Key Texts

    Quote from Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus 122

    Let no one either delay philosophizing when young, or weary of philosophizing when old. For no one is under-age or over-age for health of the soul. To say either that the time is not yet ripe for philosophizing, or that the time for philosophizing has gone by, is like saying that the time for happiness either has not arrived or is no more. So both young and old must philosophize -- the young man so that as he ages he can be made young by his goods, through his thankfulness for things past, the old man so that he can be at once young and aged, through his fearlessness towards things future, Therefore we must rehearse the things which produce happiness, seeing that when happiness is present we have everything, while when it is absent the one aim of our actions is to have it. (tr. Long & Sedley)

    Quote from Lucretius 3:1-17 (Praise of Epicurus as Liberator)

    O thou who first amid such murky darkness didst raise aloft so bright a light, illuminating the blessings of life, thee I follow, glory of the Greek nation, and in thy deep footprints now I plant my own, not so much eager to rival thee as for love's sake, since the swallow contends not with the swan, nor can kids with staggering legs compete in speed with the strong horse. Thou, father, art discoverer of things; thou suppliest us with a father's precepts; and like bees on flowery meadows we feed from thy pages, feeding on thy golden words, golden and ever worthy of everlasting life. For as soon as thy philosophy, born from thy godlike mind, begins to proclaim the nature of things, the terrors of the mind are dispersed, the walls of the world part asunder, I see things moving on through all the void. (Bailey)

    3. When Was Epicurus Born?

    Diogenes Laertius, citing the Chronicles of Apollodorus, says that Epicurus was born in the third year of the 109th Olympiad (341 BC), on the seventh day of the Athenian month Gamelion (X.14). Converting that date to our own calendar is not straightforward, and the forum's research on it is collected in these threads:

    4. Related Reading

    5. Forum Discussions

    6. See Also

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