Philosophy › Socrates, Plato, Aristotle & the Axial Age › Stoicism (founded by Zeno of Citium)
Epicurus and Epicureanism
341–270 BC· Philosopher· Ethics & how to live
Well documentedSolid records, texts or physical evidence.
Greek philosopher who taught that the goal of life is pleasure, understood as calm and freedom from pain, not luxury.
See it on the Philosophy map →The idea
The idea: pleasure is the good, but the best pleasure is ataraxia, a calm mind, plus freedom from bodily pain. That means simple food, close friends and staying out of politics. His atomism removed two great fears: gods don't meddle in a world of atoms, and death is just atoms dispersing. 'When we exist, death is not; when death exists, we are not.' His Garden school in Athens admitted women and slaves. The main objection: a philosophy of withdrawal ignores civic duty.
Why it matters
He offered a practical therapy for anxiety that rivalled Stoicism for six centuries and fed modern materialism and utilitarianism; Thomas Jefferson called himself an Epicurean.
Legacy and sources
Of some 300 works only three letters and two collections of sayings survive, mostly via Diogenes Laertius; Lucretius's poem and charred papyri from Herculaneum add more.
Still debated
Whether his gods were real beings or ideals, and how exactly his atomic 'swerve' was supposed to work, are debated.
Inside this (1)
Connections (5)
▸Democritus and atomism was adopted and revised by Epicurus and EpicureanismWell documented
The connection
Epicurus took over Democritus's picture of a world made only of atoms moving in empty space, but revised it: atoms have weight, come in limited sizes, and occasionally swerve. He also gave atomism a new job, ethics: once you see the world as atoms, fear of gods and death fades.
When and how
Late 4th century BC; Epicurus learned atomism from Nausiphanes, a follower of Democritus, on Teos, before founding his Garden in Athens around 307 BC.
How we know
Epicurus's Letter to Herodotus sets out his atomism; Cicero, Plutarch and others record both the borrowing and the changes, often accusing him of copying.
Debates and open questions
Epicurus claimed to be self-taught and disparaged Nausiphanes, so how much he owed Democritus directly, versus later atomists, is debated.
▸What is a good life? was answered with calm pleasure by Epicurus and EpicureanismWell documented
The connection
Epicurus said the good life is pleasure, but defined pleasure as the absence of pain and anxiety (ataraxia, 'tranquility'), not luxury. Simple food, friends, and freedom from fear of the gods and death are enough: 'death is nothing to us,' since when it comes, we are gone.
When and how
Athens, from about 306 BC, in his school called the Garden, which unusually admitted women and slaves.
How we know
His Letter to Menoeceus and Principal Doctrines survive through Diogenes Laertius; Lucretius' poem On the Nature of Things (c. 55 BC) spread his views.
Debates and open questions
Critics ancient and modern ask whether avoiding pain and risk, including politics and passion, yields a full life or a cautious, narrow one.
▸Epicurus and Epicureanism proposed the atomic "swerve" to address Do we have free will?Mostly agreed
The connection
Democritus's atomism seemed to make every motion, and so every choice, mechanically fixed. Epicurus rejected that 'fate of the physicists'. The swerve, a tiny, uncaused sideways movement of atoms, was meant to break the chain of causes and leave room for choices that are genuinely up to us.
When and how
Athens, c. 300–270 BC; the fullest account is in Lucretius's Latin poem On the Nature of Things, written around 55 BC.
How sure are we?
Lucretius (Book II) and Cicero both attribute the swerve to Epicurus, though it appears nowhere in his own surviving writings.
Debates and open questions
How random swerves could yield responsible choice rather than mere chance; Cicero mocked the idea, and modern quantum-randomness arguments face the same objection.
▸Lucretius, On the Nature of Things put into verse the ideas of Epicurus and EpicureanismWell documented
The connection
Lucretius set Epicurus' physics in Latin verse, hoping the 'honey' of poetry would help readers swallow the medicine. The poem hails Epicurus as a godlike liberator and follows his arguments on atoms, the soul and death closely. It is now our fullest account of Epicurean physics.
When and how
Rome, c. 55 BC, about 215 years after Epicurus died in Athens.
How we know
The poem praises Epicurus by name, and its arguments match his surviving Letter to Herodotus and Epicurean papyri found at Herculaneum.
Debates and open questions
Whether Lucretius worked directly from Epicurus' largely lost 37-book On Nature or from later summaries is debated.
▸Epicurus and Epicureanism is credited with posing The problem of evilDebated
The connection
The classic dilemma is credited to Epicurus: either God wants to stop evil but cannot, or can but will not, so God is weak or not good. Epicureans used reasoning like this to show the gods do not run the world, not that gods do not exist.
When and how
Reported by the Christian writer Lactantius in On the Anger of God, c. AD 313, some 600 years after Epicurus.
How sure are we?
Only Lactantius attributes it to Epicurus; no surviving Epicurean text states it, though Sextus Empiricus gives a similar Skeptic version.
Debates and open questions
Many scholars think the attribution is loose or wrong, and that the argument came from Skeptic or Academic critics instead.