The Case for Epicurus - Introduction

The Case and the Charges

This book borrows from the analogy of a case at law, because much of the understanding of Epicurus today derives from the charges brought against him by Marcus Tullius Cicero, a leading Roman lawyer, who attacked Epicurus as if prosecuting him in court. In his dialogue On Ends Cicero let the Epicurean Torquatus state the case for Epicurus in Book I, but then answered it himself in Book II, point by point, as an advocate answers the other side. In his speech Against Piso Cicero mocked a Roman consul for his Epicurean philosophy. Later critics, from the Church Fathers onward, repeated Cicero’s charges for centuries.

Epicurus stands accused because he championed this world: nature, and the faculties nature gives us, the senses, the preconcepts and the feelings. To defend him is to defend nature as well, and the case is heard in nature’s own court, which is reality, the only world there is.

So this book answers in kind. It first sets out the case for Epicurus, and then answers, one at a time, the charges brought against him by seven traditions: the Platonists, the Aristotelians, the Stoics, the Skeptics, the Abrahamic religions, the Humanists and the Buddhists.

Several of those traditions did not exist when Epicurus lived. There were no Christians, no Muslims and no Renaissance humanists in the Athens of his day, and the teachings of the Buddha had not reached Greece. But the ideas they would teach were already there, and Epicurus had already answered them. Nietzsche saw this. Writing of the religion that later became master of Rome, he called it “the same kind of religion on the pre-existent form of which Epicurus had waged war. One has only to read Lucretius in order to understand what Epicurus combated, not Paganism, but ‘Christianity,’ that is to say the corruption of souls through the concept of guilt, through the concept of punishment and immortality” (The Antichrist §58). The names change from age to age, but the questions do not: what is real and how we know it, whether gods made and govern the world, whether the soul survives death, what the goal of life is, and whether any society can be good if there is no world beyond this one. This book gathers the charges under those common questions, so that the reader can weigh the answers side by side and reach his own verdict.

None of this requires a knowledge of Latin or Greek, or of the law. The questions at issue are simple and clear, and they can be stated in plain words, which is how the chapters that follow try to state them. No one needs to be intimidated by foreign words or learned frameworks to understand them. The book follows the order of a case at law, from the statement of the case, through the charges and the case against each accuser, to the closing argument, because it carries on an argument that was already in full course at the height of the Greek and Roman world. But the reader needs no knowledge of the law to follow it. He needs only his own senses and his own judgment, which is exactly what Epicurus said he would need.

Who This Book Is For

Every philosophy offers itself as a guide to life. It tells you what is real, what it means for something to be true and how to know it, what kind of world you live in, and what you should aim at. This book argues that Epicurus is the best guide of all, because he is the champion of truth about the world we live in, and, on that truth, the architect of the happy life in this world and this life.

This book grew out of more than ten years of discussion of Epicurus at EpicureanFriends.com, where since 2015 people from many countries and walks of life have worked through the ancient texts together and tested their understanding against each other. It is not written for academic specialists, who have their own literature, and it is not written to convert those who are already firmly committed to another philosophy or religion. It is written for educated readers who are not specialists, and especially for younger people, who need a general introduction to why Epicurean philosophy deserves their attention. Thomas Jefferson stated the case in two sentences: “I too am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greece and Rome have left us” (Letter to William Short, October 31, 1819).

A word of caution is also needed for readers who already consider themselves knowledgeable about Epicurus and sympathetic to him, but who accept the conventional notion that the Epicurean “absence of pain” is a quiet version of Buddhism, asceticism or minimalism: want little, feel little, clear the mind and let go of desire, and wait for happiness to arise by itself. A major purpose of this book is to argue against that notion and to expose it as a fallacy that even Epicurus’s worst enemies in the ancient world, such as Cicero and Plutarch, did not stoop to argue. They attacked Epicurus for making pleasure the goal of life, not for teaching men to withdraw from it.

Jefferson saw this clearly. In the same letter, answering William Short’s report that Short was yielding to a life of repose, Jefferson warned him: “Your love of repose will lead, in its progress, to a suspension of healthy exercise, a relaxation of mind, an indifference to everything around you, and finally to a debility of body, and hebetude of mind … Weigh this matter well; brace yourself up.” The Epicurean life is not a retreat from the world. It is the fullest use of the one life we have.

What This Book Contains

The book begins with the positive case. The first chapter, Champion of Truth, Architect of the Happy Life, sets out what Epicurus taught about reality and truth, nature, fate and the goal of life, and what he meant by “pleasure,” a word he uses much differently and far more widely than his critics will admit. The second chapter, The Charges, sets out the ten charges brought against Epicurus, with his answer to each beside the positions of the seven traditions that have most often been set against him.

The main part of the book then examines those seven traditions one by one, in the order in which they entered Western thought:

1. Against The Platonists: Socrates and Plato were the prominent founders of the view that the world we see is only a shadow of a higher, eternal world, and that our world was made by a divine craftsman. They taught men to distrust the senses and to look for truth and goodness beyond this life, the reverse of Epicurus’s trust in nature.
2. Against The Aristotelians: Plato’s pupil Aristotle removed the divine craftsman but kept Plato’s intelligent purpose in nature, holding that everything acts toward a fixed end and that the highest life is contemplation, not pleasure. Aristotle’s system later became the backbone of medieval theology.
3. Against The Stoics: Zeno, Chrysippus, Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius were the great rivals of the Epicureans in the ancient world. They taught that the world is filled with a providential god and governed by fate, and that virtue, not pleasure, is the only good.
4. Against The Skeptics: Pyrrho, the Academic Skeptics and Sextus Empiricus taught that nothing can be known. They held that the wise man suspends individual judgment and follows custom rather than taking sides on the critical questions of life, which leaves him no ground on which to stand against error.
5. Against The Abrahamists: Judaism, Christianity and Islam, in the words of their scriptures and authorities, made the creator god, providence and the judgment after death into articles of faith. They ask men to accept on faith what Epicurus held must be tested by the senses, and to look to another life for their reward.
6. Against The Humanists: The Humanists, from Boethius and the Renaissance through Kant, Comte and Feuerbach to the present day, let go of the Christian God but arbitrarily kept much of the Christian morality. They put duty, service to humanity or virtue for its own sake where Epicurus put pleasure.
7. Against The Buddhists: The Buddha taught, in the words of the early Buddhist scriptures, that life is suffering and that desire is its cause, so that the goal is to extinguish desire rather than to satisfy it wisely. Buddhism reached the West last, and it is now the tradition most often confused with Epicurus.

Four of these traditions originate in ancient Greece: Platonism, Aristotelianism, Stoicism and Skepticism. Five of them have, more than any others, obscured or corrupted the teaching of Epicurus: Platonism, Stoicism, Skepticism, supernatural religion and Humanism. Aristotle is given a chapter of his own because, although he belongs in the Platonist tradition, he built the most complete system of it and is often mistaken for an ally of Epicurus. Buddhism arose far from Greece and owes nothing to Plato, but it is given the last chapter because it has become, in our own time, the tradition most often confused with the teaching of Epicurus.

Each of the seven chapters follows the same plan. It begins with why the tradition matters to Epicureans and with the historical record of its quarrel with Epicurus. It then takes the three divisions of Epicurean philosophy in turn: the Canon, or what is real and true and how we know it; Physics, or the nature of things; and Ethics, or how to live. In each, the tradition is stated in the words of its own leading writers, and the Epicurean response follows. Each chapter closes with the places where the tradition, in spite of itself, helps the Epicurean case, with its later influence, and with a list of the most important passages.

The chapters quote their sources at length, and the quotations link to the full texts on EpicurusToday.com, where the reader can check the wording and read the context for himself. A concluding chapter draws the results together and returns to the choice with which the book begins, and an Epilogue suggests what to do next: how to learn Epicurus accurately when reliable guides are few, and how to use the information in this book as a test of any guide.

How to Read This Book

Readers who already have a deep understanding of Epicurus can go straight to the commentary on the traditions that interest them, because each chapter can be read on its own. But readers who are new to Epicurus, or who know only the domesticated Epicurus of popular literature, should start with the first two chapters, since every later chapter measures its tradition against them. Read in order, the chapters show how a supernatural and hostile view of this world, elevated to high-sounding philosophy by Socrates and Plato, passed from school to school and from philosophy into religion and back again, and how Epicurus answered it at every stage. The final chapter traces that line and sets out what the survey shows.

All quotations come from published and reputable translations, most of them old enough to be freely available. Links in the chapters in the electronic editions go to the full texts on EpicurusToday.com, where the translator of every work is named and every quotation can be checked against its context and, in most cases, against an image of the printed page.