From time to time I remember our philologist at high school who always insisted on the alliteration of letter “B”. Whenever a student was unprepared our good professor never stopped saying “You are blind in your ears, blind in your mind and blind in your eyes.”

It took me many years to listen to Thanasis Veggos in a Greek black-and-white movie saying: “My grandmother is a happy person. She neither sees, nor hears …” 

It took me even more years to come across the Delphic precept: “Aitio paronta” (to find the causes of what is happening now).

And more years should pass until I understood why modern Greeks, Graikoi and Romioi feel ashamed rather than sorry for the degradation of their country.

And after all these years of melancholy I met Epicurus, who took me by the hand and walked me in all those difficult paths that bypass the misery of alliteration of letter “B” and lead to “well-being”.

Then I realized what our good professor was trying to say. He briefly wanted to say: “It is good to philosophize about life but it is better to philosophize in life.”

More or less he wanted to say that in order to philosophize in life, to defend your dignity, to live happily every day of the rest of your life, help your neighbor in difficulties you must have your eyes and ears and your mind open and observe carefully what is happening around you and find multiple causes (“Aitio paronta”).

He wanted to say that in order to win your happiness in this unprecedented phenomenon called life you must learn to observe the world outside and inside you with open eyes and mind that knows how to think.

He also wanted to say that the Greek always relied on observation with eyes and mind wide open, which leads to discovery, and not with mind and eyes closed -which brings the intellectual laziness of the Apocalypse.

Epicurus, who was widely read in his era, certainly knew this alliteration of his Greek grandfather Sophocles and even if he did not, he definitely carried it inside him because he was Greek above all and as a Greek he was talking through Diogenes Laertes’s¹ lips: “However, someone cannot become wise regardless of his physical condition or national origins.”

Clement of Alexandria² says the same, making his comment about Epicurus: “Epicurus on the contrary considers that only the Greek can philosophize.”

But Epicurus himself in his speech will say³: “In your old age you are the person that I advised you to become. And you know how to discern what it means for someone to philosophize about oneself and what about Greece. I am pleased with you.”

We mentioned the above to emphasize the consciousness of Epicurus’s ethnic origin for the simple reason that the great humanists and enlighteners who rebirthed Europe and the world were Greeks.

This is not because we are some chosen nation but because the Greeks cultivated the field of logic while other nations cultivated the field of faith and illogical emotions.

In the years of Epicurus, the city–state is falling apart, the religion of the city is unable to provide answers and while the social recognition was measured only with gold, Epicurus himself, carrying the values of his Greek grandfather, measured the social prestige with the radishes of his garden, not because he was frugal but because he wanted -as he used to say- to be free.

So, Epicurus not only did not forget that he was Greek in those times of great subversion of the values of the city-state but he also kept what he could keep from his Greek grandfather’s legacy. Because he knew that what we have is not what they have given to us but what we have managed to preserve.

Perhaps Epicurus was a little lucky. As a starting point he used the Pericles’ Funeral Oration. Modern Greek people are confused between the Pericles’ Funeral Oration and the Psalm of the Byzantine Roman Emperor.

I mean that this irreconcilable contradiction between two value systems, the ancient Greek and the Byzantine Christian, where the first calls you to open your eyes and look up and the other one invites you to close your eyes and your mind and kneel low, makes modern Greek people what the film director Marangos calls “Black Baaa”, the “Black sheep”.

Why cannot somebody look at the Pericles’ Funeral Oration and at the Byzantine theocracy simultaneously? You squint! And when you squint things seem wrong and only knowledge, the result of open eyes, ears and mind can help you see the path of your life in accordance with the values that you keep.

The vulgar argument of Dostoyevsky “If God did not exist everything would be permitted”, means that all the punks would do anything they want, goes back to at least Plato.  Epicurus answers with his own views on justice, not copied from a previous philosopher but written by his own experience from his very own root taken from the function of the Greek city-state, which has been filtered through his open mind, through his open eyes and through his open ears.

I mean that in the city-state, where citizens realized very early that the laws do not come from outside, from some higher authority figure, whether it is called God, or Moody’s Credit Rating Agency, the citizens themselves were interested in making laws and respect them in order not to harm and not to be harmed.

In those times, the Hellenistic period, Epicurus very early realized that there is no hope that life will come here since the laws came from there, from very far away.

However, not to have hope does not mean that you are desperate, and when you realise that you are not hemmed in a framework but in a context of readiness, you feel liberated so you can redirect your energy in creation and not in the system, which of course is at fault, but we keep feeding it.

The creativity of Epicurus that we are talking about is initially expressed with the creation of the Garden. He wants to make a society inside the society of the Hellenistic period. Laws that came from far away concerned the society of people living in and with the present. The participants themselves will make the rules and “laws” within the Garden and the rules would apply forever and not only in the present. It was a sense of justice which surrounded him.

You see, the thoughts of Epicurus were not about the present but about a different context. He drew a huge amount of information from the tradition and the past and transformed this information into judgments and reasoning about the future. And this means that the thoughts of Epicurus were not about the individual but about the kind called “Human” which means that his thoughts were in humanity. In other words, Epicurus resided in the Garden but he lived all around Greece and he embraced it, not to mention the rest of the world. His letters confirm this.

Epicurus was not for only himself.  Epicurus is dealing with humanity. His loneliness was the womb of production of his work.  Otherwise, one works and does not produce anything with a universal character.  In other words, Epicurus in his garden read the dead and wrote for the unborn.

Living all over Greece he kept realizing that “exist” means “coexist”.

The founding of the Garden was an expression of another value which comes from the values of the city–state.  In the Garden he could accomplish the splicing of two concepts, the concept of the foreign and the concept of friendship, to create the highest value of hospitality that characterizes the world of the Greek city-state.

Outside the Garden the stranger may have been a slave or a free citizen, man or woman, housewife or courtesan, rich or poor or whatever.  Inside the Garden he was his friend.

In the Garden Epicurus in reality was treating a being, the human being. His project was not “humanitarian”. A humanitarian project treats a lack, not a being. A “humanitarian project” is political, charitable and about usury. Epicurus’ project was about enlightenment and humanism.  He treated the human existence.

With open eyes and ears and mind (to quote again the alliteration of “B”) he did not just see. He was looking. He was looking not at what acted but at what existed. He was looking at the human.

In the Garden, not everyone could find a setting for the supernatural type of “salvation,” but an environment capable of neutralizing the alliteration of “B”. An environment where everyone would not do what had to be done but what was right to do. And the right thing to do has no relation with principles but with values.

So the humanism of Epicurus is not only expressed through his interest in human existence, nor in the value of co-existence. It is neither expressed through the value of hospitality, nor the value of friendship and the sense of equity, that is to say all that were mentioned above.

The Humanism of Epicurus is expressed by what is deeply ingrained in our Greek national consciousness, which is associated with the context of values and not with the context of principles. Because as you know, these systems of principles are always related with the current moral systems, which are transforming from place to place and from time to time. Therefore the system of principles come and waive.

The system of morality, which was prevailing in Greece during the Hellenistic period, left Epicurus coldly indifferent. That is why he decided to do the deviation from his social duty, which claimed the freeborn to be with the freeborn, the slaves with the slave sand the women in a strictly male-dominated society to be mistresses and wives, but confined to the home. He deviates from a social duty because he knows that the task derives from a social morality that may not apply tomorrow. Epicurus looked way ahead of tomorrow.

That’s why the Garden, which was working with values, was open to everyone: for freeborn, for slaves and for men and women, rich and poor, in stark contrast with the existing system of social ethics. For that reason he was accused of being immoral.

Carrying the heavy load of Hellenism inside him, he is moving within a framework of values, such as those of freedom, friendship, sacrifice, debt, patriotism and historical memory. Because the values in contrast to the principles have to do with utility, time does not touch them.

The principles have to do with the individual. I have a principle not to lie or not to usurp the things of others. I have a principle not to lend and not to borrow, etc.

There is something more. Values are related not only to reaction but to resistance as well. Epicurus resists a mass society and founds the Garden a society of people who think with open eyes, open ears and open mind. That is how Epicurus, the great Teacher and Humanist who was aware of his enlightening mission, envisioned human society.

In other words, Epicurus is a man different from what every person of authority would want but as the nature wishes a human to be, that is to say a person with intelligence and altruism. That is why Epicurus differentiates himself from the people who make up the society of his era, the mass society and by making himself a human he now belongs to society.

That is why he puts aside his social duty, in other words the prevalent social principles.  Because he knows that the societies of people live according to principles. Humanity lives according to values.

With the diversion from his social duty, which is led by a temporary social morality and with the expressed parameter of the Epicurean virtue of self-sufficiency, Epicurus declares himself free and remains stable to his values, one of them being the value of freedom. He wishes to offer this freedom to the people. That is why his students and Lucretius, Torquatus and Velleius and also the sceptic Lucian call him “liberator”. He is a liberator. He sees the people of his era who have become slaves, not only financially but politically, socially, and particularly mentally. Epicurus tries to liberate the enslaved mind of the Humans of his era.

Now we can better understand the Epicurean beliefs about the Divine, another expression of his Humanism and his enlightened speech, as he extricates the humans from the fear of God and the agony of death. By observing the society of his era, Epicurus concludes that if Gods were interested in mankind or if they loved it, they would commit suicide. He expresses the opinion that Gods do not care for what is human, and at the same time by studying human nature, he understands how attractive rituals are for people and he does not hesitate to motivate his friends to take part in them. On the one hand, he dislodges every clergy by deducting any supernatural powers which are attributed to Divine and on the other hand he does not deny human nature and  human adrenaline.

The “Liberator” Epicurus renders an ideal type of behavior through the centuries and he does that with his humanism and his enlightened speech and work.

He is the only one who talks about happiness in this unprecedented phenomenon called life, and any kind of happiness is up to us.

Nobody talks about that, neither the stoic nor the sceptic or the cynic. Nevertheless, if and when they talk about happiness, they place it in a supernatural or utopic field far away from the everyday person.

The Epicurean type does not stick to nostalgia but proceeds to action as he considers that happiness depends on him. That is why Epicureanism is a philosophy of action. It is an action of enlightenment capable of opening the eyes, the ears and the mind of other people. It is an action related to human freedom as the highest value and not as a social morality or duty. 

Notes 

1. Diogenes Laertes X. 117 (226 Us, 1.117), from the book of George Zografidis: “Epicurus Ethics: The Therapy of the Soul”, pg 483, Zitros Publications

2. Clement of Alexandria: The Stromata 1.15.67 (226 Us 143), from the book of George Zografidis: “Epicurus Ethics: The Therapy if the Soul”, pg386, Zitros Publications

3. The Sayings of Epicurus 76, from the book of George Zografidis: “Epicurus Ethics: The Therapy of the Soul”, pg 322, Zitros Publications

4. The Sayings of Epicurus LXXVI.  In 1888 C. WOTKE discovered the collection “The Sayings of Epicurus” in the Vatican among the manuscripts of “Codex Vaticanus Graecus”. This collection contains some of the Principle Doctrines which are noted as K.D.

By Dimitris Dimitriadis, from the Epicurean Garden of Alexandroupolis

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The theme of the 6th Panhellenic Meeting of Epicureans was “Epicurean self-sufficiency in Greece of contemporary crisis”.  On this occassion, Christos Yapijakis of the Athens Garden gave the following speech (English translation is his):

I am very happy to be here with you in yet another meeting of Epicurean friends. In contemporary Greece the crisis theme prevails, involving a financial crisis but also a crisis of values, while extreme sentiments of anxiety, despair, anger and depression spread like fire in psychologically weak people. Nevertheless, contrary to widespread belief, the crisis is not contemporary but perpetual. Our life experiences a continuous series of summer, winter and spring seasons. In the sense of uncertainty and risk of losing our calm and happiness, there always used to be a crisis and there always will be one. Of course, it is insane to wait for the Universe to be perfect until we become happy ourselves. In difficult times, the Epicurean sage is armored with the virtue of self-sufficiency, because he/she knows that real goods are easily obtained if one has wisdom and faces one’s fears.

Our wise Master Epicurus wrote in his letter to Menoeceus: “We think that self-sufficiency is a great good, not in order that we might be contained always with few things, but so that if we do not have a lot we can be contained with few, being genuinely convinced that those who least need extravagance enjoy it most; and that everything natural is easy to obtain and whatever is groundless is hard to obtain”.

Of course, complete self-sufficiency does not exist for humans. Like any other living organism, a human has certain physical needs in order to survive. Therefore, self-sufficiency is like happiness. According to Epicurus, absolute self-sufficiency characterizes the immortal and blissful material gods who live in the intermundia (metakosmia) and their lost atoms are continuously substituted by others. Nevertheless, the Master gracefully says that “if one has a little water, a little bread and a few friends one may antagonize Zeus in happiness”. Elsewhere, the Master says that “self-sufficiency is the greatest wealth of all” and “the greatest fruit of self-sufficiency is freedom”. And elsewhere: “when the wise man is brought face to face with the necessities of life, he knows how to give rather than receive; such a treasury of self-sufficiency has he found”.

These words were also transformed into deeds by the great Epicurus. His successor as head of the Garden Hermarchus testifies that “the life of Epicurus compared to the lives of other people could be considered a myth, due to his kindness and self-sufficiency”. In addition, Metrodorus, the other kathegetes of Garden and Epicurus’ most beloved friend, assures us that “a free life may not obtain great wealth, because this is not easy without servility to the crowd or the tyrants, but it gains everything in continuous abundance”.

For the Epicurean sage, self-sufficiency is a virtue produced by prudence and by understanding that “poor is not the one who possesses little but the one who desires more”, since “nothing is enough to someone for whom enough is little”. According to the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus, the virtue of self-sufficiency is the opposite of greed. Like all vices, greed too has cognitive and affective characteristics that derive from empty, false and harmful beliefs. The viewpoint that external goods are more valuable than prudence, tranquility and friendship lead foolish and greedy people to insecurity, distress, misanthropy and misery. Greed, like any other auto-catastrophic and hetero-catastrophic vice, is characterized by irrationality, lack of self-awareness and damaging influence on social structure. While self-sufficiency coexists with prudence, bravery, justice and friendship, greed coexists with foolishness, cowardice, injustice and solitude.

As a conscious choice, true self-sufficiency may characterize only the prudent Epicurean, neither the extremely ascetic Cynic, nor the inhumanly apathetic Stoic. Self-sufficiency is not itself the goal, but only a means for happiness, and “anyone who does not reason out that there is a limit to parsimony is just as badly off as the one who goes wrong by having limitless desires”. In my opinion, one may not possess self-sufficiency if one has not fully understood and embraced Epicurean philosophy, even if one declares oneself friend of Epicurus, even if one attends meetings of “Gardens” just for pastime purposes but has not studied carefully Epicurean texts and continues to have empty beliefs from previous experiences. I think that the only way for someone to assist oneself in Greece of contemporary crisis, and also to assist others to stand on their own feet by illuminating them, is by fully embracing Epicurean philosophy that liberates the mind and leads to conscious self-sufficiency.

The self-sufficiency of the Epicurean sage is psychological, in the sense that it possesses intellectual and emotional characteristics. It is based on prudence and mental balance that are derived from scientific knowledge of Nature’s limits. It is supported by Canon, Physics, and Ethics of Epicurean philosophy. Understanding Epicurean Physics (and modern Science) presupposes the knowledge that all existing bodies are composed by eternal material atoms which perpetually generate transitory material compounds. The atoms of Epicurean Physics obviously correspond to unbreakable particles and not to the so called “atoms”, the compounds named by 19th century scientists that bear a false name as illustrated by the physical and logical paradox of “atom splitting” in the 20th century.

Understanding Epicurean Ethics presupposes the knowledge that static pleasure (lack of pain and anxiety), or happiness as we simply call it, is the prudent person’s purpose of life. Anyone who asks “and when we are happy, what next?” has not comprehended Epicurean philosophy.

Enderstanding the Epicurean Canon presupposes the inference of concrete conclusions after observation with human senses or the senses of scientific instruments. Anyone who strongly believes in unsubstantiated theories religious, political, athletic or any other kind has not perceived the scientific basis of Epicurean philosophy and is not able to really reach prudence and mental balance.

Furthermore, as a product of Epicurean sage’s personal virtue of prudence, self-sufficiency leads him/her to friendship, benevolent relationship with like-minded people and others, as well as to sincerity of intentions, words and actions. Epicurean friendship is not characterized by insecurity, irresponsibility, deceitfulness, lack of trust and pronouncement for set rules of typical conduct among pals.

Self-sufficiency is a mental state opposite of exaggeration. A recent study of American psychologists has shown that people that are happy with their lives tend to save more money than unhappy ones, since they do not feel the urge to indulge in shopping therapy.

Self-sufficiency does not only assist one to endure difficult times but also to enjoy what one has. According to Epicurean Saying 35 “one should not spoil what is present by desiring what is absent, but rather reason out that these things that we have were among those that we wished for in the past”.

The Epicurean sage feels self-sufficient, prudent and mentally stable. Can every one of us that claim to be friends of Epicurean philosophy feel that way? Or does everyone at least have the intention and the disposition to try? Since, according to Diogenes of Oenoanda, “the most important ingredient of happiness is disposition, the masters of which are we”.

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The official introductory pamphlet of the Society of Friends of Epicurus

D. S. Hutchinson’s Introduction to The Epicurus Reader (Hackett Classics, 1994)

 Philosophy for the Millions, an introductory article on Epicureanism, by Norman W. DeWitt

Have You Heard? – introduce an audience to the philosophy of Epicurus.

Four Cures Pamphlet – courtesy of Roberto Kingsley

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Metta Sutta, or Buddha’s Discourse on Loving Kindness, is a mantra used to cultivate the virtue of loving kindness.  Rick Heller wrote a piece for thenewhumanism.org discussing recent neuroplasticity research that suggests that loving kindness meditation changes the brain and causes the release of oxytocin, a feel-good hormone of empathy and emotional connection.

I have chosen to share this mantra as a preamble to future work on developing Epicurean chanting and recitation practices, which were always part of applied philosophy’s therapeutic process.  Epicurus said that through repetition and memorization, the teaching ‘becomes powerful’ in the soul, that we gain conviction and fortitude and are able to live as Gods among mortals.  Many of his Principal Doctrines, because they’re short and easy to memorize, lend themselves to this practice.

There’s absolutely no reason why we shouldn’t incorporate loving-kindness meditation into our own approach to a science of contemplation and well-being.  Here’s the text of Buddha’s Discourse on Loving-Kindness in English:

This is what should be done
By one who is skilled in goodness,
And who knows the path of peace:
Let them be able and upright,
Straightforward and gentle in speech,
Humble and not conceited,
Contented and easily satisfied,
Unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways.
Peaceful and calm and wise and skillful,
Not proud or demanding in nature.
Let them not do the slightest thing
That the wise would later reprove.
Wishing: In gladness and in safety,
May all beings be at ease.
Whatever living beings there may be;
Whether they are weak or strong, omitting none,
The great or the mighty, medium, short or small,
The seen and the unseen,
Those living near and far away,
Those born and to-be-born —
May all beings be at ease!

Let none deceive another,
Or despise any being in any state.
Let none through anger or ill-will
Wish harm upon another.
Even as a mother protects with her life
Her child, her only child,
So with a boundless heart
Should one cherish all living beings;
Radiating kindness over the entire world:
Spreading upwards to the skies,
And downwards to the depths;
Outwards and unbounded,
Freed from hatred and ill-will.
Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down
Free from drowsiness,
One should sustain this recollection.
This is said to be the sublime abiding.
By not holding to fixed views,
The pure-hearted one, having clarity of vision,
Being freed from all sense desires,
Is not born again into this world.

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As the annals of history have it, in the sixth century Emperor Justinian had all the schools of philosophy that competed with Christianity finally closed. This was the last we heard of the Epicurean School, whose tradition had remained culturally vibrant for seven centuries. Epicurus had been among the first to propose the atom—2,300 years ago—the social contract as a foundation for the rule of law, and the possibility of an empirical process of pursuit of happiness: a science of happiness. These progressive schools were oases of tranquility, reason and pleasure known as Gardens, where the ideals of civilized friendship flourished and men, women and even slaves engaged in philosophical discourse as equals.

Epicureans, who celebrated the role that science played in liberating humans from superstition and unnecessary suffering, even had an early theory of natural selection, one that preceded Darwin by almost two millenia.

But if we Humanists are to have our own narrative and voice, we must not accept this as the final chapter in the great and glorious history of the school founded by Epicurus, who was considered by his followers to be no less than the salvation of humankind from barbarism and misery.

His influence would be evident in the person of Pierre Gassendi, who sought to reconcile Epicurus’ materialism and atomism with Christianity, and then from him it would trickle down to Isaac Newton and eventually to other Enlightenment thinkers.

“As you say of yourself, I too am an Epicurean!”—Thomas Jefferson, Letter to William Short

Thomas Jefferson would eventually refer to Epicurus as his Master, a fact which explains his belief –enshrined in our Declaration of Independence– that the pursuit of happiness was inherent to human nature and human dignity. We must therefore not underestimate the considerable influence that this ancient Humanist Cultural Hero had even in our national narrative, the American Dream.

If such was the influence of Epicurus in history and in the progression of scientific thought while being almost invisible, we can only begin to imagine the influence he would have had, had Justinian allowed the philosophical schools to remain open. For years, I told myself: “Wouldn’t it be great if the Epicurean Gardens had remained open, if they were as mainstream today as the churches that we see in every corner?” … and finally this year I decided to become the change I want to see and to found the Society of Friends of Epicurus in order to reinstate the teaching mission of the Gardens and to ensure the cultural continuity of Epicureanism.

As I embarked on this process, I’ve enjoyed the solidarity of a small army of bloggers (I like to think of them as our modern scribes) and of philosophers aflame with passion for Epicureanism –people like Dr. Dara Fogel, who authored An Epicurean Manifesto, an article which mirrors exactly how I feel about the need for applied philosophy today and even delves a bit into Epicurean therapy.

I was also happily surprised to learn that a blossoming of Epicurean Gardens was already taking place on a global scale. For the last four years there has been a revival in Greece where there are two Gardens with four Epicurean Guides each, and in Australia where there is a Garden in Sydney.

The Four Remedies

Most of the atheists who claim Epicurus are familiar with his trilemma.

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able, and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?

General consensus is that Epicurus was not an atheist and seems to have believed in the Gods, he simply did not think they were relevant to human happiness and he thought that people’s beliefs about the Gods were all too human and vulgar. Some have argued that he may have feared for his life, aware that Socrates was executed for impiety, and that he was a closeted atheist.

We Epicureans generally think that the essence of the teaching has to do with the highest, most progressive humanist ideals and that discussions of Gods are pointless in humanism. The focus on the trilemma does not do Epicurus any justice. The same could be said of the insistence on labeling Epicureanism a hedonistic philosophy without distinguishing between the calculated hedonism of philosophy and the unthinking consumerism of our day, which is the very opposite of Epicurean prudence and frugality. The cultural treasure of Epicureanism can not be encapsulated in the trilemma, or in the pleasures of gourmet food (that other great modern misconception).

If any set of doctrines can be considered the foundation of our philosophy, it would be the Tetrapharmakon: the Four Remedies. For didactic purposes, the teachings were imparted in the form of short, easy to memorize adages. There are, to be fair, many more than four remedies in Epicureanism. However, these are known to be the core of the teaching out of which the rest of the philosophy flows:

Do not fear the gods
Do not fear death
What is pleasant is easy to attain
What is painful is easy to endure

In his Principal Doctrines 11-12, Epicurus argued for the study of science as a way to emancipate ourselves from irrational fears. For naturalists who don’t believe in gods or spirits, the first two negative statements may be translated as “Do not fear chance or blind luck, for it is pointless to battle that which we have no control over. It generates unnecessary suffering”.

Roman Epicurean poet Lucretius, in his De Rerum Natura, dedicates long portions of the philosophical poem to explaining how natural phenomena such as lightning and the movements of heavenly bodies are not the work of the Gods and that fear of the Gods is inconsistent with civilized life. Since he was unable in those days to produce a fully scientific theory to explain all these phenomena, he provided several possible theories for many of them without officially endorsing one, and humbly acknowledged that future thinkers would prove the main points of his naturalist and scientific cosmology, which they eventually did. And so we can say that his basic attitude was a sound one, and also that he respected our intelligence enough to not exhibit arrogance and certainty where he did not have conclusive theories. He allowed time to prove him right … and sincere.

That the prohibition against fearing the Gods, and against fear-based religion in general, is the first and main taboo in Epicurean philosophy, remains refreshing to this day.

The second remedy is elaborated in a series of teachings and aphorisms which serve as a form of cognitive therapy to deal with the trauma of death. Among them, the most memorable is the purely hedonistic one. It is summed up thusly:

“Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not”

There is also the symmetry argument, which compares the time after our death to the time before our birth of which we have no memory. Since there is nothing there, why fear it? It is as unintelligent to be needlessly tormented about the afterlife as it is to be tormented about the state prior to birth. I frequently argue that it wasn’t just the teachings, but the manner in which they were imparted –within the context of a loving community of philosopher friends– that served as a consolation and that it is impossible to replicate the peace and conviction that Epicurus gave humanity without this sense of community.

The latter two positive statements in the Tetrapharmakon lead to Epicurean teachings on how we should evaluate our desires and discern which ones are unnecessary versus which ones are necessary, which ones carry pain when satisfied or ignored versus which ones don’t. By this analytic process, one learns to be content with the simple pleasures in life, those easiest to attain and which carry little to no pain. It is here that the real fruits of Epicurean insight begin to be reaped. The best things in life are free.

“The wealth required by nature is limited and easy to procure; but the wealth required by vain ideals extends to infinity; Do not spoil that which you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”—Epicurus

One of the first psychological tasks of every Epicurean is to become mindful of his/her desires and whatever pain or anxiety they may be generating. Another task is to learn to relish and appreciate the simple things when they’re in front of us. The good friends, the good foods and the refreshing beverages, the family, the good music, our proximity to nature, even our view of the sky which (as Carl Sagan advised us) should always humble us.

The good news, according to Epicurus, is that happiness is easily attained if we cultivate philosophy. He cites the need for thankfulness and for robust friendships as fundamental ingredients for the good life, and not only categorizes desires but also discerns between kinetic (active) pleasures that happen when we satisfy a desire, and katastemic (inert) pleasures that happen when we have no desires to satisfy, which he labeled as superior.

Harvard psychologist and happiness researcher Dan Gilbert confirms Epicurus’ insights, including how meaningful relations significantly increase the amount of pleasure and of memorable experiences that we gather throughout our lifetime. He uses different verbiage: natural happiness is that attained when we satisfy a desire (kinetic pleasure, in Epicurean parlance) whereas synthetic happiness is that which we enjoy regardless of attaining desires (katastemic pleasure).

Because synthetic happiness requires no externals, it is therefore superior, it is a sign of a liberated being. He argues the case for synthetic happiness by citing the example of the lottery winner and the paraplegic who exhibit similar levels of happiness one year after winning the lottery and losing the lower limbs, respectively. These cases had been studied by happiness researchers Brickman et al.

This, in positive psychology, is being called the hedonic treadmill or hedonic adaptation: the habitual happy state that we always return to. Methods are being researched to increase the heights that are normal for each individual.

Gilbert’s theories, as far as I’m concerned, are Epicureanism by another name. One of the elements of Epicurean teaching that philosophers have struggled with the most throughout history is the idea of katastemic pleasure. It is often argued that lack of pain is not a definition of pleasure, but this is the art of happiness that Epicurus taught: that we must learn to be happy regardless of external factors and that it’s possible and desirable to cultivate katastemic pleasures via the philosophical disciplines. In fact, Epicurus argues that the very purpose of philosophy is to ensure an end to suffering and to create a beautiful, happy, pleasant life.

Gilbert’s research upholds katastemic pleasure as a necessary ingredient in human happiness and is beginning to reinvigorate the discourse on the philosophy of happiness that Epicurus had begun, and which was interrupted by Justinian 1,500 years ago. He also adds new concepts to our science of happiness and even proposes that we have a psychological immune system that fights unhappy moods.

Gilbert’s findings, along with research dealing with wellbeing in fields such as neuroscience and diet, point modern Epicureans in the direction of an interdisciplinary, practical reinvention of philosophy, which is just what we need if philosophy is to become once again the revolutionary, emancipatory cultural engine that it once was.

As to the Fourth Remedy, Epicurus reminded us of the temporal nature of bodily pain. We may get a fever, or a stomach ache, but within days our immune system fights it. In the case of more chronic pains, one gets used to them after some time. In nature, no condition lasts forever. The impermanence of all conditions is a consolation when we consider whatever pain they generate. A dismissive attitude towards pain takes discipline but it can be cultivated if we are mindful, disciplined, and develop a resolve to protect our minds.

Then there are mental pains and anxiety. These are systematically worked through via cognitive therapy. The resolution to follow Epicurus is a resolution to protect one’s mind. It’s impossible to be happy if we can’t control our anger and other strong emotions: we will go from one perturbed state to the next and never taste the stability of ataraxia, which translates as imperturbability and is the ultimate maturity that a philosopher can reach.

We live in a dysfunctional consumerist society filled with anxiety and neuroses, where few people analyse their life, most have a short attention span and are usually uninterested in disciplining their minds and curbing mindless desires. If philosophy is understood as the Epicureans understand it, then it becomes evident that people desperately need philosophy today.

We must take philosophy back from academia and bring it into our daily lives. We must again transform the dry, abstract field that has become Love of Wisdom back into a pragmatic cultural pursuit so fundamental to our species, that without it we would not be human. For what is the homo sapiens without the sapiens? We’re just another brute hominid without philosophy.

Many more things could be said about the consolations of Epicurean philosophy. I leave my readers with an invitation to study Epicurus and engage themselves and others in philosophical discourse. I promise that your life will be enriched.

Tending the Epicurean Garden
Foundational Text for the Work of Society of Epicurus

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This presentation was delivered at the Austrian Scholars Conference organized by the Ludwig von Mises Institute on March 18, 2005, in Auburn, Alabama

On page 147 of Human Action, Ludwig von Mises writes:

The historical role of the theory of the division of labor as elaborated by British political economy from Hume to Ricardo consisted in the complete demolition of all metaphysical doctrines concerning the origin and the operation of social cooperation. It consummated the spiritual, moral and intellectual emancipation of mankind inaugurated by the philosophy of Epicureanism.

This is a rather strong statement. Epicureanism, says Mises, inaugurated the spiritual, moral and intellectual emancipation of mankind. There are several other passages in his books where he mentions this philosophy in a very favourable light, but without ever explaining in details why. And although a lot of attention has been devoted to the influence of Aristotle, Aquinas, the Scholastics, the French liberals and others on Austrian ideas, as far as I know, nobody has ever paid attention to Epicurus.

Now, why would Mises make such a claim in relation to a philosophy that has been so reviled for 2000 years? Stacks of new books devoted to Plato, Aristotle and other philosophers of Antiquity appear every year. But if you go to a university library, you will usually find a shelf or two containing books on Epicureanism, and that’s for all those that were published in the past hundred years.

Epicureanism has been largely forgotten. And when it is mentioned, it is usually the distorted view that has been propagated since Antiquity that is being repeated. Epicureanism is said to be the philosophy of “Eat, drink and be merry because tomorrow you die.” An “Epicure” is a depraved and irresponsible individual only concerned with bodily pleasures. In Austrian terms, we would say he has very high time preference.

I even read in an article that the unbridled hedonism of the Epicureans played an important role in the transformation of ancient Rome from a republic to an empire. There is not a shred of historical evidence that they had that kind of influence, and Epicureans were not a licentious lot anyway. On the contrary, their goal was tranquility of mind. For them, it is true, all pleasures were good, including those of the body. But they tried to attain happiness by planning their lives in the long term in the most rational way possible.

Epicurus’ ethics can be summed up by this sentence from his Letter to Menoeceus: “For it is not drinking bouts and continuous partying and enjoying boys and women, or consuming fish and the other dainties of an extravagant table, which produce the pleasant life, but sober calculation which searches out the reasons for every choice and avoidance and drives out the opinions which are the source of the greatest turmoil for men’s souls.”

Let me briefly give you some general information. Epicurus was born in 341 B.C., only six years after Plato’s death. He was 18 when Alexander the Great died. This event conventionally separates the classical Greece of independent city-states from the Hellenistic period, when Alexander’s generals and their dynasties ruled vast kingdoms in the former Persian Empire. He set up his school in a Garden in the outskirt of Athens. There is very little that survived from his many books. But fortunately, the work of his Roman disciple Lucretius, who lived in the first century B.C.E., De Rerum Natura, or On the Nature of Things, was rediscovered in the 15th century.

Through this work, Epicureanism had a major influence on the development of science in the following centuries. Epicurus had borrowed and refined the atomic hypothesis of earlier philosophers, and De Rerum Natura was studied and discussed by most scientists and philosophers of the West. The physics of Epicureanism, which explains that worlds spontaneously emerge from the interaction of millions of tiny particles, still looks amazingly modern. It is the only scientific view coming out of the Ancient World that one can still read today and find relevant.

Those influenced by Epicureanism include Hobbes, Mandeville, Hume, Locke, Smith, and many of the British moralists up to the 19th century. They not only discussed the Atomic theory, but Epicurean ethics, his views on the origin of society, on religion, his evolutionary account of life, and other aspects of his philosophy.

To me, Epicureanism is the closest thing to a libertarian philosophy that you can find in Antiquity. Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, were all statists to various degrees, glorified political involvement, and devised political programs for their audiences of rich and well-connected aristocrats. Epicurus focused on the individual search for happiness, counselled not to get involved in politics because of the personal trouble it brings, and thought that politics was irrelevant. His school included women and slaves. He had no political program to offer and one can find no concept of collective virtues or order or justice in his teachings. On the contrary, the search for happiness implied that individuals should be as free as possible to plan their lives. To him, as one of his sayings goes “natural justice is a pledge guaranteeing mutual advantage, to prevent one from harming others and to keep oneself from being harmed.

In a letter to William Short sent in 1819, Thomas Jefferson writes “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.” But what’s also interesting is that our friends the Marxists also thought Epicurus was a great philosopher. Marx himself did his doctoral dissertation on the differences between the atomism of Epicurus and his forerunner Democritus.

Most books on Epicureanism published in France in the 20th century were written by Marxists. (Well, I suppose you could say that of most books published in France on any topics in the 20th century…!) I have a booklet on Lucretius at home published in France in the 1950s in a collection called Les classiques du peuple – The classics of the people. In the Acknowledgement section, the author thanks all the Soviet specialists of Epicureanism and materialism for any original insight that might appear in the book.

Marx found in Epicureanism a materialist conception of nature that rejected all teleology and all religious conceptions of natural and social existence. And to get back to Mises, that’s also precisely what he liked about it. The section of Human Action in which you find the quote I read at the beginning is called, “A Critique of the Holistic and Metaphysical View of Society.” In it, Mises denounces all the nonrationalist, nonutilitarian and nonliberal social doctrines which, he says, “must beget wars and civil wars until one of the adversaries is annihilated or subdued.”

As most of you probably know, Mises included natural law traditions in these non-scientific doctrines, a crucial point over which Rothbard and many of his followers who are here present disagreed with him. He embraced a utilitarian view instead, for which “Law and legality, the moral code and social institutions are no longer revered as unfathomable decrees of Heaven. They are of human origin, and the only yardstick that must be applied to them is that of expediency with regard to human welfare.”

Epicurus had reacted against the Platonic concepts of Reason with a capital R, the Good, the Beautiful, Duty, and other absolute concepts existing in themselves in some supernatural world. For Epicurus, what is moral is what brings pleasures to individuals in a context where there is no social strife. The Epicurean wise man will keep the covenant and not harm others not because he wishes to comply with some moral injunction being imposed from above, but simply because that’s the best way to pursue his happiness and keep his tranquility of mind.

Mises says the same thing when he repeats his adherence to utilitarianism, which looks upon the rules of morality not as absolutes, but as means for attaining an individual’s desired ends through social cooperation. In his book Socialism, he writes: “The ethical valuation ‘good’ and ‘evil’ can be applied only in respect of ends towards which action strives. As Epicurus said “Vice without injurious consequences would not be vice. Since action is never its own end, but rather the means to an end, we call an action good or evil only in respect of the consequences of the action.” To Mises, Epicureanism inaugurated the emancipation of mankind precisely because it led to utilitarianism.

The very basis of praxeology, the logic of human action, rests on Epicurean concepts. Epicurus says that nature compels all living beings to search for pleasures and to avoid pain. When they reach their goal, they are in a state of contentment and rest that we can call happiness or tranquility of mind. Ataraxia is the term used by Epicurus to describe a perfect state of contentment, free or all uneasiness.

Reading the first pages of Human Action is like reading an Epicurean treatise. Mises explains in the section “The Prerequisites of Human Action” that “We call contentment or satisfaction that state of a human being which does not and cannot result in any action. The incentive that impels a man to act is always some uneasiness. A man perfectly content with the state of his affairs would have no incentive to change things.” He adds a reference here to John Locke who, in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, uses the same type of language. Two pages on, Mises mentions Epicurean ataraxia and again defends Epicurus against the attacks of “the theological, mystical and other schools of a heteronomous ethic” which, he writes, “did not shake the core of Epicureanism because they could not raise any other objection than its neglect of the ‘higher’ and ‘nobler’ pleasures.”

In the same vein, Mises ridicules the naïve anthropomorphism that consists in applying human characteristics to deities defined as perfect and omnipotent. How could such a being be understood to be planning and acting, or be angry, jealous, and open to bribing, as he is shown in many religious traditions? As he writes in Human Action again, “An acting being is discontented and therefore not almighty. If he were contented, he would not act, and if he were almighty, he would have long since radically removed his discontent.”

In an article on the implications of human action, Gene Callahan discusses this and asserts that Mises’ insight into the relationship of praxeology to any possible supreme being is quite original, at least as far as he knows. Well, in fact, this insight is straight out of Epicureanism. Epicurus declared that since Gods were perfect and completely contented, they could not be involved in any way in human affairs. It was silly to be afraid of them, and useless to try to propitiate them. For this of course, he was suspected of being an atheist, and this is a major reason why he has been so vilified by Christian writers for centuries.

There are several groups of neo-Epicureans that one can find on the Web today. Several years ago, I joined a discussion list on Epicureanism and discovered to my amazement that most of the participants were libertarians, many of whom Randians or former Randians. One can find articles on the Internet discussing similarities between Objectivism and Epicureanism, and how Ayn Rand has been influenced by Epicurus.

This is just one more example of how this ancient philosophy is connected to the classical liberal and libertarian tradition. As I said at the beginning, very little has been written on this or for that matter on Epicureanism in general. I only had time here to give a brief overview of some of these connections. My hope is that other students and scholars will see here interesting avenues of research and uncover the various threads that lead from Epicurus to Mises.

by Martin Masse, reprinted by permission of Le Quebecois Libre

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