EPICURUS

Epicurus was a Greek philosopher who lived from 341 BC to 270 BC, who established a
philosophical commune called the Garden in Athens, where he and his followers practiced and
lived their philosophy as a way of life. A sign hanging above the entrance to the Garden said:
Stranger, here you will do well to tarry. Here our highest good is pleasure.
Epicurus founded his own school as a meeting point for friends in order to enjoy the
study, the dialogue pleasure, the joyful memories
EPICUREAN PHILOSOPHY
The Epicureanism is generally placed opposite from the platonic philosophy since Epicure
states that the only reality is the sensitive world, and thus, denies the existence of an immortal
soul, stating that it is constituted of atoms, as every existent thing. He states the hedonism as
ethic theory and way of life and rejects the role of philosophers in the policy and the social
restructuration objectives. Epicure looks for a self-sufficient way of life and the searching of
pleasure.
The Epicurean philosophy can be divided into three parts: the Canonic that treats about the
criteria to distinguish the false from the true, the Physic that studies the nature and the Ethic
that implies the culmination of the system and involved the previous ones.
1 THE CANONIC
The canonic is the part of philosophy that examines the distinction between the false and the
true.
As per Epicure, the sensation is the base of all the knowledge and it is produced when the
physical realities reach our senses and give place to reactions of pain or pleasure, which origin
the feelings that are the base of the morality. When sensations are frequently repeated got
memorized and become the general ideals. However, in order that sensations can constitute a
suitable base, those must be clear enough. This criterion is valuable with respect to the ideas
too. Other way, we will be addressed to false concepts.
Diogenes Laercio incorporates a forth process of getting the knowledge. Besides the sensations,
the feelings, and the general ideals, he adds the imaginative projections which infer the
existence of elements such as the atoms, though they cannot be noticed through the senses.
2 THE PHYSIC
Epicurean atomistic philosophy comes from Democritus, but removes the determinist concept
and states that atoms posses a random movement and that reality is composed of two
fundamental elements: the atoms that posses shape, magnitudes and weight and the empty
space that is the space in which the atoms move.
The different existent things in the world are the result of different combinations of atoms. The
same happens with respect to the human being, who is composed of atoms too. Even the soul is
composed of a special type of atoms. Although these atoms are thinner than those of the bodies,
the soul is too a material entity and due to this fact when the body dies, the soul dies too.

Regarding to the whole of being, Epicure states that is eternal. There is not an origin coming
from a chaos or initial moment. The letter to Herodotus states: the sum total of things was
always such as it is now, and such it will ever remain.
3 THE ETHIC.
The Ethic is the culmination of the epicurean philosophic system. The philosophy is a way of
obtaining the pleasure on the bases of the autonomy or autrkeia, the freedom from worry or
ataraxia and the freedom from pain or aponia. If pleasure is the human being aim, the
philosophy is the way that people of any condition can and must explore.
The followers of the epicurean philosophy must attend to two considerations:
1. To prevent from things that must be avoided such as the fear in any state of being
shown.
2. The searching of things considered worthy or good.
1: To escape from fears that threaten and paralyze the human being is a fundamental part of the
epicurean philosophy. The tetrapharmakos is the medicine againts the four fears: the fear to
god, the fear to death, the fear to pain and the fear to failure.
Dont fear god,
Dont worry about death,
What is good is easy to get, and
What is terrible is easy to endure.
Dont fear god
Epicure states that fear to gods is meaningless since they dont take part of the human matters
and are not moved because of anger or rage as generally considered. The gods neither reward
nor punish humans. The Epicurean paradox refers:
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?

Dont worry about death

Epicure states that fear to death is meaningless. To pain because of it while we are still alive is
irrational and nonsense. Death, therefore, the most awful of evils, is nothing to us, seeing
that, when we are, death is not come, and, when death is come, we are not It is nothing,
then, either to the living or to the dead, for with the living it is not and the dead exist no
longer.
The fear to death is due to the thought of terrible things will come after death or to the
consideration of the lack of existence, and that is absurd: The only eternal things are the
atoms and not the products of their combinations.
Dont worry about pains.
He considers that pain can be supported because suffering doesnt remains. Moreover, the
greater it is, the less it lasts, and vice versa. The pain may be accepted because it will lead to
greater pleasure in the end. Epicurus held that our choices should be based on comparative
measure and an examination of the advantages and disadvantages of the pleasure and pain that
would result from them.
Dont worry about failures.
Epicurean philosophy considers that the searching of pleasure is related with the ideal of
autonomy. If someone considers that pleasure depend on external factors and is subjected to
external opinions or rewards, is making a wrong judgment. Otherwise, the enjoyment of the
own self sufficiency, the autonomous ability to transcend the necessity and chance of some
events becomes in a state of pleasure.
2: The searching of things considered worthy or good are:
The pleasure
It is important the distinction among the necessary and natural wishes (i.e. to drink
when you are thirsty) from the natural and unnecessary wishes (i.e. the pleasure of
drinking when the thirst is satisfied) and from the unnatural and unnecessary wishes
(i.e. the pleasure of obtaining rewards, honours, etc.) Epicurus maintains the difference
between the genuine wishes from those that could generate dependence and finally
dissatisfaction.
If a little is not enough for you, nothing is.
I

am delighted with pleasure in the body when I live on bread and water, and I split
on luxurious pleasures not in themselves but because of the disagreeable things
which accompany them
The friendship
Friendship is considered one of the genuine pleasures of the human beings. Epicurus
thought friendship was one of the most important aspects of the good life because it is a
necessary support in a hostile and extravagant world:
Not only does it give us many benefits, it also benefits our friends as well.

Of all the means which are procured by wisdom to insure happiness throughout the whole of
life, by far the most important is the acquisition of friends.
The same conviction, which inspires confidence that nothing we have to fear is eternal or even
of long duration, also enables us to see that even in our limited life nothing enhances our security so
much as friendship.

CONCLUSION
The inscription:
Stranger, here you will do well to tarry. Here our highest good is pleasure.
That sums up the epicurean philosophy well: Epicureans are hedonists. They believed we
shouldnt try and follow the will of God, as the Stoics tried to do. Epicureans should just try
and find a bit of pleasure here on Earth before death arrives.