Epicurus born on Samos 341 to 270 BC x Epicurus Born on Samos. Describes himself as self taught. Saw most educaon 3 2 as indoctrinaon: too 1 constrained to the master’s way of thinking. Put him at odds with most other philosophers of his me. Epicurus modifed Democritus’ atomism • Gave atoms weight (source of downward moon) • Added swerve: random deviaon from predicted moBon • Developed the idea of emergence: atoms do not possess properBes but these properBes develop in structures composed of many atoms. Platonists and Aristotelians • Taught in big publically supported insBtuBons: geometry, dialecBcs and rhetoric. • Epicurus rejected these schools as sources of indoctrinaon. • Rejected Plato’s theory of forms (geometry) which postulated a perfect and eternal world. But studied and appreciated his contemporary, Euclid’s, geometry. Plato’s rhetoric and dialecBcs • In Plato’s dialogues Socrates plays down his knowledge of the world and asks quesBons in the end leading his interlocutors to his posion. • Epicurus criBcized this ironic perspecBve as basically dishonest: Socrates was hiding his expert skills as a debater. Plato’s dialecBcs and epistemology • Reason as the arbiter of truth • Sensaons are misleading • Phenomena (appearances) decepBve • Ideas are real and eternal Reason as the charioteer with horses represenBng appeBtes and spirit www.epicurus.info • An excellent web source of informaon on Epicurus. • Includes all of the extant wriBngs of Epicurus as well as wriBngs about him and his philosophy. 8th Principal Doctrine • No pleasure is a bad thing in itself, but some pleasures are only obtainable at the cost of excessive troubles. Epicurus and Democritus • Karl Marx 1841. The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature, with an Appendix. Published 1902. • Understood Epicurus’ embrace of dialecBcal thinking which later formed a centerpiece for Marxist analysis of human affairs. Swerve. Emergence • Democritus: sensaons are misleading. E.g. a sweet drink may taste bi[er to a sick man. • Epicurus: sensaons are not inthemselves misleading though our interpretaon of them is. Atoms are not sweet or of a certain colour. These properBes only emerge through their interacBon to produce more complex structures AND our percepBon of such structures. Epicurus’ Epistemology • We never sense the object in itself but rather we sense the object as it dies away. • Sensaons are not decepBve; all are equally valid. We are deceived instead by our interpretaons of sensaons. • We apprehend the world through “prolepsis” (preconcepon), which is compared/modified with the object perceived. Epicurus and Plato • Plato believed in “a priori” knowledge which he thought came from our past lives. • Epicurus’ concept of prolepsis involves a preconcepBon built through our individual lives. We learn and modify our concepBons according to perceived nature. This leads us to truth. Epicurus at odds with Aristotle • Rejected teleology: e.g. Aristotle: woodpecker has a well developed bill to allow it to find grubs and insects in wood and under bark. • Epicurus: because woodpeckers use their bills to search for insects in wood, those that have survived have well developed bills (cf Empidocles) God and Gods • Aristotle idenBfied 40 or more unmoved movers (endowed with circular moBon) in the skies • Epicurus: Gods are perfect and fully sated beings and therefore have no interest in humans. They are irrelevant to human affairs. On the nature of the mind and soul • Aristotle: the soul is a disBnct substance; Aristotle was a pluralist. • Epicurus was a materialist: the mind and the soul are like any other objects composed of atoms. The mind is in the chest and extends throughout the body as a spirit (reminiscent of central and peripheral nervous system) Epicurus was the first pragmast • Thought and reason do not funcBon to directly perceive and describe reality. • Rather they are tools we use to find our way in the world, which we can never know directly. • Empirical skepBcism • Epicurus engaged and publically challenged other philosophers early in his career. • Was openly contemptuous of the idea of eternal and perfects forms. • Put him at odds with the establishment thinkers. Later in his career • Became more reclusive and advised one not to prod or challenge one’s enemies. • To avoid those who might wish you harm. 39) He who desires to live in tranquility with nothing to fear from other men ought to make friends. Those of whom he cannot make friends, he should at least avoid rendering enemies; and if that is not in his power, he should, as much as possible, avoid all dealings with them, and keep them aloof, insofar as it is in his interest to do so. Epicurus’ Metaphysics • Nothing comes from nothing; nothing disappears to nothing (conservaon law) • Tiny incremental changes reach crisis points leading to major changes. QuanBtave changes result in qualitave changes. (emergence) • Chance (swerve) renders our futures unpredictable. (free will and chance) • Our understanding comes from appreciang the world through preconcepBons that are changed in response to perceived nature. PercepBon as a creave act. Epicurus’ wri[en legacy • Of 300 books only small fragment remain • h[p://www.epicurus.info/etexts/PD.html • Check out: Principal Doctrines, Le[er to Menoeceus • LucreBus’ On the Nature of Things is taken directly from Epicurus. • Books IV,V concerns aspects of biology DialecBcal thinking • Interdependence/interpenetraon of opposites. • QuanBtave change leads to qualitave change: i.e. qualitave change emerges out of iterave quanBtave change • Nature is best understood through processes and their relaonships rather than through things, causes and events. .