|
Epicurus held that the only things that exist are corporeal bodies and
void. He taught that the elementary constituents of nature were
discrete, solid, and indivisible material particles (i.e., atoms) and
empty space. He said that everything that exists is made up of eternal
atoms separately falling in space. The atoms are of different shapes
and sizes and have weight. He taught that atomic motion is not solely
the result of past motion and weight. Although subject to their past
motion and weight, occasionally and randomly atoms swerve to the side
resulting in atomic collisions. This lateral swerve involves a small
angle of deviation from the original path. Objects in the world are
therefore conglomerations of atoms or macrooscopic bodies that can be
explained in terms of collisions, reboundings, and combinations of
atoms. According to this accidentalist atomism, worlds spontaneously
emerge from the interaction of innumerable small particles. Epicurus
attempted to explain all natural phenomena in atomistic terms through
a naturalistic account of evolution from formation of the world to the
emergence of human societies. Some thinkers interpret this to mean
that he would have a difficult, but not impossible, task in
accounting for the persistent nature of objects and species (e.g.,
man).
Other thinkers interpret Epicurus as maintaining that atoms do
randomly bump into each other, and so eventually, given the laws of
nature that allow for order to appear and persist, it can be
inferred that in the infinite time and space of the universe order
will indeed appear in various places. In other words, nature
randomly tries all kinds of combinations, but only those that accord
to the laws of nature emerge and persist.
Epicurus believed that
all that exists is corporeal and that the universe has no beginning,
has always existed, and will always exist. He wanted to eliminate the
idea that God created everything and that human behavior should be
based on obedience to God-given principles. He also wanted to dispense
with transcendent entities such as Platonic Forms existing in
themselves in some supernatural world. His goal was to liberate
mankind from the fear of God and from the fear of death. Epicurus
taught that fear of the gods and fear of death can be eliminated by
right doctrine.
He used his radical, atomistic, and materialistic metaphysics to deny
the possibility of the soul's survival after death and its possible
punishment in the afterlife. Epicurus taught that soul atoms become
disarranged at death and therefore could no longer support conscious
life. Upon death, the body decomposes, and all of its atoms become
dispersed throughout the air. At death, a particular body, including
the soul (or mind), becomes a number of distinct atoms. The soul does
not survive the death of the body. This is because a person is an
inextricable union of an atomistic body and an atomistic soul (or
mind). Epicurus is obviously the arch-enemy of any type of Cartesian
dualism.
According to Epicurus,
the human person is composed of atoms of different sizes and shapes.
Soul atoms are particularly fine, the most easily moving, distributed
throughout the body, and are the means by which persons have
sensations and experience pleasure and pain. A major part of the soul
is concentrated in the chest and is the central location of higher
intellectual functions. Epicurus' Identity Theory of Mind (or Soul)
holds that the mind proper resides in the chest and is primarily
responsible for sensation and thought. Other soul atoms are spread
throughout the remainder of the body permitting the mind to
communicate with it. Epicurus explains that the mind is able to engage
in sensation and thought only when it is a part of a living body and
only when the atoms that comprise it are correctly arranged.
|
Removing Sources of Anxiety |
Epicurus maintains that gods exist and that they too must be
material beings and the result of purposeless and random events.
These gods do not concern themselves with human beings. They are in
a perfect state of contentment and free of any and all uneasiness.
Only discontented beings act and because gods are perfect and
totally contented they are not involved in any manner in human
affairs.
Epicurus contends that
fear of death and punishment in the afterlife are primary causes of
anxiety that itself is the source of irrational desires. He states
that the most preeminent negative mental state is the fear of
irrational dangers such as death. Death is nothing to us while we are
alive and when death occurs we no longer exist. Epicurus says that
death need not worry anyone because only a living being has sensations
of either pain or pleasure. The time before a person was born (i.e.,
the past infinity of pre-natal nonexistence) is like the future
infinity of post-mortem non-existence. He explains that, in the
absence of fear of God or of death, a man's life is totally under his
control. Because he denied immortality, Epicurus apprehended that all
values must occur during the span of one's life and that life itself
was the greatest good. He contended that the only thing that is
intrinsically good is one's own pleasure or happiness. His focus was
on the individual search for happiness. He emphasized the individual's
desires for bodily and mental pleasure rather than upon God's
commandments or abstract principles of proper conduct.
According to Epicurus,
the goal of human life is happiness that results from the absence of
physical pain (aponia) and the absence of mental disturbances (ataraxia).
He says that the attainment of pleasure is the aim of all human
action. Pleasure, the standard of goodness, is the beginning and end
of a happy life. Epicurus employed integrative induction and deduction
to discover the goal of pleasure for human beings. He observed reality
and abstracted to reach this fundamental conclusion. Epicurus asserts
that the pursuit of pleasure must be guided by reason, that a man
should make sober calculations with respect to the motives and
rationale for his every choice and avoidance, and that simplicity is
the key to pleasure. He recommends a virtuous, somewhat ascetic life
as the best means to gain pleasure.
Epicurus observed spontaneity and the ability to originate action in
human beings, was concerned with rational agency, and wanted to defend
and preserve a person's ability to use his reason to control his
actions and to shape his character. He therefore advanced the idea of
the swerve in order to provide space for voluntary undetermined
action. Epicurus' notion of the swerve introduces indeterminacy into
the universe and argues for the possibility of action not wholly
deriving from the positions of the soul's constituent atoms. He says
that the swerve is necessary to preserve human freedom and to break
the bonds of determinism. The swerving of atoms to the side at
uncertain times is thought by Epicurus to save us from determinism. He
maintains that the mind is undetermined and capable of any motion up
to the time when it actually moves. Free volition permits each of us
to move ourselves as we choose. Unfortunately, Epicurus does not
provide a detailed explanation on how the swerve actually does
preserve human freedom. It is problematic how the swerve can explain
free will.
Epicurus provides no
explanation of if, and how, the swerve is involved in the production
of every free action. He does not tell clearly, and in detail, how the
swerve is supposed to effect human choices. In addition, upon
analysis, it appears that the atomic swerve, as he described it, would
only effect a random change and therefore not have any connection with
morality. Of course, on the positive side, Epicurus did at least
recognize the free will problem and ingeniously used the idea of the
swerve to "solve" the problem of free will.
Epicurus' ethics can be viewed as a form of egoistic hedonism (or
hedonistic egoism). He states that nature compels all human beings to
search for pleasure and to avoid pain. Epicurus thus approached ethics
from a biological (and psychological) perspective. He said that human
beings need health of the body and calm of the soul and that freedom
from pain and peace of mind imply a state of rest and tranquility. It
follows that the true test of pleasure is the removal of all that
gives pain. When a person reaches that goal he is in a state of
contentment and rest called happiness, eudaimonia, or
tranquility of mind (ataraxia).
It follows that ethical
evaluations of good and bad can be applied only with regard to the end
(i.e., one's individual pleasure) toward which the contemplated action
aims. But how does a person know what is good and bad? Epicurus'
empiricist theory of knowledge begins with the testimony of the senses
including sensations and perceptions of pleasure and pain. His
anti-skeptical empiricist epistemology states that a person can gain
knowledge by relying on the senses. Epicurus states that in addition
to sensations, we learn truth and reality through one's preconceptions
ideas resulting from previous impressions. These preconceptions are
formed in our material minds as the result of repeated sense
experiences of similar objects or events.
For Epicurus, reason is an instrument to help us live pleasurably. He
taught that not every pleasure has the same value or is choiceworthy.
It follows that the popular notion that Epicurean hedonism advocates a
life of sensual delights is incorrect. Epicurus said that a person
must use his reason to calculate what is in his best long-term
self-interest and that prudence was the only real guide to happiness.
He held that philosophy is essential for successful human living and
that tranquil pleasures are superior to active ones. He also
maintained that the standard for determining and arranging one's
values is the application of reason to one's own life.
According to Epicurus,
virtues are rational behaviors that lead to eudaimonia. Virtues
are desirable purely as instrumental means to happiness and are chosen
because of pleasure and not for their own sake. He links virtues with
living pleasurably and states that having positive character traits is
a good strategy for an individual to attain happiness. For Epicurus,
all virtues (including courage, self-sufficiency, integrity, justice,
honesty, pride, and generosity) are ultimately forms of prudence. To
be happy, a man must live prudently, well, and justly. Prudence is the
greatest of the virtues and the source of all the other virtues.
Epicurus distinguished between kinetic (moving or process) pleasures
and static pleasure. Kinetic pleasures arise from movement and static
pleasure involves the state of satiety and involves rest. Kinetic
pleasure is what we experience when we are in the process of
satisfying our desires and static pleasure is the state of having
satisfied our desires. Kinetic pleasures (aponia) are physical
and deal with the present and static pleasure (ataraxia)
involves an internal mental state in which fear, suffering, and
agitation are absent or removed and the soul is at rest.
Aponia can refer
to active or lively pleasures that stem from motion and activity. It
can also mean painlessness or physical health. Ataraxia can
mean a quiet, calm, sedate, or tranquil state of mind. Ataraxia
refers to state of mind that is rational, focused, clear, and without
inner conflict or confusion. In ataraxia nothing is interfering
with the natural state of the particular individual person.
|
