Epicurus biography

Epicurus (341 b.C. – 270 b.C.), philosopher. He was born on the island of Samos in the bosom of an Athenian family. His father, a teacher, relegated the education of Epicurus to several philosophers. His mother, Querestrata, was a fortune-teller. He had to move to Athens at age 18 to complete his military service. Then Epicurus developed a great critical spirit, always sought teachings beyond the traditional teachings of the schools, so he devoted himself to cultivate in the reading of different philosophers. Thus, he was a student of a man named Panfilo; A disciple of Plato, Epicurus adopted the foundations of Platonic idealism, although he later considered them a fraud.

Later, he began teaching Colofón. After having a considerable number of disciples, in the year 311, he founded a philosophical school in Mytilene, on the island of Lesbos. With some experience, he became director of a school in Lampsaco. He returned to the city of Athens, where he spread his doctrines to a faithful group of followers.

His disciples began to be named as the philosophers of the garden, this because their meetings took place in the courtyard of the house of Epicurus. In this regard, a number of comments were created that sought to tarnish Epicurus’ reputation, affirming that transgressive ideas of society were shared in this garden. In spite of this, the school became famous in Athens and its surroundings, so students from Greece and Asia Minor came to join the school of Epicurus, attracted by the character and intelligence of Epicurus.

He built a friendly relationship with Nausiphanes, a philosopher disciple of Democritus and Pyrrho, he was a great help to the intellectual and philosophical formation of Epicurus, although many years later Epicurus directed harsh criticism and insults against him. From that moment, Epicureanism was formed, a well-known system of philosophy, but also discussed by the modern writers of Epicureanism, in this doctrine strongly held the idea that pleasure is the supreme good and the most important goal of life. With that, they refer to intellectual pleasures.

On the other hand, for Epicurus true happiness is achieved through the serenity that results from the domination of fear, that is, the gods, death and future life. The ultimate goal of nature is to eliminate those fears. Another of his contributions to philosophy were that Epicurus, following the atomistic approach, reflected that the universe was infinite and eternal and that it consisted only of bodies and space. In sum, he affirmed that some bodies are compounds and others are atomic particles or indivisible, stable elements from which the compounds are formed.

The thought of Epicurus also impacted the branch of biology, we can say that Epicurus was one of the pioneers of the modern doctrine of natural selection, affirming that natural forces produce organisms of different kinds and that only the classes capable of surpassing themselves and reproduce themselves have survived. In psychology, he also affirmed that the sensations are caused by a continuous flow of images abandoned by the bodies and impressed in the senses. For him all sensations are reliable in an absolute way, and that we should not make false interpretations them.

“Thus, death is not real e ither for the living or for the dead, since it is far from the former and, when it approaches the latter, they have already disappeared.” Epicurus

The philosophy of Epicurus can be clearly divided into three parts: the Canonical: it studies the criteria by which we come to make the distinction between the true and the false. The second division is Physics: it refers to the study of nature, and the last one is Ethics: it supposes the culmination of the system and to which the first two parts are subordinated.

It is necessary to clarify that the philosophy of Epicurus, in general features, is characterized by being on the opposite side of Platonic philosophy. The philosophy of Epicurus affirms that the soul is composed of tiny particles scattered throughout the body. This philosopher taught that the dissolution of the body in death leads to the dissolution of the soul, besides that it can not exist outside the body; as a result, there is no possible future life. Because death means total extinction, it makes no sense to the living or the dead.

The virtues defended and studied by Epicurean are justice, honesty, and prudence, or the balance between pleasure and suffering. These are part of the ethical system. He developed a very remarkable hedonism, showing that only through self-control, moderation, serenity, and detachment can the kind of tranquility that constitutes true happiness be achieved. Despite his materialism, Epicurus believed in the freedom of the will. In relation to A freedom, based on atomistic theory, suggested that even atoms are free and move from time to time with complete spontaneity. Something very admirable is that his idea resembles the uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics.

Epicurus was accused of not believing in the gods, but he did not deny the existence of the gods, firmly maintaining that as happy and imperishable beings they could have nothing to do with human affairs, although they enjoyed contemplating the life of mortals. He affirmed that true religion rests on a similar contemplation on the part of humans of the ideal lives of the invisible and elevated gods. His teachings were popularized with great fervor and firmness, in such a way by his followers, that his doctrines, in comparison with those of his main philosophical rival, the Stoics, remained intact as a living tradition.

However, Epicureanism fell into disrepute in large part because the diffusion caused certain confusions, which today persist, between its principles and those of sensual hedonism previously proclaimed by the Cyrenaics. This situation did not affect the popularity of the Epicurean philosophy that had many distinguished disciples: among the Greeks the grammarian Apollodorus and among the Romans the poet Horace, the statesman Pliny the Younger and especially the poet Lucretius. In conclusion, Epicureanism has attracted the attention of numerous followers and is considered one of the most influential schools of philosophy and ethics of all time.

Epicurus died in the year 270 b. C. in Athens when he was 71 years old. His intellectual legacy was very large left 300 manuscripts: 37 treatises on physics and numerous works inspired by love, justice, the gods and other subjects. Three letters and some brief fragments have been preserved. Thanks to the biography of Diogenes Laertes you can learn about Epicurus.