Épicure
He rejects the fate of the natural philosophers: some things happen by necessity, others by chance, others through our own agency.
Life
Greek philosopher (Samos 341 - Athens 270 BCE), founder of the school of the Garden in Athens. He taught that the good is pleasure, understood as the absence of pain in the body and disturbance in the soul, and that atomic physics frees us from fear of the gods and of death. Of his many writings, what survives is mainly three letters and the Principal Doctrines, preserved by Diogenes Laertius (book X), along with sayings and fragments.
Main works
A summary of his ethics: pleasure is the goal of the happy life, and death is nothing to us (approximate date).
Forty short sayings on the gods, death, pleasure, justice and friendship (approximate date).
A summary of his physics: atoms and void, and a world without divine intervention (approximate date).
In his own words
« Death is nothing to us; for what has been dissolved is without sensation, and what lacks sensation is nothing to us. »
Ὁ θάνατος οὐδὲν πρὸς ἡμᾶς· τὸ γὰρ διαλυθὲν ἀναισθητεῖ· τὸ δ’ ἀναισθητοῦν οὐδὲν πρὸς ἡμᾶς.
« When we exist, death is not present; and when death is present, we do not exist. »
ὅταν μὲν ἡμεῖς ὦμεν, ὁ θάνατος οὐ πάρεστιν· ὅταν δ’ ὁ θάνατος παρῇ, τόθ’ ἡμεῖς οὐκ ἐσμέν.
« It is for this that we do everything: to be neither in pain nor in fear. »
τούτου γὰρ χάριν πάντα πράττομεν, ὅπως μήτε ἀλγῶμεν μήτε ταρβῶμεν
Positions
click a row to see the evidenceGods exist but live in blessed indifference; they neither reward nor punish, so they are no cause for fear.
Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus (c. 300 BC)
Sensations are the criterion of truth; whoever rejects the senses destroys every standard of judgment.
Epicurus, Principal Doctrines (c. 300 BC)
The soul is a fine body spread through the body and dissolves at death; only atoms and void exist.
Epicurus, Letter to Herodotus (c. 300 BC)
Some things happen by necessity, some by chance, and some depend on us; he rejects fate as the natural philosophers conceived it.
Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus (c. 300 BC)
Pleasure, understood as absence of pain and disturbance, is the goal that makes actions good.
Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus (c. 300 BC)