Epicurus in Five Ideas
the essentialsDeath is nothing to us
Where death is, I am not; where I am, death is not. What we do not experience cannot harm us.
Pleasure as tranquillity
The goal is ataraxia (freedom from disturbance) and aponia (absence of bodily pain) — bread, water, friends, philosophy. Not luxury.
Atoms and void
Everything is atoms moving in the void; a small random “swerve” makes room for freedom.
The gods do not care
The gods exist in blissful indifference; they neither punish nor reward. Fear of them is groundless.
The fourfold remedy
Don’t fear god; don’t worry about death; what is good is easy to get; what is terrible is easy to endure.
Epicurus bought a house with a garden outside Athens and lived there with friends — including women and slaves, unusually for the time. “Epicurean” now suggests gourmet indulgence; the man himself said a pot of cheese would let him feast.
His argument against fearing death — the “symmetry” between the time before we were born and the time after we die (developed by Lucretius) — remains one of the most discussed arguments in philosophy.
Curiosities
did you know?- His school, the Garden, admitted women and slaves.
- He said a little pot of cheese would let him feast like a king.
Questions to Argue About
debate club →- Is death bad for the one who dies?
- Is a quiet life the happiest?
Arguments
argument library →Death Is Nothing to Us
Where death is, I am not; where I am, death is not. So death cannot harm me, and fearing it is irrational.
- Something is bad for a person only if they can experience it.
- When death comes, we no longer exist to experience anything.
- So death is not experienced by the one who dies.
∴ Death is nothing to us, and it is irrational to fear it.
2 objections
- Thomas Nagel ("Death", 1970): Some harms are not experienced — being betrayed behind your back. Death harms us by depriving us of the goods we would otherwise have had.
- Ivan Ilyich (Tolstoy): The syllogism is valid for Caius, but no argument makes death believable when it is your own.
In Their Own Words
1 quotationsDeath is nothing to us; for that which is dissolved is without sensation, and that which lacks sensation is nothing to us.
Context & when to use it
Where death is, I am not; where I am, death is not.
The classic argument against the fear of death.
Sententiae
phrases in the originalAtaraxia
Origin. The goal of Epicureans and Sceptics alike — freedom from mental disturbance. — Epicurus
For calm, equanimity, the opposite of anxiety.
Explore Next
related by shared connections
Marcus Aurelius
Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher whose private notebook, the Meditations, is the most intimate record of a mind trying to be good while ruling the world.
Augustine of Hippo
North African bishop, convert, and the most influential Christian thinker of the Latin West — inventor of the autobiography of the inner self.
William Shakespeare
The playwright and poet of Stratford whose 37-odd plays and 154 sonnets gave English its richest store of quotation and gave philosophy Hamlet, Lear and Macbeth.
Baruch Spinoza
The excommunicated lens-grinder of Amsterdam who identified God with Nature, wrote ethics in the form of geometry, and found freedom in understanding necessity.
Jean-Paul Sartre
The face of French existentialism — existence precedes essence, we are condemned to be free, and hell is other people.
Gautama Buddha
The prince who left his palace to seek an end to suffering, awoke under the Bodhi tree, and taught the Four Noble Truths, the Middle Way and no-self (anattā).