On Epicurean Virtue

A discussion of Epicurean virtue is needed as a result of our constant encounters with students of philosophy who have been exposed to Stoic and Platonic notions about virtue devoid of context and of telos, as we understand it.

Clarifying some of the Problematic Issues

Concerning the end that nature has established for natural beings, our teachers insist that the end is pleasure, and Polystratus goes as far as saying that not having a clear understanding of how pleasure is the end is the architect of all evils. This is because of theconfusion of values problem: people fail to attach accurate value to things and develop artificial systems of value that are not aligned with the nature of things. For the sake of the virtue of courage they may fight needless wars that generate more suffering than pleasure in the end; for the sake of the so-called “virtue” of duty they commit attrocities and accept authoritarian models of ethics that are dehumanizing. Virtue, to us, has no value if it does not lead to net pleasure after we subject our choices and avoidances to hedonic calculus.

Virtues in Epicurean doctrine are, therefore, downgraded to the status of means to pleasure whereas the Stoics see “Virtue” as the end … “Virtue” here in the singular, which is usually a symptom that we are being presented with a Platonized concept divorced from context in nature. Perhaps a good comparison to Epicurean virtues is the very practical conception of Buddhist upayas, which translate as efficient means, and incorporate not just virtues as they are frequently understood, but also specific techniques and practices.

Another crucial issue, which was discussed already in our Reasonings About Philodemus’ scroll On the Stoics, had to do with how when words are not clearly defined, they become useless.

A third issue emerged in our Reasonings About Philodemus’ scroll On Anger which puts our School in direct opposition with Stoic notions about virtue: it’s the compassionate recognition of anger and indignation as potentially having both a virtuous disposition and usefulness.

Our insistence in dethroning virtue in favor of pleasure, and others’ confusion of the means with the end, has produced discussions where we have been accused of being haters of “Virtue”, again in the singular. As a result of these controversies, and also as a way of extending the olive branch to our Stoic brethren, these reasonings on the Epicurean virtues attempt to rescue them from Platonized, dis-embodied oblivion, to capture them from the heavenly realms and to find where in nature the virtues can be observed and in what way they may lead to maximizing pleasure and avoiding pain.

Ancient Epicureans did not frequently address the virtues as points of reference, preferring instead to speak in clear and concise terms and to avoid words that were not clearly defined, but Frances Wright in her work A Few Days in Athens did incorporate a sermon on the virtues that might be a good starting point to explore them.

The Practical Means to Long-Term Pleasure Can Work in Unison

Epicurus stood in the midst of the expectant scholars. “My sons,” he said, “why do you enter the gardens? Is it to seek happiness, or to seek virtue and knowledge? Attend, and I will show you that in finding one, you shall find the three. To be happy, we must be virtuous; and when we are virtuous, we are wise. – A Few Days in Athens, Chapter X

The problems generated from seeking virtue without knowledge are explored by Polystratus in his Irrational Contempt. They mostly deal with degenerating into degrading superstition. The above may have been a paraphrase of the fifth Principal Doctrine, which states:

It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and honorably and justly, and it is impossible to live wisely and honorably and justly without living pleasantly. Whenever any one of these is lacking, when, for instance, the man is not able to live wisely, though he lives honorably and justly, it is impossible for him to live a pleasant life.

except that, if you’ll notice, the original doctrine excludes a reference to virtue because, as I said, the founders were hesitant to use words that led to misinterpretation and favored clear speech; and, as we’ve discussed, this is one of the criticisms of virtue in our school.

It frequently seems that A Few Days in Athens was written, in part, to appease worshipers of Virtue, of whom Frances Wright says that “many worship at the altar of Virtue, but few stop to inspect the pedestal on which She stands“. That pedestal is, of course, pleasure.

The first four doctrines correlate to the Four Cures, which constitute the basic points of the ethical doctrine. The fifth doctrine must have been important enough in our ethics, that it had to follow the Tetrapharmakon, as if only the Four Cures had been more important. I believe the reason for this has to do with it relating to the accusations by the philosophers of the polis that a hedonist could not be a good citizen. Professor John Thrasher addresses how Epicurean contractarianism answers this accusation. A modern version of the same accusation is the sociopath argument, where we have been asked “What is to keep a sociopath / psychopath from being a good Epicurean?”. The reply to this is found in Epicurus’ teaching that a sage will be willing to give his life for a friend, and also in Principal Doctrines 5 (above) and 39, which says:

The man who best knows how to meet external threats makes into one family all the creatures he can; and those he can not, he at any rate does not treat as aliens; and where he finds even this impossible, he avoids all dealings, and, so far as is advantageous, excludes them from his life.

The answer to the sociopath argument seems to be that we would ostracize this person and exclude him from our lives, and in fact the modern justice and prison systems already do just that. Our friend Cassius says:

Most sociopaths do not pursue pleasure wisely, honorably, and justly, and therefore cannot live happily, because the human nature of those around him will punish him and prevent it.

Which is true: the potential repercussions of sociopathic behavior include not only imprisonment, but also isolation, loss of support from friends and family, potential loss of jobs and other opportunities and sources of income. It is impossible, or at least very difficult, to have friendship or conduct business with partners who lack the ability to establish trusting relations with others.

And so, in order to ensure a life of pleasure, we must have knowledge of nature to avoid superstitious fears, and we must have blessed friendship which excludes sociopathic behavior and requires many wholesome dispositions. Happiness, wisdom, and the virtues all lead to the natural end that nature has established for us: the pleasant life.

Frances Wright’s Survey of the Epicurean Virtues

The relevant portion begins with Epicurus inviting his followers to sit and study at the feet of Philosophy with an open disposition, without pedantry and pretension.

Let us then begin: and first, let us for a while hush our passions into slumber, forget our prejudices, and cast away our vanity and our pride. Thus patient and modest, let us come to the feet of philosophy; let us say to her, ‘Behold us scholars and children, gifted by nature with faculties, affections, and passions. Teach us their use and their guidance. Show us how to turn them to account — how best to make them conduce to our ease, and minister to our enjoyment.’ – A Few Days in Athens, Chapter X

Then, just as we see in the Bible’s wisdom books, where Wisdom speaks in the first person, the same thing happens:

“Sons of earth,” says the Deity, “you have spoken wisely; you feel that you are gifted by nature with faculties, affections, and passions; and you perceive that on the right exertion and direction of these depends your well-being. It does so. Your affections both of soul and body may be shortly reduced to two, pleasure and pain; the one troublesome, and the other agreeable. It is natural and befitting, therefore, that you shun pain, and desire and follow after pleasure. Set forth then on the pursuit; but ere you start, be sure that it is in the right road, and that you have your eye on the true object. Perfect pleasure, which is happiness, you will have attained when you have brought your bodies and souls into a state of satisfied tranquillity. To arrive at this, much previous exertion is requisite; yet exertion, not violent, only constant and even. – A Few Days in Athens, Chapter X

Philosophy begins by pointing the finger at our natural faculties. The study of nature must begin from where we are, from the tools that we have to apprehend her. Among these tools, the one that is most relevant to ethics is the pleasure and aversion faculty. The natural goal established by our own nature is asserted as the first thing that we must clearly understand.

Immediately, the author knows that some will equate pleasure with debauchery and mindless instant gratification. She then introduces Prudence as the mother of all the virtues and handmaiden of wisdom. Sometimes translated as practical wisdom, prudence is a shortened form of pro-videntia, or prior-seeing, that is, seeing before things happen, seeing ahead (and planning ahead). Here, with regards to control of desires, Prudence is the reasoning faculty by which we conduct hedonic calculus, the comparative measure of pain versus pleasure over the long term.

And first, the body, with, its passions and appetites, demands gratification and indulgence. But beware! for here are the hidden rocks which may shipwreck your bark on its passage, and shut you out for ever from the haven of repose. Provide yourselves then with a skilled pilot, who may steer you through the Scylla and Charybdis of your carnal affections, and point the steady helm through the deep waters of your passions. Behold her! it isPrudence, the mother of the virtues, and the handmaid of wisdom. Ask, and she will tell you, that gratification will give new edge to the hunger of your appetites, and that the storm of the passions shall kindle with indulgence. Ask, and she will tell you, that sensual pleasure is pain covered with the mask of happiness. Behold she strips it from her face, and reveals the features of disease, disquietude, and remorse. – A Few Days in Athens, Chapter X

Wright then argues that prudence leads to ataraxia, which translates as equanimity. A beautiful, poetic comparison of a pleasant life of ataraxia as “neither a roaring torrent, nor a stagnant pool, but a placid and crystal stream”. Notice how she sees ataraxia in positive terms, not as mere pain relief (the common academic interpretation of Epicurean ataraxia), but as pleasant abiding, “healthy contentment”, joy.

Ask, and she will tell you, that happiness is not found in tumult, but tranquillity; and that,not the tranquillity of indolence and inaction, but of a healthy contentment of soul and body. Ask, and she will tell you, that a happy life is like neither to a roaring torrent, nor a stagnant pool, but to a placid and crystal stream, that flows gently and silently along. – A Few Days in Athens, Chapter X

Mother Philosophy then presents the virtues, beginning with temperance or moderation. She contributes to hedonic calculus by protecting us from “future evil” (evil means suffering to an Epicurean), and from “all disquiet to the soul and injury to the body”.

And now Prudence shall bring to you the lovely train of the virtues. Temperance, throwing a bridle on your desires, shall gradually subdue and annihilate those whose present indulgence would only bring future evil; and others more necessary and more innocent, she shall yet bring down to such becoming moderation, as shall prevent all disquiet to the soul and injury to the body.

Fortitude or endurance is seen next. Perhaps another word for courage, she protects us from fears and from fate.

Fortitude shall strengthen you to bear those diseases which even temperance may not be efficient to prevent; those afflictions which fate may level at you; those persecutions which the folly or malice of man may invent. It shall fit you to bear all things, to conquer fear, and to meet death.

Justice and generosity follow. The first one adds to our pleasure by making us safe among our neighbors. The latter one wins us friends, which are one of the most persistent sources of intense pleasure in life. Friendship is also addressed below.

Justice shall give you security among your fellows, and satisfaction in your own breasts. Generosity shall endear you to others, and sweeten your own nature to yourselves. Gentleness shall take the sting from the malice of your enemies, and make you extract double sweet from the kindness of friends.

Then, we see gratitude and friendship among the virtues. There are many documentedbenefits of gratitude, but here the author mentions how it helps us to bear our obligations pleasantly. In my studies of Epicurean doctrine, I’ve come to conclude that it’s impossible to profit from it if one is ungrateful.

Gratitude shall lighten the burden of obligation, or render it even pleasant to bear. Friendship shall put the crown on your security and your joy. With these, and yet more virtues, shall prudence surround you. And, thus attended, hold on your course in confidence, and moor your barks in the haven of repose.”

Also, notice here how pleasure is a gift of nature, and the virtues have to attend to nature as the final authority. In our tradition we never rebel against nature. That is the equivalent of rebelling against reality.

But, my sons, methinks I hear you say, ‘You have shown us the virtues rather as modifiers and correctors of evil, than as the givers of actual and perfect good.Happiness, you tell us, consists in ease of body and mind; yet temperance cannot secure the former from disease, nor can all the virtues united award affliction from the latter.’ True, my children, Philosophy cannot change the laws of nature; but she may teach us to accommodate ourselves to them. She cannot annul pain; but she can arm us to bear it.

After the train of the virtues is presented and the natural limits of the virtues are addressed, another efficient means follows: that of fond rememberance of happy memories. Again, not just virtues but also certain practices can serve as means to pleasure.

Hath he not memory to bring to him past pleasures, the pleasures of a well-spent life, on which he may feed even while pain racks his members, and fever consumes his vitals?

A later portion of the tenth chapter of A Few Days in Athens then evaluates further how avoiding vices and cultivating virtues can protect us from suffering. Temperance helps to diminish suffering due to poverty; modesty helps to experience luxury in the midst of simplicity and to avoid anger, disapointment and pain; knowledge protects us from superstition. It is reminiscent to Philodemus’ instruction on how self-sufficiency (another important virtue) protects us from being too vulnerable.

What is poverty, if we have temperance, and can be satisfied with a crust, and a draught from the spring? If we have modesty, and can wear a woolen garment as gladly as a tyrian robe? What is slander, if we have no vanity that it can wound, and no anger that it can kindle? What is neglect, if we have no ambition that it can disappoint, and no pride that it can mortify? What is persecution, if we have our own bosoms in which to retire, and a spot of earth to sit down and rest upon? What is death, when without superstition to clothe him with terrors, we can cover our heads, and go to sleep in his arms?

Vulnerability and Virtue

Fortitude and vulnerability are not opposed in a fluid system, whereas the philosophers of logic might invent sillogisms according to which they are mutually exclusive. In our system, just as both anger and gratitude can have virtuous dispositions, similarly vulnerability and fortitude can be virtuous.

Fear of death is then addressed, particularly the death of a friend or loved one, which is the most painful way in which we experience death. This is truly a difficult pain to bear, the author acknowledges, and she recalls the pleasures and the tenderness of friendship and of love for our close ones in one of the most moving portions of the novel.

Here, rather than feign fortitude, the author advises that we cry the necessary tears even as we engage in the pleasures of remembering our friends who have died. It should serve us as consolation that even crying and being vulnerable can be a virtue. Crying is essential toavoid depression and resolve grief, and our tears even contain toxins so that we are literally cleansed through them. There is absolutely nothing wrong with crying. It is entirely natural, and sometimes unavoidable, and we should not fear being vulnerable. Tied in with this, is the teaching that we should never avoid loving someone for fear of losing them at a later point because “happiness forbids it”. The author here presents us with the challenge of wishing that we had never met our loved ones.

And is it forbidden to us to mourn its loss? If it be, the power is not with us to obey. Should we, then, to avoid the evil, forego the good? Shall we shut love from our hearts, that we may not feel the pain of his departure? No; happiness forbids it. Experience forbids it. Let him who hath laid on the pyre the dearest of his soul, who hath washed the urn with the bitterest tears of grief — let him say if his heart hath ever formed the wish that it had never shrined within it him whom he now deplores. Let him say if the pleasures of the sweet communion of his former days doth not still live in his remembrance. If he love not to recall the image of the departed, the tones of his voice, the words of his discourse, the deeds of his kindness, the amiable virtues of his life. If, while he weeps the loss of his friend, he smiles not to think that he once possessed him. He who knows not friendship, knows not the purest pleasure of earth.

The rush of endorphins (the hormone associated with pleasure) that takes place after a good cry makes the case for crying and being vulnerable as an Epicurean virtue: it produces pleasure in the end and resolves grief. Crying, therefore, can also be an efficient means to maximizing pleasure.

This, then, my sons, is our duty, for this is our interest and our happiness; to seek our pleasures from the hands of the virtues, and for the pain which may befall us, to submit to it with patience, or bear up against it with fortitude. To walk, in short, through life innocently and tranquilly. – A Few Days in Athens, Chapter X

Contrast this approach to emotions to the Stoic ideal of apathy, which deprives us of our full humanity and is sometimes an affront to our nature, as the above considerations and ethical challenges related to the death of a friend should make evident. It might even be considered cowardice to live our lives as a desperate attempt to avoid healthy and natural emotion, attachment and pain.

Our philosopher friends who are influenced by the Stoic school will notice how distinct our approaches are, and how far-reaching are the repercussions of Epicurus’ instruction that we “must not force nature”. Emotions are symptoms that we are human, and they deserve our consideration and compassion. With that, I will close these reasonings with one final quote from the novel:

Everyone may be an Epicurean, but only a philosopher may be a Stoic.

Reasonings About Philodemus’ On the Stoics

On the Cynical Roots of Stoicism

On the Stoics is a polemic written by Philodemus where he argues that the founder of the Stoic school, Zeno, had been a pupil of the Cynics. The work starts out with historical details, and focuses on an early work by Zeno titled The Republic, which Philodemus says is full of faults and exhibits a vicious character, a kind of “disorder from the school to which he had begun to adhere”.

Among the horrors and impieties that the text says The Republic finds acceptable, there is mention of incest and cannibalism, apparently because it alludes to Greek tragedies that make these crimes part of the plot. But there is much more, and in fact a huge portion of the scroll is dedicated to the horrors defended in the text. Here are just a few:

To renounce their way of life to adopt that of dogs … to masturbate in public … to refuse to acknowledge as city or law that which we know as such …

There is also mention of evil speech, distrust and betrayal of friends, sexual exploitation of slaves, and adultery. The author also argues that Zeno never changed his mind, later in life, about the content of The Republic, which he says “proposes laws that aren’t for real people”. This book is praised by Cleanthes, and by Chrysippus while speaking of the uselessness of weapons. These are two prominent Stoics.

As to the arguments used by Stoics when confronted with these facts, Philodemus credits them with saying: “We dont’ judge Epicurus by his early writings, you shouldn’t judge our Zeno”, however Philodemus says that one can’t find anything shameful or impious in the early writings written by our Hegemon during his youth.

The Supreme End

… and it is a thing of inept people to not explain, once the supreme end has been invented, the rest (of the doctrine) in accordance! Now, what is actually coherent with the supreme end, is to admit that which is exposed throughout The Republic.

… it would have been better for Zeno not to have become a sage, that way there would be no place for indignation at his error! … but if they had had the sense of moderation, instead of loving the baseness, to the point of attaching themselves to perverse doctrines formulated in unsupportable terms …

The supreme end, to the Stoics, is virtue. Philodemus discards this doctrine as an “invention” of Zeno, to accentuate that virtue is not what nature has intended for us. In our teaching, we consider pleasure to be the end because the pleasure-aversion faculty is evident in nature. Stoic virtue, on the other hand, is an arbitrary ideal that is not clearly defined, much less in a way that is evident and observable in nature.

As to how we deal with the issue of pleasure as the end and virtues as means to pleasure, one good source to study this aspect of the Epicurean critique of Stoicism, and to clearly understand this key distinction and why it matters, can be found in the third chapter of A Few Days in Athens, where Frances Wright argues that many worship Virtue but few stop to evaluate the pedestal on which it sits.

We believe that while pleasure is real and tangible, other made-up criteria like virtue and “the good” are arbitrary and are never clearly defined. Pleasure is nature’s guide (and, therefore, transcultural), the others are cultural. Epicurus refused to even argue as to whether something was pleasant or produced aversion: this is not a matter for logic or for syllogisms to discern, it’s an immediate and real experience for a living being. Pleasure and aversion do not need to be learned. They’re innate.

Philosophers of logic can’t use word games to redefine pleasure. Instead, individuals can directly discern it with their own faculties, and so hedonism emancipates mortals from traditional authorities and can serve as a useful universal guide to anyone and everyone. In fact, the pleasure and aversion faculties are essential components of our moral compass.

We also believe that, as criteria, pleasure and pain do not lend themselves to the manipulations of rhetors which distort our moral compass in the way that other criteria do. A muslim might argue that pedophilia is virtuous because his prophet set the example, or that wife-beating and subjugation of women is virtuous because it’s in the Qur’an 4:34. A Christian might argue that killing gays is virtuous because Leviticus 20:13 establishes this practice, and a Jew might legitimize genocide in order to steal other people’s land. Authority-based, tradition-based or virtue-based moralities produce arbitrary rules that generate at times much more suffering than pleasure, whereas the goal of an Epicurean’s hedonic calculus is to produce net pleasure for the long term.

Other arbitrary criteria, like reason, can also serve ends other than human happiness and pleasure. Consider how objectivists have established the free-market as a sacred ideal that must never be toyed with or impeded, and how this led to the Bolivian water wars after all the water in that country was privatized and sold to an American company; or how deregulated financial markets led to the 2008 fiscal collapse, where Wall Street squandered over 40% of the savings that Americans had set aside for their retirement. Should we sacrifice our humanity and our happiness at the feet of the free market? Should people die on the streets fighting for access to water, and remain wage slaves until they die, even if they live to be over 90, for the sake of the free market? Should not the free market serve human life and happiness, instead?

And so there is always trouble and suffering and moral misjudgement when people set guides other than that which nature established, and which is evident in infants in the cradle: they seek pleasure and happiness and they avoid pain. Any other ideal, if it truly has a virtuous disposition, will lead to pleasure and to the avoidance or alleviation of pain. This is true ethics. This is a true and compassionate morality.

Closing

The content here is very different from what we’ve seen in all the other scrolls written by Philodemus. The tone of the controversy against the Stoics does seem out of character, and the scroll closes with the author swearing that he is telling the truth.

As for us, who have for a long time kept away from pollutions both our ears and our minds, defamation is forbidden to us as it is, in truth, the greatest source of pain, we swear.

Detailed Review of “A Few Days in Athens”

Read the full text, audio version, and links to PDF versions at afewdaysinathens.com, or at archive.com.

A Few Days in Athens: The Friends of Epicurus Paperback Edition

In Praise of Frances Wright

The first thing I told myself after reading A Few Days in Athens is “Why did I wait so long to read this masterpiece?”. That was the same reaction I had to reading Lucian’s Alexander the Oracle-Monger, a work which I knew about for very long but had been too lazy to read, and I even felt the need to apologize to our predecessor by writing a piece in praise of Lucian. Let this be my piece in praise of Frances Wright, as this is perhaps the only extant work by a female Epicurean author advocating in no uncertain terms a return to the wisdom of Epicurus.

The work had been recommended to me by Cassius, who said the following:

It is an amazing piece of material … It probably qualifies as the real (Epicurean) “Atlas Shrugged” or ultimate English-language manifesto of Epicurean philosophy, and it also lends itself to almost being used–without any changes at all–for a modern movie or screenplay that could easily be staged … I believe the portrayal of doctrine to be 100% faithful … Almost all the minute episodes and references are from various books of Diogenes Laertius, but the material is combined and told in story-form in such a way as to be a work of genius.

In general, I find the book extremely faithful to the core texts on every core point. And virtually every aspect of the book is a helpful explanation of Epicurean doctrine, along with a comparison of how he differed from other philosophers.

Short of Epicurus’ own letters, and Lucretius, and Diogenes of Oinoada, this is probably THE undiscovered treasure of world Epicurean literature. I am not familiar with what has been published in other languages, but it really stands alone in the English world, at least.

Simply by reading this one, single, easy-and-fun-to-read book, any educated layman can have a better grasp of the core ideas of Epicurus than most college students have after four years and a degree in philosophy.

Cassius also expresses doubts as to whether a young Frances Wright wrote the work by herself or with the aid of her great-uncle James Mylne, a professor of moral philosophy at Glasgow College who mentored her during a period of her life, as she was an orphan and moved to live with him in Scotland when she was 21. We can’t make any definite claims of co-authorship by her uncle, but he would have had a reputation to uphold, and with this being a book written partly in defense of atheism, it’s fair to consider the possibility of co-authorship.

I personally do not doubt that she could have written the work entirely by herself. She was a brilliant, passionate woman with very progressive views who (according to the sources) was acquainted with French materialist philosophy from an early age (a tradition which originates, let us not forget, with Pierre Gassendi: an Epicurean) and later went on to become a secularist, feminist and abolitionist activist, as well as one of Susan B. Anthony’s personal heroes.

A Few Days in Athens was also personally recommended by Thomas Jefferson and Marquis de Lafayette.

A treat to me of the highest order. The matter and manner of the dialogue is strictly ancient … the scenery and portraiture of the interlocutors are of higher finish than anything in that line left us by the ancients; and like Ossian, if not ancient, it is equal to the best morsels of antiquity. – Thomas Jefferson

… which should lead us to consider the historical importance of this work and its author. Together with Lafayette, Wright is known to have spent some time in the company of Thomas Jefferson when she came to America, an event which led to her humanitarian plan to purchase, educate, and later emancipate slaves. She scandalously criticized racial segregation more than a century prior to its abolition and called for miscegenation: the cultural and sexual mixing of races. She also exchanged letters with Jefferson, and shared with him an outspoken, profound distrust of the central bank.

As an interesting side note, which is reminiscent of the suspicion aroused by Epicurus’ early and precocious treatment of women as intellectual equals: the relationship between Lafayette and Wright also attracted gossip, and she even suggested he legally adopt her in order to silence the dissenting voices. It seems that Lafayette considered her worthy of meeting the other great minds of her day. So rare were the instances of women being treated as intellectual equals. It’s a testament to Epicureanism’s progressive values that our tradition nurtured these egalitarian models (invariably enduring gossip as it did so) 2,400 years ago, and then again a couple of hundred years ago.

It’s possible that A Few Days in Athens (which was written at the insistence of her co-conspirator Lafayette) is the novel that converted the founding father to Epicureanism, and in fact Jefferson carried around a notebook with quotes from the book.

Cassius also attests as to how complete an education in Epicureanism just reading this book represents, which makes is therefore a must-read for everyone studying our tradition and wanting to get a grasp of it on its own terms.

One thing this book NAILS DOWN is that (Jefferson) was not just some generic deist who had vague anti-christian feelings. This books shows (because it contains) that he was fully conversant in the most intricate details of the debates between the ancient schools, so when he said “I too am an Epicurean” he was not just talking loosely — he would have had a full understanding of what that meant.

Overview of the Work

Enough drum-beating! Let us now turn to a discussion of the book itself. The work commences with a claim of being a translation of a manuscript found in Herculaneum, but this reference was fictional and meant as a literary device.

The only set of views that is a later development in Epicureanism is Frances’ apparent agnosticism, which contrasts with the piety of the original founders of our tradition. This sympathy with atheistic views even takes on a strident tone reminiscent of contemporaries like Richard Dawkins and (Epicurean author) Christopher Hitchens at the point towards the end of the novel where religion is even denominated the root of all evil.

I have found the first link in the chain of evil; I have found it–in all countries–among all tribes and tongues and nations; I have found it, Fellow-men, I have found it in RELIGION.

We have named the leading error of the human mind, the bane of human happiness, the perverter of human virtue! It is RELIGION, that dark coinage of trembling ignorance! That poisoner of human felicity! That blind guide of human reason! That dethroner of human virtue which lies at the root of all evil and all the misery that pervade the world! 

We must treat Wright as an independent mind with an independent history and interpretation of Epicureanism. Just as Simone de Beauvoir was the feminist counterpart to Sartre among the French existentialists, Wright may be seen as an insightful feminist who is much less forgiving of religion than men (who have always enjoyed–even if at times unaware–religion’s privileges) may be inclined to be. Frances Wright’s Epicureanism is not the Epicureanism of our founders. It is a much freer, contemporary version of our tradition, one that could have only flourished where dissent does not necessarily invite danger.

Yet, this Epicureanism retains its refined, polished quality, and even fills the heart with love of virtue. Sages are viewed as compassionate, playful and just; the innocence of the good is justly protected and insisted upon, as there can be no imperturbability without innocence; good manners and wholesome character are celebrated.

If I ever saw simple, unadorned goodness; If I ever heard simple, unadorned truth, it is in, it is from Epicurus.

The book A Few Days in Athens is itself an exercise in good association and leaves us with the accompanying after-glow. One can easily envision and experience the healthy effects of associating with the virtuous, and one ends up wishing to profit from the study at the feet of philosophy–who is personified and even speaks in the first person, as in other wisdom traditions, in a section of the book.

Proper Relation Between Master and Pupil

The Stoic master Zeno and our own, Epicurus, are seen throughout the book as Guru figures. In a manner somewhat reminiscent of the Eastern protocol for relations between guru (spiritual teacher) and chela (pupil), here the pupil must be ready and receptive to the instructor and to the teaching in order to profit from the relationship.

Teach me, guide me, make me what you will. My soul is in your hand.  – Theon, taking refuge in Epicurus in A Few Days in Athens

On the other hand, reciprocity is expected and the Guru must be worthy of the name and lead by example. It’s understood that Epicurus taught by example and that his life is his message.

I answer (Stoic lies) with my life. – Epicurus, in A Few Days in Athens

Epicureans in antiquity believed that true sages taught philosophy by embodying the virtues so thoroughly that their mere presence had an effect on pupils. A similar belief exists also in the East, where the vision of a saint (called darshan), either in dream or awakened state, is considered a huge blessing. Wright’s book contains a detailed description of the main woman philosopher from the original Garden, Leontion. She is depicted as being comparable to Athena in dignity, wisdom and demeanor.

Throughout the text Epicurus is depicted as mild and candid. The author places words of praise for Epicurus and his virtues on the lips of Metrodorus, again evocating a sense ofdarshan, thus:

The life of Epicurus is a lesson of wisdom. It is by example, even more than precept, that he guides his disciples. Without issuing commands, he rules despotically … We are a family of brothers, of which Epicurus is the father.

Many of us have had bad habits, many of us evil propensities, violent passions. That our habits are corrected, our propensities changed, our passions restrained, lies all with Epicurus … he has made me taste the sweets of innocence, and brought me into the calm of philosophy. It is thus, by rendering us happy, that he lays us at his feet.

He cannot but know his power, yet he exerts it in no other way, than to mend our lives, or to keep them innocent.

Candor, as you have already remarked, is prominent feature of his mind, the crown of his perfect character.

Beholding the wisdom and virtue of a sage is crucial. The ultimate authority, however, is always the canon: the natural faculties by which we directly apprehend reality. It is this canon that vindicates a true sage. Once Theon (a Stoic who stumbles into Epicurus and must confront his deep-seated and demoralizing prejudices against hedonist philosophy) has his false notions put in their right place, Epicurus encourages him to think for himself based on the immediacy of his direct experience.

Learn henceforth to form judgements upon knowledge, not report. Credulity is always a ridiculous, often a dangerous failing.

The Abstract Versus the Real

We see an attack on Stoic and Platonic tendencies to speak of abstractions instead of addressing reality as it is, in the following quote attributed to Epicurus in the text.

Zeno hath his eye on man, I mine on men: none but philosophers can be stoics; Epicureans all may be.

Man, as an abstract idea removed from material reality and context, is contrasted here with men as individuals that exist interwoven with reality and context. The effect that this is said to have is that only philosophers can be stoics, but all may be Epicureans. To paraphrase the book, Zeno sees man as he should be; Epicurus sees him as he is. This is an important insight, and one that Thomas Jefferson in his Epistle to Peter Carr elaborated:

He who made us would have been a pitiful bungler, if he had made the rules of our moral conduct a matter of science. For one man of science, there are thousands who are not. What would have become of them?

Man was destined for society. His morality, therefore, was to be formed to this object. He was endowed with a sense of right and wrong, merely relative to this. This sense is as much a part of his Nature, as the sense of hearing, seeing, feeling; it is the true foundation of morality, and not the [beautiful], truth, etc., as fanciful writers have imagined.

The moral sense, or conscience, is as much a part of man as his leg or arm. It is given to all human beings in a stronger or weaker degree, as force of members is given them in a greater or less degree. It may be strengthened by exercise, as may any particular limb of the body. This sense is submitted, indeed, in some degree, to the guidance of reason; but it is a small stock which is required for this: even a less one than what we call common sense. State a moral case to a ploughman and a professor. The former will decide it as well, and often better than the latter, because he has not been led astray by artificial rules.

In a similar vein, later in the text there is a reference to how words are to things what means are to the end. When it is explained that virtue is happiness, it is understood that men speak of virtue (which is the means) as the end (which is really happiness) because they haven’t been able to distinguish the abstract conception of the pleasant from the real experience of pleasure.

I feel myself virtuous because my soul is at rest. – Epicurus, in A Few Days in Athens

Virtue and happiness (abiding pleasure) can be said to be one and the same insofar as one is the means to the other.

Of all the thousands who have yielded homage to virtue, hardly one has thought of inspecting the pedestal she stands upon.

Just as good and virtue equals pleasure, similarly evil is the abstraction to refer to pain, which is concrete.

With evil passions I should be disturbed and uneasy; with uncontrolled apetites I should be disorded in body as well as mind.

This important issue of abstractions versus concrete things, and of how words must always have concrete, clear and concise meaning, appears again and again: we find it in Philodemus, and it must be traced back to the original founders of the tradition.

It’s even more important when we consider what other philosophers do with rhetoric, how they twist truths and bend them for the benefit of their clients or to demonstrate their ability to persuade, and when we consider the blatant disregard for truth among the rhetors, a matter which will be covered in future reasonings concerning Philodemus’ Rhetorica.

Therefore, when discussing philosophy with other schools, as well as with each other, it’s important that words are clearly defined in concrete and concise terms to avoid confusion. This subject is revisited later in the text, when Metrodorus critiques the pedantry of Aristotle and how his dark sayings entice the mobs.

The language of truth is too simple for inexperienced ears. We start in search of knowledge like the demi-gods of old in search of adventure, prepared to encounter giants, to scale mountains … to find none of these things, but in their stead, a smooth road through a pleasant country with a familiar guide to direct our curiosity and point out the beauties of the landscape, disappoints us of all exploit and all notoriety; and our vanity turns too often from the fair and open fields into error’s dark labyrinths, where we mistake mystery for wisdom, pedantry for knowledge, and prejudice for virtue.

By Their Fruits Ye Shall Know Them

The above quote is associated with Jesus in the Gospels, but Wright appropriated it and prophetically placed it on the lips of Epicurus during a discussion with Zeno on the future decay and the future reputations of their respective schools, both of which they anticipate will be calumniated by “ambitious bigots”.

From the flavor, we pronounce of the fruit; from the beauty and the fragrance of the flower; and in a system of morals, or of philosophy, or of whatever else, what tends to produce good we pronounce to be good, what to produce evil, we pronounce to be evil.

We are here invited to judge each philosophy by the good it does (the pleasure it confers) and the evil (suffering) it prevents. If by these simple criteria we were to judge religions and philosophies prominent today, this would help us to judge Islam, Christianity, Marxism and other worldviews in light of historical and contemporary events (including how much violence and suffering they have produced) with a lucid and sober mind. Unlike political correctness, bigotries and bias, the pain and pleasure principle are not subjective or relative. They are real, natural, observable, concrete experiences.

“I gently awaken their sleeping faculties …”

The above considerations regarding virtue and pleasure, and how (guided by nature) one must distinguish them as the means and the end, have specific repercussions on the way in which Zeno and Epicurus teach philosophy. Epicurus concedes that Stoics are virtuous as well, but the severity and gravity of Zeno is contrasted beautifully against the compassion and the sweet mellows Epicurean philosophy.

With all his weaknesses, all his errors, all his sins … I call from my Gardens to the thoughtless, the headstrong, and the idle. “Where do ye wander, and what do ye seek? Is it pleasure? Behold it here. Is it ease? Enter and repose.” Thus do I court them from the table of drunkenness and the bed of licentiousness: I gently awaken their sleeping faculties, and draw the veil from their understandings.

“My sons, do you seek pleasure? I seek her also. Let us make the search together. You have tried wine, you have tried love; you have sought amusement in revelling, and forgetfulness in indolence. You tell me you are disappointed: that your passions grew, even while you gratified them; your weariness increased even while you slept. Let us try again. Let us quiet our passions, not by gratifying but subduing them; let us conquer our weariness, not by rest, but by exertion.”

Thus do I win their ears and their confidence. Step by step I lead them on … Temperance presides at the repast; innocence, at the festival; disgust is changed to satisfaction; listlessness, to curiosity; brutality, to elegance; lust gives place to love; Bacchanalian hilarity to friendship.

The contrast here lies in Epicurean insistence of gently yielding to the good in our nature, rather than the authoritarian, repressive approach of the Stoics. This is consistent with the proper understanding of virtue as not arising from some arbitrary or authoritarian principle (such as duty) but rather as that which gives way to the most pleasant existence. Let’s call this the grassroots understanding of virtue, since it is not implemented from the top-down, but organically.

Part of how Epicurus plants the seeds of his Garden and of pleasure and virtue in the hearts of his followers is by inflaming them with love of wisdom and of philosophy, and with a sense of fraternity with each other. A Few Days in Athens describes the serene life of philosophy in the most sublime manner.

A happy life is like neither to a roaring torrent, nor a stagnant pool, but to a placid and crystal stream that flows gently and silently along.

The text goes on to list all the virtues and how they make life pleasant, and insightfully ends up recognizing the relationship that philosophy has to nature.

True, Philosophy cannot change the laws of nature; but she may teach us to accomodate to them. She cannot annul pain; but she can arm us to bear it.

This passage begins a wonderful litany in praise of philosophy and what she can do for our souls, and concludes thus:

This … is our interest and our hapiness: to seek our pleasures from the hands of the virtues, and for the pain which may befall us, to submit to it with patience, or bear up against it with fortutide. To walk … through life innocently and tranquilly: and to look on death as its gentle termination, which it becomes us to meet with ready minds, neither regretting the past, nor anxious for the future.

A Mind Free of Prejudice

It were a poor compliment to the truths I have hitherto worshipped, did I shrink from their investigation. – Theon

The final portion of the book is perhaps the most controversial and difficult part, as it contains a polemic against conventional beliefs about God and a defense of atheism. It calls for questioning religious beliefs and a blissful indifference to deity. This is the part of the book that is most reminiscent to contemporary militant atheist authors, except that here the polemic is contextualized within Epicurean discourse and it does not specifically constitute a call to atheism as much as a call to end prejudice against atheists and against atheism.

Wright’s Epicurus had to first break the ice and challenge Theon’s blind adherence to Stoic doctrines about the Gods. He begins by challenging how a belief can be considered a crime or a virtue, as this attaches merit to credulity, and furthermore attaches demerit to investigation.

If the doubt of any truth shall constitute a crime, then the belief of the same truth should constitute a virtue.

The conversation then focuses on whether the mind has the power to believe or disbelieve, at pleasure, any truths whatsoever, or whether it possesses the power of investigation. In other words, do we owe it to ourselves to investigate truth claims? Do we even hold truth in high regard? Do we arrogantly believe as we wish, regardless of facts, or of the cost to our safety or to our lives of the tenets we hold?

A prudent and fair person can here only agree that investigation is necessary and a matter of intellectual decency. Therefore, it is fair to investigate whether the Gods exist or not, and it is fair to refrain from reaching a conclusion until we can directly apprehend them. Doubt is not a crime and unjustified certainty is not a virtue.

You enquire if the doctrine we have essayed to establish, be not dangerous. I reply, not if it be true. Nothing is so dangerous as error, nothing so safe as truth.

When asked by Theon what is truth and what is the fixed basis for it, Wright’s Epicurus answers:

A truth I consider to be an ascertained fact; which truth would be changed into an error, the moment the fact on which it rested was disproved. (Truth) surely has the most fixed (basis) of all: the nature of things, and it is only an imperfect insight into that nature which occasions all our erroneous conclusions, whether in physics or morals.

This notion of how one truth leads to another truth in a chain of causation is then elaborated into a sermon on the importance of attaching ourselves to empirical evidence and to our senses and faculties, since if the senses are denied, we are “set on wrong path as false views lead to more false views”.

The point of the anti-theological sermon is that we must free our minds from prejudice and from cultural corruption. Unlike religion and cultural values, science and empirical accumulation of knowledge are free from bias.

Chapter XIV closes with the following conclusion concerning the supposed immorality of atheism, which was believed by Theon originally to be a thought-crime. After explaining that it is no crime to believe with certainty in gods, but that’s it’s unreasonnable, Wright’s Epicurus closes:

(Let) this truth remain with you: that an opinion, right or wrong, can never constitute a moral offence, nor be in itself a moral obligation. It may be mistaken; it may involve an absurdity, or a contradiction. It is a truth, or it is an error: it can never be a crime or a virtue.

Leontium then assumes the role of instructor and criticizes Plato’s ideas and how theologians and Platonists establish laws and doctrines with no input from the study of nature, leading people into error, upon which of course further error is built.

A theory is built, and all animate and inanimate nature is made to speak in its support; an hypothesis is advanced and all the mysteries of nature are treated as explained.

Here, she would be making a mockery of Mormon “archaeogists” who have journeyed in vain to the lands of the first nations in the Americas in search of proof of the people and places of the mythical Book of Mormon, just as many Christians “archaeologists” have done in the Middle East. In this manner, a mind filled with cultural corruption and prejudice will start off on false premises that are unproven, and make the findings and the evidence accomodate to their pre-established views without considering the possibility that they’re based on a fraudulent foundation.

The science of philosophy is simply a science of observation, both as regards the world without us, and the world within; and to advance in it, are requisite only sound senses, well developed and exercised faculties, and a mind free of prejudice.

In a later chapter, we find a related sermon against what we might call the god of the gaps: the filling in the spaces of our ignorance with supernatural claims, which are considered evil insofar as they are fear-based and disturb our souls with fears of hell, of death, or of wrathful and tyrannical deities, robbing us of our freedom and happiness. The questions about gods and their nature must be addressed, for they

either open our minds to knowledge of the wonders working in and around us, as our senses and faculties can attain, or close them forever with the bands of superstitions, leaving us a prey to fear, the slaves of our ungoverned imagination, wondering and trambling at every occurrence in nature, and making our existence and destiny sources of dread and mystery.

… It behooves us to see that we come with willing minds; that we say not “so far will we go and no farther; we will examine, but only so long as the result of our examination shall confirm our preconceived opinions.”

The First Cause

The didactic novel continues with Theon arguing the existence of God by citing a first cause. It is here that we find the same answer to that argument that has been used by the likes of Richard Dawkins, who asks what caused the first cause: if all things have a cause, we end up right where we started. This is an old argument.

Epicureans have always held that it has never been in evidence that something comes from nothing. All things, when they decompose, their atoms return to the elements and form new things so that although constant change is everywhere in evidence, nothing comes from nothing. The constituents of all things (the atoms) are therefore held to be eternal.

Metrodorus Calls for a Neuroscience

There is no mystery in nature … things being as they are, is no more wonderful, than it would be if they were different.

Another area where thinkers, both religious and philosophical, have frequently made spurrious claims is the nature of the mind and of consciousness. Wright’s Metrodorus bursts the bubble of mystery and awe that surrounds the human mind by proposing a materialist view and explaining that mind is a property of the living and has no existence independent of matter.

No real advances can be made in the philosophy of the mind, without a deep scrutiny into the operations of nature, or material existences. Mind being only a quality of matter, the study we call the philosophy of mind is necessarily only a branch of general physics (the study of nature).

Against Fear-Based Religion

The final portion constitutes a diatribe against religion. The argument that it’s useful and that we should consider its utilitarian benefits is refuted with the argument that the world is full of religion and full of misery and crime. The text then goes into a litany of reasons why religion is mischievous and laments the state of the men who practice fear-based religion.

His best faculties dormant; his judgment unawakened; his very senses misemployed; all his energies misdirected; trembling before the coinage of his own idle fancy; seeing over all creation a hand of tyranny extended; and instead of following virtue, worshipping power! Monstruous creation of ignorance! … Man, boasting of superior reason, of moral discrimination, imagines a being at once unjust, cruel, and inconsistent, then kissing the dust, calls himself its slave.

To fear a being on account of his power is degrading, to fear him as he be good, ridiculous.

It is here that we find a detailed elaboration of Epicurus’ Trilemma, which says:

(1) If God is unable to prevent evil, he is not omnipotent.
(2) If God is not willing to prevent evil, he is not good.
(3) If God is willing and able to prevent evil, then why is there evil?
—Epicurus Trilemma

The theologian is then invited to banish fear and doubt from his creed, for love alone can be claimed by gods or yielded by men. The problem of fear-based religion and of the vulgar notions that people have about wrathful gods who interfere in human affairs is tackled one last time on the grounds of how degrading these beliefs are to humans.

Theist! You make your god a being more weak, more silly than yourself.

The final portion closes with the argument that if a God exists, any being worthy of the name God would want us to be happy and would be concerned with its own happiness and pleasure, wishing us to focus on our own. Therefore, the conclusion of all these reasonings is that we should:

Enjoy, and be happy! Do you doubt the way? Let Epicurus be your guide. The source of every enjoyment is within yourselves. Good and evil lie before you. the good is all which can yield you pleasure; the evil, what must bring you pain. Here is no paradox, no dark saying, no moral hid in fables.

Further Reading:

Read the full text, audio version, and links to PDF versions at afewdaysinathens.com, atarchive.com or at New Epicurean, which also now has a Table of Contents / Finding Aid

A Few Days in Athens: The Friends of Epicurus Paperback Edition

Traducción al español por Hiram Crespo de Varios días en Atenas, ebook con comentarios y guía de estudio

Get book and commentary by Cassius Amicus from amazon

Wright’s biography from Encyclopaedia Britannica and a revealing summary of the relationship between Wright, Lafayette, and Jefferson