The ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus emphasises that, in a world that works according to physical laws, nobody ought to be afraid of either the gods or one’s own death – for when death arrives, we will be gone. But is this a convincing argument?
This article is part of The Ultimate Guide to Epicurus.
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“Everything in life has an end. Only a sausage has two,” goes an old German joke.
Our very own death, and that of everyone we’ve ever known, is one of the few things in life that are perfectly certain. And still, we manage to get up and out of bed every day, and to live our lives as if they’d last forever. How do we do this? And how can philosophy help us overcome fear, anxiety and depression without the need to employ unprovable assumptions about an afterlife?
This was Epicurus’ question, asked by the Greek philosopher 2300 years ago. His answer is as important today as it was in Epicurus’ time.
The philosophy of atoms
Epicurus (341-270 BC) was, much like we are today, an atomist. Influenced by Democritus (460-370 BC), he believed that everything in the world was composed of material atoms, little bits of matter that combined in various ways to create all the different kinds of things that we see in the world.
Of course, neither Democritus nor Epicurus knew anything about protons or electrons (although, it must be said, the very word “electron” is ancient Greek and means amber: because by rubbing amber against cloth the Greeks could create a static charge that they could experiment with).
Epicurus (341-270 BC)
Epicurus (341-270 BC) is often seen as an advocate of a luxurious life, rich in good food and other pleasures. This is incorrect.
What they meant by an “atom” is not what we mean today when we think about CERN. Rather, Epicurus just liked the idea that all the many things in the world could be understood out of a few basic principles. This was a project that had already fascinated many philosophers before him: Thales of Miletus thought that water was the first substance from which everything else sprang; Anaximander thought it was endlessness; Anaxagoras, the air; Heraclitus, fire.
The main feature of this kind of explanation for Epicurus was that it did away with gods. Because, for Epicurus, the fear of gods was a major source of human anxiety.
A rational universe
If gods didn’t exist and everything was made up of physical atoms that flew around following the laws of nature, then also the human soul, so Epicurus thought, must be made up of these same atoms. Only, in the case of the soul, the atoms would be finer than those that made up the material world of things. These soul-atoms are what enables us to perceive the world and to have thoughts and feelings about it — particularly the feelings of pleasure and …
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