HELLENISTIC
WORLD
I. History
"For
nearly fifty years after the death of Alexander the Great (323 B.C.), his former
generals and their descendants fought among themselves for control of his vast
Macedonian Empire. By 276 B.C. the
families of three of these generals--Ptolemy, Seleucus, and Antigonus--had each
secured a portion of the empire: the
Ptolemies were supreme in Egypt and Palestine, the Seleucids in Asia Minor and
Syria, and the Antigonids in Greece and Macedon.
The diffusion of Greek culture into Egypt and the Near East during the
next two and a half centuries is signified by calling this the Hellenistic Age
of ancient Western history, in contrast with the preceding Hellenic Age of
cultural greatness in the original Greek territories.
Before the Hellenistic period closed with the annexation of Egypt by Rome
by 31 B.C., important developments in almost every field of the arts and
sciences had occurred in the new regions of Greek influence--especially at
Alexandria in Egypt, which the Ptolemies made their capital and which, thanks to
their patronage, became the leading cultural center of the age.
Athens, as we shall see, continued to attract philosophers, but she was
not to have another of the caliber of Plato or Aristotle, and in intellectual
vitality she was soon surpassed by Alexandria” (Jordan 177).
II.
Alexandria
There the Ptolemies
sponsored two magnificent libraries that grew into a combined collection of
about 700,000 volumes (or papyrus rolls). The
librarians whom the Ptolemies employed were innovators of rigorous scholarship:
the most famous of them, Aristarchus of Samothrace, is said to have
written no fewer than 800 volumes of textual commentary.
his critical editions of Homer's
Iliad and
Odyssey are responsible for the
excellent texts of these works that survive today.
Around the museum to which one of the libraries was attached there sprang
up a university to which eminent scientists and mathematicians were drawn:
Herophilus, the founder of scientific anatomy; Euclid, whose
Elements was to be the textbook
of geometry for 2,000 years; Apollonius of Perga, whose treatise on conic
sections marked the culmination of Greek mathematics; Hipparchus, the first
known systematic astronomer, who charted the positions of some 850 stars and who
calculated the moon's distance from the earth (with remarkable accuracy, as
regard the average distance); Eratosthenes the astronomer who calculated the
circumference of the earth (with an error of only about 170 miles); Aristarchus
of Samos, the astronomer who first proposed the Heliocentric Theory--revived by
Copernicus in the sixteenth century A.D.--according to which the earth orbits
around the sun and the sun is at rest; and Archimedes--who studied in Alexandria
but lived mostly in Syracuse--the mathematician, physicist, and inventor, whose
many accomplishments included calculating the value of
pi (the ratio of the
circumference of a circle to its diameter).
"Alexandria was equally notable as a center for the exchange and
development of religious ideas. The medium for this was the common (or
koine) idiom of Greek that became
the international language of educated persons all around the Mediterranean,
including the native Egyptians and the large Jewish colony in Alexandria. Since many Jews could no longer understand Hebrew, a
translation of the Old Testament into Greek was made for them in Alexandria
about 250 B.C. this is called the
Septuagint, from the Latin word for `seventy,' because of the tradition that
seventy (or seventy-two) scholars produced it in as many days. The Septuagint had the effect not only of reviving the faith
of those who were Jews by heritage but also of converting thousands of pagans,
Romans as well as Greeks, to Judaism. It
is estimated that by the first century A.D. about 10 per cent of the population
of the Roman Empire was Jewish--7 million out of 70 million, of which about 3
million were converts or descendants of converts.
The Septuagint was subsequently adopted by the early Christians as their
sacred Scripture and became so identified with Christianity that in the second
century A.D. as many as three new Greek translations of the Old Testament were
prepared by Jewish scholars for Jewish readers.
Outstanding among the figures of Alexandrian Judaism was Philo, whose
writings ...had a great influence upon Christian thought.
"There also occurred in Alexandria a blending of Greek and Egyptian
religious traditions by the process known technically as
syncretism.
Elements from Greek and Egyptian sources were deliberately combined to
produce doctrine and ritual that would have the widest general appeal.
The first Ptolemy had immense success in this respect with the cult of
the god Serapis (or Sarapis), which he evidently introduced with a view of
consolidating his political position. By
associating himself with this god, who combined aspects of both Greek and
Egyptian popular deities, Ptolemy strengthened his hold upon Greeks and
Egyptians alike. Serapis was a
fusion of the Egyptian gods Osiris and Apis and of the Greek gods Hades and
Zeus. He was worshipped along with his wife and sister Isis
(identified with the Greek goddesses Athena and Demeter) and his son Horus.
Serapis, Isis and Horus tended, however, to be viewed as aspects of one
and the same god. The story was
that Serapis died and rose again in the form of Horus, whom Isis conceived after
Serapis' death as she fluttered in the guise of a hawk over his corpse.
All humankind may hope to rise again like Serapis, who is lord of
eternity and judge of the departed, and also the healer of the sick.
Isis, represented with the infant Horus in her arms, was worshipped as
divine mother and queen of heaven, with candles before her shrine in the great
Serapium that Ptolemy built. Many
pledged themselves to her service. After
lengthy preparations, they were initiated into her mysteries (which celebrated
the death and resurrection of Serapis-Horus), took vows of celibacy, shaved
their heads, and dressed in special linen garments.
Horus, the only son of Serapis, was (like Apollo) god of the sun and
interceded with his father on behalf of the souls of the deceased.
The cult of Serapis-Isis-Horus gradually extended throughout the
Mediterranean region and became one of the chief religions of the Roman Empire.
Worship of Isis was particularly difficult for the Christian church to
eradicate. It continued into the
sixth century A.D. The philosopher Proclus (about 410-485 A.D.) mentions a
statue of Isis which bore the inscription, `I am that which is, has been, and
shall be. My veil no one has
lifted. The fruit I bore was the
Sun.'
"What became of Alexandria's great libraries?
They were gradually destroyed by a series of disasters, beginning with a
fire in one of them accidentally caused by Julius Caesar in 47 B.C. (he had
intended only to burn a fleet in the nearby harbor).
Alexandria itself began rapidly to decline in political and cultural
importance toward the end of the third century A.D., when much of the city's
commerce was lost in a general collapse of the Roman government and economy
throughout the Mediterranean (Jordan 173-5).
"Significant
stages in the history of philosophy are seldom identifiable with the same
precision as political events, but there are good reasons for bringing the new
movements of thought which developed in the Greek world at the end of the fourth
century B.C. under a single description....During these three centuries
[Hellenistic Age] it is neither Platonism nor the Peripatetic tradition
established by Aristotle which occupied the central place in ancient philosophy,
but Stoicism, Skepticism and Epicureanism, all of which were post-Aristotelian
developments. These are the
movements of thought which define the main lines of philosophy in the
Hellenistic world, and `Hellenistic philosophy' is the expression I use in this
book to refer to them collectively. Their
influence continued into the Roman Empire and later times, but in the first
century B.C. Platonism began a long revival and an interest in Aristotle's
technical writings was also re-awakened.....
Philosophy, so many
have said, responded to the unsettled age of the Hellenistic monarchs by turning
away from disinterested speculation to the provision of security for the
individual. Stoicism has been
described as `a system put together hastily, violently, to meet a bewildered
world.' It would certainly be wrong
to isolate Stoicism and Epicureanism from their milieu. Epicurus' renunciation of civic life and the Stoics'
conception of the world itself as a kind of city may be viewed as two quite
different attempts to come to terms with changing social and political
circumstances. But many of the
characteristics of Hellenistic philosophy were inherited from thinkers who were
active before the death of Alexander.
The
needs of people in the Hellenistic world for a sense of identity and moral
guidance can help to explain why Stoicism and Epicureanism rapidly gained
adherents at Athens, and elsewhere. But
the Peloponnesian War a hundred years previously probably caused greater
suffering to Greece than Alexander and his successors.
Economically, Athens was a prosperous city at the end of the fourth
century and new public works absorbed capital and energy.
It is difficult to find anything in early Hellenistic philosophy which
answers to a new sense
of bewilderment....
"Alexander, it is true, helped to undermine the values which the
declining city-states had once so proudly asserted, and Aristotle's ethics
assumes as its social context a city-state like Athens.
But Diogenes the Cynic was already challenging the basic conventions of
classical Greek civic life many years before the death of Alexander.
These three men, Alexander, Diogenes and Aristotle, all died within a
year or two of each other (325-322), and this is worth mentioning because it
emphasizes the need to take account of continuity as well as change in the
interpretation of Hellenistic philosophy. The
young Alexander was taught in Macedonia by Aristotle, and in later years
Alexander, who knew the free-speaking Diogenes, is reputed to have said, `If I
had not been Alexander, I should like to have been Diogenes' (D.L. vi 32).
Alexander set out to conquer the external world; Diogenes aimed to show
men how to conquer their own fears and desires.
Aristotle and Diogenes were contemporaries but they had little else in
common. Moralist, iconoclast, preacher, these are descriptions which
catch something of Diogenes' posture. He
shared none of Aristotle's interest in logic or metaphysics, and attacked the
city-state as an institution by advocating an ascetic life based upon `human
nature,' the rationality of which was at variance, he argued, with the practice
of Greek society. this repudiation
of accepted customs was backed up by reference to the supposed habits of
primitive men and animals.
"Behind Diogenes' exhibitionism and deliberate affront to convention
lay a profound concern with moral values which looks back to Socrates.
The Stoics refined Diogenes' ideas, and there were men in the Hellenistic
world and the Roman empire who called themselves Cynics, modeling their
preaching and life on the uncompromising style of Diogenes.
Unlike Socrates however he acknowledged no allegiance to any city,
whether it was Sinope on the black Sea, his native town, or Athens where he
spent much of his later life. His
ethical values took no account of social status and nationality, and this
emphasizes the radical character of Diogenes' criticism of traditional
attitudes. A study of Aristotle's
painful defense of slavery in Politics
Book I should make the point beyond doubt.
What mattered to Diogenes was the individual human being and the
well-being he might achieve purely by his natural endowments.
This strong emphasis upon the individual and a `nature' which he shares
with humanity at large is one of the characteristics of Hellenistic philosophy.
It becomes most prominent among Stoics, at the time of Rome's expansion
from the second century B.C. onwards; but the early Stoics, Skeptics and
Epicureans were supremely confident that a man's inner resources, his
rationality, can provide the only firm basis for a happy and tranquil life.
The city recedes into the background, and this is a sign of the times.
But Diogenes had pointed the way before the dawn of the Hellenistic age.
"When Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, and Epicurus began teaching at
Athens in the last years of the fourth century the city already had two
illustrious philosophical schools. A
few years before 369, Plato had established the Academy, a society which seems
to have had much less in common with a general center of learning than later
uses of the name might suggest. Its
senior members pursued a wide range of interests, but formal teaching may have
been limited to mathematics and certainly is not likely to have gone beyond the
curriculum, which includes dialectic for those over thirty, described in Book
vii of the Republic.
What the numbers of the Academy were at any one time is not known.
The juniors in its early days must have been a small group of upper-class
young men, not exclusively Athenians, for Aristotle who spent the years 367-347
as student and teacher in the Academy came from Macedonia.
In founding the Academy Plato may have hoped among other things to
educate men who could be expected to become prominent in public life.
The published dialogues were his principal method of reaching a wider
audience.
"There were a number of minor philosophical movements in the early
Hellenistic period all claiming descent from Socrates.
We know or think we know Socrates so well from Plato that it is easy to
forget the other Socratics who went their own way in the first part of the
fourth century. They are shadowy
figures whose views are preserved only in occasional references by contemporary
writers and the bald summaries compiled in late antiquity.
But they established traditions which anticipate certain aspects of
Hellenistic philosophy and which influenced or even competed briefly with the
new schools....
"To later antiquity these minor Socratic schools were of only
marginal interest. It would be a mistake to regard them as insignificant in
their own day. We tend to think
that Plato and Aristotle completely overshadowed rival contemporary philosophers
because their work has not survived or proved influential.
It is unlikely that an educated Greek at the end of the fourth century
would have formed the same judgment. Stilpo
is reputed to have won followers from Aristotle, Theophrastus and many others (D.L.
ii 113f.). Platonists and
Peripatetics never exercised a monopoly in Greek philosophy, and they were soon
outdone in the extend of their influence by the new Stoic and Epicurean schools.
"When these
schools were founded, the Academy had ceased to be outstanding in mathematics
and theoretical philosophy. Its
intellectual vitality was restored about the year 265 in a very different form
by Arcesilaus, who turned the Academy from dogmatism to scepticism.
But the Lyceum remained a vigorous society down to the death of Strato in
270/68....
IV.
New Assessment of Hellenistic Philosophy
"Ever since Eduard Zeller wrote his monumental Philosophie der Griechen
over a hundred years ago, many scholars have contrasted Hellenistic philosophy
unfavourably with Plato and Aristotle. But by any standards the achievement of
Plato and Aristotle is virtually without parallel in the history of western
thought. In assessing Hellenistic
philosophy we need to remember that little of Epicurus and no complete work by
an early Greek Stoic have survived. Moreover
our knowledge of Carneades' sceptical methodology is also derived from secondary
sources. We know the broad outlines
of early Stoicism and Epicureanism. The
details and the arguments are often missing.
Plato and Aristotle have a head-start over the Hellenistic philosophers
in terms of work which we can evaluate today.
We can now see that
Epicurus and Zeno were philosophers whose ideas evolved gradually as a
considered reaction against theories in vogue at the end of the fourth century
and earlier. It is also true that
they felt passionately about the truth of their own theories and the
implications of them for human well-being.
The same might be said of Plato.
But
philosophy advances by criticism, and Epicurus and Zeno were critical of current
dogmas concerning the structure of the physical world, the sources of knowledge,
the nature of man and the grounds of his happiness. The Sceptics challenged the basis of all objective
statements, and Carneades' criticism of the Stoics provides ample evidence of
his sharp mind. We can argue about
the merits of the alternative Stoic and Epicurean theories, but there is no
justification for regarding them as a sudden impoverishment of Greek philosophy.
"The Stoics and Epicureans, however, interpreted the scope of
philosophy more narrowly and dogmatically than Aristotle, and by the middle of
the first century B.C. onwards, which is the period of our earliest secondary
sources, both schools had taken up entrenched positions.
But two hundred and fifty years is a long time, and our loss of
philosophical writing from this period is almost total.
Possibly, as is often said, Epicurus' followers were largely content from
early days to accept the teachings of their founder.
They certainly revered him as the saviour of mankind, but we know of
developments in Epicurean logic, to take only one example, which probably
occurred long after his death. The
Stoics, who have far more in common with Plato and Aristotle, were more
self-critical than the Epicureans, and such leading figures as Chrysippus and
Diogenes of Babylon elaborated logic and other subjects in great detail, turning
Stoicism into a highly technical philosophy.
Stoics and Epicureans criticized each other and were criticized in turn
by the Academic Sceptics.
V.
Hellenistic Philosophers as popularizers of philosophy
"We should not
think of professional Stoics and Epicureans as men in whom freedom of thought
had ossified. But they became the
transmitters of doctrines which provided many people throughout the Hellenistic
world with a set of attitudes that religion and political ideologies might also
have supported. The decline of the
Greek cities accelerated the decline of the Olympian gods.
Stoics attempted to accommodate the Olympians by interpreting them as
allegorical references to natural phenomena.
The Epicureans denied the gods any influence over the world.
Eastern religious ideas infiltrated into the Mediterranean world.
Some embraced them; others chose Stoicism or Epicureanism instead.
Stoic and Epicurean philosophers, particularly the latter, made it their
business to win supporters, but the market was open to be developed. The price which they paid for entering it with such success
was dogmatism, at least outwardly, and the divorce of philosophy from scientific
research. Epicurus' attitude to
science was naive and reactionary. The
Stoics defended out-of-date theories in astronomy and physiology against the new
discoveries of Aristarchus and Erasistratus.
The Sceptics were unsympathetic to science, and only Posidonius in the
later Hellenistic period made a serious effort at re-uniting philosophy with
mathematics and other scientific studies.
"But Epicurus and especially the Stoics were clearly interested in
many problems for their own sake. The
humanist focus of their philosophy is one of its most interesting features, and
it leads to very different results in the two systems.
In neither case is it narrowly moralistic because the ethical values of
both philosophies are related to two fully developed, if divergent, conceptions
of the universe.
"In the [Hellenistic Period] philosophy became thoroughly
institutionalized and practically synonymous with higher education.
Epicureanism was the exception. For
a brief period at the time of Lucretius and Julius Caesar, it was fashionable
and influential in Rome. But it
never achieved the public respectability of Stoicism.
Philosophers were among the most eminent members of the community and
some of the
EPICURUS
I. Life
1.
early period
Epicurus (341-270 B.C.) b. of Athenian parents on island of Samos (colony of Athens). Began study of philosophy at 14 and studied with various philosophers in various places until 3ll B.C. when he started his own school in Mitylene on Lesbos but soon moved to Lampsacus on Hellespont.
2.
opening of school in Athens
His disciples then followed him to Athens in 306 B.C. to a house with a garden where he taught for 36 years. His followers were missionaries who founded satellite gardens around the Aegean Sea. "Persons from all quarters and of both sexes were made to feel welcome in his garden: we hear, for instance, of slave and soldiers there, and of courtesans (the famous hetaerae of Athens), in addition to prominent citizens.
3.
Epicurus’ Principle
Doctrines and Lucretius’ On the
Nature of Things
"Epicurus
is reported to have written over 300 volumes.
Nothing but fragments of these have survived.
The only complete writings of his that we have are three letters
summarizing his views and a little work called
Principle Doctrines consisting of
forty short pithy maxims. These may
be supplemented, however, by Lucretius' poem
On the Nature of things (De Rerum Natura)
which faithfully reports Epicurus' views in 7,400 lines of choice Latin
hexameter verse. By the time
Lucretius composed his poem--about 200 years after Epicurus died--Epicureanism
had become the most widespread of Greek philosophies" (Jordan 178-9).
II.
Epicurus’ Philosophy
1.
the “Canonic” (theory of knowledge)
1)
knowledge = general concepts
"Epicurus divided his philosophy into three parts: the Canonic, the Physics, and the Ethics....Knowledge is built up from sense-experience by way of general concepts. These concepts are formed from our memories of the similarities and differences we have noticed among our experiences
2)
“anticipations” v. forms
....`Human' signifies
nothing more than a recurring complex of observable qualities approximately the
same for different persons; it does not signify a Platonic `form'
distinguishable from these qualities and apprehensible by reason alone, nor does
it signify an Aristotelian `essence' embodied in different persons as the `form'
of their `matter' and abstractable by a process of induction....General concepts
are what Epicurus calls `anticipations' because when we hear the names attached
to them we `anticipate' experiences of relevant sorts.
Hearing `human,' we think of the observable characteristics that
distinguish humans from, say, horses and cattle....
"Epicurus borrows from Democritus his theory as to the way in which
our senses come by information about the objects in our environment.
What happens is that films of atoms are continually sent off from the
surfaces of objects, and when these films make contact with the atoms composing
our eyes, for example, the result is that we have visual images of the objects.
These images are said to be
always true, not in the sense
that they are always exact replicas of objects but in the sense that our beliefs
about objects will always be true if only we will interpret the images
properly....We are told that when we proceed to form judgments by using general
concepts, the rule to follow is that no judgment should be taken for true unless
it is `confirmed or not contradicted' by the testimony of our senses or
feelings. Our beliefs should not be
allowed to run ahead of our evidence. In
any case in which there is not sufficient evidence for a decision either way, we
must simply face up to the fact that there we have (in a famous Epicurean
phrase) `a problem awaiting confirmation'" (Jordan 178-81).
2.
physics
1)
atomism of Democritus (gods, mind)
"`Vain is the word of a philosopher,' Epicurus says according to Porphyry (Marietta 137), `which does not heal any suffering of man.'" That is, this philosophy is a practical philosophy for living, not a traditional philosophy which was a free intellectual inquiry in a quest for universal truth. "The philosophy of nature which constitutes Epicurus' physics is expressly offered in the interests of healing. He finds that the human species is plagued by anxieties and fears, especially concerning death and destructive forces of nature as these are superstitiously interpreted. The powers that menace humankind are attributed to gods of a particularly conceited and spiteful description who may yet it is hoped, be persuaded to spare us if only we can somehow manage to please them. It is feared that when we die our troubles will hardly be over, because if we have failed to please them in this life, an eternity of punishment may await us in Hades. And it appears that we are indeed bound to fail, for we see even now that the gods visit terrible things upon the pious no less than the impious....
"Epicurus found in the atomism of Democritus the understanding of
nature for which he was looking--a theory that at every point is `confirmed or
not contradicted' by the testimony of sense-experience, and that clears away
superstitious anxieties and fears....Countless worlds, some of them like ours,
are formed and reformed as atoms collide in the void. Democritus had supposed that collisions occur because atoms
naturally move at random in all directions.
Epicurus, however, takes the position that atoms have weight (which
Democritus denied) and so like raindrops fall downward in space along parallel
lines. They fall at a uniform speed
in spite of differences in their weight, because space is a vacuum in which they
encounter no resistance. It follows
that atoms would never collide to form worlds unless they swerve a
little from their vertical paths....Atoms, therefore, spontaneously swerve, at
quite indeterminable times and places, and thus they collide with others that in
turn collide with others, bounding and rebounding until a great swirling cloud
of them is accumulated and a world begins to take shape....
"Everything that happens is an outcome of these `invisible blows' of
atoms. Nothing is intelligently
designed. Nothing happens for a
purpose" (Jordan 181-4).
GODS "...gods...like
everything else...are aggregates of atoms.
The atoms of which the gods consist are of such an especially fine
texture that films of them penetrate right through the bodies of mortals and
impact directly upon the atoms of their minds.
Thus are produced, particularly in sleep, those visions of the gods that
account for the widespread belief in their existence.
But the superstitious imagination of mortals has distorted their images
of the gods with false attributions of unlimited power and vindictive
temperament. In fact, as a less
clouded vision will reveal, these holy beings have very limited power and no
inclination to meddle in human affairs....Though composed of atoms, the gods are
immortal because they inhabit the spaces between worlds, where they are safe
from collision that could destroy them" (Jordan 184).
MIND "`The
substance of the mind must therefore be material, since it is affected by the
impact of material weapons'" (Jordan 185).
2)
the Golden Age
"In the old days, Lucretius says many things were better than they are now:
the weather was milder; fruits grew naturally in abundance; human beings
were tougher and more adaptable and lived in the open.
`they lived in thickets and hillside caves and forests and stowed their
rugged limbs among bushes when driven to seek shelter from the lash of wind and
rain.' With the passage of time
conditions worsened and humanity mellowed.
Fire began to be used for warmth. Families
began to live together and neighbors to form alliances for mutual protection.
Languages developed as people indicated objects to one another with vocal
utterances expressive of their feelings, using for convenience the same
utterances for the same objects. Men
of exceptional energy and ability became kings, founding cities and establishing
citadels, and parceling out cattle and land among their favorites.
Lesser men grew envious and resentful and schemed together to overthrow
the kings....
"The wearing out of mankind has accompanied a general wearing out of
the earth, which already is far past her prime. No longer are the atoms that the earth throws off into space
fully replenished by new ones coming in. `Everything
is gradually decaying and nearing its end, worn out by old age.'
The whole substance and structure of the world, upheld through many ages
is nearing collapse, which may occur with `one ear-splitting crack.'
From the billions of atoms that will be dispersed in this cataclysm an
identical world with identical creatures will one day be reassembled in the
void. The entire process of growth
and decay will be exactly duplicated. In
fact all this has happened countless times in the past and will happen countless
times in the future, for in infinite time the atoms in the universe must again
and again fall into `the self-same combinations as now.'
This goes as well for the atoms composing our bodies and minds, which are
dispersed in our individual deaths, to be reassembled when the earth emerges
once more ages hence. Our lives
down to the smallest detail have been lived, and will be lived, over and over.
Of course, we do not remember having done before exactly what we are
doing now, `for between then and now is interposed a breach of life, and all the
atomic motions [associated then and now with our minds] have been wandering [in
the interim] far astray from sentience,' and `the chain of our identity has been
snapped.' Nevertheless, `all things
are always the same"....
3)
death
"Death, feared by many as the beginning of a life worse than the one we
have now, is in reality the end of our consciousness, a `return to sleep and
peace.' toward which we may and should look with quiet minds.
The torments that are said to await us in Hades are present here and now
if we are oppressed by superstitious fears of the gods, or if we have committed
crimes for which we fear punishment from our fellow mortals, or if we defiantly
refuse to acknowledge that the term of our existence is limited.
An anxious lust for perpetual life saps the enjoyment that is possible
for us. We should gracefully accept
the inevitable.
4)
free will with psychological hedonism
When a mind-atom swerves, we have a "voluntary action of the mind," an
instance of "free will," by which the "bonds of fate" are
broken and the "everlasting sequence of cause and effect" is
interrupted. But Lucretius is not
proposing indeterminism,
for "his further remarks on the subject show him to be a kind of
determinist--a psychological determinist--after all.
He associates certain events in our minds with uncaused swerves of atoms;
but these events, insofar as they relate to actions, are exclusively thoughts of
pleasure to be derived from doing
one thing or another. `We follow
the path,' he says, `along which we are severally led by pleasure.' This is
exactly in line with Epicurus' position that pleasure is to be considered the
`end ' of human life inasmuch as all persons instinctively pursue it and avoid
pain, never deliberately choosing a lesser instead of a greater pleasure (when
both are obtainable), or a greater instead of a lesser pain (when both are not
avoidable). Such a theory of human
motivation, which is called
psychological hedonism (from hedone,
the Greek for `pleasure'), is inconsistent with freedom of will--if one
understands this to mean that we have genuine options with respect to the kinds
of considerations that shall have decisive weight with us as we map out our
actions. And if it is
psychologically out of the question for our choices and avoidances to be
functions of anything except `swerves' toward maximum pleasure (or at least
toward minimum pain), what could be the point of saying that our choices and
avoidances are `free'? the atoms in
question are `free' in the sense that their swerves are spontaneous; but
because, by curious coincidence, they happen always to agree on the sort of
thing they prompt us to do, it is hard to see what difference it would make to
us if their agreement were not spontaneous but was caused by their weight or by
their collisions with other atoms" (Jordan 187-8).
3.
ethics
1)
happiness-freedom from pain in body and fear in mind
The guide here should
be feelings (pleasure & pain) to which there is a natural limit.
"In point of fact, our feelings--specially those of pleasure and
pain--always are the
guide we follow in matters of ethics; and so it would be futile to propose that
we should be guided by anything else. `For
we recognize pleasure as the first good in us,' Epicurus says, `and from
pleasure we begin every act of choice and avoidance, and to pleasure we return
again, using the feeling as the standard by which we judge every good.'
Thus, in effect, Epicurus appeals to a hedonistic psychological theory of
human motivation in support of a hedonistic ethical theory as to how it is best
for human beings to live.
2)
3 kinds of pleasure: natural and necessary
natural
but not necessary
neither
natural nor necessary
3)
disengagement: obey laws; quality of one’s effort is what counts; friends
