The Routledge Handbook of Hellenistic Philosophy

Kelly Arenson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9781032235592
  9780815347910
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351168106
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Aesthetics in Philosophy

Hellenistic philosophy concerns the thought of the Epicureans, Stoics, and Skeptics, the most influential philosophical groups in the era between the death of Alexander the Great (323 BCE) and the defeat of the last Greek stronghold in the ancient world (31 BCE).

The Routledge Handbook of Hellenistic Philosophy provides accessible yet rigorous introductions to the theories of knowledge, ethics, and physics belonging to each of the three schools, explores the fascinating ways in which interschool rivalries shaped the philosophies of the era, and offers unique insight into the relevance of Hellenistic views to issues today, such as environmental ethics, consumerism, and bioethics. Eleven countries are represented among the Handbook's 35 authors, whose chapters were written specifically for this volume and are organized thematically into six sections:

• The people, history, and methods of Epicureanism, Stoicism, and Skepticism.
• Earlier philosophical influences on Hellenistic thought, such as Aristotle, Socrates, and Presocratics.
• The soul, perception, and knowledge.
• God, fate, and the primary principles of nature and the universe.
• Ethics, political theory, society, and community.
• Hellenistic philosophy's relevance to contemporary life.

Spanning from the ancient past to the present, this Handbook aims to show that Hellenistic philosophy has much to offer all thinking people of the twenty-first century.

PART I

Methods and Background

1

Epicurean Philosophy and Its Parts

J. Clerk Shaw

The Epicureans hold distinctive views that sometimes sound strikingly modern. In physics, for example, they say that only atoms and void exist per se, that objects of different weights fall through void at the same rate, and that vision is caused by atoms flowing from visible objects into the eye. They reject Platonic definition and Stoic deduction as useless and replace these logical systems with “canonic,” in which they argue that perception and feeling are infallible and that we must form and assess all our beliefs by reference to those standards alone. In ethics, they defend hedonism, insist that virtue is valuable only for the sake of pleasure, and argue that justice is merely a useful system of social conventions.

Epicurus founded this system in the third century BCE and gathered around him like-minded friends, most notably Metrodorus and Hermarchus. Several complete works by Epicurus are preserved by Diogenes Laertius, a third-century CE historian of philosophy who may have had Epicurean leanings. A Vatican manuscript preserves many sayings, and some papyrus fragments also survive. Later Epicurean writings include On the Nature of Things, by the first-century BCE poet Lucretius; extended papyrus remains of Lucretius’ near-contemporary Philodemus, preserved by the eruption of Vesuvius; and a stone inscription in present-day Turkey that Diogenes of Oenoanda commissioned in the third century CE. We also have summaries and quotations from non-Epicureans—often hostile ones such as Cicero (first century BCE Academic skeptic), Plutarch (first–second century CE Platonist), and Sextus Empiricus (third century CE Pyrrhonist skeptic). Epicureanism did change over time and produced some internal disagreements (e.g., Cicero De Fin. I.29–31, 65–70), but this to a relatively small degree. Initial accounts of Epicurean philosophy can thus draw freely on all members of the tradition, across many centuries.¹

The Epicureans conceive of philosophy as utterly practical. I start by exploring this feature of the system. Next, I turn to the parts of philosophy (canonic, physics, and ethics), what they study, and their usefulness. It seems easy to see how ethics has practical value, but harder for the other parts, especially physics. Scholars have a standard view of why the Epicureans study physics: to remove fear of the gods and fear of death. However, this account produces puzzles. The puzzles can be resolved by noting two additional benefits of physics ignored by the standard account. First, physics replaces our unstable, troubling beliefs with stable, calm beliefs. Second, physics helps to grasp ethical kinds such as pleasure, pain, and desire, and places these within a causal scheme that aids in removing trouble and achieving tranquility. Appreciating these points gives a fuller picture of how the parts of Epicurean philosophy work together to benefit us.

Epicurean Philosophy

Epicurus calls philosophy “an activity which by arguments and discussions brings about the good life” (M XI.169). More particularly, philosophy is therapeutic; it brings about the good life by curing the soul and making it healthy (Ep. Men. 122).² Indeed, just as the only point of medicine is curing the body, so the only point of philosophy is curing the soul (Porphyry, To Marcella 31). Thus, true philosophy cannot be a detached pursuit, but must be put into practice—again, just like medicine (SV 54). Since having a healthy soul and living well are the most important aims for everyone, Epicurus exhorts us to philosophize constantly: at every stage of life (Ep. Men. 122), every day and night (Ep. Men. 135), and along with all other activities: “one must philosophize and at the same time laugh and take care of one’s household and use the rest of our personal goods, and never stop proclaiming the utterances of true philosophy” (SV 41). This constant practice of philosophy requires social support in the form of communal friendship—in Epicurus’ generation, the Garden outside Athens. In sum, Epicurean philosophy is a way of life, not a mere intellectual pastime.³

The value of philosophy is purely instrumental: philosophy produces a healthy soul, and thereby happiness (M XI.169; Ep. Men. 122). Some doubt this because of a single passage: “in other activities, the rewards come only when people have become, with great difficulty, complete [masters of the activity]; but in philosophy the pleasure accompanies the knowledge. For the enjoyment does not come after the learning but the learning and the enjoyment are simultaneous” (SV 27).⁴ We often say that causes precede their effects. On that view, if philosophical learning is simultaneous with enjoyment, their relationship cannot be causal. But Diogenes of Oenoanda rejects this view of causes. He rebukes those who say that virtue constitutes happiness rather than producing it (fr. 32). To that end, he distinguishes antecedent from simultaneous causes: surgery causes simultaneous pain, but brings about future pleasure by curing us. So, surgery is an antecedent cause of pleasure. Eating, by contrast, is simultaneous with the pleasure of eating, and virtue is simultaneous with the pleasures of virtue (fr. 33). On the Epicurean view, then, philosophy produces a healthy soul, which in turn produces pleasure. But there is no delay between philosophical learning, improved psychological health, and pleasure. Thus, philosophy has purely instrumental value, even though philosophical learning causes pleasure simultaneously.⁵

Epicurus gives an especially bold statement of philosophy’s practical value by saying that “prudence is a more valuable thing than philosophy” (Ep. Men. 132). To understand this claim, we must look at its context. Epicurus has just explained that pleasure is the good, and that living pleasantly comes not from drinking and debauchery but from “sober calculation.” Prudence is the origin [archê] of calculation, and calculation performs two tasks: it finds reasons [aitias] for every choice and avoidance (i.e., every decision) and it removes troubling opinions. At this point Epicurus declares prudence [phronêsis] the greatest good, more valuable [timiôteron] than philosophy. He then offers another reason for this claim: prudence is the source of other virtues, and it teaches that living prudently, honorably, and justly is both necessary and sufficient for living pleasantly.

Epicurus thus describes the value of prudence twice: i) by calculating, it produces good decisions and drives out empty opinions; ii) it produces other virtues and clarifies both their value and its own. But these are two descriptions of the same tasks. Prudence is valuable because it helps us to make good decisions. The other virtues are valuable because they are conditions of the soul free from empty, troubling opinions. For example, courage requires freedom from the troubling beliefs that death is fearful and that one must always avoid immediate pain (De Fin. I.49).⁶ Philosophy enters the picture here, since it produces a healthy—i.e., virtuous—soul. In other words, prudence identifies virtue as a valuable aim, and philosophy provides the tools necessary to achieve that aim. Since prudence discovers the value of virtue and philosophy is a tool to achieving virtue, prudence has greater value.

This account seems right, but it leaves behind two puzzles. First, prudence teaches us about itself: that living prudently is both necessary and sufficient for living pleasantly. If prudence is needed to grasp the value of prudence, we cannot see the point of cultivating prudence until we are already prudent. This could explain why the sage maintains her prudence, but not how anyone ever becomes prudent. Second, and relatedly, prudence as described seems to come from philosophy. As we shall see, the ethical part of philosophy studies decisions. This study is useful only if it improves our decisions. But if prudence is excellence at decision-making, and philosophy makes us excellent at decision-making, then prudence derives from philosophy, rather than being the origin or principle [archê] that leads us to philosophy.⁷

Both problems can be solved if prudence comes in degrees. We make many good decisions without philosophy. For example, we store food for the winter without any need for sophisticated reasoning. Our experience of acting prudently reveals its connection to pleasure. Among the lessons of prudence, then, is that prudence is necessary for living pleasantly. Thus, just as prudence identifies the health of the soul as a desirable aim, and philosophy as the tool that produces the healthy soul by removing troubling opinions, so prudence identifies its own further development as a desirable aim, and philosophy as the tool that enables it to perfect itself, by studying choice and avoidance systematically.

The Parts of Epicurean Philosophy

The Epicurean claim that philosophy must be useful has real implications for what they count as philosophy. Again, they reject formal logic as useless, and they likewise reject mathematics. For just the same reason, they scorn traditional education (paideia—probably including rhetoric and literary theory). Their practical conception of philosophy has teeth, then; it provides a touchstone for rejecting both standard educational practices and other conceptions of philosophy such as Platonism and Stoicism.

Ultimately, the Epicureans accept three parts of philosophy: canonic, physics, and ethics. Diogenes Laertius describes these parts twice, probably drawing on two sources (DL X.30). Briefly, canonic concerns the system’s procedures, or its fundamental standards and principles of inquiry. (For example, part of canonic concerns the infallibility of perception and how we should form and assess beliefs by reference to perception.) Ethics studies the end, decisions, and lives. Physics covers the entire theory of nature, including processes of generation and corruption. Epicurus wrote works that reflect each of these topics: a single work on canonic (the Canon), 37 books On Nature, and three separate works on the end, choices and avoidances, and lives (DL X.27–28).

A small complication arises here: the Epicureans often present canonic within their works on physics, leading some in antiquity to deny that they recognize it as a separate part. However, both sources that discuss the matter say that the Epicureans recognize three parts (M VII.14–15, 22; DL X.30). Further, Epicurus seems to distinguish three parts at the end of his Letter to Pythocles. He there urges Pythocles to study “the basic principles and the unlimited and things akin to those, and further … the criteria and the feelings, and that for the sake of which we reason these things out” (116). “The basic principles and the unlimited and things akin to these” are atoms and void and physics more generally. “The criteria” are a central topic of canonic. “The feelings” are ethical criteria, so this topic links canonic and ethics. “That for the sake of which we reason these things out” is the end, a central topic in ethics. Notably, Epicurus urges Pythocles to “study these together,” implying that in practice, study of the parts of philosophy is integrated.

We have seen that the Epicureans insist on a practical and therapeutic conception of philosophy, and that this conception of philosophy actually leads them to reject certain inquiries as useless. So, we should expect that each part of philosophy will be practically and therapeutically useful. This is confirmed by Philodemus, who says that all three parts contribute to choices and avoidances (De Elect. XIII):

Above all, he [Epicurus] establishes the principles of philosophy, by which alone it is possible to act rightly. And it is clear that he also establishes the congenital ends, which yield the most conspicuous evidence and by which the calculations concerning choices and avoidances are performed. Besides, one must unfailingly draw the ethical arguments regarding both choices and avoidances entirely from the study of nature in order that they should be complete—if nothing else, the principle that nothing is produced without a cause and that … does not change.⁸

As we have seen, canonic studies principles, ethics studies ends, and physics studies nature. Philodemus lists these same three parts and tells us that each contributes to choices and avoidances. (Note too that this further confirms the tripartite division of philosophy.)

It is perhaps easiest to see how ethics contributes directly to the practical aims of philosophy. For it studies the end—what we are ultimately trying to achieve in life—and how our particular decisions and general ways of living help to realize or frustrate that end. Strikingly, though, Philodemus insists that all parts of philosophy contribute to decisions. But it is obscure how the study of nature guides our actions. Why must Epicureans study physics at all, rather than limiting their inquiries to matters of obvious practical concern?

Epicurus clearly does think physics is useful. Each surviving letter on physics opens by saying that it is useful for both beginners and advanced students (Ep. Hdt. 35–37; Ep. Pyth. 84–85), and each closes with the same claim (Ep. Hdt. 83; Ep. Pyth. 116–117). As he advocates constant philosophical activity, so too Epicurus recommends constant activity in physics (Ep. Hdt. 36, 37). Physics, he claims, makes us calm, blessed, tranquil, and untroubled (Ep. Hdt. 37, 78; Ep. Pyth. 84, 85, 87). Scholars often say that physics promotes this end in two ways: it helps to remove fear of the gods and fear of death. Call this the “two-aims” view.⁹ I start by sketching these two aims and how physics helps to achieve them. As we shall see, it is doubtful that these are the only two reasons why the Epicureans study physics.

One of our main sources of trouble is fear of the gods. This fear involves thinking of the gods as feeling gratitude and anger and so as wanting to reward or punish those who please or pain them. It also involves thinking of them as active in the world—for example, as causing eclipses, lightning, and so on. Such events are readily seen as results of divine favor or disfavor; when an earthquake destroys a house, its owners may wonder how they angered the...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of contributors
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• PART I: Methods and Background
• PART II: Early Influences
• PART III: Soul, Perception, and Knowledge
• PART IV: First Principles, Nature, and Teleology
• PART V: Ethics, Politics, and Society
• PART VI: The Hellenistic Legacy in Contemporary Issues
• Index