At the center of the philosophical teachings of Epicurus is. The philosophy of Epicurus in brief

Introduction

Life and writings of Epicurus

Philosophy of Epicurus

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

Epicurus is characteristic of an era when philosophy begins to be interested not so much in the world as in the fate of man in it, not so much in the mysteries of the cosmos, but in an attempt to indicate how, in the contradictions and storms of life, a person can find the calm, serenity, and equanimity that he so needs and so desires. and fearlessness. To know not for the sake of knowledge itself, but exactly as much as is necessary to preserve the bright serenity of the spirit - this is the goal and task of philosophy, according to Epicurus. Materialism had to undergo a profound transformation in this philosophy. It had to lose the character of a purely theoretical, contemplative philosophy that only comprehends reality, and become a teaching that enlightens a person, freeing him from the fears that oppress him and rebellious worries and feelings. Epicurus' atomistic materialism underwent precisely such a transformation.

Life and writings of Epicurus

Epicurus was born in 341 BC. on the island of Samos. His father Neocles was a school teacher. Epicurus began studying philosophy at the age of 12. In 311 BC. he moved to the island of Lesvos, and there he founded his first philosophical school. Another 5 years later, Epicurus moved to Athens, where he taught a school of philosophy known as the Garden of Epicurus until his death in 271 BC.

Epicurus worked literally until the last day of his life. He wrote more than 300 works, of which are mentioned, in particular: 37 books “On Nature”, then “On Atoms and Emptiness”, “On Love”, “Doubts”, “On Preference and Avoidance”, “On the Ultimate Goal”, “On the Gods”, 4 books “On the Way of Life”, then “On Vision”, “On Angles in Atoms”, “On Touch”, “On Fate”, “On Ideas”, “On Music”, “On Justice and other virtues”, “Opinions on diseases”, “On royal power”, etc. As Diogenes testifies: “In them there is not a single extract from the outside, but everywhere the voice of Epicurus himself.”

None of these books have reached us: they, along with many works of antiquity, were destroyed by Christian fanatics in the 4th and subsequent centuries. The same fate befell the books of his students. As a result, from Epicurus’s own texts, only three letters have reached us (to Herodotus, Pythocles and Menoeceus), as well as a short treatise “Main Thoughts”.

Philosophy of Epicurus

Apart from these few surviving passages, we can judge the philosophy of Epicurus from the retellings and expositions of his ideas by other philosophers. However, it should be remembered that these retellings are often very inaccurate, and some authors even attribute their own fabrications to Epicurus, which contradict the statements of the Greek philosopher that have survived to this day.

Thus, it is generally accepted that Epicurus considered bodily pleasure the only meaning of life. In reality, Epicurus' views on pleasure are not so simple. By pleasure he understood primarily the absence of displeasure, and emphasized the need to take into account the consequences of pleasure and pain:

“Since pleasure is the first and innate good for us, therefore we do not choose every pleasure, but sometimes we bypass many pleasures when they are followed by great trouble for us. We also consider many sufferings better than pleasure when greater pleasure comes for us, after how we endure suffering over a long period of time. Thus, all pleasure is good, but not all pleasure is to be chosen, just as all pain is evil, but not all pain is to be avoided."

Therefore, according to the teachings of Epicurus, bodily pleasures must be controlled by the mind: “It is impossible to live pleasantly without living wisely and justly, and it is also impossible to live wisely and justly without living pleasantly.”

And living wisely, according to Epicurus, means not striving for wealth and power as an end in itself, being satisfied with the minimum necessary in order to be satisfied with life: “The voice of the flesh is not to starve, not to thirst, not to be cold. Who has it, and who hopes to have this in the future, he can argue with Zeus himself about happiness... The wealth required by nature is limited and easily obtained, but the wealth required by empty opinions extends to infinity."

Epicurus divided human needs into 3 classes:

1) natural and necessary - food, clothing, shelter;

2) natural, but not necessary - sexual satisfaction;

3) unnatural - power, wealth, entertainment, etc.

The easiest way is to satisfy needs (1), somewhat more difficult - (2), and needs (3) cannot be completely satisfied, but, according to Epicurus, it is not necessary.

“Among our desires,” he writes to Menoeceus, “some should be considered natural, others - idle; and among natural ones, some - necessary, others - only natural; and among the necessary, some - necessary for happiness, others - for peace of mind, others - simply for life. If one does not make mistakes in such consideration, then every preference and every avoidance will lead to bodily health and mental serenity."

Epicurus believed that “pleasure is attainable only by dispelling the fears of the mind,” and expressed the basic idea of ​​his philosophy with the following phrase: “The gods inspire no fear, death inspires no fear, pleasure is easily attained, suffering is easily endured.”

Contrary to the accusations leveled against him during his lifetime, Epicurus was not an atheist. He recognized the existence of the gods of the ancient Greek pantheon, but had his own opinion about them, which differed from the views that prevailed in the ancient Greek society of his time.

According to Epicurus, there are many inhabited planets similar to Earth. The gods live in the space between them, where they live their own lives and do not interfere in the lives of people. Epicurus proved this as follows:

"Let us assume that the suffering of the world is of interest to the gods. The gods may or may not, want or do not want to destroy suffering in the world. If they cannot, then they are not gods. If they can, but do not want, then they are imperfect, which is also not befitting of gods And if they can and want to, then why haven’t they done it yet?”

Another famous saying of Epicurus on this topic: “If the gods listened to the prayers of people, then soon all people would die, constantly praying a lot of evil to each other.”

At the same time, Epicurus criticized atheism, believing that gods are necessary to be a model of perfection for humans.

But in Greek mythology, the gods are far from perfect: human character traits and human weaknesses are attributed to them. That is why Epicurus was opposed to the traditional ancient Greek religion: “It is not the wicked who rejects the gods of the crowd, but the one who applies the ideas of the crowd to the gods.”

Epicurus denied any divine creation of the world. In his opinion, many worlds are constantly born as a result of the attraction of atoms to each other, and worlds that have existed for a certain period also disintegrate into atoms. This is quite consistent with ancient cosmogony, which asserts the origin of the world from Chaos. But, according to Epicurus, this process occurs spontaneously and without the intervention of any higher powers.

Epicurus developed the doctrine of Democritus about the structure of the world from atoms, and at the same time put forward assumptions that were confirmed by science only many centuries later. Thus, he stated that different atoms differ in mass, and, therefore, in properties. Epicurus makes astonishing guesses about the properties of microparticles: “The atoms of bodies, indivisible and solid, from which everything complex is composed and into which everything complex is decomposed, are immensely diverse in appearance... The atoms move continuously and forever, alone - at a distance from each other, while others - oscillating at place, if they accidentally interlock or are covered by interlocking atoms ... atoms have no other properties than appearance, size and weight; as for color, it changes depending on the position of the atoms ... "

Unlike Democritus, who believed that atoms move along strictly defined trajectories, and therefore everything in the world is predetermined in advance, Epicurus believed that the movement of atoms is largely random, and, therefore, different scenarios are always possible.

Based on the randomness of the movement of atoms, Epicurus rejected the idea of ​​fate and predestination. “There is no purpose in what is happening, because a lot of things are not happening the way they should have happened.”

But, if the gods are not interested in the affairs of people, and there is no predetermined fate, then, according to Epicurus, there is no need to be afraid of both. “He who does not know fear cannot inspire fear. The gods do not know fear because they are perfect.” Epicurus was the first in history to state that people's fear of the gods is caused by the fear of natural phenomena that are attributed to the gods. Therefore, he considered it important to study nature and find out the real causes of natural phenomena - in order to free man from the false fear of the gods. All this is consistent with the position about pleasure as the main thing in life: fear is suffering, pleasure is the absence of suffering, knowledge allows you to get rid of fear, therefore without knowledge there can be no pleasure - one of the key conclusions of the philosophy of Epicurus.

The cosmological ideas of Epicurus deserve special discussion: “What the Universe is now, such it has always been and will always be, because there is nothing for it to change into - for, besides the Universe, there is nothing that could enter into it, making a change. Further, the worlds are countless, and some are similar to ours, and some are dissimilar. Indeed, since the atoms are countless, they are spread very, very far, for such atoms, from which the world arises or from which it is created, are not completely spent on any one world, nor to a limited number of them, whether similar to ours or dissimilar. Therefore, nothing prevents the innumerability of worlds." Explaining his opinion, he writes to Herodotus: “It should be assumed that the worlds and, in general, any limited complex body of the same kind as the objects that we observe all the time - all originated from infinity, issuing from separate clumps, large and small; and they all decompose again for one reason or another, some faster, others slower.”

Adhering to this principle, he comes to the universal law of conservation: “Nothing arises from what does not exist, otherwise everything would arise from everything, without needing any seeds, and if what disappears were destroyed into the non-existent, everything would have perished long ago, for what comes from destruction, would not exist."

During the time of Epicurus, one of the main topics for discussion among philosophers was death and the fate of the soul after death. Epicurus considered debates on this topic pointless: “Accustom yourself to the idea that death has nothing to do with us. After all, everything good and bad lies in sensation, and death is the deprivation of sensation. Therefore, the correct knowledge that death has nothing to do with us relationship, makes the mortality of life delightful, not because it adds an unlimited amount of time to it, but because it takes away the thirst for immortality. And indeed, there is nothing terrible in life for someone who has comprehended with all his heart (fully convinced) that in life there is nothing to fear in life. Thus, he is stupid who says that he is afraid of death, not because it will cause suffering when it comes, but because it causes suffering by the fact that it will come: after all, if something does not disturb the presence, then it is in vain to grieve when it is still expected. Thus, the most terrible of evils, death, has nothing to do with us, since when we exist, death is not yet present; and when death is present, then we do not exist. Thus, death has no relation to either the living or the dead, since for some it does not exist, while for others it no longer exists. Crowd people either avoid death as the greatest of evils, or crave it as a rest from the evils of life. And the sage does not shy away from life, but is not afraid of non-life, because life does not bother him, and non-life does not seem like some kind of evil. Just as he chooses food that is not at all more plentiful, but the most pleasant, so he enjoys time not the longest, but the most pleasant ... "

According to Epicurus, people are afraid not so much of death itself as of the death throes: “We are afraid of being languished by illness, of being struck by a sword, torn by the teeth of animals, reduced to dust by fire - not because all this causes death, but because it brings suffering. Of all evils, the greatest is suffering, not death." He believed that the human soul is material and dies with the body.

“The soul is a body of subtle particles, scattered throughout our entire composition... it should be assumed that it is the soul that is the main cause of sensations; but it would not have them if it were not closed in the rest of the composition of our body. While the soul is contained in the body, it does not lose sensitivity even with the loss of any member: with the destruction of its cover, complete or partial, particles of the soul also die, but as long as something remains of it, it will have sensations... when our entire composition is destroyed, then the soul dissipates and no longer has the former powers or movements, and likewise sensations. Those who claim that the soul is incorporeal speak nonsense: if it were so, it could neither act nor experience action, while we We clearly see that both of these properties are inherent in the soul." In other words, Epicurus, through simple observations, concluded that there must be a nervous system that determines mental activity.

Epicurus can be called the most consistent materialist of all philosophers. In his opinion, everything in the world is material, and spirit as some kind of entity separate from matter does not exist at all. In many ways, it was he who laid the foundations of the modern scientific method of cognition. Thus, in a letter to Pythocles, Epicurus explains the principle of alternative hypotheses: “Being carried away by one explanation, do not idly reject all the others, as happens when you do not think about what is knowable for a person and what is not, and therefore you rush to study the inaccessible. And no celestial phenomenon will not escape explanation if you remember that there are many such explanations, and if you consider only those assumptions and reasons that fit with these phenomena, and those that do not fit in - leave them without attention, do not attach imaginary importance to them and do not slide here and there to attempts at a uniform explanation. For no celestial phenomena should one deviate from this path of investigation."

Epicurus considers direct sensations, and not judgments of the mind, to be the basis of knowledge. In his opinion, everything we experience is true; sensations never deceive us. Misconceptions and errors arise only when we add something to our perceptions, i.e. the source of error is the mind.

Perceptions arise as a result of the penetration of images of things into us. These images are separated from the surface of things and move with the speed of thought. If they enter the sense organs, they give real sensory perception, but if they penetrate the pores of the body, they give fantastic perception, including illusions and hallucinations.

Epicurus has a clear formulation of the scientific style of discussing problems: “We should understand,” he writes to Herodotus, “what stands behind the words, so that we can reduce to them for discussion all our opinions, inquiries, perplexities, so that in endless explanations they do not remain undiscussed , and the words were not empty."

As Diogenes Laertius writes about Epicurus: “He called all objects by their proper names, which the grammarian Aristophanes considers a reprehensible feature of his style. His clarity was such that in his essay “On Rhetoric” he does not consider it necessary to demand anything other than clarity.”

In general, Epicurus was against abstract theorizing that was not related to facts. In his opinion, philosophy should have a direct practical application - to help a person avoid suffering and life’s mistakes: “Just as medicine is of no use if it does not banish the suffering of the body, so there is no benefit of philosophy if it does not banish the suffering of the soul.”

The most important part of Epicurus' philosophy is his ethics. However, Epicurus’s teaching about the best way of life for a person can hardly be called ethics in the modern sense of the word. The question of adjusting the individual to social attitudes, as well as all other interests of society and the state, occupied Epicurus least of all. His philosophy is individualistic and aimed at enjoying life regardless of political and social conditions.

Epicurus denied the existence of universal morality and universal concepts of goodness and justice, given to humanity from somewhere above. He taught that all these concepts were created by people themselves: “Justice is not something in itself, it is some agreement between people not to harm and not to suffer harm.”

In the same way, he approaches the foundations of law: “Natural law is a contract of benefit, the purpose of which is not to cause or suffer harm. Justice does not exist in itself; it is an agreement not to cause or suffer harm, concluded in communication.” people and always in relation to the places where it lies. In general, justice is the same for everyone, since it is benefit in the mutual communication of people; but when applied to the particularities of a place and circumstances, justice is not the same for everyone.

Of those actions that the law recognizes as fair, only those whose benefits are confirmed by the needs of human communication are truly fair, whether it is the same for everyone or not. And if someone makes a law from which there will be no benefit in human communication, such a law will already be unjust by nature... Where, without any change in circumstances, it turns out that laws considered fair entail consequences that do not correspond to our anticipation of justice, there they and they were not fair. Where, with a change in circumstances, previously established justice turns out to be useless, there it was fair while it was beneficial in the communication of fellow citizens, and then ceased to be fair, ceasing to bring benefit."

Epicurus gave friendship a major role in relationships between people, contrasting it with political relations as something that brings pleasure in itself. Politics is the satisfaction of the need for power, which, according to Epicurus, can never be fully satisfied, and therefore cannot bring true pleasure. In "Main Thoughts" Epicurus states: "Security, even in our limited existence, is most fully realized through friendship." Epicurus argued with the followers of Plato, who put friendship at the service of politics, considering it as a means of building an ideal society.

In general, Epicurus does not set any great goals or ideals for man. We can say that the goal of life, according to Epicurus, is life itself in all its manifestations, and knowledge and philosophy are the path to obtaining the greatest pleasure from life.

Humanity has always been prone to extremes. While some people greedily strive for pleasure as an end in itself and cannot get enough of it all the time, others torment themselves with asceticism, hoping to gain some kind of mystical knowledge and enlightenment. Epicurus proved that both were wrong, that enjoying life and learning about life are interconnected. The philosophy and biography of Epicurus is an example of a harmonious approach to life in all its manifestations. However, Epicurus himself said it best: “Always have a new book in your library, a full bottle of wine in your cellar, a fresh flower in your garden.”

Conclusion

The philosophy of Epicurus is the greatest and most consistent materialist teaching of Ancient Greece after the teachings of Leucippus and Democritus. Epicurus differs from his predecessors in his understanding of both the task of philosophy and the means leading to the solution of this task. Epicurus recognized the main and final task of philosophy as the creation of ethics - the doctrine of behavior that can lead to happiness. But this problem can be solved, he thought, only under a special condition: if the place that man - a particle of nature - occupies in the world is explored and clarified. True ethics presupposes true knowledge of the world. Therefore, ethics must be based on physics, which contains as its part and as its most important result the doctrine of man. Ethics is based on physics, anthropology is based on ethics. In turn, the development of physics must be preceded by research and the establishment of a criterion for the truth of knowledge.

New and original was Epicurus’s thought about the close connection between ethics and physics, about the theoretical conditioning of ethics by physics.

The central concept connecting Epicurus' physics with his ethics was the concept of freedom. The ethics of Epicurus is the ethics of freedom. Epicurus spent his entire life fighting against ethical teachings that were incompatible with the concept of human freedom. This put Epicurus and his entire school in a state of constant struggle with the school of the Stoics, despite a number of concepts and teachings common to these two materialistic schools. According to Epicurus, the doctrine of the causal necessity of all phenomena and all events of nature, developed by Democritus and accepted by Epicurus, should in no case lead to the conclusion that freedom is impossible for man and that man is enslaved by necessity (fate, fate, fate). Within the framework of necessity, the path to freedom must be found and indicated for behavior.

The Epicurean ideal man (sage) differs from the sage in its portrayal of the Stoics and Skeptics. Unlike the skeptic, the epicure has strong and well-thought-out beliefs. Unlike the Stoic, the Epicurean is not dispassionate. He knows passions (although he will never fall in love, for love enslaves). Unlike the Cynic, the Epicurean will not demonstratively beggar and despise friendship; on the contrary, the Epicurean will never leave a friend in trouble, and if necessary, he will die for him. An Epicurean will not punish slaves. He will never become a tyrant. The Epicurean does not subservient to fate (as the Stoic does): he understands that in life one thing is truly inevitable, but another is accidental, and the third depends on ourselves, on our will. The Epicurean is not a fatalist. He is free and capable of independent, spontaneous actions, being similar in this respect to atoms with their spontaneity.

As a result, the ethics of Epicurus turned out to be a teaching opposed to superstition and all beliefs that degrade human dignity. For Epicurus, the criterion of happiness (similar to the criterion of truth) is a feeling of pleasure. Good is what gives rise to pleasure, evil is what gives rise to suffering. The development of a doctrine about the path leading a person to happiness must be preceded by the elimination of everything that stands in this path.

The teachings of Epicurus were the last great materialist school of ancient Greek philosophy. Her authority - theoretical and moral - was great. Late antiquity highly revered the thought, character and strict, abstinent lifestyle and behavior of Epicurus, bordering on asceticism. Even the harsh and irreconcilably hostile polemics that the Stoics always waged against the teachings of Epicurus could not cast a shadow on them. Epicureanism stood firm under their attacks, and its teachings were strictly preserved in their original content. It was one of the most orthodox materialist schools of antiquity.

List of used literature

Fundamentals of philosophy. Tutorial. Almaty. Danecker. 2000.

Spirkin A.G. Philosophy. Textbook. M., 1999.

Radugin A.A. Philosophy. M., 1996.

Introduction to Philosophy. T1. M., 1991.

Ortega – and – Gasset H. Dehumanization of art. M., 1990.

As a kind of worldview Abstract >> Philosophy

... (Cyrenaic) etc.; philosophy Epicurus etc. Distinctive features of Hellenistic philosophy: crisis of ancient moral... Question 18. Philosophy Epicurus 1. Epicurus(341 - 270 BC) - ancient Greek philosopher-materialist. Philosophy Epicurus divided by...

"Be happy, friends, and remember our teachings!"

The philosophical schools of late antiquity - Epicureanism, Stoicism and Skepticism - saw their goal as using the intellectual resources of the classics, find guarantees of individual existence. They considered the ideal of such existence to be a state of serenity (ataraxia), in which a person - a sage - remains unperturbed under any circumstances, enduring both gifts and blows of fate with dignity. Epicurus added to this that a person who has become his own master will be happy even under torture.

Epicurus (341-279 BC) was a younger contemporary of Alexander the Great. He was born in Athens and grew up in Samos. At the age of eighteen he returned to his hometown, but after the death of Alexander (323 BC) he went to Colophon to live with his father, where he began teaching. Later, having gathered students, he again came to Athens, bought a small garden on the outskirts and there founded his own philosophical school, called Kepos (from the Greek “garden”).

Since Epicurus taught that the ultimate goal of human life is pleasure, many indecent stories were told about him already in late antiquity. Diogenes Laertius comments on them as follows: “But everyone who writes such things has only gone crazy. This man has enough witnesses of his incomparable goodwill towards everyone: both the fatherland, which honored him with copper statues, and so many friends that their number cannot be measured by entire cities , and all the students, chained to his teaching, as if by the songs of the Sirens... and the succession of his successors, eternally maintained in a continuous change of students, while all other schools had almost died out, and gratitude to his parents, and beneficence to his brothers , and meekness towards slaves,... and in general his entire humanity towards anyone."

Apparently, Epicurus was a charismatic person. Despite the fact that his Garden competed with the two most authoritative philosophical schools of antiquity - Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum - he never had a shortage of students. Friends came to him from all over Hellas and led a modest, unpretentious life with him in the quiet of the village. Contrary to Greek tradition, they usually drank water, only occasionally diversifying their diet with a mug of weak wine. Unlike Pythagoras, who founded a similar union in the 6th century. BC, Epicurus did not believe that friends should have common property - this would mean, in his opinion, that they did not trust each other. And he valued friendship highly and was generously bestowed with it. His piety was recognized even by his philosophical opponents - Cicero and other Stoics.

Epicurus was distinguished by poor health and in the last years of his life he suffered from “stone disease”, between attacks of which he wrote to friends about the sweetness and fullness of his own life. Anticipating his imminent death, he gathered his disciples, asked them to bring undiluted wine and fill a copper bath with hot water for him.

Be happy, friends, and remember our teachings!
So, dying, Epicurus said to his dear friends,
He lay down in the hot bath and became intoxicated with pure wine,
And through this he entered the eternally cold Hades.

So, Epicurus assured that a happy life is not only possible for an individual, but also under his control, that is, it can be achieved by him independently, regardless of what happens in the cruel and vain world. However, unlike momentary pleasure, happiness is not immediate and requires effort - first of all, practicing philosophy. He who considers himself too young or too old to study philosophy, he wrote to Menoeceus, considers himself too young to live a happy life. Epicurus called philosophy that does not contribute to human mental health worthless.

Happiness is the ultimate goal of human existence in the nature of things. Animals avoid the unpleasant and strive for the pleasant, but man has a mind that allows him to realize the principle of life itself. You just need to take the trouble to understand what Freud would call the pleasure principle twenty-two centuries later. According to this principle, no pleasures in themselves are evil, but some of them lead to suffering in the future, others require so much effort to achieve that they turn into their opposite and therefore must be abandoned.

Sound reflection reveals that pleasures, as well as suffering, are of two types - bodily and mental. We receive the first thanks to sensations, we experience them in the present, enjoying delicious food, wine, sexual love, the bliss and luxury of our home, etc. The pleasures of the body are strong and desirable, but they have a very unpleasant feature: you quickly get fed up with them and there is a need for increasingly stronger and more varied sensations. As a result, a person devoted to such pleasures becomes dependent on them and begins to experience constant anxiety. He is afraid of losing what, in essence, has ceased to please him, and is looking for something that, perhaps, will bring pleasure only for a short moment. His life becomes a complete misery.

Therefore, Epicurus divides bodily pleasures into

1) natural and necessary;

2) natural, but not necessary;

3) not natural and not necessary, but generated by idle opinions.

To the first group he includes pleasures that relieve suffering - food that satisfies hunger, clothing that saves from the cold, a home that protects from bad weather, communication with a woman allowed by law, etc. Giving preference to such modest joys, Epicurus followed Socratic tradition. Socrates said more than once that food seems tastier the less you expect it, and drink tastes sweeter the less you hope for something better. The habit of simple and inexpensive foods, Epicurus adds, strengthens health, gives strength for everyday worries and, most importantly, allows you not to be afraid of the vicissitudes of fate. Later the Stoics took this principle to the extreme. They developed special ascetic practices that taught a person to limit himself in everything. Let's say, get up at dawn, devote several hours to physical exercise, then order the slaves to set a luxurious table, call the servants and order them to eat everything that is laid out, watching the feast from the side. And only after sunset do you satisfy your hunger with bread and water. This is how a person learns to control himself, that is, to subordinate his life to the universal law, to act guided by duty, and not by the desire for happiness. Epicurus, like Socrates, proceeded from the opposite - the limitation of needs had value in his eyes only in the light of the happiness of an individual person, only to the extent that it prevents disappointment, emptiness, anxiety - in a word, suffering.

He considered the excess pleasures that diversify life to be natural but not necessary pleasures. Fine food, elegant clothes, a beautiful home, travel - all this brings joy and is therefore completely justified, if only a person does not take these benefits too seriously and can do without them. Otherwise, sooner or later he will have to pay for them at the cost of his own happiness. Aristippus had to turn into a “royal dog” for the pleasure of eating partridges that cost fifty drachmas (a fortune!), as if they cost only one obol. Similarly, in our time, many people in the West, and now in Russia, pay for the pleasure of exchanging their salaries for a variety of fashionable things and entertainment, sacrificing what the Greeks valued above all else - free time, leisure, i.e., their own interests personality.

Finally, pleasures of the third kind - not natural and not necessary - are caused by the satisfaction of vanity, thirst for power, luxury, etc. They have no relation to bodily needs and expose the soul to dangerous anxiety. Desires of this kind are endless and limitless: power, fame, wealth are never enough. The pursuit of them turns a person’s life into an ephemeral struggle, the ending of which was wonderfully expressed by Pushkin in the tale of a “foolish” old woman who wanted to become the mistress of the sea and was forced to be content with a broken trough.

Bodily pleasures are opposed to bodily pains. At least some of them are inevitable - Epicurus knew this like no one else. Is it possible to be happy while experiencing physical pain? It’s possible, he argued. People suffer more from the anticipation of pain than from the pain itself. Particularly severe acute pain passes quickly, and at least for this reason you should not be afraid of it. When it happens, you need to calmly wait for it to end, anticipating the future pleasure of its absence. Less intense, but long-lasting pain is quite bearable and cannot overshadow the joys of the soul, on which you should focus. Finally, if the pain is acute, then death will not be long in coming, and death is complete insensibility, anesthesia.

Thus, the measure of pleasure, according to Epicurus, is the absence of suffering, coinciding with a state of blissful serenity - ataraxia. The greatest concern for a person is not physical, but mental suffering. Physical pain lasts only in the present, mental pain also extends to the past (guilt) and the future (fear).The source of mental suffering is ignorance, so the best cure for it is philosophy.

In fact, most of all people are afraid of two things - death and God's punishment. As for death, it is not death itself that is feared, but the suffering, pain, and uncertainty associated with it. But philosophy (Epicurus developed the ideas of the atomists Democritus and Leucippus) teaches that everything in the world consists of atoms and emptiness. The soul is a collection of atoms endowed with the ability to sense. With the death of the body, this totality disintegrates, the ability to feel is lost. Therefore, death, which people fear as the greatest of evils, has not the slightest relation to us.

“Get used to thinking,” Epicurus wrote to his young student Menoeceus, “that death is nothing for us: after all, everything good and bad lies in sensation, and death is the deprivation of sensations. Therefore, if you adhere to the correct knowledge that death is nothing for us, then The mortality of life will become joyful for us: not because the infinity of time will be added to it, but because the thirst for immortality will be taken away from it. Therefore, there is nothing terrible in life for someone who has truly understood that there is nothing terrible in non-life. Therefore, he is stupid who says that he is afraid of death, not because it will cause suffering when it comes, but because it will cause suffering when it comes, and what does not bother you with its presence is completely in vain to grieve about in advance. the most terrible of evils, death, has nothing to do with us; when we exist, then death is not yet there, and when death comes, then we are no longer there (my italics - E.R.). Thus, death does not exist for anyone living, nor for the dead, since for some she herself does not exist, and for others she herself does not exist.”

At the same time, Epicurus ridicules those who, due to their own cowardice or for the sake of a catchphrase, claim that life has no value. They say that our existence is filled with so many worries, anxieties and suffering that death is a liberator, and it would be best for a person not to be born at all. If those who say this really believe what they say, then why don’t they die? If they try to make jokes, they only reveal their own stupidity: death is not a subject for which small talk is appropriate. A sage will not shy away from life and fear death. He is protected from the vicissitudes of the former and the fear of the latter by his own mind.

As for the fear of the gods, who allegedly severely punish sinners for their misdeeds, it is completely groundless. Not because God does not exist - Epicurus was not at all an atheist, as his opponents claimed - but because, conceived as the limit of perfection, he cannot be vengeful, like earthly tyrants. Crowd people imagine God in their own image and likeness. Since for them everything that is unusual is reprehensible - everything that is not simple is sinful, as Nietzsche would later say through the mouth of Zarathustra - it means that God thinks the same. Since they know only one law of justice - an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth - then God proceeds from it. Epicurus calls the crowd's opinions about the gods false speculation. The gods are blessed, they are free from the worries and vanity of earthly life. It is ludicrous to think that they would leave their tranquil existence in order to scrupulously count human sins, think over plans for revenge and carry out the functions of executioners. The gods do not care what ignorant people consider reprehensible. This means that for a virtuous life, it is enough for a reasonable person (sage) not to do to others what he does not want for himself. By this he will earn himself both the respect of his fellow citizens and the goodwill of his friends.

So, we can summarize some results. Pleasure, according to Epicurus, coincides with a reasonable life, corresponding to the ancient principle of “Everything in moderation,” while the measure is the happiness of an individual - a serene existence not overshadowed by suffering. Therefore, the accusations of the Epicureans of preaching licentiousness, idleness and selfishness are absolutely unfounded. The way of life they promote is more reminiscent of a monastic... The condemnation of Epicureanism by medieval theologians is not due to the immorality of this teaching, but to the rejection of the very idea that a life filled with pleasures can be moral.

This is how Epicurus himself expresses this thought in a letter to Menoeceus: “... one cannot live sweetly without living wisely, well and righteously, and one cannot live wisely, well and righteously without living sweetly: after all, all virtues are akin to sweet life and sweet life inseparable from them. Who, in your opinion, is higher than man, who thinks piously about the gods, and is completely free from the fear of death, who, by reflection, has comprehended the ultimate goal of nature, understood that the highest good is doable and achievable, and the highest evil or not for long , or not hard, who laughs at fate, which someone calls the mistress of everything, and instead claims that some things happen from inevitability, others by chance, and others depend on us..."

EPICURUS (Epikuros)

342 or 341 – 271 or 270 BC e.

The ancient Greek materialist philosopher Epicurus was born on the island of Samos, in the family of the school teacher Neocles, a native of Athens. At the age of 32, he founded his own philosophical school, which was initially located in Mytilene (on the island of Lesbos) and Lampsacus (on the Asian shore of the Dardanelles), and from 306 BC. e. - in Athens. Here Epicurus and his students settled in the garden he bought (his school was therefore later called the “Garden of Epicurus”, and its inhabitants - the philosophers “of gardens”). Above the entrance to the garden hung a saying: “Guest, you will feel good here. Here pleasure is the highest good.” From the large legacy of Epicurus (about 300 works), several letters, aphorisms and a testament have survived.

The philosophy of Epicurus is divided into ethics, physics and canon (the doctrine of knowledge). In ethics, based on the ideas of Democritus and the Cyrene school, Epicurus declared the true nature of man to be the ability to sense (and not reason, like the Stoics), therefore the meaning and ultimate goal of human life is to achieve pleasure. Pleasure, according to Epicurus, is the absence of pain. The cause of suffering lies in man himself - these are passions and fears, from which philosophy is designed to cure people.

Epicurus' ethics is based on the position that "pleasure is the beginning and the end of a blessed life." Man, like all living beings, by nature strives for pleasure and avoids suffering, and in this sense, pleasure is a measure of good. However, a blissful life does not consist at all in receiving more and more pleasures, but in achieving the limit of pleasure - freedom from bodily suffering and mental anxieties (“ataraxia”).

To achieve this state of self-sufficient mental peace, a person must overcome the suffering that arises as a result of unsatisfied desires. According to Epicurus, desires are: 1) natural and necessary (hunger, thirst and other basic needs of life); 2) natural, but not necessary (for example, gourmet dishes); 3) absurd desires that are neither natural nor necessary (thirst for fame, wealth, immortality). Most people are unhappy because they are tormented by excessive and empty desires. Epicurus urged a person to weigh the pleasure he receives against the possible consequences. True pleasure is available only to those who know how to be content with an easily achievable minimum of natural and necessary needs.

In physics, Epicurus, following the atomistic teaching of Democritus, introduced, however, significant changes into it: the vortex motion of atoms is replaced by falling in Epicurus, and the concept of “weight” of atoms is introduced. Particularly noteworthy is the teaching of Epicurus about the arbitrary deviation of atoms from falling in a straight line, which substantiated the emergence of worlds (the number of which is infinite) and the freedom of the individual (i.e., the atom and man).

In his struggle with the traditional concept of fate in ancient natural philosophy, Epicurus went to the extent of an unprecedented denial of the exact laws of celestial phenomena.

Epicurus recognized sensations and concepts that are born from the repetition of sensations (prolepsis) or their anticipation as the source of knowledge. The criterion of truth is correspondence to sensations, the origin of which was explained by the Democritus theory of outflows.

Rejecting popular mythology's ideas about the gods as unholy, Epicurus believed that the gods lead a blissful and serene existence in the spaces between worlds (“metacosmia” or “intermundium”) and do not interfere in the life of the worlds, thereby providing the sage with a role model.

Man, according to Epicurus, should not fear the gods, since they, contrary to the opinions of the crowd, do not have any influence on either the world or people. One should not be afraid of death, since the soul, consisting of atoms, dissipates after death, like the body. “Death has nothing to do with us: when we exist, then death is not yet, and when death comes, then we are no longer.” Freeing the soul from the fears that oppress it opens the way to a blissful life.

The philosophy of Epicurus was a new stage of ancient atomism and had a significant influence on late antique and modern European philosophy.

EPICURUS

(341-270 BC)

Epicurus is an ancient Greek philosopher, the most outstanding thinker of the Hellenistic period in the development of philosophy. Born and raised on o. Most. At the age of eighteen he moved to Athens (temporarily); and at the age of 35 he finally founded a school there in the garden, on the gate of which was inscribed the following inscription: “Guest, you will feel good here, here pleasure is the highest good.” This school later received the name "Garden of Epicurus". Epicurus wrote a large number of works, about 300, of which only a few have reached us. Much material is contained in the writings of opponents of Epicureanism. First of all, Epicurus's understanding of philosophy and its purpose is of interest. Epicurus believes that philosophy is an activity that leads a person through reflection to a happy life, free from suffering. “The words of those who do not cure any human suffering are empty. Just as medicine is of no use if it does not expel illnesses from the body, so is philosophy if it does not expel illnesses of the soul” [Lucretius. About the nature of things. T.P.S. 487]. In development of this thought, he writes in a letter to Meneceus: “Let no one put off studying philosophy in his youth, and let no one in his old age tire of studying philosophy... Whoever says that the time has not yet come to study philosophy is like the one who says, that there is either not yet time for happiness, or there is no longer time.” Thus, the goal of philosophy is to educate people, and not to pure theory. Epicurus divides his philosophy into three parts: canon - the doctrine of knowledge, physics, ethics. The latter appears in Epicurus; the main part, but the first two parts are the rationale for ethics. According to Epicurus, all knowledge arises from sensations through the perception of natural objects, to which he also included images of fantasy. Perceptions arise in us as a result of the penetration into us of “images” (“videos”) of things. They are similar in appearance to solid bodies, but are significantly superior to them in “subtlety”. These images are aimed at the surface of things and move with the speed of thought. If they enter the sense organs, they give a real sensory experience, but if they penetrate the pores of the body, they give a fantastic experience. Concepts, or general ideas, are formed on the basis of individual ideas. Both perception and the general image always correctly reflect the world around us. Therefore, they act as criteria of knowledge. Misconceptions and errors arise only when we add something to our perceptions, attribute our idea to the wrong reality, i.e. the source of error is the mind. To substantiate his ethics, Epicurus draws on the atomism of Democritus. He proceeds from three premises formulated by him: 1) nothing arises from a non-existent and does not pass into it; 2) the universe has always been exactly as it is now and will always be so; 3) the universe consists of bodies and emptiness. These premises were also accepted by previous philosophers, including Democritus and Leucippus. Following them, Epicurus recognizes that bodies consist of atoms, which are indivisible and differ in shape, size and weight. Epicurus's emphasis on the difference between atoms by weight is a very significant feature of his concept. The difference between the physics of Epicurus and the physics of Democritus also lies in the understanding of the movement of atoms. Democritus argued that the movement of atoms in the void is determined by external mechanical necessity. Epicurus believed that atoms freely deviate from linear motion. When moving, atoms spontaneously deviate from rectilinear motion and transform into curvilinear motion. This is the original contribution of Epicurus to the development of atomism. The self-deflection of atoms is necessary for Epicurus in order to explain their collision with each other. By this he explains the freedom that is inherent in atoms: under the influence of gravity, atoms move either in a straight line or randomly, and at the same time random deviations and collisions occur. The concept of the deflection of atoms, according to Epicurus, should be the basis for the concept of human freedom. The doctrine of knowledge and physics developed by Epicurus are not self-sufficient areas of knowledge for him, since philosophy, in his opinion, should not explore nature, but show man the path to happiness. Therefore, he places ethics at the center of his philosophical views as the only area worthy of serious consideration. Epicurus's views on ethical problems are formalized into a holistic system, which is often called Epicurean ethics. For Epicurus, happiness is pleasure. At the same time, he pointed out that pleasure should be understood as the absence of suffering. This ethical principle of pleasure as the basis of happiness, according to Epicurus, has nothing to do with hedonism. “When we say,” he wrote to Menoeceus, “that pleasure is the ultimate goal, we do not mean the pleasure of libertines and not the pleasure that lies in sensual pleasure, as some think who do not know or disagree or misunderstand, but we mean freedom from bodily suffering and mental anxieties" [Lucretius. About the nature of things. T. II. P. 131]. Considering that pleasure is the criterion of good, Epicurus did not at all take the position that a person should indulge in any pleasures indiscriminately. No, when choosing pleasures a person must be guided by the principle of prudence; only in this case will he receive true pleasure. “All other virtues originate from prudence: it teaches that one cannot live pleasantly without living rationally, morally and justly, and, conversely, one cannot live rationally, morally and justly without living pleasantly” [Lucretius. About the nature of things. T. II. P. 132]. At the same time, Epicurus provided a theoretical basis for behavior, according to which we should choose some pleasures and avoid others. “Since pleasure is the first and innate good for us, therefore we do not choose every pleasure, but sometimes we bypass many pleasures when they are followed by great trouble for us: we also consider many pains better than pleasure when greater pleasure comes for us, after how we endure suffering for a long time. Thus, every pleasure, by natural affinity with us, is good, but not every pleasure should be chosen, just as all pain is evil, but not all pain should be avoided" [Lucretius . About the nature of things. T. II. P. 129]. Thus, the ethical views of Epicurus represent a type of utilitarian interpretation of morality. This corresponds to his understanding of justice, which, in his opinion, is closely related to the contract: “Justice is not something in itself, but in the relations of people with each other in any place, it is always some kind of agreement that not to harm and not to suffer harm" [Lucretius. About the nature of things. T. Ts. S. XXXSH]. Epicurus to some extent anticipates the theory of the social contract developed in the subsequent history of philosophy. The ethical and philosophical views of Epicurus were the basis of his atheistic views. At the same time, he admitted the existence of gods in “interworld” spaces; they are indifferent to the world and do not interfere in human life. He opposed divine providence, believing that it was an invention of the crowd. Fear of the gods and fear of death are, according to Epicurus, the main obstacles to achieving a happy state for a person. The ethics of Epicurus recommends avoiding public activities and focusing more on private life. This revealed the individualistic orientation of Epicurus’s ethical views, characteristic of the entire Hellenistic period. “Live unnoticed” is his rule.

The Hellenistic era was Epicureanism. Its ancestor Epicurus (c. 342/341 - 270/271 BC) was born on the island of Samos. His teacher was one of the followers of Democritus - Nausifan. After five years of teaching philosophy in Colophon, Mytilene and Lampsacus, Epicurus moved to Athens, where he lived until the end of his life, leading a community of philosophers or a school, which was called the “Garden of Epicurus”.

The thinker's works have reached us incompletely in the form of several letters and a significant number of fragments from his works.

Epicurus understood philosophy as an activity that gives people, through reflection, a happy life devoid of suffering. The goal of his philosophy is not to change the world, but to adapt to it.

The philosophy of Epicurus is divided into three parts

The main one is ethics, which teaches how to achieve happiness. The second part of philosophy is physics. It gives insight into the natural world, frees us from fear of it, and serves as a basis for ethics. Both of these parts are based on the canon, a kind of theory of knowledge and methodology of science, which acts as the third part. According to Epicurus, knowledge is possible on the basis of sensations. Repeated sensations, sinking deeply into human consciousness, form concepts. Epicurus considered feelings as infallible, and deduced errors from incorrect judgments.

In physics, Epicurus proceeded from the recognition of the eternity and uncreateability of the world. He, following Democritus, adhered to the idea of ​​​​the atomic structure of matter. He softened the Democritus' version of determinism. He needed this to justify the free will of man that he allowed. The thinker put forward the idea that not everything in the world happens out of necessity; there is also a place for chance in it. You can understand the dialectic of necessity and chance only by knowing them. Pointing to knowledge as a means of subordinating necessity to a rational acting person, Epicurus thereby pointed to the real way to rise above necessity, to subordinate it to one’s interests. This circumstance allowed the philosopher to consider a person in the world not as a puppet, but as a free creator of his actions, his destiny. In other words, in the knowledge of phenomena that occur due to necessity and chance, Epicurus sees the path to freedom.

The thinker was aware of the difficulties of understanding the world around us, arising from the imperfection of the senses as means of knowledge. This forced him to look for a foundation, the support of which would provide correct knowledge about the world and ensure the realization of freedom. Epicurus saw such a basis in prudence, which he valued even above philosophy. The high assessment of prudence is explained by the fact that Epicurus considers it as a special quality formed in an individual on the basis of his mastery of philosophical knowledge. In this regard, he considers philosophy itself. For Epicurus, it has value only to the extent that it meets the need to develop prudence in a person. Prudence as a human ability is formed during education. It frees a person from boundless absurd passions and fear, which is an indispensable and first condition for acquiring the ability to think happily and avoid unhappiness. Epicurus believed that the achievement of happiness should involve freeing a person from the bonds of social activity, meaning participation in political activity. However, Epicurus’s teaching about happiness, as an integral part of his ethics, is not limited to this. It is associated with the doctrine of ataraxia or serenity, which he considers as states identical to happiness. It should be noted that the understanding of ataraxia as a special state of a rational being appears to be the result of Epicurus’s perception of the ideas of the Eastern sages. The appreciation of serenity as an ideal of human existence was widespread in conditions of social instability.

Elaborating on the problems of ethics, which occupies a dominant place in Epicurus’s system of philosophizing, and comparing the state of ataraxia and serenity with happiness, Epicurus was not inclined, like the sages of the ancient East, to see serenity as the only condition for happiness. Serenity (ataraxia) for him is only a condition for one of the types of pleasures, which he divided into active and passive or pleasures of peace. The latter are, according to Epicurus, the result of serenity. For Epicurus, ataraxia is rather a state of concentration in the process of cognition, helping to achieve true knowledge, through detachment from the perception of side effects and following the most important principles of achieving true knowledge.

Achieving happiness involves the realization of numerous desires. The philosopher believed that an error-free combination of desires when choosing a line of behavior largely depends on the individual himself. According to Epicurus, organizing a happy life does not require the free manifestation of knowledge, but its clear implementation within predetermined limits. For the lack of restrictions by the individual on his desires entails undesirable consequences. The Thinker teaches that if failure to fulfill a desire does not entail suffering, then such a desire is not necessary. At the same time, he recommends satisfying those desires on which human life depends, i.e. desires to eat, dress, etc.

In other words, one must observe moderation in realizing desires and receiving pleasures. The latter can be obtained only if measures are taken in needs that are realized in desires.

The problem of pleasure occupies a special place in the ethics of Epicurus. In it, the thinker followed Aristipus of Cyrene (435 - 360 BC) and recognized that pleasure is the highest for a person. This point of view is characteristic of hedonistic ethics. In this case, pleasure is recognized as the beginning and end of a happy life. However, unlike Aristipus, who viewed pleasure as a positive state of enjoyment, Epicurus associated pleasure with the absence of pain.

Epicurus understood pleasure as the line beyond which suffering begins. Moderation in everything, including pleasures, is considered by the thinker as an independent and significant good. According to the philosopher, one who is accustomed to moderation will not suffer when there is not much and one has to be content with little.

Epicurus included among the most important conditions for a happy life, first of all, such seemingly elementary, but extremely important for maintaining life, needs as the need for food and warmth. In his opinion, the satisfaction of these needs gives rise to the most pleasant pleasures.

Epicurus as a philosopher had numerous followers in both Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. Among the largest among these numerous followers are Philodemus (c. 110 - 40/35 BC) Lucretius Carus (beginning of the 1st - mid-1st century BC). In the poem “On the Nature of Things” by Lucretius Cara, the ideas of Epicureanism are conveyed in a synthesized form. In it, Lucretius Car criticized the religious worldview. He believed that the universe was not created by a god or gods. At the same time, he does not deny their existence; he believes that they do not interfere in people's affairs. The gods, in his opinion, do not need the worship of people.

According to Lucretius, matter exists eternally; it is not a material for immaterial forces. Matter consists of a kind of atoms, which the poet calls the principles of things.

Nature for Lucretius consists of principles moving in the void. The origins, in his opinion, do not stick together; they are always separated by emptiness.

Lucretius, following Democritus and Epicurus, considered the soul to be bodily; it is also considered as a bearer of reason. The philosopher believed that the soul is scattered in the body and cannot exist without it. She dies along with the body. Lucretius convinces that one should not be afraid of the death of the soul, because in this way it avoids torment. The poem “On the Nature of Things” is imbued with confidence in a favorable future for people, that through their efforts a more perfect organization of social life will be created, and is also imbued with faith in the power of knowledge. Subsequently, this work became a catalyst, awakening inquisitiveness of thought and the need to serve science and people.

Did you know, What is a thought experiment, gedanken experiment?
This is a non-existent practice, an otherworldly experience, an imagination of something that does not actually exist. Thought experiments are like waking dreams. They give birth to monsters. Unlike a physical experiment, which is an experimental test of hypotheses, a “thought experiment” magically replaces experimental testing with desired conclusions that have not been tested in practice, manipulating logical constructions that actually violate logic itself by using unproven premises as proven ones, that is, by substitution. Thus, the main task of the applicants of “thought experiments” is to deceive the listener or reader by replacing a real physical experiment with its “doll” - fictitious reasoning on parole without the physical verification itself.
Filling physics with imaginary, “thought experiments” has led to the emergence of an absurd, surreal, confused picture of the world. A real researcher must distinguish such “candy wrappers” from real values.

Relativists and positivists argue that “thought experiments” are a very useful tool for testing theories (also arising in our minds) for consistency. In this they deceive people, since any verification can only be carried out by a source independent of the object of verification. The applicant of the hypothesis himself cannot be a test of his own statement, since the reason for this statement itself is the absence of contradictions in the statement visible to the applicant.

We see this in the example of SRT and GTR, which have turned into a kind of religion that controls science and public opinion. No amount of facts that contradict them can overcome Einstein’s formula: “If a fact does not correspond to the theory, change the fact” (In another version, “Does the fact not correspond to the theory? - So much the worse for the fact”).

The maximum that a “thought experiment” can claim is only the internal consistency of the hypothesis within the framework of the applicant’s own, often by no means true, logic. This does not check compliance with practice. Real verification can only take place in an actual physical experiment.

An experiment is an experiment because it is not a refinement of thought, but a test of thought. A thought that is self-consistent cannot verify itself. This was proven by Kurt Gödel.