Epicurus vs Other Major Philosophies

#	Issue	Epicurus	The Socratics / Plato	The Aristotelians	The Stoics
1	Does “truth” exist? If so, how is it defined, is it attainable, and how? What is the role of reason in the affairs of men?	Truth is that which can be established with clarity by the senses, the anticipations, and the sense of pain and pleasure. On some matters, determination of truth is not possible, and we must be satisfied with acknowledging that a number of natural causes of events are possible. Reason is extremely valuable, but it relies on and is dependent on the senses for the verification of truth. There is no other dimension of ideal forms which constitute a higher truth to which reason alone has access, nor is elaborate syllogistic reasoning the key to truth. [1A]	Truth in its highest form is not accessible through the senses, which deal only with the ever-changing world of appearances. True knowledge (episteme) is attained through reason alone, directed toward the eternal, unchanging Forms or Ideas. The senses produce only opinion (doxa), not genuine knowledge. The philosopher who turns away from the cave of shadows toward the Form of the Good attains real truth. [1B]	Truth is attainable through a combination of reason and sensory experience. Aristotle rejected Plato’s theory of ideal Forms existing in a separate realm, insisting instead that universals are found within particular things, discoverable through careful observation. Reason is essential, but it must always be grounded in and checked against empirical evidence. [1C]	Truth is accessible to men only, if at all, through dialectical reasoning and the use of syllogisms (Logic). Reason is not dependent on the senses; those who know how to reason properly may establish truth through logic and syllogisms, independently of and in contradiction to the information provided by the senses. [1D]
2	What is the goal of human life? Is this goal attainable? What is the nature and value of “Pleasure”?	The goal of life is to live a life of pleasure. To suggest that virtue is the goal of life is empty and vain. The goal of pleasurable living is attainable by choosing and avoiding intelligently, and by doing so a life of continuous pleasure is possible. Work to control your life. Pursue happiness. Spit upon “the beautiful” if it does not bring pleasure. [2A]	The goal of life is to care for the soul and pursue virtue through knowledge. Pleasure of the body is a distraction and even an enemy to philosophy. True happiness (eudaimonia) comes from the health of the soul, not from bodily gratification. The soul must be purified of bodily influences so that it may contemplate the eternal Forms, the highest of which is the Good. [2B]	The goal of life is eudaimonia — happiness or flourishing — achieved through virtuous activity in accordance with reason. Unlike the Stoics, Aristotle does not reject pleasure entirely; pleasure naturally accompanies virtuous activity and is a sign that one is doing well. Unlike the Epicureans, however, pleasure is not the goal but a by-product of living well. The good life also requires certain external goods: health, friendship, and some measure of material comfort. [2C]	The goal of life is to live a life of “virtue.” Virtue should be pursued by pursuing only those things which are under one’s control, which means our own actions. Do not attempt to shape your life; accept your fate. Do not laugh much. The good is “beautiful.” Pleasure is neither good nor useful; a contamination to be shunned. Reason tells us what to pursue. [2D]
2.1	What arguments exist to show that Pleasure is, or is not, the highest good, or the goal of life?	[Epicurean Argument] Every animal the moment it is born seeks for pleasure and rejects pain as the chief evil. Nature herself forms this uncorrupt judgment. Pleasure has a limit: that limit is reached when a person’s experience is full of pleasure without any perception of pain. [2.1A]	[Socratic/Platonic Argument] Pleasure is not a good at all but a kind of deception. Bodily pleasures fill us with confusion and folly and fears and phantoms of every kind. The philosopher who has tasted true knowledge understands that bodily pleasure is a counterfeit coin, and that the only real goods are wisdom and virtue. Those who mistake pleasure for the good are like men who fill a leaking vessel and can never be satisfied. [2.1B]	[Aristotelian Argument] Pleasure cannot be the highest good because it is incomplete in itself — it requires an activity to accompany it. The highest good must be self-sufficient and chosen for its own sake alone. Eudaimonia meets these criteria; pleasure does not. Moreover, there are different qualities of pleasure, and the pleasures of the intellect are higher than those of the body. [2.1C]	[Stoic Argument] Pleasure cannot be the greatest good, and pain cannot be the greatest evil, because pleasure can be made better, and pain can be made worse, by adding more of the same. Thus neither pleasure nor pain have a limit, and cannot by definition be the greatest good. [2.1D]
3	Do gods exist, and if so what is their nature? Do they intervene in the lives of men?	Life exists throughout the universe, and beings which have perfected the ability to remain deathless do exist in the universe. These beings did not create the universe, nor do they control the universe, and they take no part in human affairs. [3A]	The gods exist and are entirely good. The highest divine principle — the Form of the Good, or the Demiurge — is the source of all order and beauty in the universe. Plato’s Demiurge fashioned the world according to eternal models, and lesser gods oversee human affairs. Impiety is a serious wrong. Divine providence operates over human life. [3B]	There is a divine being — the Unmoved Mover — an eternal, perfect, unchanging intelligence whose activity is pure thought thinking itself. This being does not create the universe, does not intervene in human affairs, and has no concern for men. The Unmoved Mover causes motion in the universe not by acting upon it, but by being the ultimate object of desire toward which all things move. [3C]	The gods exist, direct the motions of the stars and the rest of the universe, and regularly intervene in the lives of men. [3D]
4	Does “fate” exist, and if so, what role does it play in human life? Does “free will” exist? Can a man hope to control his own life?	The material universe is governed by laws set in motion when the world was formed, but men are not. Within limits and bounds set by nature, men have “free will” to determine their own lives. The Epicurean scorns the idea of Fate or Fortune as a goddess. [4A]	The soul’s fate is tied to its choices in this life and is subject to divine justice after death. The myth of Er in Plato’s Republic describes souls choosing their next lives before rebirth. However, souls bear responsibility for their choices; the gods are not to blame. The philosopher who has cultivated wisdom is best placed to choose rightly. [4B]	Aristotle believed strongly in human agency and rational choice (prohairesis). While he acknowledged that fortune and external circumstances play a role in whether one can achieve the good life, he rejected the Stoic notion that all external events are fated. Deliberate choice and practical wisdom (phronesis) allow men genuinely to shape their character and their lives. A man is responsible for the virtues and vices he develops. [4C]	Fate controls the lives of men and even the gods. The efforts of men to control external affairs in their own lives are futile, and thus they must focus on their minds, which is ultimately the only thing within their control. [4D]
5	What is the nature of the soul?	The soul is composed of very fine particles that are not conscious themselves. The soul did not exist as an entity before birth and will not exist as an entity after death. The soul is not divine and of a higher order than the body. [5A]	The soul is immortal, divine, and of a fundamentally different nature from the body. It pre-existed the body and will survive it. Plato’s Phaedo offers multiple arguments for the soul’s immortality: the soul is most like the eternal, unchanging Forms; it is the source of life itself and cannot admit its opposite. The body is the soul’s prison, and death is the philosopher’s liberation. [5B]	The soul (psyche) is the form of the body — not a separate substance but the organizing principle that makes a living body alive. It cannot exist independently of the body any more than vision can exist without eyes. The soul is not divine in the Stoic sense, nor is it merely material particles as the Epicureans held. [5C]	The soul is composed of a divine substance and either pre-existed birth, survives after death, or both. The soul is superior to the body. [5D]
6	What is the nature and effect of death?	Death is the end of individual consciousness; the material of the soul disperses at death. The soul receives no rewards or punishment after death. [6A]	Death is not an evil for the philosopher but a welcome liberation of the soul from the body. After death, souls face divine judgment: the virtuous enjoy a blessed afterlife, while the unjust face punishment in Tartarus. Some souls are reincarnated into new bodies according to the character of their former lives. The philosopher should practice dying throughout his life by separating the soul from bodily concerns. [6B]	Since the soul is the form of the body, it cannot survive bodily death as an individual conscious entity. When the body perishes, the soul — as the body’s organizing principle — ceases to be. Death is a natural end to the living being. Aristotle did suggest the active intellect may have some connection to the divine, but he left this famously obscure and did not develop a personal afterlife doctrine. [6C]	Souls of particular men favored by the gods can expect to live on in “heaven.” Other souls travel to the underworld for unspecified times. Generally speaking, the soul survives for at least some period of time after death to receive reward or punishment for actions on earth. [6D]
7	Of what basic substance, or substances, is the universe composed, and is that substance “divine”?	The universe is composed of eternal, indivisible particles and void. These particles possess the capacity to “swerve,” but they are in no sense conscious or divine. [7A]	The physical world is composed of the four elements — earth, water, fire, and air — shaped by a Demiurge according to eternal mathematical Forms. Ultimate reality is not material at all but consists of the eternal, immaterial Forms. The physical universe is a pale, imperfect reflection of the true world of Forms. Matter in itself is not divine, but the order imposed upon it by the Demiurge is. [7B]	The universe is composed of four terrestrial elements — earth, water, fire, and air — plus a fifth element, aether, which makes up the celestial bodies and moves in perfect circles. Matter is not made of atoms; it is continuous and infinitely divisible. The universe itself is not divine, but the heavenly bodies partake of something divine in their perfect, eternal circular motion. [7C]	The universe is composed of earth, air, fire, water. The Stoics consider the universe itself to be divine. [7D]
8	How old is the universe? Was the universe created at a point in time, or is it eternal? What is the role of randomness? What is the size of the universe?	The universe as a whole is eternal; the component parts have always existed and will always exist. The universe is infinite in size. Matter is not divisible ad infinitum. [8A]	The universe was created by the Demiurge at a point in time — or more precisely, the Demiurge imposed order on pre-existing chaotic matter, thereby creating time itself. The universe is finite and spherical, a living creature with a soul. Chance (necessity) plays a role in the raw material the Demiurge works with, but the universe’s order reflects rational divine design. [8B]	The universe is eternal — it has always existed and always will. There was no creation in time. Aristotle directly rejected the idea of a universe created at a moment in the past, arguing that time itself cannot have had a beginning. The universe is finite in size and spherical, with the Earth at the center. Randomness (chance) plays a limited role — it accounts for coincidental outcomes but not for the fundamental order of nature. [8C]	The universe was created by a supreme being at a particular point in time. The universe is spherical and finite in size. Fortune is a goddess who intervenes in the affairs of men. Matter is divisible ad infinitum. [8D]
9	What is the nature and effect of “justice”?	Justice is an agreement between, and for the mutual benefit of, two parties that neither will harm the other. It is not the same for all men, but varies according to their context and their determinations of what makes them happy. The gods do not enforce justice among men. [9A]	Justice is a fundamental virtue and one of the four cardinal virtues (with wisdom, courage, and moderation). In Plato’s Republic, justice in the soul means that reason governs spirit and appetite; justice in the state means that each class performs its proper function. Justice is absolute and eternal — grounded in the Form of the Good — and is not merely a social contract. It is enforced ultimately by divine judgment after death. [9B]	Justice is a central virtue, and Aristotle distinguished two main kinds: universal justice (complete virtue in relation to others) and particular justice (giving each person their due). He further distinguished distributive justice (fair allocation of goods) from corrective justice (rectifying wrongs). Natural justice has some universal basis, but its specific applications vary by community and context. The gods do not directly enforce justice; it is a human and political matter. [9C]	Justice is the same for all men at all times and is enforced by the gods. [9D]
10	What is the proper place of women and children?	Epicureans admitted women as philosophers into their society. Women were recognized writers of philosophic works. Epicurus provided in his will for the care of children of friends and arranged for the later marriage of a daughter of a friend to a member of the school. [10A]	In Plato’s Republic, women of the guardian class are to receive the same education and hold the same roles as men, including as philosopher-rulers and soldiers. Wives and children among the guardians are to be held in common to eliminate private loyalties that would corrupt the state. Plato was among the most progressive of ancient philosophers on the question of women’s rational capacity. [10B]	Aristotle held that women are by nature subordinate to men, possessing reason but lacking full authority to act on it. Women belong in the private household sphere, under the authority of their husbands. Aristotle explicitly criticized Plato’s communal arrangements for women and children, arguing that the private family household is the natural and necessary foundation of political life. [10C]	Wives and children should be held in common. [10D]
11	Is Life a thing of value?	The wise man does not deprecate life; life is desirable, and it is worse folly to wish one had never been born. [11A]	Life in the body has limited value for the philosopher, who regards the soul’s separation from the body as the true goal. However, Plato condemned suicide: the soul is placed in the body as a post by the gods, and we must not abandon that post without divine permission. Life is an opportunity for the soul to practice virtue and philosophy, and in that sense is not to be wasted. [11B]	Life is emphatically a thing of value. Eudaimonia — the highest human good — can only be achieved in and through a life well-lived. Aristotle argued that living and faring well are the very things that constitute the good. To be fully human and to flourish as a rational animal is the supreme achievement, and this requires the continued activity of living. [11C]	Do not consider life to be a thing of value. [11D]
12	How should we consider emotion?	The wise man will feel emotion more deeply than other men, and this will not be a hindrance to his wisdom. [12A]	Emotions and bodily passions are obstacles to philosophical knowledge. The soul must be trained to resist the body’s pull toward pleasure and pain. However, Plato did not call for the complete elimination of all emotion — rather, the spirited part of the soul (thumos) should be properly subordinated to reason and directed toward noble ends. The philosopher experiences the joy of contemplation, which is the highest pleasure. [12B]	Emotions (pathe) should neither be suppressed nor indulged without limit, but felt in the right amount, at the right time, toward the right person, for the right reason — this is the doctrine of the mean. Virtue involves not merely doing the right thing but feeling the appropriate emotion as well. A person who does not feel anger at genuine injustice is as deficient as one who feels too much. [12C]	Emotions and desires are to be suppressed. [12D]

Footnotes

Issue 1 — Does “truth” exist? How is it defined?

[1A] — Epicurus

Letter to Herodotus: “In the first place, Herodotus, you must understand what it is that words denote, in order that by reference to this we may be in a position to test opinions… Next, we must by all means stick to our sensations, that is, simply to the present impressions whether of the mind or of any criterion whatever, and similarly to our actual feelings, in order that we may have the means of determining that which needs confirmation and that which is obscure.”

Cicero, On Ends, Epicurean Speaker: “Hence Epicurus refuses to admit any necessity for argument or discussion to prove that pleasure is desirable and pain to be avoided. These facts, he thinks, are perceived by the senses, as that fire is hot, snow white, honey sweet, none of which things need be proved by elaborate argument: it is enough merely to draw attention to them.”

PD16: “Chance seldom interferes with the wise man; his greatest and highest interests have been, are, and will be, directed by reason throughout his whole life.”

[1B] — The Socratics / Plato

Plato, Republic VII (The Allegory of the Cave): “The prison-house is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun, and you will not misapprehend me if you interpret the journey upwards to be the ascent of the soul into the intellectual world… the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort; and, when seen, is also inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right.”

Plato, Phaedo 65b–c: “And is not this the most reasonable position, not to think that knowledge is acquired by means of the eyes or the ears or any other of the senses, but that it is acquired by the mind itself, when it turns to realities themselves and examines them in and by itself, without any sense organs?”

Plato, Phaedo 99d–e: “I thought I must have recourse to conceptions, and examine in them the truth of realities… I feared I might wholly blind my soul by looking at things with my eyes and trying to apprehend them with the bodily senses.”

Plato, Meno 98a: “True opinion, so long as it remains, is a fine thing and does all sorts of good, but it does not choose to remain long, and runs away out of the human soul, and thus is of not much value until one fastens it by working out the cause.”

[1C] — The Aristotelians

Metaphysics I.1: “All men by nature desire to know. An indication of this is the delight we take in our senses; for even apart from their usefulness they are loved for themselves.”

Posterior Analytics I.18: “Since we learn either by induction or by demonstration… it is consequently impossible to come to grasp universals except through induction.”

Metaphysics IV.4: “It is impossible for the same thing to belong and not to belong at the same time to the same thing and in the same respect.” [The principle of non-contradiction, known through reason but confirmed by experience.]

[1D] — The Stoics

Diogenes Laertius, Life of Zeno: “The study of syllogisms they declare to be of the greatest service, as showing us what is capable of yielding demonstration… Demonstration is an argument inferring by means of what is better apprehended something less clearly apprehended.”

Diogenes Laertius, Life of Zeno: “Dialectic, they said, is indispensable and is itself a virtue, embracing other particular virtues under it… Without the study of dialectic, they say, the wise man cannot guard himself in argument so as never to fall.”

Epictetus, Enchiridion 50: “Thus Socrates became perfect, improving himself by everything, attending to nothing but reason.”

Issue 2 — What is the goal of human life?

[2A] — Epicurus

Letter to Menoeceus: “For the end of all our actions is to be free from pain and fear… Wherefore we call pleasure the alpha and omega of a blessed life.”

Letter to Menoeceus: “When we say, then, that pleasure is the end and aim, we do not mean the pleasures of the prodigal or the pleasures of sensuality… By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul.”

Epicurus, Fragments: “I spit upon the beautiful and those who vainly admire it, when it does not produce any pleasure.”

[2B] — The Socratics / Plato

Plato, Phaedo 64a: “For I deem that the true votary of philosophy is likely to be misunderstood by other men; they do not perceive that he is always pursuing death and dying… the philosopher more than other men frees the soul from the communion of the body.”

Plato, Republic IV, 444e: “Virtue is the health and beauty and well-being of the soul, and vice is the disease and weakness and deformity of the soul.”

Plato, Gorgias 507c: “The man who is happy must have full possession of temperance and justice… and the undisciplined man, as I showed in the previous argument, being incapable of communion with god or man, is incapable of friendship.”

Plato, Philebus 65a: “If we are unable to capture the good in one form, we will have to take hold of it in a conjunction of three: beauty, proportion and truth, and suggest that this composite should more properly than pleasure be regarded as the cause of the ingredients of the mixture.”

[2C] — The Aristotelians

Nicomachean Ethics I.7: “We call that which is in itself worthy of pursuit more final… Happiness, then, is something final and self-sufficient, and is the end of action.”

Nicomachean Ethics X.7: “The activity of contemplation is thought to be superior in serious worth, aiming at no end beyond itself.”

Nicomachean Ethics I.8: “Those who say that the victim on the rack or the man who falls into great misfortunes is happy if he is good, are, whether they mean to or not, talking nonsense.” [Aristotle’s point that external goods matter — against the Stoics.]

[2D] — The Stoics

Epictetus, Enchiridion 1: “Some things are in our control and others not… Things in our control are by nature free, unrestrained, unhindered.”

Epictetus, Enchiridion 8: “Don’t demand that things happen as you wish, but wish that they happen as they do happen, and you will go on well.”

Marcus Aurelius, Book VIII, par. 10: “No such man would ever repent of having refused any sensual pleasure. Pleasure then is neither good nor useful.”

Issue 2.1 — Arguments about Pleasure as the Highest Good

[2.1A] — Epicurus

Cicero, Torquatus, On Ends: “Every animal the moment that it is born seeks for pleasure, and rejoices in it as the chief good; and rejects pain as the chief evil… under the promptings of nature herself, who forms this uncorrupt and upright judgment.”

PD 3: “The limit of quantity in pleasures is the removal of all that is painful. Wherever pleasure is present, as long as it is there, there is neither pain of body nor of mind, nor of both at once.”

PD 19: “Infinite time contains no greater pleasure than limited time, if one measures by reason the limits of pleasure.”

[2.1B] — The Socratics / Plato

Plato, Phaedo 69a: “Those who established the mysteries for us appear to have had a real meaning and were not merely trifling when they intimated in a figure long ago that he who passes unsanctified and uninitiated into the world below will lie in a slough, but that he who arrives there after initiation and purification will dwell with the gods. For ‘many,’ as they say in the mysteries, ‘are the thyrsus-bearers, but few are the mystics,’ — meaning, as I interpret the words, the true philosophers.”

Plato, Republic IX, 585d–e: “Those who have no experience of wisdom and virtue, but are always occupied with feasts and the like, are carried downward, as it appears, and back again to the middle, and so sway and roam throughout their life; but they never transcend all this and turn their gaze toward the true upper region, nor are they wafted thither, nor do they enjoy the pleasures that are pure and lasting.”

Plato, Gorgias 494a–b: “Socrates: Then the life of one who hungers and eats must be happy? Callicles: So it seems. Socrates: And if he has an itch and wants to scratch and may scratch to his heart’s content, he lives happily in scratching? Callicles: What a strange person you are, Socrates.”

Plato, Philebus 44b: “My meaning is that those persons who are pronounced by some thinkers to be in enjoyment of the greatest pleasures — those, I say, who live in the manner I describe, are in reality only relieved of the most intense pain, not in enjoyment of pleasure.”

[2.1C] — The Aristotelians

Nicomachean Ethics I.7: “Happiness is something final and self-sufficient, and is the end of action. Being self-sufficient we mean that which when isolated makes life desirable and lacking in nothing.”

Nicomachean Ethics X.2: “Pleasure is not the good. For pleasure admits of degrees, while the good does not admit of degrees.”

Nicomachean Ethics X.3: “There are pleasures without pain and desire, e.g. those of contemplation… If pleasures are good, why should not any pleasant life be the best life, unless some pleasures are better than others?”

[2.1D] — The Stoics

Seneca, Letters to Lucilius 66.45: “What can be added to that which is perfect? Nothing; otherwise that was not perfect to which something has been added… The ability to increase is proof that a thing is still imperfect.”

Diogenes Laertius, Life of Zeno: “Pleasure is an irrational elation at the accruing of what seems to be choiceworthy.”

Issue 3 — Do gods exist, and what is their nature?

[3A] — Epicurus

PD1: “A blessed and indestructible being has no trouble himself and brings no trouble upon any other being; so he is free from anger and partiality, for all such things imply weakness.”

Letter to Menoeceus: “For there are gods, and the knowledge of them is manifest; but they are not such as the multitude believe… he who affirms of the gods what the multitude believes about them is truly impious.”

Letter to Herodotus: “We are bound to believe that in the sky revolutions, solstices, eclipses, risings and settings, and the like, take place without the ministration or command, either now or in the future, of any being who at the same time enjoys perfect bliss along with immortality.”

[3B] — The Socratics / Plato

Plato, Timaeus 29e–30a: “Let me tell you then why the creator made this world of generation. He was good, and the good can never have any jealousy of anything. And being free from jealousy, he desired that all things should be as like himself as they could be.”

Plato, Republic II, 379b: “God is not the author of all things, but of good only.”

Plato, Phaedrus 246e: “Of the heaven which is above the heavens, what earthly poet ever did or ever will sing worthily?… There abides the very being with which true knowledge is concerned; the colorless, formless, intangible essence, visible only to mind, the pilot of the soul.”

Plato, Apology 28e: “A man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether in doing anything he is doing right or wrong — acting the part of a good man or of a bad.” [Socrates’ acceptance of divine mission.]

[3C] — The Aristotelians

Metaphysics XII.7: “There is, then, something which is always moved with an unceasing motion, which is motion in a circle… and the first mover must itself be unmoved… It produces motion through being loved, and it moves the other moving things.”

Metaphysics XII.9: “It must be of itself that the divine thought thinks (since it is the most excellent of things), and its thinking is a thinking on thinking.”

[3D] — The Stoics

Diogenes Laertius, Life of Zeno: “The deity, say they, is a living being, immortal, rational, perfect or intelligent in happiness, admitting nothing evil, taking providential care of the world and all that therein is… He is, however, the artificer of the universe and, as it were, the father of all.”

Epictetus, Enchiridion 31: “Be assured that the essential property of piety towards the gods is to form right opinions concerning them, as existing and as governing the universe with goodness and justice.”

Issue 4 — Does “fate” exist? Does free will exist?

[4A] — Epicurus

Letter to Menoeceus: “He laughs to scorn all those who have introduced Destiny as a mistress of all things… For it were better to follow the myths about the gods than to become a slave to the destiny of the natural philosophers.”

PD16: “Chance seldom interferes with the wise man; his greatest and highest interests have been, are, and will be, directed by reason throughout his whole life.”

[4B] — The Socratics / Plato

Plato, Republic X, 617e: “‘The responsibility is with the one who chooses; God is justified.’ With these words Er said the prophet began; and he told how the first soul came forward and at once chose the greatest tyranny… And the cause of this also was for the most part the fault of the former life.”

Plato, Republic X, 617d–e: “Souls of a day; here shall begin a new round of earthly life, to end in death. No divinity shall cast your lot for you; you shall choose your own destiny.”

Plato, Phaedrus 248c: “The soul which has seen most of truth shall come to the birth as a philosopher, or artist, or some musical and loving nature; that which has seen truth in the second degree shall be some righteous king or warrior chief; the soul which is of the third class shall be a politician, or economist, or trader.”

[4C] — The Aristotelians

Nicomachean Ethics III.5: “Since, then, vices are voluntary, the same must be true of virtues — the man is himself responsible for his character.”

Nicomachean Ethics VI.2: “The origin of action — its efficient, not its final cause — is choice, and that of choice is desire and reasoning with a view to an end.”

Nicomachean Ethics III.1: “Since virtue is concerned with passions and actions, and on voluntary passions and actions praise and blame are bestowed, on those that are involuntary pardon, and sometimes also pity, to distinguish the voluntary and the involuntary is presumably necessary.”

[4D] — The Stoics

Diogenes Laertius, Life of Zeno: “The end may be defined as life in accordance with nature… the right reason which pervades all things, and is identical with this Zeus, lord and ruler of all that is.”

Epictetus, Enchiridion: “‘Conduct me, Jove, and you, O Destiny, wherever your decrees have fixed my station.’ — Cleanthes”

Issue 5 — What is the nature of the soul?

[5A] — Epicurus

Letter to Herodotus: “The soul is a body of fine particles distributed throughout the whole structure, and most resembling wind with an admixture of heat… There is also the third part which exceeds the other two in the fineness of its particles and thereby keeps in closer touch with the rest of the frame.”

Letter to Menoeceus: “Death is nothing to us, seeing that, when we are, death is not come, and, when death is come, we are not.”

[5B] — The Socratics / Plato

Plato, Phaedo 78b–c: “Is not that which is always the same and unchanging most likely to be the eternal — and that which is always changing and never the same most likely to be mortal? Is it not the soul that is most like the divine, and immortal, and intelligible, and uniform, and indissoluble, and always the same and never changing; and has not the body the opposite of all these qualities?”

Plato, Phaedo 64c: “Is not what we call death a freeing and separation of soul from body?… And the desire of the philosopher, as distinct from the desire of the body, is that he should be freed not from the body but with the body?”

Plato, Phaedo 72e: “If all things that partake of life were to die, and after they were dead remained in the form of death and did not come to life again, all would at last die and nothing would be alive — how could this be otherwise?”

[5C] — The Aristotelians

On the Soul II.1: “Suppose that the eye were an animal — sight would have been its soul, for sight is the substance or essence of the eye which corresponds to the formula, the eye being merely the matter of seeing; when seeing is removed the eye is no longer an eye, except in name.”

On the Soul II.1: “We can wholly dismiss as unnecessary the question whether the soul and the body are one: it is as meaningless as to ask whether the wax and the shape given to it by the stamp are one.”

[5D] — The Stoics

Diogenes Laertius, Life of Zeno: “They regard the soul as endowed with sensation… The soul is also called the intelligent and ruling part of the living being.”

Issue 6 — What is the nature and effect of death?

[6A] — Epicurus

Letter to Menoeceus: “Death is nothing to us, seeing that, when we are, death is not come, and, when death is come, we are not. It is nothing, then, either to the living or to the dead, for with the living it is not and the dead exist no longer.”

PD2: “Death is nothing to us; for the body, when it has been dissolved into its elements, has no feeling, and that which has no feeling is nothing to us.”

[6B] — The Socratics / Plato

Plato, Phaedo 63b–c: “Other men are likely not to be aware that those who pursue philosophy aright study nothing but dying and being dead. Now if this be true, it would be absurd to be eager for nothing but this all their lives, and then to be troubled when that comes for which they have all along been eagerly practicing.”

Plato, Republic X, 614b–c: “I will tell you a tale of a hero, Er the son of Armenius… He said that when his soul left the body he went on a journey with a great company, and that they came to a mysterious place at which there were two openings in the earth… The judges sat between the openings, and after they had given judgment they bade the just take the road to the right and upward through the heaven.”

Plato, Phaedo 107d: “If the soul is really immortal, what care should be taken of her, not only in respect of the portion of time which is called life, but of eternity!”

[6C] — The Aristotelians

Nicomachean Ethics III.6: “Death is the most terrible of all things; for it is the end, and nothing is thought to be any longer either good or bad for the dead.”

On the Soul II.2: [The soul, as the form of the body, does not survive the body’s dissolution independently.]

[6D] — The Stoics

Marcus Aurelius, Book IV: “Think not of death as an evil… Consider how many a Chrysippus, how many a Socrates, how many an Epictetus, have already been swallowed up in the gulf of time.”

Issue 7 — Of what substance is the universe composed?

[7A] — Epicurus

Letter to Herodotus: “The totality of things was always such as it is now, and always will be the same. For there is nothing into which it changes.”

Letter to Herodotus: “The universe consists of bodies and space… Of bodies, some are composite, and some are those of which composites are formed. And these latter are indivisible and unalterable.”

[7B] — The Socratics / Plato

Plato, Timaeus 28a: “What is that which always is and has no becoming; and what is that which is always becoming and never is? That which is apprehended by intelligence and reason is always in the same state; but that which is conceived by opinion with the help of sensation and without reason, is always in a process of becoming and perishing and never really is.”

Plato, Timaeus 53c–d: “In the first place, then, as is evident to all, fire and earth and water and air are bodies. And every sort of body possesses solidity, and every solid must necessarily be contained in planes; and every plane rectilinear figure is composed of triangles.”

Plato, Republic VI, 508e: “In the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort; and, when seen, is also inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible world.”

[7C] — The Aristotelians

On the Heavens I.2–3: “It would be most natural and consequential to suppose that each of the stars is composed of that element in which their movement takes place… there is a certain body whose nature is to move in a circle.” [The fifth element, aether.]

Physics I.4–6: “We say that matter is the primary substratum of each thing, from which it comes to be without qualification… The elements of bodies are earth, water, fire, and air.”

[7D] — The Stoics

Diogenes Laertius, Life of Zeno: “The Stoics regard God and matter as the two original principles of the universe. God is the active principle, matter the passive… The four elements together constitute unqualified matter or substance.”

Issue 8 — How old is the universe? Is it eternal?

[8A] — Epicurus

Letter to Herodotus: “The totality of things was always such as it is now, and always will be the same. For there is nothing into which it changes.”

Letter to Herodotus: “The universe is boundless. For that which is bounded has an extreme point… and as it has no limit, it must be boundless and not bounded.”

[8B] — The Socratics / Plato

Plato, Timaeus 37c–38a: “The nature of the ideal being was everlasting, but to bestow this attribute in its fullness upon a creature was impossible. Wherefore he resolved to have a moving image of eternity, and when he set in order the heaven, he made this image eternal but moving according to number, while eternity itself rests in unity; and this image we call time.”

Plato, Timaeus 29e: “He was good, and the good can never have any jealousy of anything. And being free from jealousy, he desired that all things should be as like himself as they could be… he put intelligence in soul, and soul in body, and framed the universe to be the best and fairest work in the power of the eternal god.”

Plato, Timaeus 33b: “The world is a sphere, perfectly proportioned and equal from the center, a figure perfect and having the most equal and self-similar of all… he made it a smooth and even sphere, equidistant every way from the center.”

[8C] — The Aristotelians

Physics VIII.1: “It is impossible that movement should either have come into being or cease to be (for it must always have existed), or that time should… If there is no time, there is no before and after; but if there is no before and after, there can be no coming-to-be.”

On the Heavens I.10–12: “The world as a whole, therefore, was not generated, and cannot be destroyed, as some allege, but is unique and eternal, having no end or beginning of its total duration.”

[8D] — The Stoics

Diogenes Laertius, Life of Zeno: “There have been and will be innumerable conflagrations of the world… The conflagration comes about when the moisture fails and the world catches fire.” [The Stoic doctrine of periodic cosmic destruction and renewal (ekpyrosis).]

Issue 9 — What is the nature and effect of justice?

[9A] — Epicurus

PD31: “The justice which arises from nature is a pledge of mutual advantage to restrain men from harming one another and save them from being harmed.”

PD33: “Justice never is anything in itself, but in the dealings of men with one another in any place whatever and at any time it is a kind of compact not to harm or be harmed.”

PD32: “For all living things which have not been able to make compacts not to harm one another or be harmed, nothing ever is either just or unjust.”

[9B] — The Socratics / Plato

Plato, Republic IV, 433a: “Justice, I suggest, is exactly this principle — everyone doing his own proper work — provided it competes with the other three.”

Plato, Republic II, 380b: “Then God, if he be good, is not the author of all things, as the many assert, but he is the cause of a few things only, and not of most things that occur to men; for few are the goods of human life, and many are the evils, and the good is to be attributed to God alone; of the evils the causes are to be sought elsewhere, and not in him.”

Plato, Republic X, 614b: [The myth of Er demonstrates that divine justice operates after death, rewarding the virtuous and punishing the unjust.]

Plato, Gorgias 473b–c: “Doing injustice is the greatest of evils to the one doing it, and suffering injustice is the second greatest evil.”

[9C] — The Aristotelians

Nicomachean Ethics V.1: “We see that all men mean by justice that kind of state of character which makes people disposed to do just acts.”

Nicomachean Ethics V.3: “The just, then, is a species of the proportionate… The unjust man takes more than his share of goods; the just man takes an equal share.”

Nicomachean Ethics V.7: “Of political justice part is natural, part legal — natural, that which everywhere has the same force and does not exist by people’s thinking this or that; legal, that which is originally indifferent, but when it has been laid down is not indifferent.”

[9D] — The Stoics

Diogenes Laertius, Life of Zeno: “Justice is a knowledge of what is good and bad and what is neither.” [Stoic justice is universal and grounded in divine reason.]

Issue 10 — What is the proper place of women and children?

[10A] — Epicurus

Diogenes Laertius, Life of Epicurus: Epicurus admitted women and slaves as equal participants in philosophical study. Women such as Leontion were known members and writers in the Epicurean school.

Epicurus, Will: Epicurus made provisions for the care of the children of his friends and arranged for the later marriage of a daughter of a friend to a member of the school.

[10B] — The Socratics / Plato

Plato, Republic V, 451d–e: “Can you deny that a woman is a female guardian just as a man is a male guardian, and that both have the same nature? Only, I said, the female is weaker and the male is stronger. That is admitted… Then, if we are to set women to the same tasks as men, we must teach them the same things.”

Plato, Republic V, 457c–d: “The wives of our guardians are to be common, and their children are to be common, and no parent is to know his own child, nor any child his parent.”

Plato, Republic V, 456a: “Then, as we affirm, there is nothing unnatural in assigning music and gymnastics to the wives of the guardians — to that point we come back. The law which we then enacted was agreeable to nature, and therefore not an impossibility or mere aspiration; and the contrary practice, which prevails at present, is in reality a violation of nature.”

[10C] — The Aristotelians

Politics I.12: “The male is by nature superior, and the female inferior; and the one rules, and the other is ruled; this principle, of necessity, extends to all mankind.”

Politics I.13: “The slave is wholly lacking the deliberative faculty; the woman has it but it lacks authority; the child has it but it is immature.”

Politics II.3–4: [Aristotle’s criticism of Plato’s communal arrangements:] “The scheme of Socrates would make the state too simple-minded… The proposal is also in direct opposition to the two things that most men regard as the bands of community: having property and having children in common.”

[10D] — The Stoics

Diogenes Laertius, Life of Zeno (reporting Stoic doctrine): “Again, in his Republic he [Chrysippus] permits marriage with mothers and daughters and sons… wives and children should be held in common.”

Issue 11 — Is Life a thing of value?

[11A] — Epicurus

Letter to Menoeceus: “The wise man does not deprecate life nor does he fear the cessation of life. The thought of life is no offense to him, nor is the cessation of life regarded as an evil.”

Epicurus Vatican Saying 38: “He is of very small account for whom there are many good reasons for ending his life.”

Epicurus Vatican Saying 42: “The same time produces both the beginning of the greatest good and the dissolution of the evil.”

[11B] — The Socratics / Plato

Plato, Phaedo 62a–b: “There is a doctrine whispered in secret that man is a prisoner who has no right to open the door and run away; this is a great mystery which I do not quite understand. Yet I too believe that the gods are our guardians, and that we are a possession of theirs.”

Plato, Apology 38a: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” [Socrates’ affirmation that life is valuable precisely when devoted to philosophy and virtue.]

Plato, Phaedo 64a: “Ordinary people seem not to realize that those who really apply themselves in the right way to philosophy are directly and of their own accord preparing themselves for dying and death.” [Life’s value lies in its service to the soul’s purification.]

[11C] — The Aristotelians

Nicomachean Ethics IX.9: “Since then life is desirable, and particularly so for good men, because to them existence is good and pleasant… if one who sees is conscious that he sees, one who hears that he hears, one who walks that he walks… life itself is good and pleasant.”

Eudemian Ethics I.1: “The best thing of all… is to live and fare well.”

[11D] — The Stoics

Marcus Aurelius, Book IV: “Do not then consider life a thing of any value. For look to the immensity of time behind thee, and to the time which is before thee, another boundless space. In this infinity then what is the difference between him who lives three days and him who lives three generations?”

Issue 12 — How should we consider emotion?

[12A] — Epicurus

Diogenes Laertius, Life of Epicurus: “He [the wise man] will be more susceptible of emotion than other men: that will be no hindrance to his wisdom.”

[12B] — The Socratics / Plato

Plato, Phaedo 66b–d: “And we shall best serve justice and wisdom in this way — by not connecting our reason with the body, but stripping it free from all bodily infection as far as possible.”

Plato, Republic IV, 441e: “And ought not the rational principle, which is wise, and has the care of the whole soul, to rule, and the passionate or spirited principle to be the subject and ally?”

Plato, Phaedo 83b–c: “The soul of the true philosopher… abstains as far as possible from pleasures and desires and griefs… she recognizes that when philosophy receives her, she is in a most miserable condition.”

Plato, Republic III, 395d: [On proper emotional restraint in the education of the young:] “We do not want our guardians to be men who represent or imitate passionate grief… the men we intended to be guardians of their country should not be so susceptible to emotion.”

[12C] — The Aristotelians

Nicomachean Ethics II.6: “Virtue, then, is a state of character concerned with choice, lying in a mean… this being determined by a rational principle, and by that principle by which the man of practical wisdom would determine it.”

Nicomachean Ethics II.5: “We can experience fear, confidence, desire, anger, pity, and generally pleasure and pain, either too much or too little, and in both cases not well; but to experience all this at the right times, with reference to the right objects, towards the right people, with the right motive, and in the right way, is what is both intermediate and best, and this is characteristic of virtue.”

Nicomachean Ethics IV.5: “The person who is not angry at the things he should be angry at is thought to be a fool… and to endure being insulted and put up with insult to one’s friends is slavish.”

[12D] — The Stoics

Diogenes Laertius, Life of Zeno: “Passion, or emotion, is defined by Zeno as an irrational and unnatural movement in the soul, or again as impulse in excess… Now they say that the wise man is passionless, because he is not prone to fall into such infirmity.”

Seneca, On Anger: “Let us be free from this evil, let us clear our minds of it, and extirpate root and branch a passion which grows again wherever the smallest particle of it finds a resting-place. Let us not moderate anger, but get rid of it altogether.”

Sources

Epicurean citations collected at www.Epicurus.net and www.Epicurus.info

Socratic / Platonic citations drawn from:

Plato, Republic (tr. Benjamin Jowett)
Plato, Phaedo (tr. Benjamin Jowett)
Plato, Timaeus (tr. Benjamin Jowett)
Plato, Gorgias (tr. Benjamin Jowett)
Plato, Philebus (tr. Benjamin Jowett)
Plato, Meno (tr. Benjamin Jowett)
Plato, Phaedrus (tr. Benjamin Jowett)
Plato, Apology (tr. Benjamin Jowett)

Aristotelian citations drawn from:

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (tr. W.D. Ross, Oxford)
Aristotle, Metaphysics (tr. W.D. Ross, Oxford)
Aristotle, On the Soul (De Anima) (tr. J.A. Smith, Oxford)
Aristotle, Politics (tr. Benjamin Jowett, Oxford)
Aristotle, Physics (tr. R.P. Hardie and R.K. Gaye, Oxford)
Aristotle, On the Heavens (De Caelo) (tr. J.L. Stocks, Oxford)
Aristotle, Eudemian Ethics (tr. J. Solomon, Oxford)

Stoic citations drawn from:

Essays and Letters of the Younger Seneca
Epictetus, Enchiridion (tr. Elizabeth Carter, Internet Classics Archive)
Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, Book VII (tr. R.D. Hicks, WikiSource)
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (WikiSource)
Seneca, On Anger (WikiSource)

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Diogenes Laertius 10