From The Garden To The Stars
When human life to view lay foully prostrate upon earth crushed down under the weight of religion, who showed her head from the quarters of heaven with hideous aspect lowering upon mortals, a man of Greece ventured first to lift up his mortal eyes to her face and first to withstand her to her face. Him neither story of gods nor thunderbolts nor heaven with threatening roar could quell: they only chafed the more the eager courage of his soul, filling him with desire to be the first to burst the fast bars of nature’s portals. Therefore the living force of his soul gained the day: on he passed far beyond the flaming walls of the world and traversed throughout in mind and spirit the immeasurable universe; whence he returns a conqueror to tell us what can, what cannot come into being; in short on what principle each thing has its powers defined, its deep-set boundary mark. Therefore religion is put underfoot and trampled upon in turn; us his victory brings level with heaven.
Epicurus - The Master-Builder of Human Happiness
In the end, the most life-changing paradigm shift that can come from the study of Epicurus is to see that Epicurus is not the philosopher of shy retiring ascetic wallflowers who avoid engagement with the world and who seek only quiet, simplicity, minimalism, and even austerity, as some people would have you to believe.
Once you understand the Epicurean view of life, you will see that Epicurus is the philosopher of people who are healthy, active, and vigorously alive, and who understand that life is short, and that we should work as hard as we can to make the best of the time that we have while we are alive.
As stated in Vatican Saying 47, an Epicurean will seize the day and approach life aggressively:
I have anticipated thee, Fortune, and entrenched myself against all thy secret attacks. And I will not give myself up as captive to thee or to any other circumstance; but when it is time for me to go, spitting contempt on life and on those who vainly cling to it, I will leave life crying aloud a glorious triumph-song that I have lived well.
- Epicurus, Vatican Saying 47
In the ancient world Epicurus appealed to large numbers of people, but the followers of Epicurus who you are almost never told about include Roman generals such as Cassius Longinus, Gaius Panza, and other leaders of Julius Caesar's camp, quite possibly including Julius Caesar himself, who at the very least held a number of very Epicurean ideas. These men led full and active lives, vigorously engaged with the world around them.
Once again we can thank Cicero for the preservation of an important Epicurean text. In 45 BC, in the middle of the Roman Civil War, Cassius Longinus tried to explain Epicurean philosophy to Cicero. We have Cassius's letter in which he wrote to Cicero the following:
"It is hard to convince men that "the good is to be chosen for its own sake;" but that pleasure and tranquility of mind is acquired by virtue, justice, and the good is both true and demonstrable. Why, Epicurus himself, from whom all the Catiuses and Amafiniuses in the world, incompetent translators of terms as they are, derive their origin, lays it down that "to live a life of pleasure is impossible without living a life of virtue and justice." Consequently Pansa, who follows pleasure, keeps his hold on virtue, and those also whom you call pleasure-lovers are lovers of what is good and lovers of justice, and cultivate and keep all the virtues."
- Cassius To Cicero, January, 45 BC
We'll never know whether Cicero truly had a change of heart about Epicurean philosophy at the very end of his life, but we do know that Cicero admitted to Cassius that Cassius' actions had made him reevaluate his attitude toward Epicurus.
Near the end of his life Cicero wrote this to Cassius:
" ...[T]o whom am I talking? To you, the most gallant gentleman in the world, who, ever since you set foot in the forum, have done nothing but what bears every mark of the most impressive distinction. Why, in that very school you have selected I apprehend that there is more vitality than I should have supposed, if only because it has your approval."
- Cicero To Cassius, January, 45 BC
For those of us who are alive today, we have the chance that Cicero missed to look further into Epicurean philosophy and see how it can shift our own understanding of the universe and our place in it.
The next step in the study of Epicurus is up to you. As Lucretius said at Book one line 398 of his poem to the student of Epicurean philosophy:
"For as dogs often discover by smell the lair of a mountain-ranging wild beast, though covered over with leaves, when once they have got on the sure track, thus you in cases like this will be able by yourself alone to see one thing after another and find your way into all dark corners and draw forth the truth."
- Lucretius 1:398 (Munro)
The fearless and dogged pursuit of truth about the universe is the hallmark of the entire Epicurean approach to every aspect of life, and here's one specific example to consider in a new light:
Epicurus was renowned for holding that "the sun is the size it appears to be" in the face of those mathematicians who held that the universe rests on mathematics, rather than real atoms moving through the void. Rejecting the use of evidence-free abstraction as a basis for making important decisions in life, Epicurus always looked to the evidence that nature gives us - through the senses - as the ultimate test of reality. Epicurus fully understood that we are not close enough to the sun or stars to be certain of their true size, so in the face of those who would measure all things - even human life - by mathematics - Epicurus proclaimed that "the sun is the size it appears to be." This statement is widely ridiculed by those who prefer to be led by "experts" rather than by the practical evidence they can verify for themselves, but the statement of Epicurus remains the best guide of life. Ultimately the size of the sun, the stars, and everything else is dictated by human convention as to measurement, but by how our senses confirm the truth when they are provide the proper evidence to do so.
The sun is - and always will be - the size that our senses can confirm it to be, just as we also measure all else in our experience by our senses, our feelings of pain and pleasure, and our pattern-noticing faculty of anticipations.
Now that we have introduced the great paradigm shifts introduced by Epicurus, and described how this worldview takes us to the stars, it's time to dig deeper into the elements of each aspect of Epicurean philosophy, starting with physics - the way things are.