Friedrich Max Müller

Friedrich Max Müller (December 6, 1823 – October 28, 1900) — known as Max Müller — was a German philologist and Orientalist, one of the founders of the western academic field of Indian studies and the discipline of comparative religion.  Müller wrote both scholarly and popular works on the subject of Indology, a discipline he introduced to the British reading public, and the Sacred Books of the East, a massive, 50-volume set of English translations prepared under his direction, stands as an enduring monument to Victorian scholarship.  He also put forward and promoted the idea of aTuranian family of languages and Turanian people. 

Life and work

He was born in Dessau, the son of the Romantic poet Wilhelm Müller, whose verse Franz Schubert had set to music in his song-cycles Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise. Max Müller's mother, Adelheide Müller, was the eldest daughter of a chief minister of Anhalt-Dessau. Müller knew Felix Mendelssohn and had Carl Maria von Weber as a godfather.

In 1841 he entered Leipzig University, where he left his early interest in music and poetry in favour of philosophy. Müller received his Ph.D. in 1843 for a dissertation on Spinoza's Ethics.  He also displayed an aptitude for languages, learning the Classical languages Greek and Latin, as well as Arabic, Persian and Sanskrit. In 1844 Müller went to Berlin to study with Friedrich Schelling. He began to translate the Upanishads for Schelling, and continued to research Sanskrit under Franz Bopp, the first systematic scholar of the Indo-European languages. Schelling led Müller to relate the history of language to the history of religion. At this time, Müller published his first book, a German translation of the Hitopadesa, a collection of Indian fables.

In 1845, Müller moved to Paris to study Sanskrit under Eugène Burnouf. It was Burnouf who encouraged him to publish the complete Rig Veda in Sanskrit, using manuscripts available in England.

Müller moved to England in 1846 in order to study Sanskrit texts in the collection of the East India Company. He supported himself at first with creative writing, his novel German Love being popular in its day. Müller's connections with the East India Company and with Sanskritists based at Oxford University led to a career in Britain, where he eventually became the leading intellectual commentator on the culture of India, which Britain controlled as part of its Empire. This led to complex exchanges between Indian and British intellectual culture, especially through Müller's links with the Brahmo Samaj. He became a member of Christ Church, Oxford in 1851, when he gave his first series of lectures on comparative philology. He gained appointment as Taylorian Professor of Modern European Languages in 1854. Defeated in the 1860 competition for the Boden Professorship of Sanksrit, he later became Oxford's first Professor of Comparative Philology (1868 – 1875), and from 1858 was a Fellow at All Souls College.

Müller attempted to formulate a philosophy of religion that addressed the crisis of faith engendered by the historical and critical study of religion by German scholars on the one hand, and by the Darwinian revolution on the other. Müller was wary of Darwin's work on human evolution, and attacked his view of the development of human faculties. His work was taken up by cultural commentators such as his friend John Ruskin, who saw it as a productive response to the crisis of the age (compare Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach"). He analyzed mythologies as rationalizations of natural phenomena, primitive beginnings that we might denominate "protoscience" within a cultural evolution; Müller's "anti-Darwinian" concepts of the evolution of human cultures are among his least lasting achievements.

Müller shared many of the ideas associated with Romanticism, which coloured his account of ancient religions, in particular his emphasis on the formative influence on early religion of emotional communion with natural forces. 

Müller's Sanskrit studies came at a time when scholars had started to see language development in relation to cultural development. The recent discovery of the Indo-European (IE) language group had started to lead to much speculation about the relationship between Greco-Roman cultures and those of more ancient peoples. In particular the Vedic culture of India was thought to have been the ancestor of European Classical cultures, and scholars sought to compare the genetically related European and Asian languages in order to reconstruct the earliest form of the root-language. The Vedic language, Sanskrit, was thought to be the oldest of the IE languages. Müller therefore devoted himself to the study of this language, becoming one of the major Sanskrit scholars of his day. Müller believed that the earliest documents of Vedic culture should be studied in order to provide the key to the development of pagan European religions, and of religious belief in general. To this end, Müller sought to understand the most ancient of Vedic scriptures, the Rig-Veda.  Müller was greatly impressed by Ramakrishna Paramhansa, his contemporary and proponent of Vedantic philosophy, and authored several essays and books on him. 

A 1907 study of Müller's inaugural Hibbert Lecture of 1878 was made by one of his contemporaries, D. Menant. It argued that a crucial role was played by Müller and social reformer Behramji Malabari in initiating debate on child marriage and widow remarriage questions in India.

For Müller, the culture of the Vedic peoples represented a form of nature worship, an idea clearly influenced by Romanticism. He saw the gods of the Rig-Veda as active forces of nature, only partly personified as imagined supernatural persons. From this claim Müller derived his theory that mythology is 'a disease of language'. By this he meant that myth transforms concepts into beings and stories. In Müller's view 'gods' began as words constructed in order to express abstract ideas, but were transformed into imagined personalities. Thus the Indo-European father-god appears under various names:Zeus, Jupiter, Dyaus Pita. For Müller all these names can be traced to the word 'Dyaus', which he understands to imply 'shining' or 'radiance'. This leads to the terms 'deva', 'deus', 'theos' as generic terms for a god, and to the names 'Zeus' and 'Jupiter' (derived from deus-pater). In this way a metaphor becomes personified and ossified. This aspect of Müller's thinking closely resembled the later ideas of Nietzsche.

For Müller, the study of the language had to relate to the study of the culture in which it had been used. He came to the view that the development of languages should be tied to that of belief-systems. At that time the Vedic scriptures were little-known in the West, though there was increasing interest in the philosophy of the Upanishads. Müller believed that the sophisticated Upanishadic philosophy could be linked to the primitive henotheism of early Vedic Brahmanism from which it evolved. He had to travel to London in order to look at documents held in the collection of the British East India Company. While there he persuaded the company to allow him to undertake a critical edition of the Rig-Veda, a task he pursued doggedly over many years (1849–1874), and which resulted in the critical edition for which he is most remembered.

In 1881, he published a translation of the first edition of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. He agreed with Schopenhauer that this edition was the most direct and honest expression of Kant's thought. His translation corrected several errors that were committed by previous translators. In his Translator's Preface, Müller wrote, "The bridge of thoughts and sighs that spans the whole history of the Aryan world has its first arch in the Veda, its last in Kant's Critique.…While in the Veda we may study the childhood, we may study in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason the perfect manhood of the Aryan mind.…The materials are now accessible, and the English-speaking race, the race of the future, will have in Kant's Critique another Aryan heirloom, as precious as the Veda — a work that may be criticised, but can never be ignored." Müller remained profoundly influenced by the Kantian Transcendentalist model of spirituality, and was opposed to Darwinian ideas of human development, arguing that "language forms an impassable barrier between man and beast. 

He was also influenced by the work Thought and Reality, of the Russian philosopher African Spir

Views on the future of India

He several times expressed the view that a "reformation" within Hinduism needed to occur comparable to the Christian Reformation.  In his view, "if there is one thing which a comparative study of religions places in the clearest light, it is the inevitable decay to which every religion is exposed... Whenever we can trace back a religion to its first beginnings, we find it free from many blemishes that affected it in its later states". He used his links with the Brahmo Samaj in order to encourage such a reformation on the lines pioneered by Ram Mohan Roy.  Müller believed that the Brahmos would engender an Indian form of Christianity, and that they were in practice "Christians, without being Roman Catholics, Anglicans or Lutherans."  In the Lutheran tradition, he hoped that the superstition and "idolatry" which he considered to be characteristic of modern popular Hinduism would disappear. 

In a letter to his wife, he said:

The translation of the Veda will hereafter tell to a great extent on the fate of India and on the growth of millions of souls in that country. It is the root of their religion, and to show them what the root is, I feel sure, is the only way of uprooting all that has sprung from it during the last 3000 years. 

Müller hoped that increased funding for education in India would promote a new form of literature combining Western and Indian traditions. In 1868 he wrote to George Campbell, the newly appointed Secretary of State for India,

"India has been conquered once, but India must be conquered again, and that second conquest should be a conquest by education. Much has been done for education of late, but if the funds were tripled and quadrupled, that would hardly be enough… A new national literature may spring up, impregnated with western ideas, yet retaining its native spirit and character… By encouraging a study of their own ancient literature, as part of their education, a national feeling of pride and self-respect will be reawakened among those who influence the large masses of the people. A new national literature will bring with it a new national life, and new moral vigour. As to religion, that will take care of itself. The missionaries have done far more than they themselves seem to be aware of, nay, much of the work which is theirs they would probably disclaim. The Christianity of our nineteenth century will hardly be the Christianity of India. But the ancient religion of India is doomed — and if Christianity does not step in, whose fault will it be?" 

Controversies

Anti-Christian

Müller's comparative religion was criticized as subversive of the Christian faith. According to Monsignor Munro, the Roman Catholic bishop of St Andrew's Cathedral in Glasgow, his 1888University of Glasgow Gifford Lectures on the "science of religion" represented nothing less than "a crusade against divine revelation, against Jesus Christ and Christianity".  Munro argued that Müller's theories "uprooted our idea of God, for it repudiated the idea of a personal God." He made "divine revelation simply impossible, because it [his theory] reduced God to mere nature, and did away with the body and soul as we know them."

Similar accusations had already led to Müller's exclusion from the Boden chair in Sanskrit in favour of the conservative Monier Monier-Williams. By the 1880s Müller was being courted by Charles Godfrey Leland, Helena Blavatsky and other writers who were seeking to assert the merits of "Pagan" religious traditions over Christianity. The designer Mary Fraser Tytler stated that Müller's book Chips from a German Workshop (a collection of his essays) was her "Bible", which helped her to create a multi-cultural sacred imagery.

Müller distanced himself from these developments, and remained within the Lutheran faith in which he had been brought up. Nevertheless, according to C. Beckerlegge, "Müller's background as a German Lutheran and his identification with the Broad Church party" led to "suspicion by those opposed to the political and religious positions which they felt Müller represented", particularly hislatitudinarianism. 

Aryanism

Müller's work contributed to the developing interest in Aryan culture which set Indo-European ('Aryan') traditions in opposition to Semitic religions. He was deeply saddened by the fact that these later came to be expressed in racist terms. This was far from Müller's own intention. For Müller the discovery of common Indian and European ancestry was a powerful argument against racism, arguing that "an ethnologist who speaks of Aryan race, Aryan blood, Aryan eyes and hair, is as great a sinner as a linguist who speaks of a dolichocephalic dictionary or a brachycephalic grammar" and that "the blackest Hindus represent an earlier stage of Aryan speech and thought than the fairest Scandinavians". 

Turanism

Müller put forward and promoted the theory of a 'Turanian' family of languages or speech, comprising the Finnic, Samoyedic, Tataric, Mongolic, and Tungusic languages. According to Müller these five languages were those "spoken in Asia or Europe not included under the Arian (sic) and Semitic families, with the exception perhaps of the Chinese and its dialects". In addition, they were "nomadic languages" in contrast to the other two families (Aryan and Semitic) that he called State or political languages. 

Müller's Turanian theory was based not only on his own extensive research, but also on the works of many other scholars such as Rask, Wilhelm Schott, ‪Gyarmathi‬, ‪Castrén‬, ‪Gabelentz‬ and‪Böhtlingk‬ who had all noted various affinities between these languages. In fact, Müller was not the first to advance the Turanian theory. The idea had been suggested earlier by Christian Bunsenwho wrote, "I ventured in 1847 to unite all these under the name of Turanian. Prof. Müller's discoveries will prove the truth of this view beyond the most sanguine hopes which could then be conceived".  However, it was Müller who was undoubtedly responsible for popularising the idea in European discourse.

The idea of a Turanian family of languages was not accepted by everyone at the time. As Müller himself wrote, "some scholars would deny it the name of a family"  and it was the subject of "fierce attacks from those who believe in different beginnings of language and mankind".  Although the term "Turanian" quickly became an archaism  (unlike "Aryan"), it did not disappear completely and the idea would be absorbed later into nationalist ideologies in Hungary and Turkey. 

Death

Müller died in Oxford. His wife, Georgina Adelaide (died 1916) had his papers and correspondence carefully bound; they are at the Bodleian Library, Oxford.  The Goethe Institutes in India are named Max Müller Bhavan in his honour.  Müller's son Wilhelm Max Müller was also an important scholar.

Yangism

Yangism   was a philosophical school founded by Yang Zhu, existent during the Warring States Period (475 BCE - 221 BCE), that believed that human actions are and should be based on self-interest. The school has been described by sinologists as an early form of psychological and ethical egoism.  The main focus of the Yangists was on the concept of xing, or human nature,  a term later incorporated by Mencius into Confucianism. No documents directly authored by the Yangists have been discovered as of yet, and all that is known of the school comes from the comments of rival philosophers, specifically in the Chinese texts Huainanzi, Lüshi Chunqiu, Mengzi, and possibly the Liezi and Zhuangzi. The philosopher Mencius claimed that Yangism once rivaled Confucianism and Mohism, although the veracity of this claim remains controversial among sinologists. Because Yangism had largely faded into obscurity by the time that Sima Qian compiled his Shiji, the school was not included as one of the Hundred Schools of Thought.

Philosophy

What Yang Zhu was for was self. If by plucking one hair he might benefit the whole world, he would not do it. 

—Mencius on Yang Zhu, Mengzi (4th century BC)

Yangism has been described as a form of psychological and ethical egoism.  The Yangist philosophers believed in the importance of maintaining self-interest through "keeping one's nature intact, protecting one's uniqueness, and not letting the body be tied by other things."  Disagreeing with the Confucian virtues of li (propriety), ren (humaneness), and yi (righteousness) and theLegalist virtue of fa (law), the Yangists saw wei wo, or "everything for myself", as the only virtue necessary for self-cultivation.  Individual pleasure is considered desirable, like in hedonism, but not at the expense of the health of individual.  The Yangists saw individual well-being as the prime purpose of life, and considered anything that hindered that well-being unmoral and unnecessary. 

The main focus of the Yangists was on the concept of xing, or human nature,  a term later incorporated by Mencius into Confucianism. The xing, according to sinologist A. C. Graham, is a person's "proper course of development" in life. Individuals can only rationally care for their own xing, and should not naively have to support the xing of other people, even if it means opposing the emperor.  In this sense, Yangism is a "direct attack" on Confucianism, by implying that the power of the emperor, defended in Confucianism, is baseless and destructive, and that state intervention is morally flawed. 

The Confucian philosopher Mencius depicts Yangism as the direct opposite of Mohism, while Mohism promotes the idea of universal love and impartial caring, the Yangists acted only "for themselves", rejecting the altruism of Mohism.  He criticized the Yangists as selfish, ignoring the duty of serving the public and caring only for personal concerns.  Mencius saw Confucianism as the "Middle Way" between Mohism and Yangism. 

Influence on later beliefs

Mencius incorporated the Yangist concept of xing into his own philosophy. Some sinologists have argued that Yangism influenced Taoism, and can be seen as a "precursor" to later Taoist beliefs. 

Epicureanism

Epicureanism is a system of philosophy based upon the teachings of Epicurus, founded around 307 BCE. Epicurus was an atomic materialist, following in the steps of Democritus. His materialism led him to a general attack on superstition and divine intervention. Following Aristippus—about whom very little is known—Epicurus believed that pleasure is the greatest good. But the way to attain pleasure was to live modestly and to gain knowledge of the workings of the world and the limits of one's desires. This led one to attain a state of tranquility (ataraxia) and freedom from fear, as well as absence of bodily pain (aponia). The combination of these two states is supposed to constitute happiness in its highest form. Although Epicureanism is a form of hedonism, insofar as it declares pleasure to be the sole intrinsic good, its conception of absence of pain as the greatest pleasure and its advocacy of a simple life make it different from "hedonism" as it is commonly understood.

Epicureanism was originally a challenge to Platonism, though later it became the main opponent of Stoicism. Epicurus and his followers shunned politics. After the death of Epicurus, his school was headed by Hermarchus; later many Epicurean societies flourished in the Late Hellenistic era and during the Roman era (such as those in Antiochia, Alexandria, Rhodes, and Ercolano). Its best-known Roman proponent was the poet Lucretius. By the end of the Roman Empire, having undergone Christian attack and repression, Epicureanism had all but died out, and would be resurrected in the 17th century by the atomist Pierre Gassendi, who adapted it to the Christian doctrine.

Some writings by Epicurus have survived. Some scholars consider the epic poem On the Nature of Things by Lucretius to present in one unified work the core arguments and theories of Epicureanism. Many of the papyrus scrolls unearthed at the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum are Epicurean texts. At least some are thought to have belonged to the Epicurean Philodemus.

History

The school of Epicurus, called "The Garden," was based in Epicurus' home and garden. It had a small but devoted following in his lifetime. Its members included Hermarchus, Idomeneus,Colotes, Polyaenus, and Metrodorus. Epicurus emphasized friendship as an important ingredient of happiness, and the school seems to have been a moderately ascetic community which rejected the political limelight of Athenian philosophy. They were fairly cosmopolitan by Athenian standards, including women and slaves, and were probably vegetarians (Stevenson 2005).

The school's popularity grew and it became, along with Stoicism and Skepticism, one of the three dominant schools of Hellenistic Philosophy, lasting strongly through the later Roman Empire. Another major source of information is the Roman politician and philosopher Cicero, although he was highly critical, denouncing the Epicureans as unbridled hedonists, devoid of a sense of virtue and duty, and guilty of withdrawing from public life. Another ancient source is Diogenes of Oenoanda, who composed a large inscription at Oenoanda in Lycia.

A library in the Villa of the Papyri, in Herculaneum, was presumably owned by Julius Caesar's father-in-law, Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus. The scrolls which the library consisted of were preserved albeit in carbonized form by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. Several of these Herculaneum papyri which are unrolled and deciphered were found to contain a large number of works by Philodemus, a late Hellenistic Epicurean, and Epicurus himself, attesting to the school's enduring popularity. The task of unrolling and deciphering the over 1800 charred papyrus scrolls continues today.

After the official approval of Christianity by Constantine the Great, Epicureanism was repressed. Epicurus' materialist theories that the gods were physical beings composed of atoms who were unconcerned with human affairs and had not created the universe, and his general teaching that one's own pleasure, rather than service to God, was the greatest good were essentially irreconcilable with Christian teachings. The school endured a long period of obscurity and decline.

The early Christian writer Lactantius criticizes Epicurus at several points throughout his Divine Institutes. In Dante's Divine Comedy, the Epicureans are depicted as heretics suffering in the sixth circle of hell. In fact, Epicurus is the first heretic seen, and he appears to represent the ultimate heresy. The word for a heretic in the Talmudic literature is "Apiqoros" (אפיקורוס), and Epicurus is titled in Modern Greek idiom as the "Dark Philosopher".

By the 16th century, the works of Diogenes Laertius were being printed in Europe. In the 17th century the French Franciscan priest, scientist and philosopher Pierre Gassendi wrote two books forcefully reviving Epicureanism. Shortly thereafter, and clearly influenced by Gassendi, Walter Charleton published several works on Epicureanism in English. Attacks by Christians continued, most forcefully by the Cambridge Platonists.

In the Modern Age, scientists adopted atomist theories, while materialist philosophers embraced Epicurus' hedonist ethics and restated his objections to natural teleology.

Religion

Epicureanism emphasizes the neutrality of the gods, that they do not interfere with human lives. It states that gods, matter, and souls are all made up of atoms. Souls are made from atoms, and gods possess souls, but their souls adhere to their bodies without escaping. Humans have the same kind of souls, but the forces binding human atoms together do not hold the soul forever. The Epicureans also used the atomist theories of Democritus and Leucippus to assert that man has free will. They held that all thoughts are merely atoms swerving randomly. This explanation served to satisfy people who wondered anxiously about their role in the universe.

The Riddle of Epicurus, or Problem of evil, is a famous argument against the existence of an all-powerful and providential God or gods. As recorded by Lactantius:

God either wants to eliminate bad things and cannot, or can but does not want to, or neither wishes to nor can, or both wants to and can. If he wants to and cannot, then he is weak - and this does not apply to god. If he can but does not want to, then he is spiteful - which is equally foreign to god's nature. If he neither wants to nor can, he is both weak and spiteful, and so not a god. If he wants to and can, which is the only thing fitting for a god, where then do bad things come from? Or why does he not eliminate them?

This type of trilemma argument (God is omnipotent, God is good, but Evil exists) was one favoured by the ancient Greek skeptics, and this argument may have been wrongly attributed to Epicurus by Lactantius, who, from his Christian perspective, regarded Epicurus as an atheist. According to Reinhold F. Glei, it is settled that the argument of theodicy is from an academical source which is not only not epicurean, but even anti-epicurean. The earliest extant version of this trilemma appears in the writings of the skeptic Sextus Empiricus. 

Epicurus' view was that there were gods, but that they were neither willing nor able to prevent evil. This was not because they were malevolent, but because they lived in a perfect state ofataraxia, a state everyone should strive to emulate; it is not the gods who are upset by evils, but people.  Epicurus conceived the gods as blissful and immortal yet material beings made of atoms inhabiting the metakosmia: empty spaces between worlds in the vastness of infinite space. In spite of his recognition of the gods, the practical effect of this materialistic explanation of the gods' existence and their complete non-intervention in human affairs renders his philosophy akin in divine effects to the attitude of Deism.

In Dante's Divine Comedy, the flaming tombs of the Epicureans are located within the sixth circle of hell (Inferno, Canto X). They are the first heretics seen and appear to represent the ultimate, if not quintessential, heresy. Similarly, according to Jewish Mishnah, Epicureans (apiqorsim, people who share the beliefs of the movement) are among the people who do not have a share of the "World-to-Come" (afterlife or the world of the Messianic era).

Parallels may be drawn to Buddhism, which similarly emphasizes a lack of divine interference and aspects of its atomism. Buddhism also resembles Epicureanism in its temperateness, including the belief that great excesses leads to great dissatisfaction.

Philosophy
The philosophy was characterized by an absence of divine principle. Lawbreaking was counseled against because of both the shame associated with detection and the punishment it might bring. Living in fear of being found out or punished would take away from pleasure, and this made even secret wrongdoing inadvisable. To the Epicureans, virtue in itself had no value and was beneficial only when it served as a means to gain happiness. Reciprocity was recommended, not because it was divinely ordered or innately noble, but because it was personally beneficial. Friendships rested on the same mutual basis, that is, the pleasure resulting to the possessors. Epicurus laid great emphasis on developing friendships as the basis of a satisfying life.

The philosophy originated by Epicurus flourished for seven centuries. It propounded an ethic of individual pleasure as the sole or chief good in life. Hence, Epicurus advocated living in such a way as to derive the greatest amount of pleasure possible during one's lifetime, yet doing so moderately in order to avoid the suffering incurred by overindulgence in such pleasure. The emphasis was placed on pleasures of the mind rather than on physical pleasures. Therefore, according to Epicurus, with whom a person eats is of greater importance than what is eaten. Unnecessary and, especially, artificially produced desires were to be suppressed. Since learning, culture, and civilization as well as social and political involvements could give rise to desires that are difficult to satisfy and thus result in disturbing one's peace of mind, they were discouraged. Knowledge was sought only to rid oneself of religious fears and superstitions, the two primary fears to be eliminated being fear of the gods and of death. Viewing marriage and what attends it as a threat to one's peace of mind, Epicurus lived a celibate life but did not impose this restriction on his followers.

of all the things which wisdom has contrived which contribute to a blessed life, none is more important, more fruitful, than friendship

—quoted by Cicero,  

While the pursuit of pleasure formed the focal point of the philosophy, this was largely directed to the "static pleasures" of minimizing pain, anxiety and suffering. In fact Epicurus referred to life as a "bitter gift".

When we say...that pleasure is the end and aim, we do not mean the pleasures of the prodigal or the pleasures of sensuality, as we are understood to do by some through ignorance, prejudice or wilful misrepresentation. By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul. It is not by an unbroken succession of drinking bouts and of revelry, not by sexual lust, nor the enjoyment of fish and other delicacies of a luxurious table, which produce a pleasant life; it is sober reasoning, searching out the grounds of every choice and avoidance, and banishing those beliefs through which the greatest tumults take possession of the soul.

 

The Epicureans believed in the existence of the gods, but believed that the gods were made of atoms just like everything else. It was thought that the gods were too far away from the earth to have any interest in what man was doing; so it did not do any good to pray or to sacrifice to them. The gods, they believed, did not create the universe, nor did they inflict punishment or bestow blessings on anyone, but they were supremely happy; this was the goal to strive for during one's own human life.

"Live unknown was one of [key] maxims. This was completely at odds with all previous ideas of seeking fame and glory, or even wanting something so apparently decent as honor." 

Epicureanism rejects immortality and mysticism; it believes in the soul, but suggests that the soul is as mortal as the body. Epicurus rejected any possibility of an afterlife, while still contending that one need not fear death: "Death is nothing to us; for that which is dissolved, is without sensation, and that which lacks sensation is nothing to us." 

Ethics

Epicurus was an early thinker to develop the notion of justice as a social contract. He defined justice as an agreement "neither to harm nor be harmed". The point of living in a society with laws and punishments is to be protected from harm so that one is free to pursue happiness. Because of this, laws that do not contribute to promoting human happiness are not just. He gave his own unique version of the Ethic of Reciprocity, which differs from other formulations by emphasizing minimizing harm and maximizing happiness for oneself and others:

It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and well and justly (agreeing "neither to harm nor be harmed" ),
and it is impossible to live wisely and well and justly without living a pleasant life. 

Epicureanism incorporated a relatively full account of the social contract theory, following after a vague description of such a society in Plato's Republic. The social contract theory established by Epicureanism is based on mutual agreement, not divine decree.

Epicurean physics

Epicurus' philosophy of the physical world is found in his Letter to Herodotus: Diogenes Laertius 10.34-83.

If a limited form lives within an unlimited void, the form could only wander aimlessly about, because what is unlimited is ungraspable; meaning, the limited form would travel forever, for it does not have any obstacles. The void would have to be limited in quality and the form of an unlimited quality, for an unlimited form can oscillate and seemingly grasp—practically, but not literally—an unlimited number of spots within the limited void. So therefore all living things on Earth are unlimited, and the Earth on which they live and the universe around it, is limited.

Forms can change, but not their inherent qualities, for change can only affect their shape. Some things can be changed and some things cannot be changed because forms that are unchangeable cannot be destroyed if certain attributes can be removed; for attributes not only have the intention of altering an unchangeable form, but also the inevitable possibility of becoming—in relation to the form's disposition to its present environment—both an armor and a vulnerability to its stability.

Further proof that there are unchangeable forms and their inability to be destroyed, is the concept of the "non-evident." A form cannot come into being from the void—which is nothing; it would be as if all forms come into being spontaneously, needless of reproduction. The implied meaning of "destroying" something is to undo its existence, to make it not there anymore, and this cannot be so: if the void is that which does not exist, and if this void is the implied destination of the destroyed, then the thing in reality cannot be destroyed, for the thing (and all things) could not have existed in the first place (as Lucretius said, ex nihilo nihil fit: nothing comes from nothing). This totality of forms is eternal and unchangeable.

Atoms move, in the appropriate way, constantly and for all time. Forms first come to us in images or "projections"--outlines of their true selves. For an image to be perceived by the human eye, the "atoms" of the image must cross a great distance at enormous speed and must not encounter any conflicting atoms along the way. The presence of atomic resistance equal atomic slowness; whereas, if the path is deficient of atomic resistance, the traversal rate is much faster (and clearer). Because of resistance, forms must be unlimited (unchangeable and able to grasp any point within the void) because, if they weren't, a form's image would not come from a single place, but fragmented and from several places. This confirms that a single form cannot be at multiple places at the same time.

And the senses warrant us other means of perception: hearing and smelling. As in the same way an image traverses through the air, the atoms of sound and smell traverse the same way. This perceptive experience is itself the flow of the moving atoms; and like the changeable and unchangeable forms, the form from which the flow traverses is shed and shattered into even smaller atoms, atoms of which still represent the original form, but they are slightly disconnected and of diverse magnitudes. This flow, like that of an echo, reverberates (off one's senses) and goes back to its start; meaning, one's sensory perception happens in the coming, going, or arch, of the flow; and when the flow retreats back to its starting position, the atomic image is back together again: thus when one smells something one has the ability to see it too [because atoms reach the one who smells or sees from the object.]

And this leads to the question of how atomic speed and motion works. Epicurus says that there are two kinds of motion: the straight motion and the curved motion, and its motion traverse as fast as the speed of thought.

Epicurus proposed the idea of 'the space between worlds' (metakosmia) the relatively empty spaces in the infinite void where worlds had not been formed by the joining together of the atomsthrough their endless motion.

Epistemology

Epicurean epistemology has three criteria of truth: sensations (aisthêsis), preconceptions (prolepsis), and feelings (pathê). Prolepsis is sometimes translated as "basic grasp" but could also be described as "universal ideas": concepts that are understood by all. An example of prolepsis is the word "man" because every person has a preconceived notion of what a man is. Sensations or sense perception is knowledge that is received from the senses alone. Much like modern science, epicurean philosophy posits that empiricism can be used to sort truth from falsehood. Feelings are more related to ethics than Epicurean physical theory. Feelings merely tell the individual what brings about pleasure and what brings about pain. This is important for the Epicurean because these are the basis for the entire Epicurean ethical doctrine.

According to Epicurus, the basic means for our understanding of things are the 'sensations' (aestheses), 'concepts' (prolepsis), 'emotions' (pathe) and the 'focusing of thought into an impression' (phantastikes epiboles tes dianoias).

Epicureans reject dialectic as confusing (parelkousa) because for the physical philosophers it is sufficient to use the correct words which refer to the concepts of the world. Epicurus then, in his work On the Canon, says that the criteria of truth are the senses, the preconceptions and the feelings. Epicureans add to these the focusing of thought into an impression. He himself is referring to those in his Epitome to Herodotus and in Principal Doctrines. 

The senses are the first criterion of truth, since they create the first impressions and testify the existence of the external world. Sensory input is neither subjective nor deceitful, but the misunderstanding comes when the mind adds to or subtracts something from these impressions through our preconceived notions. Therefore, our sensory input alone cannot lead us to inaccuracy, only the concepts and opinions that come from our interpretations of our sensory input can. Therefore our sensory data is the only truly accurate thing which we have to rely for our understanding of the world around us.

And whatever image we receive by direct understanding by our mind or through our sensory organs of the shape or the essential properties that are the true form of the solid object, since it is created by the constant repetition of the image or the impression it has left behind. There is always inaccuracy and error involved in bringing into a judgment an element that is additional to sensory impressions, either to confirm [what we sensed] or deny it.

 

Epicurus said that all the tangible things are real and each impression comes from existing objects and is determined by the object that causes the sensations.

 

Therefore all the impressions are real, while the preconceived notions are not real and can be modified.

If you battle with all your sensations, you will be unable to form a standard for judging which of them are incorrect.

 

The concepts are the categories which have formed mentally according to our sensory input, for example the concepts "man", "warm", and "sweet", etc. These concepts are directly related to memory and can be recalled at any time, only by the use of the respective word. (Compare the anthropological Sapir–Whorf hypothesis). Epicurus also calls them "the meanings that underlie the words" (hypotetagmena tois phthongois: semantic substance of the words) in his letter to Herodotus. The feelings or emotions (pathe) are related to the senses and the concepts. They are the inner impulses that make us feel like or dislike about certain external objects, which we perceive through the senses, and are associated with the preconceptions that are recalled.

In this moment that the word "man" is spoken, immediately due to the concept [or category of the idea] an image is projected in the mind which is related to the sensory input data.

 

First of all Herodotus, we must understand the meanings that underlie the words, so that by referring to them, we may be able to reach judgments about our opinions, matters of inquiry, or problems and leave everything undecided as we can argue endlessly or use words that have no clearly defined meaning.

 

Apart from these there is the assumption (hypolepsis), which is either the hypothesis or the opinion about something (matter or action), and which can be correct or incorrect. The assumptions are created by our sensations, concepts and emotions. Since they are produced automatically without any rational analysis and verification (see the modern idea of the subconscious) of whether they are correct or not, they need to be confirmed (epimarteresis: confirmation), a process which must follow each assumption.

For beliefs they [the Epicureans] use the word hypolepsis which they claim can be correct or incorrect.

 

Referring to the "focusing of thought into an impression" or else "intuitive understandings of the mind", they are the impressions made on the mind that come from our sensations, concepts and emotions and form the basis of our assumptions and beliefs. All this unity (sensation – concept or category – emotion – focusing of thought into an impression) leads to the formation of a certain assumption or belief (hypolepsis). (Compare the modern anthropological concept of a "world view".) Following the lead of Aristotle, Epicurus also refers to impressions in the form of mental images which are projected on the mind. The "correct use of impressions" was something adopted later by the Stoics.

Our assumptions and beliefs have to be 'confirmed', which actually proves if our opinions are either accurate or inaccurate. This verification and confirmation (epimarteresis) can only be done by means of the "evident reason" (henargeia), which means what is self-evident and obvious through our sensory input.

An example is when we see somebody approaching us, first through the sense of eyesight, we perceive that an object is coming closer to us, then through our preconceptions we understand that it is a human being, afterwards through that assumption we can recognize that he is someone we know, for example Theaetetus. This assumption is associated with pleasant or unpleasant emotions accompanied by the respective mental images and impressions (the focusing of our thoughts into an impression), which are related to our feelings toward each other. When he gets close to us, we can confirm (verify) that he is Socrates and not Theaetetus through the proof of our eyesight. Therefore, we have to use the same method to understand everything, even things which are not observable and obvious (adela, imperceptible), that is to say the confirmation through the evident reason (henargeia). In the same way we have to reduce (reductionism) each assumption and belief to something that can be proved through the self-evident reason (empirically verified). Verification theory and reductionism have been adopted, as we know, by the modernphilosophy of science. In this way, one can get rid of the incorrect assumptions and beliefs (biases) and finally settle on the real (confirmed) facts.

Consequently the confirmation and lack of disagreement is the criterion of accuracy of something, while non-confirmation and disagreement is the criterion of its inaccuracy. The basis and foundation of [understanding] everything are the obvious and self-evident [facts].

 

All the above mentioned criteria of knowledge form the basic principles of the [scientific] method, that Epicurus followed in order to find the truth. He described this method in his work On the Canon or On the Criteria.

If you reject any sensation and you do not distinguish between the opinion based on what awaits confirmation and evidence already available based on the senses, the feelings and every intuitive faculty of the mind, you will send the remaining sensations into a turmoil with your foolish opinions, thus getting rid of every standard for judging. And if among the perceptions based on beliefs are things that are verified and things that are not, you are guaranteed to be in error since you have kept everything that leads to uncertainty concerning the correct and incorrect.

 

(Based on excerpt from Epicurus' Gnoseology 'Handbook of Greek Philosophy: From Thales to the Stoics Analysis and Fragments', Nikolaos Bakalis, Trafford Publishing 2005,  )

Tetrapharmakos

Tetrapharmakos, or "The four-part cure", is Epicurus' basic guideline as to how to live the happiest possible life. This poetic doctrine was handed down by an anonymous Epicurean who summed up Epicurus' philosophy on happiness in four simple lines:

Don't fear god,
Don't worry about death;
What is good is easy to get, and
What is terrible is easy to endure.

—Philodemus, Herculaneum Papyrus, 1005, 4.9-14

Notable Epicureans

One of the earliest Roman writers espousing Epicureanism was Amafinius. Other adherents to the teachings of Epicurus included the poet Horace, whose famous statement Carpe Diem ("Seize the Day") illustrates the philosophy, as well as Lucretius, as he showed in his De Rerum Natura. The poet Virgil was another prominent Epicurean (see Lucretius for further details).

Julius Caesar leaned considerably toward Epicureanism and rejected the idea of an afterlife, which e.g. led to his plea against the death sentence during the trial against Catiline, where he spoke out against the Stoic Cato. 

In modern times Thomas Jefferson referred to himself as an Epicurean.  Other modern-day Epicureans were Gassendi, Walter Charleton, François Bernier, Saint-Evremond, Ninon de l'Enclos,Diderot, and Jeremy Bentham. Christopher Hitchens referred to himself as an Epicurean.  In France, Michel Onfray has been developing a post-modern approach to Epicureanism. 

Modern usage and misconceptions

In modern popular usage, an epicure is a connoisseur of the arts of life and the refinements of sensual pleasures; epicureanism implies a love or knowledgeable enjoyment especially of good food and drink—see the definition of gourmet at Wiktionary.

This can be attributed to a misunderstanding of the Epicurean doctrine, as promulgated by Christian polemicists. Because Epicureanism posits that pleasure is the ultimate good (telos), it is commonly misunderstood as a doctrine that advocates the partaking in fleeting pleasures such as constant partying, sexual excess and decadent food. This is not the case. Epicurus regardedataraxia (tranquility, freedom from fear) and aponia (absence of pain) as the height of happiness. He also considered prudence an important virtue and perceived excess and overindulgence to be contrary to the attainment of ataraxia and aponia.