WorkEpicurus

Principal Doctrines

Forty short maxims Epicurus's followers learned by heart — the load-bearing doctrines of the Garden, from the four-part cure for fear to justice as mutual advantage.

by Epicurus6 passages held

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First published: 300 BCE(aged 41)
Original language: Ancient Greek

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Overview

Forty maxims, numbered, most of them a sentence or two long — the Kyriai Doxai are the core of Epicurus's teaching boiled down to what a follower could learn by heart. That was their function. Epicurus ran a school outside Athens, the Garden, whose members lived by his doctrines, and a set of memorizable principles held such a community together across the Mediterranean where his longer works could not travel. The first four carry the weight, later distilled into the four-part remedy: the divine is not to be feared, death is not to be feared, what is good is easy to reach, what is painful is brief or bearable. The rest work out the ethics — that justice is nothing but an agreement for mutual advantage, that no pleasure is bad in itself though some cost more than they return, that a settled life needs friends. Diogenes Laertius preserved all forty at the close of his life of Epicurus, and fragments of the same collection turn up among the charred papyri dug out of Herculaneum. For a philosophy organized as a way of living rather than a shelf of books, this is the working manual: short enough to memorize, complete enough to steer by.

Key concepts

What are the Principal Doctrines?

Forty numbered maxims, most only a sentence or two long, that condense Epicurus's teaching into a form his followers could learn by heart. The Greek title is Kyriai Doxai. They held a scattered community together across the Mediterranean where his longer works could not travel, and Diogenes Laertius preserved all forty at the close of his life of Epicurus. Fragments turn up among the Herculaneum papyri too.

What was the Garden?

The school Epicurus founded outside Athens, named for the garden where it met, whose members lived together by his doctrines. Because the community was a way of life rather than a lecture hall, it needed principles short enough to memorize and steer by, which is exactly what the Principal Doctrines supplied. The Garden famously admitted women and slaves, unusual for a philosophical school of its time.

What is ataraxia?

The freedom from disturbance that is the goal of Epicurean life: a mind untroubled by fear and a body free of pain. It is not excitement or ecstasy but a settled calm, reached by removing the anxieties, chiefly of death and the gods, that agitate people, and by keeping desire within natural limits. The Doctrines are, in effect, the working instructions for attaining and holding it.

How does Epicurus rank pleasures and pains?

By their net return over a whole life, not by their intensity in the moment. No pleasure is bad in itself, the Doctrines hold, but some bring pains that outweigh them and should be declined, while some pains are worth accepting for the greater pleasure they secure. This calculating standard, not indulgence, is what guides choice, and it is why prudence rather than appetite governs the Epicurean life.

Why were these doctrines meant to be memorized?

Because Epicureanism was organized as a practice of living rather than a shelf of books. A set of principles a follower could hold in memory could travel where scrolls could not and be present in the mind at the moment fear or temptation struck. Short enough to recite and complete enough to steer by, the forty maxims were the movement's portable manual, the doctrine made usable.

Themes of the book

What this book returns to, gathered into themes and ordered by how much of the text each one occupies.

The load-bearing four

Which handful of convictions, held firmly, is enough to steady a whole life? The first doctrines answer the four great fears in turn, in words short enough to keep by heart.

The first four maxims carry the weight, and later Epicureans boiled them into the four-part remedy. The divine, blessed and eternal, neither troubles itself nor troubles others, so it holds no threat. Death is nothing to us, for the dissolved has no sensation. The good is easy to reach; pain, when intense, is brief, and when chronic, mild enough to leave room for pleasure. These are not consolations for a crisis but principles to have already absorbed, so the answer stands ready when fear rises. Held by heart, they were meant to produce ataraxia, a mind not at the mercy of its dread.

fear
pleasure
desire
competition
epistemology
finitude
natural science
pain

Enter a dialogue

Justice as a bargain, not a thing

Is justice a truth written into the world, or an arrangement people make? Epicurus makes it a pact for mutual advantage, binding exactly as far as it keeps people safe.

The later doctrines work out the ethics, and the boldest concern justice. There is no justice in itself, Epicurus argues, only a compact not to harm and not to be harmed, entered for mutual benefit. Its whole authority is utility: a law is just while it serves the security of those under it, and once circumstances change so that it no longer does, it ceases to be just, though the words on the tablet stay the same. Injustice is an evil not in itself but because the fear of being caught can never rest. Justice too is measured against the tranquillity it protects.

justice
social contract
law
security
friendship
circumstances
mutual advantage
punishment