Epicurus of Samos
341-270 BC · Hellenistic Philosophy · Renowned
Epicurus was a Greek materialist who taught that atoms and empty space are all that exists and that the gods take no interest in us. Fear of the gods and fear of death wreck a life, and the second rests on a mistake: death is nothing to you, since where death is, you are not. The good life aims at ataraxia, a calm untroubled pleasure built from friendship, plain food and the absence of fear. Luxury was never the point.
Signature
The position Epicurus is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Meaning
- leans Constructed
- Highest Good
- Pleasure
Positions on the 9 axes the sources answer
- Natural Processes
- leans Mechanistic (13 on a 0–100 scale from Mechanistic to Purposeful)
- Society
- leans Individualism (75 on a 0–100 scale from Collectivism to Individualism)
- Mind
- leans Brain Only (15 on a 0–100 scale from Brain Only to Beyond Brain)
- The Divine
- mildly leans Describable (38 on a 0–100 scale from Describable to Indescribable)
- Universals
- leans Nominalism (75 on a 0–100 scale from Realism to Nominalism)
- Meaning
- leans Constructed (15 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Ground of Being
- leans Immanence (13 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Truth
- leans Objective (75 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Nature
- leans Harmony (75 on a 0–100 scale from Mastery to Harmony)
11 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Epicurus refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Apatheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Highest Good
- Pleasure
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Natural Emergence
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - End of Things
- Annihilation
What is the ultimate end of all things? - Perception
- Direct Realism
What do we directly perceive? - Knowledge
- Sense Experience
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Utilitarian Calculation / Egoism
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Libertarian Free Will
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Death
- Annihilation
What happens at death? - Human Nature
- Evolved Animal
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- Friends
What is your primary bond and loyalty?