Exploring Epicureanism: Philosophy, Science, and the Pursuit of Meaning
An interview with Prof. Catherine Wilson
Prof. Catherine Wilson has taught philosophy in the US and overseas, and she has published books and articles on various topics, including moral philosophy, aesthetics, the history of philosophy, the philosophy of science, and philosophical psychology. She considers herself more of a “fox” than a “hedgehog,” but there is a common underlying theme in her work: the relationship between science and philosophical issues. Her best-known publications focus on the invention of the microscope and the rediscovery of ancient atomism. She currently lives in Berlin, where she continues her research and writing.
Her latest title is How to Be an Epicurean: The Ancient Art of Living Well. (2019)
How did you first become interested in Philosophy?
I am by no means a classical scholar—my specialisation is in 17th and 18th century philosophy. About 20 years ago, Brad Inwood, a specialist in Hellenistic philosophy and an editor and translator of Epicurus, invited me to a conference in Toronto to give a talk on Epicureanism and its influence in the Scientific Revolution of the 17th Century. So I read for the first time Lucretius’s on the Nature of Things (a poetry version of a mostly lost text by Epicurus) and some of Epicurus’s own Letters. I was captivated. Not only did it shed light on the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment moral philosophy, but also, from a personal standpoint, Epicureanism seemed to me more realistic and true than anything I had read so far in academic philosophy.
Determinism is false. The world is unpredictable, and novelty is constantly emerging.
What are the most important concepts or ideas that you teach others?
Some of the most important ideas that I’ve discussed in connection with Epicureanism are:
1) Humans are part of nature—they are unlike other animals on account of their powerful ingenuity and inventiveness. This ingenuity and inventiveness has its upsides and its downsides.
2) Pain—whether psychological or physical -- is the worst evil. Avoid either experiencing or causing it as far as you can.
3) Love and friendship, unlike striving for wealth, fame and power, give life meaning.
4) Determinism is false. The world is unpredictable, and novelty is constantly emerging.
5) There is no plan or purpose for the universe. But trying to figure out how things work, how causes and effects are connected, in physics, psychology, and history is a source of pleasure.
The idea is that justice is not something metaphysical and eternal.
Do you have a favorite quote that you use?
The Justice of nature is a pledge of reciprocal usefulness…neither to harm one another nor be harmed.
(Saying XXXI cited in The Epicurus Reader, trans. and ed. Brad Inwood and L.P. Gerson, Indianapolis, Hackett, 1994, p. 38.)
The idea is that justice is not something metaphysical and eternal. It takes the form of human conventions or agreements about avoiding harm to others and how to get assistance if one is being harmed. These agreements necessarily change over time, as the world changes and develops and as we learn more about the kinds of harms that exist at any given time in history.
I think this captures the essence of ethics –including ethics as it relates to national and international politics --better than any of the Big Three: Virtue theory, Kantianism or Utilitarianism, not to mention Divine Command Theory. In their own roundabout ways, the Big Three and official Judaeo-Christian morality incorporate the idea of harm avoidance, but Epicurus delivers it with direct and full impact. And where the Big Three (or Four) represent morality as coming down to formulas that are static and fixed for all time, I agree with Epicurus that we have to invent new moral rules as we go along.
What advice would you give someone who wanted to learn more about what you do?
There are three books that might be of interest, available in various forms –hardback, paperback, Kindle, or audiobook.
The most accessible is a short, free ranging book called How to Be an Epicurean (in the UK, The Pleasure Principle) that relates Epicurean teaching to ordinary life and that responds critically to the fashion for Stoicism.
Next, there is a Very Short Introduction to Epicureanism in the Oxford series of Very Short Introductions that is meant for the general reader and discusses topics like cosmology, life, death, politics, pleasure and pain.
Finally, the most academic is Epicureanism at the Origins of Modernity, which is about how the rediscovery of Lucretius influenced Western philosophy and science in the 17th and 18th centuries.
I’ve also done a number of podcasts that turn up under ‘Catherine Wilson podcasts’ on Google. My website is https://york.academia.edu/CatherineWilson which has a full list of publications, many of which are free to view or download. I welcome and always reply to emails.
Suppose you were able to give a talk or workshop at the original location of Plato’s Academy, in Athens.
That sounds fantastic.
What question would you like to leave us to think about?
A criticism that often comes up about Epicureanism is that it is self-indulgent and recommends the headlong pursuit of pleasure in the form of gluttony, drunkeness, promiscuity, etc. If you have read or take time to skim Epicurus (check out www.epicurism.info/etexts/PD.html), you’ll know that he didn’t consider those behaviours particularly pleasurable.
A criticism that really hits home by contrast is that Epicurus was essentially a leisured cult leader, whose communal “Garden’ was supported by rich friends. He could recommend total disengagement from civic life, from marriage, child rearing, politics, or having to earn a living. This is just not realistic or even desirable for most people. So the challenge is to integrate Epicurean principles into life as most of us actually lead it and want to lead it.
Excellent Q&A! The comments about justice bring to mind a favorite quote by Norm Dewitt in a forgotten book titled *Epicurus and his Philosophy* (Minneapolis, 1954). In it Dewitt explains in just a few sentences why Epicureanism is vastly superior to the totality of Platonism:
"Geometry...inspired in the minds of men a new movement that was genuinely romantic. In geometry he [Plato] seemed to see absolute reason contemplating absolute truth, perfect precision of concept joined with finality of demonstration. He began to transfer the precise concepts of geometry to ethics and politics just as modern thinkers transferred the concepts of biological evolution to history and sociology. Especially enticing was the concept which we know as definition. This was a creation of the geometricians; they created it by defining straight lines, equilateral triangles, and other regular figures. If these can be defined, Plato tacitly reasoned, why not also justice, piety, temperance, and other virtues? This is reasoning by analogy, one of the trickiest of logical procedures. It holds good only between sets of true similars. Virtues and triangles are not true similars. It does not follow, therefore, because equilateral triangles can be precisely defined, that justice can be defined in the same way. Modern jurists warn against defining justice; it is what the court says it is from time to time.
The deceptiveness of analogy, however, does not prevent it from flourishing, and Plato committed himself to the use of it unreservedly. [...] The quest of a definition, of justice, for example, presumes the existence of the thing to be defined. If equilateral triangles did not exist, they certainly could not be defined. Assume that justice can be defined and at once it is assumed that justice exists just as equilateral triangles exist. Hence arose Plato's theory of ideas. The word *idea* means shape or form and he thought of abstract notions as having an independent existence just as geometrical figures exist, a false analogy.
The theory of ideas was rejected as an absurdity by the young Epicurus, because he was a materialist and denied all existences except atoms and space."
Another book that I recommend is the Swerve by Greenlatt; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Swerve. Oddly, I've been looking at Catherine's book for some time. I think I will take the plunge.