Epicureanism

In Our Time: Philosophy

BBC

History

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 7 February 2013

⏱️ 42 minutes

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Summary

Angie Hobbs, David Sedley and James Warren join Melvyn Bragg to discuss Epicureanism, the system of philosophy based on the teachings of Epicurus and founded in Athens in the fourth century BC. Epicurus outlined a comprehensive philosophical system based on the idea that everything in the Universe is constructed from two phenomena: atoms and void. At the centre of his philosophy is the idea that the goal of human life is pleasure, by which he meant not luxury but the avoidance of pain. His followers were suspicious of marriage and politics but placed great emphasis on friendship. Epicureanism became influential in the Roman world, particularly through Lucretius's great poem De Rerum Natura, which was rediscovered and widely admired in the Renaissance. With: Angie Hobbs Professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield David Sedley Laurence Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the University of Cambridge James Warren Reader in Ancient Philosophy at the University of Cambridge Producer: Thomas Morris.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thank you for downloading this episode of In Our Time, for more details about in our time, and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co.uk.
0:09.0	I hope you enjoy the program.
0:12.0	Hello, in 1819, the Retired American... program.
0:13.0	Hello, in 1819, the retired American President Thomas Jefferson wrote to his former Secretary
0:17.8	giving a revealing account of his personal philosophy.
0:20.8	I, too, am an Epicure, and he said. I consider the genuine doctrines of Epicurus as
0:25.9	containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greece and Rome have left us.
0:31.2	Epicureism was one of the major philosophical schools of ancient Greece.
0:34.8	It was founded in the 4th century BC by Epicurus and Athenian who taught that the aim of human life was
0:39.9	pleasure.
0:40.9	His followers were wary of politics and religion, cast off their fear of death and
0:45.0	stress the importance of friendship. Epicure in ideas were a major influence on
0:49.3	essence thinkers and offered a radical view of the universe that anticipated far later scientific discoveries such as Darwinian evolution and even quantum mechanics.
0:58.0	With me to discuss Epicureism are Angie Hobbs, professor of the public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield,
1:05.0	David Sedley, Lawrence Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the University of Cambridge,
1:10.0	and James Warren, Reader in Ancient Philosophy, also at the University of Cambridge.
1:14.3	Angie Hobbs, would you begin by telling us about who Epicurus was and what's known about him?
1:18.8	Yes, he seems to have been a very likeable, even lovable man. He was born in 341 BC on the island of
1:26.2	Seamus and he died in 270 BC in Athens. As a young man he studied under a follower of Democritus who was of course one of the
1:36.2	founders of the atomic theory and that was clearly going to be the basis of his future
1:42.0	thought.
1:42.7	When he was 18 he moves to Athens for two years to do the compulsory military service
	...

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