Epicurus
Greek philosopher (341–270 BC), born on the island of Samos into a family of Athenian colonists, initially trained in the Democritean and Platonic traditions before developing his own original philosophical system, which he set out from 306 BC in Athens at a school known as the Garden, where, unusually for the time, he admitted women and slaves as full members of the philosophical community. Epicurus's philosophical system is traditionally divided into three interconnected branches: the canonic, or theory of knowledge, based on fundamental trust in sensory perceptions as the ultimate criterion of truth; physics, heir to Democritean atomism, according to which all reality is composed of atoms and void in constant motion, including the so-called 'clinamen', or random swerve of atoms, which Epicurus introduced precisely to safeguard the existence of human free will against a strictly deterministic universe; and, above all, ethics, the central branch and ultimate purpose of his entire system. Contrary to the popular and pejorative interpretation of the term 'epicurean' as a synonym for unbridled pleasure, Epicurus argued that true pleasure, understood as the absence of bodily pain (aponia) and mental disturbance (ataraxia), is attained through a simple, moderate life free from unnecessary desires, since purely sensory and unlimited pleasures ultimately generate more suffering than satisfaction. One of his most famous arguments dissolves the fear of death: 'when we exist, death is not present; and when death is present, we no longer exist', reasoning designed to free human beings from one of their greatest sources of anguish. Epicurus also defended a peculiar theology according to which the gods exist but live entirely indifferent to human affairs, neither intervening, punishing nor rewarding, which removes another traditional cause of religious fear. Although the vast majority of his original work has been lost, preserved only fragmentarily through letters, maxims and Lucretius's poem On the Nature of Things, Epicureanism exerted a lasting influence on all of Hellenistic philosophy and, later, on modern thinkers such as Gassendi and Marx, who dedicated his doctoral thesis to him.