Epicurus/On Matter - β (Περὶ φύσεως β)

A Materialist Edition of Epicurus’ Περὶ φύσεως (On Matter) & Κύριαι Δόξαι (Doxa)

ἀσεβὴς δὲ οὐχ ὁ τοὺςτῶν πολλῶν θεοὺς ἀναιρῶν, ἀλλ ὁ τὰς τῶν πολλῶν δόξας θεοῖς προσάπτων.

The truly religious are not those who deny the false deities worshiped by the multitude, but whoever affirm what the multitude believes about these deities.
Επίκουρος/Epicurus

Materialism demonstrates itself in Epicurus’ (c. 300 BC) On Matter - β (Περὶ φύσεως - β) through the approach to the universe that is nothing more than a sum of atoms and void, and that the deities do not intervene in the universe and human affairs. In the epicurean philosophy, deities did not create the world and the visible forms constitute ideas, doxa. For Epicurus, the material earth and the universe inform thinking. In response, Karl Marx underlined in a doctorate introduction note that philosophy makes no secrets. The commentaries from historical philosophers like Cicero, Plutarch and Gassendi, notably comparing with Lucretius Carus’ De Rerum Natura (c. 99 BC – c. 55 BC), have been repeatedly echoed up to the present day, some attempting to reconcile the monotheist beliefs with Epicurus' atheist philosophy, which is ultimately as futile as trying to drape a Fleur-de-Lis, a nun's habit, over the bright, sensual form of the Greek Lais: “Spirit for the spiritless”. Prometheus, for instance, responded to the servants of the gods, declaring in a quote that human consciousness is the utmost divine, rejecting all the heavenly and earthly deities who do not acknowledge this. Those who rejoice at philosophy's apparently worsened civil standing are mistaken.

Καὶ γὰρ Ἐπίκουρος, ὅταν λέγῃ τὸ πᾶν ἄπειρον εἶναι καὶ ἀγένητον καὶ ἄφθαρτον καὶ μήτ αὐξόμενον μήτε μειούμενον, ὡς περὶ ἑνός τινος διαλέγεται τοῦ παντός. ἐν ἀρχῇ δὲ τῆς πραγματείας ὑπειπὼν τὴν τῶν ὄντων φύσιν σώματα εἶναι καὶ κενὸν ὡς μιᾶς οὔσης εἰς δύο πεποίηται τὴν διαίρεσιν, ὧν θάτερον ὄντως μὲν οὐθέν ἐστιν, ὀνομάζεται δὲ ὑφ' ὑμῶν ἀναφὲς καὶ κενὸν καὶ ἀσώματον. (Πλούταρχος. Προς Κωλώτην υπέρ των άλλων φιλοσόφων.)

When Epicurus says that everything is infinite, it means both unborn and uncorrupted and neither growing nor narrowing, as if everything converges into one thing. In the first book on matter, he interprets that the reality of matter is void and corporeal, as one or two, he believes the division, which is indeed a non-being, but described according to the light, void and incorporeal. (Plutarch. Reply to Colotes in Defence of the Other Philosophers.)

Epicurean cultivation of simple, adequate lifestyles is a form of resisting the governing, dominant systems around the ideas of deities that characterized the ancient Greco-Roman civilization. The true wellness in life, the blissful joy or pleasure, unlike the eudaemonic views, derives from the material conditions and does not symbolize the unbridled excess. Epicurus’ Doxa (Κύριαι Δόξαι) illustrates the practical ways to find wellness (ἡδύνω / hēdúnō) in life, sometimes countering oppressive spirits of the world, and sometimes anxiety-inducing ideas. Epicurean wellness is the state of ataraxia (ἀταραξία) - the tranquil, untroubled happiness and freedom from disturbance. This aligns closely with the psychoanalytic notion of “joy”. Jacques Lacan's concept of jouissance, for instance, marks a profound sense of fulfillment that transcends the mundane pleasures of the material world. Sigmund Freud, too, grappled with the notion of pleasure as an instinctual drive that motivates human behavior and shapes human desires, the psyche’s underlying force. For Epicurus, the doxa of true wellness is the praxis in cultivating the inner ἀταραξία that is the doctrine of balanced wellness, not fully determined by what Lacan described as the cultural symbolic order replete with dominant fictions, traditional wisdoms and spirits, and ideas. Epicurus' mostly untranslated Περὶ φύσεως / On Matter (c. 300 BC - c. 270 BC) coin the contentious word eidolon (εἴδωλον) for the ideas formed in the material reality of the world and the universe.

σιν μαρτύρησιν ἢ μὴ ἀντιμαρτύρησις τῶν λόγων κοπηρίων... οὐδὲ κατὰ φαντασιαν, οὐδὲ γ' ἂν ἐπὶ λογικὴν, καθὼς πολλάκις ποιοῦνται... μὲν ἀπὸ τῶνδέ τινας ὡς βλαβησομένους ἢ ταραχθησομένους εἴρηται. καὶ καθὸ καὶ ψευδῆ τινα καὶ μὴ ὄντα φαμὲν δοξάζειν καὶ καθόλου οὐδὲ λαμβάνειν οὐθὲν φάσμα ἐπινοητικόν, ἀλλὰ ἢ μόνα ὀνόματα. (Περὶ φύσεως - Α)

To witness or not to witness the exhaustive words... Neither by fantasy, nor by logic, for mostly done so... but by both, they say, injured or disturbed... For they glorify false things and non-beings, they never receive any inventive fantasmagoria, but names. (On Matter - A)

μαρ̣τυρεῖ̣τοῖς φ̣αινομένοις· καταφα. νὲς οὖν πάλιν γίνεται ὅτι τὰ εἴδωλα ταχυτῆτά τινα ἀνυπέρβλητον κέκτηται κατὰ τὴν φοράν· καὶ ἐν τοιού. τωι δέ τινι τρόπωι ἔσται περὶ τῆς ταχυτῆ̣τος τῶν ε̣ἰδώλων ἀπόδειξιν ποιήσασθαι· ἐπειδὴ γὰρ ταχὺν̣ οὐ μόνον καὶ κ̣ουφότητα… ἀέρα ἐξ̣ω̣θεῖν δυνατὸν περαιοῖ, φα̣νερὸ ὡς καὶ τοῖς εἰδώλοις ὑπάρχει καὶ αὕτη ἡ δύναμις· εἰ μὲν γὰρ τὸ στ̣ερέμνιον μόνον ἠ δύνατο τὰς. (Περὶ φύσεως - β)

To witness the visible phenomena. When it happens backwards, then the fast forms are insurmountably obtained according to the conveyor, and in that. No matter what the trope of the speed of forms may be, they illustrate themselves. Both fast and light… Let the air cast away powerfully. Obviously, even the forms produce this power. For if the solid is strong enough. (On Matter - β)

The dialectics in Marx's notion of praxis and the philosophical framework of Epicurean doxa, the former meaning practice and the latter thought, is central to the materialist philosophy, for which the material conditions of production are the primary driver of change. Materialism of Epicurus in Doxa reveals a profound and overturning challenge to the status quo, one that continues to resonate with those trying to liberate themselves from the oppression and alienation. Doxa is the means for the material praxis in life for Epicurus, which refers to the commonly-held beliefs, opinions and assumptions. Coupled with other epicurean works that prioritize wellness over sorrow, this is a challenge of the dominant and decisively repressive ideologies of the time and even modern times of progress. Epicurus’ mechanistic comprehension of reality manifests itself in Κύριαι, a praxis serving to demystify and desacralize the governing political and religious ideologies, paving the way for a more egalitarian, conscious philosophy inclusive of all: Κύριαι Δόξαι would unconventionally be translated into English as “the praxis of doxa”.

Unlike the governing laws and spirits, for instance, The Epicurean Garden School in ancient Athens deployed a boldly egalitarian approach that included women and slaves, transcending the traditional barriers of class and sex in the dominant economic system of production. The slaves had unprecedented opportunities to expand their minds, unshackled from the chains that elsewhere confined them. Among the women who joined the Garden was Leontion who actively contributed to the Epicurean philosophical discourse with her sharp pen on the contentious debates about marriage, patriarchy in Athens and ancient Greece, sexuality, female fashion and beauty, with her own perspective and interpretation of epicurean teachings (“Η Λεόντιον και ο Επίκουρος,” Εθνικόν Ημερολόγιον, 1892). This progressive, enlightened atmosphere cultivated by Epicurus represented a radical departure from the male-dominated, hierarchical nature of most other philosophical and religious strands and cults in the ancient world, making it a realm of open inclusion and the pursuit of wisdom.

Ή τῶν ὅλων φύσις σώματά εστί καί κενόν.

Ή τῶν ὅντων φύσις σώματά εστί καί τόπος.

(Περὶ φύσεως - Α)

All the reality of matter is bodies and void.

All the existence in matter is bodies and places.

(On Matter - A)

From a psychoanalytic materialist approach to all of Epicurus’ work, I translated On Matter - β (Περὶ φύσεως - β) and Doxa (Κύριαι Δόξαι) with the praxis of doxa in mind. Though virtually all Marxist interpretations touch upon the practical sights of Epicurean philosophy, no translation of the book β  and the forty Doxa touch even slightly upon the praxis already included in the almighty Κύριαι, the critique.

From a psychoanalytic materialist approach to all of Epicurus’ work, I translated On Matter - β (Περὶ φύσεως - β) and Doxa (Κύριαι Δόξαι) with the praxis of doxa in mind. Though virtually all Marxist interpretations touch upon the practical sights of Epicurean philosophy, no translation of the book β  and the forty Doxa touch even slightly upon the praxis already included in the almighty Κύριαι, the critique.

Tolga Theo Yalur

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