Tim O'Keefe

In this book, Tim O'Keefe reconstructs the theory of freedom of the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus (341-271/0 BCE). Epicurus' theory has attracted much interest, but our attempts to understand it have been hampered by reading it anachronistically as the discovery of the modern problem of free will and determinism. O'Keefe argues that the sort of freedom which Epicurus wanted to preserve is significantly different from the 'free will' which philosophers debate today, and that in its emphasis on rational action it has much closer affinities with Aristotle's thought than with current preoccupations. His original and provocative book will be of interest to a wide range of readers in Hellenistic philosophy.

The Epicureans advocate a moderately ascetic lifestyle on instrumental grounds, as the most effective means to securing tranquility. The virtuous person will reduce his desires to what is natural and necessary in order to avoid the trouble and anxiety caused by excessive desire. So much is clear from Epicurus' general ethics. But the later Epicurean Philodemus fills in far more detail about the attitude a wise Epicurean will take toward wealth in his treatise On Property Management. This paper explores some of Philodemus' distinctive doctrines and argues that Philodemus' position on crafts is an improvement on the Socratic and Aristotelian positions that he is reacting against. Philodemus rejects both constraints on what counts as a genuine craft proposed by Socrates in the Gorgias: that a craft aims at a genuine good, and that it is based on a grasp of the nature of its subject. Philodemus also rejects the attempts of Xenophon and Theophrastus to preserve an important place for the craft of property management, conceived of as aiming at maximizing your wealth, within the Socratic and Aristotelian ethical tradition that puts virtue and virtuous activity at the center of the happy life. According to Philodemus, cultivating and exercising the traditional technê of property management is actually incompatible with being a virtuous person and obtaining happiness.

In De Rerum Natura III 963-971, Lucretius argues that death should not be feared because it is a necessary part of the natural cycle of life and death. This argument has received little philosophical attention, except by Martha Nussbaum, who asserts it is quite strong. However, Nussbaum's view is unsustainable, and I offer my own reading. I agree with Nussbaum that, as she construes it, the cycle of life argument is quite distinct from the better-known Epicurean arguments: not only does it start from different premises, but it is a completely different type of argument. However, thus construed, it is deeply problematic. It relies on premises that are much more at home in Stoic than in Epicurean ethics, and Lucretius' appeal to nature in this argument contradicts what he says elsewhere in De Rerum Natura. I consider why Lucretius offers what appears to be such a flawed argument, and I propose a reading on which the cycle of life argument could be offered consistently by an Epicurean. The cycle of life argument, unlike the better-known arguments, does not attempt directly to show that death is not a bad thing. Instead, it targets certain destructive attitudes towards one's life that result in one fearing death. By helping relieve the interlocutor of these attitudes, the argument aims at reducing his fear of death.

Epicurus' "On Nature" 25 is the key text for anti-reductionist interpretations of Epicurus' philosophy of mind. In it, Epicurus is trying to argue against those, like Democritus, who say that everything occurs 'of necessity,' and in the course of this argument, he says many things that appear to conflict with an Identity Theory of Mind and with causal determinism. In this paper, I engage in a close reading of this text in order to show that it does not contain any clear statement of either a doctrine of radically emergent properties and "downwards causation" (contra David Sedley) or of the non-reducibility of the mental to the atomic (contra Julia Annas). I argue that Epicurus' main thesis is that we cannot consistently argue against our conception of ourselves as rational agents, and that it is our reason that allows us to reform our characters, control our actions, and blame and praise one another appropriately. The way that Epicurus describes the development and causal efficacy of reason in "On Nature" book 25 is consistent both with reductionism and (more surprisingly) with causal determinism

This introduction to Epicureanism offers students and general readers a clear exposition of the central tenets of Epicurean philosophy, one of the dominant schools of the Hellenistic period. Founded by Epicurus of Samos (c. 341–270 BCE), it held that for a human being the greatest good was to attain tranquility, free from fear and bodily pain, by seeking to understand the workings of the world and the limits of our desires. Tim O’Keefe provides an extended exegesis of the arguments that support Epicurean philosophical positions, analyzing both their strengths and their weaknesses while showing how the different areas of Epicurean inquiry come together to make a whole.

The few people familiar with the pseudo-Platonic dialogue Axiochus generally have a low opinion of it. It's easy to see why: the dialogue is a mish-mash of Platonic, Epicurean and Cynic arguments against the fear of death, seemingly tossed together with no regard whatsoever for their consistency. As Furley notes, the Axiochus appears to be horribly confused. Whereas in the Apology Socrates argues that death is either annihilation or a relocation of the soul, and is a blessing either way, "the Socrates of the Axiochus wants to have it both ways": death is both annihilation and a release of the soul from the body into a better realm. This may be used to construct a valid argument for the conclusion that death is not evil, but at the expense of having a contradiction as one of its premises. But D. S. Hutchinson has recently proposed that these inconsistencies shouldn't surprise us if we view the Axiochus as "an unconventional version of a very conventional genre--the consolation letter." In this paper I expand on Hutchinson's brief suggestion and argue that the Axiochus can be rehabilitated by paying attention to its genre. Although the Axiochus does display many similarities to the consolation letter, the shift from letter to dialogue does--pace Hutchinson--significantly affect what's going on. Within the dialogue, Socrates behaves toward Axiochus in a way similar to the way the author of a consolation letter behaves towards the letter's reader: he is willing to use inconsistent arguments, borrowed from any source, in order to soothe the patient. However, in depicting this type of consolatory relationship between Socrates and Axiochus, the dialogue itself is not aiming at consoling its readers. Instead, it should be seen as displaying for the reader's consideration a certain type of consolatory argumentative practice. Socrates notes that Axiochus is "very much in need of consolation" (365a), and he uses any means necessary to accomplish this task. Socrates exhibits many ways in which he is willing to sacrifice argumentative hygiene for the sake of therapeutic effectiveness. These include: * Use of arguments with inconsistent premises, presented in propria persona. * Appeals to emotion * Tailoring arguments to the audience. * Presenting invalid arguments so as to induce unjustified but comforting beliefs. * Evasion. In these respects, I think that Socrates' argumentative practice is best compared to PH III 280-1, where Sextus Empiricus says that the skeptic will deliberately use logically weak arguments as long as they work. Dorothy Tarrant claims that what links the Socrates of the Axiochus to Socrates as he appears elsewhere in the Platonic corpus is his evident care for the welfare of his interlocutor's psyche. But this concern takes a quite different form in the Axiochus than it usually does. As with Sextus, psychic therapy in the Axiochus involves relief from pain. The primary difference between them is that Socrates, unlike Sextus, is not aiming at producing epochê in his patient.

The Cyrenaics assert that (1) particular pleasure is the highest good, and happiness is valued not for its own sake, but only for the sake of the particular pleasures that compose it; (2) we should not forego present pleasures for the sake of obtaining greater pleasure in the future. Their anti-eudaimonism and lack of future-concern do not follow from their hedonism. So why do they assert (1) and (2)? After reviewing and criticizing the proposals put forward by Annas, Irwin and Tsouna, I offer two possible reconstructions. In the first reconstruction, I explain claim (1) as follows: happiness has no value above and beyond the value of the particular pleasures that compose it. Also, there is no "structure" to happiness. The Cyrenaics are targeting the thesis that happiness involves having the activities of one's life forming an organized whole, the value of which cannot be reduced to the value of the experiences within that life. I explain claim (2) as follows: a maximally pleasant life is valuable, but the best way to achieve it is to concentrate heedlessly on the present. In the second reconstruction, the good is radically relativized to one's present preferences. The Cyrenaics assert that we desire some particular pleasure, e.g., the pleasure that results from having this drink now. Thus, our telos -- which is based upon our desires -- is this particular pleasure, not (generic) 'pleasure' or the maximization of pleasure over our lifetime. As our desires change, so does our telos. I conclude that the scanty texts we have do not allow us to decide conclusively between these reconstructions, but I give some reasons to support the second over the first

Epicurus is strongly committed to psychological and ethical egoism and hedonism. However, these commitments do not square easily with many of the claims made by Epicureans about friendship: for instance, that the wise man will sometimes die for his friend, that the wise man will love his friend as much as himself, feel exactly the same toward his friend as toward himself, and exert himself as much for his friend's pleasure as for his own, and that every friendship is worth choosing for its own sake. These claims have led some scholars to assert that Epicurus inconsistently affirms that friendship has an altruistic element. I argue that the Epicurean claims about friendship can be reconciled with egoism and hedonism in psychology and ethics. Friendship is valuable because having friends provides one with security more effectively than any other means, and having confidence that one will be secure in the future either is identical to ataraxia, or the grounds on which one has it.

David Furley's work on the cosmologies of classical antiquity is structured around what he calls "two pictures of the world." The first picture, defended by both Plato and Aristotle, portrays the universe, or all that there is (to pan), as identical with our particular ordered world-system. Thus, the adherents of this view claim that the universe is finite and unique. The second system, defended by Leucippus and Democritus, portrays an infinite universe within which our particular kosmos is only one of countless kosmoi. Aristotle's argument in De caelo I.9 that the world is necessarily unique is an important contribution to this debate. This argument holds interest because it shows Aristotle wrestling with an apparent inconsistency in his own philosophy, as deeply-held convictions within his cosmology collide with an equally deeply-held conviction within his metaphysics. The following three principles, each of which Aristotle appears committed to, are inconsistent: -/- The cosmic uniqueness principle. The world is necessarily unique. The cosmic form principle. The world is an ordered, structured unity. As such, the world has a form. The possibility of multiple instantiation principle. For all F, if F is a form, it is possible that there exist multiple Fs. In De caelo I.9, Aristotle argues that we can establish the uniqueness of the universe, reject the multiple instantiation principle, yet still retain the distinction between 'this world' and 'world in general,' if the following is true (as it is): the world takes up all the matter that exists. Aristotle illustrates this argument with one of the stranger analogies in his corpus: imagine an aquiline nose that takes up all the flesh in the universe. If this were so, then there could not exist any other aquiline objects whatsoever. (For this reason, we dub the De caelo I.9 argument the 'Cosmic Nose argument.') This paper is an interpretation of how this argument is supposed to proceed and an assessment of its success. The first section states the problem Aristotle is confronted with, sorts through Aristotle's various statements of the Cosmic Nose argument, which exhibit some sloppiness, and reconstructs charitably a single argument. We also spend some time examining the significance of Aristotle's example of a gigantic aquiline nose. We argue that, even charitably reconstructed, the argument appears to commit a serious modal fallacy. The remainder of the paper explores whether this modal fallacy can be overcome. We conclude that, although not a cogent argument for the uniqueness of the world (as this would require a significant revision of our current astronomy), the Cosmic Nose argument does succeed on its own terms. However, it should not be regarded as a free-standing argument for the uniqueness of the world. Instead, it depends crucially on the earlier argument in De caelo I.8 for the universe's uniqueness; De caelo I.9 should be viewed as an attempt to extend the conclusion of De caelo I.8 and to show how this conclusion can be made consistent with Aristotle's metaphysical principles about the nature of form.

This paper focuses on two questions: (I) why do the Cyrenaics deny that we can gain knowledge concerning "external things," and (II) how wide-ranging is this denial? On the first question, I argue that the Cyrenaics are skeptical because of their contrast between the indubitable grasp we have of own affections, versus the inaccessibility of external things that cause these affections. Furthermore, this inaccessibility is due to our cognitive and perceptual limitations--it is an epistemological doctrine rooted in their psychology--and not (pace Zilioli) due to any metaphysical theses regarding the external world. On the second question, I argue (pace Tsouna and Warren) that the scope of the Cyrenaics' skepticism is quite wide. Our reports on the Cyrenaics are inconsistent, but the most charitable and plausible reading results in attributing to the Cyrenaics skepticism not merely about the properties of external things (e.g., that the fire that warms me is really hot) of also of their nature and identity (e.g., that the object that warms me is a fire). However, it does not extend to skepticism regarding the existence of an external world.