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17Physics and epistemologyIn Frisbee Sheffield & James Warren (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Ancient Philosophy, Routledge. pp. 455. 2013.
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206The Ontological Status of Sensible Qualities for Democritus and EpicurusAncient Philosophy 17 (1): 119-134. 1997.One striking oddity about Democritus and Epicurus is that, even though Epicurus' theory of perception is largely the same as that of Democritus, Democritus and his followers draw skeptical conclusions from this theory of perception, whereas Epicurus declares that all perceptions are true or real. I believe that the dispute between Democritus and Epicurus stems from a question over what sort of ontological status should be assigned to sensible qualities. In this paper, I address three questions: …Read more
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96EpicurusIn Chiara Rover (ed.), Encyclopedia of Scepticism and Jewish Tradition, Brill. forthcoming.Encyclopedia entry on Epicurus' theology. It considers the negative side of Epicurean theology and its basis in their physics, the Epicureans’ positive view of the nature of the gods and how they use it to critique popular religion, and the psychological benefits that they claim result from having correct views about the gods.
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371The Annicerean Cyrenaics on Friendship and Habitual Good WillPhronesis: A Journal for Ancient Philosophy 62 (3): 305-318. 2017.Unlike mainstream Cyrenaics, the Annicereans deny that friendship is chosen only because of its usefulness. Instead, the wise person cares for her friend and endures pains for him because of her goodwill and love. Nonetheless, the Annicereans maintain that your own pleasure is the telos and that a friend’s happiness isn’t intrinsically choiceworthy. Their position appears internally inconsistent or to attribute doublethink to the wise person. But we can avoid these problems. We have good textual…Read more
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43The Birth of Hedonism: The Cyrenaic Philosophers and Pleasure as a Way of Life. (review)Ancient Philosophy 37 (1): 185-192. 2017.
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404The Normativity of Nature in Epicurean Ethics and PoliticsIn Peter Adamson & Christof Rapp (eds.), State and Nature: Studies in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, De Gruyter. pp. 181-199. 2021.Appeals to nature are ubiquitous in Epicurean ethics and politics. The foundation of Epicurean ethics is its claim that pleasure is the sole intrinsic good and pain the sole intrinsic evil, and this is supposedly shown by the behavior of infants who have not yet been corrupted, "when nature's judgement is pure and whole." Central to their recommendations about how to attain pleasure is their division between types of desires: the natural and necessary ones, the natural but non-necessary ones, an…Read more
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256(J.) Sellars The Pocket Epicurean. Pp. vi + 126. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2021. Cased, US$12.50. ISBN: 978-0-226-79864-6 (review)The Classical Review 73 (1): 1-1. 2023.Positive review of Sellars' short introduction to Epicureanism considered as a way of life.
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634The Epicureanism of LucretiusIn David Konstan, Myrto Garani & Gretchen Reydams-Schils (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Roman Philosophy, Oxford University Press, Usa. pp. 143-158. 2022.What is distinctive about Lucretius’s version of Epicureanism? The answer might appear to be “nothing,” for two reasons. First, Epicureanism in general is doctrinally conservative, with followers of Epicurus claiming to follow his authority. Second, Lucretius claims to be merely transmitting the arguments of his beloved master Epicurus in a pleasing manner. I argue that these considerations do not prevent De Rerum Natura from presenting a distinct version of Epicureanism. Its arguments in physi…Read more
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119Ancient Theories of Freedom and DeterminismStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 00-00. 2020.A fairly long (~15,000 word) overview of ancient theories of freedom and determinism. It covers the supposed threat of causal determinism to "free will," i.e., the sort of control we need to have in order to be rightly held responsible for our actions. But it also discusses fatalistic arguments that proceed from the Principle of Bivalence, what responsibility we have for our own characters, and god and fate. Philosophers discussed include Aristotle, Epicurus, the Stoics, Carneades, Alexander of …Read more
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792Achieving Tranquility: Epicurus on Living without FearIn Jacob Klein & Nathan Powers (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Hellenistic Philosophy, Oxford University Press. forthcoming.Explores the role of eliminating fear in Epicurean ethics and physics, focusing on techniques to eliminate the fear of death and the fear of the gods. Includes a taxonomy of types of fear and types of therapy for fear.
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559Epicurean Advice for the Modern ConsumerIn Kelly Arenson (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Hellenistic Philosophy, Routledge. pp. 407-416. 2020.Epicurus thought that the conventional values of Greek society—in particular, its celebration of luxury and wealth—often led people astray. It is by rejecting these values, reducing our desires, and leading a moderately ascetic life that we can attain happiness. But Epicurus’ message is also pertinent for those of us in modern Western culture, with an economy based on constant consumption and an advertising industry that molds us to serve that economy by enlarging our desires. This paper begins …Read more
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253Lucretius and the Philosophical Use of Literary PersuasionIn Donncha O'Rourke (ed.), Approaches to Lucretius: Traditions and Innovations in Reading the de Rerum Natura, Cambridge University Press. pp. 177-194. 2020.The first part of this paper looks into the question of Lucretius’ philosophical sources and whether he draws almost exclusively from Epicurus himself or also from later Epicurean texts. I argue that such debates are inconclusive and likely will remain so, even if additional Epicurean texts are discovered, and that even if we were able to ascertain Lucretius’ philosophical sources, doing so would add little to our understanding of the De Rerum Natura. The second part of the paper turns to a cons…Read more
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39Warren, The Pleasures of Reason in Plato, Aristotle, and the Hellenistic Hedonists (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 1. 2015.
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Epicurus on Reductionism, Determinism and FreedomDissertation, The University of Texas at Austin. 1997.Because of the "swerve," it is often thought that Epicurus is the first philosopher to offer a libertarian solution to the so-called "problem of free will." I argue that Epicurus is not a libertarian. The rest of Epicurus' philosophy is incompatible with libertarianism. Epicurus is a materialist and a reductionist. Only atoms and void exist per se, and all events are explicable in terms of the mechanical interaction of atoms. This reductionism holds in his philosophy of mind also: the mind is id…Read more
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220Anaxarchus on Indifference, Happiness, and ConventionIn Wolfsdorf David (ed.), Ancient Greek Ethics, Oxford University Press. pp. 680-699. 2020.Anaxarchus accompanied Pyrrho on Alexander the Great’s expedition to India and was known as “the Happy Man” because of his impassivity and contentment. Our sources on his philosophy are limited and largely consist of anecdotes about his interactions with Pyrrho and Alexander, but they allow us to reconstruct a distinctive ethical position. It overlaps with several disparate ethical traditions but is not merely a hodge-podge; it hangs together as a unified whole. Like Pyrrho, he asserts that thin…Read more
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253The Cyrenaics vs. the Pyrrhonists on knowledge of appearancesIn Diego E. Machuca (ed.), New essays on ancient Pyrrhonism, Brill. pp. 27-40. 2011.In Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Sextus Empiricus takes pains to differentiate the skeptical way of life from other positions with which it is often confused, and in the course of this discussion he briefly explains how skepticism differs from Cyrenaicism. Surprisingly, Sextus does not mention an important apparent difference between the two. The Cyrenaics have a positive epistemic commitment--that we can apprehend our own affections. Although we cannot know whether the honey is really sweet, we can k…Read more
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337LucretiusIn Patricia O'Grady (ed.), Meet the Philosophers of Ancient Greece,, . 2005.Titus Lucretius Carus was an ardent disciple of Epicurus and the author of the De Rerum Natura, one of the greatest poems in Latin. Other than his approximate dates of birth and death, we have next to no reliable information about him. Because of his family name and his apparent familiarity with Roman upper-class mores, it is thought that Lucretius was probably a member of the aristocratic clan of the Lucretii, but this is not certain. And so any insight we wish to gain into the thought and pers…Read more
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28CyrenaicsInternet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2001.Overview of this minor Socratic school, including their skepticism and hedonistic ethics.
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625The Stoics on Fate and FreedomIn Kevin Timpe, Meghan Griffith & Neil Levy (eds.), Routledge Companion to Free Will., Routledge. pp. 236-246. 2017.Overview of the Stoic position. Looks at the roots of their determinism in their theology, their response to the 'lazy argument' that believing that all things are fated makes action pointless, their analysis of human action and how it allows actions to be 'up to us,' their rejection of the Principle of Alternate Possibilities, their rejection of anger and other negative reactive attitudes, and their contention that submission to god's will brings true freedom.
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39Metaphysics Epsilon 2-3 and Nicomachean Ethics III 5 (1114b3-25) are often cited in favor of indeterminist interpretations of Aristotle. In Metaphysics Epsilon Aristotle denies that the coincidental has an aitia, and some (e.g., Sorabji) take this as a denial that coincidences have causes. In NE III 5 Aristotle says a person's actions and character must have their origin (archê) in the agent for him to be responsible for them. From this, some conclude that Aristotle thinks a person can be the un…Read more
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107Pamela Gordon, The Invention and Gendering of Epicurus (review)Phoenix 67 (3-4): 405-407. 2013.
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59Epicurus on freedomCambridge University Press. 2005.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 …Read more
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29AnaxarchusInternet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2006.Overview of the philosophy of this atomist, sophist, and compatriot of Pyrrho.
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454The Epicureans on happiness, wealth, and the deviant craft of property managementIn Jennifer A. Baker & Mark D. White (eds.), Economics and the Virtues: Building a New Moral Foundation, Oxford University Press. pp. 37-52. 2016.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 e…Read more
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918Lucretius on the Cycle of Life and the Fear of DeathApeiron 36 (1). 2003.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…Read more
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