Epicureanism And Democritus Philosophy

EPICUREANISM

After Aristotle’s death, philosophy moved in a new direction. A lot of groups helped this new direction to form new ones and one of them is Epicureanism, and it was Epicurus of Samos who founded this philosophy. This philosophy was greatly influenced by Democritus’ atomic theory of nature. Epicurus was a practical philosopher who considered philosophy as the medicine of the soul. His philosophy was based on atomistic materialism that emphasizes the human life’s pleasure. Being the follower of Democritus, Epicurus followed Democritus’ view on what the world is composed of. He basically maintained that everything is composed of atoms in empty space. To him, the human life’s aim is pleasure, but his perception of pleasure was just

During his time, people were disturbed by the contradiction in things and plagued by doubt as to which alternative they should believe. The Skeptics thought that if they can separate truth from falsehood they could then attain mental tranquility. They noticed that the people who were searching for the truth was divided into three parts, (1) the people who thinks they know the truth, which they call Dogmatists, (2) those who admits that they were not able to found the truth, which they also considered a dogmatic position and (3) lastly, those who were still looking for it. Sextus states that the skepticism is not the denial of locating the truth but rather it is a continuous process of inquiry in which every explanation of experience is tested by counterexperience. Skeptics do not affirm nor deny anything but they have to suspend judgment in order to achieve the undisturbed and calm mental

In Aristotelian’s the Unmoved Mover, there’s this prime mover or first cause that’s necessary to explain its existence and its main allude is that God as the First cause. To begin with, Aristotle’s cosmological view on God as the Unmoved Mover is the ultimate cause of all change in the natural world. Aristotle distinguished a distinction between potentiality and actuality; he concluded that the only way to explain how the change can happen is to think that something actual is prior to whatever is potential. According to Aristotle, the mover is not an efficient cause, a mighty force exerting its power. He referred the Unmoved Mover as the “reason for” or the “principle of” motion. For the reason that the Unmoved Mover was able to withheld the actual and eternal principle of motion. He argued also that aside from this Unmoved Mover there is no cause of everything. He believed that there is an eternal cosmos with no beginning or no end. Having Parmenides’ philosophical works as his basis, at some, he basically followed Parmenides’ famous statement, “nothing comes from nothing”. Summarizing his causes, Aristotle said that “all things that come to be come to be by some agency and from something, and come to be something.” Aristotle considered the Unmoved Mover as the form and the world as the substance. He also considered the Unmoved Mover as the final cause and by being the final