Similarities Between Epicureanism and Pyrrhonism

In some cases Pyrrhonism and Epicureanism look the same - while still being different.

Comparisons between any two philosophies typically focus on their differences. This article will instead focus on the similarities between Epicureanism and Pyrrhonism. In antiquity, there was substantial awareness of these similarities. For example, consider how Julian, Emperor of Rome, Neoplatonist philosopher, and apostate Christian, lumped Epicureanism and Pyrrhonism together:

Let us not admit discourses by Epicureans or Pyrrhonists — though indeed the gods have already in their wisdom destroyed their works, so that most of their books are no longer available. Nevertheless, there is no reason why I should not, by way of example, mention these works too, to show what sort of discourses priests must especially avoid; and if such discourses, then much more must they avoid such thoughts.[1]

A similar example can be found with the satirical poet Lucian of Samosata, who often appears to be writing from a Pyrrhonist perspective, but who praises Epicurus.[2]

I was prompted to write this comparison after having read a review from an Epicurean perspective of my book, Pyrrho’s Way: The Ancient Greek Version of Buddhism, which promotes Pyrrhonism as a modern practice. The author of that review, Hiram Crespo, has fine credentials as a proponent of Modern Epicureanism. He is the founder of the Society of Epicurus and the author of Tending the Epicurean Garden. His review was not a standard book review, discussing what one might like and dislike about a book; instead, it was an Epicurean critique of Pyrrhonism. As far as I have been able to ascertain, it is the first such critique by an Epicurean since antiquity.

In antiquity what was disputed was not so much about how wise and happy people behaved, rather it was by what principles and methods these wise people were able to achieve this behavior. Imagine everyone agreeing that the duck/rabbit image below represents something close to an ideal, but arguing vociferously about how one transforms oneself to look like that. One person argues, “The wise person must have fur and long ears!” Another retorts, “No, the wise person must have feathers and a beak!”

Do you see a duck or a rabbit? They’re both there, in the same image.

Among the Hellenistic philosophies, positions in these debates exhibit similarities and family relationships because some of the same earlier philosophers influenced multiple schools of thought. This is the case with Pyrrhonism and Epicureanism, both of which are philosophical descendants of Democritus, causing them to have much in common. Epicurus admired Pyrrho, and he studied under one of Pyrrho’s students.[3] The Pyrrhonist philosopher Sextus Empiricus even referred to Epicurus as “wise”[4] — praise he gave to no other dogmatist.

On a practical basis, the Epicureans and the other Hellenistic school of hedonism -the Cyrenaics - are largely in agreement with the Pyrrhonists about the senses: they’re all we have to go on, although they do not agree on why this is so. This agreement about the senses is in opposition to other schools that claim to be able to provide things beyond the senses to guide us.

Diogenes Laertius reports this on the Pyrrhonist view of the senses:

In response, those who put forward doctrines claim that the skeptics do away even with life, insofar as they cast out all the things from which life is constituted. But the skeptics say that these critics engage in misrepresentation. For skeptics do not deny that seeing occurs, but they claim ignorance about how we see. For, we accept a given appearance, but not as if it also were such. We perceive that fire burns, but we refrain from declaring whether it has a burning nature. And we see that someone is moving, and that he perishes. But we don’t know how these things occur. Thus, they say, we only take a stand against the non-evident things that subsist beside the appearances. …. This is the reason why Timon in his Pytho avows that he has not stepped beyond customary norms. And he says the following in his Appearances: “But appearance prevails everywhere it goes.” And in his work On Sense Perceptions he says, “I do not posit that honey is sweet, but I concede that it seems so.” And, in the first book of his Pyrrhonian Arguments, Aenesidemus says that Pyrrho determined nothing in a dogmatic fashion because of the opposition of arguments, but that he followed appearances. … Thus, according to the skeptics, that which appears is the criterion. Aenesidemus says this, and so does Epicurus.[5]

Diogenes is a little unclear here at the end as he fails to mention that by “criterion” the Pyrrhonists mean the criterion of action, whereas Epicurus means it to be the criterion of truth. But the key point here is that the Pyrrhonists and Epicureans agree on what criteria to use for decision making: the senses.

In Plutarch’s Table Talk there’s an argument that Epicurean epistemology is just disguised Pyrrhonism.[6]

Now for wine! I should like to know what made you suspect that it is cold.’ I replied: ‘Do you actually think that this is my own theory?’ ‘Who else’s?’ Florus said, and I answered: ‘I remember coming upon Aristotle’s discussion of this question too, not recently but quite a long time ago. And Epicurus in his Symposium has discussed the matter at great length. The sum of what he has to say, I think, is this: he holds that wine is not hot in an absolute sense, but has in it certain atoms productive of heat and others of cold; some of these it throws off when it comes into the body and others it attracts out of the body until it adapts itself to us, whatever our constitution and nature may be. Accordingly, some men become thoroughly hot when drinking, others experience the contrary.’ ‘This’, said Florus, ‘carries us via Protagoras straight to Pyrrho; for it is clear that we shall go on about oil, about milk and honey, and other things in like manner and shall avoid saying about each what its nature is by defining them in terms of their mixtures and union with each other.’

The chief differences between Epicureanism and Pyrrhonism here are about what is claimed, what things are taken to mean, and what they are typically called. These differences tend to be more about how they are viewed conceptually rather than how they are dealt with pragmatically. Pyrrhonism starts with the idea that our sensations and thoughts neither tell the truth nor do they lie. Epicureanism starts with the idea that all sensations are true; all error about sensations stems from erroneous interpretations.

Epicurus, in Principle Doctrine 24, argues that decisions should be based on the appearances and not on beliefs in non-evident propositions (i.e., dogma) that are contrary to the appearances.

If you reject absolutely any single sensation without stopping to discriminate with respect to that which awaits confirmation between matter of opinion and that which is already present, whether in sensation or in feelings or in any immediate perception of the mind, you will throw into confusion even the rest of your sensations by your groundless belief and so you will be rejecting the standard of truth altogether. If in your ideas based upon opinion you hastily affirm as true all that awaits confirmation as well as that which does not, you will not escape error, as you will be maintaining complete ambiguity whenever it is a case of judging between right and wrong opinion.

Epicurus here appears to be reacting to Plato, who argued that sense perception was like shadows and, as such, it did not present the truth. Truth lay beyond the senses. Hence, Plato thought that sense data could be rejected in favor of theories.

Epicurus is saying something similar here to what Zen Master Huang Po said: “The foolish reject what they see, not what they think; the wise reject what they think, not what they see.” One can observe this sort of foolish behavior in people who are so caught up in political and religious beliefs that they deny the plain evidence of the senses.

In Cicero’s On the Ends of Good and Evil, the Epicurean Lucius Torquatus presents the Epicurean case against the Pyrrhonists and Academic Skeptics on this point.

Natural Philosophy [Epicurus] deemed all-important. This science explains to us the meaning of terms, the nature of predication, and the law of consistency and contradiction; secondly, a thorough knowledge of the facts of nature relieves us of the burden of superstition, frees us from fear of death, and shields us against the disturbing effects of ignorance, which is often in itself a cause of terrifying apprehensions; lastly, to learn what nature’s real requirements are improves the moral character also. Besides, it is only by firmly grasping a well-established scientific system, observing the Rule or Canon that has fallen as it were from heaven so that all men may know it only by making that Canon the test of all our judgments, that we can hope always to stand fast in our belief unshaken by the eloquence of any man. On the other hand, without a full understanding of the world of nature it is impossible to maintain the truth of our sense-perceptions. Further, every mental presentation has its origin in sensation: so that no certain knowledge will be possible, unless all sensations are true, as the theory of Epicurus teaches that they are. Those who deny the validity of sensation and say that nothing can be perceived, having excluded the evidence of the senses, are unable even to expound their own argument. Besides, by abolishing knowledge and science they abolish all possibility of rational life and action. Thus Natural Philosophy supplies courage to face the fear of death; resolution to resist the terrors of religion; peace of mind, for it removes all ignorance of the mysteries of nature; self-control, for it explains the nature of the desires and distinguishes their different kinds; and, as I showed just now, the Canon or Criterion of Knowledge, which Epicurus also established, gives a method of discerning truth from falsehood.[7]

This idea that all sensations are true seems preposterous. No other Hellenistic school of philosophy agreed with it. The schools most similar to Epicureanism opted for skeptical epistemologies. Anyone who has had to deal with disputes based on sensation, such as where the thermostat should be set, what tastes good, what sports are enjoyable, etc. would likely think Epicurus’ claim is absurd. Upon deeper investigation, the claim looks even worse. Are the visual sensations of a colorblind person true? How about someone with synesthesia? What about dreams and hallucinations? What about the inability of humans to hear frequencies that dogs can hear?

Epicurus tries to pull off a sleight of hand here, saying that interpretation is the source of all error. Perhaps that might be the case with sensations that require judgment, but someone who cannot differentiate between red and green is not making a judgment error about those colors; they simply don’t see a difference between them. This is not an error; it is a limitation. Our senses are the senses of humans. Other species have different senses. We have no firm basis for judging the differences that exist among the reports of what has been sensed. Therefore, we must conclude that it cannot be true that all sense perceptions are true.

Denying the validity of the senses is not tantamount, as Torquatus claimed, to claiming that nothing can be perceived or that the evidence of the senses is excluded. That’s a straw manning of the Pyrrhonist argument. The Pyrrhonist argument is that the evidence from the senses is limited, contradictory, and thus unreliable; yet at the same time, it is forced upon us, and it is the best information we have to go on for living our lives.

Similarly, for the Pyrrhonists to say that they do not reject evident truths is to say that Pyrrhonists do not reject that things appear a particular way. The classic ancient example of this was about whether honey was sweet. Yes, it appears to be so to Pyrrhonists. There’s no disagreement about that, but we cannot be certain whether honey is sweet by nature. (Remember, in antiquity, there was no understanding of chemistry.)

Epicureanism, on the other hand, treats appearances as truth. This belief cannot be substantiated. Most people consider it obviously wrong and easily disproven.

A key term and key objective that both Pyrrhonism and Epicureanism share is “ataraxia” - defined as a state of being untroubled. As best we can tell, it was Pyrrho who brought the term into philosophy. In earlier, non-philosophical use, the term was used to describe the ideal mental state for soldiers entering battle, something that Pyrrho would have been well acquainted with from having spent years in Alexander the Great’s traveling court during Alexander’s military campaigns. The term is also occasionally used in Stoicism, although the Stoics generally see ataraxia as a byproduct of Stoic practice, not an objective. (William Irvine is a notable exception on this point).

In closing, I’d like to return to the topic of how one sees things. As Aristotle said in his Metaphysics,

All men by nature desire to know. An indication of this is the delight we take in our senses; for even apart from their usefulness they are loved for themselves; and above all others the sense of sight. For not only with a view to action, but even when we are not going to do anything, we prefer seeing (one might say) to everything else.

Each of the Hellenistic philosophies takes a different view on what can be known and how it can be known. On this foundation they each lay out their own views on how to live the best life. This question is far more complicated than the duck/rabbit image this article began with, as the matter can be interpreted so many different ways. In this regard, it is useful to learn the various perspectives and to understand their similarities and differences so that, keeping with the metaphor, one can see the rabbit when one school of thought talks about the rabbit and then see the duck when another school talks about the duck.

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[1] Fragmentum Epistulae 288a-305d

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucian#Views (retrieved 12 September 2020)

[3] Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, Book IX, Chapter 11, Section 64: In debate he was looked down upon by no one, for he could both discourse at length and also sustain a cross-examination, so that even Nausiphanes when a young man was captivated by him: at all events he used to say that we should follow Pyrrho in disposition but himself in doctrine; and he would often remark that Epicurus, greatly admiring Pyrrho’s way of life, regularly asked him for information about Pyrrho….

[4] Sextus Empiricus, Against the Grammarians, Chapter 3, Section 57.

[5] Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, Book IX, Chapter 11, Sections 104–106 (Translation from Pyrrhonian Skepticism in Diogenes Laertius)

[6] Plutarch, Table Talk, 651 E — 652 A

[7] Cicero, On the Ends of Good and Evil, Chapter 19

[8] Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights, IX.5.2: Epicurus makes pleasure the highest good but defines it as sarkos eustathes katastema, or “a well-balanced condition of the body.”