Materialism

From Epicurus Wiki

Epicureanism is a decidedly materialistic philosophy.

Epicurean materialism must not be misunderstood in the sense attached to the term by popular culture (i.e. the love of material possessions), but in the sense that everything that exists is material. The less common, but perhaps more precise term used on occasion is "physicalism".

In this respect, Epicureans and Stoics are aligned in comprehending the real as material; they differ from Platonic and Neoplatonic thinkers and, of course, religious spiritualists.

Epicurus and his followers discussed at length the atomic constitution of all matter, and the ubiquity of matter itself, as "surrounded by void".

The Epicurean attempts to explain optical, acoustical, thermal, etc. phenomena in strictly material terms have been completed and complemented by modern physics, and its foundational correlation between matter and energy.

Epicurean materialism has been a rich source of ideas for further development, and by such notable thinkers as Pierre Gassendi and Karl Marx.

But in ancient times as well: precisely since 91 in Rome, Asclepiàdes of Bithynia (124 - 40 BCE av.) was the head of a first atomistic private school of medicine (Schola medicorum). According to Galen he was an Epicurean: atoms, mortality of soul, no mantic dreams, influence and possibly acquaintance with Zeno of Sydon's psychotherapic methodology, and Phaedrus' in Italy. He studied in Alexandria, where Erophilus (anti-teleologist) and Erasistratus (zenith of career in 258 BC) had been active, performing dissections and vivisection of sensory and motor nerves. A . treated according to material nature's organization, rejecting teleological patterns, re-establishing organic whole for acute diseases without intentional shamanism, with massages, exercises, hydrotherapy, diet, ... wine as a sedative, surgery [Pliny, Nat. Hist. XXVI, 7, 3] and the chronical ones through kindness and attention: “Where there is love of human, there is also love of the art”; he introduced emetics, enemas, bloodletting, acupuncture for dropsy, pharingotomy; he found microbes in polluted water may cause disease. For A. body is constituted by corpuscle/molecules (ogkoi ) spaced out by poroi (holes), which may be disintegrated up to particles by some trauma. Apperception has a major role in the knowledge, and speech therapy in order to re-establishes mental equilibrium. “Nature not only helps but also harms” [in Caelius, Diseases 1.109: no providence]. A fragment of Epicurean psychotherapy (Epikoyros meant helper) taught for instance: “When to opinion of a big evil is added another opinion too, that it's necessary, it's right , it's our duty to grieve for a misfortune, then it causes the storm of depression. Agamemnon tore his hair out, as if baldness helped to simplify his problems. All these scenes are made by assumption they are due.”[Tusc. Disp.]. He established old persons' intelligence seems better but is actually worses [Sextus, A.M. VII 323]. If soul is bodily it's subject to wear... Some Alexandrine scientific researches (nervous and circulatory systems), recognizable in Lucretius' physiology, not found in Perì Physeos' fragments so far, have suggested a Lucretius' discipleship at A.' school. By his followers, e.g. Themison and Antonius Musa and the Methodist school, he remained a legendary figure : he took credit of the resurrection of a dead ... [according to Pliny the Elder. Possibly a case of catalepsy].
A portrait of Asclepiàdes has been found in Capitol.