9 - Epicurean ‘passions’ and the good life

Summary

In this essay, I investigate the status of the pathē (plural of pathos) in Epicurean psychology. It will emerge that Epicurus had a very narrow view of the significance of this term, in comparison with its use among his contemporaries (and some of his followers). What is more, this restriction has important consequences for Epicurus' understanding both of the emotions and of the goal of life in general.

In popular as well as philosophical literature of the late fifth century onward, pathos is the normal Greek word for ‘emotion’. The term nevertheless retained a wide range of connotations, and if it came to refer specifically to emotion only in ‘the 420s and probably later’ (Harris 2001: 84), it was not limited to this meaning either in everyday or scientific usage. For example, the word often bears the sense of an accident or misfortune, as well as the neutral significance of a condition or state of affairs. In philosophical language, pathos may signify a secondary quality as opposed to the essence of a thing (cf. Aristotle, Met. 5.21, 1022b15–21;Urmson 1990: 126–7). Even in the domain of psychology, pathos might well include sensations such as pleasure and pain, and also desires or appetites, which we do not necessarily classify as emotions in the strict sense of the term – nor did Aristotle.