Principal Doctrines

Overview and Authorship

The Principal Doctrines (Κύριαι Δόξαι, Kuriai Doxai) is a compact collection of forty maxims attributed to the Greek philosopher Epicurus (341–270 BCE), founder of the Epicurean school. The work is primarily known through its inclusion in Diogenes Laertius’ Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (Book X), where it appears as an authoritative summary of Epicurean ethical teaching.

Scholars generally regard the doctrines as either composed or officially sanctioned by Epicurus himself, possibly extracted from longer works such as On the End or On Choice and Avoidance. The title “Principal Doctrines” suggests these were considered canonical guidelines for Epicurean adherents, concise enough to be memorized and used as practical norms.

Structure and Thematic Content

The forty doctrines are aphoristic statements, not a continuous argumentative treatise. They are often grouped thematically:

1. Doctrines 1–4: The Tetrapharmakos and the Goal of Life
   These opening maxims establish the core therapeutic message. They emphasize that:

   • The gods are blessed and immortal, unconcerned with human affairs.
   • Death is nothing to us, since all good and bad depend on sensation, which ceases at death.
   • Pleasure is the beginning and end of the blessed life, but properly understood as the absence of bodily pain and mental disturbance.
   • Prudence (practical wisdom) is the chief virtue, because it directs the pursuit of pleasures and avoidance of pains.

   Later Epicureans compressed much of this into the so‑called tetrapharmakos (“fourfold remedy”), though that mnemonic is not itself part of the Principal Doctrines.

2. Doctrines 5–14: Pleasure, Desire, and Self-Sufficiency
   These doctrines distinguish among kinds of desires:

   • Natural and necessary (e.g., for food, shelter, friendship)
   • Natural but not necessary (e.g., variety in food)
   • Neither natural nor necessary (e.g., fame, luxury)

   Epicurus maintains that happiness requires satisfying only the natural and necessary desires and cultivating autarkeia (self-sufficiency). Simple living is praised not for its own sake, but because it makes pleasure secure and anxiety minimal.

3. Doctrines 15–25: Prudence, Fate, and the Limits of Pleasure
   These maxims clarify that:

   • The wise person calculates long-term consequences of actions, sometimes accepting short-term pain for greater future pleasure.
   • There are natural limits to pleasure, once the body is free from pain and the mind from disturbance; seeking more beyond this point often reintroduces trouble.
   • Human agency is compatible with a broadly deterministic world; fear of fate or necessity should not disturb the mind.

4. Doctrines 26–38: Justice, Law, and Social Relations
   A substantial portion is devoted to Epicurus’ distinctive conception of justice as a type of mutual advantage:

   • Justice is not an absolute property in nature but a convention grounded in agreements not to harm or be harmed.
   • A law is just only if it actually serves mutual benefit; when it no longer does, its status as just lapses.
   • Fear of punishment and social disgrace disturbs the mind; the just person avoids such disturbance by living in ways that conform to mutually beneficial agreements.

   Friendship is also treated as a crucial source of security and pleasure, though it is discussed more fully in Epicurus’ letters than in these specific doctrines.

5. Doctrines 39–40: The Wise Person’s Life
   The final doctrines summarize the ideal Epicurean lifestyle, depicting the wise person as:

   • Secure in friendship and community
   • Free from superstition and fear of death
   • Moderately equipped with material goods, but chiefly rich in mental tranquility (ataraxia)

These themes link ethics with Epicurus’ broader atomist physics and theology, although the Principal Doctrines itself largely brackets detailed arguments in favor of practical conclusions.

Ethical and Philosophical Significance

The Principal Doctrines is central to understanding Epicurean hedonism. Pleasure is identified as the ultimate good, yet pleasure is redefined in a distinctive way: the highest pleasure is the stable state in which bodily pain (aponia) and mental turmoil (ataraxia) are absent, rather than an unending succession of intense sensations. Proponents interpret this as a sophisticated response to critics who associated hedonism with crude sensualism.

The text also articulates an influential subjective but naturalist account of value. Good and bad are grounded in sentience—experiences of pleasure and pain—yet Epicurus insists that there are objective facts about human nature that explain why some desires are easier to satisfy and less destabilizing. This underlies his argument that simple living, friendship, and philosophical reflection reliably contribute to happiness.

In political philosophy, the doctrines on justice advance an early contractarian theory. Justice is explained as a system of reciprocal agreements that emerges to prevent harm and promote security. Critics contend that this account struggles to capture intuitions about justice in cases where no actual agreement exists or where mutual advantage is asymmetrical. Defenders argue that Epicurus offers a pragmatic conception of justice suited to the overarching goal of tranquility, not a theory of ideal fairness.

Theologically, the doctrines affirm the existence of gods but deny their involvement in human affairs, thereby displacing fear of divine punishment. Some interpreters view this as a genuine pious position, others as a cautious way to avoid charges of atheism, with the doctrines serving a primarily therapeutic function against religious anxiety.

Transmission and Later Reception

The text survives mainly through Diogenes Laertius (3rd century CE), who presents it as part of the Epicurean canon. Epicurean communities in antiquity appear to have used the doctrines as memorization material, alongside the Letter to Menoeceus and the Vatican Sayings. Inscriptions from the Epicurean Diogenes of Oinoanda (2nd century CE) echo many of the doctrines’ themes, suggesting their enduring role as a concise doctrinal summary.

In late antiquity and the Middle Ages, the work was little studied in the Latin West, though Epicurean ideas were often referenced polemically. With the Renaissance recovery of Greek texts and the later publication of Diogenes Laertius, the Principal Doctrines contributed to renewed debates about pleasure, secular ethics, and natural religion. Early modern thinkers such as Pierre Gassendi engaged with Epicureanism, sometimes attempting to reconcile it with Christianity.

In contemporary scholarship, the Principal Doctrines is treated as a key source for reconstructing Epicurean ethics and political thought. It is frequently read alongside Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura and the extant letters of Epicurus. Philosophers and historians continue to discuss its implications for hedonism, contractarianism, and the philosophy of well-being, while remaining divided over how systematic and unified the collection is. Despite its brevity, the work remains a central document for understanding Hellenistic conceptions of a life free from fear and disturbance.