Resumen de Classifying the Epicurean Goods

Alex R Gillham

• Scholars have paid little attention to the classifications among goods that Epicureans posit. This paper remedies that deficiency. I argue for three claims. First, if we take instrumental goods to be those that are a means or causally lead to the intrinsic good and we take constitutive goods to be those that are part of or amount to the intrinsic good, then the Epicureans probably took reverence for a wise man and wisdom to be instrumental goods but self-sufficiency and phronesis to be constitutive goods. Second, Epicurean personal goods are those that produce eudaimonia but are firmly up to us to achieve rather than owing to chance. Third, Epicurean immortal goods are those that bring about divinely resilient tranquility for those who cultivate them. I then show how positing these classifications enables the Epicureans to claim that godlike happiness is achievable through our own efforts no matter the external circumstances.