Principal Doctrines

The Principal Doctrines exemplify the Epicurean philosophers' practice of publishing summaries and outlines of their teachings for easy memorization.

However, they are so concise and short that it's difficult to understand them in depth without the context of additional commentaries and writings by ancient sources or by modern Epicurean practitioners, whenever possible.

In his work "Alexander the Oracle Monger",[3] comedian Lucian of Samosata praised the PDs saying: "What blessings this book creates for its readers and what peace, tranquillity, and freedom it engenders in them, liberating them as it does from terrors and apparitions and portents, from vain hopes and extravagant cravings, developing in them intelligence and truth, and truly purifying their understanding, not with torches and squills and that sort of foolery, but with straight thinking, truthfulness and frankness."

[4] The "tetrapharmakos" was originally a compound of four drugs (wax, tallow, pitch and resin); the word has been used metaphorically by Roman-era Epicureans[5] to refer to the four remedies for healing the soul.

[6] As expressed by Philodemos, and preserved in a Herculaneum Papyrus (1005, 5.9–14), the tetrapharmakos reads:[7] Don't worry about death; What is good is easy to get, What is terrible is easy to endure ἀνύποπτον ὁ θάνατος καὶ τἀγαθὸν μὲν εὔκτητον, τὸ δὲ δεινὸν εὐεκκαρτέρητον This is a summary of the first four doctrines:[8] In Epicurean philosophy, the gods were conceived as hypothetical beings in a perpetual state of bliss, indestructible entities that are completely invulnerable.