Epicurean

Epicurean (pronounced ep-i-kyoo-ree-uhm)

(1) The philosophical system or doctrine of Epicurus (circa 340–270 BC), holding that the external world is a series of fortuitous combinations of atoms and that the highest good is pleasure, interpreted as freedom from disturbance or pain (classical meaning from Antiquity).

(2) A fondness for, and enjoyment of the luxuries of life, especially fine food and drink; a person who cultivates a refined taste, especially in food and wine; a connoisseur (modern meaning).

1350–1400: From the Middle English Epicures & Epicureis (Epicureans the plural) from the Latin Epicūrēus (Epicūrus in the Medieval Latin) from the Ancient Greek Ἐπίκουρος (Epíkouros).  The original meaning from the late fourteenth century was a “follower of the philosophical system of Epicurus".  From the 1570s, the sense evolved of "one devoted to pleasure, the adjectival form attested from 1580s in the philosophical sense and from the 1640s with the meaning "pleasure-loving".  The –an suffix is from the Middle English -an, -ain, -ein & -en, from the Old French –ain & -ein, from the Latin -ānus (feminine -āna), ultimately from the primitive Indo-European -nós.  It was appended to (mostly) nouns to create the adjectival form or to nouns to make an agent noun. Epicurean is a noun & adjective, Epicureanism is a noun, epicureanize, epicureanizing & epicureanizedare are verbs; the noun plural is epicureans. 

Mainland Epicure Gold cheese: highly recommended; sharp, crumbly and perfect for toasties.

Epicurus was a Latinized form of Greek Epicouros (circa 340-270 BC), an Athenian philosopher whose teachings were that (1) pleasure is the highest good and (2) virtue the greatest pleasure.  Western culture hungrily absorbed the first lesson but tended to neglect the second.  As late as the 1560s, the name was used pejoratively in the now (mostly) archaic sense of "one who gives himself up to sensual pleasure", especially as applied to gluttonous sybarites, a use well established by 1774. Epicurus's school was opposed by the stoics and it was they who first gave his name a reproachful sense, the non-pejorative meaning "one who cultivates refined taste in food and drink" noted since the 1580s.  The historic synonyms would include voluptuary or decadent, in the modern sense they would be gastronome, gourmet, gourmand, connoisseur or bon vivant.

Aspect views of a bust of Epicurus.

Epicurus, a philosopher in Hellenic Greece, founded a school circa 307 BC in which he developed a system hostile to superstition and divine intervention and believed pleasure leads to the greatest individual and collective good.  The path to this, Epicurus held, was to study the world, live modestly and contain one’s desires so as to not succumb to self-indulgence.  A life such lived, he taught, would allow one to attain a state of ataraxia (tranquility) and aponia (a freedom from fear and pain) and to attain these two states produces human happiness in its purest and highest form.  Happiness therefore comes from the virtues of diligence and restraint; the avoidance of excess.  To be fair to Epicurus, he was not averse to the odd luxury and his school was known for the feasts it held on the twentieth of each month.  Noted Epicurean and philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) maintained the tradition.

A modern Epicurean: Lindsay Lohan at a table of delicacies.

Although austerity may sound unfashionable to those immersed in globalised consumerism, Epicureanism is, in other ways, astonishingly modern.  Epicurus dismissed the influence of gods in the natural world in favor of materialistic explanations and was thus wholly opposed to conventional theism.  Indeed, Epicureanism was the only non-theistic Western philosophy known before the modern age and in older usage, was synonymous with atheism, the reason it was a term used to condemn by many in the medieval Church.  He thought to have taken this to its logical conclusion and held that the Earth and the rest of the universe was but matter and energy arranged by chance in the form we know; a product of physics and chemistry rather than a deity but there must always be caution in that so little has survived for there to be definitive views of the philosophy of Epicurus.  Some of his writings survive but of the hundreds of books he’s said to have written, all that remains are fragments of text and some letters.  Much of what is known comes from Diogenes the Cynic (412 or 404-323 BC) and poem De rerum natura (Of the Nature of Things) by Roman philosopher Titus Lucretius Carus (circa 99–circa 55 BC), a long didactic work about the tenets and philosophy of Epicureanism.

Rome During the Decadence (1547) by Thomas Couture (1815–1879).

The meaning has shifted.  Modern Western audiences have noted the monthly feast Epicurus hosted while turning a deaf ear to his caution that life otherwise should be lived with modesty and restraint.  Epicureanism thus became a synonym for hedonism and in the minds of most is now associated almost exclusively with fine food and drink.  By the late twentieth-century, the word in the sense of its original meaning was barely used outside academic circles but of late there’s been a revival of interest; there are several large Epicurean associations in Greece and a Society of Friends of Epicurus with a sizable following in the English-speaking world.  It’s also attracted the usual suspects: there are French chefs like to style themselves Epicurean as did, perhaps less plausibly, the late Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011).