We can attribute a large portion of Roman philosophy to the Romans studying Greek philosophy. Cicero is often credited as one of the first Romans to truly spell out a Roman vision of philosophy in various works such as the Tusculan Disputations and the work that we will read in this module, De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods).
There were several different branches of Roman philosophy, but we're going to cover three major factions: the Stoics, the Epicureans, and the Academic Skeptics. Select each tab to learn more about the philosophy.
Each tab contains a short video with supplementary material, in case you want to learn more about each of these branches of philosophy. Feel free to reach out to your instructor if you have any additional questions.
Stoics
Image Note: a portrait bust of one of the most well-known Roman Stoics, Cato the Younger. Cato spoke out in opposition to many of the reforms made by Julius Caesar.
Stoicism, like many other Roman philosophical traditions, had its origin in Greece. A philosopher named Zeno of Citium is credited with founding Stoicism in 300 BCE.
The Stoics believed that "virtue is the only good" and that in striving for virtue, a person could enjoy eudaimonia: a well-lived life. What is virtue? To Stoics, it meant living in harmony with nature, demonstrating courage, and denying excess. Stoics also believed firmly that you could better understand a person and their beliefs based on what they did, rather than what they said. An early proponent of Stoicism (Epictetus) said that a stoic should be "sick and yet happy, in peril and yet happy, in exile and happy, in disgrace and happy." In essence, the Stoics believe in an individual's free will, while believing there was a universal mind (god) that presented itself through a sense of reason and was physically present as the universe itself.
When we use the adjective stoic (in English) to describe someone, we are referring to this notion of a person above suffering. So, you might see an example sentence like this: the stoic woman watched her house burn with no emotion. A sense of being unaffected by pain is central to our modern understanding of stoics and comes out of this philosophical tradition.
Boiled down: denial of pain and pleasure leads to a happy life, lived with virtue.
Epicureans
Image Note: a portrait bust of one of the most well-known Roman Epicureans, Lucretius. Lucretius is well-known for his poetry. If you'd like to learn more about him, feel free to watch the video below.
Epicureanism was founded by a Greek philosopher named Epicurus (shocking, right?) around 307 BCE.
Epicureanism is, in many ways, the polar opposite of Stoicism. While stoics sought to reject (or ignore) earthly experiences, like pain or pleasure, Epicureans actively sought material pleasure. The absence of pain or fear would be, to an Epicurean, the ideal life, and to achieve that absence, one must seek out things that ease pain and suffering.
Unlike hedonists (those who seek nothing but pleasure and indulge every whim (think: wine, women, and song!), Epicurus taught that you could achieve a state of ataraxia (freedom from fear or a sense of tranquility) and aponia (freedom from pain) by understanding how the world works and limiting your desires. By using knowledge, you could obtain ataraxia and aponia and avoid most human suffering, while not being overly indulgent.
For the Romans, this philosophy was supported and spread by a writer named Lucretius, who wrote a unified work called De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things - which you'll notice is the title of this module!). It is largely through Lucretius' work (and the writings of other Epicureans who came later) that we have a full view of the philosophy because the writings of Epicurus himself have largely not survived.
Epicureans did not outright deny the existence of gods (they were mostly not atheists), but what they did believe was that the gods were not involved in human affairs. This lies in stark contrast to a belief that there is no god (an atheist standpoint) or that god is a universal mind with its body being the universe (the Stoic view). Epicureans lived in a society in which many people believed that the gods were extremely active in human activity and that the gods were actively involved in shaping those activities: if you did something wrong, under this viewpoint, the gods would react with vengeance. The Epicureans denied this view, claiming that a person could find solace in a life lived modestly without fear or pain.
Boiled down: accept pleasure, in moderation, by seeking understanding.
Academic Skeptics
Image Note: a portrait bust of one of the most well-known Roman Stoics, Cicero. Cicero is one of our main sources for information on Roman philosophy.
Also just called Academics, the Academic Skeptics don't have a clear founding philosopher. However, they trace much of their core belief system to Socrates and used his notions of argument to inform their philosophy.
For our purposes, the most important figure amongst Academics is a Greek named Philo who came to Rome around the year 89 BCE. One of his pupils at the academy he founded in Rome was Cicero, who took up and championed the Academic cause.
The root of the Academic viewpoint was that a rational conclusion could be drawn by comparing evidence from multiple sources. An academic would (and should) be able to argue both sides of an argument. By doing so, one could take the compiled evidence and make a rational choice as to which side was stronger. Also, in being forced to approach every topic from multiple angles, there was a notion that you could break down personally held beliefs - a way to change your point of view to challenge your own biases. Another way to look at this: the Academics denied that any one person could be the inheritor of "absolute truth" - instead believing that truth is something that could be found through rational argument.
One downside of this, which you might be able to see from that description, is that it can lead to nihilism: the belief not only that there are no dogmatic truths in the world, but that in fact, there is nothing to believe. If you can argue that both pro and con are equally valid, there is no value at all! However, most Academics, Cicero included, did not fall into this trap, instead finding that there were ways to show that one side or the other did contain greater value.
That intellectual flexibility was central to the philosophy. It also allowed for Academics to be skeptical of religion and even skeptical of the notion that there was a god at all. Since one could never have a single notion of truth, though, we would likely categorize most Academics as agnostics - those who do not necessarily believe in god, but who seek knowledge about the world and leave room for the possibility of a higher power.
Boiled down: Academic skeptics believe that ideas cannot be true, and so instead seek to find the argument that has the most weight. They argue both sides to weigh out which one has the higher degree of plausibility.
That was a lot of information! Check your understanding by taking the brief practice quiz.