We’re now five posts deep into the Epicureanism 101 series! I’ll leave it to the reader whether to be happy or sad about this, but I’ll say that this is probably the final post in the series for now.

So far, we’ve built out a conception of Epicurean philosophy and its power to help us achieve happiness or flourishing in life. Epicurus advises us to achieve static pleasures, by which he means a state of tranquillity that comes from freedom from fear and mental disturbance. The way to achieve this state of tranquillity is by focusing on desires that are natural and necessary.

How, then, might we go about completing the picture? Epicurean philosopher Philodemus has the answer in the form of the four-part remedy, also called the ‘tetrapharmakos.’

The Four-Part Remedy (Tetrapharmakos)

The tetrapharmakos was a pharmaceutical compound in ancient Greece and Rome! It included four things that, when mixed together, allegedly had medicinal properties.

I wouldn’t recommend trying it at home.

But Philodemus borrowed the term, which means ‘four-part remedy,’ to summarize how a budding Epicurean might go about achieving tranquillity. And it’s quite simple. It goes like this:

Don’t fear god. Don’t worry about death. What is good is easy to get. What is bad is easy to endure.

And that’s Epicureanism in a nutshell. The four-part remedy includes the admonition to avoid the major sources of stress and worry. And it includes injunctions to seek simple pleasures and combat stresses and pains.

Let’s briefly go through each part.

Don’t fear god

As we saw in an earlier Epicureanism 101 post, Epicurus held that the gods exist, but that they exert no causal force on the world. They’re made from atoms, just like us, and they take little interest in the affairs of humans. For Epicureans, the gods stand out only as an example of a perfect state of tranquillity.

And so, there’s no reason to fear the gods. They’re not out to harm or punish us for behaving wrongly. And there’s no afterlife, given that our ‘soul’ falls apart with our body when we die. Furthermore, Epicurus thinks about our fears cognitively, meaning that, for him, we can assuage our fears through the power of reason.

So, don’t fear the gods.

Don’t worry about death

We covered the fear of death extensively in the second post in the series. There’s no need to rehash the full details here.

The short version is that, for Epicurus, ‘death is nothing to us.’ Since we won’t have any sense experiences after we die, there’s no reason to worry about it. It can’t harm us. In addition, Epicurus’s account of pleasures means that if we achieve a state of tranquillity while we’re alive, there’s no way we can improve our condition in the future.

In short, work on your life now and don’t keep putting it off until tomorrow. If you work on yourself now, you won’t need to worry about death.

What is good is easy to get

This, too, we covered in an earlier post in the Epicureanism 101 series. Epicurus holds that we should focus on desires that are natural and necessary. This includes things like basic food, water, and shelter. It includes a state of decent health. And it includes meaningful friendships and relationships with others.

By contrast, Epicurus advises us to avoid extravagant or complicated desires. We shouldn’t spend our time trying to live in a fancy house, drive a fancy car, or buy high-end clothes. Those things won’t get us any closer to tranquillity.

With this simpler notion of ‘the good’ in mind, it makes sense why Epicurus would claim that what is good is easy to get. If the main things you want out of life are a home, decent food, and a few good friends, that’s totally achievable for most of us.

What is bad is easy to endure

Finally, Epicurus holds, more controversially, that many pains and troubles are easily countered. Epicurus held that pleasures are important for us both in the present and in the future. In the future, they show up for us in the form of memory.

Epicurus even went so far as to hold that mental pleasures – particularly memories of past pleasures, such as a satisfying meal or meaningful philosophical conversation with a friend – can take the place of pain in our lives. He said this in multiple ways in his ‘principal doctrines.’

For my part, I think we can say that there are some limits to this. Good memories probably can’t remove all pains, especially some of the more painful illnesses we encounter more often in the modern world than they did in the ancient world.

But I think we can all agree that for many conditions, it can help. A bank of pleasant friendships and pleasant memories helps get us through many times of trouble.

How Do Epicureans Use the Four-Part Remedy?

The budding Epicurean should see the four-part remedy as a handy guide. It’s something we can put in our pockets – literally or metaphorically – to use as a reminder.

It’s not a complete philosophical account, of course. Nor will it substitute for doing the philosophical work needed to arrive at the views in the first place. Rather, it’s a practical guide for how to live a good life.

Epicureanism 101 series

Let’s finish with a look at the full Epicureanism 101 series.

1. Types of Desires
2. The Nature of Pleasure
3. Fear of Death
4. Science and Ethics
5. The Virtues
6. The Four-Part Remedy (Tetrapharmakos)

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