New Graphics: Are You On Team Epicurus? | Comparison Chart: Epicurus vs. Other Philosophies | Chart Of Key Epicurean Quotations | Accelerating Study Of Canonics Through Philodemus' "On Methods Of Inference" | Note to all users: If you have a problem posting in any forum, please message Cassius
Wow this is great Morgan - thanks for the information! You've got quite a stellar background, and having had dealings with Martin Ferguson Smith is enough to make many of us "envious."
We look forward to your being on the forum and I hope you will let us know about your travels!
Morgan has sent some additional information:
Hello Cassius,
Apologies for missing this email, I will now give a few details about me…
I’m retired, officially, but a writer and interested in pursuing an interest in Epicurus and Epicureanism that has been long held.
I came to the subject via conversations with Professor Martin Ferguson Smith, a name you will recognise I’m sure in relation to Oenoenda and his rather marvellous prose translation of Lucretius.
I was previously in television and radio as a producer and had a notion to make something around the inscription. That has not yet happened and I’m now out of the TV game so I’m unlikely to be able to make it a reality with my contacts. But my interest goes on. I’m planning a trip in September that will take me from the site in Oenoenda to Samos, perhaps via Rhodes, to Telos, Lesbos, and Lampsacus amongst other sites of interest…you’ll recognise also the trajectory. I guess you could say that it’s the life of Epicurus that interests me, but that would only be half the story. I’m also interested in the afterlife of Epicureanism, via Rome and the various commentators right up to Philodemus and the scrolls.
Two stories in one, and as a former journalist with only a self-taught education in classical literature and ancient Greek philosophy, you can no doubt imagine the learning curve. What will I do with what I learn? I’ve yet to decide if I can add anything of value to the public record, though a book is attractive, but personal satisfaction is top of my list.
I’m the recipient of a now ancient Emmy award, I’ve published a memoir which my name will throw up in a Google search - Shaun Deeney - and I’ve written, voiced and produced podcasts - I don’t like the term, I think of these recordings more as stories told - and my last project, not published as a book is called ‘Me and Michel’, a bicycle journey with Michel de Montaigne as my ‘companion’. I’ve recently taken down my personal website as it was getting tired, but I think these works might still be floating about Spotify/Apple etc.
Is that enough? An amateur abroad with a fascinating subject to explore sums it up. Why Epicurus? You know the answer to that, but if I were to put it into words it would be his courage and lucidity and simplicity, a quiet revolutionary in his own times, a voice not sufficiently heard in our own rather trying times with madmen and religious wars and fake news encouraging us to believe in anything but the power of our own minds to find a route to ataraxia.
Thanks to Joshua for his post which I did not previously see.
As to the "fourth criteria" we have this earlier thread which explains the DeWitt position. Again, I'm by no means saying it is ridiculous to talk about the present impressions of the mind. The issue is what rank to give it and how to consider it, and clearly Epicurus himself did not consider there to be four criteria - his were the sensations, anticipations and feelings. To talk of "four criteria" is to presumptively take a position on an issue that is not at all settled in that direction, and which in fact is not the way Epicurus himself spoke. This is the hazard I was referring to earlier. Someone new to Epicurus and reading about "four criteria" as if it were a given that that was Epicurus' approach is going to be immediately misled.
Also while this topic is on my mind:
it's always important to be clear here as to exactly what we are talking about. When some hear"innovation" or "Updates" they are thinking about "let's talk about applying Epicurean ethics and ideas to modern situations.
And of course that's what we want to do.
That relates to another point:
We are running a discussion forum that caters to nonspecialists, and (to be honest) people who have a generally middle class Americans/ European worldview and are focused on wanting to live happier lives. We do have many people from whom English is not their first language, and we welcome anyone sincerely interested in Epicurus, but we are definitely not catering to a specialist/academic orientation that likes to pursue every rabbit as far down a trail as they can go. People on the forum see "latest posts" and if we get too far off into specifics that are not of general interest, then then adversely impacts the mission of the forum.
So that in itself is a very significant factor in theorizing about "innovations" in core ideas.
in one of Hirams essays about the 4. criterion of the Canon he mentions rules for Innovations or Updating the Philosophy.
This is one of the basic differences between Hiram's approach and that which I set out to accomplish here in forming EpicureanFriends. Our focus is on understanding the philosophy as it was originally taught, which we are all including me very far from doing, not attempting to account for every "what-about" that has occurred over the last two thousand years.
We inevitably do some of that here and i don't see anything wrong with some amount of discussion on this, and I have a lot of respect for Hiram personally and for his enthusiasm for Epicurus.
However I do want to say that it's likely I'm going to moderate this thread to keep it from getting out of hand and distracting us from our core mission. For an example of how that can happen, we still have on the forum one of our longest threads from many years ago when we attempted (and failed) to hammer out a common approach on how to "organize" our efforts. I encourage people on the forum now to read over that thread because it's a very interesting discussion of how people can be generally on the same team but see game plans very differently.
Those who are really interested in pursuing "Neo-Epicureanism" - which is against one of our most clear site rules, should pursue that at Reddit or some other location. I wish them well in doing so, but this is not the place to pursue that in the way that some would like.
Again I'll say that a general discussion is probably ok. But everyone who wants to talk about some aspect of Physics needing to be updated is in my opinion mainly displaying that they do not yet understand Epicurus' approach to physics, which focuses on ultimate conceptual issues (e.g. infinite divisibility) rather than contemporary opinions on limited data. That is exactly the reason for our rule against pursuing "neo-Epicureanism."
Which basic principles are close to be „timeless“ or “hardcore“ ?
That's what we pursue in discussion about the principles which are listed on the front page as the focus of the work here. We've had much discussion about those in the past and more discussion is welcome.so long of course as it's in the spirit of "this is what Epicurus actually taught" and not something that someone thinks he should have taught.
To some extent that includes the "fourth criteria" of the canon. That in itself is clearly stated by Diogenes Laertius to be something that later Epicureans added, and as Norman DeWitt argues, they added it because they did not understand the circularity that it creates by including in the canon something that is created by our own mental processing of the data from the senses, rather than from automatic functioning without opinion.
That too is something that sincere people disagree on, but as we can see in Torquatus there was already a tendency to water down after he was gone- in terms of the argument for friendship - what Epicurus had taught when he was alive.
I am sure we've had previous discussions on that and we can link to those and pursue them further, because clearly the present impressions of the mind are involved in Epicurean epistemology. But we're already on thin ice when embracing a formulation that Epicurus himself did not embrace.
------
I don't mean this post to sound harsh Matteng because I know you are sincere and I know you haven't been involved in our past discussions on these issues. Every so often it's going to be appropriate to air them all out again so people can know where everyone stands. This difference in approaches is why we have at least two separate websites devited to the study of Epicurus in different ways, and in truth there are many more approaches, such as that at the Twentiers website and the website of the Athenian Garden in Greece.
We are all pursuing the study of Epicurus as we see best, and it's my strong opinion that we're all making better progress pursuing out individual threads than we would be if we were constantly "turned off" by the approach of people who are friends but who see things differently.
I personally consider the four virtues listed to track what seems pretty much a classical list. The "opposites" seem to me to be more Jefferson's word choice, and I'd certainly question listing "Desire" unless a lot more is understood about what is meant.
Have you read the Torquatus narrative where he discusses Epicurus' view of the virtues?
I have no ability to add anything to your parsing of the Greek, but I strongly agree with the direction you are going in each of your evaluations.
1 - Certainly we are going to sometimes break the law - that's inherent in the full analysis of how justice is contextual andchanges over time. When something becomes unjust, you aren't going to wait for the next procedural permission-granting to consider the situation unjust and act on that consideration. Sure you have to take into consideration who has power and how they may punish you, but we're talking philosophy and justice, and there's no cosmic enforcement mechanism that would convert "the law" into something any more than it is - a social structure among living people.
2 - Certainly Epicurus would not consider "all sins to be equal" such that stealing a DVD when you are six years old leads to a life of torment.
Any readings which would go in the opposite direction from your thoughts would be highly suspect.
This week we pick up with more on the void at line 346 of book one.
Welcome to Episode 330 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who wrote "On The Nature of Things," the most complete presentation of Epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world. Each week we walk you through the Epicurean texts, and we discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. If you find the Epicurean worldview attractive, we invite you to join us in the study of Epicurus at EpicureanFriends.com, where we discuss this and all of our podcast episodes.
This week we start are continuing our series reviewing Cicero's "Academic Questions" from an Epicurean perspective. We are focusing first on what is referred to as Book One, which provides an overview of the issues that split Plato's Academy and gives us an overview of the philosophical issues being dealt with at the time of Epicurus. This week will focus on the ending of Section 10.
Our text will come from
Cicero - Academic Questions - Yonge We'll likely stick with Yonge primarily, but we'll also refer to the Rackam translation here:
X.
Zeno, then, was not at all a man like Theophrastus, to cut through the sinews of virtue; but, on the other hand, he was one who placed everything which could have any effect in producing a happy life in virtue alone, and who reckoned nothing else a good at all, and who called that honorable which was single in its nature, and the sole and only good. But as for all other things, although they were neither good nor bad, he divided them, calling some according to, and others contrary to nature. There were others which he looked upon as placed between these two classes, and which he called intermediate. Those which were according to nature, he taught his disciples, deserved to be taken, and to be considered worthy of a certain esteem. To those which were contrary to nature, he assigned a contrary character; and those of the intermediate class he left as neutrals, and attributed to them no importance whatever. But of those which he said ought to be taken, he considered some worthy of a higher estimation and others of a less.
Those which were worthy of a higher esteem, he called preferred; those which were only worthy of a lower degree, he called rejected. And as he had altered all these things, not so much in fact as in name, so too he defined some actions as intermediate, lying between good deeds and sins, between duty and a violation of duty; — classing things done rightly as good actions, and things done wrongly (that is to say, sins) as bad actions. And several duties, whether discharged or neglected, he considered of an intermediate character, as I have already said. And whereas his predecessors had not placed every virtue in reason, but had said that some virtues were perfected by nature, or by habit, he placed them all in reason; and while they thought that those kinds of virtues which I have mentioned above could be separated, he asserted that that could not be done in any manner, and affirmed that not only the practice of virtue (which was the doctrine of his predecessors), but the very disposition to it, was intrinsically beautiful; and that virtue could not possibly be present to any one without his continually practising it.
And while they did not entirely remove all perturbation of mind from man, (for they admitted that man did by nature grieve, and desire, and fear, and become elated by joy,) but only contracted it, and reduced it to narrow bounds; he maintained that the wise man was wholly free from all these diseases as they might be called. And as the ancients said that those perturbations were natural, and devoid of reason, and placed desire in one part of the mind and reason in another, he did not agree with them either; for he thought that all perturbations were voluntary, and were admitted by the judgment of the opinion, and that a certain unrestrained intemperance was the mother of all of them. And this is nearly what he laid down about morals.
Episode 329 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. This week our episode is entitled: "Cracks In The Academy On Ideal Forms and Virtue Lead To The Emergence of Aristotle, The Stoics,And Epicurus"
I have prepared a short commentary on each of the Principal Doctrines and Vatican Sayings with special attention given to common misconceptions about each one.
The home of the basic list will be here while it is going through early phases of composition and revision:
Obviously not everyone is going to agree with every word, but I think a relatively short document such as this will be useful to new readers. We can as we always do hash out precise details in separate forum threads, and general comments and suggestions in this thread are welcomed.
I don't know that we know much more about the story of Epicurus questioning his teachers, but if anyone has an anecdote from Usener it's probably Bryan
Morgan thanks for your email. You should have received "Registration" email saying essentially this:
Thank you for your interest in the EpicureanFriends forum.
Please respond to this email with basic information about your background and interest in Epicurus. We'll then set up a Welcome thread for you and approve your account.
You can review how this process works here: Welcome to Our New Members!
- Cassius
Thanks for your initial message and your question.
Could you also tell us a little something about your background in study of Epicurus?
Morgan writes us:
Hello, I'm delighted to become a new member, and as far as I can see, I should respond to my welcome message, and whilst I'm pretty sure this may not be the way to do so, I can't identify a 'reply' button, so forgive the rough and ready attempt to do so.
All advice welcome. Meanwhile, I have a burning question...
My understanding is that Epicurus as a young boy was precocious to the point of questioning an early teacher to explain Hesiod's conception of chaos. I would love to flesh out the description given in De Witt...albeit apocryphal!
with many thanks,
While Epicurus may have begun his schooling under his father's in- struction, there is evidence that he was placed in charge of another teacher before he was of an age for the higher branches. The following anecdote has been preserved for us by Sextus Empiricus: "For while still quite a young lad he demanded to know of his teacher, who was dictating to him the line 'Verily first of all chaos was created,'24 out of what chaos was created if it really was first created." When the teacher with some irritation denied that it was any of his business to teach such things but rather of the men called philosophers, "Then," said Epicurus, "to the philosophers I must hie if they alone really know the truth about realities." 25
The interest of the story is threefold: it exhibits Epicurus in the process of receiving the orthodox schooling in Greek poetry. If at the time mentioned he was learning his Hesiod, it is certain he had already acquired a due familiarity with Homer. It will be shown later that
An extract from the chapter, SAMOS AND ATHENS, in De Witt's Epicurus and his Philosophy
"The third item of interest attaches to the mention of chaos. In Democritean physics there was no place for chaos. According to this system, the world had always been a cosmos, because the atoms and void were believed to exist from everlasting unto everlasting. Only in creational systems was there need for an initial state of chaos. Thus the question naturally arises, Was Epicurus already at the time of the incident reading Democritus? An affirmative answer is not absurd. By a scholar named Ariston, whose reputation is good, it was recorded in a Life of Epicurus that he began to study philosophy at the age of twelve.27 He was un- doubtedly precocious; this is the point that Ariston was making and he adds "that he headed his own school at thirty-two," which contrasted with forty for Plato and thirty-ninefor Aristotle when he began to teach in Mytilene. If to the above item be added a second to the effect that
Epicurus, "chancing upon the books of Democritus, took eagerly to philosophy," It becomes quite probable that he already knew some- thing of Democritus when he cornered his teacher on the topic of chaos."
Welcome Morgan
There is one last step to complete your registration:
All new registrants must post a response to this message here in this welcome thread (we do this in order to minimize spam registrations).
You must post your response within 24 hours, or your account will be subject to deletion.
Please say "Hello" by introducing yourself, tell us what prompted your interest in Epicureanism and which particular aspects of Epicureanism most interest you, and/or post a question.
This forum is the place for students of Epicurus to coordinate their studies and work together to promote the philosophy of Epicurus. Please remember that all posting here is subject to our Community Standards and associated Terms of Use. Please be sure to read that document to understand our ground rules.
Please understand that the leaders of this forum are well aware that many fans of Epicurus may have sincerely-held views of what Epicurus taught that are incompatible with the purposes and standards of this forum. This forum is dedicated exclusively to the study and support of people who are committed to classical Epicurean views. As a result, this forum is not for people who seek to mix and match Epicurean views with positions that are inherently inconsistent with the core teachings of Epicurus.
All of us who are here have arrived at our respect for Epicurus after long journeys through other philosophies, and we do not demand of others what we were not able to do ourselves. Epicurean philosophy is very different from most other philosophies, and it takes time to understand how deep those differences really are. That's why we have membership levels here at the forum which allow for new participants to discuss and develop their own learning, but it's also why we have standards that will lead in some cases to arguments being limited, and even participants being removed, when the purposes of the community require it. Epicurean philosophy is not inherently democratic, or committed to unlimited free speech, or devoted to any other form of organization other than the pursuit of truth and happy living through pleasure as explained in the principles of Epicurean philosophy.
One way you can be assured of your time here will be productive is to tell us a little about yourself and your background in reading Epicurean texts. It would also be helpful if you could tell us how you found this forum, and any particular areas of interest that you already have.
You can also check out our Getting Started page for ideas on how to use this website.
We have found over the years that there are a number of key texts and references which most all serious students of Epicurus will want to read and evaluate for themselves. Those include the following.
"Epicurus and His Philosophy" by Norman DeWitt
The Biography of Epicurus by Diogenes Laertius. This includes the surviving letters of Epicurus, including those to Herodotus, Pythocles, and Menoeceus.
"On The Nature of Things" - by Lucretius (a poetic abridgement of Epicurus' "On Nature"
"Epicurus on Pleasure" - By Boris Nikolsky
The chapters on Epicurus in Gosling and Taylor's "The Greeks On Pleasure."
Cicero's "On Ends" - Torquatus Section
Cicero's "On The Nature of the Gods" - Velleius Section
The Inscription of Diogenes of Oinoanda - Martin Ferguson Smith translation
A Few Days In Athens" - Frances Wright
Lucian Core Texts on Epicurus: (1) Alexander the Oracle-Monger, (2) Hermotimus
Philodemus "On Methods of Inference" (De Lacy version, including his appendix on relationship of Epicurean canon to Aristotle and other Greeks)
"The Greeks on Pleasure" -Gosling & Taylor Sections on Epicurus, especially the section on katastematic and kinetic pleasure which explains why ultimately this distinction was not of great significance to Epicurus.
It is by no means essential or required that you have read these texts before participating in the forum, but your understanding of Epicurus will be much enhanced the more of these you have read. Feel free to join in on one or more of our conversation threads under various topics found throughout the forum, where you can to ask questions or to add in any of your insights as you study the Epicurean philosophy.
And time has also indicated to us that if you can find the time to read one book which will best explain classical Epicurean philosophy, as opposed to most modern "eclectic" interpretations of Epicurus, that book is Norman DeWitt's Epicurus And His Philosophy.
(If you have any questions regarding the usage of the forum or finding info, please post any questions in this thread).
Welcome to the forum!
This episode is turning out to be a little shorter than usual, and kind of transitional, as we discuss the divergence of Aristotle from the Academy and begin to touch on the emergence of Stoicism. This is complicated stuff and we can only touch the surface in a broad way. As we proceed toward the end of Book One of Academic Questions over the next several weeks, I think out target should be to not try to do too much more than get a general feel for the major points of divergence between the schools. Even that is going to be quite a hurdle.
To assist myself as we go forward I asked Claude to produce for us a table of the major epistemological issues dividing the schools based primarily on the work of Long and Sedley in their "Hellenestic Philosophers." I think this is going to be of help to me and anyone who would like to refer to it can do so here:
Is modern physics an extension of Epicurean physics and follows from it ?
I would not say that, and I feel certain Martin would not say so either.
Epicurus is targeting his claim of their being an ultimate limit to divisibility to the opposite argument made by prior philosophers - that there is no conceivable limit to divisiblity.
That's somethat that is not resolvable technically, with at least one reason being as observed by Lucretius/Epicurus that the instruments of precision are always going to be themselves composed of something that by nature those instruments cannot measure.
This is very theoretical area and I am not able to talk about it articulately, but there are as i understand it many articles out there on the intersection of philosophy and science that do.
What I think I am confident of, and what Epicurus was confident of, is that we will never know everything we would like to know. There will for all foreseeable future likely be new discoveries and new levels of detail. At the very least the discoveries will extend outward into unlimited space.
We know already that we will never visit every location in the universe nor travel in time as far back or forward as we would like to do. No human being ever has, not is there any reason to think that one could. Therefore we are not going to ever be able to argue that something has been "proven" to a standard of having examined every corner and every time in the universe.
An impossible standard like that makes no sense for humans to pursue, but yet we have to make decisions on how to spend the short lives that we have, so we have to make decisions on what levels of proof are "good enough" and possible.
Therefore Epicurus suggests a method of deciding what is true and false based on information that IS available to us through the senses, processed rationally by the mind. The ultimate stress of "trusting the senses" I think means exactly that: As humans there is no reason to think we will ever have information beyond that which is confirmed by the senses (and by the instruments which extend our senses) so we have to get comfortable going with what our senses consistently establish to be our reality.
Epicurean physics is more realistic and closer to modern physics ( no intentional, governing Logos ). Exciting discussion.
So I think that's the ultimate point. All evidence points to nature working on its own without an external supernatural force behind it. That's the ultimate conclusion of Epicurean physics based on rational processing of the senses. I too see that as consistent with modern physics, but technicians, even though they select standards of certainty they think are practically useful, generally make no claims to address the ultimate correctness of when evidence is sufficient.
We don't get far into this issue of "kalapsis" in this episode, but it came up in our background discussions and it's going to come up further in coming weeks. For that reason I have set up the following thread, and anyone who has time to help us move toward a layman's way of explaining the distinction betwen the Stoic and Epicurean approaches on "comprehension" will be appreciated. We're definitely going to need to have something of a working command over this before moving past Cicero's "Academic Questions" and proceeding to Philodemus' "On Signs."
in coming weeks on the podcast we are going to be making a decision how much further to go into Cicero's "Academic Questions" and when to turn our attention to Philodemus' "On Signs."
A key aspect of when we will be ready to do that will involve our decision as to how much effort to put into Cicero's explanation of Stoicism, especially of their theory of knowledge involving "katalepsis." This is the theory which is famously explained by analogy this way: (from wikipedia quoting from "Academic Questions.")
Cicero relates that Zeno would illustrate katalepsis as follows:
He would display his hand in front of one with the fingers stretched out and say "A visual appearance is like this"; next he closed his fingers a little and said, "An act of assent is like this"; then he pressed his fingers closely together and made a fist, and said that that was comprehension (and from this illustration he gave to that process the actual name of katalepsis, which it had not had before); but then he used to apply his left hand to his right fist and squeeze it tightly and forcibly, and then say that such was knowledge, which was within the power of nobody save the wise man.[3]
My purpose in starting this thread is that in deciding how much of Cicero's explanation to read before we go to Philodemus, I think we need our own "working ability to explain" what the Stoics were really after. Of course their view of the universe is ultimately one of intelligent design, and they place huge reliance on "logic," so I think we can expect that katalepsis is going to be profoundly influenced by those viewpoints.
This is apparently in large or wholly contrast to Epicurus' view of the role of "prolepsis" in canonics, all of which is entirely natural and ultimately tests for truth against the sensations, anticipations and feelings.
We're not going to be able or want to become experts on every detail of this topic, but we need a working knowledge adequate to use analogies and give examples of the differences in approach.
In this post I'm not going to post any additional AI summary or links to other pages, but in this thread both of those are probalby going to be useful. I'd just like to restate the goal that sort of like with Torquatus' use of Chrysippus' hand analogy in "On Ends," we need to be able to give a coherent explanation of what this "kataleptic grasp" is supposed to represent.
Efforts to help get us there are welcome!
-----
Edit: there are many questions here, but before i close the post I note the final clause that this katalepsis is within the power of no one except the wise man. That in itself probably has huge implications, over and above what this imagery regarding the hands is supposed to mean.
Thanks Patrikios. It's always tricky to try to fit the "logic" arguments with the latest "science."
Going back to Sedley's Article "The Inferential Basis of Epicurean Ethics," I think there's a relationship here between Epicurus' decision to divide the entire physical universe between "matter" and "void," and the entire "feeling" universe between pleasure and pain.
Certainly there are many types of atoms and bodies, and many types of pleasures and pain. And Nature doesn't have an intelligent design which inscribes a book with those labels and blesses this decision to divide between matter or void and pleasure or pain. There's some kind of "proleptic" decisionmaking that tells us to do that rather than to try to categories - say - matter into five types and void into five types, and pleasures into five types and pains into five types.
It seems to me that this is the question of "universals" -- what is the justification for your categorization decision?
I'm gathering that Epicurus is resting his justification on the senses while also recognizing that he is reasoning. Like Jefferson says, the senses ultimately give us bodies moving through space. That's two things, and while it's important that ultimately the bodies be composed of indivisible atoms, it's really at the sense level that we divide things into to.
And on the feeling level it makes sense in the end to say that there's "desirable and undesirable" (pleasure and pain).
All of this revolves around the issue of whether this world of the sense is the real world, or whether there's a hidden "true world" set of forces or beings or forms behind it and directing it. Epicurus is showing that it is possible to construct a system that is totally consistent with our senses and feelings, but which operates without divine or other hidden forces directing it.
So from that perspective, I would expect that when Epicurus divided the universe between matter and void, the last thing that he would have accepted would be that there is some "third force" that sets everything in motion and keeps it moving.
So I am saying all that to agree with where I think you are going, which is that motion (or the capacity for motion) is something that is inherent in the nature of matter, and that all you need for motion is atoms (more than one) and space. I don't think Epicurus would have accepted conceptually that it is possible for there to be any force which ultimately does not derive/arise/emerge from one of the two categories - bodies and space.
And this is where I think there's a lot more discussion to be had of what "emergence" entails. If everything in the universe is composed of "atoms" and void, then *everything,* including motion/gravity/whatever, arises from the interaction of those two categories, with no other category possible or conceivable. if something "exists," it arises / emerges from "matter" and "void."
Sure it's possible to divide things into five or fifty categories of bodies or of feelings. But what Epicurus is working for, and what we need, is a manageable system of thought through which we can understand our place in the universe and from there how best to live. That's what analysis based on "atoms and void" and "pleasure and pain" gives us.
