What Would Epicurus Say About The Search For "Meaning" in Life?
We don't have record of Epicurus addressing questions about "meaning" using that term. We do, however, have a great deal of information about Epicurus' view of "virtue" and the claim that there are higher and nobler callings in life beyond "pleasure." Calls to "meaningfulness" often seem to come from a similar perspective as "virtue," and so the Epicurean analysis of virtue is helpful in assessing "meaningfulness." The heart of that analysis is:
XIII. Those who place the Chief Good in virtue alone are beguiled by the glamour of a name, and do not understand the true demands of nature. If they will consent to listen to Epicurus, they will be delivered from the grossest error. Your school dilates on the transcendent beauty of the virtues; but were they not productive of pleasure, who would deem them either praiseworthy or desirable? We esteem the art of medicine not for its interest as a science, but for its conduciveness to health; the art of navigation is commended for its practical and not its scientific value, because it conveys the rules for sailing a ship with success. So also Wisdom, which must be considered as the art of living, if it effected no result would not be desired; but as it is, it is desired, because it is the artificer that procures and produces pleasure.
A subforum for discussion this issue is here: Answering the "Quest For Meaning" In Epicurean Terms
The most extensive surviving Epicurean argument illustrating how Epicurus dealt with calls to "virtue" is contained in Cicero's On Ends Book One.
