Frequently Asked Questions

The starting point for answering this question is much the same as asking about any other decision about what to pursue. The place to start is to identify the ultimate goal or thing to pursue in life, and decide whether "meaning" or "meaningfulness" is some part or all of that goal. Epicurus holds that the highest good in life is Pleasure, which is the first and natural good.

Letter to Menoeceus [129]: And for this cause we call pleasure the beginning and end of the blessed life. For we recognize pleasure as the first good innate in us, and from pleasure we begin every act of choice and avoidance, and to pleasure we return again, using the feeling as the standard by which we judge every good.

Authoritative texts hammer home the point that the highest good in life is "Pleasure."

Cicero: On Ends Book One - [29] IX. “‘First, then,’ said he, ‘I shall plead my case on the lines laid down by the founder of our school himself: I shall define the essence and features of the problem before us, not because I imagine you to be unacquainted with them, but with a view to the methodical progress of my speech. The problem before us then is, what is the climax and standard of things good, and this in the opinion of all philosophers must needs be such that we are bound to test all things by it, but the standard itself by nothing. Epicurus places this standard in pleasure, which he lays down to be the supreme good, while pain is the supreme evil….”

Cicero: On Ends Book One “Nor indeed can our mind find any other ground whereon to take its stand as though already at the goal; and all its fears and sorrows are comprised under the term pain, nor is there any other thing besides which is able merely by its own character to cause us vexation or pangs In addition to this the germs of desire and aversion and generally of action originate either in pleasure or in pain.” [42] This being so, it is plain that all right and praiseworthy action has the life of pleasure for its aim. Now inasmuch as the climax or goal or limit of things good (which the Greeks term telos) is that object which is not a means to the attainment of any thing else, while all other things are a means to its attainment, we must allow that the climax of things good is to live pleasurably.“

Diogenes of Oinoanda, Fragment 32: “I shall discuss folly shortly, the virtues and pleasure now. If, gentlemen, the point at issue between these people and us involved inquiry into «what is the means of happiness?» and they wanted to say «the virtues» (which would actually be true), it would be unnecessary to take any other step than to agree with them about this, without more ado. But since, as I say, the issue is not «what is the means of happiness?» but «what is happiness and what is the ultimate goal of our nature?», I say both now and always, shouting out loudly to all Greeks and non-Greeks, that pleasure is the end of the best mode of life, while the virtues, which are inopportunely messed about by these people (being transferred from the place of the means to that of the end), are in no way an end, but the means to the end. Let us therefore now state that this is true, making it our starting-point.”

Given that Pleasure is the goal, we must therefore ask if "meaning" or "meaningfulness" is a feeling of pleasure in itself, or instrumental to obtaining pleasure.

In answering that question we should ask: "How many possible types of feelings are there within which "meaning" might be included?"

Epicurus holds that there are only two "feelings" in life - pleasure and pain - and at all times that we are conscious of feeling anything, we are feeling one or the other.

Diogenes Laertius X-34 : ”The internal sensations they say are two, pleasure and pain, which occur to every living creature, and the one is akin to nature and the other alien: by means of these two choice and avoidance are determined.“

Epicurus PD03 : ”The limit of quantity in pleasures is the removal of all that is painful. Wherever pleasure is present, as long as it is there, there is neither pain of body, nor of mind, nor of both at once .“

Cicero - On Ends Book One, 30 : ”Moreover, seeing that if you deprive a man of his senses there is nothing left to him, it is inevitable that nature herself should be the arbiter of what is in accord with or opposed to nature. Now what facts does she grasp or with what facts is her decision to seek or avoid any particular thing concerned, unless the facts of pleasure and pain?

Cicero - On Ends Book One, 38 : Therefore Epicurus refused to allow that there is any middle term between pain and pleasure; what was thought by some to be a middle term, the absence of all pain, was not only itself pleasure, but the highest pleasure possible. Surely any one who is conscious of his own condition must needs be either in a state of pleasure or in a state of pain. Epicurus thinks that the highest degree of pleasure is defined by the removal of all pain, so that pleasure may afterwards exhibit diversities and differences but is incapable of increase or extension.“

The first appearance of the phrase 'meaning of life' in the written record of the English language dates only from 1831:

SARTOR RESARTUS: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh, by Thomas Carlyle, ~1831 CHAPTER IX. THE EVERLASTING YEA.

"Temptations in the Wilderness!" exclaims Teufelsdrockh, "Have we not all to be tried with such? Not so easily can the old Adam, lodged in us by birth, be dispossessed. Our Life is compassed round with Necessity; yet is the meaning of Life itself no other than Freedom, than Voluntary Force: thus have we a warfare; in the beginning, especially, a hard-fought battle. For the God-given mandate, Work thou in Well-doing, lies mysteriously written, in Promethean Prophetic Characters, in our hearts; and leaves us no rest, night or day, till it be deciphered and obeyed; till it burn forth, in our conduct, a visible, acted Gospel of Freedom. And as the clay-given mandate, Eat thou and be filled, at the same time persuasively proclaims itself through every nerve,—must not there be a confusion, a contest, before the better Influence can become the upper?

"To me nothing seems more natural than that the Son of Man, when such God-given mandate first prophetically stirs within him, and the Clay must now be vanquished or vanquish,—should be carried of the spirit into grim Solitudes, and there fronting the Tempter do grimmest battle with him; defiantly setting him at naught till he yield and fly. Name it as we choose: with or without visible Devil, whether in the natural Desert of rocks and sands, or in the populous moral Desert of selfishness and baseness,—to such Temptation are we all called. Unhappy if we are not! Unhappy if we are but Half-men, in whom that divine handwriting has never blazed forth, all-subduing, in true sun-splendor; but quivers dubiously amid meaner lights: or smoulders, in dull pain, in darkness, under earthly vapors!—Our Wilderness is the wide World in an Atheistic Century; our Forty Days are long years of suffering and fasting: nevertheless, to these also comes an end. Yes, to me also was given, if not Victory, yet the consciousness of Battle, and the resolve to persevere therein while life or faculty is left. To me also, entangled in the enchanted forests, demon-peopled, doleful of sight and of sound, it was given, after weariest wanderings, to work out my way into the higher sunlit slopes—of that Mountain which has no summit, or whose summit is in Heaven only!" … On the roaring billows of Time, thou art not engulfed, but borne aloft into the azure of Eternity. Love not Pleasure; love God. This is the EVERLASTING YEA, wherein all contradiction is solved: wherein whoso walks and works, it is well with him."

Note that this text is considered a parody of Hegel, and that modern scholars find Carlyle's own opinions difficult to isolate. Here is a quote from Carlyle himself in a letter:

Finally assure yourself I am neither Pagan nor Turk, nor circumcised Jew, but an unfortunate Christian individual resident at Chelsea in this year of Grace; neither Pantheist nor Pottheist1, nor any Theist or ist whatsoever; having the most decided contem[pt] for all manner of System-builders and Sectfounders—as far as contempt may be com[patible] with so mild a nature; feeling well beforehand (taught by long experience) that all such are and even must be wrong. By God's blessing, one has got two eyes to look with; also a mind capable of knowing, of believing: that is all the creed I will at this time insist on.

1'Pot-theist'; Carlyle was accused of pan-theism. Pot, pan, you get the idea

Accordingly, we don't have record of Epicurus directly using the term "meaning" in regard to pleasure, but we do know from the surviving texts that Epicurus categorized every feeling in life which is not painful as pleasurable. Is "meaning" something that is pleasurable or painful? Most of us would likely agree that "meaningfulness" or "meaning" is something that generates a positive emotion and that is the reason that many people suggest we should seek it. Given that all positive emotions are categorized by Epicurus as a part of pleasure, Epicurus would then say "Yes," - meaning or meaningfulness is a desirable goal because it is pleasurable.

What about the claim some make that "meaning" should be thought of as "virtue," and that "virtue is something higher and nobler than "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." In addition to the cite above from Diogenes of Oinoanda that pursuing virtue as an end in itself confuses the means with the end, we have Cicero's Torquatus explaining the same point in Cicero's On Ends Book One, of which the following is only a small part of a much more extensive argument:

Cicero - On Ends Book One 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.

For those who remain confused and think that "Pleasure" is restricted to bodily stimulation and does not involve the feelings of the mind, we have additional sources that make clear that Epicurus valued mental pleasure, and observed that mental pleasure (and pain) is frequently of much greater significance to us than bodily feeling:

Cicero On Ends Book One [40] XII. Again, the truth that pleasure is the supreme good can be most easily apprehended from the following consideration. Let us imagine an individual in the enjoyment of pleasures great, numerous and constant, both mental and bodily, with no pain to thwart or threaten them; I ask what circumstances can we describe as more excellent than these or more desirable? A man whose circumstances are such must needs possess, as well as other things, a robust mind subject to no fear of death or pain, because death is apart from sensation, and pain when lasting is usually slight, when oppressive is of short duration, so that its temporariness reconciles us to its intensity, and its slightness to its continuance.

Cicero On Ends Book One [55] XVII. I will concisely explain what are the corollaries of these sure and well grounded opinions. People make no mistake about the standards of good and evil themselves, that is about pleasure or pain, but err in these matters through ignorance of the means by which these results are to be brought about. Now we admit that mental pleasures and pains spring from bodily pleasures and pains; so I allow what you alleged just now, that any of our school who differ from this opinion are out of court; and indeed I see there are many such, but unskilled thinkers. I grant that although mental pleasure brings us joy and mental pain brings us trouble, yet each feeling takes its rise in the body and is dependent on the body, though it does not follow that the pleasures and pains of the mind do not greatly surpass those of the body. With the body indeed we can perceive only what is present to us at the moment, but with the mind the past and future also. _For granting that we feel just as great pain when our body is in pain, still mental pain may be very greatly intensified if we imagine some everlasting and unbounded evil to be menacing us. And we may apply the same argument to pleasure, so that it is increased by the absence of such fears. By this time so much at least is plain, that the intensest pleasure or the intensest annoyance felt in the mind exerts more influence on the happiness or wretchedness of life than either feeling, when present for an equal space of time in the body.

*Based on the above, it is likely that Epicurus would recognize that "meaning" in life is simply a type of Pleasure. Epicurus tells us to look to Nature, not to logic or abstract reasoning, to determine what specific pleasures are most appropriate for us to pursue as individuals. Pleasures vary by duration, intensity, and parts of the body affected (see Principal Doctrine 9: "If every pleasure could be intensified so that it lasted, and influenced the whole organism or the most essential parts of our nature, pleasures would never differ from one another.") Some will decide that mental pleasures of "meaning," will be the type of pleasure on which they choose to focus. The proper standard is to look to our own feelings by which to decide what to pursue, and no single factor, even time or length of duration of the pleasure, is determinative. As Epicurus wrote to Menoeceus, "And just as with food [the wise man] does not seek simply the larger share and nothing else, but rather the most pleasant, so he seeks to enjoy not the longest period of time, but the most pleasant.