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Epicurus
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According to Epicurus, the second criterion of truth is preconceptions (tas prolepseis). In addition to sensations and objects of the imagination, there exist abstractions from sensations, what Epicurus calls preconceptions. Diogenes says, "By preconception they mean a sort of apprehension or right opinion or notion, or universal idea stored in the mind; that is, a recollection of an external object often presented" (Lives, 10.33). Memory serves as a repository of sensations; this capacity for storage and retrieval of sensations allows the mind to form general ideas by which it then classifies sensations; the mind has a "preconception" of the individual object that it is perceiving. For example, the general idea or preconception of a horse or a cow arises from the abstraction of a general idea or essence of "horse" and "cow" from many remembered sensations of "horses" and "cows." Because preconceptions derive from sensations, Epicurus insists that they are always clear and serve as a criterion or determinant of truth. These preconceptions... are not Ideas in the Platonic sense, but simply abstractions originating in many perceptions; Epicurus is a nominalist in this regard.
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Epicurus is one of the first philosophers to put forward an Identity Theory of Mind. In modern versions of the identity theory, the mind is identified with the brain, and mental processes are identified with neural processes. Epicurus' physiology is quite different; the mind is identified as an organ that resides in the chest, since the common Greek view was that the chest, not the head, is the seat of the emotions. However, the underlying idea is quite similar. (Note: not all commentators accept that Epicurus' theory is actually an Identity Theory.)
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Epicurus never married and has no known children. He died in the second year of the 127th Olympiad, in the archonship of Pytharatus (270 BC), at the age of 72. He reportedly suffered from kidney stones, and despite the prolonged pain involved, he wrote to Idomeneus:
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Born in Samos of Athenian parents (Neocles and Chaerestrate), Epicurus studied first with Pamphilus, a Platonist, and later on the neighbouring island of Teos with Nausiphanes: This was his first introduction to the theories of Democritus. At the age of 18 he went to Athens to perform his military service as an Athenian citizen, with - among others - Menander. This duty accomplished, he went to Colophon (322-310), and then on to Mytilene and Lampsacus. In all these places he taught, and gradually developed his pwn philosophical system. In 306 he returned to Athens, where he founded his famous school and laid the foundations of the Epicurean / Hedonistic system. He ... made a particular study of astronomy and meteorology.
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The first is that Epicurus thinks that atoms have weight. Like Democritus, Epicurus believes that atoms have the properties of size, shape, and resistance. Democritus explains all atomic motion as the result of previous atomic collisions, plus the inertia of atoms. Aristotle... criticizes Democritus on this point, saying that Democritus has not explained why it is that atoms move at all, rather than simply standing still. Epicurus seems to be answering this criticism when he says that atoms do have a natural motion of direction--'downward'--even though there is no bottom to the universe. This natural motion is supposed to give an explanation for why atoms move in the first place.
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Epicurus was born in 340 BC and was raised at Samos by his schoolmaster father. As an Athenian citizen he reported for two years of military service when he was eighteen. He taught philosophy in Asia Minor before buying a home and the Garden at Athens, where he taught from 306 BC until his death in 270 BC. According to the biography by Diogenes Laertius, Epicurus wrote extensively, but only a few letters and short sayings remain. His atomistic philosophy was later described in the poem On the Nature of Things by Lucretius. The ethical teachings of Epicurus are summarized in his Letter to Monoeceus and his forty Authoritative Doctrines.
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