Epicurus was famous for his efforts at clarity, and he emphasized being clear and frank with his students from the very beginning about the important implications of his teaching. Epicurus' approach was very different from that of Socrates, who claimed to know nothing and who relied on extensive question and answer sessions. In fact the Epicureans explicitly criticized Socrates for his lack of candor with his students.
In this session we will begin the presentation of Epicurean philosophy with a list of the important conclusions that you will probably find most interesting and controversial. Some might expect to have to wait until the ending of the course for these, but we will present them to you right at the beginning, so that you will see the big picture very early, and so that you can fit the details of later sessions into that big picture.
No doubt you will not fully understand all of the implications of what we will present in this session, and you will certainly not appreciate the chain of reasoning on which they are based and which is necessary to support them. Even at the end of the class, and only after you have devoted substantial study, will you fully appreciate the details. But after this course, and even after this session, you will begin to get a grasp of the general direction in which the study of Epicurus will take you.
None of us know how much time we have left in life, and none of us have time to waste. So here in this course, from the very beginning, you will learn the most important things that Epicurus thought everyone should learn from an early age.
And yes, Epicurus taught that even children should be educated on the matters discussed here. As a student of Epicurus in the ancient world said, in words that are preserved in one of the most complete ancient texts:
"You are pleased to think [Epicurus] uneducated. The reason is that he refused to consider any education worth the name that did not help to school us in happiness. Was he to spend his time, as you encourage Triarius and me to do, in perusing poets, who give us nothing solid and useful, but merely childish amusement? Was he to occupy himself like Plato with music and geometry, arithmetic and astronomy, which starting from false premises cannot be true, and which moreover if they were true would contribute nothing to make our lives pleasanter and therefore better? Was he, I say, to study arts like these, and neglect the master art, so difficult and correspondingly so fruitful, the art of living? No! Epicurus was not uneducated: the real philistines are those who ask us to go on studying till old age the subjects that we ought to be ashamed not to have learnt in boyhood."