Ataraxia as an Alternative Rationality: Epicurus and the Internal Critique of Greek Rationalism

Abstract

This article offers a reinterpretation of Epicurean ethics as an immanent critique within the Greek rationalist tradition. Contrary to reductive depictions of Epicurus as a private hedonist or metaphysical minimalist, this article argues that Epicurus deploys reason not to affirm speculative truths. Instead, he dismantles the affective and ideological residues embedded within traditional rationality. Central to this transformation is the concept of ataraxia, defined not merely as emotional tranquility but as a normative condition of freedom from irrational fear, particularly those induced by myths of divine retribution and the afterlife (Warren, 2002, pp. 48–52). Through a comparative analysis with Aristotle’s eudaimonia and Stoic apatheia, the article demonstrates that while all three schools uphold the regulative role of reason, Epicurus uniquely reorients its function toward existential healing rather than cosmological alignment or civic virtue. This redirection is grounded in a materialist metaphysics and expressed through practical techniques such as philosophical correspondence, aphoristic distillation, and communal withdrawal. Furthermore, the paper incorporates Foucault’s notion of “care of the self” and Hadot’s concept of “spiritual exercises” to contextualize Epicurean thought as both ethical and political resistance. Epicurus thus emerges not as a marginal thinker but as a radical dissident within the Hellenic intellectual order, a philosopher who redefines reason as a therapeutic instrument of liberation from epistemic anxiety and institutional control.