What America's Founding Fathers Learned From The Ancient Greeks

A little known philosophy profoundly influenced one of the country’s most important thinkers

Jul 04, 2023

What America's Founding Fathers Learned From The Ancient Greeks — Vienna, National Library/Pixabay

“I too am an Epicurean.”
-Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to William Short

When we think of Independence Day celebrations, fireworks, cookouts, and family get-togethers are generally some of the first things that come to mind. But underpinning the fireworks displays and fired up grills is a revolutionary system of ideas George Washington called a “great experiment.” Independence Day, the holiday that celebrates America’s revolutionary founding document, is the country’s most philosophical holiday.

Our founding fathers, from John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, are often the topic of conversation in regards to July 4th. Jefferson was the author of the famed Declaration of Independence document, and Adams was the key figure that convinced the Continental Congress to declare a revolution in honor of it. This document goes down in history as one of America’s authoritative philosophical texts. But without an often overlooked philosophy championed by the Ancient Greek sage Epicurus, the Declaration of Independence may not have ever come into existence. And it certainly may not have included a very specific phrase that made American political philosophy so unique.

The Pursuit of Happiness

When America’s first president, George Washington, referred to the country as a “great experiment,” he was talking about an experiment on human happiness. The founding fathers and America’s leading revolutionary figures were the first in history to champion happiness as a right humans have according to their nature.

Aristotle referred to this “right” as “eudaimonia,” or human flourishing, and Jefferson famously referred to it in the Declaration of Independence with the phrase, “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” While Aristotle was a highly influential philosopher for many framers, and is known as “the father of western civilization,” he was not the Athenian Jefferson was most influenced by.

The Athenian sage Jefferson would model much of his personal and professional life after was the philosopher Epicurus.

An Epicurean View of Reality

Like Plato and Aristotle, Epicurus was one of Ancient Greece’s most famous philosophers. But Epicureanism is often overlooked because so much of his work was lost in a devastating fire. His legacy was left up to his star pupil, Lucretious, to carry on the philosophy, and he did with his momentous epic poem, De Rerum Natura (On The Nature of Things).

Despite so much of Epicurus' teachings being lost in the fire, a select few successfully carried on the Epicurean legacy, and Thomas Jefferson was one of those individuals.

Epicurean teachings were revolutionary in several ways. Like Aristotle, the Greek sage promoted an empirical way of gathering knowledge. Scientific inquiry, therefore, was celebrated in Epicureanism. Epicurus was an atomist-materialist, and much of his early scientific hypotheses have since, for the most part, been proven to be true. As an atomist and materialist, he believed the world was made up of matter and void. If you were made of matter, for instance like humans, then you were made up of tiny particles he called atoms.

Similar to Aristotle as well, Epicurus believed sensory perception was key in discovering knowledge, and that if we erred in our observations, it wasn’t a failure of sensory perception but our mental judgment of it. And upon error, we don’t throw in the towel and say our senses have failed us and are therefore unreliable. We inquire further until our knowledge matches up to the reality before us.

An Epicurean View of Life

An amateur scientist, Jefferson’s views on scientific inquiry and how we gather knowledge were shaped by Epicurus’ teachings. But even more influential to the young diplomat was the philosopher’s view on ethics.

Epicureans believed harmony with the universe and peace within oneself were two of life’s most important purposes. Though they were known as hedonists, or pleasure-seekers, to the true Epicurean, balance was key.

While they upheld the pleasurable as life’s goal, their use of the word must be put into context.

Seeking pleasure and avoiding pain meant seeking what makes one happy, what one enjoys, and the good in life, while minimizing discomfort that comes with overindulging and overexertion that would put one’s soul out of harmony with virtues. See how this ties into Jefferson’s famous “pursuit of happiness” line?

Like Aristotle, Epicurus viewed Prudence, or a constant search for “practical wisdom,” as life’s cardinal virtue. Epicureans believed that the way to gain practical wisdom is through leading a life of balance, tranquility, and temperance.

This doesn’t mean avoiding conflict or running from fear. Quite the opposite. Epicureans were bold thinkers who challenged the status quo and traditions. They didn’t view cowardice as a virtue. They fought for what was right during times of great civil unrest, championed reason during a time entrenched in mysticism, and never backed down from doing what was considered to be the hard thing if it meant a just outcome.

While Aristotle is often credited with “the golden mean,” perhaps this continual balance between excess and deficiency is actually far more Epicurean than Aristotelian.

They used the term “pleasure” to describe the good and just that people should seek out in life. And it was no endeavor to be taken in vain. To the virtuous Epicureans, this way of living should be taken seriously because it leads to happiness.

This outlook played a pivotal role in Jefferson’s view on personal conduct. Never before had the term “happiness” been used in any government document regarding subjects or citizens.

With that one word he revolutionized the way humans not only saw themselves as autonomous individuals, but as free citizens in relation to the governments they elect.

An Epicurean View of Education

The scope of Jefferson’s accomplishments can only be rivaled by a select few. Though many might view his tenure as president as his highest accomplishment, Jefferson felt differently.

His late in life project, the building of the University of Virginia, was his tour de force. And in his view, his greatest contribution to Washington’s “great experiment.”

Epicurean philosophy was so ingrained in the statesman that the very architecture of the campus, Classic in its design while utilizing local Virginian brick for construction, was modeled after Epicurus’ own academy he built in Ancient Greece known as the “Garden.”

A proponent of scientific inquiry and sensory perception, Epicurus designed his campus so that at the center was a beautiful garden filled with nature. This way, students could walk along the blooming flowers and busy, budding ecosystems to learn about nature, logic, science, and philosophy in an active, self-oriented manner, as opposed to sitting inside somewhere away from the epicenter of the subject at hand.

While Epicurus’ campus center featured an inspiring garden, Jefferson knew that as light and soil bloom seeds into flowers, books bloom man into human; humanity into man.

Because of his love of the written word and his belief in its power to shape the human mind, instead of a garden, he put a library in the center of the University of Virginia campus.

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