A Map through A Few Days In Athens and the World of Epicurus

The Stoic School, also called the Portico, the Porch, founded and led by Zeno of Citium. You belong to this school when the book opens.
1. Doctrines
  1. Nature of Truth: The gods created the universe and Fate controls the destiny of men
  2. Access to Truth: Truth is found through dialectical reasoning
  3. Guide to Life: "Virtue" is the goal of life and one must always fix one's eyes on it, as it exists like the summit of a mountaintop, always out of reach but always there as the goal and standard.
  4. Epicurus' Perspective: The Stoics are the ultimate example of the folly of believing that "virtue" is anything but an empty name.
2. Associates
  1. Cleanthes, the friend you have just met in the Stoic School; honorable but hostile to Epicurus
  2. Timocrates, brother of Metrodorus, and former follower of Epicurus, who has converted to Stoicism
Epicurus, the Gargettian, the Son of Neocles, founder of the the school referred to as "The Garden"
1. Associates
  1. Metrodorus, first assistant to Epicurus
  2. Hermarchus, second assistant to Epicurus
  3. Leontium, female associate of Epicurus, disparaged as a prostitute but a philosopher herself.
  4. Hedea, referred to as an adopted daughter
  5. Polyaenus, former mathematician, now realizes that study of happiness is the most important science
  6. Sofron, student of Epicurus
  7. Colotes, student of Epicurus, in real life writes "That It Is Impossible Even To Live According To The Doctrines Of The Other Philosophers" dedicated to King Ptolemy Philopater. Falls on knees before Epicurus (an episode recorded by Plutarch).
2. Doctrines
  1. Nature of Truth: This world is the only reality. There are no other realities or other dimensions. The universe has always existed, is infinite in size, and the elements that compose the universe are eternal but constantly in motion.
  2. Access to Truth: Truth is accessible through the "Canon of Truth," which is a reference to the tools of sensing and measuring truth, which are (1) the five senses, (2) the anticipations, and (3) the sense of pain and pleasure.
  3. Guide To Life: Nature's guide to life is pleasure and pain ("the passions") which are properly employed by exercising them reasonably through constant reference to reality (Authorized Doctrines 22-25. "Virtue" is a valid concept only as a means of describing the process of living pleasantly - in every other sense the word is a sham. Sees himself and other wise men, not as "teachers", but as guides for path of life
You: Theon, honest young student of philosophy, are sent by your father in Corinth to study Philosophy in Athens.
The Academy, The School Founded by Plato, a student of Socrates. The degree to which Plato's views reflect those of Socrates, or are his own, is disputed.
1. Doctrines
  1. Nature of Truth: Holds that the only true reality is that of ideal forms which exist in another dimension and are inaccessible to the senses. Plato originated the "parable of the cave" the we are like slaves chained to a wall for which reality is visible only as a reflection.
  2. Access to Truth: Truth is accessible only through "reason." Because of this Plato is associated with"dialectic reasoning" i.e. - word game arguments that lull participants into thinking that sentence structures and propositions constitute truth, just as they consider mathematics to be true reality rather than a description of reality.
  3. Guide to Life: "Virtue" is the guide to life. Virtue is set by gods and/or "reasoning."
  4. Epicurus' Perspective: Epicurus refers to Platonists as "dreamers" and "the golden," as Plato held men of "gold" should be philosopher - kings - dictators, and also as "Flatterers of Dionysius" - an allusion to their delusions of grandeur.
2. Associates
Pythagorean School
1. Doctrines
  1. Nature of Truth: Highly mystical; believed truth found in geometric forms, and souls experience reincarnation ("metempsychosis")
  2. Access to Truth:
  3. Guide to Life: Follow the teacher absolutely; students may not even speak
  4. Epicurus' Perspective:
2. Associates
  1. Pythagorus
  2. Empedocles
School of Diogenes, the Cynic, "the Tub"
1. Doctrines
  1. Nature of Truth:
  2. Access To Truth:
  3. Guide To Life: Cynics follow a type of gross Asceticism; doglike manners
  4. Epicurus' Perspective: Epicurus accuses Cynics of a reverse kind of pride, vanity, and ambition
2. Associates
  1. Gryphus, who appears in story to tell Epicurus to stop teaching
Eleatic School (Parmenides)
1. Doctrines
  1. Quibbles: All is One - motion is impossible
2. Associates
The Lyceum, the School of Aristotle, the Peripatetics
1. Doctrines
  1. Nature of Truth: Holds that reality exists in *this* dimension (not another world like Plato).
  2. Access to Truth: Holds that truth is accessible only through "reasoning" in word games ("syllogisms). If a matter cannot be stated in the form of a syllogism, involving affirmations or denials, then it cannot be true.
  3. Guide to Life: "Virtue" is the guide to life. Virtue is set by "reasoning" back to the first cause which is divine.
  4. Epicurus' perspective: Epicurus reportedly called Aristotle a "piker" and "profligate" who "after devouring his patrimony took to soldiering and selling drugs." (This is not in AFDIA and he may not have said it.)
2. Associates
  1. Theophrastus (criticized as arrogant)
Pyrrho, the Skeptic
1. Doctrines
  1. Nature of Truth:
  2. Access To Truth: Impossible to know anything with certainty
  3. Guide to Life:
  4. Epicurus' Pespective: The Skeptics are wrong because certain knowledge of some things is possible, based on the eternal and unchanging nature of the elements. These views are explained in the Letter to Herodotus, Authorized Doctrines 22-25, and Lucretius.
2. Associates