title: Epicurus

text: Epicurus himself criticizes popular religion in both his "Letter to Menoeceus" and his "Letter to Herodotus", but in a restrained and moderate tone. Later Epicureans mainly followed the same ideas as Epicurus, believing in the existence of the gods, but emphatically rejecting the idea of divine providence. Their criticisms of popular religion, however, are often less gentle than those of Epicurus himself. The "Letter to Pythocles", written by a later Epicurean, is dismissive and contemptuous towards popular religion and Epicurus's devoted follower, the Roman poet Lucretius ( 99 BC – 55 BC), passionately assailed popular religion in his philosophical poem "On the Nature of Things". In this poem, Lucretius declares that popular religious practices not only do not instill virtue, but rather result in "misdeeds both wicked and ungodly", citing the mythical sacrifice of Iphigenia as an example. Lucretius argues that divine creation and providence are illogical, not because the gods do not exist, but rather because these notions are incompatible with the Epicurean principles of the gods' indestructibility and blessedness. The later Pyrrhonist philosopher Sextus Empiricus ( 160 – 210 AD) rejected the teachings of the Epicureans specifically because he regarded them as theological "Dogmaticists".


title: Epicurus

text: The Epicurean paradox or riddle of Epicurus or Epicurus' trilemma is a version of the problem of evil. Lactantius attributes this trilemma to Epicurus in "De Ira Dei", 13, 20-21:


title: Epicurus

text: God, he says, either wishes to take away evils, and is unable; or He is able, and is unwilling; or He is neither willing nor able, or He is both willing and able. If He is willing and is unable, He is feeble, which is not in accordance with the character of God; if He is able and unwilling, He is envious, which is equally at variance with God; if He is neither willing nor able, He is both envious and feeble, and therefore not God; if He is both willing and able, which alone is suitable to God, from what source then are evils? Or why does He not remove them?


title: Epicurus

text: In "Dialogues concerning Natural Religion" (1779), David Hume also attributes the argument to Epicurus:


title: Epicurus

text: Epicurus’s old questions are yet unanswered. Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?


title: Epicurus

text: No extant writings of Epicurus contain this argument. However, the vast majority of Epicurus's writings have been lost and it is possible that some form of this argument may have been found in his lost treatise "On the Gods", which Diogenes Laërtius describes as one of his greatest works. If Epicurus really did make some form of this argument, it would not have been an argument against the existence of deities, but rather an argument against divine providence. Epicurus's extant writings demonstrate that he did believe in the existence of deities. Furthermore, religion was such an integral part of daily life in Greece during the early Hellenistic Period that it is doubtful anyone during that period could have been an atheist in the modern sense of the word. Instead, the Greek word ("átheos"), meaning "without a god", was used as a term of abuse, not as an attempt to describe a person's beliefs.


title: Epicurus

text: Epicurus promoted an innovative theory of justice as a social contract. Justice, Epicurus said, is an agreement neither to harm nor be harmed, and we need to have such a contract in order to enjoy fully the benefits of living together in a well-ordered society. Laws and punishments are needed to keep misguided fools in line who would otherwise break the contract. But the wise person sees the usefulness of justice, and because of his limited desires, he has no need to engage in the conduct prohibited by the laws in any case. Laws that are useful for promoting happiness are just, but those that are not useful are not just. ("Principal Doctrines" 31–40)


title: Epicurus

text: Epicurus discouraged participation in politics, as doing so leads to perturbation and status seeking. He instead advocated not drawing attention to oneself. This principle is epitomised by the phrase "lathe biōsas" (), meaning "live in obscurity", "get through life without drawing attention to yourself", i.e., live without pursuing glory or wealth or power, but anonymously, enjoying little things like food, the company of friends, etc. Plutarch elaborated on this theme in his essay "Is the Saying "Live in Obscurity" Right?" (, "An recte dictum sit latenter esse vivendum") 1128c; cf. Flavius Philostratus, "Vita Apollonii" 8.28.12.


title: Epicurus

text: Epicurus was an extremely prolific writer. According to Diogenes Laërtius, he wrote around 300 treatises on a variety of subjects. More original writings of Epicurus have survived to the present day than of any other Hellenistic Greek philosopher. Nonetheless, the vast majority of everything he wrote has now been lost and most of what is known about Epicurus's teachings come from the writings of his later followers, particularly the Roman poet Lucretius. The only surviving complete works by Epicurus are three relatively lengthy letters, which are quoted in their entirety in Book X of Diogenes Laërtius's "Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers", and two groups of quotes: the "Principal Doctrines" (Κύριαι Δόξαι), which are likewise preserved through quotation by Diogenes Laërtius, and the "Vatican Sayings", preserved in a manuscript from the Vatican Library that was first discovered in 1888. In the "Letter to Herodotus" and the "Letter to Pythocles", Epicurus summarizes his philosophy on nature and, in the "Letter to Menoeceus", he summarizes his moral teachings. Numerous fragments of Epicurus's lost thirty-seven volume treatise "On Nature" have been found among the charred papyrus fragments at the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum. Scholars first began attempting to unravel and decipher these scrolls in 1800, but the efforts are painstaking and are still ongoing.


title: Epicurus

text: Epicureanism was extremely popular from the very beginning. Diogenes Laërtius records that the number of Epicureans throughout the world exceeded the populations of entire cities. Nonetheless, Epicurus was not universally admired and, within his own lifetime, he was vilified as an ignorant buffoon and egoistic sybarite. He remained the most simultaneously admired and despised philosopher in the Mediterranean for the next nearly five centuries. Epicureanism rapidly spread beyond the Greek mainland all across the Mediterranean world. By the first century BC, it had established a strong foothold in Italy. The Roman orator Cicero (106 – 43 BC), who deplored Epicurean ethics, lamented, "the Epicureans have taken Italy by storm."


title: Epicurus

text: The overwhelming majority of surviving Greek and Roman sources are vehemently negative towards Epicureanism and, according to Pamela Gordon, they routinely depict Epicurus himself as "monstrous or laughable". Many Romans in particular took a negative view of Epicureanism, seeing its advocacy of the pursuit of "voluptas" ("pleasure") as contrary to the Roman ideal of "virtus" ("manly virtue"). The Romans therefore often stereotyped Epicurus and his followers as weak and effeminate. Prominent critics of his philosophy include prominent authors such as the Roman Stoic Seneca the Younger ( 4 BC – AD 65) and the Greek Middle Platonist Plutarch ( 46 – 120), who both derided these stereotypes as immoral and disreputable. Gordon characterizes anti-Epicurean rhetoric as so "heavy-handed" and misrepresentative of Epicurus's actual teachings that they sometimes come across as "comical". In his "De vita beata", Seneca states that the "sect of Epicurus... has a bad reputation, and yet it does not deserve it." and compares it to "a man in a dress: your chastity remains, your virility is unimpaired, your body has not submitted sexually, but in your hand is a tympanum."


title: Epicurus

text: Epicureanism was a notoriously conservative philosophical school; although Epicurus's later followers did expand on his philosophy, they dogmatically retained what he himself had originally taught without modifying it. Epicureans and admirers of Epicureanism revered Epicurus himself as a great teacher of ethics, a savior, and even a god. His image was worn on finger rings, portraits of him were displayed in living rooms, and wealthy followers venerated likenesses of him in marble sculpture. His admirers revered his sayings as divine oracles, carried around copies of his writings, and cherished copies of his letters like the letters of an apostle. On the twentieth day of every month, admirers of his teachings would perform a solemn ritual to honor his memory. At the same time, opponents of his teachings denounced him with vehemence and persistence.


title: Epicurus

text: However, in the first and second centuries AD, Epicureanism gradually began to decline as it failed to compete with Stoicism, which had an ethical system more in line with traditional Roman values. Epicureanism also suffered decay in the wake of Christianity, which was also rapidly expanding throughout the Roman Empire. Of all the Greek philosophical schools, Epicureanism was the one most at odds with the new Christian teachings, since Epicureans believed that the soul was mortal, denied the existence of an afterlife, denied that the divine had any active role in human life, and advocated pleasure as the foremost goal of human existence. As such, Christian writers such as Justin Martyr ( 100– 165 AD), Athenagoras of Athens ( 133– 190), Tertullian ( 155– 240), and Clement of Alexandria ( 150– 215), Arnobius (died 330), and Lactantius (c. 250-c.325) all singled it out for the most vitriolic criticism.


title: Epicurus

text: In spite of this, DeWitt argues that Epicureanism and Christianity share much common language, calling Epicureanism "the first missionary philosophy" and "the first world philosophy". Both Epicureanism and Christianity placed strong emphasis on the importance of love and forgiveness and early Christian portrayals of Jesus are often similar to Epicurean portrayals of Epicurus. DeWitt argues that Epicureanism, in many ways, helped pave the way for the spread of Christianity by "helping to bridge the gap between Greek intellectualism and a religious way of life" and "shunt[ing] the emphasis from the political to the social virtues and offer[ing] what may be called a religion of humanity."


title: Epicurus

text: By the early fifth century AD, Epicureanism was virtually extinct. The Christian Church Father Augustine of Hippo (354–430 AD) declared, "its ashes are so cold that not a single spark can be struck from them." While the ideas of Plato and Aristotle could easily be adapted to suit a Christian worldview, the ideas of Epicurus were not nearly as easily amenable. As such, while Plato and Aristotle enjoyed a privileged place in Christian philosophy throughout the Middle Ages, Epicurus was not held in such esteem. Information about Epicurus's teachings was available, through Lucretius's "On the Nature of Things", quotations of it found in medieval Latin grammars and "florilegia", and encyclopedias, such as Isidore of Seville's "Etymologiae" (seventh century) and Hrabanus Maurus's "De universo" (ninth century), but there is little evidence that these teachings were systematically studied or comprehended.


title: Epicurus

text: During the Middle Ages, Epicurus was remembered by the educated as a philosopher, but he frequently appeared in popular culture as a gatekeeper to the Garden of Delights, the "proprietor of the kitchen, the tavern, and the brothel." He appears in this guise in Martianus Capella's "Marriage of Mercury and Philology" (fifth century), John of Salisbury's "Policraticus" (1159), John Gower's "Mirour de l'Omme", and Geoffrey Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales". Epicurus and his followers appear in Dante Alighieri's "Inferno" in the Sixth Circle of Hell, where they are imprisoned in flaming coffins for having believed that the soul dies with the body.


title: Epicurus

text: In 1417, a manuscript-hunter named Poggio Bracciolini discovered a copy of Lucretius's "On the Nature of Things" in a monastery near Lake Constance. The discovery of this manuscript was met with immense excitement, because scholars were eager to analyze and study the teachings of classical philosophers and this previously-forgotten text contained the most comprehensive account of Epicurus's teachings known in Latin. The first scholarly dissertation on Epicurus, "De voluptate" ("On Pleasure") by the Italian Humanist and Catholic priest Lorenzo Valla was published in 1431. Valla made no mention of Lucretius or his poem. Instead, he presented the treatise as a discussion on the nature of the highest good between an Epicurean, a Stoic, and a Christian. Valla's dialogue ultimately rejects Epicureanism, but, by presenting an Epicurean as a member of the dispute, Valla lent Epicureanism credibility as a philosophy that deserved to be taken seriously.


title: Epicurus

text: None of the Quattrocento Humanists ever clearly endorsed Epicureanism, but scholars such as Francesco Zabarella (1360–1417), Francesco Filelfo (1398–1481), Cristoforo Landino (1424–1498), and Leonardo Bruni ( 1370–1444) did give Epicureanism a fairer analysis than it had traditionally received and provided a less overtly hostile assessment of Epicurus himself. Nonetheless, "Epicureanism" remained a pejorative, synonymous with extreme egoistic pleasure-seeking, rather than a name of a philosophical school. This reputation discouraged orthodox Christian scholars from taking what others might regard as an inappropriately keen interest in Epicurean teachings. Epicureanism did not take hold in Italy, France, or England until the seventeenth century. Even the liberal religious skeptics who might have been expected to take an interest in Epicureanism evidently did not; Étienne Dolet (1509–1546) only mentions Epicurus once in all his writings and François Rabelais (between 1483 and 1494–1553) never mentions him at all. Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) is the exception to this trend, quoting a full 450 lines of Lucretius's "On the Nature of Things" in his "Essays". His interest in Lucretius, however, seems to have been primarily literary and he is ambiguous about his feelings on Lucretius's Epicurean worldview. During the Protestant Reformation, the label "Epicurean" was bandied back and forth as an insult between Protestants and Catholics.


title: Epicurus

text: In the seventeenth century, the French Catholic priest and scholar Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655) sought to dislodge Aristotelianism from its position of the highest dogma by presenting Epicureanism as a better and more rational alternative. In 1647, Gassendi published his book "De vita et moribus Epicuri" ("The Life and Morals of Epicurus"), a passionate defense of Epicureanism. In 1649, he published a commentary on Diogenes Laërtius's "Life of Epicurus". He left "Syntagma philosophicum" ("Philosophical Compendium"), a synthesis of Epicurean doctrines, unfinished at the time of his death in 1655. It was finally published in 1658, after undergoing revision by his editors. Gassendi modified Epicurus's teachings to make them palatable for a Christian audience. For instance, he argued that atoms were not eternal, uncreated, and infinite in number, instead contending that an extremely large but finite number of atoms were created by God at creation.


title: Epicurus

text: As a result of Gassendi's modifications, his books were never censored by the Catholic Church. They came to exert profound influence on later writings about Epicurus. Gassendi's version of Epicurus's teachings became popular among some members of English scientific circles. For these scholars, however, Epicurean atomism was merely a starting point for their own idiosyncratic adaptations of it. To orthodox thinkers, Epicureanism was still regarded as immoral and heretical. For instance, Lucy Hutchinson (1620–1681), the first translator of Lucretius's "On the Nature of Things" into English, railed against Epicurus as "a lunatic dog" who formulated "ridiculous, impious, execrable doctrines".


title: Epicurus

text: Epicurus's teachings were made respectable in England by the natural philosopher Walter Charleton (1619–1707), whose first Epicurean work, "The Darkness of Atheism Dispelled by the Light of Nature" (1652), advanced Epicureanism as a "new" atomism. His next work "Physiologia Epicuro-Gassendo-Charletoniana, or a Fabrick of Science Natural, upon a Hypothesis of Atoms, Founded by Epicurus, Repaired by Petrus Gassendus, and Augmented by Walter Charleton" (1654) emphasized this idea. These works, together with Charleton's "Epicurus's Morals" (1658), provided the English public with readily available descriptions of Epicurus's philosophy and assured orthodox Christians that Epicureanism was no threat to their beliefs. The Royal Society, chartered in 1662, advanced Epicurean atomism. One of the most prolific defenders of atomism was the chemist Robert Boyle (1627–1691), who argued for it in publications such as "The Origins of Forms and Qualities" (1666), "Experiments, Notes, etc. about the Mechanical Origin and Production of Divers Particular Qualities" (1675), and "Of the Excellency and Grounds of the Mechanical Hypothesis" (1674). By the end of the seventeenth century, Epicurean atomism was widely accepted by members of the English scientific community as the best model for explaining the physical world, but it had been modified so greatly that Epicurus was no longer seen as its original parent.


title: Epicurus

text: The Anglican bishop Joseph Butler's anti-Epicurean polemics in his "Fifteen Sermons Preached at the Rolls Chapel" (1726) and "Analogy of Religion" (1736) set the tune for what most orthodox Christians believed about Epicureanism for the remainder of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Nonetheless, there are a few indications from this time period of Epicurus's improving reputation. Epicureanism was beginning to lose its associations with indiscriminate and insatiable gluttony, which had been characteristic of its reputation ever since antiquity. Instead, the word "epicure" began to refer to a person with extremely refined taste in food. Examples of this usage include "Epicurean cooks / sharpen with cloyless sauce his appetite" from William Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra" (Act II. scene i; 1607) and "such an epicure was Potiphar—to please his tooth and pamper his flesh with delicacies" from William Whately's "Prototypes" (1646).


title: Epicurus

text: Around the same time, the Epicurean injunction to "live in obscurity" was beginning to gain popularity as well. In 1685, Sir William Temple (1628–1699) abandoned a promising career as a diplomat and instead retired to his garden, devoting himself to writing essays on Epicurus's moral teachings. That same year, John Dryden translated the celebrated lines from Book II of Lucretius's "On the Nature of Things": "'Tis pleasant, safely to behold from shore / The rowling ship, and hear the Tempest roar." Meanwhile, John Locke (1632–1704) adapted Gassendi's modified version of Epicurus's epistemology, which became highly influential on English empiricism. Many thinkers with sympathies towards the Enlightenment endorsed Epicureanism as an admirable moral philosophy. Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, declared in 1819, "I too am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greece and Rome have left us."


title: Epicurus

text: The German philosopher Karl Marx (1818–1883), whose ideas are the basis of Marxism, was profoundly influenced as a young man by the teachings of Epicurus and his doctoral thesis was a Hegelian dialectical analysis of the differences between the natural philosophies of Democritus and Epicurus. Marx viewed Democritus as a rationalist skeptic, whose epistemology was inherently contradictory, but saw Epicurus as a dogmatic empiricist, whose worldview is internally consistent and practically applicable. The British poet Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892) praised "the sober majesties / of settled, sweet, Epicurean life" in his 1868 poem "Lucretius". Epicurus's ethical teachings also had an indirect impact on the philosophy of Utilitarianism in England during the nineteenth century. Soviet politician Joseph Stalin (1878–1953) lauded Epicurus by stating: "He was the greatest philosopher of all time. He was the one who recommended practicing virtue to derive the greatest joy from life".


title: Epicurus

text: Friedrich Nietzsche once noted: "Even today many educated people think that the victory of Christianity over Greek philosophy is a proof of the superior truth of the former – although in this case it was only the coarser and more violent that conquered the more spiritual and delicate. So far as superior truth is concerned, it is enough to observe that the awakening sciences have allied themselves point by point with the philosophy of Epicurus, but point by point rejected Christianity."


title: Epicurus

text: Academic interest in Epicurus and other Hellenistic philosophers increased over the course of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, with an unprecedented number of monographs, articles, abstracts, and conference papers being published on the subject. The texts from the library of Philodemus of Gadara in the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum, first discovered between 1750 and 1765, are being deciphered, translated, and published by scholars part of the Philodemus Translation Project, funded by the United States National Endowment for the Humanities, and part of the Centro per lo Studio dei Papiri Ercolanesi in Naples. Epicurus's popular appeal among non-scholars is difficult to gauge, but it seems to be relatively comparable to the appeal of more traditionally popular ancient Greek philosophical subjects such as Stoicism, Aristotle, and Plato.


title: Epictetus

text: Epictetus (; , "Epíktētos"; 50 135 AD) was a Greek Stoic philosopher. He was born into slavery at Hierapolis, Phrygia (present-day Pamukkale, in western Turkey) and lived in Rome until his banishment, when he went to Nicopolis in northwestern Greece for the rest of his life. His teachings were written down and published by his pupil Arrian in his "Discourses" and "Enchiridion".


title: Epictetus

text: Epictetus taught that philosophy is a way of life and not simply a theoretical discipline. To Epictetus, all external events are beyond our control; we should accept whatever happens calmly and dispassionately. However, individuals are responsible for their own actions, which they can examine and control through rigorous self-discipline.


title: Epictetus

text: Epictetus was born around AD 50, presumably at Hierapolis, Phrygia. The name his parents gave him is unknown; the word "epíktētos" (ἐπίκτητος) in Greek simply means "gained" or "acquired"; the Greek philosopher Plato, in his "Laws", used the term to mean property that is "added to one's hereditary property". He spent his youth in Rome as a slave to Epaphroditus, a wealthy freedman and secretary to Nero.


title: Epictetus

text: Early in life, Epictetus acquired a passion for philosophy and, with the permission of his wealthy master, he studied Stoic philosophy under Musonius Rufus. Becoming more educated in this way raised his social status. At some point, he became disabled. Celsus, quoted by Origen, wrote that this was because his leg had been deliberately broken by his master. Simplicius, in contrast, wrote that he had simply been disabled from childhood.


title: Epictetus

text: Epictetus obtained his freedom sometime after the death of Nero in AD 68, and he began to teach philosophy in Rome. Around AD 93, when the Roman emperor Domitian banished all philosophers from the city, Epictetus moved to Nicopolis in Epirus, Greece, where he founded a school of philosophy.


title: Epictetus

text: His most famous pupil, Arrian, studied under him as a young man (around AD 108) and claimed to have written his famous "Discourses" based on the notes he took on Epictetus's lectures. Arrian argued that his Discourses should be considered comparable to the Socratic literature. Arrian described Epictetus as a powerful speaker who could "induce his listener to feel just what Epictetus wanted him to feel." Many eminent figures sought conversations with him. Emperor Hadrian was friendly with him, and may have heard him speak at his school in Nicopolis.


title: Epictetus

text: He lived a life of great simplicity, with few possessions. He lived alone for a long time, but in his old age, he adopted a friend's child who otherwise would have been left to die and raised him with the aid of a woman. It is unclear whether Epictetus and she were married. He died sometime around AD 135. After his death, according to Lucian, his oil lamp was purchased by an admirer for 3,000 drachmae.


title: Epictetus

text: No writings by Epictetus are known. His discourses were transcribed and compiled by his pupil Arrian (). The main work is "The Discourses", four books of which have been preserved (out of the original eight). Arrian also compiled a popular digest, entitled the "Enchiridion", or "Handbook." In a preface to the "Discourses" that is addressed to Lucius Gellius, Arrian states that "whatever I heard him say I used to write down, word for word, as best I could, endeavouring to preserve it as a memorial, for my own future use, of his way of thinking and the frankness of his speech." In the sixth century, the Neoplatonist philosopher Simplicius wrote an extant commentary on the "Enchiridion".


title: Epictetus

text: Epictetus maintains that the foundation of all philosophy is self-knowledge; that is, the conviction of our ignorance and gullibility ought to be the first subject of our study. Logic provides valid reasoning and certainty in judgment, but it is subordinate to practical needs. The first and most necessary part of philosophy concerns the application of doctrine, for example, that people should not lie. The second concerns reasons, e.g., why people should not lie. While the third, lastly, examines and establishes the reasons. This is the logical part, which finds reasons, shows what is a reason, and that a given reason is a correct one. This last part is necessary, but only on account of the second, which again is rendered necessary by the first.


title: Epictetus

text: Both the "Discourses" and the "Enchiridion" begin by distinguishing between those things in our power ("prohairetic" things) and those things not in our power ("aprohairetic" things).


title: Epictetus

text: That alone is in our power, which is our own work; and in this class are our opinions, impulses, desires, and aversions. On the contrary, what is not in our power, are our bodies, possessions, glory, and power. Any delusion on this point leads to the greatest errors, misfortunes, and troubles, and to the slavery of the soul.


title: Epictetus

text: We have no power over external things, and the good that ought to be the object of our earnest pursuit, is to be found only within ourselves. The determination between what is good and what is not good is made by the capacity for choice ("prohairesis"). Prohairesis allows us to act, and gives us the kind of freedom that only rational animals have. It is determined by our reason, which of all our faculties, sees and tests itself and everything else. It is the correct use of the impressions ("phantasia") that bombard the mind that is in our power:


title: Epictetus

text: Practice then from the start to say to every harsh impression, "You are an impression, and not at all the thing you appear to be." Then examine it and test it by these rules you have, and firstly, and chiefly, by this: whether the impression has to do with the things that are up to us, or those that are not; and if it has to do with the things that are not up to us, be ready to reply, "It is nothing to me."


title: Epictetus

text: We will not be troubled at any loss, but will say to ourselves on such an occasion: "I have lost nothing that belongs to me; it was not something of mine that was torn from me, but something that was not in my power has left me." Nothing beyond the use of our opinion is properly ours. Every possession rests on opinion. What is to cry and to weep? An opinion. What is misfortune, or a quarrel, or a complaint? All these things are opinions; opinions founded on the delusion that what is not subject to our own choice can be either good or evil, which it cannot. By rejecting these opinions, and seeking good and evil in the power of choice alone, we may confidently achieve peace of mind in every condition of life.


title: Epictetus

text: Reason alone is good, the irrational is evil, and the irrational is intolerable to the rational. The good person should labour chiefly on their own reason; to perfect this is in our power. To repel evil opinions by the good is the noble contest in which humans should engage; it is not an easy task, but it promises true freedom, peace of mind ("ataraxia"), and a divine command over the emotions ("apatheia"). We should especially be on our guard against the opinion of pleasure because of its apparent sweetness and charms. The first object of philosophy, therefore, is to purify the mind.


title: Epictetus

text: Epictetus teaches that the preconceptions ("prolepsis") of good and evil are common to all. Good alone is profitable and to be desired, and evil is hurtful and to be avoided. Different opinions arise only from the application of these preconceptions to particular cases, and it is then that the darkness of ignorance, which blindly maintains the correctness of its own opinion, must be dispelled. People entertain different and conflicting opinions of good, and in their judgment of a particular good, people frequently contradict themselves. Philosophy should provide a standard for good and evil. This process is greatly facilitated because the mind and the works of the mind are alone in our power, whereas all external things that aid life are beyond our control.


title: Epictetus

text: The essence of divinity is goodness; we have all good that could be given to us. The deities too gave us the soul and reason, which is not measured by breadth or depth, but by knowledge and sentiments, and by which we attain to greatness, and may equal even with the deities. We should, therefore, cultivate the mind with special care. If we wish for nothing, but what God wills, we shall be truly free, and all will come to pass with us according to our desire; and we shall be as little subject to restraint as Zeus himself.


title: Epictetus

text: Every individual is connected with the rest of the world, and the universe is fashioned for universal harmony. Wise people, therefore, will pursue, not merely their own will, but also will be subject to the rightful order of the world. We should conduct ourselves through life fulfilling all our duties as children, siblings, parents, and citizens.


title: Epictetus

text: For our country or friends we ought to be ready to undergo or perform the greatest difficulties. The good person, if able to foresee the future, would peacefully and contentedly help to bring about their own sickness, maiming, and even death, knowing that this is the correct order of the universe. We have all a certain part to play in the world, and we have done enough when we have performed what our nature allows. In the exercise of our powers, we may become aware of the destiny we are intended to fulfil.


title: Epictetus

text: We are like travellers at an inn or guests at a stranger's table; whatever is offered we take with thankfulness, and sometimes, when the turn comes, we may refuse; in the former case we are a worthy guest of the deities, and in the latter we appear as a sharer in their power. Anyone who finds life intolerable is free to quit it, but we should not abandon our appointed role without sufficient reason. The Stoic sage will never find life intolerable and will complain of no one, neither deity nor human. Those who go wrong we should pardon and treat with compassion, since it is from ignorance that they err, being as it were, blind.


title: Epictetus

text: It is only our opinions and principles that can render us unhappy, and it is only the ignorant person who finds fault with another. Every desire degrades us, and renders us slaves of what we desire. We ought not to forget the transitory character of all external advantages, even in the midst of our enjoyment of them; but always to bear in mind that they are not our own, and that therefore, they do not properly belong to us. Thus prepared, we shall never be carried away by opinions.


title: Epictetus

text: The final entry of the "Enchiridion," or "Handbook," begins: "Upon all occasions we ought to have these maxims ready at hand":


title: Epictetus

text: Epictetus appears in a 2nd or 3rd century "Dialogue between the Emperor Hadrian and Epictetus the Philosopher". This short Latin text consists of seventy-three short questions supposedly posed by Hadrian and answered by Epictetus. This dialogue was very popular in the Middle Ages with many translations and adaptations.


title: Epictetus

text: The philosophy of Epictetus influenced the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (AD 121 to AD 180), who cites Epictetus in his "Meditations".


title: Epictetus

text: Voltaire, Montesquieu, Denis Diderot and Baron d'Holbach all read the "Enchiridion" when they were students.


title: Epictetus

text: The philosophy of Epictetus plays a key role in the 1998 novel "A Man in Full" by Tom Wolfe. This was in part the outcome of discussions Wolfe had with James Stockdale (see below). The character Conrad, who through a series of mishaps finds himself in jail and accidentally acquires a copy of the "Enchiridion of Epictetus", the Stoic's manual, discovers a philosophy that strengthens him to endure the brutality of the prison environment. He experiences Joseph Campbell's 'hero's journey' call to action and becomes a strong, honorable, undefeatable protagonist. The importance of Epictetus' Stoicism for Stockdale, its role in "A Man in Full", and its significance in Ridley Scott's film "Gladiator" are discussed by William O. Stephens in "The Rebirth of Stoicism?".


title: Epictetus

text: Mohun Biswas, in the novel "A House for Mr Biswas" (1961), by V.S. Naipaul, is pleased to think himself a follower of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius; the irony is that he never actually behaves as a Stoic.


title: Epictetus

text: "Everything has two handles, the one by which it may be carried, the other by which it cannot" is the theme of "Disturbances in the Field" (1983), by Lynne Sharon Schwartz. Lydia, the central character, turns often to "The Golden Sayings of Epictetus" – the latter being a modern selection from Epictetus's writings, compiled and translated by Hastings Crossley.


title: Epictetus

text: A line from the "Enchiridion" is used as a title quotation in "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman" by Laurence Sterne, which translates to, "Not things, but opinions about things, trouble men."


title: Epictetus

text: Epictetus is mentioned in "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" by James Joyce: in the fifth chapter of the novel the protagonist Stephen Dedalus discusses Epictetus's famous lamp with a dean of his college. Epictetus also is mentioned briefly in "Franny and Zooey" by J. D. Salinger, and is referred to by Theodore Dreiser in his novel "Sister Carrie". Both the longevity of Epictetus's life and his philosophy are alluded to in John Berryman's poem, "Of Suicide."


title: Epictetus

text: Epictetus is referred to, but not mentioned by name, in Matthew Arnold's sonnet "To a Friend". Arnold provides three historical personalities as his inspiration and support in difficult times (Epictetus is preceded by Homer and succeeded by Sophocles):


title: Epictetus

text: In the Chapter XXX of François Rabelais' "Pantagruel" (c.1532), Pantagruel's tutor Epistemon had his head cut off after a battle. After he had his head reattached and was brought back to life, he recounts his experience of the damned in hell:


title: Epictetus

text: James Stockdale, a fighter pilot who was shot down while serving in the Vietnam War, was influenced by Epictetus. He was introduced to his works while at Stanford University. In "Courage under Fire: Testing Epictetus's Doctrines in a Laboratory of Human Behavior" (1993), Stockdale credits Epictetus with helping him endure his seven and a half years in captivity, which included torture and four years in solitary confinement. When he was shot down, he reportedly said to himself "I'm leaving the world of technology and entering the world of Epictetus!" as he bailed out.


title: Epictetus

text: Quoting Epictetus, Stockdale concludes the book with: The emotions of grief, pity, and even affection are well-known disturbers of the soul. Grief is the most offensive; Epictetus considered the suffering of grief an act of evil. It is a willful act, going against the will of God to have all men share happiness.


title: Epictetus

text: Psychologist Albert Ellis, the founder of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, credited Epictetus with providing a foundation for his system of psychotherapy.


title: Epictetus

text: Kiyozawa Manshi, a controversial reformer within the Higashi Honganji branch of Jodo Shinshu Buddhism, cited Epictetus as one of the three major influences on his spiritual development and thought.


title: Abraham Van Helsing

text: Professor Abraham Van Helsing, a fictional character from the 1897 gothic horror novel "Dracula", is an aged Dutch polymath doctor with a wide range of interests and accomplishments, partly attested by the string of letters that follows his name: "MD, D.Ph., D.Litt., etc.", indicating a wealth of experience, education and expertise. He is a Doctor, Professor, Lawyer, Philosopher, Scientist and Metaphysic. The character is best known through many adaptations of the story as a vampire slayer, monster hunter and the archnemesis of Count Dracula, and the prototypical and the archetypical parapsychologist in subsequent works of paranormal fiction.


title: Abraham Van Helsing

text: In the novel, Professor Van Helsing is called in by his former student, John Seward, to assist with the mysterious illness of Lucy Westenra. Van Helsing's friendship with Seward is based in part upon an unknown prior event in which Van Helsing suffered a grievous wound, and Seward saved his life by sucking out the gangrene. It is Van Helsing who first realizes that Lucy is the victim of a vampire, and he guides Seward and his friends in their efforts to save Lucy.


title: Abraham Van Helsing

text: Van Helsing had a son who died. He says that his son, had he lived, would have had a similar appearance to Lucy's suitor Arthur Holmwood ("My heart bleed for that poor boy, that dear boy, so of the age of mine own boy had I been so blessed that he live, and with his hair and eyes the same"). Consequently, Van Helsing developed a particular fondness for Holmwood. Van Helsing's wife went insane from grief after their son's death, but as a Catholic, he refuses to divorce her ("with my poor wife dead to me, but alive by Church's law, though no wits, all gone, even I, who am faithful husband to this now-no-wife").


title: Abraham Van Helsing

text: Van Helsing is one of the few characters in the novel who is fully physically described in one place. In chapter 14, Mina Harker describes him as:


title: Abraham Van Helsing

text: In the novel, Van Helsing is described as having what is apparently a thick foreign accent, in that he speaks in broken English and he uses German phrases such as "Mein Gott" ().


title: Abraham Van Helsing

text: Adaptations of the novel have tended to play up Van Helsing's role as a vampire expert, sometimes to the extent that it is depicted as his major occupation. In the novel, however, Dr. Seward requests Van Helsing's assistance simply because Lucy's affliction has him baffled and Van Helsing "knows as much about obscure diseases as anyone in the world".


title: Abraham Van Helsing

text: In an 1897 interview in "The British Weekly", Stoker said that Van Helsing was "founded on a real character". In Stoker's 1898 introduction to the Swedish and Iclandic versions of "Dracula", he writes from an in-universe perspective that "the highly regarded scientist, who appears under a pseudonym here, may likewise be too famous throughout the educated world for his real name − which I prefer not to mention − to remain hidden from the public, especially from those people who have learned firsthand to appreciate and respect his brilliant mind and masterly skill, though they no more adhere to his views on life than I do."


title: Abraham Van Helsing

text: Literary researcher Roger Dobson reported that Van Helsing may have been inspired by Sheridan Le Fanu's Dr Martin Hesselius from "Carmilla" (1871–72), "who makes little comment upon the strange narrative he introduces".


title: Abraham Van Helsing

text: Count Dracula, having acquired ownership of the Carfax estate near London through solicitor Jonathan Harker, moves to the estate and begins menacing England. His victims include Lucy Westenra, who is on holiday in Whitby. The aristocratic girl has suitors such as John Seward, Arthur Holmwood, and Quincey Morris, and has a best friend in Mina Murray, Harker's fiancée. Seward, who works as a doctor in an insane asylum – where one of the patients, the incurably mad Renfield, has a psychic connection to Dracula – contacts Professor Van Helsing about Lucy's peculiar condition. Van Helsing, recognizing marks upon her neck, eventually deduces that she has been losing blood from a vampire bite. He administers multiple blood transfusions. Van Helsing, Seward, Arthur, and Morris each donate blood to her, but each night she continues to lose blood. He prescribes her garlic, makes a necklace of garlic flowers for her, and hangs garlic about her room. He also gives her a crucifix to wear around her neck. Lucy's demise was brought by her mother, who cleared the room of garlic and opened the window for fresh air; a servant had stolen the gold crucifix. Lucy dies and after the funeral returns as a vampire, seeking out children. Eventually, Van Helsing, Arthur, Morris and Seward free the undead Lucy from her vampiric curse: Arthur uses a hammer to drive the stake through her heart and Van Helsing cuts off her head and puts garlic in her mouth.


title: Abraham Van Helsing

text: Mina, now married to Harker, becomes increasingly worried about his brain fever. Van Helsing reviews his journal and Harker's health returns when he learns that his experiences in Transylvania were real. Mina discovers that various letters and accounts provide further intelligence on Dracula's movements, and shares these with Harker, Seward, Morris, and Van Helsing. They learn that Dracula's residence in Carfax is near Seward's, and Van Helsing's research reveals Dracula's weaknesses and strengths. Seward and Van Helsing also write to a university acquaintance to aid in further research. Staying at Seward's residence to better plan strategies in their efforts to deal with Dracula, they have frequent meetings and each member is assigned duties. At a later meeting a bat is seen at a window.


title: Abraham Van Helsing

text: To destroy Dracula and prevent further spread of evil, the party enters his estate at Carfax and as a group encounters him for the first time. They discover that he has been purchasing properties in and around London, with plans to distribute 50 boxes of Transylvanian earth to them, used as graves so each property would become a safe lair. They visit these lairs and place sacramental bread in the boxes of the earth to "sterilize" them, preventing Dracula from further using them. Dracula entices Renfield to invite him into Seward's residence. Renfield is found critically injured by Seward and Van Helsing who operate on him, and Renfield informs them that Dracula went to see Mina. They go to Mina's room and find Harker hypnotized while Dracula is giving Mina the 'Vampire's Baptism of Blood', cursing her and the group for plotting against him. The party uses sacred items to repel Dracula, who flees into a different room as a vapor. Dracula then destroys all the texts Mina had produced, except for one which was hidden, and breaks Renfield's neck before leaving.


title: Abraham Van Helsing

text: Van Helsing places a wafer of sacramental bread upon Mina's forehead to bless her but it burns her flesh, leaving a scar. Mina, feeling that she is now connected with Dracula, asks Van Helsing to hypnotize her before dawn, the only time she feels she could freely speak. Through this hypnosis they learn that Mina has a telepathic link with Dracula, that she could tell everything he hears and feels, which could be used to track his movements. Mina agrees that any plans should be kept from her for fear that Dracula could read her thoughts. The group has additional encounters with Dracula as they continue to search for his residences throughout London and sterilize the boxes. Learning that his final grave is aboard a boat, Van Helsing deduces that Dracula is fleeing back to his castle.


title: Abraham Van Helsing

text: When the party pursues Dracula to Transylvania, they split into groups. While Mina and Van Helsing travel straight to Dracula's castle, the others attempt to ambush the boat on which Dracula is a passenger. Van Helsing's influence over Mina diminishes each day, and her behavior changes as she sleeps more during the day, loses her appetite for food, and ceases to write in her journal. He finds that she cannot cross a circle of crumbled sacramental bread. Later, Dracula's vampiric wives approach their camp but they too are unable to cross into the circle of bread. Failing at their attempts to lure Van Helsing and Mina out of the circle, they flee back to Dracula's castle just before sunrise. Van Helsing binds Mina at a cave to keep her from danger as he goes into Dracula's castle to kill the vampires.


title: Abraham Van Helsing

text: As Van Helsing runs through the castle searching its rooms, he finds Dracula's empty tomb and the three female vampires he saw earlier. He begins to do his operation on the first vampire but finds himself entranced by her beauty and unable to bring himself to harm her. In his feelings of enchantment, he even contemplates love for her. He is broken out of this enchantment when he hears a "soul wail" from Mina, awakening him. He proceeds to drive stakes into their hearts and sever their heads, one by one.


title: Abraham Van Helsing

text: Van Helsing returns to Mina and they see the rest of their party as they chase a group of gypsies down the Borgo Pass and corner them. Armed with knives and firearms they overtake the gypsies and open the final box of Dracula; Jonathan Harker brings his Kukri knife down on Dracula's throat as the bowie knife of Quincey Morris simultaneously impales Dracula's heart in the final moments of daylight. At this moment Dracula's body crumbles to dust. After the struggle, Quincey is seen to have been fatally wounded.


title: Abraham Van Helsing

text: Six years later, Van Helsing takes a grandfatherly role in regard to the young Quincey Harker, Jonathan and Mina's son.


title: Abraham Van Helsing

text: Van Helsing is seen utilising many tools to aid him and his party in fending off Dracula, warding off vampires and in general defeating the undead:


title: Abraham Van Helsing

text: Abraham Van Helsing was also portrayed in "The Tomb of Dracula" Marvel Comics series, which was based on the characters of Bram Stoker's novel including his great-granddaughter Rachel.


title: Abraham Van Helsing

text: In the Marvel Comics miniseries "", Van Helsing joins forces with the immortal mutant Apocalypse and his worshipers, Clan Akkaba, in order to destroy Dracula, their common enemy. It is noted that Van Helsing had encountered Apocalypse before and previously believed him to be a vampire.


title: Abraham Van Helsing

text: In the Italian comic book "Martin Mystère" and the spin-off series "Storie di Altrove/Stories from Elsewhere" Van Helsing's name is Richard. He was originally a knight in the service of the Holy Roman Emperors but he was captured in 1475 by the undead warriors of the Order of the Dragon and turned into a vampire by the Wallachian Prince Vlad Dracula. Four centuries later, Van Helsing killed Dracula, and later came to London to solve the case of Jack the Ripper, eventually discovering that the murderers were mentally controlled by demons from another world. In 1902 he worked together with the resurrected Dracula to prevent the assassination of King Edward VII.


title: Abraham Van Helsing

text: There have been numerous works of fiction depicting descendants of Van Helsing carrying on the family tradition.


title: BioShock (series)

text: BioShock is a retrofuturistic video game series created by Ken Levine, published by 2K Games and developed by several studios, including Irrational Games and 2K Marin. The "BioShock" games combine first-person shooter and role-playing elements, giving the player freedom for how to approach combat and other situations, and are considered part of the immersive sim genre. Additionally, the series is notable for exploring philosophical and moral concepts with a strong in-game narrative influenced by concepts such as Objectivism, total utilitarianism, and American exceptionalism.


title: BioShock (series)

text: The series consists of three main games. "BioShock" (2007) and "BioShock 2" (2010) take place in the 1960s in the fictional underwater city of Rapture. "BioShock Infinite" (2013) is thematically and narratively tied to the first games, but takes place in 1912 aboard the floating city of Columbia. After "Infinite"s release, Irrational Games was downsized and rebranded as Ghost Story Games to work on smaller titles, while 2K Games retained rights to "BioShock". The publisher announced that a new "BioShock" game was in development by Cloud Chamber in December 2019.


title: BioShock (series)

text: The game series has received critical and commercial acclaim. The series had sold more than 41 million copies by November 2022 making the series one of the best-selling video game franchises of all time. A film adaptation of the series is currently in development at Netflix.


title: BioShock (series)

text: Developer Ken Levine founded Irrational Games in 1997 out of former members from Looking Glass Studios. Irrational Games produced "System Shock 2", a sequel to Looking Glass's "System Shock"; Levine pitched another "System Shock" sequel to Electronic Arts, but the publisher rejected the idea based on "System Shock 2"s poor commercial performance. While Irrational worked on other projects, Levine still wanted to create a successor to "System Shock 2". Levine said, "I have my useless liberal arts degree, so I've read stuff from Ayn Rand, George Orwell and all the sort of utopian and dystopian writings of the 20th century, and having developed the "System Shock" franchise, some of my first games, I felt that the atmosphere was a good one to set for a dystopian environment, one we borrowed heavily from "System Shock"." Levine has also mentioned an interest in "stem cell research and the moral issues that go around [it]." In regard to artistic influences, Levine cited the books "Nineteen Eighty-Four" and "Logan's Run", representing societies that have "really interesting ideas screwed up by the fact that we're people." Walking through Rockefeller Center near the GE Building in New York City, Levine was inspired by the art deco styling of Rockefeller Center to make a similarly inspired space that had not been experienced in the first-person shooter genre.


title: BioShock (series)

text: The games in the "BioShock" series are first-person shooters with role-playing elements. While precise mechanics differ between all three games, they share common themes of players using a combination of weapons, the environment, and superhuman abilities—called "Plasmids" in "BioShock" and "BioShock 2", or "Vigors" in "Infinite"—to defeat enemies. These weapons and powers can be used in various combinations to aid in defeating foes; for example, shocking a pool of water will electrocute the enemies standing in the liquid. In comparison to the hybrid role-playing game/first-person shooter stylings of "System Shock", "BioShock" was marketed as a shooter to appeal to fans of the increasingly-popular genre. The gameplay nevertheless retained comparable elements: plasmids in "BioShock" supplied by "EVE hypos" serve the same function as "Psionic Abilities" supplied by "PSI hypos" in "System Shock 2"; the player needs to deal with enemy security cameras, machine gun turrets, and robots, and has the ability to hack them in both games; the player must manage supplies and ammunition; and audio tape recordings fulfill the same storytelling role as email logs did in the "System Shock" games.


title: BioShock (series)

text: Levine stated in 2010 that the name "BioShock" is not in reference to any specific setting or location, but instead a means of encapsulating common gameplay elements that reflects on their earlier games and the "BioShock" series.


title: BioShock (series)

text: Following from its influences in "System Shock 2", the games in the "BioShock" series broadly raise the question of free will of the central character, often acting at suggestions of an unreliable narrator who is using the character for their own ulterior motives. Levine had long been interested in evaluating how choice works in video games, both at the narrative level as well as at the player level, and the "BioShock" games represent his attempt to alter the perception of choice typically associated with the interactive medium. Famously, within "BioShock", the player-character follows instructions from a man named Atlas to kill Andrew Ryan, the founder of the underwater city of Rapture. Once the character meets Ryan, Ryan reveals that the character has been under mind control throughout their arrival in Rapture, following any instruction led off by "Would you kindly...", which Atlas had been using. Ryan then shows that he chooses free will by using the trigger phrase to have the character kill him, stating "A man chooses, a slave obeys" before his death.


title: BioShock (series)

text: The first "BioShock" game is themed around the philosophy of Objectivism established by Ayn Rand. Levine had been inspired for the game's setting after visiting the GE Building and the statue of Atlas in front of it while in New York City, and researching John D. Rockefeller, who Levine called "a great man building an architectural triumph against all the odds". This led to the creation of Rapture and the character of Andrew Ryan loosely based on Rockefeller, with Ryan's name based on Ayn Rand's. Levine incorporated Objectivism concepts into these elements, particularly on the idea that man should be driven by selfishness and not altruism. One major gameplay element requires the player to decide how they interact with the Little Sisters that have harvested ADAM, either opting to save the girls for a small reward, or harvest the full amount of ADAM for their own benefit by killing the Little Sisters. The city of Rapture falls not necessarily because of objectivism, but through the corrupting power needed to control such a city.


title: BioShock (series)

text: "BioShock 2" focuses on versions of utilitarian and collectivist ideals. Sofia Lamb, who rose to control Rapture in the wake of events from "BioShock" holds a philosophy of altruism that is based on historical figures Karl Marx and John Stuart Mill, along with modern figures such as Richard Dawkins. In comparison to "BioShock"s questions of free will and humans' destiny, "BioShock 2"s director Jordan Thomas said that the player character is "almost the ultimate individual" whom Lamb goads to fulfill her goals. Professor Ryan Lizardi draws parallels between "BioShock 2"s themes of community versus the individual and the issues of McCarthyism and the hippie movement that occurred around the time period of the game's setting. "As this sequel is an extension of the first game's storylines and characters, there are direct contrasts between the extreme politics of Andrew Ryan's objectivism and the extreme religion/politics of Lamb's collectivism", he writes. ""BioShock 2" specifically asks players to question all sides of debates when extreme stances are taken, and asks players to weigh their decisions in an alternate and complex history."


title: BioShock (series)

text: "BioShock Infinite" used the concept of American exceptionalism as the basis for its setting of the floating city of Columbia at the turn of the 20th century. In capturing this period, Levine said that the game included aspects of racism, white supremacy and white nationalism and other political and social issues as they were at that point in time, not to make a statement in regards to these areas but that it would be "dishonest" and "strange" to not include them. Levine considered the presentation of these elements in the game as simply historical, and invited players to derive any interpretation in meaning from them themselves. Separately, "BioShock Infinite" also explores concepts related to multiple realities and "constants and variables", and understanding the impacts of free will, choice and consequences on one's actions.


title: BioShock (series)

text: "BioShock" was released on August 21, 2007, for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360. A PlayStation 3 port was released on October 17, 2008. The game was critically very well received, with positive reviews that praised its "morality-based" storyline, immersive environment and Ayn Rand-inspired dystopian back-story. According to Take-Two's chairman Strauss Zelnick, the game has sold around 3 million copies .


title: BioShock (series)

text: "BioShock" takes place in 1960, in the fictional underwater city of Rapture. Built in the late 1940s by business tycoon Andrew Ryan, it was meant to be a laissez-faire social environment for individuals to work, live, and prosper out of the increasingly oppressive hands of the world's governments and authorities. Dr. Brigid Tenenbaum, Dr. Yi Suchong, and other scientists discovered a substance called ADAM, harvested from sea slugs that could be made into plasmids that gave the user psychokinetic powers. Frank Fontaine, a former gangster and businessman who brought black market goods to Rapture, found a way to harvest ADAM by implanting the slugs in the bodies of young girls, "Little Sisters", and profited from this. Ryan led an attack that apparently killed Fontaine and seized his ADAM production facilities. To protect the Little Sisters, Ryan created Big Daddies by conditioning and mutating humans into armored diving suits. Leading up to New Year's Eve 1959, a new figure, Atlas, rose from the worker classes to lead a new revolt against Ryan, killing many and leading Ryan to mutate a number of his followers into Splicers to protect himself, creating the downfall of Rapture's utopia.


title: BioShock (series)

text: In 1960, Jack, the player-character, is in a plane crash over the ocean that is near the lighthouse which houses a bathysphere that takes him to Rapture. Atlas contacts Jack to ask his help against Ryan's forces. Jack discovers the Little Sisters and is warned by Tenenbaum not to harm them. After fighting through the failing city, Jack makes it to Ryan's offices. Ryan, patiently playing golf while waiting for Jack, reveals that Jack is his illegitimate son, and had been mentally conditioned by Fontaine to coerce his actions, specifically following any order preceded by the phrase "Would you kindly...?". Jack realizes Atlas has been using this phrase since his arrival. Ryan accepts his fate, using the phrase to make Jack kill him with a golf club, and Atlas reveals himself as Fontaine, having gone into hiding to plan a new strategy against Ryan. Fontaine leaves Jack to die, but he is rescued by Tenenbaum and the Little Sisters. Tenenbaum removes the conditioning from Jack's mind and urges him to defeat Fontaine and take the Little Sisters to the surface. In a final battle against Jack, Fontaine injects himself with numerous plasmids, but Jack and the Little Sisters overpower him, allowing for them to escape.


title: BioShock (series)

text: With the critical and commercial success of "BioShock", 2K formed a new studio, 2K Marin, to produce a followup. Jordan Thomas, level designer on the first "BioShock", served as creative director, and was one of several Irrational Games members to join the new effort. 2K Australia, Arkane Studios, and Digital Extremes providing additional support. "BioShock 2" takes place eight years after the events of "BioShock" where a new leader, Sofia Lamb, has risen up in the power vacuum after the death of Ryan and Fontaine, and has created a collectivist cult of personality. Prior to the events of "BioShock", Lamb used mind control to have the Big Daddy Delta (the player-character) commit suicide, thus severing the physiological bond between him and her daughter Eleanor, the Little Sister he was assigned to protect. Delta is resurrected ten years later by Tenenbaum and the Little Sisters and is told that unless he re-establishes his bond with Eleanor soon, he will fall into a coma or die once more. Delta fights his way through Splicers as well as those loyal to Lamb, defeats Lamb, and sacrifices himself to help Eleanor, Tenenbaum, and other Little Sisters to escape Rapture. The game also features a multiplayer component, set during the civil war before the events of the first game, and featured downloadable content, including a single-player expansion, "".


title: BioShock (series)

text: "BioShock 2" was released worldwide on February 9, 2010. It was critically praised, though not as highly as "BioShock", and sold more than three million copies, though its performance was considered disappointing by 2K.


title: BioShock (series)

text: "BioShock Infinite" was announced on August 12, 2010, for release on Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 systems on February 26, 2013; on December 7, 2012, Irrational Games announced that release would be delayed by another month, to March 26, 2013. Previously known as "Project Icarus", "BioShock Infinite" is not a direct sequel or prequel to the original game, but carries many of the same gameplay concepts from the "BioShock" title.


title: BioShock (series)

text: "BioShock Infinite" takes place in 1912 in Columbia, a city suspended in the air through "quantum levitation," built and launched in 1893 by the American government during the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, to much fanfare and publicity. However, it was later involved in an "international incident" by firing upon a group of Chinese civilians during the Boxer Rebellion. After being ordered to return to American soil, Columbia seceded from the United States and relocated above the clouds, with its whereabouts unknown to the world. As with Rapture, Columbia's intellectuals were able to develop new technology, including Vigors that grant the user new psychokinetic powers. At the same time, strange rifts in the space-time continuum called "Tears" appear across the city, and anachronistic elements can be seen and heard.


title: BioShock (series)

text: The player-character, Booker DeWitt, a disgraced member of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency discharged after his actions at the Wounded Knee Massacre, is sent to Columbia by Robert and Rosalind Lutece (the Lutece twins) to recover Elizabeth, a young woman that had been kidnapped by Columbia's leader, Zachary Comstock, and protected by the robotic Songbird. Booker rescues Elizabeth (who subsequently accompanies the player as an AI-controller ally), who appears to have control over the Tears. Their escape is hampered by fighting between the Founders, those loyal to Comstock, and the Vox Populi, residents of Columbia who have faced persecution. Booker comes to discover that Elizabeth is his daughter and that Comstock is a version of himself from one of numerous parallel universes whom had accepted a baptism to atone for his actions at Wounded Knee and established the beliefs that led to Columbia's founding. Comstock had kidnapped Elizabeth from Booker while she was an infant with the help of Tear technology provided by the Lutece Twins (in essence the same person from alternate dimensions), but in his escape, Elizabeth's finger was severed by the closure of a Tear, giving her the power over Tears. Booker eventually defeats Songbird and Comstock with the help of Elizabeth and the Twins, as Comstock had turned on them. Elizabeth shows Booker that these events will always repeat through the multitude of parallel universes, and the only way to end the cycle is to kill all versions of Booker before he can turn into Comstock at the baptism. Booker accepts this fate, allowing Elizabeth to drown him.


title: BioShock (series)

text: A downloadable content expansion, "", was released in two-parts on November 12, 2013, and March 25, 2014. Elizabeth finds one version of Comstock has ended up in the city of Rapture from "BioShock", having reverted to his birth name of Booker DeWitt and working as a private detective. Elizabeth joins him as they search for a missing girl named Sally, but become caught up in the events of Atlas' war against Andrew Ryan. They find that scientists of Rapture have been working with those on Columbia through Rifts, sharing technology such as Plasmids and Vigors, and the Big Daddies and Songbird. After discovering Sally has already become a Little Sister, and losing her Rift-controlling powers, Elizabeth kills the last Comstock, and sacrifices herself to assure that Sally and the other Little Sisters can be rescued by Jack.


title: BioShock (series)

text: In February 2014, while promoting "", series director Ken Levine revealed that "BioShock Infinite" would be Irrational Games' last game in the "BioShock" series. Levine let go of most of the staff of Irrational Games in February 2017 and rebranded the division as Ghost Story Games within 2K Games to work on smaller narrative titles. The rights to "BioShock" remained with 2K. In a 2016 interview, Levine explained that the pressure and stress of managing a large team as he had to for "Infinite" had impacted his health and personal relationships, and rather than stay on to build a larger game, decided to leave the "BioShock" franchise.


title: BioShock (series)

text: Following Levine's decision, 2K Games stated that the "BioShock" series will continue, telling "Game Informer" they "look forward to exploring the next "BioShock"". In May 2014, 2K Games stated that work on the "BioShock" series was continuing with 2K Marin at the helm, despite the fact that in October 2013, 2K Marin had reportedly been shut down by 2K Games. It was reported that work on this title had started as early as 2015 at the Austin-based third-party studio Certain Affinity. However, by 2016, 2K decided to pull the project from Certain Affinity and bring it in-house, establishing a yet-to-be-named studio, as well as rebooting the development process. Previously, "Kotaku" had reported in 2018 that several employees from Hangar 13, another development studio within 2K Games, had joined a new studio in the San Francisco area and were working on a project known under the working title "Parkside", believed by other Hangar 13 employees to be a "BioShock" title.


title: BioShock (series)

text: 2K formally announced in December 2019 that a new "BioShock" title was under development but was still some years from release. The game is being developed by a new internal studio, Cloud Chamber, with offices based in San Francisco (2K Marin's old offices) and a newly established location in Montreal. The studio is led by Kelley Gilmore, who had previously worked at Firaxis. The lead staff include lead art director Scott Sinclair, who had worked on the first "BioShock", Jonathan Pelling as design director having previously done level work for "BioShock" and "Infinite", and Hogarth de la Plante as creative director after having worked on the other "BioShock" games in numerous roles.


title: BioShock (series)

text: The games have been rereleased or repackaged in different configurations. "BioShock: Ultimate Rapture Edition" is a retail package containing "BioShock" and "BioShock 2", along with all downloadable content for both games including "", and a set of stickers based on "BioShock Infinite". The edition was released for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in North America on January 14, 2013. "BioShock Infinite: The Complete Edition", released November 4, 2014, combined "BioShock Infinite" and its DLC, "Clash in the Clouds" and "Burial at Sea", as well as pre-order bonuses and exclusive weapons. "BioShock Infinite: The Complete Edition" was released on November 4, 2014.


title: BioShock (series)

text: A remastered collection of the entire series, "", was released for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Microsoft Windows in September 2016. It features updated graphics and a documentary with commentary from Ken Levine and Shawn Robertson. The multiplayer component of "BioShock 2" is not included in the collection. "BioShock Infinite"s original PC version was ported to console for the collection, but was not remastered since it met console standards. Players that own either of the first two games on Windows were able to update to the remastered versions for free. "The Collection", as well as individual releases of the remastered games, were released for the Nintendo Switch on May 29, 2020.


title: BioShock (series)

text: A version of "BioShock" for the PlayStation Vita handheld console, tentatively known as "BioShock Vita", was announced at the 2011 Electronic Entertainment Expo by Levine during Sony's press event alongside the introduction of the console. Levine later described the title as still in the works, a game that would neither be similar to the first two "BioShock" titles nor be a version of "Infinite" for the Vita. He stated that "I'd rather do something that's an experiment and that's a little different. And is unique for the franchise." By April 2012, with Irrational working heavily to finish "Infinite", the Vita game was put on hold.


title: BioShock (series)

text: In interviews in December 2012, Levine revealed that little work had been done on the game, as the dealing with working with Sony was in the hands of Irrational's publisher, Take-Two Interactive, though he was still interested in the title. Levine revealed in July 2014 that the deals between Sony and Take-Two had failed to materialize, and the game was unlikely to be made, despite Sony being bullish on promoting the future title at its Vita reveal before any development work had been started. He further clarified that his idea would have been a strategy-style game similar to "Final Fantasy Tactics", with the game set prior to the fall of Rapture.


title: BioShock (series)

text: There have been two official "BioShock" novels. "BioShock: Rapture", a prequel to the first "BioShock" written by John Shirley, was published by Titan books on July 19, 2011. "BioShock Infinite: Mind in Revolt" is a novella written by Joe Fielder and Ken Levine, offering insight to the world of Columbia and the motivations of Daisy Fitzroy, the leader of the Vox Populi. "Mind in Revolt" had an eBook release on February 13, 2013, with the hardcover version released later through the Irrational Games store. Other print media includes art books for all three games: "BioShock: Breaking the Mold" (2007), "Deco Devolution: The Art of BioShock 2" (2010), and "The Art of BioShock Infinite" (2013).


title: BioShock (series)

text: Pre-orders of "BioShock Infinite" granted the purchaser with an access code to a browser-based puzzle game, "BioShock Infinite: Industrial Revolution", developed in conjunction with Lazy 8 Studios. Irrational had concerns developing a pre-release puzzle game to tie into the retail title. Several of the Irrational team had played and enjoyed Lazy 8's steampunk-like Independent Games Festival-winning title "Cogs" and considered using them to build this pre-release game. Irrational believed the studio would be able to develop a game that would provide "challenging puzzles in a steampunk style", according to Lazy 8's founder, Rob Jagnow. The game's mechanics are a simplified version of the "Cogs" puzzles, and involve creating devices from basic machines like gears and pulleys to achieve a specific action; the game contains 59 such puzzles culled from more than 70. Solving the steampunk-based puzzles grants the player unlockable items within the main "BioShock Infinite" game once it is released.


title: BioShock (series)

text: The orchestral scores for "BioShock", "BioShock 2", and "BioShock Infinite" were composed by Garry Schyman. Schyman's music combines the influence of early 20th century classical music, aleatoric music, and musique concrete. With the return to Rapture in "BioShock 2", Schyman had the opportunity to revisit the setting, writing new music while retaining some elements and motifs from the first game, such as solo violins and mid-20th century compositional techniques. While expectations were higher, Schyman noted having played the original game and using an established style made the process easier. For "Infinite", Schyman had to create a new soundscape evocative of the earlier era. Feeling that classical music of the time felt much more European than American, he opted to use less full orchestration and simpler string arrangements instead. In addition to the score, the "BioShock" series uses licensed period music as diegetic sound. For "BioShock 2", more blues and religious music was included as it related to the sequel's themes. "Infinite" features anachronistic covers of popular pop songs, such as Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun".


title: BioShock (series)

text: Roughly a quarter of the "BioShock" soundtrack was released on the internet, with an EP featuring remixes of the game's music included in the Limited Edition of the game. "BioShock"s full soundtrack was released on a vinyl LP with the "BioShock 2" Special Edition in 2010. The scores for "BioShock 2" and "Infinite" were included in limited editions of their respective games.


title: BioShock (series)

text: In May 2008, Take-Two announced a deal with Universal Studios to produce a "BioShock" film, to be directed by Gore Verbinski and written by John Logan. The film was expected to be released in 2010, but was put on hold due to budget concerns. Committed to the film "Rango", Verbinski dropped out of directing the film, and Juan Carlos Fresnadillo was in talks to replace him, with Verbinski as producer. Throughout 2010 the film was in development, but faced difficulties due to the intended R rating. Verbinski later cited that by trying to maintain the R rating, they were unable to find any studios that would back the effort, putting the film's future in jeopardy. After the commercial performance of "Watchmen", the studio had concerns with the $200 million budget for "BioShock", and Verbinski left the project. Universal subsequently brought a new director in to work with the smaller budget but with whom Levine and 2K Games did not feel was a good fit to the material. Levine made the decision to end the project, believing that the film would not work with the current set of compromises they would have had to make.


title: BioShock (series)

text: In February 2022, it was announced that the film had reentered development at Netflix, who will produce the film alongside Take-Two and Vertigo Entertainment. The film is being developed as the start of a potential cinematic universe. Francis Lawrence was slated to direct with Michael Green to write, as of August 2022.


title: BioShock (series)

text: The series has received critical acclaim for its morality-based storyline, immersive environments, and unique settings. It is commonly listed among both audiences and critics as one of the greatest video game series of all time and a demonstration of video game as an art form. The original's plot twist, where the player discovers that the player-character Jack has been coerced into events by the trigger phrase, "Would you kindly...", is considered one of the strongest narrative elements of recent games, in part that it subverted the expectation that the player has control and influence on the game.


title: BioShock (series)

text: In February 2011 the Smithsonian Institution announced it would be holding an exhibit dedicated to the art of video games. Several games were chosen initially and the public could vote for which games they felt deserved to be displayed via a poll on the exhibit's website. "BioShock" was considered a front runner to be displayed because of its status as a game that demonstrated how artistic the medium can be. John Lanchester of the "London Review of Books" recognized "BioShock" as one of the first video games to break into coverage of mainstream media to be covered as a work of art arising from its narrative aspects, whereas before video games had failed to enter into the "cultural discourse", or otherwise covered due to moral controversies they created. Peter Suderman for "Vox" in 2016 wrote that "BioShock" was the first game that demonstrated that video games could be a work of art, particularly highlighting that the game plays on the theme of giving the illusion of individual control.


The 1920 United States presidential election was the 34th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 2, 1920. In the first election held after the end of World War I and the first election after the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, Republican Senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio defeated Democratic Governor James M. Cox of Ohio.


title: 1920 United States presidential election

text: Incumbent Democratic President Woodrow Wilson privately hoped for a third term, but party leaders were unwilling to re-nominate the ailing and unpopular incumbent. Former President Theodore Roosevelt had been the front-runner for the Republican nomination, but he died in 1919 without leaving an obvious heir to his progressive legacy. With both Wilson and Roosevelt out of the running, the major parties turned to little-known dark horse candidates from the state of Ohio, a swing state with a large number of electoral votes. Cox won the 1920 Democratic National Convention on the 44th ballot, defeating William Gibbs McAdoo (Wilson's son-in-law), A. Mitchell Palmer, and several other candidates. Harding emerged as a compromise candidate between the conservative and progressive wings of the party, and he clinched his nomination on the tenth ballot of the 1920 Republican National Convention.


text: The election was dominated by the American social and political environment in the aftermath of World War I, which was marked by a hostile response to certain aspects of Wilson's foreign policy and a massive reaction against the reformist zeal of the Progressive Era. The wartime economic boom had collapsed and the country was deep in a recession. Wilson's advocacy for America's entry into the League of Nations in the face of a return to non-interventionist opinion challenged his effectiveness as president, and overseas there were wars and revolutions. At home, the year 1919 was marked by major strikes in the meatpacking and steel industries and large-scale race riots in Chicago and other cities. Anarchist attacks on Wall Street produced fears of radicals and terrorists. The Irish Catholic and German communities were outraged at Wilson's perceived favoritism of their traditional enemy Great Britain, and his political position was critically weakened after he suffered a stroke in 1919 that left him severely disabled.


text: Harding all but ignored Cox in the race and essentially campaigned against Wilson by calling for a "return to normalcy". Harding won a landslide victory, sweeping every state outside of the South and becoming the first Republican since the end of Reconstruction to win a former state of the Confederacy, Tennessee. Harding's victory margin of 26.2% in the popular vote remains the largest popular-vote percentage margin in presidential elections since the unopposed re-election of James Monroe in 1820, though other candidates have since exceeded his share of the popular vote. Cox won just 34.1% of the popular vote, and Socialist Eugene V. Debs won 3.4%, despite being in prison at the time. It was also the first election in which women had the right to vote in all 48 states, which caused the total popular vote to increase dramatically, from 18.5 million in 1916 to 26.8 million in 1920. Both vice presidential nominees would eventually become president in their own right (which had never happened before or since): Harding died in 1923 and was succeeded by Vice President Calvin Coolidge, while the Democratic vice presidential nominee, Franklin D. Roosevelt, would eventually win an unprecedented four consecutive presidential elections starting in 1932, dying shortly into his fourth term.


text: Following the return of former president Theodore Roosevelt to the Republican Party after the previous election, speculation quickly grew as to whether he would make another run for the presidency. Roosevelt's health declined seriously in 1918, however, and he died on January 6, 1919. Attention then turned to the party's unsuccessful 1916 candidate, Charles Evans Hughes, who had narrowly fallen short of defeating Wilson that year, but Hughes remained aloof as to the prospect of another run, and ultimately ruled himself out following the death of his daughter early in 1920.


text: On June 8, the Republican National Convention met in Chicago. The race was wide open, and soon the convention deadlocked between Major General Leonard Wood and Governor Frank Orren Lowden of Illinois.


text: Other names placed in nomination included Senators Warren G. Harding from Ohio, Hiram Johnson from California, and Miles Poindexter from Washington, Governor Calvin Coolidge of Massachusetts, philanthropist Herbert Hoover, and Columbia University President Nicholas M. Butler. Senator Robert M. La Follette from Wisconsin was not formally placed in nomination, but received the votes of his state delegation nonetheless. Harding was nominated for president on the tenth ballot, after some delegates shifted their allegiances. The results of the ten ballots were as follows:


text: Harding's nomination, said to have been secured in negotiations among party bosses in a "smoke-filled room," was engineered by Harry M. Daugherty, Harding's political manager, who became United States Attorney General after his election. Before the convention, Daugherty was quoted as saying, "I don't expect Senator Harding to be nominated on the first, second, or third ballots, but I think we can afford to take chances that about 11 minutes after two, Friday morning of the convention, when 15 or 12 weary men are sitting around a table, someone will say: 'Who will we nominate?' At that decisive time, the friends of Harding will suggest him and we can well afford to abide by the result." Daugherty's prediction described essentially what occurred, but historians Richard C. Bain and Judith H. Parris argue that Daugherty's prediction has been given too much weight in narratives of the convention.


text: Once the presidential nomination was finally settled, the party bosses and Sen. Harding recommended Wisconsin Sen. Irvine Lenroot to the delegates for the second spot, but the delegates revolted and nominated Coolidge, who was very popular over his handling of the Boston Police Strike from the year before. The Tally:


text: Source for convention coverage: Richard C. Bain and Judith H. Parris, "Convention Decisions and Voting Records" (Washington DC: Brookings Institution, 1973), pp. 200–208.


text: It was widely accepted prior to the election that President Woodrow Wilson would not run for a third term, and would certainly not be nominated if he did make an attempt to regain the nomination. While Vice-President Thomas R. Marshall had long held a desire to succeed Wilson, his indecisive handling of the situation around Wilson's illness and incapacity destroyed any credibility he had as a candidate, and in the end he did not formally put himself forward for the nomination.


text: Although William Gibbs McAdoo (Wilson's son-in-law and former Treasury Secretary) was the strongest candidate, Wilson blocked his nomination in hopes a deadlocked convention would demand that he run for a third term, even though he was seriously ill, physically immobile, and in seclusion at the time. The Democrats, meeting in San Francisco between June 28 and July 6 (the first time a major party held its nominating convention in an urban center on the Pacific coast), nominated another newspaper editor from Ohio, Governor James M. Cox, as their presidential candidate, and 38-year-old Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt, a fifth cousin of the late president Theodore Roosevelt, for vice-president.


text: Early favorites for the nomination had included McAdoo and Attorney General Alexander Mitchell Palmer. Others placed in nomination included New York Governor Al Smith, United Kingdom Ambassador John W. Davis, New Jersey Governor Edward I. Edwards, and Oklahoma Senator Robert Latham Owen.


text: Socialist Party candidate Eugene V. Debs was incarcerated at the Atlanta federal penitentiary at the time for advocating non-compliance with the draft during World War I. He received the largest number of popular votes ever received by a Socialist Party candidate in the United States, although not the largest percentage of the popular vote. Debs received double this percentage in the election of 1912. The 1920 election was Debs's fifth and last attempt to become president.


text: In 1919, members of the Socialist Party who had come from Russian language federation of the party and other more radical groups within the party started to create their own papers and membership dues and cards. These members supported a platform that was similar to the Communist International and elected twelve of their members to the fifteen-member National Executive Committee. However, there was accusations of election irregularities and an Emergency Convention held on August 30, 1919, suspended seven of the party's twelve language federations and expelled the party affiliates in Michigan, Massachusetts, and Ohio. The more radical members of the party held a convention in New York City in June 1919, which was attended by 94 delegates from twenty states. A vote to create a new party was defeated by a vote of 55 to 38 causing 31 delegates to withdraw from the convention. These 31 delegates held their own convention in Chicago on September 1, where they founded the Communist Party USA. The Communist Party USA attempted to give its presidential nomination to Debs, but he declined the nomination.


text: The Socialist Party held its 1919 convention in Chicago with 140 delegates in attendance. Twenty-six delegates, who were members of the party's left-wing, left the convention. These delegates attempted to unite with the Communist Party USA, but formed the Communist Labor Party of America on September 2, after those attempts failed.


text: The Socialist Party had 100,000 members before the splits, but it fell to 55,000 members while the Communist Party had 35,000 members and the Communist Labor Party had 10,000 members. The Communist Party claimed to have 60,000 members while the Communist Labor Party claimed to have 30,000 members. The United Communist Party was formed in May 1920 between the Communist Labor Party and some members of the Communist Party. The United Communist Party and the Communist Party united in December 1921 to form the Workers Party of America.


text: Edward Henry, who was a friend of Debs, Lena Morrow Lewis, and Oscar Ameringer nominated Debs for the party's nomination on May 13, 1920, and the 134 delegates to the national convention voted unanimously to give him the nomination. Kate Richards O'Hare, who was also in prison, was considered for the vice-presidential nomination, but Seymour Stedman was selected by a vote of 106 to 26, which was later made unanimous, in order to have one of the candidates campaign. James H. Maurer was also considered for the vice-presidential nomination, but he declined due to his duties as head of the Pennsylvania Federation of Labor. Debs accepted the presidential nomination in an Atlanta prison on May 29, after being notified by Seymour, James Oneal, and Julius Gerber.


text: During the campaign the Socialists had four airplanes drop socialist literature over Toledo, Ohio. The wife of Charles Edward Russell claimed that the ghost of Susan B. Anthony told her to vote for Debs. Over 60,000 people donated to the Socialist Party's campaign fund. Gerber predicted that Debs would receive three million votes and that five Socialists would be elected to Congress. Debs received 913,693 votes with his largest amount of support coming from New York. His vote total was over 50% more than what Allan L. Benson had received in the 1916 election. Debs later chose to not run for president in the 1924 election and instead supported Robert M. La Follette.


text: Meeting in Lincoln, Nebraska, there was some question whether the Prohibition Party would field an independent ticket as opposed to endorsing either Harding or Cox, but this was predicated on either making a clear statement that they would not move to weaken the Eighteenth Amendment; neither chose to make any such commitment. The ticket favored by most present was that of William Jennings Bryan for President and William "Billy" Sunday for Vice President, and indeed when a motion was made to nominate Bryan by acclamation, of the more than two hundred present it was only opposed by six. Upon hearing of his nomination however Bryan declined the gesture, not wishing to remain singularly focused on the prohibition question or to sever his ties with the Democratic Party entirely. Some had considered Billy Sunday a possible substitute but Sunday was "satisfied" with Republican nominee Warren Harding, while others thought about potentially nominating Henry Ford as their standard-bearer. With the nomination thrown wide open, the Party ultimately opted to nominate keynote speaker and Methodist minister Aaron Watkins of Ohio, over other candidates such as 1916 Convention Chair Robert Patton of Illinois, itinerant minister Daniel Poling of Pennsylvania, and Congressman Charles Randall of California. Historian David Leigh Colvin of New York was nominated for the Vice Presidency.


text: James E. Ferguson, a former Governor of Texas, announced his candidacy on April 21, 1920 in Temple, Texas under the badge of "American Party". Ferguson was opposed to Democrats whom he saw as too controlled by elite academic interests as seen when Woodrow Wilson endorsed rival Thomas H. Ball in the gubernatorial primary, and hoped to help the Republicans carry Texas for the first time (Texas never went Republican during Reconstruction). Initially Ferguson and running mate William J. Hough hoped to carry their campaign to other states, but Ferguson was unable to get on the ballot anywhere outside of Texas. Ferguson did manage to gain almost ten percent of the vote in Texas, and won eleven counties in the southeast of the state.


text: Warren Harding's main campaign slogan was a "return to normalcy", playing upon the weariness of the American public after the social upheaval of the Progressive Era. Additionally, the international responsibilities engendered by the Allied victory in World War I and the Treaty of Versailles proved deeply unpopular, causing a reaction against Wilson, who had pushed especially hard for the latter.


text: Irish Americans were powerful in the Democratic party, and groups such as Clan na Gael opposed going to war alongside their enemy Britain, especially after the violent suppression of the Easter Rising of 1916. Wilson won them over in 1917 by promising to ask Britain to give Ireland its independence. Wilson had won the presidential election of 1916 with strong support from German-Americans and Irish-Americans, largely because of his slogan "He kept us out of war" and the longstanding American policy of isolationism. At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, however, he reneged on his commitments to the Irish-American community, who vehemently denounced him. His dilemma was that Britain was his war ally. Events such as the anti-British Black Tom and Kingsland Explosions in 1916 on American soil (in part the result of wartime Irish and German co-ordination) and the Irish anti-conscription crisis of 1918 were all embarrassing to recall in 1920.


text: Britain had already passed an Irish Home Rule Act in 1914, suspended for the war's duration. However the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin had led to increased support for the more radical Sinn Féin who in 1919 formed the First Dáil, effectively declaring Ireland independent, sparking the Irish War of Independence. Britain was to pass the Government of Ireland Act in late 1920, by which Ireland would have 2 home-ruled states within the British empire. This satisfied Wilson. The provisions of these were inadequate to the supporters of the Irish Republic, however, which claimed full sovereignty. This position was also supported by many Irish Americans. The American Committee for Relief in Ireland was set up in 1920 to assist victims of the Irish War of Independence of 1919–21. Some Irish-American Senators joined the "irreconcilables" who blocked the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles and United States membership in the League of Nations.


text: Wilson blamed the Irish Americans and German Americans for the lack of popular support for his unsuccessful campaign to have the United States join the League of Nations, saying, "There is an organized propaganda against the League of Nations and against the treaty proceeding from exactly the same sources that the organized propaganda proceeded from which threatened this country here and there with disloyalty, and I want to say—I cannot say too often—any man who carries a hyphen about with him [i.e., a hyphenated American] carries a dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of this Republic whenever he gets ready."


text: Of the $5,500,000 raised by supporters of the Irish Republic in the United States in 1919–20, the Dublin parliament (Dáil Éireann) voted in June 1920 to spend $500,000 on the American presidential election. How this money was spent remains unclear. Ironically, the lawyer who had advised the fundraisers was Franklin D. Roosevelt, the losing vice-presidential candidate. In any case, the Irish American city machines sat on their hands during the election, allowing the Republicans to roll up unprecedented landslides in every major city. Many German-American Democrats voted Republican or stayed home, giving the GOP landslides in the rural Midwest.


text: Wilson had hoped for a "solemn referendum" on the League of Nations, but did not get one. Harding waffled on the League, thereby keeping Idaho Senator William Borah and other Republican "irreconcilables" in line. Cox also hedged. He went to the White House to seek Wilson's blessing and apparently endorsed the League, but—upon discovering its unpopularity among Democrats—revised his position to one that would accept the League only with reservations, particularly on Article Ten, which would require the United States to participate in any war declared by the League (thus taking the same standpoint as Republican Senate leader Henry Cabot Lodge). As reporter Brand Whitlock observed, the League was an issue important in government circles, but rather less so to the electorate. He also noted that the campaign was not waged on issues: "The people, indeed, do not know what ideas Harding or Cox represents; neither do Harding or Cox. Great is democracy." False rumors circulated that Senator Harding had "Negro blood," but this did not greatly hurt Harding's election campaign.


text: Governor Cox made a whirlwind campaign that took him to rallies, train station speeches, and formal addresses, reaching audiences totaling perhaps two million, whereas Senator Harding relied upon a "Front Porch Campaign" similar to that of William McKinley in 1896. It brought thousands of voters to Marion, Ohio, where Harding spoke from his home. GOP campaign manager Will Hays spent some $8.1 million, nearly four times the money Cox's campaign spent. Hays used national advertising in a major way (with advice from adman Albert Lasker). The theme was Harding's own slogan "America First". Thus the Republican advertisement in "Collier's Magazine" for October 30, 1920, demanded, "Let's be done with wiggle and wobble." The image presented in the ads was nationalistic, using catch phrases like "absolute control of the United States by the United States," "Independence means independence, now as in 1776," "This country will remain American. Its next President will remain in our own country," and "We decided long ago that we objected to foreign government of our people."


text: On election night, November 2, 1920, commercial radio broadcast coverage of election returns for the first time. Announcers at KDKA-AM in Pittsburgh read telegraph ticker results over the air as they came in. This single station could be heard over most of the Eastern United States by the small percentage of the population that had radio receivers.


text: Harding's landslide came from all directions except the South. Irish- and German-American voters who had backed Wilson and peace in 1916 now voted against Wilson and Versailles. "A vote for Harding", said the German-language press, "is a vote against the persecutions suffered by German-Americans during the war". Not one major German-language newspaper supported Governor Cox. Many Irish Americans, bitterly angry at Wilson's refusal to help Ireland at Versailles, simply abstained from voting in the presidential election. This allowed the Republicans to mobilize the ethnic vote, and Harding swept the big cities.


text: This was the first election in which women from every state were allowed to vote, following the passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution in August 1920 (just in time for the general election).


text: Tennessee's vote for Warren G. Harding marked the first time since the end of Reconstruction that even one of the eleven states of the former Confederacy had voted for a Republican presidential candidate. Tennessee had last been carried by a Republican when Ulysses S. Grant claimed it in 1868.