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Why did Epicurus treat sensations as a basis for knowledge?

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Bronze bust of Epicurus with a full beard and draped clothing, displayed on a round inscribed base at the National Archaeological Museum of Naples. — Epicureanism Epicurus, bronze bust from a Greek original, c. 280–270 bce; in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples.

Epicurus treated sensations as the fundamental basis for knowledge because he held that all sensations and representations are inherently true and serve as the primary criteria for certainty. Unlike philosophers who prioritized the deductive route of the intellect, Epicurus followed an inductive approach, assigning truth to sensation and reducing the intellect to it.1

In his work On the Criterion, or Canon, Epicurus established that sensations, along with basic feelings of pleasure and pain and concepts (prolēpsis), provide the evidence necessary to construct a reliable understanding of the world. He argued that because the truth attested by these criteria is reflected in the phainomena (appearances), one must cling to them as "signs" to conjecture about things that do not appear.1

By grounding his philosophy in the evidence of passions immediately present, Epicurus sought to provide a method that guarantees the possibility and certainty of knowledge, ultimately aiming to secure human happiness by resolving anxieties regarding nature, death, and the gods.1