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Author: Ben Gazur
Publisher: Pen and Sword History
ISBN: 1399073559
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 250
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Book Description
How should we live? In ancient Greece one man came up with a pleasingly simple answer to this question. The philosopher Epicurus taught his followers that pleasure and contentment were the aims of the good life. For hundreds of years Epicureanism was one of the dominant schools of philosophy. But by the 6th century it had all but disappeared. Discovering how and why Epicureanism was driven from philosophy and public discourse reveals much about how Western thought developed. Despite attempts to erase him, the lessons of Epicurus have been recovered from the mists of time and the ashes of Vesuvius. How he was restored to his place in history is a story of brilliant Renaissance scholars, chance discoveries, and a hunger for intellectual freedom. This new biography of Epicurus reveals the life of Epicurus and traces how his teachings have influenced thinkers across time. Epicurus still has much to teach us about friendship, happiness, and our place in the world.
Author: Dane R. Gordon
Publisher: RIT Cary Graphic Arts Press
ISBN: 9780971345966
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 240
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Book Description
The philosophy of Epicurus (c. 341-271 B. C. E.), has been a quietly pervasive influence for more than two millennia. At present, when many long revered ideologies are proven empty, Epicureanism is powerfully and refreshingly relevant, offering a straightforward way of dealing with the issues of life and death. The chapters in this book provide a kaleidoscope of contemporary opinions about Epicurus' teachings. They tell us also about the archeological discoveries that promise to augment the scant remains we have of Epicurus's own writing. the breadth of this new work will be welcomed by those who value Epicurean philosophy as a scholarly and personal resource for contemporary life. "Epicurus: His Continuing Influence and Contemporary Relevance," is the title of a 2002 conference on Epicurus held at Rochester Institute of Technology, when many of the ideas here were first presented.
Author: Phillip Mitsis
Publisher: Oxford Handbooks
ISBN: 0199744211
Category : PHILOSOPHY
Languages : en
Pages : 848
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Book Description
This volume offers authoritative discussions of all aspects of the philosophy of Epicurus (340-271 BCE) and then traces Epicurean influences throughout the Western tradition. It is an unmatched resource for those wishing to deepen their knowledge of Epicureanism's powerful arguments about death, happiness, and the nature of the material world.
Author: Ben Gazur
Publisher: Pen and Sword History
ISBN: 1399073532
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 256
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Book Description
How should we live? In ancient Greece one man came up with a pleasingly simple answer to this question. The philosopher Epicurus taught his followers that pleasure and contentment were the aims of the good life. For hundreds of years Epicureanism was one of the dominant schools of philosophy. But by the 6th century it had all but disappeared. Discovering how and why Epicureanism was driven from philosophy and public discourse reveals much about how Western thought developed. Despite attempts to erase him, the lessons of Epicurus have been recovered from the mists of time and the ashes of Vesuvius. How he was restored to his place in history is a story of brilliant Renaissance scholars, chance discoveries, and a hunger for intellectual freedom. This new biography of Epicurus reveals the life of Epicurus and traces how his teachings have influenced thinkers across time. Epicurus still has much to teach us about friendship, happiness, and our place in the world.
Author: Epicurus
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 0486833038
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 275
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Book Description
Author: Catherine Wilson
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191553522
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 318
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Book Description
This landmark study examines the role played by the rediscovery of the writings of the ancient atomists, Epicurus and Lucretius, in the articulation of the major philosophical systems of the seventeenth century, and, more broadly, their influence on the evolution of natural science and moral and political philosophy. The target of sustained and trenchant philosophical criticism by Cicero, and of opprobrium by the Christian Fathers of the early Church, for its unflinching commitment to the absence of divine supervision and the finitude of life, the Epicurean philosophy surfaced again in the period of the Scientific Revolution, when it displaced scholastic Aristotelianism. Both modern social contract theory and utilitarianism in ethics were grounded in its tenets. Catherine Wilson shows how the distinctive Epicurean image of the natural and social worlds took hold in philosophy, and how it is an acknowledged, and often unacknowledged presence in the writings of Descartes, Gassendi, Hobbes, Boyle, Locke, Leibniz, Berkeley. With chapters devoted to Epicurean physics and cosmology, the corpuscularian or "mechanical" philosophy, the question of the mortality of the soul, the grounds of political authority, the contested nature of the experimental philosophy, sensuality, curiosity, and the role of pleasure and utility in ethics, the author makes a persuasive case for the significance of materialism in seventeenth-century philosophy without underestimating the depth and significance of the opposition to it, and for its continued importance in the contemporary world. Lucretius's great poem, On the Nature of Things, supplies the frame of reference for this deeply-researched inquiry into the origins of modern philosophy. .
Author: Robert J. Roecklein
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739177117
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 227
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Book Description
This book investigates the influence of Epicurean physics on the argument developed in Machiavelli’s Discourses on Livy. Towards this end, the full philosophical history and origins of atomist philosophy are investigated during the first three chapters. Plato’s critique of the atomist philosophy, from his dialogue the Parmenides, is a part of that investigation. In fact, Plato provides a refutation of the atomist philosophy in the Parmenides. A significant amount of scholarship has been accomplished that demonstrates the currents of Lucretian atomism in Machiavelli’s Florence. Evidence is supplied as to Machiavelli’s exposure to the Lucretian text, and the book then proceeds to investigate the transformational arguments of the Discourses On Livy itself. Machiavelli’s Discourses are saturated with terminology that is borrowed from physics: ‘materia’ (Matter), ‘corpo’ (body), ‘forma’ (form), ‘accidente’ (accident). English translators have usually employed some theory as to which tradition of physics Machiavelli is relying upon, in order to conduct their translations. By borrowing the terminology of Lucretian physics, Machiavelli becomes able to conceive of the people in a political society as something less than human: as ‘matter’ or materia without form. In my analysis of Machiavelli’s deployment of the concepts from Lucretian physics, it is attempted to unveil the brutality that is inherent in Machiavelli’s new definitions of the elements of politics, and the general hostility of his political science to the Aristotelian concept of the human being as political animal. The classical physics of Aristotle, which Machiavelli has rejected for a model, indicates the forward looking momentum of natural beings. For Aristotle, nature intends human political society as the arena for human fulfillment. In Aristotelian physics, nature aims at an end in generation, i.e. at a culmination of the natural being in its proper condition of excellence. For human beings, this is justice, the quality of relationships that makes happiness possible. In Machiavelli, a new politicized physics is revealed. In Machiavelli’s model, the human beings of formed matter are repeatedly sent, through new institutions and methods of government, ‘back to their beginnings’, i.e. to a condition of isolation, destitution, injury, and pain. The last chapter of the book concludes with an examination of the particular institutions and methods that Machiavelli holds out to us for employment, if his new vision of a republic is to be realized.
Author: Norman Wentworth De Witt
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 0816657459
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 398
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Book Description
Epicurus and His Philosophy was first published in 1954. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. In this volume, the first comprehensive book in English about Epicurus, existing data on the life of the ancient philosopher is related to the development of his doctrine. The result is a fascinating account that challenges traditional theories and interpretations of Epicurean philosophy. Professor DeWitt demonstrates the fallacy of centuries of abuse of Epicurus and the resulting distortion of most discussions of Epicureanism that appear in standard philosophical works. Of major significance to students of philosophy and theology are the findings that show the importance of Epicureanism as a source of numerous Christian beliefs.
Author: Tim O'Keefe
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 113944624X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 187
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Book Description
In this 2005 book, Tim O'Keefe reconstructs the theory of freedom of the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus (341–271/0 BCE). Epicurus' theory has attracted much interest, but our attempts to understand it have been hampered by reading it anachronistically as the discovery of the modern problem of free will and determinism. O'Keefe argues that the sort of freedom which Epicurus wanted to preserve is significantly different from the 'free will' which philosophers debate today, and that in its emphasis on rational action it has much closer affinities with Aristotle's thought than with current preoccupations. His original and provocative book will be of interest to a wide range of readers in Hellenistic philosophy.
Author: Catherine Wilson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191512680
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 175
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Book Description
Epicureanism is commonly associated with a carefree view of life and the pursuit of pleasures, particularly the pleasures of the table. However it was a complex and distinctive system of philosophy that emphasized simplicity and moderation, and considered nature to consist of atoms and the void. Epicureanism is a school of thought whose legacy continues to reverberate today. In this Very Short Introduction, Catherine Wilson explains the key ideas of the School, comparing them with those of the rival Stoics and with Kantian ethics, and tracing their influence on the development of scientific and political thought from Locke, Newton, and Galileo to Rousseau, Marx, Bentham, and Mill. She discusses the adoption and adaptation of Epicurean motifs in science, morality, and politics from the 17th Century onwards and contextualises the significance of Epicureanism in modern life. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Author: Pamela Gordon
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472118080
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 233
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Book Description
How a study of anti-Epicurian discourse can lead us to a better understanding of the cultural history of Epicurianism
