Author: EpicurusPublisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 0486833038
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 275
Book Description
Epicurus And The Pleasant Life
Author: Haris DimitriadisPublisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 138735308X
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 450
Book Description
The idea that happiness is a choice accessible to all is far from new; the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus developed the Natural Philosophy of life over two thousand years ago, providing practical, contemporary guidelines to finding meaning and happiness. Unlike Plato, who valued the divine logic above all, Epicurus argued that the pursuit of ideals produced by logic alone leads to inner conflict, cognitive dissonance, dissatisfaction, and even depression. He suggested that by first embracing our natural desires, then using logic to determine which choices will increase pleasure over time, and using our will to take action, we could learn and change, and achieve happiness. Join the author Haris Dimitriadis on a journey through the history of philosophical thought, as well as an in-depth look at the modern neuroscience, psychology, and astrophysics, and discover why the ancient Epicurean Philosophy of Nature matters as much today as it did two thousand and three hundred years ago!
Epicurus
Author: Dane R. GordonPublisher: RIT Cary Graphic Arts Press
ISBN: 9780971345966
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 240
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.
Principal Doctrines
Author: EpicurusPublisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1387275291
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 46
Book Description
Epicurus posited a materialistic physics, in which pleasure, by which he meant freedom from pain, is the highest good. Serenity, the harmony of mind and body, is best achieved, through virtue and simple living.
Epicurus on Freedom
Author: Tim O'KeefePublisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 113944624X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 187
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.
Oxford Handbook of Epicurus and Epicureanism
Author: Phillip MitsisPublisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197522009
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 848
Book Description
The ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus (341-270 BCE), though often despised for his materialism, hedonism, and denial of the immortality of the soul during many periods of history, has at the same time been a source of inspiration to figures as diverse as Vergil, Hobbes, Thomas Jefferson, and Bentham. This volume offers authoritative discussions of all aspects of Epicurus's philosophy and then traces out some of its most important subsequent influences throughout the Western intellectual tradition. Such a detailed and comprehensive study of Epicureanism is especially timely given the tremendous current revival of interest in Epicurus and his rivals, the Stoics. The thirty-one contributions in this volume offer an unmatched resource for all those wishing to deepen their knowledge of Epicurus' powerful arguments about happiness, death, and the nature of the material world and our place in it. At the same time, his arguments are carefully placed in the context of ancient and subsequent disputes, thus offering readers the opportunity of measuring Epicurean arguments against a wide range of opponents--from Platonists, Aristotelians and Stoics, to Hegel and Nietzsche, and finally on to such important contemporary philosophers as Thomas Nagel and Bernard Williams. The volume offers separate and detailed discussions of two fascinating and ongoing sources of Epicurean arguments, the Herculaneum papyri and the inscription of Diogenes of Oenoanda. Our understanding of Epicureanism is continually being enriched by these new sources of evidence and the contributors to this volume have been able to make use of them in presenting the most current understanding of Epicurus's own views. By the same token, the second half of the volume is devoted to the extraordinary influence of Epicurean doctrines, often either neglected or misunderstood, in literature, political thinking, scientific innovation, personal conceptions of freedom and happiness, and in philosophy generally. Taken together, the contributions in this volume offer the most comprehensive and detailed account of Epicurus and Epicureanism available in English.
Tending the Epicurean Garden
Author: Hiram CrespoPublisher: Humanist Press
ISBN: 0931779529
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 158
Book Description
Be Smart About Being Happy Gods may exist, but they’re too far removed to care about humans. So our best purpose in life is not to please gods, but to be happy. Which is not as easy as it sounds, since short-term pleasures and selfishness create longer-term misery. Thus taught Epicurus, 2,300 years ago. Hiram Crespo brings the Epicurean passion for maximum happiness into the modern age with this practical guidebook. Step one in what Crespo calls the “hedonic calculus” is to rein in desires, so they become easier to satisfy – just the opposite of the luxurious indulgence so often incorrectly associated with Epicureanism. From there, he offers a blizzard of ideas, from healthy recipes that stimulate natural “feel-good” chemicals in the brain to the journaling of positive events, even on a bad day. The highest attainable happiness, though, is communing with friends – it just doesn’t get any better than that. Being smart about being happy means using the best knowledge and tools available. Tending the Epicurean Garden is an excellent place to start.
The Epicurus Reader
Author: EpicurusPublisher: Hackett Publishing Company Incorporated
ISBN: 9780872202429
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 111
Book Description
TABLE OF CONTENTS: Introduction The ancient biography of Epicurus The extant letters Ancient collections of maxims Doxographical reports The testimony of Cicero The testimony of Lucretius The polemic of Plutarch Short fragments and testimonia from known works: * From On Nature * From the Puzzles * From On the Goal * From the Symposium * From Against Theophrastus * Fragments of Epicurus' letters Short fragments and testimonia from uncertain works: * Logic and epistemology * Physics and theology * Ethics Index
Author: Pamela GordonEpicureanism at the Origins of Modernity
Author: Catherine WilsonPublisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191553522
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 318
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. .
