materiały: Epicurus

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Epicurus (, EH-pih-KURE-əs; Ancient Greek: Ἐπίκουρος Epikouros; 341–270 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher who founded the philosophical school of Epicureanism, which teaches that management of one's desires, removal of unnecessary fears, friendship, and virtuous living lead to a pleasant life and constant happiness, the highest good. Epicurus advocated that people were best able to pursue philosophy by living a self-sufficient life surrounded by friends; he and his followers were known for eating simple meals and discussing a wide range of philosophical subjects at "The Garden", the school he established in Athens. Epicurus taught that although the gods exist, they have no involvement in…

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Principal Doctrines of Epicurus. Epicurean philosophy, as Epicurus's teachings became known, was used as the basis for how the community lived and worked. At the time, founding a school and teaching a community of students was the main way philosophical ideas were developed and transmitted. Greek philosopher Aristotle (384–322 BCE), for instance, founded a school in Athens called the Lyceum.Epicurus and his disciples believed either there were no gods or, if there were, the gods were so remote from humans that they were not worth worrying about. Similarly, humans would not have to worry about the afterlife. Instead, humans should live by maximizing their pleasure. The highest pleasure was t…

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Epicurus, Letters, Principal Doctrines, and Vatican Sayings. With an Introduction and Notes

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Lucretius and Epicurus on Metaphor. This chapter outlines what can be known of Epicurean and Lucretian attitudes to metaphor, metonymy, and synecdoche. After a discussion of ancient testimonia to Epicurus’ own style and stylistic preferences, it draws a distinction between two types of metaphor—necessary and unnecessary. Drawing on the fragments of Book 28 of Epicurus’ On Nature , it argues that these types of metaphor played different roles in Epicurean linguistic theory and practice. After seeking to identify Epicurean criteria for naming unseen entities, the chapter goes on to discuss several passages in DRN where Lucretius discusses figurative uses of language, both necessary and unnece…

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Epicurus and the Epicurean School. The school founded by Epicurus in Athens in 307/6 or 305/4 survived as an institution until the first century bce . After a period obscure to us, in the second century ce , we again have information about certain Epicurean philosophers and about the continuity of the teaching of Epicureanism in Athens and Asia Minor. In this chapter a brief biography is drawn of each of the protagonists of the history of the school and their literary and philosophical works. Particular attention is paid to Philodemus and the role that he played in the spread of Epicureanism in Italy in the first century bce . The life of the school during its long existence was not always…

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Epicureanism, less commonly Epicurism, is a school of philosophy founded in 307 BCE and based upon the teachings of Epicurus, an ancient Greek philosopher. Epicurus was an atomist and materialist, following in the steps of Democritus. His materialism led him to religious skepticism and a general attack on superstition and divine intervention. Epicureanism was originally a challenge to Platonism, and its main opponent later became Stoicism. It is a form of hedonism insofar as it declares pleasure to be its sole intrinsic goal. However, the concept that the absence of pain and fear constitutes the greatest pleasure, and its advocacy of a simple life, make it very different from hedonism as co…

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Plato ( PLAY-toh; Ancient Greek: Πλάτων, Plátōn; c. 428–347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of Classical Athens who is most commonly considered the foundational thinker of the Western philosophical tradition. An innovator of the literary dialogue and dialectic forms, Plato influenced all the major areas of theoretical philosophy and practical philosophy, and was the founder of the Academy, a philosophical school in Athens where Plato taught the collection of philosophical theories that would later become known as Platonism. Plato's most famous contribution is his Theory of Forms (or Ideas), which aims to solve what is now known as the problem of universals. He was influenced by the pre…

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Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger ( SEN-ik-ə; c. 4 BC – AD 65), usually known mononymously as Seneca, was a Stoic philosopher of Ancient Rome, a statesman, a dramatist, and in one work (Apocolocyntosis) a satirist from the post-Augustan age of Latin literature. Seneca was born in Colonia Patricia Corduba in Hispania, and was trained in rhetoric and philosophy in Greece. His father was Seneca the Elder, his elder brother was Lucius Junius Gallio Annaeanus, and his nephew was the poet Lucan. In AD 41, Seneca was exiled to the island of Corsica under emperor Claudius, but was allowed to return in 49 to become a tutor to Nero. When Nero became emperor in 54, Seneca became his advisor and, toget…

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The Herculaneum papyri are more than 1,800 scrolls of papyrus discovered in the 18th century in the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum. They had been carbonized when the villa was engulfed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. The papyri, containing a number of Greek philosophical texts, come from the only surviving library from antiquity that exists in its entirety. In its current state, reading of the scrolls is extremely difficult and can risk destroying the information it holds. Techniques to decipher the writings on the scrolls are still being developed. The majority of classical texts referred to by other classical authors are lost, and there is hope that the continuing work on…

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Layout of ancient Greek papyri through lead-drawn ruling lines revealed by Macro X-Ray Fluorescence Imaging.. The use of lead-drawn ruling lines by ancient scribes for the layout of Greek papyrus rolls was known to us only from classical authors and was postulated by a few scholars in modern times. In situ application of noninvasive Macro X-Ray Fluorescence Imaging Spectroscopy (MA-XRF) to unrolled papyri from Herculaneum, dating from about 200 BC to the 1st century AD, has provided the first direct evidence of such practice in ancient book production. The key experimental proof of periodic lines drawn in lead was gathered by a highly sensitive MA-XRF mobile instrument, which allowed detect…

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Chip Off the Old Block: Generation, Development, and Ancestral Concepts of Heredity.. Heredity is such a fundamental concept that it is hard to imagine a world where the connection between parents and offspring is not understood. Three hundred years ago thinking of the phenomenon of heredity bore on a cluster of distinct philosophical questions inherited from antiquity concerning the nature and origin of substances or beings that lacked biological meaning. We are reminded of this philosophical heritage by the fact that in the 18th century the study of reproduction, embryology and development was referred to as "the science of generation". It is now clear that reproduction, the biological pr…

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Schrödinger's Doctrine of Identity: On the Role of Advaita Vedānta in Erwin Schrödinger's Thought.. Ever since Erwin Schrödinger learned about Indian thought through Arthur Schopenhauer, it occupied a visible role in both his published writings and personal books. Schrödinger called for a "blood transfusion" of Indian thought into the West and, in one notebook, construed the Upaniṣadic slogan "Brahman = Atman" as the "closest thing to the truth." However, the historical and philosophical literature on his engagement with Indian ideas remains limited and often confused. Two questions should be addressed for a more comprehensive account of Schrödinger's philosophical views: which Indian insig…