1. Home
    1. Start Here: Study Guide
    2. Community Standards And Posting Policies
    3. Terms of Use
    4. Moderator Team
    5. Site Map
    6. Quizzes
    7. Articles
      1. Featured Articles
    8. All Blog Posts
      1. Elli's Blog / Articles
  2. Wiki
    1. Wiki Home
    2. FAQ
    3. Classical Epicureanism
    4. Physics Wiki
    5. Canonics Wiki
    6. Ethics Wiki
    7. Search Assistance
    8. Not NeoEpicurean
    9. Foundations
    10. Navigation Outlines
    11. Key Pages
  3. Forum
    1. Full Forum List
    2. Welcome Threads
    3. Physics
    4. Canonics
    5. Ethics
    6. Uncategorized Forum
    7. Study Resources Forum
    8. Ancient Texts Forum
    9. Shortcuts
    10. Featured
    11. Most Discussed
  4. Latest
    1. New Activity
    2. Latest Threads
    3. Dashboard
    4. Search By Tag
    5. Complete Tag List
  5. Podcast
    1. Lucretius Today Podcast
    2. Episode Guide
    3. Lucretius Today At Youtube
    4. EpicureanFriends Youtube Page
  6. Texts
    1. Overview
    2. Diogenes Laertius
    3. Principal Doctrines
    4. Vatican Sayings
    5. Lucretius
    6. Herodotus
    7. Pythocles
    8. Menoeceus
    9. Fragments - Usener Collection
    10. Torquatus On Ethics
    11. Velleius On Gods
    12. Greek/Latin Help
  7. Gallery
    1. Featured images
    2. Albums
    3. Latest Images
    4. Latest Comments
  8. Calendar
    1. Upcoming Events List
    2. Zoom Meetings
    3. This Month
    4. Sunday Zoom Meetings
    5. First Monday Zoom Meetings
    6. Wednesday Zoom Meeting
    7. Twentieth Zoom Meetings
    8. Zoom Meetings
  9. Other
    1. Featured Content
    2. Blog Posts
    3. Files
    4. Logbook
    5. EF ToDo List
    6. Link-Database
  • Login
  • Register
  • Search
This Thread
  • Everywhere
  • This Thread
  • This Forum
  • Forum
  • Articles
  • Blog Articles
  • Files
  • Gallery
  • Events
  • Pages
  • Wiki
  • Help
  • FAQ
  • More Options

Welcome To EpicureanFriends.com!

"Remember that you are mortal, and you have a limited time to live, and in devoting yourself to discussion of the nature of time and eternity you have seen things that have been, are now, and are to come."

Sign In Now
or
Register a new account
  1. Home
    1. Start Here: Study Guide
    2. Community Standards And Posting Policies
    3. Terms of Use
    4. Moderator Team
    5. Site Map
    6. Quizzes
    7. Articles
      1. Featured Articles
    8. All Blog Posts
      1. Elli's Blog / Articles
  2. Wiki
    1. Wiki Home
    2. FAQ
    3. Classical Epicureanism
    4. Physics Wiki
    5. Canonics Wiki
    6. Ethics Wiki
    7. Search Assistance
    8. Not NeoEpicurean
    9. Foundations
    10. Navigation Outlines
    11. Key Pages
  3. Forum
    1. Full Forum List
    2. Welcome Threads
    3. Physics
    4. Canonics
    5. Ethics
    6. Uncategorized Forum
    7. Study Resources Forum
    8. Ancient Texts Forum
    9. Shortcuts
    10. Featured
    11. Most Discussed
  4. Latest
    1. New Activity
    2. Latest Threads
    3. Dashboard
    4. Search By Tag
    5. Complete Tag List
  5. Podcast
    1. Lucretius Today Podcast
    2. Episode Guide
    3. Lucretius Today At Youtube
    4. EpicureanFriends Youtube Page
  6. Texts
    1. Overview
    2. Diogenes Laertius
    3. Principal Doctrines
    4. Vatican Sayings
    5. Lucretius
    6. Herodotus
    7. Pythocles
    8. Menoeceus
    9. Fragments - Usener Collection
    10. Torquatus On Ethics
    11. Velleius On Gods
    12. Greek/Latin Help
  7. Gallery
    1. Featured images
    2. Albums
    3. Latest Images
    4. Latest Comments
  8. Calendar
    1. Upcoming Events List
    2. Zoom Meetings
    3. This Month
    4. Sunday Zoom Meetings
    5. First Monday Zoom Meetings
    6. Wednesday Zoom Meeting
    7. Twentieth Zoom Meetings
    8. Zoom Meetings
  9. Other
    1. Featured Content
    2. Blog Posts
    3. Files
    4. Logbook
    5. EF ToDo List
    6. Link-Database
  1. Home
    1. Start Here: Study Guide
    2. Community Standards And Posting Policies
    3. Terms of Use
    4. Moderator Team
    5. Site Map
    6. Quizzes
    7. Articles
      1. Featured Articles
    8. All Blog Posts
      1. Elli's Blog / Articles
  2. Wiki
    1. Wiki Home
    2. FAQ
    3. Classical Epicureanism
    4. Physics Wiki
    5. Canonics Wiki
    6. Ethics Wiki
    7. Search Assistance
    8. Not NeoEpicurean
    9. Foundations
    10. Navigation Outlines
    11. Key Pages
  3. Forum
    1. Full Forum List
    2. Welcome Threads
    3. Physics
    4. Canonics
    5. Ethics
    6. Uncategorized Forum
    7. Study Resources Forum
    8. Ancient Texts Forum
    9. Shortcuts
    10. Featured
    11. Most Discussed
  4. Latest
    1. New Activity
    2. Latest Threads
    3. Dashboard
    4. Search By Tag
    5. Complete Tag List
  5. Podcast
    1. Lucretius Today Podcast
    2. Episode Guide
    3. Lucretius Today At Youtube
    4. EpicureanFriends Youtube Page
  6. Texts
    1. Overview
    2. Diogenes Laertius
    3. Principal Doctrines
    4. Vatican Sayings
    5. Lucretius
    6. Herodotus
    7. Pythocles
    8. Menoeceus
    9. Fragments - Usener Collection
    10. Torquatus On Ethics
    11. Velleius On Gods
    12. Greek/Latin Help
  7. Gallery
    1. Featured images
    2. Albums
    3. Latest Images
    4. Latest Comments
  8. Calendar
    1. Upcoming Events List
    2. Zoom Meetings
    3. This Month
    4. Sunday Zoom Meetings
    5. First Monday Zoom Meetings
    6. Wednesday Zoom Meeting
    7. Twentieth Zoom Meetings
    8. Zoom Meetings
  9. Other
    1. Featured Content
    2. Blog Posts
    3. Files
    4. Logbook
    5. EF ToDo List
    6. Link-Database
  1. EpicureanFriends - Home of Classical Epicurean Philosophy
  2. Forum
  3. Modern Books, Articles, and Videos
  4. Recommended Books
  5. Epicurus And His Philosophy - Norman DeWitt
  6. Epicurus and His Philosophy - Chapter Specific Threads
  • Sidebar
  • Sidebar

True And False Opinions About Epicurus - From Chapter 1 of "Epicurus And His Philosophy"

  • Cassius
  • April 21, 2018 at 11:46 AM
  • Go to last post
Regularly Checking In On A Small Screen Device? Bookmark THIS page!
  • Online
    Cassius
    05 - Administrator
    Points
    104,101
    Posts
    14,255
    Quizzes
    9
    Quiz rate
    100.0 %
    • April 21, 2018 at 11:46 AM
    • #1

    This list of eleven "True And False Opinions About Epicurus" taken from Chapter 1 of DeWitt's "Epicurus and His Philosophy," may be of general interest:

    1. TRUE AND FALSE OPINIONS ABOUT EPICURUS:
      1. Epicurus’ Place In Greek Philosophy:
        1. True: Epicurus came immediately after Plato (idealism; absolutism) and Pyrrho (the skeptic). Platonism and Skepticism were among Epicurus' chief abominations. Epicurean philosophy was fully developed before Zeno began teaching Stoicism.
        2. False: Epicurus taught in response to Stoicism.
      2. Epicurus’ Attitude Toward Learning:
        1. True: Epicurus was well educated and a trained thinker.
        2. False: Epicurus was an ignoramus and an enemy of all culture.
      3. Epicurus’ Goal For Himself And His Work:
        1. True: Epicurus was not only a philosopher but a moral reformer rebelling against his teachers.
        2. False: Epicurus was nothing more than a philosopher who was ungrateful to his teachers.
      4. Epicurus’ Place in Greek Scientific Thought:
        1. True: Epicurus was returning to the Ionian tradition of thought which had been interrupted by Socrates and Plato. Epicurus was an Anti-Platonist and a penetrating critic of Platonism.
        2. False: Epicurean scientific thought simply copied Democritus.
      5. Epicurus’ Role As a Systematizer:
        1. True: As with Herbert Spencer or Auguste Comte, Epicurus was attempting a synthesis and critique of all prior philosophical thought.
        2. False: Epicurus was a sloppy and unorganized thinker whose system-building is not worth attention.
      6. Epicurus’ Dogmatism:
        1. True: Epicurus’s strength was that he promulgated a dogmatic philosophy, actuated by a passion for inquiry to find certainty, and a detestation of skepticism, which he imputed even to Plato.
        2. False: Epicurus’ demerit was that he promulgated a dogmatic philosophy, because he renounced inquiry.
      7. Epicurus’ View of Truth:
        1. True: Epicurus exalted Nature as the norm of truth, revolting against Plato, who had preached “reason” as the norm and considered “Reason” to have a divine existence of its own. Epicurus studied and taught the nature and use of sensations, and the role in determining that which we consider to be true.
        2. False: Epicurus was an empiricist in the modern sense, declaring sensation to be the only source of knowledge and all sensations to be “true.”
      8. Epicurus’ Method For Determining Truth:
        1. True: Epicurus taught reasoning chiefly by deduction. For example, atoms cannot be observed directly; their existence and properties must be determined by deduction, and the principles thereby deduced serve as standards for assessing truth. In this Epicurus was adopting the procedures of Euclid and partying company with both Plato and the Ionian scientists.
        2. False: Epicurus taught reasoning mainly by induction.
      9. Epicurus’ As A Man of Action
        1. True: Epicurus was the first missionary philosophy. Epicurus was by disposition combative and he was by natural gifts a leader, organizer, and campaigner.
        2. False: Epicurus was effeminate and a moral invalid; a passivist who taught retirement from and non-engagement with the world.
      10. Epicurus’ View of Self-Interest
        1. True: Epicureanism was the first world philosophy, acceptable to both Greek and barbarian. Epicurus taught that we should make friends wherever possible.
        2. False: Epicurus was a totally egoistic hedonist ruled solely by a narrow view of his own self-interest.
      11. Epicurus Is Of Little Relevance to the Development of Christianity
        1. True: Epicurus reoriented emphasis from political virtues to social virtues, and developed a wider viewpoint applicable to all humanity.
        2. False: Epicurus was an enemy of all religion and there is no trace of his influence in the “New Testament.”
  • Hiram
    01 - New Registrant
    Points
    4,082
    Posts
    579
    Quizzes
    1
    Quiz rate
    88.9 %
    • April 25, 2018 at 9:03 AM
    • #2

    Are any minutes / notes being taken in these discussions with the intention of publishing them later as study guides or for educational value?

    "Please always remember my doctrines!" - Epicurus' last words

  • Online
    Cassius
    05 - Administrator
    Points
    104,101
    Posts
    14,255
    Quizzes
    9
    Quiz rate
    100.0 %
    • April 25, 2018 at 9:43 AM
    • #3

    Not so far. We've talked about recording them but not done that either so far. I agree it would be good to do it - I guess the outlines are a start.

  • Kalosyni February 17, 2023 at 1:57 PM

    Moved the thread from forum General Discussion And Navigation to forum Chapter One - A Synoptic View of Epicureanism.
  • Cassius March 13, 2025 at 9:50 AM

    Moved the thread from forum Chapter One - A Synoptic View of Epicureanism to forum Epicurus and His Philosophy - Chapter Specific Threads.

Unread Threads

    1. Title
    2. Replies
    3. Last Reply
    1. Philodemus' "On Anger" - General - Texts and Resources 20

      • Like 1
      • Cassius
      • April 1, 2022 at 5:36 PM
      • Philodemus On Anger
      • Cassius
      • July 8, 2025 at 7:33 AM
    2. Replies
      20
      Views
      6.9k
      20
    3. Kalosyni

      July 8, 2025 at 7:33 AM
    1. Mocking Epithets 3

      • Like 3
      • Bryan
      • July 4, 2025 at 3:01 PM
      • Comparing Epicurus With Other Philosophers - General Discussion
      • Bryan
      • July 6, 2025 at 9:47 PM
    2. Replies
      3
      Views
      435
      3
    3. Bryan

      July 6, 2025 at 9:47 PM
    1. Best Lucretius translation? 12

      • Like 1
      • Rolf
      • June 19, 2025 at 8:40 AM
      • General Discussion of "On The Nature of Things"
      • Rolf
      • July 1, 2025 at 1:59 PM
    2. Replies
      12
      Views
      1.1k
      12
    3. Eikadistes

      July 1, 2025 at 1:59 PM
    1. The Religion of Nature - as supported by Lucretius' De Rerum Natura 4

      • Thanks 1
      • Kalosyni
      • June 12, 2025 at 12:03 PM
      • General Discussion of "On The Nature of Things"
      • Kalosyni
      • June 23, 2025 at 12:36 AM
    2. Replies
      4
      Views
      966
      4
    3. Godfrey

      June 23, 2025 at 12:36 AM
    1. New Blog Post From Elli - " Fanaticism and the Danger of Dogmatism in Political and Religious Thought: An Epicurean Reading"

      • Like 3
      • Cassius
      • June 20, 2025 at 4:31 PM
      • Epicurus vs Abraham (Judaism, Christianity, Islam)
      • Cassius
      • June 20, 2025 at 4:31 PM
    2. Replies
      0
      Views
      2.5k

Finding Things At EpicureanFriends.com

What's the best strategy for finding things on EpicureanFriends.com? Here's a suggested search strategy:

  • First, familiarize yourself with the list of forums. The best way to find threads related to a particular topic is to look in the relevant forum. Over the years most people have tried to start threads according to forum topic, and we regularly move threads from our "general discussion" area over to forums with more descriptive titles.
  • Use the "Search" facility at the top right of every page. Note that the search box asks you what section of the forum you'd like to search. If you don't know, select "Everywhere." Also check the "Search Assistance" page.
  • Use the "Tag" facility, starting with the "Key Tags By Topic" in the right hand navigation pane, or using the "Search By Tag" page, or the "Tag Overview" page which contains a list of all tags alphabetically. We curate the available tags to keep them to a manageable number that is descriptive of frequently-searched topics.

Latest Posts

  • Preuss - "Epicurean Ethics - Katastematic Hedonism"

    Eikadistes July 15, 2025 at 3:37 PM
  • Epicurus' Prolepsis vs Heraclitus' Flux

    Cassius July 15, 2025 at 12:40 PM
  • Perspectives On "Proving" That Pleasure is "The Good"

    Matteng July 15, 2025 at 12:11 PM
  • The "meaning crisis" trend. How do you answer it as an Epicurean philosopher?

    DaveT July 14, 2025 at 11:15 AM
  • Major Renovation In Use of Tags At EpicureanFriends.com

    Cassius July 13, 2025 at 3:58 PM
  • Welcome Poul

    Cassius July 13, 2025 at 6:41 AM
  • Episode 290 - TD20 - To Be Recorded

    Don July 13, 2025 at 12:15 AM
  • Welcome DistantLaughter!

    DistantLaughter July 12, 2025 at 9:28 PM
  • Lucretius Today Episode 289 Posted - "Epicureans Are Not Spocks!"

    Cassius July 10, 2025 at 12:09 PM
  • Episode 289 - TD19 - "Epicureans Are Not Spocks!"

    Cassius July 10, 2025 at 12:03 PM

Key Tags By Topic

  • #Canonics
  • #Death
  • #Emotions
  • #Engagement
  • #EpicureanLiving
  • #Ethics
  • #FreeWill
  • #Friendship
  • #Gods
  • #Happiness
  • #HighestGood
  • #Images
  • #Infinity
  • #Justice
  • #Knowledge
  • #Physics
  • #Pleasure
  • #Soul
  • #Twentieth
  • #Virtue


Click Here To Search All Tags

To Suggest Additions To This List Click Here

EpicureanFriends - Classical Epicurean Philosophy

  1. Home
    1. About Us
    2. Classical Epicurean Philosophy
  2. Wiki
    1. Getting Started
  3. Frequently Asked Questions
    1. Site Map
  4. Forum
    1. Latest Threads
    2. Featured Threads
    3. Unread Posts
  5. Texts
    1. Core Texts
    2. Biography of Epicurus
    3. Lucretius
  6. Articles
    1. Latest Articles
  7. Gallery
    1. Featured Images
  8. Calendar
    1. This Month At EpicureanFriends
Powered by WoltLab Suite™ 6.0.22
Style: Inspire by cls-design
Stylename
Inspire
Manufacturer
cls-design
Licence
Commercial styles
Help
Supportforum
Visit cls-design