Welcome Happy-Go-Lucky! Thanks for joining us! When you get a chance, please tell us about yourself and your background in Epicurean philosophy.
It would be particularly helpful if you could tell us (1) how you found this forum, and (2) how much background reading you have done in Epicurus. As an aid in the latter, we have prepared the following list of core reading.
We look forward to talking with you!
----------------------- Epicurean Works I Have Read ---------------------------------
1 The Biography of Epicurus By Diogenes Laertius (Chapter 10). This includes all Epicurus' letters and the Authorized Doctrines. Supplement with the Vatican list of Sayings.
2 "Epicurus And His Philosophy" - Norman DeWitt
3 "On The Nature of Things"- Lucretius
4 Cicero's "On Ends" - Torquatus Section
5 Cicero's "On The Nature of the Gods" - Velleius Section
6 The Inscription of Diogenes of Oinoanda - Martin Ferguson Smith translation
7 "A Few Days In Athens" - Frances Wright
8 Lucian Core Texts on Epicurus: (1) Alexander the Oracle-Monger, (2) Hermotimus (3) Others?
9 Plato's Philebus
10 Philodemus "On Methods of Inference" (De Lacy version, including his appendix on relationship of Epicurean canon to Aristotle and other Greeks)
11 "The Greeks on Pleasure" -Gosling & Taylor Sections on Epicurus, especially on katastematic and kinetic pleasure.