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Listen to the latest Lucretius Today Podcast! Episode 226 is now available.. We begin (with the help of Cicero's Epicurean spokesman) the first of a series of episodes to analyze the Epicurean view of the nature of the gods.
Understanding Epicurus takes considerable effort, but not because the doctrines are always difficult. One problem is that Epicurean philosophy has been heavily criticized for more than two thousand years, and most of the articles and commentary that have been produced over that time are by people who are critical of it and have no desire to present the philosophy clearly and fully.
The following table of major issues within Epicurean philosophy are an attempt to help you navigate those confusing waters. A longer narrative blog post on the topic can be found here. The issues listed in the table are frequent topics of discussion on the internet, and this table lets you know that there are at least two sides to each of these questions. From at least as far back as the time of Cicero, opponents of Epicurus have employed the tactic of taking particular Epicurean passages out of context and torturing them into narrow conclusions that appear - and are - absurd. Opponents of Epicurus have no interest in providing the full context and showing how the pieces fit together, and as a result Epicurean philosophy is portrayed as confusing at best and incomprehensible at worst. It is therefore helpful for you to know as soon as possible in your reading of Epicurus that you are going to run into these issues so you can be ready for them. Posts and articles on the issues listed here are particularly welcome, and articles on these topics are prime candidates for the "Featured Articles" on the Home page of this website.
It would also be helpful to do another chart along the lines of "Where Epicurean Philosophy Disagrees with Other Philosophies" but that is not the focus of this chart. This one focuses on controversies within and among commentators on Epicurean philosophy about what Epicurus taught, not whether Epicurus was right or wrong.
Edits and contributions to this table by Level 3 or above participants at EpicureanFriends.com are welcome. If you attempt to edit and do not have access, please message a moderator.
The purpose of this page is to present a table of major passages from the core texts for which there are translation controversies and as to the real meaning. In many or most cases, the issue involved is controversial, and the choice of words used to translate the text assumes that one among various possibilities is correct. The purpose here is to highlight the ambiguity and the various possibilities so as not to obscure the difficulty, but make it possible to explore the difficulty more deeply, in the spirit of PD24.
PD24. If you reject any single sensation, and fail to distinguish between the conclusion of opinion, as to the appearance awaiting confirmation, and that which is actually given by the sensation or feeling, or each intuitive apprehension of the mind, you will confound all other sensations, as well, with the same groundless opinion, so that you will reject every standard of judgment. And if among the mental images created by your opinion you affirm both that which awaits confirmation, and that which does not, you will not escape error, since you will have preserved the whole cause of doubt in every judgment between what is right and what is wrong.
Edits and contributions to this table by Level 3 or above participants at EpicureanFriends.com are welcome. If you attempt to edit and do not have access, please message a moderator.
This lexicon entry replaces the old entry located here: Table of Texts With Translation or Corruption Difficulties
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This book has a lot of good information about Epicurean ethics, because it is an exchange in which Cicero dispute's Torquatus' statement of Epicurean ethics. Unfortunately we don't talk about it nearly as much as we talk about Book One. Part of the reason it is less referenced is that rather than being a straightforward narrative by Torquatus, this section is a question / answer dialog as in Plato's works. Unfortunately, the standard texts do not break the exchanges down by speaker, so the text is hard to follow in the standard editions. This page has been set up to prepare a version that is broken down into dialog presentation form and is therefore easier to read.
If anyone would like to help edit this text, or knows of a printed version where we can more easily pull out the changes in speakers, please let Cassius know.
This is a work in process. The place where editing stops is marked with a horizontal line divider, but it's easy to tell also because the names of the speakers stop appearing.
Philebus contains Plato's major arguments against considering pleasure to be the goal of life / highest good. This article provides an outline and overview of Plato's attack.
VS63. Frugality too has a limit, and the man who disregards it is like him who errs through excess.
"We must laugh and philosophize at the same time, and do our household duties, and employ our other faculties, and never cease proclaiming the sayings of the true philosophy." Epicurus VS41 (Bailey)
"For I would certainly prefer, as I study Nature, to announce frankly what is beneficial to all people, even if none agrees with me, rather than to compromise with common opinions, and thus reap the frequent praise of the many." - Epicurus VS29. (Bailey)
Boris Nikolsky is the author of the article "Epicurus on Pleasure"which explains that the kinetic / katastematic distinction was not of significance to Epicurus and was a much later non-Epicurean accretion.
"As many as possess the power to procure complete immunity from their neighbours, these also live most pleasantly with one another, since they have the most certain pledge of security, and, after they have enjoyed the fullest intimacy, they do not lament the previous departure of a dead friend, as though he were to be pitied." Epicurus PD40 (Bailey)
"The man who has best ordered the element of disquiet arising from external circumstances has made those things that he could akin to himself, and the rest at least not alien; but with all to which he could not do even this, he has refrained from mixing, and has expelled from his life all which it was of advantage to treat thus." Epicurus PD39 (Bailey)
Bailey: 38. Where, provided the circumstances have not been altered, actions which were considered just have been shown not to accord with the general concept, in actual practice, then they are not just. But where, when circumstances have changed, the same actions which were sanctioned as just no longer lead to advantage, they were just at the time, when they were of advantage for the dealings of fellow-citizens with one another, but subsequently they are no longer just, when no longer of advantage.
Bailey: 37. Among actions which are sanctioned as just by law, that which is proved, on examination, to be of advantage, in the requirements of men's dealings with one another, has the guarantee of justice, whether it is the same for all or not. But if a man makes a law, and it does not turn out to lead to advantage in men's dealings with each other, then it no longer has the essential nature of justice. And even if the advantage in the matter of justice shifts from one side to the other, but for a while accords with the general concept, it is nonetheless just for that period, in the eyes of those who do not confound themselves with empty sounds, but look to the actual facts.