Site Map

Absence of pain. Epicurus, as quoted by Diogenes Laertius, says that "freedom from disturbance and absence of pain are static pleasures." Absence of pain is not a neutral state halfway between pleasure and pain: the removal of all pain is the limit of pleasure, so that wherever pain is absent, pleasure is present, in the mind as well as the body.

Part of the Canonics section of the outline of Epicurean philosophy. Topics: "All Sensations Are True"; Identical Things and Indiscernibility.

One of the three criteria of truth in the Epicurean canon, usually translated "anticipation" or "preconception." A prolēpsis is a basic grasp of what a kind of thing is, which lets us recognize it, talk about it, and test opinions against it. Epicurus held that we have an anticipation of the gods, and that it shows them to be blessed and incorruptible.

c. 215–164 BC. Seleucid king of Syria, reigning from Antioch. Greek-speaking court. Not himself a practicing Epicurean philosopher, but as the close friend and patron of Philonides of Laodicea he made Epicureanism the effective court philosophy at Antioch during his reign -- a rare case of the school gaining direct royal favor rather than merely private adherents.

2nd century BC (exact dates uncertain), Athens. Wrote in Greek. A later scholarch reputed to have written over 400 books; Diogenes Laertius relied heavily on Apollodorus's own chronological work for the dates he gives of Epicurus's birth, death, and career, making him an important (if now largely lost) source behind the biographical tradition.