# Epicurus – " Letter to Herodotus "; " Letter to Menoecus "

Nevertheless, the century had a number of writers who were considered " libertine "; these authors ( like Théophile de Viau ( 1590 – 1626 ) and Charles de Saint-Evremond ( 1610 – 1703 )), inspired by Epicurus and the publication of Petronius, professed doubts of religious or moral matters during a period of increasingly reactionary religious fervor.

Democritus ' atomist philosophy was later adopted by Epicurus ( 341 – 270 BCE ).

Epicureanism is a system of philosophy based upon the teachings of Epicurus ( c. 341 – c.

* Epicurus, Greek philosopher, author of an ethical philosophy of simple pleasure, friendship, and retirement ( b. 341 BC )

A further principle of conservation was stated by Epicurus ( 341 – 270 BCE ) who, describing the nature of the universe, wrote that " the totality of things was always such as it is now, and always will be ".

460 – 370 BC ) and Epicurus ( 341 – 270 BC ); from which academic speculation proposes is the derivation of the logical architecture of Capital: Critique of Political Economy, because exchange value, the " syllogisms " ( C-M-C ' and M-C-M ') for simple commodity circulation, and the circulation of value as capital, derive from the Politics and the Nicomachean Ethics, by Aristotle.

* Epicurus ( 341-270 BC ), see: Epicureanism

In 311 / 310 BC Epicurus taught in Mytilene but caused strife and was forced to leave.

500 BC – 428 BC ), Epicurus and Democritus prefigure later materialists.

55 BC ) reflects the mechanistic philosophy of Democritus and Epicurus.

It was later ( 4th century BC ) that the original atomism was taken again as indeterministic by Epicurus.

* Epicurus, Greek philosopher, founder of Epicureanism ( d. 270 BC )

* Polyaenus of Lampsacus, Greek mathematician and philosopher and friend of Epicurus ( b. c. 340 BC )

Epicureanism, based on the teachings of the Athens-based philosopher Epicurus, flourished from about the fourth century BC to the third century AD.

He died in 278 / 7 BC, in the 53rd year of his age, seven years before Epicurus, who would have appointed him his successor had he survived him.

His friendship with Epicurus started after the latter's escape from Mytilene in 307 or 306 BC when he opened a philosophical school at Lampsacus associating himself with other citizens of the town, like Pythocles, Colotes, and Idomeneus.

A group of Lampsacenes were in the circle of Epicurus ; they included Polyaenus of Lampsacus ( c. 340 – 278 BC ) a mathematician, the philosophers Idomeneus of Lampsacus, Colotes the satirist and Leonteus of Lampsacus ; Batis of Lampsacus the wife of Idomeneus, was the sister of Metrodorus of Lampsacus ( the younger ), whose elder brother, also a friend of Epicurus, was Timocrates of Lampsacus.

Epicureanism was founded about 300 BC by Epicurus.

Colotes of Lampsacus (; c. 320-after 268 BC ) was a pupil of Epicurus, and one of the most famous of his disciples.

Idomeneus of Lampsacus (; ; c. 325 – c. 270 BC ) was a friend and disciple of Epicurus.

Hermarchus was a son of Agemarchus, a poor man of Mytilene ( in insular Greece ), and was at first brought up as a rhetorician, but afterwards became a faithful disciple of Epicurus, who left to him his garden, and appointed him his successor as the head of his school, about 270 BC.

" – Epicurus

– Epicurus, as quoted in 2000 Years of Disbelief

# Epicurus – Letter to Herodotus ; Letter to Menoecus

Polyaenus of Lampsacus (; ; c. 340 BCE – c. 285 BCE ), also spelled Polyenus, was an ancient Greek mathematician and a friend of Epicurus.

* Epicurus the Sage, by William Messner-Loebs and Sam Kieth ( two issues, 1989 – 91 )

To Epicurus the summum bonum, or greatest good, was prudence, exercised through moderation and caution.

Epicurus reasoned if there was an afterlife and immortality, the fear of death was irrational.

For Epicurus, the purpose of philosophy was to attain the happy, tranquil life, characterized by ataraxia — peace and freedom from fear — and aponia — the absence of pain — and by living a self-sufficient life surrounded by friends.

Epicurus ' school, which was based in the garden of his house and thus called " The Garden ", had a small but devoted following in his lifetime.

Epicurus is a key figure in the development of science and the scientific method because of his insistence that nothing should be believed, except that which was tested through direct observation and logical deduction.

Although Epicurus has been commonly misunderstood to advocate the rampant pursuit of pleasure, he was actually after the absence of pain ( both physical and mental, i. e., suffering )-a state of satiation and tranquility that was free of the fear of death and the retribution of the gods.

Epicurus ' teachings were introduced into medical philosophy and practice by the Epicurean doctor Asclepiades of Bithynia, who was the first physician who introduced Greek medicine in Rome.

This argument was a type favoured by the ancient Greek skeptics, and may have been wrongly attributed to Epicurus by Lactantius, who, from his Christian perspective, regarded Epicurus as an atheist.

This triad, as well as the egalitarianism of Epicurus, was carried forward into the American freedom movement and Declaration of Independence, by the American founding father, Thomas Jefferson, as " all men are created equal " and endowed with certain " inalienable rights ," such as " life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Epicurus was first to assert human freedom as coming from a fundamental indeterminism in the motion of atoms.

This has led some philosophers to think that for Epicurus free will was caused directly by chance.

Epicurus was also a significant source of inspiration and interest for both Arthur Schopenhauer, having particular influence on the famous pessimist's views on suffering and death, as well as one of Schopenhauer's successors: Friedrich Nietzsche.

Nietzsche was attracted to, among other things, Epicurus ' ability to maintain a cheerful philosophical outlook in the face of painful physical ailments.

However, he thought that Epicurus ' conception of happiness as freedom from anxiety was too passive and negative.

In Rabbinic literature the term Epikoros is used, without a specific reference to the Greek philosopher Epicurus, yet it seems apparent that the term was derived from his name.

Epicurus was an atomic materialist, following in the steps of Democritus and Leucippus.

Following Aristippus — about whom very little is known — Epicurus believed that the greatest good was to seek modest pleasures in order to attain a state of tranquility and freedom from fear ( ataraxia ) as well as absence of bodily pain ( aponia ) through knowledge of the workings of the world and the limits of our desires.

After the death of Epicurus, his school was headed by Hermarchus ; later many Epicurean societies flourished in the Late Hellenistic era and during the Roman era ( such as those in Antiochia, Alexandria, Rhodes and Ercolano ).

As much as Epicurus or Socrates was content to possess is best, or-in the Roman manner-a fortune equal to the equestrian order.