Epicurus reader pdf

13

The Epicurus Reader Selected Writings and Testimonia

Translated and Edited, with Notes, by Brad Inwood

and L. P. Gerson

The Human and Its Others: Divinity, Society, Nature 14

Epicurus: 341 B.C.–271 B.C.

Copyright © 1994 by Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America

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Cover design by Listenberger Design and Associates Text design by Dan Kirklin

For further information, please address Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. P.O. Box 44937 Indianapolis, Indiana 46244-0937

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Epicurus. [Works. English. 1994] The Epicurus reader: selected writings and testimonia translated

and edited, with notes, by Brad Inwood and L. P. Gerson; introduction by D. S. Hutchinson.

p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-87220-242-9 ISBN 0-87220-241-0 (pbk.) I. Inwood, Brad. II. Gerson, Lloyd P. III. Title.

B570.E5I582 1994 187—dc20 93-44073

CIP

ISBN-13: 978-0-87220-242-9 (cloth) ISBN-13: 978-0-87220-241-2 (pbk.)

Hence, one must attend to one’s present feelings and sense-perceptions, to the common sense-perceptions for common properties and to the individual sense-perceptions for individ- ual properties, and to every immediately clear fact as revealed by each of the criteria. For, if we attend to these things, we will give a correct and complete causal account of the source of our disturbance and fear, and [so] dissolve them, by accounting for the causes of meteorological and other phenomena which we are constantly exposed to and which terrify other men most severely.

Here, Herodotus, in summary form are the most important points about the nature of the universe; 83. consequently, I think that this account, if mastered with precision, would be able to make a man incomparably stronger than other men, even if he does not go on to all of the precise details of individual doctrines. For he will also be able to clarify, by his own efforts, many of the precise details of individual doctrines in our entire system, and these points themselves, when lodged in memory, will be a constant aid.

For [these doctrines] are such that even those who have already worked out the details of individual doctrines sufficiently well or even completely, can, by analysing them into [intel- lectual] applications of this sort, acquire most of the [elements of the] survey of nature as a whole. But those who are not among the completely accomplished [students of nature] can, on the basis of these points and following the method which does not involve verbal expres- sion, with the speed of thought achieve an overview of the doctrines most important for [achiev- ing] tranquillity.

TEXT 4: Letter to Menoeceus: Diogenes Laertius 10.121–135

121. Epicurus to Menoeceus, greetings: 122. Let no one delay the study of philosophy while young nor weary of it when old. For

no one is either too young or too old for the health of the soul. He who says either that the time for philosophy has not yet come or that it has passed is like someone who says that the time for happiness has not yet come or that it has passed. Therefore, both young and old must philosophize, the latter so that although old he may stay young in good things owing to gratitude for what has occurred, the former so that although young he too may be like an old man owing to his lack of fear of what is to come. Therefore, one must practise the things which produce happiness, since if that is present we have everything and if it is absent we do every- thing in order to have it.