Customer Reviews

The Essential Epicurus: Letters, Principal Doctrines, Vatican Sayings, and Fragments (Great Books in Philosophy)

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3 star:		(1)
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Epicureanism was the chief competitor of christianity until the fourth century. It attracted large numbers of the middle and upper classes with its emphasis on rational hedonism, friendship, and pleasure. Most of the literature of epicureanism was burned by christian missionaries but enough remains for modern readers to see what its great appeal was. This book contains all of the important fragments and a few epistles of Epicurus. Well worth reading. Epicurus provided arguments which were designed to overcome the fear of death and mental slavery to superstition. He also thought very highly of friendship and simple, tranquil living. Epicureanism was designed to help people live happily in this life and it seems to have had a profound affect on many ancients as it became the first and only philosophy developed in ancient Greece which became a missionary philosophy and spread throughout a great deal of the Western world. Anyone interested in a gentle, humane and non-superstitious philosophy of life will find the writings of Epicurus of great interest.

This book does not rely on a god or a saviour to lead a smart and fulfilling life. It relies soley on reason and what an effective use of it by epicurus! Most of epicurus works are either lost or destroyed, but this book contains his essential teachings. Epicurus did not deny the existance of the gods. This would make sense. If the universe is infinite as he says, then all possible things already exist in one way or another. According to epicurus one should live out his natural life, this would be prudent. This life is the only one you get. He writes that by being prudent ie; looking at both sides of an issue to find truth and getting only what you need, you can live a smart and happy life. After life is over one goes to eternal oblivion, free of all suffering forever. The ironic thing about epicurus is that he admits there are gods. If one reads what he writes carefully, one finds that one doesnt need to go to heaven or even to exist. Since it is not needed, one loses nothing. The same thing can be said for the wild goose chase, most people are engaged in for happiness. They want bigger houses, more expensive cars, more cash, etc. and instead of gaining happiness gain more misery. Why? Because the truth is you gain happiness by getting only what you need. Epicurus writes that those who are not satisfied with a little, will never be satisfied even with a lot or even infinity. The more you have above need, the more worry, headache and problems. This in no way is conducive to happiness. These writings are some of the most brilliant in the entire realm of philosophy. This book gets two thumbs up!

I am not qualified to weigh in on the merits of Epicurus' school of philosophy. As Westerners, we've decided over that two thousand years that his thoughts on death and pleasure and pain are profound and provocative.

What's important to the average reader though is whether this is the book you should pick up to learn about him. The short answer is yes, the longer one is that it is not enough.

The book has a fairly weak introduction that doesn't provide much context. The author would have been well-served to have included the entirety of Laertius' essay on Epicurus to which he dedicated a large portion to in his biography of great philosophers.

Otherwise, the translation is good and the organization is helpful. The book is structured like a college reader - no frills, thin paper and a drab cover. It has all of Epicurus' fragments, letters and writings. Unfortunately many of the best ones are cut off or lost so we have to make due with what is left.

A first time reader or student looking to introduce themselves to Epicurus could do worse than starting here. I often refer back to my copy.

Let me say at the outset that Epicurus is hard to understand because we have only fragments of his work.

Epicurus is important to people living in the third millenium because he realized, as most of us do, that traditional religion is not very believable.

In his time the Hellenistic and Roman world was about to fall into a morass of Eastern religions, spiritualism, and superstition familiar to third millenium people living amid Tibetan and Zen Buddhism, Wicca, and New Age.

Epicurus has two huge virtues that make him worth reading even now.

He is ferociously smart for one. Some of his insights about physical phenomena millenia before the invention of real scientific instruments are astonishing.

The other is that he is unrelentingly honest and rigorous. His premise is that we only know what we can find out from our senses and our reason. This is immensely liberating from all the causistry, tradition, authority, and sentiment of both culture and counter-culture.

To the ultimate rationalization for religion, "Well, it is a comfort for the simple." he responds, "Truth and honesty are better than comfort." He dismissed death as nothing, and proved his point by showing legendary courage in facing his own.

Most of the other reviers have given this book five stars, and I would too, if I thought this book was perfect! The book does encompass all of Epicurus' first hand writing in English. I did enjoy reading the book and wished we had more of his writinga especially on friendship which in my opinion surpasses Platonic and Aristotilian philosophy. However, I think a copy of the greek text with an apparatus would be highly helpful, especially in writing a good philosophy paper on Epicurus because many different English translations are rendered from the greek fragment, and one word translated obscurely may mean all the difference in philosophical thought.

Good introduction for the non-academic, regular Jane/Joe, late night armchair student-scholar wanting to be familiar with the philosophies that have shaped human thought. Early champion of reasoned discourse and even psychotherapy; Epicurus' calm and rational approach to death startled and impressed me. "Must Have" for your library.

Perhaps the person of Epicurus may have been more obscured than one might have wished. What has remained of his opus though is merely principles of honest, happy, congenial, and useful ways of living. This is a better practical guide than all the treatises on psychology written nowadays. Immortal formulations; as pertinent today as ever.

I find Epicurus intriguing. He did not believe in life after death. Thus he did not hope for eternal reward in heaven, nor did he fear eternal punishment. On earth, he just wanted to live for the day, and "epicurian" in our sense of the word he was not; rather than aimimg at frequent pleasure as our "epicurians" would do, he did not want extreme emotions and wanted to avoid pain. So he lived secluded in his garden. He lived modestly and wrote three hundred "books," some of which are believed to be extremely short and would not be publishable as "books" by our publishing industry. Still, he was very prolific. None of his writings survive complete. All we have are a few fragments. And most of what he know of his though comes to us by way of Diogenes Laertis, who lived in the third century A.D., thus separated from Epicurus in time by about 500 years!

Some of Epicurus' thought is of course dated--for example, his chemistry. Also, since it is hard to construct a book from fragments and other people's interpretations of what the author said can make for a less than smooth read. Epicurus, however, is a major figure in the history of Western thought. And I recommend this book.

The first to bring grain to uneasy mortals
in times past was the famous city of Athens
which made life anew and instituted laws:
And first brought delicious consolation to life
when she gave birth to the man of genius so extraordinary
that everything came from a mouth devoted to truth
so that, even though now he is dead, his divine discoveries
spread abroad, carrying his glory to the sky.

For when he saw that whatever men's needs demanded,
so far as may be, to keep their lives in safety,
was there at hand already for their use,
that men had all they could want in the way of wealth
and honor and praise, and pride in successful children;
Yet, at home each was perpetually disquieted
and the mind was enslaved by all its bitter complaints;
He understood that the trouble was in the container
and because of some flaw in it, everything would go bad
whatever excellent things were put into it:
Partly because there were holes and things flowed through them
and there was no possibility of filling it up;
And partly because what did get in was spoiled,
so to speak, by the nauseous taste there was inside.

The truth was what he used to purify hearts with
and he set a limit to fear as to desire;
He explained what it is that all of us really want
and showed us the way along a little path
which makes it possible for us to go straight there;
He showed what evils there are in human affairs
and how they were brought about by the force of nature,
popping up by change or because nature worked that way;
And he showed how best to face each of these difficulties
and proved that the human race was generally vain
in the way it ruminated in its gloomy thoughts.
For just as children are afraid of the dark
their elders are as often as not afraid in the light
of things which there is as little cause to fear
as those which children imagine to frighten themselves.
These grown-up terrors are also no more than shadows
and yet they are nothing that the sunlight can dissipate:
What is needed is the rational study of nature.

Who is skillful enough to produce an adequate poem
about the magnificent world and these discoveries about it?
Does anyone so use language that he can praise appropriately
the man who made these discoveries and left them for us?

Compare what he did with what the other gods did.

I follow you, nothing better has come out of Greece,
and now, where the print of your foot fell, I place my own,
not in jealous competition but out of love
which constrains me to imitate you. For does the swallow
set herself against swans? Or the wobbling kid
think that she should go as fast as a racehorse?
You discovered nature, father: you gave us instruction
and left the whole matter set out in your writings
where, just as bees help themselves in the meadows,
we can replenish ourselves with your golden sayings;
Golden, in that they are of permanent value.

As soon as your theory, the product of an intellect
something more than human, began to make some noise,
the fears that haunt minds disappeared, the walls of the world
gave way, and I saw through all space how everything happens...

By Lucretius
Written 50 B.C.E

A disappointment. At first, I really liked his 'No pain' theorem, but after reading this book (which wasn't so greatly organized or collaborated), I discovered that, yes, perhaps he was looked down on by other Europeans because he elaborated on rather communist ideals. Personally, I like a few of his segments, but NOT his oeuvre en total. This book, either.