Epicurus, and his Roman disciple Lucretius, held that the primary cause of human unhappiness was an irrational fear of death. What is more, they believed that a clear understanding of the nature of the world would help to eliminate this fear; for if we recognise that the universe and everything in it is made up of atoms and empty space, we will see that the soul cannot possibly survive the extinction of the body - and no harm to us can occur after we die. This liberating insight is at the core of Epicurean therapy. In this book, Konstan seeks to show how such fears arose, according to the Epicureans, and why they persist even in modern societies. It offers a close examination of the basic principles of Epicurean psychology: showing how a system based on a materialistic world view could provide a coherent account of irrational anxieties and desires, and provide a therapy that would allow human beings to enjoy life to the fullest degree.
A Life Worthy of the Gods
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle.
Learn more
| |||||||||||||||
Book Description
Frequently Bought Together
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
David Konstan received his B.A. in Mathematics and his Ph.D. in Classics at Columbia University. He is currently the John Rowe Workman Distinguished Professor of Classics and the Humanistic Tradition, Professor in Comparative Literature, as well as a member of the Graduate Faculty of Theatre, Speech, and Dance at Brown University.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Kindle version is unreadable,
By rodrigo (Washington, USA) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: A Life Worthy of the Gods: The Materialist Psychology of Epicurus (Paperback)
The Kindle version of this book is almost entirely unreadable. There's no table of contents, the font changes size periodically for no discernible reason, the footnotes are interspersed with the text suddenly so you paragraphs jump from the text to a footnote to text again then back to the rest of that same footnote. It's a shame because it seems like an interesting book but obviously the publisher just did an OCR scan and called it the "Kindle" version
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Inside This Book
(learn more)
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs):
(learn more)
katastematic pleasure, kinetic pleasure, static pleasure, empty belief Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Life Worthy of the Gods, The Materialist Psychology of Epicurus, Diogenes Laertius, Social Theory, Principal Doctrine, Vatican Saying, Diogenes of Oenoanda, Sextus Empiricus Against the Mathematicians, Demetrius Lacon, Nicomachean Ethics, Benjamin Farrington, Epicurus Letter, Cicero Tusculan Disputations, Longo Auricchio, Plutarch Against Colotes, Seneca Letters, Porphyry To Marcella Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
katastematic pleasure, kinetic pleasure, static pleasure, empty belief Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Life Worthy of the Gods, The Materialist Psychology of Epicurus, Diogenes Laertius, Social Theory, Principal Doctrine, Vatican Saying, Diogenes of Oenoanda, Sextus Empiricus Against the Mathematicians, Demetrius Lacon, Nicomachean Ethics, Benjamin Farrington, Epicurus Letter, Cicero Tusculan Disputations, Longo Auricchio, Plutarch Against Colotes, Seneca Letters, Porphyry To Marcella Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
