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Epikureismus

Epicurus

Ἐπίκουρος

341 v. Chr. – 270 v. Chr.Historisch belegte Person

Griechischer Philosoph (341–270 v. Chr.), Gründer der Schule des Gartens in Athen. Er verband eine von Demokrit übernommene atomistische Physik mit einer Ethik, die die Lust – verstanden als Freisein von Schmerz im Körper und von Unruhe in der Seele – zum Ziel des Lebens erklärt. Er lehrte, weder die Götter noch den Tod zu fürchten und die Freundschaft zu pflegen. Von seinen rund dreihundert Buchrollen sind nur drei Briefe, zwei Spruchsammlungen und Fragmente seines Hauptwerks „Über die Natur“ erhalten.

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Cabeza de Epicuro (Metropolitan Museum)

Cabeza de Epicuro (Metropolitan Museum) · CC0

In eigenen Worten

«Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in the search thereof when he is grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul.»

Carta a Meneceo, en Diógenes Laercio X 122. Griego: Diógenes Laercio X, ed. de Wikisource griega; inglés: R. D. Hicks (Loeb, 1925, dominio público); español: traducción propia.

Der zentrale Gedanke

Pleasure (hedone) as the end: For Epicurus pleasure is "the beginning and end of the blessed life": the first good, innate in every living being, and the rule by which we judge each choice.

Biografie

5 Min. Lesezeit

Unterstützte Übersetzung aus dem spanischen Original, Durchsicht durch einen muttersprachlichen Übersetzer ausstehend.

Dreihundert Buchrollen und drei Briefe

Epikur war einer der fruchtbarsten Autoren der Antike: Diogenes Laertios schreibt ihm rund dreihundert Buchrollen zu, ohne ein einziges fremdes Zitat. Fast alles ist verloren. Was wir besitzen, gelangt auf drei Wegen zu uns. Das zehnte Buch der Leben des Laertios gibt drei Briefe vollständig wieder – an Herodot, an Pythokles und an Menoikeus –, dazu die vierzig Hauptlehrsätze und sein Testament. Die Glutlawinen des Vesuvs begruben im Jahr 79 in einer Villa in Herculaneum die Bibliothek des Epikureers Philodemos, mit verkohlten Rollen seines großen Werkes Über die Natur. Und 1888 tauchte in einer Handschrift der Vatikanischen Bibliothek eine weitere Spruchsammlung auf. Ringsum bleiben die oft feindseligen Nachrichten von Stoikern, Akademikern und Christen und der getreue Widerhall von Schülern wie Lukrez.

Samos, Kolophon und Teos

Er wurde 341 v. Chr. auf Samos geboren, wo Athen Siedler angesiedelt hatte; sein Vater Neokles war Schulmeister und athenischer Bürger aus dem Demos Gargettos, seine Mutter hieß Chairestrate. Nach dem Epikureer Apollodor wandte er sich mit vierzehn Jahren der Philosophie zu, verärgert darüber, dass ihm seine Lehrer nicht erklären konnten, was das „Chaos“ Hesiods sei. Mit achtzehn ging er nach Athen, um seinen Ephebendienst abzuleisten, als Xenokrates an der Akademie lehrte und Aristoteles sich nach Chalkis zurückgezogen hatte. Nach Alexanders Tod vertrieb Perdikkas die Athener aus Samos, und Epikur folgte seiner Familie nach Kolophon. In der Nähe, in Teos, hörte er den Demokriteer Nausiphanes, den Verfasser eines Dreifußes, aus dem er seinen Kanon geschöpft haben soll; er selbst bestritt das stets, nannte sich einen Autodidakten und überhäufte seinen einstigen Lehrer mit Schmähungen.

Von der Ägäis in den Garten

Mit zweiunddreißig Jahren begann er in Mytilene auf Lesbos zu lehren und bald darauf in Lampsakos am Hellespont, wo er die Schüler um sich sammelte, die ihn sein Leben lang begleiten sollten: Metrodor, Polyainos, Idomeneus, Kolotes, Leonteus und dessen Frau Themista. Um 307 v. Chr. kehrte er nach Athen zurück und kaufte für achtzig Minen einen Garten, den Kepos, der der Schule ihren Namen gab. Er war eher eine Gemeinschaft von Freunden als ein Hörsaal: Dort lebten seine Brüder, Frauen wie Leontion oder Themista, der Sklave Mys, der an den Studien teilnahm; man aß einfach, begnügte sich mit Brot und Wasser und ein wenig verdünntem Wein und legte die Güter nicht zusammen, denn das, sagte Epikur, setzte Misstrauen unter Freunden voraus. Jahrhunderte später erinnerte Seneca an die Inschrift über dem Tor: „Gast, hier wirst du gut weilen; hier ist die Lust das höchste Gut.“

Eine Arznei gegen die Furcht

Epikur teilte die Philosophie in Kanonik, Physik und Ethik und ordnete die beiden ersten der dritten unter: Die Natur zu erforschen, hat nur Sinn, wenn es von der Furcht befreit. Alles, was existiert, sind unteilbare Atome, die sich im Leeren bewegen; auch die Seele ist ein Gefüge aus Atomen, das sich mit dem Körper auflöst; die Götter existieren, leben aber selig und unbekümmert und strafen und belohnen niemanden. Daher der berühmteste Satz: Der Tod geht uns nichts an, denn solange wir sind, ist er nicht da, und wenn er da ist, sind wir nicht mehr. Die Lust ist Anfang und Ziel des glücklichen Lebens, doch nicht die der Schlemmer, sondern das Freisein von Schmerz im Körper (Aponie) und von Unruhe in der Seele (Ataraxie). Um dahin zu gelangen, muss man die natürlichen und notwendigen Begierden von den nichtigen unterscheiden und mit Klugheit wählen, die mehr wert ist als die Philosophie selbst. Die Freundschaft ist das größte Gut, das die Weisheit verschafft, und das zurückgezogene Leben – „lebe im Verborgenen“, so sollten es die Epikureer zusammenfassen – schützt vor Ehrgeiz und Politik.

Wahrnehmungen, Atome und Abweichung

Die Erkenntnislehre, dargelegt im verlorenen Kanon, hält alle Wahrnehmungen für wahr; der Irrtum entsteht aus der Meinung, die wir ihnen hinzufügen; neben ihnen sind die Vorbegriffe (Prolepseis) und die Empfindungen von Lust und Schmerz Kriterien der Wahrheit. Die Physik folgt eng Demokrit, dem Epikur mehr verdankte, als er zugab, weicht aber in einem entscheidenden Punkt von ihm ab: Um die Freiheit gegenüber der Notwendigkeit zu retten, können die Atome minimal von ihrer Bahn abweichen. Diese Abweichung, das clinamen der Lateiner, kommt in den erhaltenen Texten Epikurs nicht vor; wir kennen sie aus Lukrez und Cicero, obwohl schon der Brief an Menoikeus die Göttermythen der unerbittlichen Notwendigkeit der Physiker vorzieht und erklärt, dass manches bei uns liegt.

Verleumder und Verteidiger

Keine antike Schule wurde so verleumdet. Timokrates, der Bruder Metrodors und Abtrünniger des Gartens, erzählte, Epikur habe sich vor lauter Völlerei zweimal am Tag übergeben und täglich eine Mine für seine Tafel ausgegeben; der Stoiker Diotimos brachte fünfzig obszöne Briefe in Umlauf, die ihm fälschlich zugeschrieben wurden. Epiktet nannte ihn einen Prediger der Weichlichkeit, und die Kirchenväter machten „Epikureer“ zum Synonym für Gottesleugner und Genussmensch. Diogenes Laertios, der die Vorwürfe überliefert, widerlegt sie mit dem Zeugnis seines Testaments, der Treue seiner Freunde und der Genügsamkeit des Gartens. Epikur selbst freilich verachtete ohne Rücksicht Platon, Aristoteles, die Kyniker und die Dialektiker.

Der glücklichste Tag

Er starb 270 v. Chr. mit zweiundsiebzig Jahren, nach vierzehn Tagen des Leidens an einem Stein, der ihn am Harnlassen hinderte, wie sein Nachfolger Hermarchos berichtete. An diesem letzten Tag schrieb er an Idomeneus, er setze den Blasen- und Darmschmerzen, die nicht größer sein könnten, die Freude der Seele über die Erinnerung an ihre Gespräche entgegen, und trug ihm auf, für die Kinder Metrodors zu sorgen. Der Biograph Hermippos fügte hinzu, er habe sich in eine bronzene Wanne mit warmem Wasser gelegt, ungemischten Wein verlangt, ihn getrunken und sei gestorben, nachdem er die Freunde gebeten hatte, seiner Lehren zu gedenken. In seinem Testament vermachte er den Garten der Schule, ließ seine Sklaven Mys, Nikias, Lykon und Phaidrion frei und setzte ein Treffen am Zwanzigsten jedes Monats zu seinem und Metrodors Gedächtnis fest.

Die lange Nachwelt

Der Garten überdauerte Jahrhunderte in außerordentlicher Treue zu seinem Gründer. Im 1. Jahrhundert v. Chr. lehrte Philodemos den Epikureismus in Italien, und Lukrez goss ihn in die sechs Bücher Über die Natur der Dinge; im 2. Jahrhundert n. Chr. ließ Diogenes von Oinoanda seine Lehren in eine Mauer seiner Stadt in Lykien meißeln, für jeden, der sie lesen wollte. Das Christentum begrub ihn; die Entdeckung der Lukrez-Handschrift durch Poggio Bracciolini 1417 leitete seine Rückkehr ein, und im 17. Jahrhundert versöhnte Pierre Gassendi den epikureischen Atomismus mit dem Glauben und stellte ihn an den Ursprung der modernen Wissenschaft. Heute, da die Papyri von Herculaneum nach und nach entziffert werden, bleibt Epikur der Philosoph, der die Gelassenheit als eine erlernbare Kunst vorschlug.

Quellen: García Gual, Carlos. Epicuro. Alianza Editorial, Madrid, 1981. · Diógenes Laercio. Vidas y opiniones de los filósofos ilustres, libro X (Epicuro: vida, testamento, cartas a Heródoto, Pitocles y Meneceo, Máximas capitales), s. III d. C. Trad. inglesa de R. D. Hicks, Loeb Classical Library 185, 1925 (Wikisource en inglés); texto griego en Wikisource griega; trad. de C. D. Yonge, Bohn, 1853 (Project Gutenberg n.º 57342). · Diógenes Laercio. Los diez libros de Diógenes Laercio sobre las vidas, opiniones y sentencias de los filósofos más ilustres, trad. de José Ortiz y Sanz, tomo II (libros VI–X). Imprenta Real, Madrid, 1792 (Internet Archive). · Usener, Hermann (ed.). Epicurea. Teubner, Leipzig, 1887 (Internet Archive). Edición clásica de los textos y testimonios; numeración «Us.» de los fragmentos. · Bailey, Cyril (ed. y trad.). Epicurus: The Extant Remains. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1926 (Internet Archive).

Zeitleiste

Das Leben, Jahr für Jahr

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  1. 341 v. Chr. · 0 Jahre

    Birth

    Born on Samos on the 7th of the month Gamelion in the third year of the 109th Olympiad, archonship of Sosigenes (January–February 341 BCE), according to Apollodorus' chronology in Diogenes Laertius X 14. Son of Neocles and Chaerestrate, Athenian citizens. Wikidata records 342 and 341. Years BCE are expressed as negative numbers.

    Belegt

  2. um 327 v. Chr. · 14 Jahre

    Hesiod's chaos

    By his own account he comes to philosophy at fourteen; Apollodorus the Epicurean says it was out of contempt for teachers who could not explain Hesiod's "chaos" to him (Diogenes Laertius X 2).

    Überlieferung

  3. 323 v. Chr. · 18 Jahre

    Ephebe in Athens

    Comes to Athens at eighteen for his ephebic service, when Xenocrates heads the Academy and Aristotle is in Chalcis (Diogenes Laertius X 1).

    Belegt

  4. um 321 v. Chr. · 20 Jahre

    Colophon and Nausiphanes

    With the Athenian settlers expelled from Samos by Perdiccas, he joins his father in Colophon. At Teos he hears the Democritean Nausiphanes, though he later denied having had teachers (Diogenes Laertius X 1, 13–14).

    Wahrscheinlich

  5. um 311 v. Chr.

    First school

    Around 311 BCE—Laertius says at thirty-two—he begins teaching at Mytilene and then at Lampsacus, where Metrodorus, Polyaenus, Idomeneus, Colotes, Leonteus and Themista join him (Diogenes Laertius X 15).

    Wahrscheinlich

  6. um 307 v. Chr. · 34 Jahre

    Return to Athens and purchase of the Garden

    Returns to Athens in the archonship of Anaxicrates (307/306 BCE) and buys for eighty minae the garden that gives the school its name (Diogenes Laertius X 2, 11).

    Belegt

  7. um 277 v. Chr.

    Death of Metrodorus

    Metrodorus of Lampsacus, his closest disciple, dies seven years before Epicurus (Diogenes Laertius X 23); the master's will provides for his children.

    Wahrscheinlich

  8. 270 v. Chr. · 71 Jahre

    Death

    Dies in the second year of the 127th Olympiad, archonship of Pytharatus (271/270 BCE), aged seventy-two (ancient reckoning), after fourteen days of illness from a urinary stone. Hermarchus of Mytilene succeeds him (Diogenes Laertius X 15–22).

    Belegt

  9. um 150 v. Chr.

    The inscription of Diogenes of Oenoanda

    A citizen of Oenoanda, Diogenes, has a great inscription with Epicurus' doctrines carved on a stoa of his city, of which hundreds of fragments have been recovered. Approximate date (second century CE).

    Belegt

  10. 79 v. Chr.

    The Herculaneum library

    The eruption of Vesuvius buries the Villa of the Papyri and Philodemus' library, with rolls of Epicurus' On Nature; the papyri will be found carbonised in the eighteenth century.

    Belegt

  11. um 55 v. Chr.

    Lucretius, On the Nature of Things

    Lucretius composes in Latin hexameters the six books of his poem, the fullest surviving exposition of the Epicurean system.

    Wahrscheinlich

  12. 1417

    Poggio finds Lucretius

    The humanist Poggio Bracciolini discovers a manuscript of On the Nature of Things in a German monastery and has it copied; the poem reintroduces Epicureanism into European culture.

    Belegt

  13. 1888

    The Vatican Sayings

    Karl Wotke publishes, with Hermann Usener's help, the collection of 81 Epicurean sayings he had found in the codex Vaticanus graecus 1950.

    Belegt

Werke

Grundlegende Werke

Die Werke, ohne die sich das Vermächtnis nicht verstehen lässt.

Letter to Menoeceus — Epicurus

Briefwechsel

Letter to Menoeceus

Ἐπιστολὴ πρὸς Μενοικέα

Epicurus' most widely read text: a short moral treatise in the form of a letter. It opens by urging philosophy at any age, since it is never too early or too late for the health of the soul; recalls that the gods are immortal and blessed and do not concern themselves with men; shows that death is nothing to us; classifies desires as natural and necessary, natural and unnecessary, and empty; defines pleasure as the absence of pain in the body and of disturbance in the soul, not the enjoyment of the profligate; places prudence above philosophy; and closes with the portrait of the sage, who lives "like a god among men".

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Letter to Herodotus — Epicurus

Briefwechsel

Letter to Herodotus

Ἐπιστολὴ πρὸς Ἡρόδοτον

A summary of Epicurean physics addressed to a disciple. It sets out the principles: nothing comes from nothing or perishes into nothing; the whole consists of bodies and void; compound bodies are made of indivisible atoms, of varied though not infinite shapes, moving ceaselessly at equal speed; there are infinitely many worlds. It explains perception through the images (eidola) that flow from things, the bodily nature of the soul and its dispersal at death, and ends by showing that the study of celestial phenomena serves to free us from fear, not to foretell.

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Principal Doctrines (Kyriai Doxai) — Epicurus

Spätere Zusammenstellung

Principal Doctrines (Kyriai Doxai)

Κύριαι δόξαι

The forty maxims condense the system into short formulas meant to be learned by heart. The first four contain the so-called "fourfold remedy": the blessed and immortal being neither has troubles nor causes them; death is nothing to us; the limit of pleasure is the removal of all pain; intense pain is brief and prolonged pain is bearable. Then come maxims on prudence and justice, on desires, on the security friendship brings and, at the end, a theory of justice as a compact neither to harm nor be harmed.

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Vatican Sayings — Epicurus

Spätere Zusammenstellung

Vatican Sayings

Ἐπικούρου προσφώνησις (Gnomologium Vaticanum Epicureum)

A collection of moral maxims at times more poetic and personal in tone than the Principal Doctrines. They include the most quoted sayings on friendship—"friendship dances around the world", calling everyone to wake to happiness—on gratitude for past goods, the simplicity of what is necessary, independence from fame and politics, and preparation for death. Together with the Principal Doctrines, it was the school's instrument for memorisation.

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On Nature — Epicurus

Schriftliches Werk · um 300 v. Chr.

On Nature

Περὶ φύσεως

Epicurus' major work: a series of lectures in thirty-seven rolls that set out, completely and polemically, the physics, theory of knowledge and psychology of the system. The scholia to the Letter to Herodotus refer to it for the thesis that the whole consists of bodies and void or for the variety of shapes of worlds. The Herculaneum papyri, deciphered with difficulty since the eighteenth century and today with imaging techniques, preserve discussions of moral responsibility (Book XXV) and of language and error (Book XXVIII), in a dense style very different from that of the letters.

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Zitate

Zitate, die in einem bestimmten Werk nachgewiesen sind. Jedes trägt seine Herkunft und seinen Grad an Verlässlichkeit.

Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in the search thereof when he is grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul.

Μήτε νέος τις ὢν μελλέτω φιλοσοφεῖν, μήτε γέρων ὑπάρχων κοπιάτω φιλοσοφῶν· οὔτε γὰρ ἄωρος οὐδείς ἐστιν οὔτε πάρωρος πρὸς τὸ κατὰ ψυχὴν ὑγιαῖνον.

GeprüftCarta a Meneceo, en Diógenes Laercio X 122. Griego: Diógenes Laercio X, ed. de Wikisource griega; inglés: R. D. Hicks (Loeb, 1925, dominio público); español: traducción propia.

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Apokryphe Zitate oder Zitate umstrittener Zuschreibung (3)
  • «Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?»

    The so-called "Epicurean paradox" appears in no surviving text of Epicurus. Its source is the Christian apologist Lactantius (On the Anger of God 13, c. 314), who attributes it to Epicurus in order to refute it; many scholars think it comes from the sceptical Academy (Carneades) rather than the Garden, and the modern question form is owed mainly to Hume.

  • «I was not; I was; I am not; I do not care.»

    A Latin funerary formula (non fui, fui, non sum, non curo) attested in Roman epitaphs of the imperial age, Epicurean in inspiration. It circulates attributed to Epicurus, but it is not in his texts nor in Greek.

  • «The fourfold remedy: God presents no fears; death no worries; the good is easy to get; the terrible is easy to endure.»

    The doctrine is Epicurus' (Principal Doctrines I–IV), but the compact formula of the "tetrapharmakos" is by his follower Philodemus (first century BCE), in a Herculaneum papyrus. Presenting it as a literal quotation from Epicurus is inaccurate.

Letzte Worte

Traditionelle Zuschreibung

«"Remember the doctrines" (according to Hermippus, he bade his friends remember his doctrines and so died).»

τοῖς τε φίλοις παραγγείλαντα τῶν δογμάτων μεμνῆσθαι οὕτω τελευτῆσαι

Diogenes Laertius X 15–16 records the account of the biographer Hermippus (third century BCE): ill with a stone for fourteen days, he got into a bronze bath of warm water, asked for unmixed wine, drank it, bade his friends remember his doctrines and died. Laertius' own epigram puts in his mouth "χαίρετε, καὶ μέμνησθε τὰ δόγματα" ("farewell, and remember the doctrines"), a literary version. The most reliable testimony of his last hours is not spoken words but the last-day letter to Idomeneus (X 22), which Cicero knows as addressed to Hermarchus (De finibus II 96): "I write this on the blissful day that is also the last of my life…". English: R. D. Hicks; Spanish: own translation.

Quelle: Diógenes Laercio. Vidas y opiniones de los filósofos ilustres, libro X (Epicuro: vida, testamento, cartas a Heródoto, Pitocles y Meneceo, Máximas capitales), s. III d. C. Trad. inglesa de R. D. Hicks, Loeb Classical Library 185, 1925 (Wikisource en inglés); texto griego en Wikisource griega; trad. de C. D. Yonge, Bohn, 1853 (Project Gutenberg n.º 57342).

Fragen

Was das Werk beantwortet

Zwölf große Fragen der Menschheit und was sich aus den Texten darauf antworten lässt, mit Belegen. Wir legen niemandem Worte in den Mund.

  • Was ist das Absolute? Gibt es Gott?

    The gods exist, happy and indifferent: they neither made the world nor govern it

    Kein SchöpfergottAusdrücklich gesagt

    Epicurus is no atheist: in the Letter to Menoeceus he affirms that the gods exist and that knowledge of them is evident, and he defines them as incorruptible and happy beings. But precisely for that reason they cannot concern themselves with the world: the first Principal Doctrine says that the happy and incorruptible being neither has troubles nor causes them, and is subject neither to anger nor to favour. The cosmos is not their work but that of atoms combining in the void, and celestial phenomena must not be ascribed to their government. Human happiness therefore depends on no God: freedom from fear of the gods is one of the first remedies of his philosophy.

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  • Wer bin ich? Gibt es ein wahres Selbst?

    The soul is a compound of atoms that disperses with the body

    Es gibt kein bleibendes SelbstAusdrücklich gesagt

    In the Letter to Herodotus Epicurus describes the soul as a body of fine parts spread throughout the organism, resembling breath with an admixture of heat, and adds that it cannot feel apart from the body's covering: when the body dissolves, its atoms scatter and it ceases to exist. To call the soul incorporeal, he says, is to speak idly. There is therefore no permanent self surviving the composition that forms it. Ethics rests on this physics: fear of death arises from imagining that we will still be there to suffer it, and vanishes once one understands that, the compound dissolved, nobody remains to be affected.

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  • Warum leiden wir?

    Empty desires and groundless fears disturb us

    Begehren und AnhaftenAusdrücklich gesagt

    Epicurus identifies the good with pleasure, understood above all as absence of pain in the body and of disturbance in the soul, and explains unhappiness by two causes. The first is ill-ordered desires: some are natural and necessary, others natural and unnecessary, and others empty, like those for wealth or glory, which have no limit and are therefore never sated. The second is false opinions that breed fear, above all of the gods and of death. The Letter to Menoeceus teaches how to classify desires and weigh pleasures and pains, and physics dissolves the fears. We suffer by desiring what we do not need and fearing what should not be feared.

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  • Was geschieht nach dem Tod?

    Death is nothing to us: where it is, we are not

    Der Tod ist das Ende der PersonAusdrücklich gesagt

    Epicurus keeps no reserve: he states with confidence that death is the dissolution of the compound of atoms we are and that no one remains to undergo it. Hence his most famous argument, in the Letter to Menoeceus: good and evil lie in sensation, and death is the privation of sensation; so when we are, death is not, and when death is, we are no longer. The second Principal Doctrine reduces it to one line. The fear of death is thus an error, and its remedy is not a hope but physics properly understood. What matters is the quality of present life, not its length.

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  • Wie erlangt man Befreiung oder Erlösung?

    Meditating day and night on the truths that heal the soul

    Durch disziplinierte ÜbungAusdrücklich gesagt

    For Epicurus philosophy is medicine for the soul, and its goal, ataraxia, is reached by sustained work. The Letter to Menoeceus begins by saying that no one is too young or too old to philosophise and ends with a watchword: meditate on these things day and night, by oneself and with someone like oneself, so as to live like a god among humans. The content of that meditation is fixed: the gods are not to be feared, death is nothing, the good is easy to obtain and pain easy to endure. The Principal Doctrines and the epitomes were written to be memorised. To this is added the study of nature, without which fears are not dissolved.

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  • Braucht es einen Lehrer?

    The Garden: learning among friends, with someone like oneself

    Gemeinschaft und TraditionAusdrücklich gesagt

    Epicurus presented himself as self-taught and denied owing anything to his teachers, but the way he proposed is communal. In the Garden at Athens men and women, free and slave, lived together, united by friendship, which according to Principal Doctrine XXVII is the greatest thing wisdom provides for happiness. The Letter to Menoeceus recommends meditating on the doctrine alone and with someone like oneself, and the school cultivated the founder's memory with feasts and portraits. Seneca transmits an Epicurean counsel: choose a good man and keep him always before your eyes, acting as if he saw you. One learns in a community of friends and with its texts.

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  • Ist die Welt wirklich?

    Atoms and void: infinite worlds that arise and dissolve without design

    Natürliche Ordnung im WandelAusdrücklich gesagt

    In the Letter to Herodotus Epicurus sets out an atomist physics: nothing comes from nothing nor is destroyed into nothing; the whole consists of bodies and void, and compound bodies result from indivisible and indestructible atoms in perpetual motion. There are infinite worlds, like and unlike ours, which form by aggregation and dissolve over time, without the gods' intervention or any purpose. The senses are reliable: they are the final criterion of truth, and what is not perceived is inferred from what is. The world is real, material and changing; knowing its natural causes is what frees from fears.

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  • Was ist Liebe?

    Friendship, the greatest good wisdom provides; falling in love, a risk

    Geordnetes WohlwollenAusdrücklich gesagt

    Epicurus carefully distinguishes erotic love from friendship. The first he distrusts: the sage will not fall in love, because love is not sent by the gods and usually brings more disturbance than pleasure. Friendship, by contrast, is at the centre of his ethics: of all that wisdom provides for happiness, by far the greatest is the possession of friendship. One Vatican Saying states that every friendship is desirable in itself, though it began in utility; another, that friendship dances around the inhabited world announcing to all to wake up to happiness. It is an affection cultivated with measure, among equals, sustaining the life of the Garden.

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  • Sind wir frei, oder ist alles vorherbestimmt?

    What depends on us has no master: better myth than fate

    Echter freier WilleAusdrücklich gesagt

    Epicurus is the first philosopher to state clearly the risk that a deterministic physics might cancel responsibility. In the Letter to Menoeceus he describes the sage as one who laughs at the fate some present as master of all, knows that some things happen by necessity, others by chance and others depend on us, and that what depends on us has no master, so that blame and praise follow from it. He adds that it would be better to follow the myths about the gods than to be enslaved to the fate of the natural philosophers. The doctrine of the swerve of atoms, known chiefly through Lucretius, was devised to save that freedom.

    Diese Frage mit anderen Meistern vergleichen
  • Wozu meditieren oder beten?

    Honouring the gods without fear and repeating daily the truths that calm

    Ritual und SelbstkultivierungAus der Lehre abgeleitet

    Epicurus did not pray to the gods to obtain favours, because they do not intervene in the world, but neither did he abandon cult. According to Philodemus, he took part in civic festivals and the mysteries, and honoured the gods for their perfection, as models of an undisturbed happiness. His characteristic practice is another: the repetition of doctrine. The Letter to Menoeceus asks one to meditate on his teachings day and night, alone and with a friend; the epitomes and Principal Doctrines were composed to be memorised. Thus the truths that free from fear are fixed in the soul. Serene rite, repeated study and daily conduct make up the life of the Garden.

    Diese Frage mit anderen Meistern vergleichen
  • Kann die Vernunft das Letzte erkennen?

    No one is too young or too old to study nature

    Studium und GelehrsamkeitAusdrücklich gesagt

    For Epicurus reason, resting on the senses, can know the ultimate constitution of things: atoms and void. His theory of knowledge, set out in the Canon, takes sensations, preconceptions and feelings as criteria of truth; what is not directly perceived is inferred from what is evident, provided nothing contradicts it. Philosophy is a lifelong task: no one is too young or too old to philosophise, begins the Letter to Menoeceus. And study has a practical aim: without knowing the nature of the universe it is impossible to dissolve fear about the most important matters. Learning is the way to serenity.

    Diese Frage mit anderen Meistern vergleichen
  • Sich von der Welt zurückziehen oder sie verwandeln?

    Live unnoticed: the sage will not engage in politics, unless needed

    Sich zurückziehen, um zu findenAusdrücklich gesagt

    Epicurus advised standing apart from public life. The maxim “live unnoticed”, transmitted by Plutarch, who attacked it in a whole essay, sums up his position; Diogenes Laertius adds that the sage will not engage in politics, and a Vatican Saying urges freeing oneself from the prison of business and politics. The reason is that ambition for fame and power brings disturbance, and the security that truly matters comes from the quiet life and withdrawal from the crowd. But that withdrawal is not solitude: Epicurus founded the Garden, a community of friends living together on the outskirts of Athens. It is about withdrawing from the city in order to live with friends.

    Diese Frage mit anderen Meistern vergleichen

Anekdoten und Erzählungen

Anekdoten und Erzählungen

Zeugnisc. 307–270 a. C.

The Garden and its gate

When Epicurus returned to Athens around 307 BCE, he bought a garden outside the walls for eighty minae and settled there with his friends. It was a community without precedent: with the philosophers lived his brothers, women such as Leontion and Themista, and slaves such as Mys, who studied alongside the rest. They ate frugally, drank water and only a little watered wine, and did not hold property in common, because that, Epicurus said, would be a sign of mistrust among friends. Seneca, who admired him though a Stoic, relates that over the entrance one read: "Stranger, here you will do well to tarry; here our highest good is pleasure." And he adds that the keeper who welcomed you offered no banquet but barley porridge and plenty of water, and asked whether you had been well received: these gardens, he said, do not whet hunger, they quench it.

Herkunft der Erzählung: Diogenes Laertius X 3, 10–11 (citing Apollodorus and Diocles); Seneca, Letters to Lucilius 21.10. The inscription is Seneca's testimony, four centuries later, and there is no evidence that it was already there in Epicurus' time.

Quelle: Diógenes Laercio. Vidas y opiniones de los filósofos ilustres, libro X (Epicuro: vida, testamento, cartas a Heródoto, Pitocles y Meneceo, Máximas capitales), s. III d. C. Trad. inglesa de R. D. Hicks, Loeb Classical Library 185, 1925 (Wikisource en inglés); texto griego en Wikisource griega; trad. de C. D. Yonge, Bohn, 1853 (Project Gutenberg n.º 57342).

Belegtc. 307–270 a. C.

A little pot of cheese

Epicurus' opponents painted him as a glutton. He himself, in his letters, told another story: that he made do with water and plain bread, and in one of them he asked a friend: "Send me a little pot of cheese, that I may have a feast whenever I wish." Diogenes Laertius quotes the line as proof of who the man who taught that pleasure is the end of life really was. The Letter to Menoeceus explains it in theory: bread and water give the greatest pleasure to the hungry, and getting used to a simple diet gives health, removes fear of fortune and makes one enjoy abundance better when it comes now and then. The cheese is, in that logic, a calculated luxury.

Herkunft der Erzählung: Diogenes Laertius X 11, quoting verbatim a now-lost letter of Epicurus; the theory, in the Letter to Menoeceus (X 130–131).

Quelle: Diógenes Laercio. Vidas y opiniones de los filósofos ilustres, libro X (Epicuro: vida, testamento, cartas a Heródoto, Pitocles y Meneceo, Máximas capitales), s. III d. C. Trad. inglesa de R. D. Hicks, Loeb Classical Library 185, 1925 (Wikisource en inglés); texto griego en Wikisource griega; trad. de C. D. Yonge, Bohn, 1853 (Project Gutenberg n.º 57342).

Umstrittens. III a. C. en adelante

The slanders of Timocrates

Timocrates, Metrodorus' brother, had been a member of the Garden and left it. In a book entitled Delights he claimed that Epicurus vomited twice a day from overeating, spent a mina a day on his table, had gone years unable to rise from his chair, and that he himself had barely escaped those secret night-time gatherings. Others added more: the Stoic Diotimus spread fifty obscene letters attributed to Epicurus; it was said that he and his mother went from house to house reciting charms, that he plagiarised Democritus and Aristippus, that he flattered the powerful. Diogenes Laertius records all this only to conclude that its authors were mad, and sets against it the evidence of the will, of the bronze statues his city dedicated to him and of the loyalty of his friends.

Herkunft der Erzählung: Diogenes Laertius X 3–9. These are accusations by opponents or by a deserter from the school, transmitted together with their refutation; no modern historian takes them as fact, but they show the hostility that surrounded Epicureanism from the start.

Quelle: Diógenes Laercio. Vidas y opiniones de los filósofos ilustres, libro X (Epicuro: vida, testamento, cartas a Heródoto, Pitocles y Meneceo, Máximas capitales), s. III d. C. Trad. inglesa de R. D. Hicks, Loeb Classical Library 185, 1925 (Wikisource en inglés); texto griego en Wikisource griega; trad. de C. D. Yonge, Bohn, 1853 (Project Gutenberg n.º 57342).

Zeugnis270 a. C.

The last day

Epicurus spent his last two weeks with a stone that blocked his urine, as his successor Hermarchus reported. On the day of his death he wrote to Idomeneus, one of his disciples from Lampsacus: he told him that he was spending that blissful day, which was also the last of his life; that the pains of bladder and bowels were so great that nothing could increase them, but that against them all he set the joy of the soul at the memory of their conversations; and he asked him, by the loyalty he had always shown to him and to philosophy, to look after Metrodorus' children. According to the biographer Hermippus, at the end he got into a bronze bath of warm water, asked for unmixed wine, drank it and died after bidding his friends remember his teachings. Cicero, who knew the letter addressed to Hermarchus, used it to mock the ethics of pleasure; for the Epicureans it was proof that the doctrine could be lived.

Herkunft der Erzählung: Diogenes Laertius X 15–16 and 22 (Hermarchus, Hermippus and the text of the letter); Cicero, De finibus II 96. The letter survives by quotation and its authenticity is not seriously disputed; the bath scene comes from a Hellenistic biographer fond of exemplary deaths.

Quelle: Diógenes Laercio. Vidas y opiniones de los filósofos ilustres, libro X (Epicuro: vida, testamento, cartas a Heródoto, Pitocles y Meneceo, Máximas capitales), s. III d. C. Trad. inglesa de R. D. Hicks, Loeb Classical Library 185, 1925 (Wikisource en inglés); texto griego en Wikisource griega; trad. de C. D. Yonge, Bohn, 1853 (Project Gutenberg n.º 57342).

Mündliche Überlieferungc. 327 a. C.

Hesiod's chaos

Epicurus said he had come to philosophy at fourteen. The Epicurean Apollodorus, who wrote a life of the master, told how: reading with his schoolmaster Hesiod's line that "first of all Chaos came to be", the boy asked what chaos had come from, and since neither that teacher nor the grammarians could answer, he decided to find the answer himself. The biographer Hermippus gave another version: that he had been a schoolmaster and turned to philosophy on reading the books of Democritus. Both stories fit what came later: the principle that nothing comes from nothing and the debt, never fully acknowledged, to Democritus' atomism.

Herkunft der Erzählung: Diogenes Laertius X 2, with two versions (Apollodorus the Epicurean and Hermippus). It is a school anecdote, transmitted by a sympathetic biographer; its value is illustrative rather than documentary.

Quelle: Diógenes Laercio. Vidas y opiniones de los filósofos ilustres, libro X (Epicuro: vida, testamento, cartas a Heródoto, Pitocles y Meneceo, Máximas capitales), s. III d. C. Trad. inglesa de R. D. Hicks, Loeb Classical Library 185, 1925 (Wikisource en inglés); texto griego en Wikisource griega; trad. de C. D. Yonge, Bohn, 1853 (Project Gutenberg n.º 57342).

Belegt1417–1888

How Epicurus came back

For more than a thousand years, all that remained of Epicurus was Book X of Diogenes Laertius and his enemies' caricatures. His return was the work of chance. In 1417 the humanist Poggio Bracciolini found a manuscript of Lucretius' poem in a German monastery and had it copied. In the eighteenth century the excavations at Herculaneum brought to light a library of carbonised rolls, that of the Epicurean Philodemus, with books of On Nature still being deciphered today. In the late nineteenth century the blocks of the huge inscription in which one Diogenes, in the second century, had had the doctrines of the Garden carved for his fellow citizens appeared at Oenoanda in Lycia. And in 1888 Karl Wotke found in the Vatican Library the eighty-one sayings that have been called Vatican ever since.

Herkunft der Erzählung: Greenblatt (2011) for the finding of Lucretius; Konstan (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) for Herculaneum and Oenoanda; Wotke (1888) for the Vatican Sayings. These are well-documented facts of the history of transmission.

Quelle: Konstan, David. «Epicurus». The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta; primera publicación 2005, revisión sustancial del 8 de julio de 2022.

Lehren

Lehren

Die Begriffe, die das Denken gliedern, in ihrem Zusammenhang erklärt.

Pleasure (hedone) as the endhedone
For Epicurus pleasure is "the beginning and end of the blessed life": the first good, innate in every living being, and the rule by which we judge each choice. But his idea of pleasure is almost the opposite of what the name of his school came to suggest. The highest pleasure is not excitement but the absence of pain: the limit of pleasure is the removal of all suffering (Principal Doctrine III), and once reached it cannot increase, only vary. Hence the distinction, which Laertius attributes to Epicurus against the Cyrenaics, between pleasures "in motion", such as eating when hungry, and "static" or katastematic pleasures, such as the state of one no longer hungry or troubled. Ethics is a calculation: sometimes one forgoes a pleasure that brings greater harm and accepts a pain that brings a greater good. And that calculation requires prudence, which Epicurus values above philosophy itself.

Letter to Menoeceus (X 128–132), Principal Doctrines III–V and Diogenes Laertius X 136. The confusion with vulgar hedonism began with his Stoic and Christian opponents.

Quelle: Diógenes Laercio. Vidas y opiniones de los filósofos ilustres, libro X (Epicuro: vida, testamento, cartas a Heródoto, Pitocles y Meneceo, Máximas capitales), s. III d. C. Trad. inglesa de R. D. Hicks, Loeb Classical Library 185, 1925 (Wikisource en inglés); texto griego en Wikisource griega; trad. de C. D. Yonge, Bohn, 1853 (Project Gutenberg n.º 57342).

Ataraxia and aponiaataraxia
The two names of static pleasure are *aponia*, absence of pain in the body, and *ataraxia*, absence of disturbance in the soul. The second is the more important, because the soul suffers not only from the present but from past and future, and above all from false opinions: fear of the gods, fear of death, desire for what is not needed. Epicurean physics and theology serve above all to remove these fears, and the Letter to Pythocles itself warns that the study of the heavens has no other end than tranquillity. Ataraxia is not apathy: the sage feels pain, mourns his friends and cries out on the rack, according to Laertius, but keeps his serenity because he knows that intense pain is brief and prolonged pain bearable.

Letter to Menoeceus (X 128, 131), Letter to Pythocles (X 85), Principal Doctrine IV, Diogenes Laertius X 118. The term was shared by Sceptics and Epicureans, with different meanings.

Quelle: Diógenes Laercio. Vidas y opiniones de los filósofos ilustres, libro X (Epicuro: vida, testamento, cartas a Heródoto, Pitocles y Meneceo, Máximas capitales), s. III d. C. Trad. inglesa de R. D. Hicks, Loeb Classical Library 185, 1925 (Wikisource en inglés); texto griego en Wikisource griega; trad. de C. D. Yonge, Bohn, 1853 (Project Gutenberg n.º 57342).

The classification of desiresdeseos
Epicurus distinguishes three kinds of desire. The natural and necessary, like drinking when thirsty, are those that remove a pain and are easy to satisfy. The natural but unnecessary, like the desire for refined food, only vary pleasure without increasing it. And the empty, neither natural nor necessary, like craving for wealth, honours or power, arise from empty opinions and have no limit, since nothing sates them. The key to happiness lies in recognising this difference: what is natural is easy to get and has a limit; what is empty is inexhaustible. Hence the frugality of the Garden, which is not ascetic renunciation but strategy: whoever is content with little enjoys the little more and fears fortune less.

Letter to Menoeceus (X 127–131), Principal Doctrines XV, XXVI, XXIX–XXX and the scholion to XXIX (X 149).

Quelle: Diógenes Laercio. Vidas y opiniones de los filósofos ilustres, libro X (Epicuro: vida, testamento, cartas a Heródoto, Pitocles y Meneceo, Máximas capitales), s. III d. C. Trad. inglesa de R. D. Hicks, Loeb Classical Library 185, 1925 (Wikisource en inglés); texto griego en Wikisource griega; trad. de C. D. Yonge, Bohn, 1853 (Project Gutenberg n.º 57342).

The fourfold remedy (tetrapharmakos)tetrafarmaco
The first four Principal Doctrines form a compendium of Epicurean ethics that the school later called the "fourfold remedy". First: the blessed and immortal being has no troubles and causes none, so the gods are not to be feared. Second: death is nothing to us, for what has dissolved has no feeling. Third: the limit of pleasure is the removal of all pain, so the good is easy to attain. Fourth: intense pain is brief and prolonged pain bearable, so evil is easy to endure. The formula condensed into four short phrases is Philodemus', in a Herculaneum papyrus, but the content is the master's. It answers to the Epicurean idea of philosophy as medicine of the soul: arguments memorised so as to have them to hand at the moment of fear.

Principal Doctrines I–IV (Diogenes Laertius X 139–140); Philodemus, PHerc. 1005; Long and Sedley (1987), ch. 25.

Quelle: Long, A. A. y Sedley, D. N. The Hellenistic Philosophers, vol. 1: Translations of the Principal Sources with Philosophical Commentary. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1987.

Atoms, void and the swerve (clinamen)atomismo
Epicurus' physics starts from the principles that nothing comes from nothing or perishes into nothing, and that the whole consists of bodies and void. Compound bodies result from the union of atoms, indivisible and indestructible particles of definite shape, size and weight, infinite in number, moving ceaselessly at equal speed through an equally infinite void. There are infinitely many worlds that come into being and perish. The soul is a compound of fine atoms spread through the body, which disperses at death. To Democritus, from whom he took the essentials, Epicurus added a piece known to us from Lucretius and Cicero: a minimal, uncaused swerve of the atoms, which explains how they collide and form bodies and breaks the chain of necessity, leaving room for freedom.

Letter to Herodotus (X 38–68); Lucretius II 216–293; Cicero, On Fate and De finibus I. The swerve does not appear in Epicurus' surviving texts.

Quelle: Konstan, David. «Epicurus». The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta; primera publicación 2005, revisión sustancial del 8 de julio de 2022.

The canon: criteria of truthcanon
The "canonic" is the Epicurean theory of knowledge, set out in the lost Canon. There are three criteria of truth: sensations, preconceptions (*prolepseis*) and the feelings of pleasure and pain. All sensations are true, because they are real effects of the images flowing from things; error arises from the opinion we add to them, for instance by judging without waiting to see up close. Preconceptions are general notions formed by repeated experience—the shape of a man or a horse—without which we could name or investigate nothing. For what is not seen directly, like atoms or celestial phenomena, the rule of non-contradiction with what is evident applies: explanations not refuted by the visible are accepted.

Diogenes Laertius X 31–34; Letter to Herodotus (X 37–38, 50–52).

Quelle: Diógenes Laercio. Vidas y opiniones de los filósofos ilustres, libro X (Epicuro: vida, testamento, cartas a Heródoto, Pitocles y Meneceo, Máximas capitales), s. III d. C. Trad. inglesa de R. D. Hicks, Loeb Classical Library 185, 1925 (Wikisource en inglés); texto griego en Wikisource griega; trad. de C. D. Yonge, Bohn, 1853 (Project Gutenberg n.º 57342).

Friendship (philia) and "live unnoticed"philia
Of all that wisdom provides for happiness, the greatest is friendship (Principal Doctrine XXVII). Epicurus grounds it in utility—friends give security in an uncertain world—but the Vatican Sayings raise it to a good desirable in itself and even say that the sage will suffer for a friend under torture as for himself. The community of the Garden was its practical realisation. Its complement is retirement: the sage will not engage in politics unless necessary, because ambition and fame bring disturbance, and the motto "live unnoticed", which Plutarch attacked in a whole essay, sums up that attitude. It is not indifference to others but the choice of a circle of friends over the crowd.

Principal Doctrines XXVII–XXVIII; Vatican Sayings 23, 52 and 56–57; Diogenes Laertius X 119; Plutarch, Moralia 1128a–1130e.

Quelle: Konstan, David. «Epicurus». The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta; primera publicación 2005, revisión sustancial del 8 de julio de 2022.

Epicurus' godsdioses-epicureos
Epicurus was not an atheist. He held that the gods exist, since all peoples have a clear preconception of them, and that they are immortal and perfectly happy beings, of human form and made of very fine atoms. But precisely because they are happy they do not concern themselves with the world: they did not create it, do not govern it, neither grow angry nor grant favours, since all that would imply weakness and care (Principal Doctrine I). Popular religion is impious, said the Letter to Menoeceus, not for denying the gods but for attributing to them what does not befit them. The gods are a model of the happy life that the sage can imitate and contemplate without fear. Lucretius and Cicero add that they live in the spaces between the worlds, the *intermundia*.

Letter to Menoeceus (X 123–124), Principal Doctrine I and its scholion (X 139); Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods I.

Quelle: Diógenes Laercio. Vidas y opiniones de los filósofos ilustres, libro X (Epicuro: vida, testamento, cartas a Heródoto, Pitocles y Meneceo, Máximas capitales), s. III d. C. Trad. inglesa de R. D. Hicks, Loeb Classical Library 185, 1925 (Wikisource en inglés); texto griego en Wikisource griega; trad. de C. D. Yonge, Bohn, 1853 (Project Gutenberg n.º 57342).

Videos

Videos

Aufnahmen, Gespräche und Dokumentarfilme. Die Videos werden von YouTube wiedergegeben; sie werden nicht hier gespeichert.

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Galerie

Galerie

Bilder mit geprüfter Lizenz. Jedes bewahrt seine Urheberschaft und seinen Herkunftsnachweis.

Handschriften

Handschriften

Handschriftliche Zeugen und alte Texte, mit ihrer verwahrenden Einrichtung und ihren Einsichtsbedingungen.

  • GRC · Minúscula griega · Sentencias de los ss. IV–III a. C.; copia del s. XIV

    Gnomologium Vaticanum Epicureum (Ἐπικούρου προσφώνησις)

    Erhaltener Textzeuge
    Único testimonio de la colección, dentro de un códice misceláneo.
    Verwahrende Einrichtung
    Biblioteca Apostólica Vaticana, Ciudad del Vaticano · Vat. gr. 1950
  • GRC · Mayúscula griega (papiro) · Obra de fines del s. IV–comienzos del III a. C.; copias de época helenística tardía

    Περὶ φύσεως (papiros de Herculano)

    Erhaltener Textzeuge
    Rollos carbonizados de la biblioteca de Filodemo en la Villa de los Papiros, sepultada por el Vesubio en el 79 d. C.
    Verwahrende Einrichtung
    Biblioteca Nazionale «Vittorio Emanuele III», Officina dei Papiri Ercolanesi, Nápoles · PHerc. (varios números; p. ej. PHerc. 1479/1417 para el libro XXVIII)
Handschriften →

Beziehungen

Beziehungen

Einflüsse, Schülerschaften und Verwandtschaften. Die belegte Beziehung wird von der durch Analyse ermittelten Ähnlichkeit unterschieden.

  • Beeinflusst von

    Demócrito

    His atomist physics derives from Democritus, whose books reportedly led him to philosophy according to Hermippus (Diogenes Laertius X 2); Epicurus played down the debt and called him "Lerocritus" (X 8).

    Belegte Beziehung

  • Schüler von

    Nausífanes de Teos

    Apollodorus names him as Epicurus' teacher; Epicurus denied it and insulted him (Diogenes Laertius X 7–8, 13–14).

    Belegte Beziehung

  • Widersprach

    Plato

    Epicurus called the Platonists "toadies of Dionysius" and Plato "the golden" (Diogenes Laertius X 8); his physics and theology oppose those of the Timaeus.

    Belegte Beziehung

  • Widersprach

    Aristotle

    He reached Athens when Aristotle was in Chalcis (X 1) and scorned him as a profligate who squandered his patrimony (X 8).

    Belegte Beziehung

  • Widersprach

    Socrates

    There is no direct testimony from Epicurus about Socrates; his disciple Colotes attacked the Socratics, and Plutarch answered him in Against Colotes.

    Durch Analyse ermittelte Ähnlichkeit

  • Zeitgenosse von

    Diogenes of Sinope

    Epicurus came to Athens as an ephebe around 323, the year Diogenes died; there is no record that they met. He called the Cynics "foes of Greece" (Diogenes Laertius X 8) and taught that the sage will not play the Cynic (X 119).

    Durch Analyse ermittelte Ähnlichkeit

  • Zeitgenosse von

    Zeno of Citium

    Both taught in Athens at the same time, the Garden and the Stoa, from the late fourth century until Epicurus' death in 270; their schools were rivals for centuries (Diogenes Laertius VII and X).

    Belegte Beziehung

  • Beeinflusste

    Lucrecio

    Lucretius set out Epicurus' doctrine in De rerum natura and celebrates him as the liberator of humankind.

    Belegte Beziehung

  • Widersprach

    Epictetus

    Epictetus repeatedly argues against Epicurus, whom he calls a preacher of effeminacy (Discourses I 23, II 20, III 7; Diogenes Laertius X 6).

    Belegte Beziehung

  • Beeinflusste

    Marcus Aurelius

    Though a Stoic, he quotes Epicurus approvingly on pain, which is neither unbearable nor everlasting (Meditations VII 64), and on his serenity in illness (IX 41).

    Belegte Beziehung

  • Beeinflusste

    Séneca

    Seneca quotes Epicurus in almost all of his early Letters to Lucilius and describes the inscription of the Garden (21.10).

    Belegte Beziehung

  • Verwandte Gedanken mit

    Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha

    A frequent typological parallel: both conceive wisdom as therapy against the suffering produced by desires and false opinions, and seek a state of peace (ataraxia, nirvana); there is no historical contact.

    Durch Analyse ermittelte Ähnlichkeit

Quellen

Quellen

Für diesen Eintrag herangezogene Bibliografie und Kataloge.

  1. García Gual, Carlos. Epicuro. Alianza Editorial, Madrid, 1981.
  2. Wikidata, entidad Q43216 «Epicurus» (150 enlaces entre wikis; P31=Q5). Registra nacimiento en 342 o 341 a. C. y muerte en 270 a. C.; lugar de nacimiento, Samos; de muerte, Atenas.
  3. Diógenes Laercio. Vidas y opiniones de los filósofos ilustres, libro X (Epicuro: vida, testamento, cartas a Heródoto, Pitocles y Meneceo, Máximas capitales), s. III d. C. Trad. inglesa de R. D. Hicks, Loeb Classical Library 185, 1925 (Wikisource en inglés); texto griego en Wikisource griega; trad. de C. D. Yonge, Bohn, 1853 (Project Gutenberg n.º 57342).
  4. Diógenes Laercio. Los diez libros de Diógenes Laercio sobre las vidas, opiniones y sentencias de los filósofos más ilustres, trad. de José Ortiz y Sanz, tomo II (libros VI–X). Imprenta Real, Madrid, 1792 (Internet Archive).
  5. Usener, Hermann (ed.). Epicurea. Teubner, Leipzig, 1887 (Internet Archive). Edición clásica de los textos y testimonios; numeración «Us.» de los fragmentos.
  6. Bailey, Cyril (ed. y trad.). Epicurus: The Extant Remains. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1926 (Internet Archive).
  7. Arrighetti, Graziano (ed. y trad.). Epicuro. Opere. Einaudi, Turín, 1960; 2.ª ed. 1973 (incluye los libros de Sobre la naturaleza conservados en Herculano).
  8. Konstan, David. «Epicurus». The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta; primera publicación 2005, revisión sustancial del 8 de julio de 2022.
  9. Inwood, Brad y Gerson, Lloyd P. (trads.). The Epicurus Reader: Selected Writings and Testimonia, introd. de D. S. Hutchinson. Hackett, Indianápolis, 1994.
  10. Séneca. Epístolas morales a Lucilio 21.10 (inscripción del Jardín), c. 64 d. C. Texto latino en The Latin Library.
  11. Plutarco. «Si está bien dicho “vive oculto”» (Εἰ καλῶς εἴρηται τὸ λάθε βιώσας), Moralia 1128a–1130e, s. I–II d. C. Texto griego en Wikisource griega.
  12. Lucrecio. De rerum natura, s. I a. C. Trad. inglesa de William Ellery Leonard, On the Nature of Things, Dutton, 1916 (Project Gutenberg n.º 785).
  13. Long, A. A. y Sedley, D. N. The Hellenistic Philosophers, vol. 1: Translations of the Principal Sources with Philosophical Commentary. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1987.
  14. Sedley, David. Lucretius and the Transformation of Greek Wisdom. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998.
  15. Warren, James (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Epicureanism. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2009.
  16. «Epicurus», Wikipedia en inglés, y «Epicuro», Wikipedia en español (consultadas para contrastar datos y bibliografía; texto propio).
  17. Wotke, Karl. «Epikurische Spruchsammlung», con notas de Hermann Usener. Wiener Studien 10 (1888). Primera edición de las Sentencias vaticanas a partir del Vaticanus graecus 1950.
  18. Smith, Martin Ferguson (ed.). Diogenes of Oenoanda: The Epicurean Inscription. Bibliopolis, Nápoles, 1993.
  19. O'Keefe, Tim. «Epicurus (341–271 B.C.E.)». Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (ISSN 2161-0002).
  20. Open Library (Internet Archive): ediciones de Epicuro y de Diógenes Laercio verificadas por ISBN.
  21. Marco Aurelio. Meditaciones VII 64 y IX 41 (numeración estándar; en la traducción de Casaubon, VII 35 y IX 41), c. 170–180 d. C. Trad. inglesa de Meric Casaubon (1634) (Project Gutenberg n.º 2680).
  22. Epicteto. Disertaciones recogidas por Arriano, I 23, II 20 y III 7 (polémica contra Epicuro), c. 108 d. C. Trad. inglesa de George Long (Project Gutenberg n.º 10661).
  23. Lactancio. Sobre la ira de Dios 13, c. 314 d. C. Trad. inglesa de William Fletcher, Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. VII, 1886 (Wikisource en inglés).
  24. Greenblatt, Stephen. The Swerve: How the World Became Modern. W. W. Norton, Nueva York, 2011 (trad. esp. El giro, Crítica, 2012).
  25. Wilson, Catherine. Epicureanism at the Origins of Modernity. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2008.
  26. Cicerón. Del supremo bien y del supremo mal (De finibus) I–II y Sobre la naturaleza de los dioses I, 45 a. C. Trad. inglesa de C. D. Yonge (Project Gutenberg n.º 29247).
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Textos antiguos en dominio público; cada traducción y edición moderna pertenece a su traductor o editorial

Bestätigung ausstehend

Was dieser Eintrag noch nicht klären konnte. Wir sagen es lieber, als es aufzufüllen.

  • Tradiciones: el catálogo (content/traditions.json) no tiene «epicureísmo»; se asigna provisionalmente «secular-contemplative». Valorar dar de alta una tradición «epicureanism».
  • Traductores de las ediciones españolas de Cátedra (Obras completas, ISBN 9788437613307) y Tecnos (Obras, ISBN 9788430942572): no comprobados en catálogo; añadirlos cuando se verifiquen.
  • Arrighetti, Epicuro. Opere (Einaudi): no se ha localizado ISBN en Open Library; registrado sin ISBN.
  • Sentencias vaticanas: el texto griego de la n.º 52 se ha tomado de la edición corriente y cotejado solo en su comienzo; cotejar con la edición de Arrighetti. Localizar una traducción española de dominio público de las Sentencias vaticanas.
  • Manuscritos: verificar la digitalización del Vat. gr. 1950 en DigiVatLib (la URL probada devolvió 404) y los números de inventario de los papiros de Herculano de Sobre la naturaleza (libros II, XI, XIV, XV, XXV, XXVIII, XXXIV) con el Catalogo dei Papiri Ercolanesi.
  • Libros de Sobre la naturaleza conservados: se citan con seguridad el XV, el XXV y el XXVIII; confirmar la lista completa con Arrighetti y Sedley.
  • Programas de afiliación: ninguno verificado. Lista vacía.
  • Vídeos: el programa In Our Time de la BBC está subido por un canal no oficial; no se ha encontrado la versión oficial en YouTube.

Recherchiert am 2026-10-25