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Library Epicurus

On Nature — Epicurus

Written work · Essential works

On Nature

Περὶ φύσεως

Cabeza de Epicuro (Metropolitan Museum)
byEpicurus

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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Editions and translations · 3

EnglishGriego antiguoItaliano

Authorship note

Authentic and mostly lost. Diogenes Laertius cites it in 37 books (X 27). Remains of several books survive in the carbonised papyri of the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum, among them Books XV (ed. Millot), XXV and XXVIII (ed. Sedley, 1973); the rest is known through quotations and scholia.

Editions and translations

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English

  • The Hellenistic Philosophers, vol. 1 — Epicurus

    The Hellenistic Philosophers, vol. 1

    Cambridge University Press, 1987

    Translation: A. A. Long y D. N. Sedley

    ISBN 9780521275569

    Selección comentada de fuentes epicúreas, estoicas y escépticas.

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Griego antiguo

  • Epicurea (ed. Hermann Usener)

    Teubner (ed. digital en Internet Archive), 1887

    Edición crítica clásica de textos y testimonios; dominio público.

    View in store · Internet Archive (gratuito)

Italiano

  • Epicuro. Opere (ed. Graziano Arrighetti)

    Einaudi, 1973

    Translation: Graziano Arrighetti

    2.ª edición; texto griego y traducción italiana, con los papiros de Sobre la naturaleza.

Other works by Epicurus

Sources

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

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