Epicurus: An Introduction

Professor Rist's short introduction to the philosophy of Epicurus combines scholarship with clear exposition.

J. M. Rist (Author)

9780521292009, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 21 April 1977

200 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.45 kg

Professor Rist's short introduction to the philosophy of Epicurus combines scholarship with clear exposition. All Greek in the text is translated, and discussion of more specialised problems of interpretation is relegated to appendices. In an account which mediates between the extremes of approval and opposition traditionally accorded to him, Epicurus emerges as an ideologist, a pragmatic philosopher whose most notable achievement perhaps was to reject much of the prevailing social ethos of Hellenism and assert the rights and claims of the individual against those of the community or state.

Preface
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Part I: Epicurus and his Friends
Part II. Canonic: 1. Introduction
2. Sensation
3. General concepts
4. Feelings
5. Image-making contact of the mind
6. True and false judgement
Part III. Physics: 1. First principles
2. Atoms: size and shape
3. Atoms: weight and movement
4. 'Parts' of atoms
5. Secondary qualities
6. Void
7. Compounds
8. Qualities of physical objects
Part IV: Man and the Cosmos
Part V. Soul, Mind and Body: 1. The atomic composition of the soul
2. Anima and animus
3. Sensation
4. Operations of the mind
5. Will and action
Part VI. Pleasure: 1. The concept of pleasure
2. The subsidiary role of kinetic pleasure
3. The limit of pleasure
4. Condensing pleasure
5. The selection of pleasures
6. The role of pleasure in ethics
Part VII: The Problem of Friendship
Part VIII. The Gods and Religion: 1. The existence and structure of the gods
2. Analogy and insomnia
3. The life and activities of the gods
4. Rights religion
Part IX: Postscript
Appendices
Glossary of technical terms
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB]