Epicureanism

03 Oct 1994 12:01

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Science, attakcs on religion and superstition, (moderate) sensual pleasure and peace of mind: what's not to like?

There is a curious passage in Dante where, in the city of Dis, he meets various Ghibelline nobelmen whom he describes as "Epicureans". I'd very much like to know whether they were in some sense actually Epicureans, and if so whence they derived their doctrine, or whether Dante was loosely See also: Atomism; Lucretius

Recommended:
• Dante Aligheri, Inferno [Canto 9 or 10, I can't recall which]
• Jones, The Epicurean Tradition [Dry as dust, and stops in the 17th century, just when things started to get interesting]
• Titus Lucretius Carus, De Rerum Natura

To read:
• Martha Nussbaum, Therapy of Desire [On Hellenistic schools of ethics generally]
• Margaret J. Osler (ed.), Atoms, Pneuma, and Tranquillity: Epicurean and Stoic Themes in European Thought [Blurb]