Religion Past and Present

Get access
Search Results: | 28 of 60 |

Epicurus
(241 words)

[German Version]

(342/341, on Samos – 371/370, Athens) was a Greek philosopher, the founder of a school of philosophy that he understood to be a competitor to the Platonic Academy and the Aristotelian Peripatos. Of his numerous writings – according to Diogenes Laertes 10.28 he left nearly 300 scrolls – only three didactic letters, a collection of 40 Sentences, and a few fragmentary works are preserved. Epicurus's teaching can be reconstructed, however, from the didactic poem of Lucretius, a philosopher in Epicurus's tradition, from the dialogues of Cicero, and from the anti-Epicur…

Cite this page
Figal, Günter, “Epicurus”, in: Religion Past and Present. Consulted online on 28 March 2024 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1877-5888_rpp_SIM_04430>
First published online: 2011
First print edition: ISBN: 9789004146662, 2006-2013



▲   Back to top   ▲