Philosophy+of+Epicurus
41clinamen — (Lat., inclination) In the atomism of Epicurus, the ‘swerve’ of atoms responsible for introducing indeterminacy into an otherwise deterministic system …
42death — Since death is the cessation of life, it cannot be experienced, nor be a harm, nor a proper object of fear. So, at least, have argued many philosophers, notably Epicurus and Lucretius . A prime consideration has been the symmetry between the… …
43Democritus of Abdera — (c. 460– c. 370 BC) Along with Leucippus, the founder of classical atomism . He was known as very widely travelled, and was called the laughing philosopher. There is a legend, related by Tertullian although denied by Plutarch, that in order to… …
44effluxes, theory of — The Presocratic theory that perception is a matter of physical objects emitting some pattern of themselves, that, meeting a corresponding efflux from the body, brings about perception. Epicurus later holds that effluxes enter into ‘pores’ in the… …
45peritrope — The turning of the tables, whereby Plato (Theaetetus, 171 a) opposes the relativism of Protagoras . Protagoras holds the doctrine that whatever seems true for a person is true for them; hence he must accept that those who believe that the… …
46prolepsis — See Epicurus …
47Seventeenth-century materialism: Gassendi and Hobbes — T.Sorell In the English speaking world Pierre Gassendi is probably best known as the author of a set of Objections to Descartes’s Meditations. These Objections, the fifth of seven sets collected by Mersenne, are relatively long and full, and… …
48Epicureanism — /ep i kyoo ree euh niz euhm, kyoor ee /, n. 1. the philosophical system or doctrine of Epicurus, holding that the external world is a series of fortuitous combinations of atoms and that the highest good is pleasure, interpreted as freedom from… …
49ethics — /eth iks/, n.pl. 1. (used with a sing. or pl. v.) a system of moral principles: the ethics of a culture. 2. the rules of conduct recognized in respect to a particular class of human actions or a particular group, culture, etc.: medical ethics;… …
50Diogenes of Oenoanda — (or Oinoanda) was an Epicurean Greek from the 2nd century AD who carved a summary of the philosophy of Epicurus onto a portico wall in the ancient city of Oenoanda in Lycia (modern day southwest Turkey). The surviving fragments of the wall, which …
