Talk:Epicurus

message: Mention of Lucretius
Surely there should some mention of Lucretius in the discussion of the influence of Epicurus? He was a major follower and the source for many Europeans of Epicurus' most important ideas.
Johnstoi  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Johnstoi (talk • contribs) 03:06, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

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I vaguely remember that Epicurus was worshipped as a hero in the ancient world and that his birthday was celebrated on December 25.  Does anyone have any information or confirmation of this notion?  Thanks.
Yes, Epicurus was regarded with very high esteem - and contemporary followers still exist. Since the advent of the internet, their revival has gathered pace, as can be seen on www.gardenofepicurus.com , which has a directory of Epicurean Gardens. His birthday is still celebrated by contemporary Epicureans.
:There is no sensible connection between Epicureans and devotes of Sol Invictus, if that's what you're hoping for. --Wetman 07:58, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: He may have been worshipped, though evidence for that is slim. Regardless, his birthday was celebrated, as his will tells his friends to continue celebrating his birthday on the tenth day of Gamelion as was their habit. That would likely be sometime in February, but precisely when is not known. - Jamesmusik 08:41, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

text: Epicurus didn't have a playing piece on the "God" board at all. --Wetman 07:58, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Older discussion

message: Sorry for deleting the section without explaining. It's so completely wrong that it doesn't belong on the page at all. Epicurus' theory of pursuing pleasure has no relation to Aristotle's theory of the mean. Epicurus held that pleasure is the absence of pain and his theory is thus binary and explicitly excludes any possibility of a mean between pleasure and pain: "The removal of pain is the limit of the magnitude of pleasures. Wherever pleasure is present, as long as it is there, pain or distress or their combination is absent" (Epicurus, Kuriae Doxae 3, from Diogenes Laertius' Life of Epicurus X.139). Jamesmusik 05:04, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Happiness Section 

message: In my opinion, this article is one of the porrest written of the ones i've seen. It provides a very limited amount of information, and it is almost written assuming that you should already know most of the information about Epicurus. I was seaching for a complete account of what he was famous for, having almost no information to begin with, and instead recieved a cryptic acount of sparse details that was arranged quite erratically, preventing me from recieving needed, in the time I had. I suggest the writting of the article including the facts that even the less informed will be able to understand it.68.54.102.28 23:36, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  ReWriting 

message: I just though it was funny that this page did not include Epicurus' "Tetrapharmakos." The "Tetrapharmakos" is probably the easiest doctrine and direct quote (list) one could ever find by a philosopher--and that it needn't be abridged or simplified.
I also added Epicurus' early take on physics and the explanation of the physical world. Indeed, though, is that most of his "ideas" are totally wrong now, but it is certainly educational in a sense that one gets from them an understanding of how some of the earliest thinkers rationalized a natural phenomena into a coherent mental picture and words. There is still more remaining to be said where I left off, but I need to know if I'm on the right track or if that the language I chose communicates well. LCecere 07:25, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Large Additions: Tetrapharmakos" and "Early Physics: Epicurean Physics" 

message: Just a question, but are there any references for this claim? Burnage13 08:00, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I was wondering about the same thing. Wasn't Heraclitus nicknamed 'the dark one' (ὁ σκοτεινός)? --Fabullus 13:48, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: From Heraclitus bibliography: Ferdinand Lassalle Die Philosophie Herakleitos des Dunklen von Ephesos (Berlin, 1858) (The philosophy of Heraclitus the Dark Philosopher of Ephesus)  Yes, looks like you're right. I don't see much to affirm this statement.  I guess the key word is "Modern" Greek, it sounds a bit like it could be a Christian view of Epicurus (along the lines of "epicurean" in modern parlance). DBaba 15:45, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The 'Dark Philosopher'? 

message: Hi, quick question.  We've just launched a site for Epicure; they're a British food importers who've been around since the 1800's... but I couldn't find mention of them on the wiki.
I would be very happy to do some research and write an article ( I'm just the techie so I don't know a whole lot about the client but I could ask for some of the history of the company from the horses mouth so to speak ).. 
Thing is I'm not quite sure how much this would be seen as self-promotion since of course I've got a vested interest in seeing their profile raised.  
What's best? Should I write an article as well as I can and let others decide it's validity.. in which case should it live as a sub-section here or should I start it under Epicure Foods?? 
Thanks, --Jimbo 09:24, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If you want to write an article on Epicure Foods, go right ahead. But other than being named after Epicurus, it doesn't have anything to do with him, so it doesn't have any place in this article.--RLent (talk) 17:26, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Epicure Foods 

message: This article is loaded with archaisms, repetions, awkward grammar, and philosophical jargon. The clear concepts of Epicurus are obscured and made confusing ("parelkousa") by all of this. Epicurus was a forerunner of much of modern though, and it's important to convey this to people in a clear and simple manner.
Epikouros 03:24, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the larger problem is that the article contains large amounts of detailed (attempted) explanations of Epicureanism, when the article is supposed to be about Epicurus. A brief summary of the teachings is appropriate, but I think most of what's on this page belongs on Epicureanism if it's salvageable at all. James 23:57, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Editing the article to make it more understandable to readers 

message: The sections I marked to merge into Epicureanism are incredibly difficult reads and I'm not even sure that there's anything worth moving into Epicureanism, but at the very least I know they don't belong here. We need to come up with a concise summary of Epicureanism to include here. I suggest four short sections: 1. Physics; 2. Canonic (Epistemology); 3. Ethics; and 4. The Tetrapharmakos. In short, this article is in terrible need of a major rewrite. James 05:08, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed merger 

message: Or rather, moving the philosophical information into the Epicurianism article, and leaving the Epicurus article as more of a biography. There are also some other articles that need editing as well - the Garden of Epicurus, the Epicurean Paradox, and also Lucretius / On The Nature Of Things. Give me a few days and I'll start to work on them. 
Hopefully there are things of value here and I'll continue to work on them after they're moved over so that they're clear and understandable and free of archaisms and jargon.
And why is Epicurus a "B-Class" philosopher, given his wide influence in antiquity, and his critical influence on modern thought? Any way to change that?
:The B-Class is this article's rating, which I think is generous. James 21:14, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The article contains a wealth of information and could easily be spruced up.  The section on Epicureanism, however, does not need to be as long as it is given that there is a main article on it.  A summary of Epicureanism's main tenets and a brief explanation thereof should suffice.  Merging hardly seems necessary since Epicureanism is going strong. Postmodern Beatnik 15:45, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed merger of articles 

message: An anonymous editor made this edit  recently, which was later reverted by Student7.  It was my opinion that the anonymous edit was both in good faith and an improvement.  I therefore reinstated the changes, giving a substantive reason why (as per WP:STYLE).  That reason was that BCE is standard these days in the history of philosophy.  (I might mention that it is also standard in anthropology, a field that has been just as important to our present knowledge of Epicurus as the textual exegesis performed by philosophers.)  Since the change was again reverted (and since Student7 seems to have felt the need to accuse me of edit warring—a rather silly claim in light of the fact that he began the reverts), I felt I should fully explain why I have again changed BC to BCE in this article.
Looking through the edit history of this article, I see that this change has been attempted several times in one way or another—including by one of the entry's most significant contributors—always to be reverted.  Indeed, a substantial reason was given for this edit as well.  And so it stood for a bit.  But eventually it was reverted because the edit did not consistently change all of the BCs to BCEs.
Now then, WP:STYLE and WP:DATE say the following:
# Editors should choose either the BC/AD or the BCE/CE system consistently within an article; the Manual of Style does not favor one system over the other.
# While either of the two styles are acceptable, it is inappropriate for a Wikipedia editor to change from one style to another unless there is some substantial reason for the change.
# Where in doubt, defer to the style used by the first major contributor.
Point one tells us that BCE is a viable option.  I do not believe this is a point of contention, so I will simply comment that several editors have thought that BCE is stylistically more appropriate for this page, and that those reverting any changes to that effect do not seem to hold that BC is superior.  Instead, they have made their edits for what they themselves deem purely technical reasons.  I appreciate the role of stare decisis on Wikipedia, but it is not absolute.  Indeed, point two explicitly tells us that there are times when it is appropriate to change styles.  In those cases, substantive reasons are required.  However, both Epikouros and I have given such reasons (that BCE is standard, and that it is more appropriate for a non-religious thinker such as Epicurus).  Now, I don't know who the "first major contributor" is, though certainly Epikouros has been a major contributor.  Still, I am not in doubt as to which style to use.  As such, I have just gone through and converted BC to BCE, being extra careful to get them all.  I hope the edit stays this time. Postmodern Beatnik 20:55, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  BCE is a foolish (intellectually dishonest) euphemism for BC, because it is still dated from Jesus, using identical numbering. Please revert to BC and stop this intellectual dishonesty. Do you really mean to call it 'Before Common Era'? Tell me, what is the significance of year 0 for this common era, and to whom was it common, and what was shared in common -- if it's not related to Jesus? If you don't like BC, come up with a new calendar. -- Newagelink (talk) 13:01, 23 August 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  BC vs. BCE 

message: I just deleted a sentence in this article that seemed to draw a conclusion that is not backed by any literature... and then after reviewing the article a little further I realized there is hardly a single citation made to anything stated throughout the entire article.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by PhilipDSullivan (talk • contribs) 23:23, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Citations

message: Anyone know where I can get some info to start getting some citations on this page?--URMOMREALLYDIDCALL (talk) 20:56, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citations 

message: Realizing that most of the section on "The School" of Epicurus was devoted to the history of Epicureanism, I took the liberty of moving it over to Epicureanism and creating a "History" section there. It might need some extra editing. All I left behind here was the first section which deals with the school in Epicurus' lifetime. Singinglemon (talk) 19:10, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Moved some more stuff over to [[Epicureanism]] 

message: Why is Epicurus being located in the so-called "Axial Age"? Is the purpose of an article on Epicurus to promote Karl Jaspers? To follow the Wikipedia credo of "neutrality," a standard chronological reference should be sufficient. Otherwise the article would have to pause to locate Epicurus in every plausible-seeming chronological scheme. He was a "key figure...from 800 BC to 200 BC"? What about a key figure of "the Hellenic Age"? 
And how was Epicurus's thinking "similar to revolutionary thinking in China, India, Iran, the Near East"? If the topic is not going to be discussed, why is it introduced? Only the similarity of his thought or the influence of his thought on later Western philosophers is discussed.
>He was a key figure in the Axial Age, the period from 800 BC to 200 BC, during which similarly revolutionary thinking appeared in China, India, Iran, the Near East, and Ancient Greece. <  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.80.147.170 (talk) 11:47, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Axial axe-gringing 

message: According to this BBC article - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25106956 and the Friends of Herculaneum website - http://www.herculaneum.ox.ac.uk/?q=books, one third of On Nature has been rediscovered in carbonised scrolls from the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum. The current article states that ″Numerous fragments of his thirty-seven volume treatise On Nature have been found among the charred papyrus fragments at the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum.″ Should not this article be updated to show that a third of On Nature has been rediscovered, as ″Numerous fragments″ hardly reflects the amount of the work which has been recovered? 2.24.233.156 (talk) 19:40, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Updating the amount of On Nature recovered? 

message: "He taught that pleasure and pain are measures of what is good and evil; death is the end of both body and soul and therefore should not be feared; the gods neither reward nor punish humans; the universe is infinite and eternal; and events in the world are ultimately based on the motions and interactions of atoms moving in empty space."
Introduction could use restructuring.  Its a bit of a mess there.
Also, more importantly, he could not have asserted anything about atoms as he was unaware of their existence due to limited technology and research at the time.
"Short citations of Epicurus' works appear in other writers (e.g., Plutarch, Sextus Empiricus, and the Greek commentators on Aristotle), often taken out of context or presented in a polemical and distorted fashion. (The standard edition of Epicurus' works in Greek is Arrighetti 1973; the fullest collection of fragments and testimonies is still Usener 1887, repr. with Italian translation, Ramelli 2002; for translations, see Bibliography: Editions, Translations, Commentaries). In addition, several works of Epicurus, including parts of his major treatise, On Nature (Peri phuseôs) — a series of lectures running to 37 papyrus rolls — have been recovered in damaged condition from the library of a villa in the town of Herculaneum, which was buried in the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 C.E. The library almost certainly contained the working collection of Philodemus, an Epicurean philosopher from Syria who studied in Athens and moved to Italy in the first century B.C.E. Many of the rolls consist of Philodemus' own writings, and provide valuable information about later issues in the history of Epicureanism. One must be cautious about ascribing these views to the founder himself, although the school tended to be conservative and later thinkers embellished rather than altered Epicurus' own teachings. New editions and translations are now making these difficult texts available to a wider readership."
VS
"often taken out of context or presented in a polemical and distorted fashion. [..] The school tended to be conservative and later thinkers embellished rather than altered Epicurus' own teachings."[12]"
One of your citations cuts an article down to the point of not getting the point of the original article across.
The author was trying to say that Epicureanism itself was a clean and simple framework.  There wasn't a whole lot of writing.  As time went on people added to the definition.
It would be nice if this section was reworded in such a way that it is easier to understand.
:Actually, atoms are a concept from ancient Greek philosophy that was essentially hijacked by modern science. The word atom was coined by either Leucippus or Democritus in the fifth century BC, long before Epicurus was born, from the Greek word meaning "uncuttable". Atomism was a major component of Epicurus's philosophy. --Katolophyromai (talk) 12:53, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  This article needs work 

message: It's unwise, incomplete, or unprofessional to mention the paradox without the resolution given over the years. Please add this discussion. There are YouTube video of William Lane Craig responding, for example. One could even be linked. Moreover, adding some discussion of the paradox's resolution would give the reader more context and better appreciation for it. -- Newagelink (talk) 13:03, 23 August 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Discussion of the so-called "Epicurean paradox" in this article must necessarily be extremely limited, mostly because it is highly doubtful that Epicurus was even the one who really wrote it. Although Lactantius attributes it to Epicurus, it appears to directly conflict with everything we know about Epicurus's philosophy from his actual surviving letters and fragments. Epicurus taught that the gods existed, but that they did not care about humans and that they did not have any involvement in human affairs. The "Epicurean paradox," by contrast, seems to be an argument against even the mere existence of deities (or at least that is how Lactantius portrays it). It is possible that Epicurus might have said something similar to the "Epicurean paradox," but, if he did, it would have been an argument against divine intervention rather than an argument against the existence of deities. It seems likely that Lactantius heard the paradox and falsely assumed that it was written by Epicurus due to Epicurus's reputation as a materialist. We have a separate article entitled "Problem of evil," which discusses that subject in depth, but, in this article, our description of the paradox must be strictly confined to how it relates to the subject of the article, which, in this case, refers to whether or not Epicurus himself actually said it. Arguments against the Epicurean paradox would go in a separate article, not in this one. If we knew that Epicurus really wrote it, then we could probably devote more attention to it and talk about rebuttals to it, but, since its connection to Epicurus as tenuous as it is, we need to restrict our focus to keep from diverging off-topic. --Katolophyromai (talk) 16:57, 23 August 2018 (UTC)
replies: text:  Oh. That makes sense. Thanks for clarifying. -- Newagelink (talk) 23:05, 1 September 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Add response to Epicurian paradox 

message: The quote you keep trying to add to this article ("") Is already in the article (albeit in the form of a slightly different translation), quoted just two sentences before the place where you keep trying to add it in. There is no reason at all to quote the same statement twice in the same paragraph.
Also, you keep trying to add a statement claiming that this is an expression of the "Golden Rule," but it really is not, because the Golden Rule is an injunction to treat others the way you would want to be treated (i.e. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."). This quote from Epicurus, however, is not a command at all, but rather a justification for the reason why he believed people should be good to others, which is the inherent joy of doing good and the personal guilt that arises from doing wrong. In this quote, Epicurus is saying that a person should live "sensibly and nobly and justly" because doing so will make that person happy; whereas not doing so will only lead to poor decisions with unpleasant consequences and feelings of guilt and shame over ignoble or unjust actions. He is basically saying that, if for no other reasons at all, we should be good to others because doing so will make us feel good about ourselves. It is not a "rule" in any real sense, but rather an explanation of the selfish justification for why people should be good to others.
Also, the source you keep citing in the article to support this statement ("Epicurus Principal Doctrines 5 and 31 transl. by Robert Drew Hicks". 1925.) is just a translation of the Principle Doctrines and it does not actually call this quote an example of the "Golden Rule." The source you cited on my talk page ("Henry Epps, The Universal Golden Rule, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (July 17, 2012) p.27") is self-published and therefore not a reliable source. In order for us to call this quotation an example of the Golden Rule, we would need a reliable, scholarly source that has been through secondary publishing that explicitly calls it that. --Katolophyromai (talk) 22:01, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed. Paul August ☎ 22:03, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
replies: text:  Being happy about doing the right thing does not exclude a consideration of reciprocity, key to a Golden Rule, as in preventing "being harmed by another" and in the 2nd clause of the primary statement, the benefit of better behavior from those living pleasantly. I'd hoped that it'd be so obvious as not to have to contest it. Kolyvansky (talk) 06:43, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: You are correct that being happy about doing the right thing does not necessarily exclude the idea that one should treat others the way one would like to be treated, but nothing about the statement in question implies the notion that one should treat others the way one would like to be treated. The passage you keep adding reads: "" It say nothing whatsoever about reciprocity. When Epicurus says that a person needs to live "justly" in order to live "pleasantly," he is most likely saying this because, as his other quotes illustrate, he believed that feelings of guilt over one's own unjust actions would cause a person to suffer terribly and that that guilt and suffering would nullify any pleasure one might have received from those actions. Epicurus is indeed saying something very wise here, but it is not the Golden Rule. --Katolophyromai (talk) 08:00, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Nope, you are correct as far as you go, but it's not far enough. Epicurus had a reciprocal view of justice in mind. "Epicurus suggests a view of justice as reciprocity in his Kuriai Doxai (or 'Key Doctrines')." wrote Allen Buchanan, "Justice as Reciprocity versus Subject-Centered Justice", Philosophy & Public Affairs, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Summer, 1990), pp. 227-252. Kolyvansky (talk) 21:17, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Golden Rule" quote 

message: Hello! It was pointed out to me by Aircorn that someone has added a tag saying that the section on Epicurus's politics needs expansion, but I am not currently aware of any specific reason why it would need expansion. Personally, I think the section as it is mostly covers everything, since Epicurus doesn't really have a whole lot to say about politics anyway, apart from "Stay away from it." If no one responds within twenty-four hours with a specific piece of information that they think the section needs to include that it doesn't include already, I am going to just remove the tag, since I do not currently think that it is necessary. —Katolophyromai (talk) 00:33, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  The tag to expand the section on politics 

message: Why is Epicurus considered a sage? SpicyMemes123 (talk) 17:28, 11 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question: