Vitae philosophorum
Diogenes Laertius
Diogenes Laertius. Hicks, R. D., editor. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1925.
He died of paralysis, but not till he had given full proof of his ability.
And then there is Leonteus of Lampsacus and his wife Themista, to whom Epicurus wrote letters; further, Colotes[*](Colotes, a great admirer of the master, wrote a work to prove that life is impossible by the rules of any other philosophy. Plutarch wrote a tract against him: Πρὸς Κολώτην 1107 e-1127; and also a rejoinder entitled, Οὐδὲ ζῆν ἔστιν ἡδέως κατʼ Ἐπίκουρον, to prove that even a pleasurable life is unattainable on the principles of Epicurus.) and Idomeneus, who were also natives of Lampsacus. All these were distinguished, and with them Polystratus, the successor of Hermarchus; he was succeeded by Dionysius, and he by Basilides. Apollodorus, known as the tyrant of the garden, who wrote over four hundred books, is
and Demetrius,[*](Cf. Sext. Emp. Adv. math. viii. 348 sqq.; Strabo, xiv. 658.) who was called the Laconian; and Diogenes of Tarsus, who compiled the select lectures; and Orion, and others whom the genuine Epicureans call Sophists.
There were three other men who bore the name of Epicurus: one the son of Leonteus and Themista; another a Magnesian by birth; and a third, a drillsergeant.
Epicurus was a most prolific author and eclipsed all before him in the number of his writings: for they amount to about three hundred rolls, and contain not a single citation from other authors; it is Epicurus himself who speaks throughout. Chrysippus tried to outdo him in authorship according to Carneades, who therefore calls him the literary parasite of Epicurus. For every subject treated by Epicurus, Chrysippus in his contentiousness must treat at equal length;
hence he has frequently repeated himself and set down the first thought that occurred to him, and in his haste has left things unrevised, and he has so many citations that they alone fill his books: nor is this unexampled in Zeno and Aristotle. Such, then, in number and character are the writings of Epicurus, the best of which are the following:
The views expressed in these works I will try to set forth by quoting three of his epistles, in which he has given an epitome of his whole system.
I will also set down his Sovran Maxims and any other utterance of his that seems worth citing, that you may be in a position to study the philosopher on all sides and know how to judge him.
The first epistle is addressed to Herodotus and deals with physics; the second to Pythocles and deals with astronomy or meteorology; the third is addressed to Menoeceus and its subject is human life. We must begin with the first after some few preliminary remarks[*](i.e.§§ 29-34, the first of those summaries of doctrine which take up so much of Book X.) upon his division of philosophy.
It is divided into three parts—Canonic, Physics, Ethics.
Canonic forms the introduction to the system and is contained in a single work entitled The Canon. The physical part includes the entire theory of Nature: it is contained in the thirty-seven books Of Nature and, in a summary form, in the letters. The ethical part deals with the facts of choice and aversion: this may be found in the books On Human Life, in the letters, and in his treatise Of the End. The usual arrangement, however, is to conjoin canonic with physics, and the former they call the science which deals with the standard and the first principle, or the elementary part of philosophy, while physics proper, they say, deals with becoming and perishing and with nature; ethics, on the other
They reject dialectic as superfluous; holding that in their inquiries the physicists should be content to employ the ordinary terms for things.[*](An opinion often emphasized: e.g.§§ 37, 73, 82, 152. Cf. Lucr. iii. 931 sqq.)Now in The Canon Epicurus affirms that our sensations and preconceptions and our feelings are the standards of truth; the Epicureans generally make perceptions of mental presentations[*](Such mental pictures are caused by atoms too fine to affect sense: cf.§ 64infra; Lucr. ii. 740 sqq., iv. 722 sqq.; Cic. N.D. i. 54. On the whole subject consult Usener’s Epicurea, Fr. 242-265, and, more especially, Sext. Emp. Adv. math. vii. 203-216.) to be also standards. His own statements are also to be found in the Summary addressed to Herodotus and in the Sovran Maxims. Every sensation, he says, is devoid of reason and incapable of memory; for neither is it self-caused nor, regarded as having an external cause, can it add anything thereto or take anything therefrom. Nor is there anything which can refute sensations or convict them of error:
one sensation cannot convict another and kindred sensation, for they are equally valid; nor can one sensation refute another which is not kindred but heterogeneous, for the objects which the two senses judge are not the same[*](Cf. inf.§ 146.); nor again can reason refute them, for reason is wholly dependent on sensation; nor can one sense refute another, since we pay equal heed to all. And the reality of separate perceptions guarantees[*](i.e. the trustworthiness of the senses (αἰσθής εων) considered as faculties of sense-perception: cf. Sext. Emp. Adv math. viii. 9 (Usener, Fr. 244).) the truth of our senses. But seeing and hearing are just as real as feeling pain. Hence it is from plain facts that we must start when we draw inferences about the unknown.[*](More precisely ἄδηλον = that which does not come within the range of sense. Compare e.g.§ 38 τὸ προσμέν ον καὶ τὸ ἄδηλον, and the way in which the conception of void is obtained in § 40. In § 62 it is called τὸ προσδοξαζόμενον περὶ τοῦ ἀοράτου.) For all our notions are derived from