Epicurus Reader

This book was basically an overview of Epicurean philosophy, including all the known fragments of text from his works, as they are all now lost as full books. The philosophy is basically antithetical to what I believe, being essentially atheistic and hedonistic, but does have some good points in it emphasis on friendship and simplicity. Basically this is a case of false reasoning leading to a positive conclusion. The point of life, according to Epicurus, is pleasure, which can be achieved through the avoidance of pain and in particular anxiety through the living of a simple life, staying out of politics, and not craving honors or praise.

Perhaps the most edifying part of the book were discourses on physics, as it is interesting and unusual way of thinking to examine what was thought on that subject by ancient authorities. It seems the habit of modern authorities to discount them, but even if they have been proven wrong the complexity of, and intensity of thought necessary to produce, their systems make them worthy of respect, and an examination of their beliefs is a good exercise of the mind. The Epicureans were atomists, and pure materialists, after Democritus, and posited that the universe was composed of both unlimited void and limitless quantities of atoms, as any other configuration would result either in a dispersal of all matter or a contradiction (such as their being a limited void to hold limitless quantities of atoms).

For a cursory examination of this philosophy, I would recommend a summary off the internet, as reading these original sources can be difficult and repetitive, but to hear arguments for a very different way of looking at every facet of life, this book is recommended