Enrico Piergiacomi

Epicurus believed in women’s philosophical capabilities, as shown by his inclusion of female philosophers in his Kepos. However, existing scholarship has not clarified why he held this view. This paper aims to fill this gap. Despite the fragmentary evidence, preserved by hostile sources, I will contend that what clearly emerges from the ancient sources is that Epicurus grounded women’s philosophical aptitude in their possession of a human body. Moreover, I will argue that the Epicurean analogical argument in favor of divine anthropomorphism supports this perspective, for it suggests that anthropomorphic beings inherently possess intellectual faculties. Finally, the essay explores the hypothesis that the Epicurean courtesan Leontion may have used this argument in her critique of Theophrastus’ theology.

The paper compares Heraclitus’ and Democritus’ opinions on the notion of wakefulness. Its aim is threefold. First of all, it aims to demonstrate that the fragments of both philosophers distinguish between two kinds of wakefulness: physical wakefulness, i.e. the bodily state which all men are in when they are not asleep, and "intellectual" waking, conceived as a form of superior rational consciousness which human bings do not normally possess. The second aim of the paper is to prove that Heraclitus and Democritus share the idea that "intellectual" wakefulness has notable existential and ethical implications. For example, it divides humanity into two classes: the class of wise men, who have the right understanding of reality, and that of fools, who live their entire lives like dull sleepwalkers. The third and final aim consists instead in illutraing the main differences between the two Presocratic philosophers, as well as highlighting some important connections between the doctrine of waking and their ontology, epistemology and political thought.

Recent scholarship has stressed the fact that the Epicureans were not hostile to poetry in general. It is more probable that these philosophers rejected only those poetic compositions, processes and devices that do not lead to the goal of ‘katastematic’ pleasure, i.e. to happiness. In the light of this premise, the paper investigates whether the Epicureans recognized a positive cathartic poetry, or whether they simply rejected all forms of poetic catharsis as harmful experiences. It is argued that the former hypothesis is more probable. In order to prove this point, the paper is divided into three parts. Part 1 shows that the Epicureans recognized the existence of a positive catharsis, namely that conveyed by reason and teaching, which are capable of dispelling from the mind those damaging emotions (love, fear of the divine, excessive desire, etc.) that hinder the achievement of happiness, or ‘katastematic’ pleasure. Part 2 shows that Epicurus and his pupils would surely have rejected the catharsis of tragedy described in Aristotle’s Poetics, because this experience conflicts with many key doctrines of Epicureanism and is not pleasurable in the proper Epicurean sense. Part 3 proposes that the only possible kind of poetic catharsis that the Epicureans could have admitted is the one that aids reason and teaching in exercising their cleansing effects. A possible example of this practice consists in Lucretius’ poem De rerum natura, where poetry is not considered cathartic per se, but only when it assists Epicurean philosophy in its quest for happiness.

Lucretius opens book III of the poem De rerum natura with a praise of Epicurus’ teachings - which remove the fear of death, ghosts and gods - together with a description of the feelings aroused by the Epicurean doctrines. In vv. 28-30, he writes that he feels a divine pleasure (divina voluptas) - a possible allusion to katastematic pleasure, which brings about assimilation to divine blessedness - and at the same time horror. The expression is enigmatic, perhaps even contradictory. The occurrences of horror in De rerum natura show that the term is linked above all to the fear of death, ghosts and gods, i.e. that it describes the very terror that Epicurus intends to remove through his teachings, so as to give access to divina voluptas. In this paper, I analyze the expression from DRN III, 28-30 and propose a new solution to its apparent internal contradiction. This solution is based on the hypothesis of a therapeutic use of the poetics of the sublime.

Il presente studio indaga lo sviluppo della dottrina teologica degli Atomisti antichi, secondo cui gli dèi esistono, ma non si occupano in tutto o in parte di noi umani. Ritenuta per lungo tempo espressione di ateismo, essa è presentata qui come una teoria filosofica solida ed eticamente rilevante, perché offre una concezione positiva della natura divina. Il volume compie un’indagine sistematica dei testi teologici degli Atomisti, partendo dai frammenti di Democrito e di Epicuro, fino agli scritti degli Epicurei di età romana, come Demetrio Lacone e Filodemo, preservati soprattutto dai papiri di Ercolano. Oltre alle immancabili somiglianze che intercorrono tra questi autori, si sottolineano anche alcune profonde differenze tra le loro idee. In particolare, si propone l’ipotesi che esistano tre “teologie”, o meglio tre varianti teologiche, nell’Atomismo antico: l’idea di Democrito che gli dèi sono mortali e aiutano gli uomini saggi; la concezione di Epicuro, che stima dio un vivente del tutto indifferente alle vicende umane e dedito alla sola contemplazione di sé; la variante degli Epicurei successivi, che considera la divinità come dedita ad azioni e occupazioni che non ledono la sua perfezione. Attraverso le loro ipotesi sulla divinità, gli Atomisti individuano, inoltre, alcuni modelli di beatitudine, al quale l’essere umano deve cercare di assimilarsi per vivere felicemente. Sulla base di tale ulteriore proposta, si ricavano alcune potenziali ricadute morali delle teologie atomiste e si suggerisce che queste possano proporre alternative “stranianti” di pensiero / di prassi, capaci di influire costruttivamente sulle nostre vite.

The paper compares the thought of Democritus and that of Colotes. It is argued that the two thinkers diverge at least in three noteworthy respects: 1) they disagree about the nature of knowledge, for Democritus identifies it with a process which goes from raw (and untrustworthy) sensation to intellectual understanding, whereas Colotes affirms the truth of every sensation and its fundamental role in the use of reason; 2) they have contrary opinions on the practice of “pleasing”, since the former totally rejects this as a damaging form of obsequiousness, while the latter allows a form of pleasing which is good, i.e. which can lead to pleasure and security; 3) they describe death differently, for Democritus affirms that it consists in the loss of most of the soul atoms (which also allows, to a certain degree, the phenomenon of the “return to life”), whereas Colotes may have followed Epicurus in depicting death as the complete loss of soul particles. Such an investigation suggests, on both historical and philosophical grounds, that Democritus and Colotes did not embrace the same kind of atomism, but two atomisms, which start from different premises and pursue different goals.

Melissus is often considered a naïve thinker, mostly because of the famous judgment of Aristotle, who in Phys. 185a10–11 defined him as a less polished philosopher than Parmenides. But is this contempt really deserved? This paper argues that it is not. Melissus made two important and original innovations to Eleatism. Firstly, he showed that we humans fail to know reality since we do not recognize a conflict between our senses and our conventional language. Secondly, he demonstrated the non-existence of the traditional Homeric gods by arguing that divinity may be granted only to an inactive-changeless God identical with Being. Both these innovations (1) demonstrate a point which was assumed without argument by Parmenides, namely the unreliability of sensation, (2) deny the presence of a divine regulative factor in our world and (3) show how a study of the empirical world allows humans to progress in their quest for knowledge.