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New Page - A Compilation of Abrahamic Attacks On Epicurus
Read full post →Today added to the site is a compilation of passages in which the Abrahamic religions, Christian, Jewish and Islamic, attack Epicurus.
The Christian section draws on Lactantius, Augustine (City of God, Confessions and Against the Academics) and Minucius Felix. The Jewish section begins with the rabbinic term apikoros, taken directly from the name of Epicurus, as defined in the Mishnah and debated in the Talmud, and continues with Maimonides. The Islamic section gives al-Ghazali's condemnation of the "Materialists" and "Naturalists" from his autobiography, Deliverance from Error. The passages are grouped by the position under attack: atoms and void, an uncreated universe, the denial of providence, the mortality of the soul, and pleasure as the goal of life.
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New Article - Sextus Empiricus: An Epicurean Introduction, and a Free PDF of His Surviving Works
Read full post →Today our Epicurean introduction to Sextus Empiricus has been greatly expanded.
Many readers meet Sextus's arguments one at a time and take them for an honest search for truth. They are not. Sextus tells us plainly that his arguments are built to come out even, so that the reader gives up deciding anything. Giving up on finding the truth is the Sceptic's goal. For Epicurus, finding the truth about nature is the only road to a happy life.
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New Texts - Munro's Notes on Lucretius and the 1743 Brown (Dunster) Translation
Read full post →Today added to the site are two new resources for readers of Lucretius.
Munro's Notes on Lucretius. H. A. J. Munro's edition of Lucretius (first published 1864) remains one of the great works of English classical scholarship. Its first set of notes records how each reading of the Latin text was established. The site now has Munro's opening essay, "On the Formation of the Text," which tells how a single lost manuscript was copied and rediscovered and how editors from Poggio to Lachmann treated the poem. It also has the line-by-line notes, arranged by book and section.
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New Texts - The Surviving Works of Sextus Empiricus
Read full post →Today added to the site are all five surviving works of Sextus Empiricus, in the public-domain Loeb translation by R. G. Bury.
Sextus was a Pyrrhonist Sceptic of the second century AD. His books are the fullest surviving statement of ancient Scepticism, and they are full of reports and attacks on Epicurus, including one of the most important surviving accounts of Epicurus's Canon, his doctrine of the standards of truth. Anyone who wants to understand the Sceptic position that Epicurus opposed, or to check what Sextus actually said about Epicurus, can now read the full texts here with each section numbered and linkable.
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New Article - Twins, Eggs, and Duplicate Worlds: How Epicurus Deals With Identical Things
Read full post →Today added to the site is a new canonics article on identical things.
Suppose you greet a man across the street as your friend Publius, and he turns out to be Quintus, his identical twin. Did your senses lie to you? And if they lied once, why trust them again?
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New Article - The "Epicurean Paradox" Is Not Epicurean
Read full post →Today added to the site, in a new "Divinity Analysis" section, is an excellent article by Eikadistes of the Society of Friends of Epicurus.
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent..." These lines appear on posters, in debates and all over the internet, nearly always with the name "Epicurus" attached. Most people who repeat them assume Epicurus was arguing that the gods do not exist. He was not.
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New Resource - The Epicurean Canvas
Read full post →Today added to the site is The Epicurean Canvas, an interactive map of the core Epicurean texts.
The canvas lays out the three letters of Epicurus, the Principal Doctrines and the Vatican Sayings, together with Lucretius, Torquatus's presentation of Epicurean ethics in Cicero's On Ends, and Velleius's presentation of Epicurean theology in On the Nature of the Gods. Lines connect each section of the letters to the passages in the other texts that treat the same point. Click "Follow" on a passage to fly to where Lucretius or Cicero's Epicurean speakers explain it, and then back again.
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Lucretius Today Podcast - Cicero's Academic Questions and the Skeptics' "Heap" Argument
Read full post →This month the Lucretius Today podcast has continued its series on Book Two of Cicero's Academic Questions. Edited transcripts and summaries of each episode are on the site.
The skeptics' favorite weapon in these sections is the Sorites, or "heap," argument: if no one can name the exact grain that turns a pile of sand into a heap, how can any line between classes of things be real? The episodes show how Epicurus charts a course between the Stoics' appeal to god-given certainty and the skeptics' total doubt. A wolf will kill you and a dog will not. That difference is real, and the senses, anticipations and feelings are enough to know it, even if no one can draw an infinitely precise boundary. The same is true of happiness.
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New Page - Exploring the Epicurean Worldview
Read full post →Today added to the site is a new overview, "Exploring the Epicurean Worldview."
It is the best single starting point on the site for a newcomer. It covers the three parts of Epicurus's philosophy in the order he taught them: physics, canonics (how we know what we know), and ethics. It then traces the history of the Epicurean school from Athens to the present. For roughly seven hundred years Epicurean philosophy was one of the most widely followed schools in the Greco-Roman world, and one of the most fiercely opposed.
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New Article - Epicurus and the Pleasure of Rebelling Against Plato
Read full post →Today added to the site is a new article on Epicurean philosophy as a deliberate rebellion against Plato.
Say "pleasure" in connection with Epicurus and most people picture something narrow: a good meal, a warm bath, or else luxury and self-indulgence. Rarely does anyone think of art, science, exploration or human achievement. Epicurus never confined pleasure to small comforts or to luxury. Pleasure, in his teaching, is the fully felt impact of what actually matters to you.
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New Tool - The Net Pleasure Maximization Worksheet
Read full post →Today added to the site is the EpicureanFriends Net Pleasure Maximization Worksheet.
Epicurus taught that every choice and avoidance should be judged by comparing the pleasures and pains it will bring, both now and later. The worksheet is a practical aid for doing that with a real decision. It walks through your own life perspective, then helps you lay out the options in front of you and weigh the consequences of each.
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New Resource - Side-by-Side Translations of the Key Epicurean Texts
Read full post →Today added to the site is a new set of pages presenting the core Epicurean texts with several translations available for comparison under every passage.
The set covers the three letters of Epicurus (to Herodotus, to Pythocles and to Menoeceus), Lucretius's On the Nature of Things, Torquatus's presentation of Epicurean ethics in Cicero's On Ends, and Velleius's presentation of Epicurean theology in Cicero's On the Nature of the Gods.
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New Resource - The Tranquillists: Table of Sources
Read full post →Today added to the site is a new reference table, "The Tranquillists."
It documents, writer by writer and with a full citation for each quotation, the claim that Epicurus's true goal was not pleasure but "absence of pain," under its many names: ataraxia, tranquility, katastematic pleasure, static pleasure. A second table collects the scholars who have argued directly against that reading.
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New Article - Living For The Pleasures Of The Moment Isn't Epicurean - It's Lunacy
Read full post →Today added to the site is a new article on the popular picture of Epicurus as the philosopher of the moment.
You have almost certainly seen "Lorem Ipsum," the scrambled placeholder text used in design mockups. It comes from Cicero's On Ends, from a passage where the Epicurean Torquatus explains that people avoid pleasure only when they do not know how to pursue it rationally, and so meet with painful consequences.
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New Article - Against Katastematic Supremacy: Pleasure Is A Unified Good
Read full post →Today added to the site is a new article on the "kinetic" and "katastematic" pleasure question.
Nearly every modern account of Epicurean ethics says that Epicurus divided pleasure into two kinds and ranked them: a quiet, static "katastematic" pleasure above the ordinary pleasures of the senses. In many of these accounts the word "pleasure" itself almost disappears.
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New Article - The Full Cup Model: Pleasure, Purity, and the Limit That Answers Plato
Read full post →Today added to the site is a new article on the Epicurean "fullness of pleasure" model.
Epicurus's ancient critics understood perfectly well that he taught pleasure, which is why they attacked him so fiercely. Many modern commentators have since turned that teaching into a call for minimal stimulation, reduced desire and passive calm.
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New Page - Frequently Asked Questions
Read full post →Today added to the site is a page of Frequently Asked Questions about Epicurean philosophy.
Epicurus used several key words, especially "pleasure," "virtue," "gods" and "truth," in ways that differ a great deal from how they are used today. Newcomers who rely on popular summaries are often misled. The FAQ gives short, direct answers to the questions people ask most often, and it points to the ancient sources behind each answer.
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New Article - Epicurean Physics and Modern Science: Five Core Claims That Endure
Read full post →Today added to the site is a new article defending five core Epicurean positions on the nature of the universe.
The usual way to dismiss Epicurean physics is to list what Epicurus got wrong by modern standards: the size of the sun, the Big Bang, quantum theory, optics. That approach misreads what Epicurean physics is doing. Epicurus said plainly that many questions of detail could not be settled with the evidence available in his day, and that several explanations should be kept open.
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New Article - The Myth of the "True World": Epicurus and Nietzsche vs. Kant and Schopenhauer
Read full post →Today added to the site is a new article comparing Epicurus and Nietzsche with Kant and Schopenhauer.
The deepest divide in philosophy is not between believers and atheists, or between optimists and pessimists. It is between those who accept this natural world of sensation and feeling as sufficient for human life, and those who insist that a truer world lies somewhere beyond it. Epicurus and Nietzsche stand on one side of that divide. Kant and Schopenhauer stand on the other.
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New Article - Why It Is Incorrect to Say Epicurean Philosophy Is Primarily About "Absence of Pain"
Read full post →Today added to the site is a new article collecting the arguments against reducing Epicurean philosophy to the goal of "absence of pain."
That reading turns the Epicurean goal into a passive, featureless state, and it makes a vigorous, life-affirming philosophy look much like the Stoic and ascetic advice Epicurus directly opposed.
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New Page - A Tribute to Norman DeWitt
Read full post →Today added to the site is a tribute to Norman DeWitt and his 1954 book Epicurus and His Philosophy.
If one book inspired the EpicurusToday project, it is this one. DeWitt was a professor of Latin at Victoria College in the University of Toronto. His reading of Epicurus cut sharply against the mainstream view of a philosopher of withdrawal, minimal desire and calm, and for that reason he has been largely ignored by later academic commentators.
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New Article - Epicurus Against The White Flags of Surrender: Sextus Empiricus and the Pyrrhonists
Read full post →Today added to the site is a new article on Epicurus and the ancient skeptics.
Ancient skepticism came in two varieties: the Academic Skepticism of the Platonic tradition, and the more radical Pyrrhonism whose fullest surviving voice is Sextus Empiricus. Epicurus had no patience for either. The Stoics and Platonists at least claimed to know things, so they could be argued with and refuted. The skeptics claimed that knowing things was impossible.
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New Article - Ataraxia Is Desirable But Not The Ultimate Goal
Read full post →Today added to the site is a new article on what may be the most important single mistake in modern readings of Epicurus.
That mistake is putting ataraxia (tranquility, or freedom from mental disturbance) in the place of pleasure and happiness as the goal of life. Once that substitution is made, everything else in the philosophy is distorted.
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New Article - Let All Who Would Free Themselves From The False Claims Of The Geometers Enter Here
Read full post →Today added to the site is a new article on Epicurus and the geometers.
Tradition says the entrance to Plato's Academy carried the words "Let no one ignorant of geometry enter here." Seneca reports that the gate of Epicurus's Garden carried a very different message: "Stranger, here you will do well to tarry; here our highest good is pleasure."
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New Article - The Continuing Vitality of Epicurean Physics
Read full post →Today added to the site is a new article on Epicurean physics.
It starts with the most-mocked claim in ancient philosophy: that the sun is about the size it appears to be. Drawing on an essay by T.H.M. Gellar-Goad, the article shows that Epicurus was making a careful point about the limits of the evidence, not a foolish guess. Every ancient astronomer who gave a precise size for the sun was wrong. The Epicureans, who refused to claim more than they could know, were less wrong than the men who laughed at them.
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New Article - Mind Viruses Cured By Epicurean Philosophy
Read full post →Today is added to the site a new article about "mind viruses," a term that many will recognize as used popularly by Richard Dawkins some years ago.
From the blog entry:
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New Article - Reality Does Not Require Being Always The Same
Read full post →Today added to the site is a new article about the Epicurean perspective on reality.
The outline can be accessed at the link below or by opening up the "Other Resources" menu in the left navigation sidebar.
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New Article - Not a Bunker But A Camp - On Epicurean Engagement With Society
Read full post →Today added to the site is a new article responding to an attack on Epicurean Philosophy by Massimo Pigliucci.
The outline can be accessed at the link below or by opening up the "Other Resources" menu in the left navigation sidebar.
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Addition Of Classical Epicurean Philosophy Training Outline
Read full post →Today added to the site is a new Training Outline for Classical Epicurean Philosophy. This document is designed to be used either by new students or for submission to AI models to capture essential aspects of Classical Epicurean Philosophy.
The outline can be accessed at the link below or by opening up the "Other Resources" menu in the left navigation sidebar.
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Good And Bad Desires And Doubts In Epicurean Philosophy
Read full post →Good and Bad Desires and Doubts In Epicurean Philosophy
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Epicurus vs. Kantian Idealism
Read full post →Introductory Note
This post is intended to provide an introduction to the issues that exist between Epicurus and modern idealism. For ease of reference it also incorporates discussion of Nietzsche's analysis of Kant, which has substantial similarities to the viewpoint of Epicurus. Nietzsche was not an Epicurean. He had sharp criticisms of what he thought was Epicurus’ "retreat into the garden." In my view Nietzsche was wrong to consider this to be a "retreat." The more appropriate analogy would be that Epicurus erected a "fortress" where he could bring together his students and develop and teach a philosophy that rejected the dominant viewpoints of the day. Yet on at least two crucial issues Nietzshe clearly stood on the same side of history as Epicurus: both affirm the reality and value of sensory experience, and both mount vigorous objections to philosophies that treat an invisible, super-sensory realm as the true foundation of knowledge and morality.
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Regular Discussion of Additions To Outline Of Key Quotations
Read full post →We will be continuing to meet as usual on Wednesday nights, but we will be taking a temporary break in our weekly review of Usener's Epicurea. For the present we will continue splitting our time between (1) open discussion and (2) a focused topic.
The plan for the focused topic is to take an item from the "Quotation Outline" we've been setting up at EpicurusToday. Here are links to the material as it currently exists in both outline format and chart format.
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Comments On Sedley's "The Inferential Foundations Of Epicurean Ethics"
Read full post →There is great deal of good information in David Sedley's article on "The Inferential Foundations of Epicurean Ethics." Books need to be written on the implications of the points he raises, but for now I've collected some key citations to show what issues are covered.
The Inferential Foundations of Epicurean Ethics - Zoom Meeting Notes 2026_01_24
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Site Updates - Menu Reorganization and Post to EpicureanFriends.com
Read full post →The EpicurusToday page is now far enough along to post about at EpicureanFriends.com. There remain many broken links and half-written pages, but it should already be useful in its current state. Over time, EpicurusToday.com will become the main URL for host for the side-by-side editions of Diogenes Laertius, Lucretius, Torquatus, and Velleius:
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Version Two of EpicurusToday.com, With Topical Outline of Concepts, Goes Live On January 1, 2026.
Read full post →Today - January 1, 2026 - I am releasing the updated format of EpicurusToday.com.
The main function of this site will be to allow me to blog and collect key material in a much more fault-tolerant website format. EpicureanFriends.com is a great website, but it has a very sophisticated database-reliant backend, and in the event of a major server outage recovery would be difficult.
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2025 Site Updates
Read full post →As of December 9, 2025, there's much yet to do, but much has been updated already. As the site continues to be developed, please let us know if you have any comments or suggestions.
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2025 Updates
Read full post →As I write this in October of 2025 it's time for a major rewrite of this "gateway" site for the EpicureanFriends community.
There's much work to be done, but EpicurusToday.com will eventually become an important supplement to the community as a place for new participants to explore the basics of Epicurean philosophy and decide whether they would like to participate at EpicureanFriends.