Epicurus: Father of the Enlightenment
Sean Gabb
Abstract
Epicurus (341-270 BC) was, with Plato and Aristotle, one of the three
great philosophers of the ancient world. He developed an integrated
system of ethics and natural philosophy that, he claimed and many
accepted, showed everyone the way to a life of the greatest happiness.
The school that he founded remained open for 798 years after his death.
While it lost place during the last 200 of these years, his philosophy
held until then a wide and often decisive hold on the ancient mind.
The revival of Epicureanism in the 17th century coincided with the
growth of scientific rationalism and classical liberalism. There can be
no doubt these facts are connected. It may, indeed, be argued that the
first was a leading cause of the second two, and that we are now living
in a world shaped, in every worthwhile sense, by the ideas of Epicurus.
More at:
http://www.seangabb.co.uk/pamphlet/epicurus.htm