Epicureanism at the origins of modernity / Catherine Wilson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wilson, Catherine, 1951- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Epicureans (Greek philosophy).

Atomism.

Materialism.

Mechanism (Philosophy).

Philosophy, Modern.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (x, 304 pages)

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Clarendon Press ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2008.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This landmark study examines the role played by the rediscovery of the writings of the ancient atomists, Epicurus and Lucretius, in the articulation of the major philosophical systems of the seventeenth century, and, more broadly, their influence on the evolution of natural science and moral and political philosophy. The target of sustained and trenchant philosophical criticism by Cicero, and of opprobrium by the Christian Fathers of the early Church, for its unflinching commitmentto the absence of divine supervision and the finitude of life, the Epicurean philosophy surfaced again in the peri

Contents:

Atomism and mechanism

Corpuscular effluvia : between imagination and experiment

Order and disorder

Mortality and metaphysics

Empiricism and mortalism

Some rival systems

The social contract

The problem of materialism in the New essays

Robert Boyle and the study of nature

The sweetness of living.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [278]-296) and index.

Description based on print version record.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

0-19-959555-0

1-281-85282-1

9786611852825

0-19-155352-2

OCLC:

272285164