Atoms, Pneuma, and Tranquillity: Epicurean and Stoic Themes in European Thought

by Edited by Margaret J. Osler

• ISBN13: 9780521400480
• ISBN10: 0521400481
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1991-08-30
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This volume examines the influence that Epicureanism and Stoicism, two philosophies of nature and human nature articulated during classical times, exerted on the development of European thought to the Enlightenment. Although the influence of these philosophies has often been noted in certain areas, such as the influence of Stoicism on the development of Christian thought and the influence of Epicureanism on modern materialism, the chapters in this volume forward a new awareness of the degree to which these philosophies and their continued interaction informed European intellectual life well into early modern times. The influence of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophies in the areas of literature, philosophy, theology, and science are considered. Many thinkers continue to perceive these philosophies as significant alternatives for understanding the human and natural worlds. Having become incorporated into the canon of philosophical alternatives, Epicureanism and Stoicism continued to exert identifiable influences on scientific and philosphical thought at least until the middle of the eighteenth century.

Table of Contents

Introduction Margaret J. Osler and Letizia A. Panizza

1. Ethics and logic in stoicism Gerard Verbeke

2. Medieval connectives, Hellenistic connections: the strange case of propositional logic Calvin G. Normore

3. Stoic psychotherapy in the Middle Ages and Renaissance: Petrarch's De Remediis Letizia A. Panizza

4. Alonso de Cartagena and John Calvin as interpreters of Seneca's De Clementia Nicholas G. Round

5. The Epicurean in Lorenzo Valla's On Pleasure Maristella de P. Lorch

6. Seneca's role in popularizing Epicurus in the Renaissance Louise Fothergill-Payne

7. Stoic contributions to early modern science Peter Barker

8. Fortune, fate, and divination: Gassendi's voluntarist theology and the baptism of Epicureanism Margaret J. Osler

9. Epicureanism and the creation of a privatist ethic in early seventeenth-century France Lisa Tunick Sarasohn

10. Robert Boyle on Epicurean atheism and atomism J. J. Macintosh

11. Stoic and Epicurean doctrines in Newton's system of the world B. J. T. Dobbs

12. Locke, Willis, and the seventeenth-century Epicurean soul John P. Wright

13. The Epicurean way of ideas: Gassendi, Locke, and Berkeley Thomas M. Lennon

14. The stoic legacy in the early Scottish enlightenment M. A. Stewart.