It is rare that I find myself amused by the introduction to a handbook of ancient philosophy, but chuckle I certainly did at Phillip Mitsis’ description of his tome as ‘a volume that is not particularly distinguished by its slenderness’ (4). Topping out at 848 pages, the work is indeed rotund, but it manages to be thoroughly comprehensive without bloat, covering not only the fundamentals of Epicurean philosophy but also several topics that are less well trod, particularly the reception of Epicureanism from the Renaissance to Postmodernity.
The volume boasts 31 chapters, nearly all by senior scholars, situated mainly in the United States and Europe (Italy is particularly well represented). As Mitsis notes in his introduction (2), many of the contributors were pioneers of Epicurean scholarship well before it became ‘hot’ among academics and before Epicureanism gained popular appeal. (What immediately comes to mind is Daniel Klein’s 2012 bestseller, Travels with Epicurus: A Journey to a Greek Island in Search of a Fulfilled Life (London).) Epicurean scholarship has advanced since the heyday of the scholarly pioneers – owing notably to the ongoing rehabilitation of ancient Epicurean texts discovered in the mid-18th century amid the ashes of a villa near Pompeii – so these scholars have the gift of hindsight, offering interpretations of Epicurean philosophy that reflect the progress in the field over the last several decades, progress that was kick-started by their own work.
The volume is divided into three parts, the first of which, ‘Epicurus’, is the largest (containing 14 of the 31 chapters). Here one finds standard Epicurean fare: biographical information regarding Epicurus and his school as well as broad treatments of the main areas of Epicurean philosophy, for example, epistemology (Gisela Striker), hedonism (Voula Tsouna), atomism (David Konstan), psychology (Elizabeth Asmis), politics (Geert Roskam) and language (Enrico Piergiacomi). But Part I does not stop there: it also offers chapters on individual subtopics of the broader themes – such as friendship (Phillip Mitsis), voluntary action (Walter Englert), rhetoric (Clive Chandler), poetics (Michael McOsker) and death (Stephen Rosenbaum) – without being repetitive. Mitsis opted against long chapters that attempt to cover every aspect of a single topic – a single chapter on justice and all its subtopics, for example – in favour of spreading a single topic across several chapters. In my view, the volume greatly benefitted from Mitsis’ editorial choice: comprehensive chapters would have been excessively large, and any related chapters would very likely have covered much of the same ground.
Parts II and III are evenly balanced in terms of length – nine and eight chapters, respectively – and deal mainly with the ways in which Epicurus’ original philosophy was adopted, criticized and transformed by later thinkers. Part II, ‘Ancient Epicureanism and Its Critics’, considers the development of as well as attacks on Epicureanism in the Roman era. Here one finds chapters on members of team Epicurus – for example Philodemus (Mario Capasso), Lucretius (Monica Gale) and Diogenes of Oinoanda (Pamela Gordon) – and chapters concerning members of the away team, such as Seneca (Margaret Graver), Plutarch (Michael Erler) and Cicero (Carlos Lévy). Very worthy of note are two entries on Epicurus and religion – one on Hebrew literature and philosophy (Gabriel Danzig) and another on Christianity (Ilaria Ramelli) – as well as a chapter on Horace and Vergil (Gregson Davis).
Part III, ‘Early Modern and Later Reception’, sweeps broad strokes, moving from Epicureanism in the Renaissance (Ada Palmer) to the Early Modern era – covering materialism (Ann Thomson) as well as ethics, politics and psychology (Gianni Paganini) – to utilitarianism (A.A. Long), 18th- and 19th-century French and German philosophy (Thomas Kavanagh and James Porter, respectively) and finally to Postmodernity (Eva Marie Noller and W.H. Shearin).
Space does not permit me to do justice to each of the volume’s contributions, so I will offer some brief reflections on a few that I found to be especially unique. Gabriel Danzig’s chapter, ‘Epicurus and Epicureanism in Rabbinic Literature, Maimonides, and Rabbi Nachman of Breslov’, will likely be educational for even very seasoned Epicurus scholars. I learned that the Hebrew word Apiqoros, likely derived from ‘Epicurus’, signifies, according to Orthodox Jews, a heretic who ‘rejects the Jewish religion for ideological or philosophic reasons’, rather than, say, due to ignorance or convenience (549). The chapter explores the ways in which important Hebrew figures and traditions responded both to Epicurean doctrine and to accounts of the behaviour and customs of Epicureans. Most interesting is Danzig’s account of Nachman’s reconciliation of key elements of Epicurean physics with aspects of Kabbalistic philosophy. Another chapter of note is Carl Richard’s treatment of the influence of Epicureanism on the philosophy of Thomas Jefferson, who syncretized the materialist metaphysics of Epicurus with elements of Christianity and Stoicism. Richard describes a letter Jefferson penned to a romantic interest as an ‘Epicurean manifesto’ (731). In the volume’s final chapter, Eva Marie Noller and W.H. Shearin explore what they describe as ‘postmodern Epicureanism’ via the references to Epicurean philosophy in the work of Hans Blumenberg as well as the traces of Lucretius’ physics in Jacques Derrida and Michel Serres.
Overall, this volume has something to offer everyone: those encountering Epicureanism for the first time will be well served by the chapters written by the most senior experts in the field, while those of us who have been at the ancient hedonism game a little longer will be surprised at how much there may still be to learn about the reach of Epicurus and his philosophy beyond antiquity.
