Atheism in Philosophy, and other essays
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| Atheism in philosophy, and other essays - |
There are few philosophers, and indeed few men, about whom such opposite opinions have been formed and such different judgments pronounced as those concerning Epicurus. To speak of him as an atheist at all, in the view of some, is to misrepresent him.
There have not been wanting defenders of his philosophy who acquit it of that charge and have even sought to adjust its principles with Christian doctrine. Prominent among them is Gassendi, who published toward the middle of the seventeenth century an elaborate account of Epicurus, entitled " De vita, moribus, et philosophia Epicuri ; " to which he afterward added "Animadversions in Diogenem Laertium," the biographer of Epicurus, and also a " Syntagma philosophias Epicuri."
Among ancient critics, his best advocate was a leader of the sect most opposed to his own, — the Stoic Seneca. I call him an atheist in philosophy; for though he recognizes the existence of the national gods, it is only as accidents, not as powers. He recognizes no divine agency in his system. His gods have no right to be, in the light of his philosophy. They have none of the attributes proper to deity;
. they are chance collections of atoms, destined sooner or later, like all other creatures, to perish and dissolve. To him, they have only an ethical im- port. Finding them fixed in popular belief, he uses them as illustrations of a blessed life. The testimony of the ancients is decisive on this subject. Lucretius makes it his special merit to have freed his followers from the yoke of religion.^ As to his morals, the authorities differ. Plutarch represents him as licentious; but, on the whole, the balance of testimony gives the impression of a man who led a blameless, and unquestionably very frugal and abstemious, life.
Contents:
Introduction 3
Epicurus 5
The Philosophy of Epicurus 24
Arthur Schopenhauer 51
Schopenhauer's Philosophy 70
Critique of Pessimism as taught by Eduard
VON Hartmann 123
MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.
Life and Character of Augustine 145
Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz 195
Leibniz's Philosophy 217
The Monadology of Leibniz 245
Immanuel Kant 271
Irony 306
The Philosophy of Fetichism 337
Genius 354
The Lords of Life 376
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