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   From: sean@libertarian.co.uk   
      
   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   
      
   --   
   Sean Gabb   
   Director, the Libertarian Alliance   
   sean @ nojunkcandidlist. demon.co.uk (remove "nojunk")   
   http://www.seangabb.co.uk    http://www.libertarian.co.uk   
      
   Buy my new book - "The Column of Phocas: A Novel of Murder and Intrigue Set in   
   Mediaeval Rome" - http://www.candidlist.demon.co.uk/hampden/phocas.htm   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)