
Contents
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Extent and Provenance of Seneca’s Knowledge Extent and Provenance of Seneca’s Knowledge
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Physics and Theology Physics and Theology
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Virtue and Pleasure Virtue and Pleasure
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Leisure and Contemplation Leisure and Contemplation
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Maxims and Meditation Maxims and Meditation
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Human Nature and the Tactics of the Therapist Human Nature and the Tactics of the Therapist
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References References
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19 Seneca and Epicurus
Get accessMargaret Graver is Aaron Lawrence Professor in Classics at Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H., USA, where she specializes in Hellenistic and Roman moral psychology. Her major publications include Cicero on the Emotions: Tusculan Disputations 3 and 4 (2002); Stoicism and Emotion (2007); and, in collaboration with A. A. Long, a complete annotated translation of Seneca’s Letters on Ethics (2015).
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Published:06 August 2020
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Abstract
A thorough review of the evidence for Seneca’s interactions with Epicurean texts and ideas helps to clarify the nature of his response. Because he works from an extensive knowledge base which includes some texts not otherwise known to us, Seneca is a valuable resource for those whose primary interests are in Epicureanism; however, his evidence must be evaluated carefully and in full awareness of his philosophical motivations. Seneca identifies some elements of Epicurean doctrine and practice that he can respect and even emulate, notably the austere lifestyle, the rejection of superstition, and the techniques of memorization and maxim-creation as a vehicle for instruction. Yet he objects both strongly and consistently to the essential and most characteristic Epicurean positions: the uncreated cosmos of atoms and void, hedonist foundations of ethics, the instrumentalization (as he sees it) of friendship and other-concern. When he endorses an Epicurean claim, he does so advisedly, abstracting it from its philosophical context and reinscribing it within his preferred Stoic system of thought. On this basis he is willing even to assert in his own voice a number of Epicurus’s psychological principles, exempting only those that he believes are in conflict with the phenomena. Of particular interest in this regard are his remarks on the manipulation of attention as a remedy for pain (Ep. 78.18) and his resistance to a Metrodoran recommendation for the management of grief (Ep. 99.25).
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