Epicurus: An Introduction

by John M. Rist

Professor Rist's short introduction to the philosophy of Epicurus combines scholarship with clear exposition. All Greek in the text is translated, and discussion of more specialised problems of interpretation is relegated to appendices. In an account which mediates between the extremes of approval and opposition traditionally accorded to him, Epicurus emerges as an ideologist, a pragmatic philosopher whose most notable achievement perhaps was to reject much of the prevailing social ethos of Hellenism and assert the rights and claims of the individual against those of the community or state.

Genres: Philosophy, History

200 pages, Paperback

First published April 21, 1972

About the author

John Michael Rist is a British scholar of ancient philosophy, classics, and early Christian philosophy and theology, known mainly for his contributions to the history of metaphysics and ethics. He is the author of monographs on Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, Epicurus, Plotinus, the dating of the Gospels, and Augustine of Hippo. Rist is Professor of Classics Emeritus at the University of Toronto and part-time Visiting Professor at the Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum in Rome, held the Father Kurt Pritzl, O.P., Chair in Philosophy at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. (from 2011 to 2017), and is a life member of Clare Hall, Cambridge University. During his lengthy academic career he has been Regius Professor of Classics at the University of Aberdeen (1980-1983), Professor of Classics and Philosophy at the University of Toronto (1983–1996), and the Lady Davis Visiting Professor in Philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1995).
His work focuses in the fields of ancient philosophy and historical theology.

Reviews

[Robert Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rist lucidly conveys the essence of Epicurean philosophy in only 164 pages. There were probably things that he could have made clearer, but his 'rabbit trails' were few and brief and often helpful instead of distracting.