Comment by suddenlybananas
1 day ago
Probably a lot more texts of Epicurean philosophy and not a whole lot else unfortunately according to my papyrologist friend.
1 day ago
Probably a lot more texts of Epicurean philosophy and not a whole lot else unfortunately according to my papyrologist friend.
That's what was thought, but maybe not -- only one of the three so far looks Epicurean, which is not what was expected. Maybe it's a fluke, but historians are buzzing a bit about whether it might be broader than expected.
Why would Epicurean philosophy be unfortunate?
I was under the impression that there was almost nothing left of that school of thought, and that it’s writings had been destroyed.
What would you like to have instead?
The unfortunate part is the lack of anything else therein, not that it's Epicurean philosophy.
The Jewish Talmud uses Epicurus's name as a term meaning "heretic".
4 replies →
> What would you like to have instead?
History! That's what intrigues me the most: texts with accounts of events that have otherwise vanished from the historical record.
in the paper it says "The recovered text is a philosophical treatise on ethics, and the evidence points to a Stoic work: it turns on human nature, impulse, and the moral progress of human beings, and its final preserved column names Aristocreon — nephew and disciple of the great Stoic Chrysippus — which, together with the language and themes of the text, places it in a Stoic context and dates it to the 2nd century BC."