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Letter · Ancient Greek

Letter to Menoeceus

Epistle to Menoeceus

OPEN THE BOOK WITH A QUESTION

Does treating pleasure as good mean pursuing more of every pleasure?

Evidence-backed moments
6
Timeline events
2
Verified places
1

People who carry this work into the voyage

Read the argument as a story

Story 1What makes a life go well?

Epicurus — Desire, sufficiency, and friendship

The question that opens it

Does treating pleasure as good mean pursuing more of every pleasure?

What changes as you read the work
  1. 1

    Book X of Diogenes Laertius preserves three letters of Epicurus and the Principal Doctrines, while the Letter to Menoeceus offers a concise ethical outline.

    Check the evidence

    This is an evidence-linked editorial account, not a direct quotation.

    • Epicurus

      Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

      Locator: Section 1

      Open source

    • Letter to Menoeceus

      Epicurus · Robert Drew Hicks historical English translation; MIT Internet Classics Archive

      Locator: Sections 122–135

      Open source

    • Principal Doctrines

      Epicurus · Robert Drew Hicks historical English translation; MIT Internet Classics Archive

      Locator: Collection structure

      Open source
  2. 2

    Letter to Menoeceus 127–128 distinguishes groundless, natural, and necessary desires in deciding what to pursue.

    Check the evidence

    This is an evidence-linked editorial account, not a direct quotation.

    • Letter to Menoeceus

      Epicurus · Robert Drew Hicks historical English translation; MIT Internet Classics Archive

      Locator: Sections 127–128

      Open source

    • Epicurus

      Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

      Locator: Section 4

      Open source
  3. 3

    Section 129 explains that one should not choose every pleasure or avoid every pain, but consider their longer consequences.

    Check the evidence

    This is an evidence-linked editorial account, not a direct quotation.

    • Letter to Menoeceus

      Epicurus · Robert Drew Hicks historical English translation; MIT Internet Classics Archive

      Locator: Section 129

      Open source

    • Principal Doctrines

      Epicurus · Robert Drew Hicks historical English translation; MIT Internet Classics Archive

      Locator: Doctrines 8–10

      Open source
  4. 4

    The end of living well is connected with reducing bodily pain and mental disturbance, not with accumulating unlimited consumption or intense stimulation.

    Check the evidence

    This is an evidence-linked editorial account, not a direct quotation.

    • Letter to Menoeceus

      Epicurus · Robert Drew Hicks historical English translation; MIT Internet Classics Archive

      Locator: Sections 128–131

      Open source

    • Principal Doctrines

      Epicurus · Robert Drew Hicks historical English translation; MIT Internet Classics Archive

      Locator: Doctrines 3, 15, and 18–20

      Open source
  5. 5

    A pleasant life and a prudent, honorable, and just life are presented as inseparable.

    Check the evidence

    This is an evidence-linked editorial account, not a direct quotation.

    • Letter to Menoeceus

      Epicurus · Robert Drew Hicks historical English translation; MIT Internet Classics Archive

      Locator: Section 132

      Open source

    • Principal Doctrines

      Epicurus · Robert Drew Hicks historical English translation; MIT Internet Classics Archive

      Locator: Doctrines 5 and 17

      Open source
  6. 6

    Epicurus valued friendship and developed the school known as the Garden in Athens in 307/306 BCE, but this is not recast as a perfected modern community model.

    Check the evidence

    This is an evidence-linked editorial account, not a direct quotation.

    • Epicurus

      Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

      Locator: Sections 2 and 6

      Open source

    • The Athenian Garden

      Diskin Clay · The Cambridge Companion to Epicureanism, chapter 1

      Locator: Athens, 307/306 BCE

      Open source
Try the full inquiry

How the work moved through time

  1. Around 307/306 BCE

    Epicurus develops the school known as the Garden in Athens.

    Athens · Activity

    PerspectiveOpen in question

  2. Later preservation around the 3rd century CE

    Book X of Diogenes Laertius preserves the Letter to Menoeceus and Principal Doctrines; the preservation context is not turned into Epicurus’s composition place.

    PerspectiveOpen in question

See its geography

Continue with the questions it unsettles