La Lettre d'Epicure (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 255 as philosophers mistook them, metaphysical truths, but (pragmatically grounded) recommendations for accepting various linguistic frameworks. This view finds very little value in the study of past philosophy, except perhaps of that small part of it concerned with the syntax of language. Strawson however sees philosophy as being primarily concerned with describing the general categories of our thought by analytical methods. This view of philosophy would examine past philosophy to find its contribution to the description of these general categories of our thought, e.g. the work of Aristotle and Kant. Lastly, Quine, who rejects the distinctions between analytic and synthetic statements and immediate and mediate knowledge, does away with the supposed difference between science and philosophy. From this, the author says, it follows that the history of philosophy can not be rejected; it is part of our history. The section on the History of Philosophy contains the following papers: Ch. Floratos , "Die Anf~inge der Vergleichenden Kunstwissenschaft bei Simonides yon Keos"; K. P. Michaelides, "Kosmos und Ethos bei Anaximander und Heraclit"; Th. Beikos, "Heraclitus' Fr. 52"; St. Ramfos, "Heraclite: Le cercle de la mort"; A. Szab6, "Die Philosophic der Eleaten und der Aufbau yon Euklids Elementen"; E. N. Roussos, "M~ve0v, 6 la~t0rlXfl~ xo5 Fopy[ct" (Meno, the Student of Gorgias); F. K. Voros, "ETvat 5uv~T6~ 6 6ptalabq Tf~qyvd~aeo~q; T6 rtp613Z.rllaa xo5 nkazo~vtKoO Oe~tr~roo'" (Is a Definition of Knowledge possible: The Problem of Plato's Theaetetus); A. Kelessidou -Galanou, ""O rlZ.axo~v ~at x6 'Ttctpdko-[o'" (Plato and the "irrational"); A. Bayonas, "Legislation et dialectique d'apr~s la Rdpublique de Platon"; C. Cavarnos, "Plato's Critique of the Fine Arts"; B. Kyrkos, "Der tragische Mythos und die Geschichte bei Aristoteles. Von der Darstellung des Ka06Louund des Kct0" ~Kct(rxov in der Poesie und der Geschichte"; M. Dragona-Monachou, "'O ''Ylavoq czb A[ct" ~ct[ xdt Xpoa~ ~nr/. "H nOtrlXtK~l OeokoTict xo5 KkedvOrl ~:ai/I 6p(pufo-xu0ctyoptK/I rtnpaSocr 1" (The 'Hymn to Zeus' and the Golden Verses. Cleanthes' Poetical Theology and the Orphico-Pythagorean Tradition); E. Moutsopoulos, "Sur la 'participation' musicale chez Plotin"; L. Benakis, '"H crnouffl x~q Bu~avxtv'~ ~tkocro~0[ct~. Kptxt~c~l ~ntaK6rtqarl 1949-1971" (The Study of Byzantine Philosophy. A Cricital Survey 1949-1971). The volume also includes a number of book reviews, announcements of philosophical meetings and a complete index of the publications of The Archives o/ Philosophy and Theory o/ Science, 1929-1940. GEoxolos ANAGNOSTOPOULOS University of Cali/ornia, San Diego La Lettre d'Epicure. By Jean Bollack, Mayotte Bollack, Heinz Wismann. (Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1971, pp. 316 27 Fr) Done by a team of three French scholars and some meritorious assistants--all affiliated with the University of Lille--this book will be more interesting to the classical philologist than to the historian of philosophy. (Its title, incidentally, is not quite adequate: not "the" letter of Epicurus, but one of the three extant letters is the subject.) The book will not, nor is it intended to, change the overall picture of Epicureanism . Its real purpose, however, has been brilliantly pursued and, to all appearances, achieved: to squeeze and distill out of a spoiled textual tradition a purified text that can do justice to Epicurus as a writer by reinstating him as a literary figure of remarkable rank. 256 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY Exclusively dealing with Epicurus and his followers, Book X of Diogenes Laertius' work contains three letters, verbatim inserted by Diogenes because, in his judgment, they are such excellent summaries of the doctrine that he could abstain from doing the summarizing himself. Of these, the letter to Herodotus, an epitome of the allegedly thirty-seven volumes of Epicurus' Physics, is the most important. The authors of the present book had become suspicious about the correctness and authenticity of the text of this letter as given in current editions. This text, they felt, would justify the inveterate habit of calling Epicurus a negligent, sloppy writer who does not care for grammar or style, not minding even gross contradictions. And this they did not want to accept. This letter, they believed, must have been written in...