EPISTLE LXXXIX.
a different subject matter. Some have added a department for which they use the Greek term “economics,”[1] the science of managing one’s own household. Still others have made a distinct heading for the various kinds of life.[2] There is no one of these subdivisions, however, which will not be found under the branch called “moral” philosophy.
11. The Epicureans[3] held that philosophy was twofold, natural and moral; they did away with the rational branch. Then, when they were compelled by the facts themselves to distinguish between equivocal ideas and to expose fallacies that lay hidden under the cloak of truth, they themselves also introduced a heading to which they give the name “forensic and regulative,”[4] which is merely “rational” under another name, although they hold that this section is accessory to the department of “natural” philosophy. 12. The Cyrenaic[5] school abolished the natural as well as the rational department, and were content with the moral side alone; and yet these philosophers also include under another title that which they have rejected. For they divide moral philosophy into five parts: (1) What to avoid and what to seek, (2) The Passions, (3) Actions, (4) Causes, (5) Proofs. Now the causes of things really belong to the “natural” division, the proofs to the “rational.” 13. Aristo[6] of Chios remarked that the natural and the rational were not only superfluous, but were also contradictory. He even limited the “moral,” which was all that was
- ↑ i.e., “the management of the home.”
- ↑ That is, of the various arts which deal with the departments of living, such as generalship, politics, business, etc.
- ↑ Frag. 242 Usener.
- ↑ Seneca by de iudicio is translating the Greek adjective δικανικός, “that which has to do with the courts of law,” and by de regula the word κανονικός, “that which has to do with rules,” here the rules of logic. The Epicureans used for logic κανονική, in contrast with Aristotle and his successors, who used λογική. The Latin rationalis is a translation of the latter.
- ↑ Led by Aristippus of Cyrene. As the Cynics developed into the Stoics, so the Cyrenaics developed into the Epicureans.
- ↑ Frag. 357 von Arnim.
385
