Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of GraphSearch.
Concept
De rerum natura
Summary
De rerum natura (deː ˈreːrʊn naːˈtuːraː; On the Nature of Things) is a first-century BC didactic poem by the Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius (99 BC-55 BC) with the goal of explaining Epicurean philosophy to a Roman audience. The poem, written in some 7,400 dactylic hexameters, is divided into six untitled books, and explores Epicurean physics through poetic language and metaphors. Namely, Lucretius explores the principles of atomism; the nature of the mind and soul; explanations of sensation and thought; the development of the world and its phenomena; and explains a variety of celestial and terrestrial phenomena. The universe described in the poem operates according to these physical principles, guided by fortuna ("chance"), and not the divine intervention of the traditional Roman deities.
To the Greek philosopher Epicurus, the unhappiness and degradation of humans arose largely from the dread which they had of the power of the deities and terror of their wrath. This wrath was supposed to be displayed by the misfortunes inflicted in this life and by the everlasting tortures that were the lot of the guilty in a future state or, where these feelings were not strongly developed, from a vague dread of gloom and misery after death. Epicurus thus made it his mission to remove these fears and thus establish tranquility in the minds of his readers. To do this, Epicurus invoked the atomism of Democritus to demonstrate that the material universe was formed not by a Supreme Being but by the mixing of elemental particles which had existed from all eternity, governed by certain simple laws. He argued that the deities (whose existence he did not deny) lived forever in the enjoyment of absolute peacestrangers to all the passions, desires and fears, which affect humansand are totally indifferent to the world and its inhabitants, unmoved alike by their virtues and their crimes. This meant that humans had nothing to fear from them.
Lucretius's task was clearly to state and fully develop these views in an attractive form.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.
Related publications (1)
Related concepts (16)
Lucretius
Titus Lucretius Carus (ˈtaɪtəs_luːˈkriːʃəs , ˈtɪtʊz lʊˈkreːti.ʊs ˈkaːrʊs; 99 – 55 BC) was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is the philosophical poem De rerum natura, a didactic work about the tenets and philosophy of Epicureanism, and which usually is translated into English as On the Nature of Things—and somewhat less often as On the Nature of the Universe. Lucretius has been credited with originating the concept of the three-age system that was formalised in 1836 by C. J. Thomsen.
Atomism
Atomism (from Greek ἄτομον, atomon, i.e. "uncuttable, indivisible") is a natural philosophy proposing that the physical universe is composed of fundamental indivisible components known as atoms. References to the concept of atomism and its atoms appeared in both ancient Greek and ancient Indian philosophical traditions. Leucippus is the earliest figure whose commitment to atomism is well attested and he is usually credited with inventing atomism. He and other ancient Greek atomists theorized that nature consists of two fundamental principles: atom and void.
Georgics
The Georgics (ˈdʒɔrdʒɪks ; Georgica ɡeˈoːrɡɪka) is a poem by Latin poet Virgil, likely published in 29 BCE. As the name suggests (from the Greek word γεωργικά, geōrgiká, i.e. "agricultural (things)") the subject of the poem is agriculture; but far from being an example of peaceful rural poetry, it is a work characterized by tensions in both theme and purpose. The Georgics is considered Virgil's second major work, following his Eclogues and preceding the Aeneid.