Der Garten und die Moderne

The return of the classical philosophers«: with this formula Eugenio Garin described a special feature of our Modern Age. He pointed out, however, that this was not only about philologically restoring classical sources but about a fundamental reshaping of an intellectual possession that was again made available. Among all the traditions of classical antiquity, it certainly was the Epicurean tradition which had the most radical character compared to the widely known traditions of Platonism and Aristotelianism. None the less, there is no complete or satisfying picture of the great philosophical and cultural phenomenon of modern Epicureanism today. It is also peculiar that the historians‹ attention has been extremely selective in this case: among the three great partitions (logic, physics and ethics), physics has largely dominated the scene. The fields of law and politics and their connection to anthropology (especially regarding the concepts of the historic development of mankind and of religion) have much less been taken into account. The essays in this book deal with different aspects of the question whether Epicureanism has played an important role for the foundation of the legal, political and moral culture of the Modern Age. They make clear that the influence of Epicureanism has been much more penetrating than one could have assumed. They also show that Epicureanism directly concerned politics, moral, law and practical experience in general, in which it produced new elaborations that were relevant to the Modern Age.