Breathless Beasts and Stuffed Savages

This chapter takes the reader deep into the nineteenth-century afterlife of the Classical construction of nature, the wild, and the primitive and civilized, foundational to Victorian ideas of progress and to the nascent sciences that claimed the study of humanity as their own. It shows how the Natural History Courts of London’s Crystal Palace presented the marvels of ethnology and natural history, and how these displays were received in the context of nineteenth-century social evolutionist thought, which was itself built upon Classical foundations such as the account of primitive man in Lucretius’ De rerum natura. Against the Courts’ taxidermic dioramas of ‘savage life’, the ethnological casts displayed to the Victorian public prompted comparative questions about the evolutionary status of the non-European Other, while the ‘primitive’ nakedness of the casts created further parallels with the idealized nudity of Greek and Roman sculpture casts, engendering destabilizing dissonance with the connotations of civilization inscribed in the Classical ideal.

Machiavelli e la lezione di Lucrezio

Machiavelli’s knowledge of Lucretius’ text had been proven thanks to a very relevant discovery by Sergio Bertelli, who in 1961 published an article in which he recognized Machiavelli’s handwriting in the Vatican codex Rossianus 884. This paper analyses the possible repercussions of De rerum natura with respect to the political potential that Lucretius’ thought could had transmitted to Machiavelli, in view of his return to the vita activa. In particular, the notes posted by Machiavelli in the marginalia of the Lucretius’ text he transcribed, prove his reflection on the “clinamen theory”. In the various profiles of the world generated by the vital trigger that the clinamen causes, lies a possibility for us of having a libera mens: the possibility of intercepting and correcting, by our own virtue, the twists and turns of Fate, opposes the individual liberty to the whims of Fortuna, but also to the idea of an ineffable Divine Providence with its mysterious and intractable designs.

Reception of "De Rerum Natura" in the Poetry of Madame Deshoulières

This paper explores Antoinette Du Ligier de la Garde Deshoulières’ philosophical poetry in context. The presentation of Epicureanism in various works, including Imitation de Lucrèce, her maximes, and idylls is analysed, considering both format and content choices and focusing on the ways in which both were used subversively. Her reception of Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura, as well as her social and political context inform this analysis. The challenges and limitations of producing work from the interstices of several conflicting identities are included to posit her case as an example of why women are under-represented in the history of philosophy.

Qui capite ipse sua in statuit uestigia sese. Lucrezio e lo scetticismo nel libro IV del De rerum natura

In his refutation of skepticism in book IV of De rerum natura (469–521), Lucretius uses argumentative methods typical of Epicurus: the περιτροπή is in many ways similar to that used by the philosopher in book XXV of Περὶ φύσεως, the same book where, in a passage dedicated to the criticism against determinists, can be found a reference to the criterion of the πρόληψις, that Lucretius exploits in his refutation. Moreover, Lucretius develops a strong demonstration concerning the irrefutability of αἴσθησις as a criterion of truth, which finds significant points of contact with a large fragment, transmitted by Diogenes Laertius (X 31–32) and generally traced back to the Canon of Epicurus. The last argument used by the poet is a pragmatic one: for the skeptic it would be impossible to live. The argument is similar to the praxis-based argument used by Epicurus in the Περὶ φύσεως against the partisans of determinism. But the pragmatic argument goes back to a very ancient layer of anti-skeptical polemics, even prior to Epicurus and already present in book Γ of Aristotle’s Metaphysics. Although later influences cannot be excluded, Lucretius appears to be a faithful witness of Epicurus. Probably in a lost section of the Περὶ φύσεως, the philosopher of Samos showed positions going against skeptical or proto-skeptical attitude, contemporary or earlier to the time of the philosopher, probably developed in a Democritean or a Socratic context. Epicurus’ ad hominem strategy is very close to that of the philosopher in the Principal Doctrines XXIII–XXV, and certainly follows Aristotle’ strategy in book Γ of Metaphysics against those who deny the principle of non-contradiction. In a similar way, Epicurus does not have one figure as the objective of his refutation but constructs a hypothetical dialectical opponent capable of embodying a series of philosophical tendencies judged by the founder of Kepos to be extremely dangerous not only for the correct exercise of thought but for the human being’s life itself.