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On the Ends of Goods and Evils

Cicero · H. Rackham

Translated by H. Harris Rackham, 1914. Five books examining the ethical systems of the Epicureans, the Stoics, and the Old Academy on the highest good — the end to which all life is directed. Epicurus (341 BC–270 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher as well as the founder of the school of philosophy called Epicureanism. Only a few fragments and letters of Epicurus’s 300 written works remain. Much of what is known about Epicurean philosophy derives from later followers and commentators. The first two books of this treatise discuss the teachings Epicurus in detail. The de finibus Bonorum et Malorum is a treatise on the theory of Ethics. It expounds and criticizes the three ethical systems most prominent in Cicero’s day, the Epicurean, the Stoic and that of the Academy under Antiochus. The most elaborate of Cicero’s philosophical writings, it has had fewer readers than his less technical …

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