ABSTRACT
This chapter starts by setting the ethical background from which Epicurus' ideas of self-knowledge originated. It argues that Epicurus' notion of self-knowledge stemmed from his conception of self-awareness through one's affections, which govern every animal, including humans, immediately from birth. The chapter presents all the fragments on the subject of self-reflective thinking from book XXV. The whole work of On Nature was a lecture course, which becomes clear not only from Epicurus' explicit statement at the end of book XXVIII. At the end of book XXV, Epicurus says that he has given an account of two manners of explanation, the pathologikos tropos and the aitiologikos tropos. The three copies of book XXV are all very lacunose. The readings of the papyri have been significantly improved by David Sedley and further refined by Simon Laursen. Laursen's work has been published in two volumes of Cronache Ercolanesi.
