Pagine inedite di Ettore Bignone sulla dottrina epicurea della ἡδονή

Inthis paper, some handwritten notes are transcribed and commented on, which the Italian classical scholar Ettore Bignone (1879-1953) included in his copy of Hermann Usener’s Epicurea (1887). The notes refer to the development of Epicurus’ doctrine of pleasure in its relation to – and polemic against – the Platonic analysis of the concept of ἡδονή as an entity in constant flux (γένεσις) and without ontological permanence (οὐσία). According to Bignone’s notes, Epicurus attempts to restore this permanence on a theoretical level by defining katastematic pleasure as the complete absence of pain and kinetic pleasure as a mere variation that can occur only after one has attained the former. The handwritten notes are not only relevant in terms of the history of scholarship, but also in part provide new material that is not contained in Bignone’s printed works.