Epicurus’ Prolepsis Reconsidered

As we all know, the term "prolepsis" originated from Epicurus, and it plays an important role in Epicurean Epistemology. But for a long time, there are so many different interpretation about Epicurus’prolepsis. Therefore, it is very necessary to give a comprehensive and systematic explanation of it.The structure of this paper is divided into two parts. First of all, taking into account the fact that Epicurus rejected dialect and definition, and prolepsis as a response to Meno’s paradox of Plato, it is followed that there are two conditions prolepsis should meet, that is, the requirement of prescription and self-evidence. The requirement of prescription is that a prolepsis must make some prescription on the object of our study, while the requirement of self-evidence means that a prolepsis itself must be self-evident. To prove the point, then we look into Epicurus’ context and sum up all the appearances and Epicurus’usage of "prolepsis". We also explain that prolepsis is generally associated with our words and speeches. Behind every kind of words/speeches, there is a class of prolepsis. According to the different object of prolepsis, prolepsis can be divided into those of concrete object and those of abstract object, moreover, the prolepsis of concrete object consist of three kinds:individual object, collective object and phantom, the prolepsis of abstract object include "Justice","God" and so on. Accordingly, we analyze different kinds of words and speeches. On one hand, this paper illuminates the prescription of corresponding prolepsis and its epistemological function, on the other hand, it explains the self-evidence of prolepsis and its origin. Finally, we can conclude that the term "prolepsis" contains three levels, including perceptual intuition, intuitive synthesis and general notion. Through our illumination of the prolepsis of "God", we find that Epicurean Epistemology and Epicurus’Theology are united as a whole.