Nausiphanes (Greek: Ναυσιφάνης; lived c. 325 BC), a native of Teos, was attached to the philosophy of Democritus, and was a pupil of Pyrrho. He had a large number of pupils, and was particularly famous as a rhetorician. Epicurus was at one time one of his hearers, but was unsatisfied with him, and apparently abused him in his writings. He also argued that the study of natural philosophy (physics) was the best foundation for studying rhetoric or politics. There is a polemic in Philodemus' On Rhetoric against Nausiphanes' view that the natural philosopher is the best orator. Epicurus may also have derived his three criteria of truth in his Canon from the Tripod of Nausiphanes.
- Diogenes Laertius, ix.
- Sextus Empiricus, adv. Math. i. 1.
- Diogenes Laertius, x.
- Cicero, de Natura Deorum, i. 26, 33.
- Sedley, David N. "Nausiphanes." In Hornblower, Simon and Antony Spawforth, eds. The Oxford Classical Dictionary. New York: OUP, 2003. p. 1029
- Warren, J., Epicurus and Democritean Ethics: An Archaeology of Ataraxia. Cambridge University Press. (2002).
- Hans von Arnim, Leben und Werke des Dio von Prusa, pp. 43–63