April 8, 2024 • 60 mins
Welcome to Episode 222 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who wrote "On The Nature of Things," the most complete presentation of Epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world. Each week we walk you through the Epicurean texts, and we discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. If you find the Epicurean worldview attractive, we invite you to join us in the study of Epicurus at EpicureanFriends.com, where you will find a discussion thread for each of our podcast episodes and many other topics.
This week we will pause in our reading of Book Two of Cicero's On Ends to take stock of recent conversations, as Joshua is away this week and we have with us our friend Don from the EpicureanFriends.com forum. Don has spent a lot of time looking into the various Roman and Greek words used by the ancients to discuss happiness and pleasure, and we will try to bring that to bear on the logical sparring such as the one we focused on last week, raised by Cicero at the beginning of Section XXXII. Here's the way Cicero put it:
XXXII. But to return to our theme (for we were speaking about pain when we drifted into the consideration of this letter) we may now thus sum up the whole matter: he who is subject to the greatest possible evil is not happy so long as he remains subject to it, whereas the wise man always is happy, though he is at times subject to pain; pain therefore is not the greatest possible evil.
...
Cicero continues:
But when you maintain that the mental pleasures and pains are more intense than those of the body, because the mind is associated with time of three kinds, while the body has only consciousness of what is present, how can you accept the result that one who feels some joy on my account feels more joy than I do myself? But in your anxiety to prove the wise man happy, because the pleasures he experiences in his mind are the greatest, and incomparably greater than those he experiences in his body, you are blind to the difficulty that meets you. For the mental pains he experiences will also be incomparably greater than those of the body. So the very man whom you are anxious to represent as constantly happy must needs be sometimes wretched; nor indeed will you ever prove your point, while you continue to connect everything with pleasure and pain.
So what we are going to do today is drop back and see if we can do what Torquatus is not allowed to do by Cicero - to "prove our point" that Epicurus' positions on the basics of happiness, pleasure, and pain make much more sense than those advocated by Cicero and the non-Epicurean schools of the classical world.
Some of the questions we will talk about today include:
Did Epicurus hold that Pain is properly thought of as the ultimate or Chief Evil, and how do we make sense of that statement? Is there a particular type of Pain that is the Chief Evil? Did Epicurus hold that the Happy Man can still be Happy while experiencing tremendous pain while at same time holding that pain can be the chief evil? If so, how do we make sense of that? Is it Happiness which is being described by Torquatus when he said earlier that the wise man always has more reason for joy than for vexation? ([62] XIX. But these doctrines may be stated in a certain manner so as not merely to disarm our criticism, but actually to secure our sanction. For this is the way in which Epicurus represents the wise man as continually happy; he keeps his passions within bounds; about death he is indifferent; he holds true views concerning the eternal gods apart from all dread; he has no hesitation in crossing the boundary of life, if that be the better course. Furnished with these advantages he is continually in a state of pleasure, and there is in truth no moment at which he does not experience more pleasures than pains. For he remembers the past with thankfulness, and the present is so much his own that he is aware of its importance and its agreeableness, nor is he in dependence on the future, but awaits it while enjoying the present; he is also very far removed from those defects of character which I quoted a little time ago, and when he compares the fool’s life with his own, he feels great pleasure. And pains, if any befall him, have never power enough to prevent the wise man from finding more reasons for joy than for vexation.) Can we look to Epicurus on his last day as an example that is equivalent to the wise man being tortured, and are they both to be considered Happy? If so, why? If we have time, we will probably incorporate into the discussion a number of the other excerpts we have been reading recently, including:
Diogenes of Oinoanda Fr. 32 … [the latter] being as malicious as the former. I shall discuss folly shortly, the virtues and pleasure now. If, gentlemen, the point at issue between these people and us involved inquiry into «what is the means of happiness?» and t
This week we will pause in our reading of Book Two of Cicero's On Ends to take stock of recent conversations, as Joshua is away this week and we have with us our friend Don from the EpicureanFriends.com forum. Don has spent a lot of time looking into the various Roman and Greek words used by the ancients to discuss happiness and pleasure, and we will try to bring that to bear on the logical sparring such as the one we focused on last week, raised by Cicero at the beginning of Section XXXII. Here's the way Cicero put it:
XXXII. But to return to our theme (for we were speaking about pain when we drifted into the consideration of this letter) we may now thus sum up the whole matter: he who is subject to the greatest possible evil is not happy so long as he remains subject to it, whereas the wise man always is happy, though he is at times subject to pain; pain therefore is not the greatest possible evil.
...
Cicero continues:
But when you maintain that the mental pleasures and pains are more intense than those of the body, because the mind is associated with time of three kinds, while the body has only consciousness of what is present, how can you accept the result that one who feels some joy on my account feels more joy than I do myself? But in your anxiety to prove the wise man happy, because the pleasures he experiences in his mind are the greatest, and incomparably greater than those he experiences in his body, you are blind to the difficulty that meets you. For the mental pains he experiences will also be incomparably greater than those of the body. So the very man whom you are anxious to represent as constantly happy must needs be sometimes wretched; nor indeed will you ever prove your point, while you continue to connect everything with pleasure and pain.
So what we are going to do today is drop back and see if we can do what Torquatus is not allowed to do by Cicero - to "prove our point" that Epicurus' positions on the basics of happiness, pleasure, and pain make much more sense than those advocated by Cicero and the non-Epicurean schools of the classical world.
Some of the questions we will talk about today include:
Did Epicurus hold that Pain is properly thought of as the ultimate or Chief Evil, and how do we make sense of that statement? Is there a particular type of Pain that is the Chief Evil? Did Epicurus hold that the Happy Man can still be Happy while experiencing tremendous pain while at same time holding that pain can be the chief evil? If so, how do we make sense of that? Is it Happiness which is being described by Torquatus when he said earlier that the wise man always has more reason for joy than for vexation? ([62] XIX. But these doctrines may be stated in a certain manner so as not merely to disarm our criticism, but actually to secure our sanction. For this is the way in which Epicurus represents the wise man as continually happy; he keeps his passions within bounds; about death he is indifferent; he holds true views concerning the eternal gods apart from all dread; he has no hesitation in crossing the boundary of life, if that be the better course. Furnished with these advantages he is continually in a state of pleasure, and there is in truth no moment at which he does not experience more pleasures than pains. For he remembers the past with thankfulness, and the present is so much his own that he is aware of its importance and its agreeableness, nor is he in dependence on the future, but awaits it while enjoying the present; he is also very far removed from those defects of character which I quoted a little time ago, and when he compares the fool’s life with his own, he feels great pleasure. And pains, if any befall him, have never power enough to prevent the wise man from finding more reasons for joy than for vexation.) Can we look to Epicurus on his last day as an example that is equivalent to the wise man being tortured, and are they both to be considered Happy? If so, why? If we have time, we will probably incorporate into the discussion a number of the other excerpts we have been reading recently, including:
Diogenes of Oinoanda Fr. 32 … [the latter] being as malicious as the former. I shall discuss folly shortly, the virtues and pleasure now. If, gentlemen, the point at issue between these people and us involved inquiry into «what is the means of happiness?» and t
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