Klavan's "Gateway To Epicureanism" (Note: The Title Is Part Of A "Gateway" Series - The Author Is Strongly Anti-Epicurean)

Hmmm that is interesting. Never heard of that and see that it is new... From Regnery the "conservative" publisher who also published Josh Hawleys book attacking Epicurus. And I am not familiar with Spencer Klavan either....

Was the book mostly positive about Epicurus? That introductory tagline might lead someone to think otherwise.

Gateway to the Epicureans - Epicurus, Lucretius, and Their Modern Heirs - Regnery Publishing

Two and half centuries ago, John Adams complained, “Our modern philosophers are all the low grovelling disciples of Epicurus.” That’s even truer today....

www.regnery.com

I see this about that book at Barnes and Noble (underline added)

In this convenient volume, the classicist Spencer A. Klavan presents core selections from Epicurus’ own writings and those of his most famous ancient disciple, the poet Lucretius. Listen in as the teacher outlines for his students how his system of physics, logic, and ethics works. Read the elegant presentations of these Epicurean ideas aimed at the Roman upper crust. And consider with Klavan how this philosophy has gripped the modern mind, why it is falling apart, and why it leaves confusion in its wake

This is very timely so thank you again for the book reference. I am working on two articles now and I am going to at least briefly review this so I can address some of what apparently appears here.

I see that Klavan appeared on a podcast last year discussing this and I am about to set that up for listening.

Thanks again Brandon. I just finished listening to the podcast linked below in which Klavan was interviewed about this book. Worth mentioning first is that Klavan thinks that Epicureanism is something he would like to "demolish" and "eradicate." (Most of his own opinion appears around the 43 minute mark. I also recall him referring to it as garbage but that much be in another section,)

Now having said that, I want to at least recommend this podcast interview as well worth people here taking the time to hear. There is a lot of juvenile fluff in the hour-long interview, but it's not Klavan's fault. The "Thinkery" podcasters sound almost as interested in joking around as being serious. After a few minutes it settles down to being reasonably on-topic.

Klavan himself comes from a "faith" background (apparently father Jewish and mother some form of Christian) and he is or was associated with "conservative" institutions such as the Claremont Institute. The interview cites Leo Strauss and others I am familiar with, so I think it's fair to describe him as coming from a "classical liberal" perspective which is not primarily Stoic or a particular religion but from a broad-based pseudo-Platonic intelligent design perspective.

The interview spends considerable time with Epicurean physics, and here I strongly agree with Klavan's approach: The Epicurean view of the nature of the universe and "physics" is the basis on which everything else, including ethics, is built.

If you think that modern science / math / geometry have disproven the core conclusions of Epicurean physics simply because what we can "atoms" are divisible, then you are going to reach Klavan's conclusion: Epicureanism is garbage and should be eradicate for all the damage that it does.

Klavan is obviously very smart and well-read and he probably knows the standard view of Epicurus (which most of us here reject) better than most of our participants here. He even cited some Lucretian arguments (regarding the issue of whether sharp or smooth atoms cause bitter or sweet tastes) to explain part of Epicurus' sophisticated reasoning in defense of the senses. These are issues that he thinks are conclusive against Epicurus that we only rarely discuss here.

That's why I recommend anyone here who has the time to at least listen to the interview, if not the book itself. I still need to get my hands on that and see if there are excerpts worth reading.

But again if you can get past the fluff (as I did because I was driving) then Klavan himself knows what issues are important and how to cut to the chase on them. I think his core conclusions and evaluations of Epicurus are across-the-board wrong, but that's not to say that there's not a lot to learn from his commentary, just like we learn from Cicero and Plutarch.

As I understand what Brandenoz has written, the book itself does make an effort to cover at least some of Epicureanism in a balanced fashion, and apparently Brandenoz didn't come away from his contact with the book totally turned off to Epicureanism. That's one of the ways the "We are all Epicureans now" argument (made by John Adams as well) can lull people into complacency and misunderstanding (not referring to Brandenoz) . Probably there are a lot of people who are going to read this book and think that Klavan sounds fair and that his assessment of Epicurean philosophy should be believed.

That's a hazard of reading a book from someone who thinks that Epicurean philosophy is "garbage" and should be "demolished" and "eradicated." It's a shame he thinks that way, but this book and podcast give us an excellent opportunity to improve our own game in defending Epicurean philosophy.

Note - In searching my records I see that Bryan brought this book to my attention last year, but I failed to follow up and investigate further. So it's long past time to remedy that.

It looks like its primarily a compilation of Epicurean core texts and related texts. (It looks like the editor had a similar intention in mind as did I with The Hedonicon). Klavan also includes a few interesting selections of Newton, Hume, Adams, Jefferson, and Maxwell.