Michel de Montaigne on pleasure

Those are very interesting quotes, Godfrey, thank you! He certainly is pretty far along the road of seeing pleasure very broadly, which I think is essential to interpreting Epicurus correctly. I just don't think he's on the right path however by trying to segment it into "lower" and "higher," and he ought to see that because he himself is talking about the consequences.

Montaigne is always one of those names that keeps popping up during the Enlightenment era, especially among the French Materialists. I've always wondered what some of his writings on pleasure and on Epicurus/Lucretius were.

I knew he quoted Lucretius quite frequently, and he even owned a copy that he annotated, though more importantly I wonder how influential he was in France's Philosophical History concerning Lucretius and Epicurus. Almost all signs point to Gassendi for "reviving" Epicurean Philosophy, though I've come across figures who came shortly after Gassendi who sought to bring back atomism into its original materialist origins. (Lamy & La Mettrie for example)

I'm still convinced of the rich history of French Materialism and its result in the complete revival of Epicurean Philosophy.

Quote from Charles

I'm still convinced of the rich history of French Materialism and its result in the complete revival of Epicurean Philosophy.

Unless there are British writers we just don't seem to know about, the French experience - though far from totally faithful to Epicurus - seems much more faithful than the British.

Quote from Cassius

Unless there are British writers we just don't seem to know about, the French experience - though far from totally faithful to Epicurus - seems much more faithful than the British.

The British were very keen on writing about Epicurus in the mid 17th century, though it was mostly about physics and chemistry with a focus on atoms. There was a woman who translated Lucretius into English but I think she was extremely hostile to begin with.

I haven't read much of Montaigne but I'm intrigued by what I've read about him. I sent looking for the essay when Godfrey mentioned that the remainder of it was "a meditation on death". Wikisource has all of his essays and I went looking for Book I.XIX. That to study philosophy is to learn to die.

I found all the Lucretius references interesting and the section that begins:

Quote

Young and old die upon the same terms; no one departs out of life otherwise than if he had but just before entered into it; neither is any man so old and decrepit, who, having heard of Methuselah, does not think he has yet twenty good years to come. Fool that thou art! who has assured unto thee the term of life?

reminded me of De Rerum Natura III.1026-1052 that begins talking about Ancus the Good dying.

Thanks for the reminder about Montaigne. Color me intrigued.