Welcome to Episode Nine-Four, a special episode of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who lived in the age of Julius Caesar and wrote "On The Nature of Things," the only complete presentation of Epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world.
I am your host Cassius, and together with our panelists from the EpicureanFriends.com forum, we'll walk you through the six books of Lucretius' poem, and discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. Be aware that none of us are professional philosophers, and everyone here is a a self-taught Epicurean. We encourage you to study Epicurus for yourself, and we suggest the best place to start is the book, "Epicurus and His Philosophy" by Canadian professor Norman DeWitt.
Before we start with today's episode let me remind you of our three ground rules.
First: Our aim is to bring you an accurate presentation of classical Epicurean philosophy as the ancient Epicureans understood it, which is not necessarily the same as modern commentators interpret it.
Second: We won't be talking about modern political issues in this podcast. We call this approach "Not Neo-Epicurean, But Epicurean." Epicurean philosophy is a philosophy of its own, it's not Stoicism, Humanism, Buddhism, Taoism, Atheism, or Marxism - it is unique and must be understood on its own, not in terms of any conventional modern morality.
Third: We will be talking about many details of Epicurean physics, but we'll always relate them to how they translate into the Epicurean conclusions about how best to live. Lucretius will show that Epicurus was not focused on luxury, like some people say, but neither did he teach minimalism, as other people say. Epicurus taught that feeling - pleasure and pain - are the guides that Nature gave us to live by, not gods, idealism, or virtue ethics. More than anything else, Epicurus taught that the universe is not supernatural in any way, and that means there's no life after death, and any happiness we'll ever have comes in THIS life, which is why it is so important not to waste time in confusion.
Remember that our home page is LucretiusToday.com, and there you can find a free copy of the version of the poem from which we are reading, and links to where you can discuss the poem between episodes at Epicureanfriends.com.
In this episode we will conclude our analysis of the poem as a whole and its significance.
We will start with a recap of: Notable Quotations and the Reception of Lucretius
Then after we cover its significance in general, we will do a brief recap of the topics covered in each of the six books and discuss how those relate to the overall goal of the poem:
1 - Bailey Outline Bailey - Short Analysis of the Poem.pdf
2 - Brown Outline Brown Outline From 1743 Edition.pdf
3 - Smith Outline MFS Outline From Hackett Edition.pdf