Episode 280 - Wrapping Up Cicero's Arguments On Death

Welcome to Episode 280 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 we discuss this and all of our podcast episodes.

This week we continue our series covering Cicero's "Tusculan Disputations" from an Epicurean viewpoint. This series addresses five of the greatest questions in philosophy, with Cicero speaking for the majority and Epicurus the main opponent:

1. Is Death An Evil? (Cicero says no and Epicurus says no, but for very different reasons)
2. Is Pain An Evil? (Cicero says no, Epicurus says yes)
3. Does the Wise Man Experience Grief and Fear? (Cicero says no, Epicurus says yes)
4. Does the Wise Man Experience Joy and Desire? (Cicero says no, Epicurus says yes)
5. Is Virtue Sufficient For A Happy Life? (Cicero says yes, Epicurus says no)

As we found in Cicero's "On Ends" and "On The Nature of the Gods," Cicero treated Epicurean Philosophy as a major contender in the battle between the philosophies. In discussing this conflict and explaining Epicurus' answers to these questions, we will deepen our understanding of Epicurus and how he compares to the other major schools.

Today our plan is to wrap up the highlights of Cicero's remaining arguments on death in Part 1, starting with Section XLII.

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Our general discussion guide for Tusculun Disputations is here: https://epicureanfriends.github.io/tusculundisput…lish/section:12

And a side-by-side version with comments is here:

EpicureanFriends SideBySide Commentary on TD

This week we are going to try to get from Section 42 to the end of Part 1 at Section 49. That means we're going to go very quickly through Cicero's lengthy tails of the deaths of great men from the Roman and Greek past, and focus on any remaining philosophical arguments.

If you see anything in sections 42 to 49 that you'd like to be sure we cover, please be sure to add it to this thread.