Episode 286 - Confronting Pain With Reason Rather Than With "Virtue"

Welcome to Episode 286 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.

Today we close in on the ending of Part 2 - "Is Pain An Evil?." Last week we focused on Cicero's criticisms of Epicurus' PD04, and Cicero's argument that all we need to do to overcome pain is to approach it "like a man."

This week, Cicero says that the call to virtuous conduct and overcoming of pain come from reason itself, which is the master of the soul. We'll be picking up with Section XX.

Episode 28 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. Today our episode is entitled: "Confronting Pain WIth Reason Rather Than With 'Virtue.'"