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.
This week we continue our series covering Cicero's "Tusculan Disputations" from an Epicurean viewpoint. This series addresses five of the greatest questions in human life (Death, Pain, Grief/Fear, Joy/Desire, and Virtue) with Cicero speaking for the majority and Epicurus the main opponent:
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.
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Cassius June 20, 2025 at 4:21 PM
Episode 286 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. Today our episode is entitled: "Confronting Pain With Reason Rather Than With 'Virtue.'"
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Thanks for the helpful discussion in this podcast on managing pain. In II-XXI.
The whole, then, consists in this, that you should have command over yourself. I have already told you what kind of command this is; and by considering what is most consistent with patience, fortitude, and greatness of soul, a man not only restrains himself, but somehow or other mitigates even pain itself.
These admonitions from Cicero reminds me of the quote from “Lawrence of Arabia”.
"The trick is not minding that it hurts...”
But this was more a display of stoic behavior.
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