Episode 287 - TD17 - The Fear of Pain Is Overrated, But Cicero and Epicurus Disagree As To Why.

Welcome to Episode 287 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 argument that all we should face pain "like a man," focusing most of his attention on soldiers and military analogies. This week, Cicero turns his attention to examples of wise men facing pain, and he begins to summarize his argument. We'll pick up with Section XXV.

We're still in the early editing phase of this week's edition, but I think I will go ahead and post this link to a topic that Joshua introduces fairly early in this episode. Joshua's topic is the story of John Brown, and especially statements made by Henry David Thoreau in reaction which indicate that Thoreau's perspective had parallels with the perspective of Cicero.

Many people here are probably not aware of the story of John Brown, and while Joshua was certainly aware of the story he wasn't aware of this 1940 movie, in which John Brown is portrayed very effectively by the actor Raymond Massey. It's not a deep philosophical movie so don't bother about it if you don't find it to your liking, but the character and story of John Brown do provide an effective dramatization of what's at stake in choosing the source of one's moral decisionmaking.

Episode 287 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. Today our episode is entitled: "The Fear of Pain Is Overrated, But Cicero and Epicurus Disagree As To Why."