Episode 288 - Tusculan Disputations Part 3 - "Will The Wise Man Feel Grief?" Not Yet Recorded

Welcome to Episode 288 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 begin in Part 3, which addresses Grief or pain of mind. In this section Cicero begins pretty much on topic, so we'll pick up with Section I.

This section contains an extended treatment of Epicurean views, especially the following:, in which we will have to be cautious, as Cicero himself seems to say that he is stating them differently than would the Epicureans:

Quote from Part 3 Section XV

But I shall speak more particularly on these matters after I have first considered Epicurus's opinion, who thinks that all people must necessarily be uneasy who believe themselves to be in any evils, let them be either foreseen and expected, or habitual to them; for, with him, evils are not the less by reason of their continuance, nor the lighter for having been foreseen; and it is folly to ruminate on evils to come, or such as, perhaps, never may come; every evil is disagreeable enough when it does come; but he who is constantly considering that some evil may befal him, is loading himself with a perpetual evil, and even should such evil never light on him, he voluntarily takes upon himself unnecessary misery, so that he is under constant uneasiness, whether he actually suffers any evil, or only thinks of it. But he makes the alleviation of grief depend on two things, a ceasing to think on evil, and a turning to the contemplation of pleasure. For he thinks that the mind may possibly be under the power of reason, and follow her directions; he forbids us, therefore, to mind trouble, and calls us off from sorrowful reflections: he throws a mist over our eyes to hinder us from the contemplation of misery. Having sounded a retreat from this statement, he drives our thoughts on again, and encourages them to view and engage the whole mind in the various pleasures with which he thinks the life of a wise man abounds, either from reflecting on the past, or from the hope of what is to come. I have said these things in my own way, the Epicureans have theirs: however, let us examine what they say; how they say it is of little consequence.

Yes my first reaction to this is that it is an intentionally unflattering but grounded-in-truth description of such as what Epicurus was doing in his last days. He was mentally weighing total pleasures against total pains and considering that he was happy because the net pleasures predominated over the net pains -- at least up to that point in his life when he decided that this was going to be his "last day."

I can't help but think also that this approach has to be seen realistically as mental and conceptual rather than "clinical." In most normal cases you will be successful in getting past difficult circumstances. However when on the executioner's rack or when in extreme pain from terminal disease, the total sum of pains is going to eventually eclipse the total sum of pleasures. That has to be factored into the decision as to how longto continue to try to live on (were you to choose to endure every-growing pain with no hope of improvement). When the calculus becomes clear that it is about to turn net negative, that is the point is where you choose to exit the stage, as Epicurus himself apparently did.

There's no way that the mind can perceptually maintain a feeling of net pleasure under increasing extreme unrelenting and insolvable pain,. That's where I would say the ultimate limiting factor on pain has to be brought to bear.

And this is why too i expect the Epicureans saw it essential to be clear to people that the "pleasure" they identified was much broader than stimulative pleasure. And further that the "happiness" they identified as their goal did not involve the total absence of all pain from every moment of life and the need to expect that eventually in the case of everyone that calculation is going to turn negative.

I would be very concerned that people would rightly think that they were being defrauded if these points were not made clear. I therefore feel sure that the ancient Epicureans were clear as to the true meaning of pleasure and happiness, and that Cicero's claim of ignorance or misunderstanding was insincere. He knew better, but he chose to give the crowd the unrealistic view of Epicurus that they "wanted" to hear so that he could ridicule it and point out that - as they wanted to understand it - Epicurean philosophy is unworkable.

Today, when people are told that the goal of Epicurean philosophy is "absence of pain," it's going to be even more important to be clear. Most people have no reference point at all to understand these subtleties, and so they will eventually give up on Epicurus due to their unrealistic expectations unless those are corrected promptly.