Episode 311 - Is Pain The Only Reason We Should Be Concerned About Any Aspect Of Death And Dying?

Welcome to Episode 311 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 in the absence of Joshua and Kalosyni we will make a brief review of Dr. Emily Austin's "Epicurus and The Politics Of The Fear of Death," which we have discussed in a recent thread thanks to Pacatus bringing the article to our attention.

Next week we will be back with more Tusculan Disputations, but this week we'll set the stage for more discussion of this very good article.

Episode 311 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. This week our episode is entitled: "Is Pain The Only Reason To Be Concerned About Any Aspect Of Death And Dying?"

In the absence of Joshua and Kalosyni this week, this episode is my brief review of Dr. Emily Austin's "Epicurus and The Politics Of The Fear of Death," which we have discussed in a recent thread thanks to Pacatus bringing the article to our attention.

Yep, it's a Herculean task to communicate all the subtleties. i'm fairly comfortable with "happy" in the sense of the Declaration of Independence referring to the "pursuit of happiness" as if that word somehow embodies all the attributes of the best life. But you're right that the way it's interpreted today is much more fleeting.

I do think that a large part of the problem is that it probably also implies more than any single feeling, even "subjective well being." When I see how the translators are using that word to express what you're talking about in terms of blessedness, I don't know that any word or term that focuses primarily on any sort of limited experiences is good enough. I'm thinking more in terms of that Sedley article which compares Cyreniac to Epicurean happiness and talks about how the Epicurean view was more of a total evaluation than a temporary feeling. It also implies something that we'd likely consider to be "objective" in the sense that we can all understand and communicate that this is fundamentally the #1 goal of life. Calling it "subjective" is certainly true in a sense, but it probably implies in English that we are very narrowly saying that we ourselves completely define what it is. Yes we do in a way, but the 'feeling of pleasure' that plays such a large role is given to all of us by nature, and there are "limits and boundaries" within which it operates. If there weren't, we'd never even be able to explain to each other what pleasure means.

In the end maybe I'd equate this to Torquatus saying that Epicurus held "pleasure" to be the highest good. We're talking about an evaluation of a full life, and I suppose that's necessarily an abstraction.

Unless and until we can communicate the seriousness and importance of the ultimate goal, how can we hope to begin to connect with the seriousness that comes through in Lucretius' poem and Epicurus' own work.

I think your comment hits hard on one of the big tasks facing us. We speak English and we have to convey accurately in English what the pursuit of Epicurean philosophy -- and of life -- is all about.

And after responding to Don's very good comment I also want to repeat that I think one of the things Emily Austin points out is the importance of being able to articulate why don't want to die until "our time" arrives. Yes it's because we want "pleasure," but we have to convey he seriousness of what that means.

I'll cite again the understated line in the article I like so much:

Occupying an argumentative space in which one lacks reason to avoid easily and ethically avoidable deaths should, I think, be a last resort.

I think what we'e talking about is sort of the same thing in reverse. What we want to identify is an argumentative space in which we clearly identify the positive reasons why we want to live, for motives other than that we are "afraid" of dying. "Fear" is not the primary focus of Epicurean philosophy. it's demoralizing and terrible "optics" to talk as if that were so. i read Lucretius and the other Epicurean texts as upbeat and positive, not as depressed in any way.

We've been robbed of the experience of talking about these things in both a serious and upbeat way, and that's what we have to get back. I doubt there's any way to do that other than to re-establish our own pattern of communicating about these things over and over ourselves.

Whatever the name we give to it, the phrasing has to convey how we can be so even while dying from kidney disease, or even while "on the rack." That's the level of seriousness we're talking about, as Don is correctly saying, its not "giddiness" at all.

Quote from Don

It's clunky, but I much prefer something like "subjective well-being."

As per the thoughts I've already written, would Epicurus describe his condition on his last day as one of "subjective well-being?" In a way definitely yes, but we're not in a place in the world of 2025 where those two words are adequate, standing alone, to explain all of what needs to be said.

Just working on some other material today and came across this line in book five of Lucretius. I think the underlined part is something I would add to any list of quotations to support the view that life is desirable and that it is pleasure that makes it so:

Quote

Lucretius 5:170

Did our life lie in darkness and misery until the world's beginning dawned? Although anyone who has been born must wish to remain in life so long as the caresses of pleasure hold him there, if someone has really never tasted the passion for life and has never been an individual, what harm does it do him not to have been created? (L&S-THP)