Welcome to Episode 318 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.
We are closing in on the end of those portions of Tusculan Disputations that are most relevant to Epicurean philosophy today, so we'll pick up this week with Section 34 of Part 5.
Cicero spends the next several sections trying to chip away at pleasure being the goal of life by discussing how luxury, honor, and riches are not required for happiness. He does so generically without direct mention of Epicurus, but we'll discuss his examples and how his argument actually proves Epicurus' point that pleasure is the goal: those who overindulge obtain do not in sum obtain pleasure, but in fact more pain than pleasure.