Welcome to Episode 293 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.
Today we continue in Part 3, which addresses anger, pity, envy, and other strong emotions. Today we'll continue into Section XVI, where we compare Epicurus' views on dealing with grief to those of other schools.
For reference, here are the sections where Cicero really attacks Epicurus and we're attempting to marshal the best responses. We have much more to pull out of seventeen before we turn to eighteen:
III-XVII.¶
Should Pythagoras, Socrates, or Plato, say to me, Why are you dejected, or sad? Why do you faint, and yield to fortune, which, perhaps, may have power to harass and disturb you, but should not quite unman you? There is great power in the virtues; rouse them if they chance to droop. Take fortitude for your guide, which will give you such spirits, that you will despise everything that can befal man, and look on it as a trifle. Add to this temperance, which is moderation, and which was just now called frugality, which will not suffer you to do anything base or bad—for what is worse or baser than an effeminate man? Not even justice will suffer you to act in this manner, though she seems to have the least weight in this affair; but still, notwithstanding, even she will inform you that you are doubly unjust when you both require what does not belong to you, inasmuch as though you who have been born mortal, demand to be placed in the condition of the immortals, and at the same time you take it much to heart that you are to restore what was lent you. What answer will you make to prudence, who informs you that she is a virtue sufficient of herself both to teach you a good life, and also to secure you a happy one? And, indeed, if she were fettered by external circumstances, and dependent on others, and if she did not originate in herself and return to herself, and also embrace everything in herself, so as to seek no adventitious aid from any quarter, I cannot imagine why she should appear deserving of such lofty panegyrics, or of being sought after with such excessive eagerness. Now, Epicurus, if you call me back to such goods as these, I will obey you, and follow you, and use you as my guide, and even forget, as you order me, all my misfortunes; and I will do this the more readily from a persuasion that they are not to be ranked amongst evils at all. But you are for bringing my thoughts over to pleasure. What pleasures? pleasures of the body, I imagine, or such as are recollected or imagined on account of the body. Is this all? Do I explain your opinion rightly? for your disciples are used to deny that we understand at all what Epicurus means. This is what he says, and what that subtle fellow, old Zeno, who is one of the sharpest of them, used, when I was attending lectures at Athens, to enforce and talk so loudly of; saying that he alone was happy who could enjoy present pleasure, and who was at the same time persuaded that he should enjoy it without pain, either during the whole or the greatest part of his life; or if, should any pain interfere, if it was very sharp, then it must be short; should it be of longer continuance, it would have more of what was sweet than bitter in it; that whosoever reflected on these things would be happy, especially if satisfied with the good things which he had already enjoyed, and if he were without fear of death, or of the Gods.
III-XVIII.¶
You have here a representation of a happy life according to Epicurus, in the words of Zeno, so that there is no room for contradiction in any point. What then? Can the proposing and thinking of such a life make Thyestes grief the less, or Æetes's, of whom I spoke above, or Telamon's, who was driven from his country to penury and banishment? in wonder at whom men exclaimed thus:—
Is this the man surpassing glory raised?
Is this that Telamon so highly praised
By wondering Greece, at whose sight, like the sun,
All others with diminish'd lustre shone?
Now, should any one, as the same author says, find his spirits sink with the loss of his fortune, he must apply to those grave philosophers of antiquity for relief, and not to these voluptuaries: for what great abundance of good do they promise? Suppose that we allow that to be without pain is the chief good? yet that is not called pleasure. But it is not necessary at present to go through the whole: the question is, to what point are we to advance in order to abate our grief? Grant that to be in pain is the greatest evil; whosoever, then, has proceeded so far as not to be in pain, is he, therefore, in immediate possession of the greatest good? Why, Epicurus, do we use any evasions, and not allow in our own words the same feeling to be pleasure, which you are used to boast of with such assurance? Are these your words or not? This is what you say in that book which contains all the doctrine of your school; for I will perform, on this occasion, the office of a translator, lest any one should imagine that I am inventing anything. Thus you speak: “Nor can I form any notion of the chief good, abstracted from those pleasures which are perceived by taste, or from what depends on hearing music, or abstracted from ideas raised by external objects visible to the eye, or by agreeable motions, or from those other pleasures which are perceived by the whole man by means of any of his senses; nor can it possibly be said that the pleasures of the mind are excited only by what is good; for I have perceived men's minds to be pleased with the hopes of enjoying those things which I mentioned above, and with the idea that it should enjoy them without any interruption from pain.” And these are his exact words, so that any one may understand what were the pleasures with which Epicurus was acquainted. Then he speaks thus, a little lower down: “I have often inquired of those who have been called wise men, what would be the remaining good if they should exclude from consideration all these pleasures, unless they meant to give us nothing but words? I could never learn anything from them; and unless they choose that all virtue and wisdom should vanish and come to nothing, they must say with me, that the only road to happiness lies through those pleasures which I mentioned above.” What follows is much the same, and his whole book on the chief good everywhere abounds with the same opinions. Will you, then, invite Telamon to this kind of life to ease his grief? and should you observe any one of your friends under affliction, would you rather prescribe him a sturgeon than a treatise of Socrates? or advise him to listen to the music of a water-organ rather than to Plato? or lay before him the beauty and variety of some garden, put a nosegay to his nose, burn perfumes before him, and bid him crown himself with a garland of roses and woodbines? Should you add one thing more, you would certainly wipe out all his grief.
I know you recommend the book by Dewitt. However, I am not sure I would like to start with an academic textbook. I ordered the book. I have it on my bookshelf. But are there any modern books that explain this philosophy simply that have a correct understanding? I might get into textbooks or ancient writings after I know what they are about.
Given the way you ask this question, Don's answer is clearly the best one for you. Different people have different backgrounds and experiences and needs in the way they approach things. Emily Austin's book is very approachable and sounds like it will be a good match for you. And among the "popular" books, hers is by far the best.
Thanks for all the welcome messages. Would I be correct in saying that the gist of Epicureanism is that we live in a physical universe. This present life is all we have. Therefore any happiness we will ever have will be experienced in this life. And the key to happiness is to experience pleasure.
I think that's a good summary, but with maybe the next thought afterwards - which some find difficult - being that pleasure is something to be understood broadly, not limited to external stimulation, and that there is great pleasure to be found in many aspects of life which are difficult to appreciate fully without a coherent philosophy such as Epicurus provides.
Just to make sure I am understanding, many modern writers are saying that according to Epicurus, all real pleasure is the absence of pain, whereas Epicurus also valued the kind of pleasure that is marked by the presence of something. Perhaps pleasant sensations or good company. Am I understanding?
Not exactly.
Epicurus held that there are only two feelings, pleasure and pain, so strictly speaking, the absence of one IS the presence of the other, so "absence of pain" DOES mean "pleasure."
The tricky part is that there are those who want to make "absence of pain" sound like Buddhist or Stoic asceticism or detachment. They want to conclude that all that is necessary is to clear one's mind or force away all thoughts of strong emotion, and then as a matter of course you go straight to a feeling of the highest sort of pleasure imaginable. That is why we have an article here by Elayne arguing against concepts of "fancy pleasure." Every writer is different and getting into people's motives is difficult, but there are many reasons why people want to conclude that Epicurus didn't really advocate "pleasure" as that word is normally understood. And they don't want to see the definition of pleasure expanded, as Epicurus did, they want to see it restricted, to write out the normal active pleasures of life. They want to write out of the philosophy all of the normal active pleasures - the sex, food, sports, joy, delight - that go along with "motion" (and therefore "kinetic" pleasure).
The downside to that for those who want to advocate for classical Epicurean philosophy as the ancients understood it is that if you equate "katastematic pleasure" with something that sounds like a form of mental and bodily nothingness, then no healthy normal common-sense person under about age 60 is going to accept such a position as reasonable. And there are lots of us over 60 who wouldn't accept that either!
So the challenge is to observe that what Diogenes Laertius really said is that Epicurus valued BOTH types of pleasure, both "active" and "stable." Now what "stable" really means is about as up for debate and personal preference as what the active pleasures mean, but what I would argue, and I think Gosling and Taylor and the rest document, is that all pleasure is pleasure, and that there are no 'favored by nature" types of activities except as to what translates in an individual person's experience as generating more pleasure than pain.
And of course the key is to remember that there are many types of pleasure, bodily and mental, and that Nature does not give us categories - nature only gives us feelings of pleasure and pain.
What Epicurus identified is that it is logically untenable to argue that "pleasure" as a term means the highest good if there are more than two alternatives. If there is a third category - a middle ground - a neutral state - then you've said that nature gives you THREE options, and you therefore need additional guidance on how to decide between them. If you have to be told by something other than the feeling of pain and pleasure which of the three is the best, then it is THAT KNOWLEDGE of how to choose between them that becomes the most important thing in life to have. That is a large part of Plato's argument against Pleasure in Philebus.
So Epicurus extended the understanding of pleasure to ALL feelings in life - all experience - all awareness, which is not painful. And that's justified by the knowledge that there is no life after death, that life is short, that pleasure is desirable, and that being alive is itself necessary for you to experience pleasure.
That explains the answer to Chrysippus' hand challenge -- the Epicureans held that your hand or any other part of your body, when it is normal and painfree condition - is in a state of pleasure.
And to up the ante on the challenge, when you identify that 100% pleasure is the most pleasure you can have,, then when you say that your hand is pain free you are saying that it is experiencing 100% pleasure - which is the "LIMIT" of pleasure. And that deals with another of Plato's arguments. Plato had argued that if something could always be made better by adding more to it, then that thing has no "limit," and so you can never use such a thing as a goal because you can never reach it.
Identifying pleasure as absence of pain means that there IS a limit to pleasure, and that limit is achieved when all pain is gone, and so the challenge made by Plato that pleasure has no limit is overcome.
Yes all of this is subtle, and takes attention and reasoning to figure out. But Epicurus was a philosopher battlng Platonists and others who held that pleasure cannot be the goal of life. He was not fighting people who argued that the highest pleasure was to remove all active pleasure from your life, minimize your desires and your footprint to the slightest amount possible, and then clear your mind and detach yourself from reality. The Romans and Greeks would never have made such an absurdity popular, but today there is a large consituency for that point of view and they like nothing more than arguing that Epicurus is one of them.
Since it looks to me that almost everything we attribute as Epicurus' thoughts are second hand except perhaps the few original records extent we are forced to accept those records as good faith efforts by other men who support Epicurean philosophy.
That's a large part of the problem. Plutarch and Cicero are the ones who play up this alleged competition between types of pleasure, and they are not doing so because they are friends of Epicurus. When Diogenes Laertius mentions that Epicurus noted the two types, he says Epicurus valued BOTH, and he does not place them in conflict or competition with each other.
It is a large part of Nikolsky's (and others') argument that we do NOT see this alleged= in types accorded significance in those who are supporters of Epicurus. Even Torquatus, who can only speak words Cicero allows him to say, talk as if pleasure is a wide but unified concept where no conflict between types exist.
I am glad that this does not cause you a problem, but as also referenced in our discussion this past Sunday, a significant part of my efforts are to be sure that it does not cause any more problem to others than absolutely necessary.
And unfortunately, as Nikolsky observes, almost every standard treatment of Epicurus in the outside world acts as if the most important thing to know about Epicurean pleasure is that "katastematic pleasure" is the real goal of Epicurean philosophy.
Dave:
Those two paragraphs are the rather standard explanation which you will read everywhere and be told to accept as unchallengeable. You will be told in most places (NOT here) to accept this formulation if you wish to be accepted as a standard Epicurean.
If you choose to look further, however, you can read the authorities such as Gosling & Taylor's "The Greeks On Pleasure," Boris Nikolsky, and Emily Austin (who follows Gosling & Taylor) and become a dissident who concludes that this formulation as stated loosely by many writers today is very wrong and leads to self-contradictory conclusions that Epicurus did not hold.
This formulation presumes that as soon as you discuss "pleasure" in Epicurean terms, you have to immediately (here, the very second sentence) break pleasure down into these two categories of "settled" and "motion." You are then led down the road to conclude that the pleasures of motion are really important only to the extent that they assist in the achievement of pleasures that are "settled."
Now of course certain aspects of this are beyond doubt, such as statements that "pleasure is the highest good." The issue is not that pleasure is the good, but whether it is essential to break pleasure down into these two categories and determine that some of which are more important than the other, and are in fact the REAL meaning of "pleasure."
Pleasure, according to the Epicureans, is the highest good ; it is the ultimate aim of all our activities past, present, and future. It is of two kinds, pleasure of a settled state, and pleasure in motion. The settled pleasure is the same as the absence of pain ; indeed only those pleasures in movement are chosen that are incidental to the riddance of pain.
Such are the pleasures of the body. Pleasure of the mind is a reflection of these. Absence of perturbation (atarazia) corresponds to the settled pleasures of the body, and animation (euphrosyné) at the anticipation or remembrance of a pleasure in movement of the body is a pleasure in movement of the mind. Because it is not limited to the present but draws also on past and future, pleasure of the mind admits of greater stability and permanence than pleasure of the body ; it is thus the proper object of the philosophical life.
I don't have a great deal of problem with this summary as far as it goes. But this line of thinking usually proceeds to conclude that "settled" pleasures are the real purpose of Epicurus, and that these are generally mental, and that everything else is subservient to attaining these so-called settled mental pleasures (and of course we're talking about the word katastematic). After all, is the argument, Epicurus said that when do not have pain we have no need for pleasure, so of course that means that the real goal is "absence of pain" and means we don't need pleasure at all. Right??????
If you can read all that and continue to understand that ALL pleasures are valued by Epicurus, and that Epicurus does NOT tell you to consider all other pleasures of the body and mind, including joy and delight, as second-class citizens, then no harm is done. In my experience I find that is very hard to do, and that most people who talk frequently about katastematic pleasure are deprecating all other types as really important.
So I observe that it is very difficult to go down this road of talking in terms of "types of pleasure" (ataraxia, calmness, tranquility, worthy pleasures, etc) without eventually dropping the term "pleasure" except as a code word for the initiated who know that pleasure doesn't include bodily pleasure or active mental pleasure at all.
I urge anyone who is interested in this topic to read the full chapter in Gosling and Taylor where they take apart this formulation and examine the harm that can come from interpreting the distinction as favoring katastematic over kinetic pleasure.
Failing reading that whole chapter, there is a shorter article here on the forum by Boris Nikolsky which also summarizes the issue and discusses how the interpretation of this distinction given by Cicero and others (Carneades is mentioned) causes so much confusion.
And failing that, as a last resort, I urge anyone toying with these formulations to consider whether they really want to give up joy and delight in life, which are clearly kinetic pleasures as they are the examples given by Diogenes Laertius.
I would also argue that "gladness of mind at the remembrance of past conversations" as cited by Epicurus as more important to him than pain on his last day, constitutes a kinetic pleasure, and that citation indicates that Epicurus himself did not value "katastematic" over "kinetic" pleasure.
And when near his end he wrote the following letter to Idomeneus: "On this blissful day, which is also the last of my life, I write this to you. My continual sufferings from strangury and dysentery are so great that nothing could augment them; but over against them all I set gladness of mind at the remembrance of our past conversations. But I would have you, as becomes your life-long attitude to me and to philosophy, watch over the children of Metrodorus." Such were the terms of his will.
Episode 292 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. Today our episode is entitled: "Is Virtue Or Pleasure The Key To Overcoming Grief?'"
Are collected in this volume (428) of the Loeb collecions of Plutarch:
I've set up a separate folder for each of the three major works in this subforum.
So Epicureanism would be more in competition with let's say, secular humanism.
I think that's the right direction, but I wouldn't call secular humanism a true philosophy of its own - it seems to me that most people think of secular humanism as more of a general attitude endorsing particular types of morality. The question of what "secular humanism" is is a very deep subject in itself.
The scientific method really didn't exist back then. And they only had very basic scientific equipment. So they had no way to test these ideas. Nevertheless, from what I've read, they were not wrong in their premises, modern science simply is more refined.
I understand I think why you say that, and in this context I would say it's important to distinguish between a philosophy and an applied science. Yes, applied sciences are likely always going to discover new details in their fields of expertise, but that doesn't mean that the general approach (that logical reasoning based on observations leads to the conclusion that the universe is natural and has no mystical forces over it, for example) will ever require revision.
I am a major proponent and fan of "modern science, " but "modern science" will never replace philosophy, and they ought not to be considered to be in competition. There will always be "unknowns' beyond the current reach of the science of the moment, and it will always be necessary to take philosophic positions about how to deal with those circumstances.
I scanned over the opening pages of the Numenius material and there's a lot of good information there, with the Epicureans coming off very well in comparison to the schisms of the other schools, the problems and schisms of which inevitably arise from the notorious teachings of forms of skepticism:
I. Why the Successors of Plato diverged from Him.
1. Under Speusipptis, Plato’s nephew, and Xenocrates, his successor, and Polemo, who took over the school from Xenocrates, the character of the teachings remained almost the same, because the notorious teaching of the “reserve of judgment'’ and the like, did not yet exist.
I see also this article. Numenius is a Platonist and therefore a mystic, but at least he seems to have understood the problems with skepticism.
Numenius (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Numenius’ best attested work is his treatise On the Dissension of the Academics from Plato (frs. 24–28 Des Places, also in Reinhardt 2023). Eusebius in his Preparatio Evangelica (Preparation for the Gospel) has excerpted five long pieces from it (in book XIV). The reason why Eusebius quotes so extensively from this work of Numenius is in order to substantiate his claim, which permeates the entire Preparatio Evangelica, that ancient philosophers were in disagreement with each other. He takes that feature to indicate the inability of pagan philosophy to reach the truth (on Eusebius᾽ reading of Numenius see des Places 1975, Jourdan 2015). This is an originally skeptic argument, that is employed by Academic and Pyrrhonean skeptics alike, to the effect that dogmatic philosophy amounts to failure because of the disagreements occurring in it (Cicero, Academica II.115, Sextus Empiricus, Against the Mathematicians II.11). Eusebius has a special kind of disagreement in mind, namely that with Plato’s philosophy, which he considers to have come closer to the truth than any other pagan philosophy, that is, in his view, to Christian doctrine (Praep. Ev. XI.pref. 2–3, XI.8.1, XIII.4.3). Numenius’ testimony in this work fits well an argument like that of Eusebius. For Numenius criticizes in this work the departure of the skeptical Academics from what he considers to be Plato’s central doctrine, namely, the doctrine of first principles of reality that Numenius finds adumbrated in the 2nd Letter attributed to Plato (fr. 24.51–6). For Numenius it is primarily the disagreement of the Academic skeptics with Plato’s allegedly dogmatic philosophy that marks a failure.
1. A feature. And remaining true to correct insights is not "stagnation." There is no revising core doctrines such as "there are no supernatural gods" or "there is no life after death." "Ideal forms do not exist" -- etc. There's either agreement that they are correct or start a new school with different views.
2. I have no doubt that new arguments were introduced over time to deal with new arguments from the opposing schools. But when you have the fundamentals correct from the start, there's no need to revise them, and any customization to meet new arguments from opponents does nothing to undercut the original core.
The tangents will ultimately provide the motivation for the collection to continue!
It's too bad that book doesn't have a "table of contents" from which it would be easier to extract a "list" of fragments, as then it would be easier to systematize the generation of a set of translations.
This ought to be something worth doing over time, especially since Metrodorus seems to have been the type who liked to state things in strong and uncompromising ways.
And in the end, something similar for Hermarchus, though I gather there's a much smaller universe of surviving fragments.
Great source Don. Now we just need someone to produce that in English. but as you say it's a great start on finding the citations to look for.
We need to produce a document with references to the scattered documentation that exists as to the sayings of Metrodorus. I'm therefore starting this thread with a quote referenced by Adrastus, and I hope at some point one of us will collect these into a single document. Please add other references to this thread to make that goal easier.
“Even at the moment when your son’s body is on the pyre, or your friend breathing his last, will you not suffer your pleasure to cease, rather than tickle your very grief with pleasure? Which is the more honourable—to remove grief from your soul, or to admit pleasure even into the company of grief? Did I say ‘admit’? Nay, I mean ‘chase after,’ and from the hands, too, of grief itself. 28. Metrodorus says: ‘There is a certain pleasure which is related to sadness.’ We Stoics may say that, but you may not. The only Good which you[11] recognize, is pleasure, and the only Evil, pain; and what relationship can there be between a Good and an Evil? But suppose that such a relationship does exist; now, of all times, is it to be rooted out?[12] Shall we examine grief also, and see with what elements of delight and pleasure it is surrounded? 29. Certain remedies, which are beneficial for some parts of the body, cannot be applied to other parts because these are, in a way, revolting and unfit; and that which in certain cases would work to a good purpose without any loss to one’s self-respect, may become unseemly because of the situation of the wound. Are you not, similarly, ashamed to cure sorrow by pleasure? No, this sore spot must be treated in a more drastic way. This is what you (METRODORUS?) should preferably advise: that no sensation of evil can reach one who is dead; for if it can reach him, he is not dead. 30. And I say that nothing can hurt him who is as naught; for if a man can be hurt, he is alive. Do you think him to be badly off because he is no more, or because he still exists as somebody? And yet no torment can come to him from the fact that he is no more—for what feeling can belong to one who does not exist?—nor from the fact that he exists; for he has escaped the greatest disadvantage that death has in it—namely, non-existence.
Let me say again Adrastus thank you for posting that reference to Metrodorus and recommend to others that this is a great way of helping out on the forum.
We have many people (including me) who have limited reading experience in the secondary literature, especially people like Seneca or Cicero or Plutarch or Marcus Aurelius etc., who will regularly mix references to Epicureans into their standard fare of Stoicism or other viewpoints.
It helps everyone if those who are more fluent in the less-known sources will point out parallels such as Adrastus did here.
We really ought to have a section on "Writings/Sayings of Metrodorus" so that citations like this can be collected in one place.
This passage from Seneca very much echos Cicero's attack on pleasure in Tusculan Disputations. It also shows the importance of seeing Epicurus's wider definition of pleasure.
The ancient Stoics knew their Epicurus better than most Epicureans today, and certainly better than do modern Stoics. The ancient Stoics knew how critical it is to Stoicism (and to all enemies of Epicurus) to obfuscate and reject Epicurus' wider view of pleasure.
Everything in Epicurean ethics turns on recognizing that all feeling which is not painful is pleasurable. Yes it is painful to lose a friend, but as Metrodorus says even in that circumstance there are non-painful pleasurable feelings that come with the remembrance of the dead friend. And Epicurus says that even the worst pains are to dealt with by turning back to pleasure (properly understood), and focusing on the recognition that that which has been done cannot be undone.
VS55. We must heal our misfortunes by the grateful recollection of what has been, and by the recognition that it is impossible to undo that which has been done.
This is something I haven't focused on hard enough, and going through Tusculan Disputations is raising its importance in my mind. Epicurus teaches focusing instead on pleasure rather than constantly focusing on the pain and suffering as the Stoics (or at least the Cyreniacs) advise.
Thanks Adrastus for posting this because it is a good reminder of the point.
“Even at the moment when your son’s body is on the pyre, or your friend breathing his last, will you not suffer your pleasure to cease, rather than tickle your very grief with pleasure? Which is the more honourable—to remove grief from your soul, or to admit pleasure even into the company of grief? Did I say ‘admit’? Nay, I mean ‘chase after,’ and from the hands, too, of grief itself. 28. Metrodorus says: ‘There is a certain pleasure which is related to sadness.’ We Stoics may say that, but you may not. The only Good which you[11] recognize, is pleasure, and the only Evil, pain; and what relationship can there be between a Good and an Evil? But suppose that such a relationship does exist; now, of all times, is it to be rooted out?[12] Shall we examine grief also, and see with what elements of delight and pleasure it is surrounded? 29. Certain remedies, which are beneficial for some parts of the body, cannot be applied to other parts because these are, in a way, revolting and unfit; and that which in certain cases would work to a good purpose without any loss to one’s self-respect, may become unseemly because of the situation of the wound. Are you not, similarly, ashamed to cure sorrow by pleasure? No, this sore spot must be treated in a more drastic way. This is what you (METRODORUS?) should preferably advise: that no sensation of evil can reach one who is dead; for if it can reach him, he is not dead. 30. And I say that nothing can hurt him who is as naught; for if a man can be hurt, he is alive. Do you think him to be badly off because he is no more, or because he still exists as somebody? And yet no torment can come to him from the fact that he is no more—for what feeling can belong to one who does not exist?—nor from the fact that he exists; for he has escaped the greatest disadvantage that death has in it—namely, non-existence.
And although it is not authentically ancient Epicurean, I think Frances Wright does an excellent job with the topic in her Chapter 10:
Death, then, is never our foe. When not a friend, he cannot be worse than indifferent. For while we are, death is not; and when death is, we are not. To be wise, then, death is nothing. Examine the ills of life; are they not of our own creation, or take they not their darkest hues from our passions or our ignorance? What is poverty, if “we have temperance, and can be satisfied with a crust, and a draught from the spring? — if we have modesty, and can wear a woolen garment as gladly as a tyrian robe? What is slander, if we have no vanity that it can wound, and no anger that it can kindle? What is neglect, if we have no ambition that it can disappoint, and no pride that it can mortify? What is persecution, if we have our own bosoms in which to retire, and a spot of earth to sit down and rest upon? What is death, when without superstition to clothe him with terrors, we can cover our heads, and go to sleep in his arms? What a list of human calamities are here expunged — poverty, slander, neglect, disappointment, persecution, death. What yet remains? Disease? That, too, we have shown temperance can often shun, and Philosophy can always alleviate.
But there is yet a pain, which the wisest and the best of men cannot escape; that all of us, my sons, have felt, or have to feel. Do not your hearts whisper it? Do you not tell me, that in death there is yet a sting? That ere he aim at us, he may level the beloved of our soul? The father, whose tender care hath reared our infant minds — the brother, whom the same breast hath nourished, and the same roof sheltered, with whom, side by side, we have grown like two plants by a river, sucking life from the same fountain and strength from the same sun — the child whose gay prattle delights our ears, or whose opening understanding fixes our hopes — the friend of our choice, with whom we have exchanged hearts, and shared all our pains and pleasures, whose eye hath reflected the tear of sympathy, whose hand hath smoothed the couch of sickness. Ah! my sons, here indeed is a pain — a pain that cuts into the soul. There are masters that will tell you otherwise; who will tell you that it is unworthy of a man to mourn even here. But such, my sons, speak not the truth of experience or philosophy, but the subtleties of sophistry and pride. He who feels not the loss, hath never felt the possession. He who knows not the grief, hath never known the joy. See the price of a friend in the duties we render him, and the sacrifices we make to him, and which, in making, we count not sacrifices, but pleasures. We sorrow for his sorrow; we supply his wants, or, if we cannot, we share them. We follow him to exile. We close ourselves in his prison; we soothe him in sickness; we strengthen him in death: nay, if it be possible, we throw down our life for his. Oh! What a treasure is that for which we do so much! And is it forbidden to us to mourn its loss? If it be, the power is not with us to obey.
Should we, then, to avoid the evil, forego the good? Shall we shut love from our hearts, that we may not feel the pain of his departure? No; happiness forbids it. Experience forbids it. Let him who hath laid on the pyre the dearest of his soul, who hath washed the urn with the bitterest tears of grief — let him say if his heart hath ever formed the wish that it had never shrined within it him whom he now deplores. Let him say if the pleasures of the sweet communion of his former days doth not still live in his remembrance. If he love not to recall the image of the departed, the tones of his voice, the words of his discourse, the deeds of his kindness, the amiable virtues of his life. If, while he weeps the loss of his friend, he smiles not to think that he once possessed him. He who knows not friendship, knows not the purest pleasure of earth. Yet if fate deprive us of it, though we grieve, we do not sink; Philosophy is still at hand, and she upholds us with fortitude. And think, my sons, perhaps in the very evil we dread, there is a good; perhaps the very uncertainty of the tenure gives it value in our eyes; perhaps all our pleasures take their zest from the known possibility of their interruption. What were the glories of the sun, if we knew not the gloom of darkness? What the refreshing breezes of morning and evening, if we felt not the fervors of noon? Should we value the lovely-flower, if it bloomed eternally; or the luscious fruit, if it hung always on the bough? Are not the smiles of the heavens more beautiful in contrast with their frowns, and the delights of the seasons more grateful from their vicissitudes? Let us then be slow to blame nature, for perhaps in her apparent errors there is hidden a wisdom. Let us not quarrel with fate, for perhaps in our evils lie the seeds of our good. Were our body never subject to sickness, we might be insensible to the joy of health. Were our life eternal, our tranquillity might sink into inaction. Were our friendship not threatened with interruption, it might want much of its tenderness. This, then, my sons, is our duty, for this is our interest and our happiness; to seek our pleasures from the hands of the virtues, and for the pain which may befall us, to submit to it with patience, or bear up against it with fortitude. To walk, in short, through life innocently and tranquilly; and to look on death as its gentle termination, which it becomes us to meet with ready minds, neither regretting the past, nor anxious for the future.”
This week we will return to our normal format and combine a general opening welcome with attention to a special topic, which this week will be "Death Is Nothing To Us."
Please join us if you can. If you're not on our current invitation list, let us know in this thread that you'd like to attend future sessions.
A discussion outline for this topic is here:
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