Welcome to Episode 285 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 continue in Part 2 - "Is Pain An Evil?." Last week we focused on Cicero's observations that we can prepare ourselves for bodily pain through exercise and training, a point in which Cicero did not pick out Epicurus as an opponent, and on which the ancient Epicureans would likely have agreed, at least to an extent. This week, Cicero tells us that he is going to leave to the Stoics to argue that pain is not evil, and he himself is going to proceed to talk about his opinion on how to deal with bodily pain, whether you are a soldier or a philosopher. We'll be picking up today with Section XVIII, and we'll see that Cicero focuses his attack on Epicurus' Principal Doctrine 4, and that will give us a great opportunity to explore that doctrine more closely.
Just as he was mentioned last week as an example of someone suffering great pain, Philoctetes is again mentioned by name as a point of reference, so we'll want to acquaint ourselves with his story:
I don't see anything there that indicates that Philoctetes cried out over his pain in an embarrassing way, but thus Cicero seems to say at XXIII:
But this should be principally regarded in pain, that we must not do anything timidly, or dastardly, or basely, or slavishly, or effeminately, and above all things we must dismiss and avoid that Philoctetean sort of outcry.
As might be expected, Cicero spends a lot of time talking about facing down pain in wartime, but at XXV he turns to the topic of dealing with pain in peacetime.
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Excellent topic for extended treatment, Joshua. Posting as a thread will allow for comment and suggestions while you are composing and therafter. When it is finished (am I foreshadowing Christianity there?} we will post a full copy to the Articles or Blogs section so that it can be featured for ongoing reference.
DeWitt never closes the circle and comes right out and states "and this echo of Epicurus in Christianity illustrates the goodness of Christianity in general and 'peace and safety' in particular," but it is easy to read that implication into the text.
Just as we warn people about questionable aspects of Frances Wright's A Few Days In Athens, it will be good to have a balanced treatment of this part of DeWitt's book.
On Sunday June 15th, let's discuss the letter of Cosma Raimondi, a very good defense of Epicurus that many people don't know about.
Link:
And it is a very different (un-Epicurean) notion to "train" your body in a type of "exercise boot-camp".
I have to disagree with that conclusion as stated. As we know there were many Roman military men who were Epicurean, and if they had become generals without military exercises I suspect their detractors would point that out. There's also no general accusation that the ancient Epicureans were grossly overweight, out-of-condition, or otherwise overindulged. Avoiding the harms of overindulgence that hold back the mind and body would be, as Jefferson said to Short, "the farthest of all things from the happiness which the well-regulated indulgences of Epicurus ensure."
In addition, there are many modern variations of "exercise boot camps" that help train the body for endurance an performance, and I definitely see no reason an Epicurean would not participate in them. In fact, to the opposite, I think it's inherent in Epicurean philosophy that you want both a sound mind AND a sound body and that you are going to put in the time and effort required to improve and safeguard both. This is the only life you have, after all, and you don't want it shortened or held back by unnecessary physical problems any more than you want mental problems.
I take the liberty of observing that you are not a true disciple of our master Epicurus, in indulging the indolence to which you say you are yielding. One of his canons, you know, was that “that indulgence which prevents a greater pleasure, or produces a greater pain, is to be avoided.” Your love of repose will lead, in its progress, to a suspension of healthy exercise, a relaxation of mind, an indifference to everything around you, and finally to a debility of body, and hebetude of mind, the farthest of all things from the happiness which the well-regulated indulgences of Epicurus ensure; fortitude, you know is one of his four cardinal virtues. That teaches us to meet and surmount difficulties; not to fly from them, like cowards; and to fly, too, in vain, for they will meet and arrest us at every turn of our road.
If I recall correctly DeWitt thinks that this was a direct jibe at Plato, who held that you have to be able to know geometry in order to be a philosopher. I'll look for a cite for that.
Very relevant to this are those parts of the Letter to Herodotus and Lucretius that point out that those who learn a little, but don't fully understand the nature of things, can be worse off than those who didn't even start - meaning that you need the full Epicurean worldview picture to have confidence in facing those scientific questions where you do not yet have all the facts you would like.
Herodotus 79
But what falls within the investigation of risings and settings and turnings and eclipses, and all that is akin to this, is no longer of any value for the happiness which knowledge brings, but persons who have perceived all this, but yet do not know what are the natures of these things and what are the essential causes, are still in fear, just as if they did not know these things at all: indeed, their fear may be even greater, since the wonder which arises out of the observation of these things cannot discover any solution or realize the regulation of the essentials.
Lucretius 5-65
.... For those who have learnt aright that the gods lead a life free from care, yet if from time to time they wonder by what means all things can be carried on, above all among those things which are descried above our heads in the coasts of heaven, are borne back again into the old beliefs of religion, and adopt stern overlords, whom in their misery they believe have all power, knowing not what can be and what cannot, yea and in what way each thing has its power limited, and its deep-set boundary-stone.
It's in these new found fears and anxieties. Genetic predispositions to painful or deadly diseases can make some feel trapped by some biological destiny. Psychology or neuroscience can also make some feel trapped by brain chemistry or childhood experiences (even compound the anxiety of biological destiny). Climate change can be the source of much existential dread. The interesting question is how does the Epicurean respond to these new problems?
First and foremost I'd say that Epicurus would say to take heart in looking at the truth without sugar-coating it, and that we can be grateful for the good things that we do have. Then he'd say that the way things are are the result of specific combinations of atoms and void, which are not required to be the way they are by any force of divinity or necessity or fate, and which -- if we try hard enough and long enough -- can often be changed. No doubt lots of things can't be changed, at least within our own lifetimes, but the pleasure of thinking that you have faced down the truth and fought it with everything you have is not something that we should think of as belonging to the Stoics. After all, they think that every external thing that happens to them is a grim matter of divine will / necessity / fate anyway.
thanks for that work Don! Do we know anything about the history behind the 1739 version versus the one that is used now? And also is it purely a matter of arrangement or are there significant textual differences too?
I've heard from several different people and directions lately that there is a growing desire to see us develop a better "Introduction" or "encyclopedia" or "wiki" for our work on Epicurus.
As most of you know, we do already have a wiki here, but it is not well organized or well developed. There's a lot of good material there, but it needs a fundamental structural rework to make the pages shorter and more focused to particular points.
I agree that this is a particularly important project, and for the same reason I am also concerned that the effort we put into it be "durable." As much as I like our current forum software, as the years go by and the sizes of our files get bigger and bigger, we need to make sure that the content is easily downloadable and movable to new web hosts so as to guard against unforeseen future problems. The current system lends itself to easy connection to our current forum, so we can easily control who can make updates and changes, but for ease of portability and future-proofing, I am considering switching to the Dokuwiki format (we already have a rudimentary example here). Dokuwiki is not the latest and greatest and flashiest design, but it is made of pure text files which can be zipped up, saved, and transferred to a new host with very little effort. I want people to be able to download and save the wiki as often as they desire so that they can make sure their own investment is safe, so for that reason I'll probably implement a Dokuwiki version even if we stay within the forum for the time being. For that reason I probably don't want to use Mediawiki, even though it's by far the "market leader" - being the basis of Wikipedia. Most of the basics that Mediawiki provides can be done through Dokuwiki, and I think the survivability of the site by making it easy to save and reuse copies is worth the tradeoff in features.
This will be a big project and take time, but a wiki allows collaboration and that can bring to bear a force multiplier effect where a group can do much more than one person.
It is quite possible that it would make sense to repurpose the EpicurusCollege.com domain for this purpose, and present the wiki/encyclopedia in terms of self-study course in Epicureanism. That site is currently set up to implement a Moodle instance, which we've never implemented, and it may well be that moodle is extremely overshooting the mark for what we need at this point.
So I've set up this thread for comments on basic ideas and suggestions on how to proceed. I actually think that what might be most helpful would be if people can provide links to example wikis on other subjects where they particularly like the organizational style and structure. It's going to be hard to copy the "look" of the flashy dedicated wikis, but I think the key is to grasp how best to lay out a wiki, and how much information to include on one page before linking off to subpages. That's a highly subjective decision but I feel sure that the current wiki has far too few pages, with too much data on each page. On the other hand I am sure it is very easy to have too many pages, and to require too much jumping back and forth.
This will take weeks even to get started, but there's no time like the present to start talking about it.
- What would you like to see?
- How would you like to see it organized?
- What other organizational questions do you think need answering , and on which we should ask for feedback?
In this current week's Lucretius Today Podcast (released June 3, 2025), we read an interesting section of Tusculan Disputations in which Cicero discussed the usefulness of "practice" or "exercise" or "experience" in handling pain - certainly bodily pain, at least. In this section he did not specifically criticize the Epicurean position, and the position I took in the podcast was that the Epicureans would likely have agreed with Cicero's point, which was largely to the effect that practicing certain types of exercise or other experiences can help prepare you to deal with pain when it arrives.
The section that has the most of this from 14-17. I won't quote the full thing here, but let's use this particular text as the starting off point, because it talks specifically about training from youth, exercise, past exposure to pains, etc:
At the very least, there are parallels here with Epicurus saying to Menoeceus that
[131] To grow accustomed therefore to simple and not luxurious diet gives us health to the full, and makes a man alert for the needful employments of life, and when after long intervals we approach luxuries disposes us better towards them, and fits us to be fearless of fortune.
This very likely has relation also to the issue of "condensing" pleasure as discussed in Chapter 10 section 11 of DeWitt's book.
My suggestion is that we discuss the issue of "practicing" in regard to how we deal with pain and pleasure. It's probably valid to discuss "practicing pleasure," but maybe we should start with a discussion of whether to view diet, exercise, "working out," "fasting," and like less-than-pleasant activities as practices to enhance happy living.
Very good point Godfrey thank you! I was thinking of narrative explanations such as the Letters, Lucretius, Philodemus etc, but I forgot the most obvious! Definitely those need to be in the mix as well, and indeed maybe there are other references in those other sources, but if they are there they don't come immediately to mind.
Update:
I see in Diogenes of Oinoanda a fragment of 39 is probably on point but doesn't add anything. Part of Fragment 2 may also be relevant, but it's stated in a somewhat different context.
Episode 284 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. Today we continue Part Two of Cicero's treatment of the nature of evil in Tusculan Disputations, and our episode is entitled: "In Dealing With Pain, Does Practice Make Perfect, Or Does Practice Make For A Happy Life?"
This is probably a good time for a reminder that the only authoritative explanation (so far as I recall at the moment - are there others?) of the natural/necessary classification (aside from the scholium in DL which is of uncertain source) is that of Torquatus in On Ends (Reid translation).
If this is accurate, and I believe it is, then the focus is simply that as to the "neither natural nor necessary" it is not possible to discover any boundary or limit."
So those that have no boundary or limit to them (live forever; world domination) are particularly dangerous and inadvisable.
But more generally, unless someone aspires to be world dictator, are not virtually all of the pleasures we are debating in the "natural but not necessary" category, and all of those questions are resolved by balancing the pleasure and pain that we an expect to follow from particular choices?
[45] I ask what classification is either more profitable or more suited to the life of happiness than that adopted by Epicurus? He affirmed that there is one class of passions which are both natural and needful; another class which are natural without being needful ; a third class which are neither natural nor needful; and such are the conditions of these passions that the needful class are satisfied without much trouble or expenditure ; nor is it much that the natural passions crave, since nature herself makes such wealth as will satisfy her both easy of access and moderate in amount; and it is not possible to discover any boundary or limit to false passions.
Our current civilization makes it easy and affordable to attain many "luxuries" and many "extravagances".
But do not there remain very many desires that are not easy and not affordable to attain, and which we would go on pursuing forever without limit if we did not identify their nature as such?
Food is a necessary desire; ice cream is luxurious.
Are we buying into the enemies' conclusions by using their terminology (such as extravagant)?"
What are we really talking about, from an Epicurean point of view?
What is Epicurus saying here as to luxury:
[130] Yet by a scale of comparison and by the consideration of advantages and disadvantages we must form our judgment on all these matters. For the good on certain occasions we treat as bad, and conversely the bad as good. And again independence of desire we think a great good — not that we may at all times enjoy but a few things, but that, if we do not possess many, we may enjoy the few in the genuine persuasion that those have the sweetest pleasure in luxury who least need it, and that all that is natural is easy to be obtained, but that which is superfluous is hard.
"Luxury" carries some of the same negative connotation today, but whatever the Greek is , it is a word Epicurus used.
I'd say that in the case of both empty and extravagant, you've got good examples of the problems involved in making clear what it is you are really saying. You definitely want the closest single word you can find, but even then I doubt you can avoid explaining or giving examples. And in Lucretius' case especially, as well as probably Epicurus, at least in regard to atoms, it seems like they regularly close to use a string of close synonyms (or repeating the same thing in different ways) as a method of giving clarity to what they were trying to convey.
I also don't think it's perfect, but I like the idea that the word conveys that there is nothing wrong with enjoying things "above and beyond" what are considered necessities.
You think so? I would have said that "extravagant" carries strong negative connotations.
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Good question and good example. Understanding that germs and viruses and the link are simply unintelligent "robots" and seeing pictures of them makes it even more clear that they are not supernatural agents.
Of course the other side doesn't give up, and every new discovery is used to make the "argument from design" that all this could not have arisen naturally.
In regard to the size of the universe, we see ever more detailed pictures of space, further and further out, an that ought to enhance our appreciation of infinity. However there again the "other side" can still omit the fact that what we are seeing is only observable universe and they can thereby confuse people into thinking that *everything* ( the universe as a whole) is expanding, when that is not the only logical deduction that is possible at all.
Overall though I think the advance in science is a huge net positive, mainly due to the availability of information over the internet.
Cicero is a bit of a mix, and even a few parts of the Torquatus section have Stoic elements (for example, the father could have banished his son, rather than killing him).
Just to make a record on this one in case someone wants to discuss this further, I very much disagree that this example is contrary to Epicurean philosophy. It's consistent with Epicurus for the very reason that Torquatus explains, and which is the reason that he cites it, in that all questions in life have to be put to the test of what will happen if one takes them as opposed to not taking them. In every question you add up the expected consequences and it's up to you to choose among the resulting mixes of pleasures and pains that will result.
In this case we can see the choice of the elder Torquatus to execute his son for violating the rules of engagement as a variation of the "Trolley problem." it would have been completely legitimate for the elder Torquatus to judge that if he spared his son, the resulting erosion of military discipline would have doomed all of Rome to the defeat of its army and the destruction of many thousands or more of the Roman citizenry.
Torquatus does not allege that his ancestor took special pleasure in the loss of his son - the implication is the opposite - that he judged that the "pleasure" or happiness, in the full sense of those words - would be greater in total even given the loss of his son.
Cicero's argument in not explaining this more fully is very similar to his ridicule of Epicurus for saying that one can find it "sweet" to be roasted in the bull of Phalaris. Even here were Torquatus is allowed to speak about his ancestors, Cicero is omitting the full extent of the explanation and thereby making it look ridiculous and contradictor, when in fact it is not.
The Epicurean point is the wider one, and there's no reason to back away from the elder Torquatus' decision, much less to call it "Stoic." A Stoic might well have decided to spare his son on the ground that the virtue of loyalty to family is unbreachable. Or a Stoic might have looked to "providence" or "fate" and kick the decision to them.
What Epicurus is telling us to do is to be logical and consistent in our identification of the goal of life, and to evaluate ALL the consequences before we make our decision.
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