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Welcome to Episode 189 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who wrote "On The Nature of Things," the only 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 you will find a discussion thread f…

Kalosyni has started a new thread to help us with ideas for the final episode of this series of the podcast, to be recorded on 8/27/23. Let's Make a List of 1) Major Causes of the Decline of Epicurean Philosophy after Lucretius and 2) The Obstacles to its Revival Through Today That's where we should conduct the main part of the discussion, because the topic is a great one and separate from this episode. I will have to work to keep up but I will keep a running list of items here. I will fine tune…

Thanks for these updates Joshua! Some of these, especially Valla and Raimondi, we need to find the texts and post them in our Texts section. Will work on that.

As Joshua cited above, one person we need to really turn a spotlight on is COSMA RAIMONDI. See the link below for more on his letter. It may well be that Raimondi is both the first and oldest firm exponent of Epicurus that we have in our records emerging out of the dark ages. As such it would be very very interesting to learn more about him, as he seems to have been active, and discussing Epicurus with others, right around the same time, or possibly even before, the "rediscovery" of Lucretius' p…

I have set up a sub forum on Gassendi and included a partial transcription of the English edition of his main work on Epicurus: Gassendi's Engish Version of Life of Epicurus - Thomas Stanley Edition

Joshua you mention in this episode something I do not recall your mentioning before about Bruno. You said that in particular he was fascinated by the "many worlds" position (presumably referring to Epicurus?). If you have something specific on that I would appreciate your posting on it as that is a subject that fascinates me and I don't think we give it nearly enough attention. Perhaps here unless there is a better place: The Universe As Eternal In Time: Nothing From Nothing / Nothing To Nothing…

This episode should be out soon, and in reviewing it I want to thank Joshua for bringing up one final time Thomas More's "Utopia." In the future I think we really need to single that out for examination and reflection, because as Joshua points out, More seems to want to accept many of the "life for happiness and pleasure" aspects of Epicurus, but he wants to condemn and banish as totally unacceptable the core viewpoints of an absence of providential god and reward and punishment after death. I h…

The final 15 minutes of this episode are creating some difficult editing decisions so I want to emphasize several things in case the editing doesn't reflect their significance. 1 - Joshua's statement about the problems caused when people try to advocate Epicurean positions without including (a) the mortality of the soul and (b) denial of supernatural providence. That's what the conversation about More's Utopia is all about, and it's very difficult to overstate the significance of this. I was ver…

Episode 189 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available! spreaker.com/episode/56652884

If you don't listen to any other part of this episode, listen to what Joshua has to say at 46:10 to 50:12. Unfortunately I didn't follow up on it til later in the episode, but I think Joshua's analysis there is probably the best summary of the main issue that confronts those who support Epicurus and want to talk to others about the philosophy.