Episode List - Oldest First

1. Lucretius Book One

• Episode 1 - Venus / Pleasure As Guide Of Life | Discussion
  • The inaugural episode introduces all five panelists — Cassius, Elaine, Julie, Charles, and Martin — before diving into the opening invocation of Book One, in which Lucretius addresses Venus as the allegorical embodiment of Pleasure, the driving force of all living things. Multiple translations are compared, highlighting how some translators shy away from the Latin voluptas despite its explicitness. The Mars-in-Venus’s-lap passage is read as a call for peace as the precondition for pleasure, not peace as an end in itself. The episode also introduces Memmius, the non-supernatural Epicurean interpretation of gods, and Lucretius’s statement that his subject is the nature of atoms and natural processes.
• Episode 2 - The Achievement of Epicurus | Discussion
  • The famous “Achievement of Epicurus” passage from Book One, where Lucretius describes Epicurus as the man who had the courage to defy religion and, traveling in mind through the universe, returned with knowledge of what can and cannot exist. Translations are compared on religio — “religion” versus “superstition” — with the panel noting that “superstition” risks letting modern readers exempt their own faith from the critique. The Latin terminus (boundary stone) is explored, and the phrase “his conquest makes us equal to the gods” is interpreted as attaining the fear-free blissful state Epicurus attributed to the gods. Charles parallels La Mettrie’s similar fate seventeen centuries later.
• Episode 3 - So Great Is The Power of Religion To Inspire Evil Deeds! | Discussion
  • The panel reads the celebrated Iphianassa (Iphigenia) sacrifice passage — Lucretius’s primary example of the evil religion can inspire — culminating in the famous line Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum (“So great is the evil religion could prompt”). Voltaire’s prediction that this line would last as long as the world is noted. The episode broadens into Diogenes of Oenoanda’s Fragment 20 on righteous behavior without gods, the Letter to Pythocles on superstition, and Cicero’s De Natura Deorum on isonomia and Epicurean gods. Frances Wright’s A Few Days in Athens is recommended, and the Torquatus passage from Cicero’s De Finibus closes the episode.
• Episode 4 - Recap of Opening Sections Of Book One | Discussion
  • A recap of Book One’s opening sections through the Iphianassa sacrifice, focusing on two themes. First, Cassius emphasizes that Epicurean gods are fully non-supernatural — nothing like Yahweh or any creator deity. Second, Elaine develops the reading that Lucretius’s appeal is to feeling as the sole moral standard: the sacrifice horrifies us, but the basis for calling it heinous is feeling alone, not divine law or natural rights. She contrasts this with humanists and atheists who, having abandoned religion, still cling to a form of absolute natural morality. Kant’s categorical imperative is examined as the opposing principle, with Principal Doctrine 33 as the Epicurean reply.
• Episode 5 - On Resisting The Threats of Priests and Poets | Discussion
  • Book One around line 105, where Lucretius warns that even the committed Epicurean must be armed against priests’ and poets’ threatening stories about the afterlife. Translators differ significantly: Bailey and Munro use “seer,” Brown uses “poet,” and Smith uses “fable monger.” The panel debates whether religious manipulation is deliberate or innocent error. The main discussion concerns fear as religion’s primary mechanism of control, contrasting Lucretius’s framing with Marx’s “opium of the people” — Elaine and Cassius find Lucretius’s “terror instrument” the more potent analysis. Elaine cites a 2015 study showing 30–60% of widowed people experience post-bereavement hallucinations, previewing Book Four’s images theory.
• Episode 6 - Step One - Nothing Comes From Nothing! | Discussion
  • Book One around line 137, opening with Lucretius’s acknowledgment that translating Epicurean philosophy from Greek into Latin verse is doubly difficult — the language and the subject matter are both new. The panel discusses how readers habitually impose their own categories onto Epicurean terms. Translations are compared on a key line about the mind’s terrors being dispelled not by sunlight but by active study of nature, with Brown’s “reason” flagged as potentially misleading. The heart of the episode is Lucretius’s first major physical principle — “nothing comes from nothing” — with its explicit theological extension: “Nothing was by the gods of nothing made.” Lucretius’s vivid absurdities (fish hatching from earth, flocks dropping from sky) argue from observation.
• Episode 7 - The Evidence That Nothing Comes From Nothing | Discussion
  • (No transcript is available for this episode.)
• Episode 8 - Step Two - Nothing Goes to Nothing! | Discussion
  • The second great physical principle: “nothing goes to nothing,” the complement to the episode before. Julie reads the Book One passage arguing that what appears to perish simply resolves into its constituent particles, which recombine into new forms — foreclosing all possibilities of supernatural action. Venus (pleasure) and Ether are discussed as purely poetic metaphors for natural forces. Martin relates the Epicurean claims to modern physics: conservation of matter and energy is consistent with Lucretius, though the Big Bang complicates the claim of eternal existence. The panel concludes that physics cannot prove or disprove God because supernatural forces are by definition unmeasurable, but experimental physics has always proceeded by assuming none.
• Episode 9 - The Evidence That Atoms Exist, Even Though They Are Unseen | Discussion
  • Book One around lines 265–328, on the evidence that atoms exist despite being unseen. Elaine reads five types of evidence: the effects of wind, the movement of particles (smell, heat, cold, sound), evaporation near the shore, objects wearing imperceptibly away over time, and nature’s general operation through gradual invisible change. A translation controversy focuses on the closing line about the faculty of sight — older translators render it “jealously shut out” (invida) while Smith uses only “inadequate.” Julie raises the central epistemological challenge: how is arguing for unseen atoms different from religious claims about unseen things? The panel works through why — the theory is grounded in observable effects and accepted premises.
• Episode 10 - The Void And Its Nature | Discussion
  • A special coronavirus episode with only Cassius and Martin. Martin reads the passage from Book One introducing void as the second building block of Epicurean physics — without void, motion is impossible. The episode places this in the context of the ancient battle between Epicurus and the Eleatics: Parmenides rejected sense experience entirely, insisting all apparent motion is illusion; the Stoics later replaced Epicurean void with God. Zeno’s famous paradoxes — Achilles and the tortoise, the arrow, the paradox of place — are worked through as weapons designed to destroy confidence in the senses and in the reality of motion. Newton and Leibniz’s invention of calculus provided the formal resolution.
• Episode 11 - More On The Void and Its Implications | Discussion
  • The full panel returns after the coronavirus episode to continue the discussion of void. Julie reads an extended passage giving multiple proofs that void must be mixed with all matter — things move, liquids seep through rock, sound passes through walls, objects of equal size differ in weight. The main philosophical discussion probes what it means for something to exist, with Elaine arguing the question of void is fundamentally a language problem. Applied to God’s existence, she concludes that without even a basis in observable extrapolation, claims about God are pure imagination, not falsifiable hypothesis. Cassius presses the square-circle thought experiment; Martin closes on the “growing block universe” theory.
• Episode 12 - Nothing But Combinations Of Matter And Void | Discussion
  • Charles and Elaine read back-to-back passages from Book One — Lucretius asserting all nature is either body or space, and introducing the distinction between essential conjuncts (weight to stone, heat to fire) and events (liberty, poverty, war). The episode’s main argument is that physics must precede ethics: Neo-Epicureans who skip straight to the Letter to Menoeceus predictably go wrong. Elaine demonstrates why — once you grasp that there is no absolute perspective outside the senses and that feelings are part of reality, idealist social prescriptions become incoherent. Charles notes that roughly 98% of self-described Neo-Epicureans engage only with ethics. DeWitt’s “chain reasoning” concept and Gould’s Non-Overlapping Magisteria are both examined.
• Episode 13 - Properties, Qualities, and the Trojan War | Discussion
  • Cassius, Elaine, and Martin return to the essential conjuncts / events / time / Trojan War passage. On essential conjuncts versus events: liberty, poverty, and war are not third kinds of things alongside body and void — they are real occurrences but have no existence independent of moving bodies. You can dissect matter forever and never find liberty inside it. On time: Martin explains Einstein’s relativity confirms Epicurus’s intuition that time is not absolute. The Trojan War passage may be Lucretius warning Roman readers against Greek philosophical trickery — Platonism as a Trojan Horse inside seemingly reasonable arguments. Elaine clarifies that “subjective” does not mean “mere opinion” — it is simply the only mode of perception available to creatures with senses.
• Episode 14 - Atoms Are Solid and Indestructible And Constitute the Seeds Of All Things | Discussion
  • The full panel works through Lucretius’s argument that atoms (the “seeds” of things) are solid, indestructible, and therefore eternal — which is what allows nature and living things to continue in a consistent, predictable way without supernatural intervention. The etymology of semina (seeds) is explored live — the word emphasizes repeatability and continuation. Cassius draws a key philosophical analogy: just as body and void are distinct non-overlapping categories in physics, so pleasure and pain are distinct non-overlapping feelings — “tranquility” is not a third positive thing between them. Julie contributes a medical illustration. Martin notes Lucretius’s hard-body model differs from quantum physics but the foundational insight stands. Frances Wright on first-cause logic closes the episode.
• Episode 15 - Recap Two - Reflections On Book One So Far | Discussion
  • A recap episode with Cassius, Charles, and Martin reflecting on the philosophical terrain covered so far. Diogenes Laërtius’s catalog of Epicurean insults is held up as a caution against any reading that smooths over Epicurus’s genuine conflicts with the Platonic and Aristotelian traditions. The episode’s main work is a close comparison of four translations of a Letter to Menoeceus passage on self-sufficiency: Bailey’s “independence of desire,” Hicks’s “independence of outward things,” St. Andre’s “self-reliance,” and the Epicurus Wiki’s “self-sufficiency.” The Epicurean position is not extinction of desire but resilience — the ability to find pleasure in simple things makes luxury even more enjoyable when it comes. Physics cannot be separated from ethics without corrupting both.
• Episode 16 - The Atoms Are Imperishable And Provide Continuity To All Nature | Discussion
  • Martin reads multiple Book One passages: the argument that infinite divisibility would cause universal dissolution; proof that atoms must be solid; the continuity argument showing each species reproduces its own kind because atomic properties are fixed; and the “least part” of the atom. Entropy is discussed — Martin explains it is probabilistic (a measure of likelihood of states), not simply disorder. A translation comparison of “true reason exclaims” reveals that confidence itself carries feeling — a point illustrated through Lucian’s Alexander the Oracle-Monger. The episode ends with Star Trek: the Organian episode as an approximation of Epicurean gods, Kirk’s “I need my pain” as fully Epicurean, and Spock’s emotional suppression as an implicit critique of pure rationalism.
• Episode 17 - All Things Are Not Made Of A Single Element, Such as Fire | Discussion
  • Elaine reads Lucretius’s refutation of the pre-Socratic materialistic monists — Heraclitus (fire), Thales (water), Anaximander (earth), Anaximenes (air) — demonstrating that no single element can account for observable variety. Martin notes fire is a chemical phenomenon, not a state of matter, making Heraclitus’s position least defensible. The episode draws a direct parallel to modern consciousness-monism: you cannot derive form from something without form. Translations of “famed for dark expression” are compared — Stallings’s “idiots admire things hidden in entangled words” wins the discussion. Elaine illustrates the “senses never lie” principle with cataract-distorted color perception: the correction is always made by new sensory information, never by abstract reason floating free of observation.
• Episode 18 - All Things Are Not Made of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water | Discussion
  • Martin reads Lucretius’s treatment of Empedocles — praised nearly as a god for his discoveries, then critiqued on three grounds: denying void while presupposing motion, allowing infinite divisibility, and using soft mortal seeds. Charles reads the four-element critique and the celebrated letter/word/verse analogy: just as the same letters in different arrangements produce entirely different words, the same atoms arranged differently produce the entire variety of nature. Discussion focuses on why honest error (Empedocles) receives respectful correction while deliberate obscurantism (Heraclitus) receives blunt denunciation. Empedocles’s Love and Strife are compared to pleasure and pain — strikingly close, except that Empedocles externalizes them as cosmic forces rather than recognizing them as internal feelings.
• Episode 19 - All Things Are Not Made of Pieces of the Same Thing, Or Pieces of All Things | Discussion
  • Elaine reads the Anaxagoras homeomeria passage — the claim that everything is made of particles of the same substance, with bones from little bones and blood from blood drops. Charles reads Lucretius’s sarcastic refutation: if true, the seeds would be “shaking their sides with laughter.” The episode gives sustained attention to the wormwood-honey-physician metaphor — Lucretius sweetening the bitter draught of materialist truth with the honey of poetry, as a physician tinges a cup so a child will drink medicine. Anaxagoras’s errors are traced to the familiar pair: denying void and denying a least particle. Elaine proposes “chocolate truth” as a better modern metaphor, and Cassius notes that wormwood was an antiparasitic, making the metaphor doubly apt.
• Episode 20 - The Universe Is Infinite In Size | Discussion
  • Book One’s closing arguments for an infinite universe. Two proofs: the logical argument from the definition of “the All” (if it is everything, nothing outside can bound it), and the famous javelin thought experiment (stand at the supposed edge and throw — either something stops it, proving space beyond, or it flies on indefinitely). Martin offers the modern physics perspective: Big Bang cosmology and general relativity cannot empirically confirm infinite extent, but non-Euclidean geometry describes a mathematically finite but boundless universe. Lucretius closes with an explicit denial of intelligent design: atoms arranged themselves through eternal motion and chance collisions, with no foreseeing mind. Preview of Book Two, “The Dance of Atoms.”
• Episode 21 - The Universe Has No Center | Discussion
  • The completion of Book One: there is no center to the universe. Elaine reads the closing passage on infinite matter supply and the argument against any tendency toward the center — since void yields equally in all directions, there is no privileged center point, no absolute “down,” no fixed place where heavy bodies come to rest. A textual puzzle is resolved: when Lucretius says “seeds arise from time to time,” this means statistical replenishment from the surrounding infinite universe, not creation from nothing. Philosophically, the “no center” claim demolishes the prime mover argument and, as Martin confirms, is what ultimately defeats medieval geocentrism. The episode previews Book Two’s celebrated opening — “sweet it is to watch from shore.”

2. Lucretius Book Two

• Episode 22 - Epicurean Philosophy As The Only Way To Defeat Fear of Death And Other Errors As To The Goal of Life | Discussion
  • Book Two opens with its celebrated prologue. The three images — watching a storm at sea from shore, watching a battle from safety, and looking down from the serene heights of philosophy at mankind wandering in error — prompt immediate discussion of the most common misreading: the pleasure lies not in others’ suffering but in being free from avoidable dangers and mistaken goals. The reclining-friends-on-soft-grass passage is read not as primitivism but as an illustration of proportionate pleasure. Principal Doctrine 9 is invoked to explain why pleasures are not interchangeable. A translation controversy centers on whether “reason alone” or “philosophy alone” defeats fear of death and religion — with the panel noting that “reason alone” risks importing an Aristotelian meaning.
• Episode 23 - The Motion Of The Atoms Continues Without Resting Place, and At Great Speed | Discussion
  • Returning to atomic motion in Book Two with Elaine absent. Charles reads the torch-relay analogy (atoms passing the “lamp of life” between generations like relay racers) and the argument that atoms in the boundless void are in perpetual motion. Martin reads the dust-in-sunbeam passage and the surprising claim that atoms move faster than light — being simple, uncompounded, and meeting no resistance in void. Martin identifies the sunbeam passage as an anticipation of Robert Brown’s 1827 discovery of Brownian motion. David Sedley’s article arguing the swerve was an afterthought is discussed and rejected. The episode closes by ruling out “atoms of pleasure” and “atoms of blueness” — pleasure is a feeling, not a substance.
• Episode 24 - The Swerve Part One: As A Producing Force of Nature | Discussion
  • The first of two episodes on the swerve. Elaine reads the passage introducing atomic deflection, which also contains the striking phrase “pleasure, the deity and great guide of life” — a phrase Stallings’s verse translation omits entirely while Smith preserves it as “divine pleasure, the leader of their life.” Lucretius’s description of the world as “faulty and imperfect” is identified as a standalone argument against theistic creation, independent of atomic theory. The physics discussion addresses the acknowledged problem of “downward” in a universe with no center. Sedley’s article is examined: he argues the swerve was developed for cosmogony before being applied to free will, not the reverse.
• Episode 25 - The Swerve Part Two: As The Basis of Human Agency | Discussion
  • The swerve’s philosophical role in grounding human agency. Martin reads Book Two’s argument that without atomic deflection everything would proceed in fixed necessary chains, leaving no room for the will we plainly observe in living creatures. Elaine, drawing on her medical background, raises the central objection: desire is mediated by molecules and cannot stand outside the causal chain. The panel agrees the physical mechanism is outdated but the philosophical insight stands. Cassius reads from the Letter to Menoeceus, where Epicurus explicitly distinguishes necessity, chance, and what is in our power — describing fate as a worse master than even traditional religion. The episode closes on the poetic image of an army appearing as a stationary glittering mass from a distant plain.
• Episode 26 - The Atoms Are Not Uniform In Shape | Discussion
  • Book Two’s argument that the first seeds differ widely in shape, as proved by the vast variety of phenomena they produce. Charles reads the famous passage moving from philosophical argument through the poetic interlude of a bereft cow searching the fields for her slaughtered calf, then through examples: varieties of grain, lightning’s penetrating power, oil versus wine flow, and smooth versus hooked atoms producing pleasant versus harsh sensations. The key phrase “not made by art after any fixed design” is identified as a pointed anti-Platonic argument. Discussion connects smooth-shaped atoms producing pleasant sensations to the “smooth motion” theory of pleasure held by the Kyrenaics — Aristippus, Arete of Cyrene, and Aristippus the Younger.
• Episode 27 - There is A Limit To the Size of Atoms | Discussion
  • Book Two’s argument that atomic shapes, though various, are finite in number — because if atoms could gain new parts indefinitely they would grow to infinite size. Elaine reads passages on how atomic shape determines the properties of matter: hard bodies from hooked/branching atoms, fluids from smooth round atoms, fire from acute non-hooked atoms. The main philosophical discussion is whether Lucretius is guilty of epistemological error in using pure logic to reach confident conclusions about unobservable things — Elaine argues strongly that this risks the same problem as phlogiston and ether. Cassius reads from the Letter to Pythocles, where Epicurus explicitly forbids arbitrarily choosing between hypotheses that all harmonize with phenomena.
• Episode 28 - The Number of Shapes of Atoms Is Not Infinite, But Innumerable | Discussion
  • Book Two’s argument that while atomic shapes are finite, the number of atoms of each type is itself infinite — because the universe contains infinite matter. Martin reads passages on rare animals, the shipwreck-debris analogy illustrating what finite seeds in infinite void would produce, and the vivid image of newborns’ cries mingling with the dying at every hour of every day. The discussion turns to whether Lucretius’s claim that creative forces ultimately prevail is correct — Martin gently notes the heat death hypothesis is a complication. The Letter to Herodotus is quoted directly on the distinction between “infinite in number” and “incomprehensible in number.” Elaine’s closing thought invites listeners to examine the process they use to arrive at their own decisions.
• Episode 29 - The Earth As Allegorical Mother of All | Discussion
  • Book Two’s extended passage on the Earth as Great Mother of the Gods — the Magna Mater cult. Charles reads Lucretius’s detailed account of the Cybele procession (lions, mural crown, drums and cymbals, the Curetes dancing with arms), followed by Lucretius’s declaration that these allegories, however beautiful, are far removed from truth: Epicurean gods are immortal, at perfect peace, separated by infinite distance, and need nothing from us. The discussion focuses on Epicurean permissive tolerance toward mythological language without supernatural belief — the panel contrasts this with the purely oppositional stance of the modern professional atheist. Philodemus’s On Piety and the “Covenant of the Sacred Festival Table” are cited on the Epicurean “cult of Epicurus” question.
• Episode 30 - Only A Limited Number of Combinations Of Atoms Is Possible | Discussion
  • Book Two’s argument that atoms cannot combine in every possible way — only certain combinations are possible. Elaine reads the passage showing that different species retain the nature of their sires, and the letter/word analogy explains how the same atomic “letters” produce entirely different “words.” A comparison of Brown’s translation with Smith’s reveals Brown makes it sound as though no atoms are shared between species — a misreading Smith corrects. Discussion turns to chimeras and fire-breathing monsters: because atoms cannot combine arbitrarily, such creatures do not arise. The regularity of nature is what makes planning possible and fear of supernatural monsters irrational. The episode closes on whether a person must consciously hold Epicurean philosophy to live happily.
• Episode 31 - Continuation of Episode 30 And Discussion of the Polyaenus Example | Discussion
  • The panel discusses whether everyone has an implicit philosophy whether they choose one consciously or not, opening with Ayn Rand’s essay “Philosophy: Who Needs It?” as a starting point. The central example is Polyaenus the geometrician from Cicero’s De Finibus — Cicero uses Polyaenus as a polemic target, claiming that after converting to Epicureanism he abandoned mathematics as worthless. The panel reads the relevant passage and argues that Cicero’s account distorts the Epicurean position: Epicurus did not hold that mathematics is valueless, but that it is a tool for modeling reality rather than a path to ultimate truth. Mathematics serves the pleasurable life; it is not an end in itself.
• Episode 32 - The Atoms Are Colorless, But The Implications of That Are Not | Discussion
  • Book Two’s argument that atoms themselves are without color — all colors arise from the arrangement, position, and motion of atoms. The episode examines multiple lines of evidence: interference colors (the iridescent plumage of doves and peacock tails), cone density differences between species, color blindness, and synesthetic color perception. Martin introduces Brownian motion as a modern parallel to Lucretius’s discussion of invisible atomic movement. The main philosophical discussion distinguishes emergent properties (arising from combination and arrangement) from intrinsic properties (residing in a thing itself), and uses this to examine the fundamental difference between Platonic and Aristotelian theories of essence and the Epicurean rejection of both.
• Episode 33 - More On the Implications of The Colorless Atoms | Discussion
  • Continuing Book Two’s argument that color is not the cause of texture — and that color disappears when bodies are divided into their constituent atoms. The gold and purple cloth examples show that color fades with division. The Mandelbrot set (Apfelmännchen) is introduced as a modern illustration of how complex visual patterns emerge from simple iterative rules applied to elementary components. Philodemus’s On Methods of Inference is discussed, leading to an exploration of three Epicurean knowledge categories. Laplace’s principle that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence is compared to the Epicurean approach. The episode closes with a comparison of Stoic and Epicurean approaches to logical contraposition.
• Episode 34 - The Atoms Do Not Possess A Faculty of Sensation | Discussion
  • Book Two’s argument that sensible beings arise from insensible seeds — atoms themselves have no sensation, yet in certain combinations they give rise to creatures that feel. The hard problem of consciousness is discussed at length, with panpsychism examined and rejected on Epicurean grounds. Spontaneous generation — the ancient observation that maggots appear to arise from decaying matter — is used as an illustration of how combination can produce what seems impossible from the components alone. Frances Wright’s A Few Days in Athens, Chapter 15, is read, and Thomas Jefferson’s 1820 letter to John Adams on thought arising from non-thinking matter is quoted.
• Episode 35 - More Reasons Why Atoms Cannot Possess The Faculty of Sense | Discussion
  • Continuing Book Two’s argument that atoms have no sensation. The episode examines how blows can disrupt the vital motion of an organism and then allow recovery — a pattern that argues against any fixed sensory quality in the seeds themselves. The observation that the same organism can be both wise and foolish also contradicts the notion that wisdom resides in fixed sensory atoms. Anaxagoras’s homoiomery theory is revisited and further critiqued. Usener fragment 411 on “smooth motion” language and its connection to pleasure is discussed. The episode closes with extended comparison of Pyrrhonism and Buddhism as two ancient traditions that converge on skepticism in ways that undermine practical action.
• Episode 36 - No Single Thing of A Kind: Earth Not The Only Home of Life | Discussion
  • Book Two, lines 1048–1104, on the isonomia principle — the equal distribution of things in the universe. Lucretius argues that since our earth and sky exist, there must be similar worlds elsewhere with similar living things, and that the gods do not govern the universe because they are at perfect peace and need nothing from it. This leads to discussion of the likelihood of life elsewhere in the universe and what isonomia implies for Epicurean cosmology. Wordsworth’s “The World Is Too Much With Us” is read as a modern echo of Lucretian sensibility. Cassius shares a personal anecdote about sharks and driftwood as an illustration of the principle that sensations are honest but conclusions can be leapt-to.
• Episode 37 - End of Book 2 - The Earth Too Was Born, and It Will One Day Die | Discussion
  • The end of Book Two. Lucretius completes his physical argument: the earth itself was born and will die, just as all individual things are born and die. Martin notes that the earth actually gains about 1 millimeter of material per year from space dust — a striking confirmation of the Lucretian frame. The panel discusses ecological depletion from over-exploitation as a contemporary illustration of the poem’s closing image of an earth that grows old and depleted. The sun will become a red giant in 5–10 billion years. The episode reflects on Book Two’s achievement: establishing that atoms without intrinsic color, sensation, or design can produce all observable phenomena through arrangement and motion alone.

3. Lucretius Book Three

• Episode 38 - Epicurus Our Guide Who Dispels The Darkness of Error and Fear of Hell | Discussion
  • Book Three opens with its celebrated prologue — Epicurus as the man who dispelled the darkness of human misery by identifying fear of death as its root. Cassius shares personal reflections on discovering Epicurus and what it meant to find a philosophy that addressed the actual source of human unhappiness. The panel discusses the caution against hero-worship: Epicurus himself would have opposed uncritical devotion, having identified the canon as the proper standard. The concept of a “Day of Evidence” — the moment a philosophical student becomes convinced — is explored. Neuroscience and the biological basis of personality are discussed in relation to Epicurean satisfiability as the key insight about human nature.
• Episode 39 - The Mind And Spirit Are Not Supernatural But Parts of A Man Just Like The Head and Foot | Discussion
  • Book Three on the nature of mind and spirit — animus (the sovereign mind, located in the chest) and anima (the diffused spirit throughout the body). Lucretius critiques the harmony theory of soul — that the soul is like the tune of a lyre and cannot exist without the instrument, as argued by Simmias in Plato’s Phaedo — and instead argues mind and soul are themselves material parts of the body. The Aristotelian blank-slate view of mind at birth is contrasted with Plato’s theory of recollection. Epicurus’s concept of prolepsis (innate anticipations) is discussed. Critical developmental windows and sensory deprivation experiments are introduced as modern evidence for the biological grounding of mind.
• Episode 40 - Argument That The Mind and Spirit Are Corporeal | Discussion
  • Book Three, around line 161, arguing that mind and body are fully coupled — fear produces physical symptoms (pallor, trembling, loss of speech), and removing the mind from the body destroys both. The panel discusses dart wounds as Lucretius’s illustration that physical injury can destroy the mind. The famous 21 Grams Experiment — Duncan MacDougall’s 1907 claim that the soul has measurable weight — is examined and found to be thoroughly flawed in methodology. Adipocere (the “grave wax” transformation of body fat after death) is discussed as one of the surprising ways matter is preserved and transformed. Elaine shares her experience of lexical-emotional synesthesia.
• Episode 41 - The Nature of the Mind and Spirit Is Complex; Sense is Not a Property of The Elements That Make Them, But An Event | Discussion
  • Book Three, lines 258–357, on the four natures that compose the soul: heat, breath (vapor), air, and a fourth unnamed nature that is the “soul of the soul” and carries sensation. This fourth nature may correspond to what we now call the nervous system or electrical activity. Lucretius uses a typology — the lion’s fiery constitution gives courage, the deer’s cold-vapor constitution gives timidity, the ox’s airy constitution gives calm — to illustrate how the dominant ingredient shapes personality. The hard problem of consciousness is discussed in light of this typology. Martin draws parallels to Ayurvedic doshas as an independent ancient attempt at the same constitutional classification.
• Episode 42 - The Mind Works Through the Senses; Both Mind and Spirit Are Mortal | Discussion
  • Book Three, lines 358–444, examining how the mind relates to the soul and how both relate to the body. Lucretius critiques Democritus’s view that eyes are active sense organs projecting outward, arguing instead that external images enter the eye. The episode gives sustained attention to Lucretius’s observation about unfelt particles: dust, spider webs, thistledown, and gnats are too small to register as individual sensations. The sovereign relationship of the mind over the soul is explained through the vessel analogy — the soul fills the body as a vessel. DeWitt’s concept of the Epicurean “super-sensory organism” is introduced, and Diogenes of Oenoanda’s Wall is cited in connection.
• Episode 43 - The Mind is Born, Grows Old, and Dies With the Body | Discussion
  • Book Three, lines 445–547, arguing that the mind is born, ages, and dies with the body. Lucretius observes that children lack adult reasoning, that the adult mind matures and eventually weakens with age, and that disease and intoxication visibly affect the mind — all proving mind is bodily. The historical record of Julius Caesar’s epilepsy is introduced as a striking illustration that even the greatest minds are subject to physical disruption. Hippocrates’s insistence on natural explanations for all diseases, including epilepsy (“the sacred disease”), is quoted as a predecessor to Lucretian naturalism. Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence doctrine is compared to the Epicurean view of death.
• Episode 44 - Additional Evidence By Which We Conclude The Mind Cannot Survive Apart from the Body | Discussion
  • Book Three, lines 548–633, on the impossibility of the soul surviving separation from the body. Lucretius argues that the soul is spread through the entire body and that when the body is divided or destroyed, the soul cannot maintain its integrity. The dilution/identity problem is examined: even if a soul-fragment survived, it would not be the same soul. Dante’s Circle Six (the heretics, buried alive in burning tombs) is noted as an ironic endorsement of the Epicurean position that soul-mortality is a serious philosophical claim, not mere impiety. Principal Doctrine 2 is discussed. Lucretius’s concept of “dying by degrees” is explored.
• Episode 45 - More on The Mortality of the Mind and Soul | Discussion
  • Book Three, lines 634–740, presenting Lucretius’s arguments from the divisibility of living things. Soldiers losing limbs on the battlefield remain conscious for a time — proof that the soul is distributed throughout the body and cannot persist as a single unit. The serpent cut in pieces, with each part continuing to writhe independently, provides another illustration. Lucretius then argues against pre-existence: if the soul existed before birth, we would remember something — but no one does. Pythagorean transmigration and Origen’s Christian version of reincarnation are both examined and rejected. General Patton’s famous belief in reincarnation is mentioned. The episode closes on the ancient mystery of maggot origin — spontaneous generation as then understood.
• Episode 46 - Conclusion of the Presentation that the Mind and Soul Cannot Survive Death | Discussion
  • Book Three, lines 741–829, developing the argument from species-specific qualities. If souls transmigrated between species, lions would be timid and deer courageous — yet each species consistently maintains its own temperament. Lucretius uses a reductio ad absurdum: why don’t all souls rush into bodies at the moment of mating? The regularity argument returns — trees stay in their proper zone, fish in theirs, fields bear consistent crops — all inconsistent with souls freely migrating between bodies. DNA-based personality analysis is discussed as modern confirmation of the species-specific argument. The panel reflects on how younger generations’ more casual attitudes toward death compare with the Epicurean position.
• Episode 47 - Death Is Nothing To Us | Discussion
  • Book Three, lines 830–930, approaching the heart of Lucretius’s argument: death is nothing to us. Elaine is absent — her father has died. The Carthaginian war analogy argues that since we felt no distress at not existing before birth, we will feel none after death. The passage on the corpse-mourner — who laments while eating and drinking — is examined as the clearest example of the contradiction at the heart of death-anxiety: the mourner imagines himself observing his own funeral, which requires being alive. The sleep analogy is discussed. Vatican Saying 66 is read. The critical distinction between the process of dying and the state of being dead is developed. Principal Doctrine 19 is quoted.
• Episode 48 - Nature Speaks To Us About Death | Discussion
  • Book Three, lines 931–1023, featuring Nature’s famous speech to the death-fearer: “Why, fond fool, dost thou so much dread death?” Nature reminds the fearful that great figures — Ancus, Xerxes, Scipio, Homer, Democritus, and Epicurus himself — are all dead. The mythological torments of Tityus, Sisyphus, and Tantalus are interpreted as allegories for present-day psychological suffering, not literal afterlife punishments. The Molecule of More — Daniel Lieberman and Michael Long’s book on dopamine and the hedonic treadmill — is discussed in connection with Lucretius’s account of insatiable desire. Elaine, whose father recently died, returns and shares reflections on grief and how Epicurean philosophy addresses bereavement.
• Episode 49 - Conclusions On Death And The End of Book Three | Discussion
  • The finale of Book Three, completing what Lucretius calls “half the poem.” Lines 1024 to the end argue that Cerberus, the Furies, and Hell do not literally exist — but the guilty conscience experiences its own Hell on earth. The restless man who alternates between his town house and his country estate illustrates how the anxious soul cannot escape itself through change of place. Principal Doctrine 19 is quoted, along with Vatican Sayings 26 and 47. The panel reflects on Book Three’s achievement and previews Book Four. The discussion closes on the Epicurean gods as beings who have achieved immortality through living in accordance with nature — a model for the Epicurean ideal.

4. Lucretius Book Four

• Episode 50 - The Opening of Book Four - Images | Discussion
  • Episode 50 opens Book 4, recorded on the Epicurean Twentieth (December 20, 2020), with Elaine absent because she is among the first to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. Charles reads Lucretius’s “honey and wormwood” metaphor, then a brief summary of the first three books, before introducing Book 4’s main subject: images (simulacra) — tenuous figures flowing from the surfaces of all bodies and carrying their shape through the air to our senses. Cassius frames this as Epicurus’s project of establishing a natural mechanism for knowledge — Books 1 and 2 handled atomic physics; Book 3 proved the mortality of mind; Book 4 shows how information reaches us through material processes, not divine revelation. Martin identifies Ibn al-Haytham as the first systematic theorist of optics.
• Episode 51 - More On The Working of “Images” | Discussion
  • Elaine returns after her COVID vaccine reaction as Martin reads Book 4 lines 110–229. The tenuous nature of images is established — they become visible when reflected in a mirror, fly through materials like cloth, but reflect off polished surfaces. Crucially, images can also arise spontaneously in the air without coming from any solid surface — clouds appearing as giants — which is Epicurus’s materialist explanation for hallucinations. The astonishing speed of images is analogized to sunlight. Cassius clarifies the standing claim: “all sensations are true” means sensations report honestly, but the report must be processed before conclusions about reality are drawn. Martin contributes a personal neurological observation about seeing stereoscopic 3D images only in yellowish grey.
• Episode 52 - More on Light, Vision, and Reflections | Discussion
  • Elaine reads Book 4 lines 230–323 on mirror images: images tell us distance by pushing air before them to the eye; they appear behind the mirror surface because the air interval is traversed twice (“double error”); left-right reversal is explained by the clay mask analogy; and the equal-angles law of reflection is established. Martin explains the physics of the double air interval; Elaine introduces stereognosis and how infants use their mouths to build correlations between tactile and visual shape perception. A DeWitt passage contrasts Plato’s “eye-beam” theory, Democritus’s air-pulsation model, and Epicurus’s filmy idol theory. Cassius previews the key epistemological line ahead: the eyes report only where light and shadow are; the mind does the reasoning.
• Episode 53 - The Senses Are Never Deceived, Even By Illusions | Discussion
  • Martin reads Book 4 lines 324–468, a long series of optical illusions — jaundice causing yellow vision, square towers appearing round at distance, the ship-and-shoreline paradox, an oar bent in water, clouds racing against the moon, and dreams in which we think ourselves awake. The central epistemological payoff: “the eyes are not to be blamed — it is their business to discover only where light and shade are; it is the office of the mind and judgment to distinguish this.” DeWitt’s position that “all sensations are true” means honestly reported (not true to all the facts) is defended. Cassius introduces the observation that Epicurus conceived the mind as operating primarily through pictures rather than words, directly connecting to the Letter to Herodotus.
• Episode 54 - Reason Is Dependent on the Senses | Discussion
  • Book 4’s epistemology passage establishes that reason is wholly dependent on the senses: total skepticism is self-defeating; knowledge of truth is originally derived from sensation; no faculty can override the senses without claiming even greater certainty; and each sense has a separate province. Robert A. Burton’s On Being Certain is cited on certainty as a brain sensation. Elaine notes that Lucretius’s claim about strictly separate senses is not quite neurobiologically correct — synesthesia, COVID’s effect on smell and taste, and bone-vibration from sound all complicate the picture. Martin argues logic is independent of empirical reality while Cassius defends a data-driven conception of logical reasoning. The building analogy closes the section.
• Episode 55 - Reason Is Dependent on The Senses (Part 2) | Discussion
  • Elaine reads Book 4 lines 469–521, hammering home the epistemological conclusion: it is better to offer even a false solution than to abandon the senses as the first principle of contact with reality. The building analogy drives the point — reason founded on false sensory premises must collapse entirely. Elaine clarifies that Epicurus is defending the senses as a faculty, not endorsing false certainty in particular conclusions. Divergences within the Epicurean community on whether reason and logic must supplement observation are examined. Human heuristics — the sunk cost fallacy and gambler’s fallacy — illustrate why common sense is unreliable without checking evidence. A preview of the upcoming love-and-marriage section of Book 4 closes the episode.
• Episode 56 - More On The Operation Of The Senses | Discussion
  • Martin reads Book 4 lines 522–632: sound and voice are corporeal — they scrape the throat and wear the speaker down — the mechanism of echo and reverberation is explained, why sound passes through walls but visual images cannot, and how taste works through smooth and rough seeds acting on the tongue. Martin corrects the physics: sound is vibration rather than emitted particles (the phonon is the modern quasi-particle equivalent in solid bodies). The sackbut/Berecynthian pipe translation is debated across Brown, Munro, Bailey, and Martin Ferguson Smith. COVID taste and smell loss provides a modern illustration. The episode closes with Lucretius’s unexpectedly comedic line about keeping a moist stomach.
• Episode 57 - Taste, Smell, and the Subjectivity of the Senses | Discussion
  • Charles reads Book 4 lines 632–721 on subjective variation in perception: different foods suit different palates because seeds fit different-shaped pores; what is food to one creature is sharp poison to another; fever changes taste by rearranging the order of seeds; smells diffuse faster than sound or sight. A claim that seeds from a cock’s body cause acute pain in a lion’s eyes leads to discussion of the evolutionary logic of smell-directed food-seeking. Whether subjective perception means the senses are untrustworthy is answered via Diogenes of Oinoanda Fragment 5: no, but observations always require analysis. The Cyrenaic Hegesias, who argued for suicide on materialist grounds, illustrates why Epicureans firmly reject that conclusion.
• Episode 58 - The Mind’s Direct Receipt of Images | Discussion
  • Elaine reads Book 4 lines 722–822 on images received directly by the mind — thinner and more subtle than those received by the eyes. This explains centaurs and other composite creatures (horse-image meets man-image and they combine), and why memory is inactive in sleep so it cannot challenge false dream-perceptions. Dream figures appear to move because rapid sequential images create the impression of animation; the mind focuses on chosen images from an unlimited supply. Martin’s key point: modern neuroscience says the brain stores patterns rather than images — which is actually closer to Epicurus’s model than the naive view. The materialist application: an explanation for Brutus seeing Caesar’s ghost before Philippi that requires no supernatural mechanism.
• Episode 59 - The Uses Of The Body Were Not Designed Before They Arose | Discussion
  • Martin reads Book 4 lines 823–906: no limb or organ was made for any particular use — use was found after the part already existed. Language, sight, and hearing all came before their conscious purposes; nature taught avoidance of wounds before shields were invented. Martin distinguishes this from evolutionary theory proper: mutation and selection are absent; it is anti-creationism, not Darwinism. Elaine connects it to the image theory: if imagination is passive, the desire to move must also work through an externally supplied image. Cassius raises whether the mind selecting from images is consistent with Epicurean free will. Charles reads from La Mettrie’s Man, a Machine as a direct echo of the same Lucretian point. Book 5 is flagged as where natural selection properly appears.
• Episode 60 - Dreams, And The Mind’s Use of Images | Discussion
  • Charles reads Book 4 lines 907–1036 on sleep and dreaming. Sleep is explained as the partial dispersal of the soul — the body beaten from within and without by air through the pores until the soul’s seeds cannot unite. The mind in sleep revisits what it engaged with while awake (the lawyer pleads cases, the sailor fights winds, Lucretius searches nature), and animals dream too (the racehorse, hounds on the trail, house dogs). Elaine maintains that dream images still come from outside through open passages, not stored memories — citing the Diogenes of Oinoanda inscription on dreams; Martin suggests prior experience conditions the mind to select certain incoming images, explaining the lawyer’s legal dreams without requiring a storage mechanism.
• Episode 61 - The Perils of Romantic Love (Part 1) | Discussion
  • Book 4 lines 1037–1140 open Lucretius’s extended treatment of romantic love — transitioning from the sleep-and-dreams section. The wound/blood analogy for being struck by Venus, the warning against concentrating desire on one person, and the recommendation to seek “wandering Venuses” rather than fixate are examined across Brown, Munro, Stallings, and Martin Ferguson Smith translations. Elaine distinguishes infatuation, lust, and oxytocin bonding: infatuation involves idealizing someone you don’t know, which fits Lucretius’s complaint about impossible-to-satisfy desires. Jealousy is identified as a symptom of infatuation rather than love. Principal Doctrine 10 is cited on things that seem depraved being fine unless they lead to pain.
• Episode 62 - The Perils of Romantic Love (Part 2) | Discussion
  • Martin reads Book 4 lines 1141–1208 — Lucretius’s satirical catalog of how lovers rationalize their partners’ physical flaws, the “filthy smells” passage on women concealing their defects, and the closing argument that mutual sexual pleasure is real and common to both sexes. The panel debates whether Lucretius’s tone is sarcasm or personal grievance, and compares his technique to Buddhist aversive therapy and modern dating-coach advice against idealization. The soul-mate concept is traced to Plato’s Symposium and contrasted with Epicurean materialism. Elaine introduces love-bombing and argues that friendship is a more reliable basis for long-term relationships than infatuation. Dawkins’s selfish-gene framework provides context for why idealization persists despite causing misery.
• Episode 63 - The Perils of Romantic Love (Part 3 - End of Book 4) | Discussion
  • Charles reads the closing lines of Book 4, covering heredity and resemblance to parents (explained via “concealed seeds,” the modern parallel being recessive genes), why some couples cannot conceive, and the prostitutes-vs.-wives passage — which Brown’s 1743 translator refused to render, requiring a switch to Munro. The closing water-drops-on-rock passage on habit generating love raises a Platonic-beauty problem Lucretius may not have fully resolved. Elaine discusses autoimmune incompatibility and Rh factor as material explanations for partner-specific infertility. The panel’s verdict: Lucretius is not counseling Epicureans to avoid romantic love entirely — forewarned is forearmed. Cassius references Jefferson’s Head vs. Heart letter as a companion reading.

5. Lucretius Book Five

• Episode 64 - Due To His Accomplishments, Epicurus Should Be Thought Of As Godlike | Discussion
  • Book 5 opens with Lucretius praising Epicurus as “a god” for discovering the rule of life, comparing his gift to Ceres’s grain and Bacchus’s wine, then arguing Epicurus exceeds even Hercules: Hercules slew local monsters while Epicurus subdued the monsters of the mind — pride, lust, fear, luxury, and sloth. Martin notes that “things must subsist by the same laws by which they were formed” anticipates James Hutton’s uniformitarianism, the founding principle of modern geology. Two functions of the atomic swerve are distinguished (anti-determinism and world formation), and the closing transition — singling out the mortality of the soul and the images-in-dreams theory as the two propositions most important for combating religion — is examined.
• Episode 65 - Introducing a New Panelist (Don) and A Recap of the Opening of Book Five | Discussion
  • Don joins as a new regular panelist for Books 5 and 6, introducing himself: a forum member since early 2020, drawn to Epicurus after first exploring Stoicism, attracted by Epicurus’s materialism, rejection of religion, and egalitarianism — including his unusual welcome of women to the Garden. No new text is read; the group revisits the opening 90 lines from Episode 64. Discussion covers whether “a god” is a literal Epicurean claim, an Epicurean conception of non-supernatural divinity, or colloquial; Don’s note that Lucretius specifically chose Hercules as the Stoic patron saint, making the comparison a backhanded rebuke of Stoicism; and a preview of Book 5’s themes: cosmos, human origins, language, civilization, and justice.
• Episode 66 - The End of All Things (But Not Of The Universe Itself!) | Discussion
  • Don reads Book 5 lines ~91 onward — Lucretius’s program for the rest of the poem: the mortal nature of our cosmos, the origins of life and humanity, language, and the “dread of deities” that generates religion and superstition. Discussion covers the Epicurean critique of treating stars and planets as divine beings, and how fear rather than reverence drives temple-building and worship. The dissolution of “the three bodies” (seas, earth, heavens) applies to our local cosmos but not to the infinite universe as a whole. The Latin anima/animus distinction — animating life-force versus rational mind — is examined, and Cassius draws a parallel between the hierarchical structure of the cosmos and Epicurus’s approach to pleasure and pain.
• Episode 67 - Did The Gods Wake Up One Day To Create The Universe? | Discussion
  • Charles returns and reads Book 5 lines ~146 onward: the gods’ abodes are too subtle to be perceived; it is madness to claim the world was made for humans; the gods’ perfect happiness gives them no reason to create a world; the universe was assembled not by any divine blueprint but by atoms agitating from eternity. Martin identifies “nothing has the power to touch that is incapable of being touched itself” as an anticipation of Newton’s Third Law. Lucian’s satirical dialogues appear as parallels. The question of what motive the gods could have for creating anything at all — connected to the anti-natalist charge (“what evil had we suffered if we had never been created?”) — is examined.
• Episode 68 - This World Was Not Made By The Gods For Humanity | Discussion
  • Martin reads Book 5 lines ~195 onward — Lucretius’s argument that the earth was clearly not made for humanity: two-thirds is uninhabitable, crops require constant toil, wild beasts and disease abound, and the helpless newborn infant contrasts sharply with animals that need no nurse. Discussion covers Leibniz’s “best of all possible worlds,” the anthropic fine-tuning argument, exoplanet discoveries, and the phosphine-on-Venus finding. A Stallings footnote flags Matthew 6:28-29 (“consider the lilies of the field”) as likely a direct response to Epicurean arguments. Whether “what model had the gods to work by” targets Plato’s Theory of Forms is debated, with Demiurge theology and DeWitt’s St. Paul and Epicurus providing context.
• Episode 69 - The Eventual End of Our World | Discussion
  • Don reads Book 5 lines ~235–323 demonstrating that the four elements are composed of mortal seeds, so our world must also be mortal — confirmed through the water cycle, the constant flux of air, the decay of light rays, and the erosion of stones, towers, and temples. Empedocles’s four-element theory is contrasted with Epicurean atoms, and his love-and-strife forces with Epicurean pleasure and pain. Martin raises emergent properties — a Platonist could claim DNA as the “ideal form” of an orange. The Earth is described as both “great parent and common sepulchre of all things.” Don recommends Sedley’s Lucretius and the Transformation of Greek Wisdom, and the practical Epicurean takeaway is seize the day.
• Episode 70 - More On The End Of The World | Discussion
  • Charles reads Book 5 lines ~324–415 with three arguments for the world’s eventual end: lack of historical records before the Trojan War suggests the world is relatively new; only atoms, void, and the universe-as-a-whole are eternal; and the four elements are in implacable war, illustrated by the Phaeton legend and a reference to a great flood. Don flags that this passage lists only three eternal things and conspicuously omits the Epicurean gods — which Cassius reads as confirming DeWitt’s point that Epicurus never called his gods immortal by nature, only by their ability to maintain their atoms. Schliemann’s discovery of Troy and the Greek Dark Ages provide historical context for the “no records before Troy” argument.
• Episode 71 - Back To The Beginning - The Beginning of Our Corner of the Universe | Discussion
  • Martin reads Book 5 lines ~416–508 on the formation of our local cosmos: from a chaotic mass of seeds, heavier particles sank to form the earth at the center, lighter particles rose as the ether carrying the stars, and intermediate particles (sun and moon) orbit between — all by atomic processes alone, requiring no divine design. Discussion covers the geocentric model, whether Epicurus was a flat-earther, and the cosmos/universe distinction (cosmos = ordered local world, to pan = the infinite all). The swerve — no surviving text gives a mechanism; it is derived logically to avoid determinism — is examined. A lengthy tangent covers cosmic rays: high-energy particles flipping computer bits, astronauts seeing flashes on the ISS, and homemade cloud chambers.
• Episode 72 - Alternative Explanations in Science, and The Size of The Sun | Discussion
  • Don reads Book 5 lines 509–613 on the formation of ether and sky, the motion of heavenly bodies (multiple possible causes given in each case), the earth hanging suspended in air, and the apparent sizes of the sun and moon. The three nested entities in Epicurean cosmology are clarified: universe (to pan), cosmos/world (mundus), and the earth itself. The Epicurean multiple-explanations principle from the Letter to Pythocles receives extended discussion: Cassius addresses the charge that this makes Epicurean philosophy anti-scientific, arguing instead that the Epicurean scientist pursues knowledge because it gives pleasure. Martin notes that light diffraction gives a grain of truth to the claim that the sun appears its actual size.
• Episode 73 - More on the Sun and Moon And Similar Astronomical Issues | Discussion
  • Martin reads Book 5 lines 614–704, covering the sun’s seasonal movements between the tropics, night as either the sun circling beneath the earth or extinguishing its fire, dawn as scattered seeds of fire flowing together, and the moon’s phases — possibly borrowed light, possibly its own, possibly a rotating half-lit ball. Don unpacks the rare Latin peditemptim (“by stretching out the feet, step by step”) — the frozen-pond analogy for an Epicurean philosopher who advances cautiously but keeps advancing. The panel addresses why ancient study of nature did not produce industrial technology: Martin explains that enabling technology was missing (ancient iron could not hold steam pressure), and Don adds that slavery reduced the incentive for labor-saving devices.
• Episode 74 - Eclipses, And The Beginnings of Life on Earth | Discussion
  • Don reads Book 5 lines 705–820 — the moon possibly created anew each month (the Berossean rotating-hemisphere theory), a poetic procession of the seasons, multiple causes for eclipses, and the new-formed earth producing early humans and animals from womb-like pouches in soil. Sedley confirms that Berossus is the latest philosopher identifiable by name in the poem. The Letter to Pythocles sections 86–87 are read at length for their sharp methodological divide: terrestrial physics admits firm deductive conclusions; celestial phenomena require keeping multiple plausible explanations open without forcing a single answer. Martin notes that abiogenesis — protocells forming under the right conditions — is analogous to what Lucretius describes, but only for the simplest primitive life forms.
• Episode 75 - The Rise of Life On Earth, And Which Forms Were Possible And Impossible | Discussion
  • Charles reads Book 5 lines 821–924, covering the earth’s gradual exhaustion (compared to a woman past her prime), early monstrous births that perished, and which forms nature preserved — lions by courage, foxes by craft, domestic animals by usefulness to man. The impossibility of centaurs and chimeras is argued biologically: a horse grows old far faster than a man. Don brings in Sedley’s account of Empedocles’ theory — disassociated limbs combining into “man-faced ox children,” with only the fittest surviving — a near-miss for natural selection. Natural selection is clearly present; descent with modification is absent. The Latin gaudia (“mutual delights of both”) is traced through Bavarian Gaudi to the student hymn Gaudeamus igitur and Nietzsche’s Die fröhliche Wissenschaft.
• Episode 76 - Early Humans and Their Society | Discussion
  • Martin reads Book 5 lines 925–1027, covering the variety of early earth creatures (each species breeds true — no mixed-species births), the greater hardiness of the first earth-born humans, and their wandering, lawless existence before society. The contrast between primitive mortality — individuals eaten by wild beasts — and modern mass death through war, shipwrecks, and deliberate poisoning is noted. Fire, sexual love, and children gradually softened humanity toward the first social agreements — the Epicurean basis for justice. Natural selection is clearly present in this passage; descent with modification is absent. Martin notes that the rotating night-watch pattern seen in both apes and humans suggests early humans were not as solitary as Lucretius depicts.
• Episode 77 - The Formation of Language and Early Societies | Discussion
  • Don reads Book 5 lines 1028–1105 on the natural origin of language — one man could not have invented and imposed names on others; animal communication provides the parallel. Cassius raises Epicurus’s On Nature Book 28 via Sedley’s paper, including the Megarian “hooded man” riddle and the etymology of kenon (void) as “inside of an empty box.” Martin discusses fire from friction — bamboo forests, rocks, volcanic eruptions — with Don finding an Easter Island legend confirming crossed branches as a fire source. Fire as a civilizing force contra the Prometheus myth, cooking learned by observing the sun ripen food, and the eventual supplanting of beauty and strength by gold as social currency close the episode.
• Episode 78 - Ethical Issues Arising In the Formation Of Societies | Discussion
  • Martin reads Book 5 lines 1105–1240 on the fall of kings, the rise of laws and magistracies, and the origins of religion. The opening on living on little prompts unpacking of the Latin parque, Vatican Saying 63 on frugality’s limits, and the three-category framework for desires — establishing that the bread-and-water passage is an illustration of independence, not a prescription for permanent asceticism. The second half addresses political participation: Diogenes Laertius’s note that the Epicurean wise man “will pay court to a king if occasion demands” is read alongside Martin’s account of Germanic tribes choosing leaders by mutual consent, and the misreading of “live unknown” as license for total civic withdrawal is rejected.
• Episode 79 - The Cause Of The Arising of Belief In Gods | Discussion
  • Book 5 lines 1151–1240 cover the Epicurean account of how belief in gods originally arose — from images of vast, powerful figures seen while waking and in dreams, then misinterpreted as supernatural controllers of nature. The tantum religio potuit suadere malorum line from Book 1 is recalled, and true Epicurean piety is defined as viewing all things with an undisturbed mind (pacata). Don raises Sedley’s idealist reading of Epicurean gods; Munro, Bailey, and Rouse translations are compared; Martin compares Islamic prayer toward the Kaaba to Lucretius’s “turning towards the stone”; and Principal Doctrine 1 on the gods’ eternal, untroubled nature closes the episode.
• Episode 80 - The Development of Metallurgy And The Art of War | Discussion
  • Don reads Book 5 lines 1226–1341, covering the admiral praying in vain during a storm, the fasces as symbols of Roman power, and the discovery of metals. Martin’s metallurgy commentary explains why bronze (copper and tin) is more plausible than brass as an early naturally-occurring alloy, since iron does not occur as a free element. Gold supplanting bronze’s utility reflects the Epicurean principle that nothing has inherent value — only pleasure is the measure. The animal-warfare passage (bulls, lions, bears, elephants) leads to Lucretius’s characteristic hedge: he doubts such warfare ever happened on this earth and suggests it might have occurred in one of the infinite other worlds. Multiple translations are compared throughout.
• Episode 81 - Development of the Arts And The End of Book Five | Discussion
  • Martin reads the final lines of Book 5 — the origins of weaving, agriculture, music, and writing. Whether Lucretius intended satire or accuracy in saying men invented weaving before women is debated. Nature as teacher (philogeorgos — “lover of the country”) replaces divine instruction for agriculture. An apparently out-of-place sentence in Brown’s 1743 edition is bracketed in the Loeb as a likely transcription error. The acorns passage reflects a central Epicurean insight: things we prize become odious as desire outstrips necessity, and we fight over gold and purple rather than what suffices. Whether writing was discovered or invented (reperta) prompts Martin’s parallel with Chinese oracle-bone script. Book Five ends with in luminis erigit oras — shores of light, summit.

6. Lucretius Book Six

• Episode 82 - Opening of Book Six - Restatement of Goal of Poem | Discussion
  • The panel begins Book 6, with Don reading the opening hymn to Epicurus and Athens. The group examines why Lucretius names Epicurus only once in the entire poem (Book 3, line 1042, at his death), the vessel/pot metaphor for the corrupted mind, the summum bonum, and the recurring “boys trembling in the dark” analogy. The Latin naturae species ratioque is compared across Brown, the Loeb, Munro, and Bailey, debating whether ratio should be rendered “reason” or “law.” Don closes with Empedocles Fragment 4’s chariot metaphor and Fragments 57–61, confirming that Empedocles literally described heads budding without necks and arms wandering shoulderless — the very image Lucretius rejected in Book 5.
• Episode 83 - Meteorology: Thunder and Lightning Part One | Discussion
  • The episode opens with the conclusion of the Book 6 introduction on the gods — Principal Doctrine 1, why a correct view of the gods is foundational to all Epicurean physics, and the practical need for a firm position on religion, illustrated with COVID-era prayer-versus-action debates. Martin then reads Book 6 lines 68–164, opening the extended meteorological section: what holds clouds together, why thunder rumbles (it is the echo of a distant lightning strike, not cloud collision), Martin’s observation that a whip’s crack is the first man-made supersonic event, lightning analogized to fire, and Lucretius’s observation that things travel more slowly to the ears than to the eyes — light before sound.
• Episode 84 - Thunder and Lightning Part Two - Very Very Frightening | Discussion
  • Opening with the Letter to Pythocles on multiple explanations and a careful reading of Principal Doctrine 24, Don reads Book 6 lines 173–335 covering clouds, thunder, and lightning. Martin confirms that thunder comes from lightning rather than cloud collision; that clouds have no hollow caverns (he has flown through them); and that friction producing charge separation is the correct intuition behind Lucretius’s “fiery seeds” — what Lucretius lacked was knowledge of electrodynamics. The episode closes with slingshot bullets as the ancient analogy for electrostatic effects, amber-rubbing as the only form of electrostatics known to the ancients, and a survey of electrostatic generators from the Wimshurst machine to the Van de Graaff generator.
• Episode 85 - Thunder and Lightning Part 3 - Why Do The Gods Send Thunderbolts Onto Their Own Temples? | Discussion
  • Martin reads Book 6 lines 340–417, confirming that lightning bolts gathering force during descent reflects charge-separation energy proportional to distance — illustrated by Galileo’s vacuum experiment and the Apollo 15 moon demonstration. The second half is Lucretius’s concentrated anti-religious attack: why do gods strike the good and innocent rather than the wicked? Why destroy their own temples? Why waste bolts on mountains and seas? Martin confirms that lightning strikes the sea proportionally to area (no divine targeting), and that most lightning travels cloud-to-cloud rather than cloud-to-ground. The episode closes with discussion of St. Jerome’s claim that Lucretius wrote while insane from a love potion.
• Episode 86 - Typhoons and Whirlwinds | Discussion
  • Book 6 lines 423–527 cover Lucretius’s account of prestors (the Greek term for whirlwinds or waterspouts), cloud formation, the water cycle, rain, and a brief mention of the rainbow. Don traces prestor in Aristotle’s meteorological treatise, where it appears as a variant of the Greek typhon; Martin explains cyclone physics, Mediterranean storm patterns, and why Roman naval disasters in northern waters involved extreme waves rather than hurricanes. The episode closes with close attention to line 527 — what Lucretius means by the “virtue and power of the seeds” — with Don consulting Lewis and Short on elementis and reddita to determine whether the correct rendering is “properties,” “powers,” or “qualities.”
• Episode 87 - Earthquakes and The Water Cycle | Discussion
  • Martin reads Book 6 lines 527–700+, covering earthquakes (underground caverns and winds — tectonic plates are the real cause), the water cycle and why the sea never overflows, and Mt. Etna. The “holy fire” (sacer ignis) is identified as likely ergot poisoning or erysipelas. The Epicurean distinction between the mortal local world and the eternal universe provides philosophical grounding. A lengthy digression traces the Chicken Little / Henny Penny folk tale — whether its moral concerns fear-mongering or improper logical extrapolation — through the Brothers Grimm and an 1823 Danish version by Just Mathias Thiele. The episode closes with Cassius quoting Torquatus in De Finibus on the shame of learning Epicurean basics only in old age.
• Episode 88 - The Waters of the Nile And The Sulfur Pits That Are Fatal To Birds | Discussion
  • Book 6 lines 703–818 open with the Epicurean multiple-causes rule illustrated by a dead man found on the road. Four possible causes for the Nile’s flooding follow: Etesian winds, sand blocking the mouth, Ethiopian rains, and melting snow. A catalogue of harmful natural substances — toxic trees, beaver castoreum, charcoal fumes, and mining vapors — prompts the tracing of the canary-in-the-coal-mine tradition to John Scott Haldane. The episode closes with Virgil’s Georgics 2.490 — “Happy was he who was able to know the causes of things, and threw beneath his feet all fears and inexorable fate” — which the group notes is regularly cited against Jerome’s claim that Lucretius died by suicide.
• Episode 89 - Unusual Geological Phenomena - Springs That Change From Hot to Cold And Back Again | Discussion
  • Book 6 lines 830–917 conclude the Avernian-places section and examine hot and cold springs. The famous fountain at the temple of Jupiter Ammon — described by Herodotus as boiling at midnight and cold at noon — prompts Martin to note that Lucretius dismisses an explanation that is actually correct and substitutes a wrong one. A cold spring said to ignite flax and re-light an extinguished torch is likely a natural gas or oil seep; freshwater springs welling up within the sea at Aradus are confirmed by Strabo. The principle of action at a distance leads into a brief introduction to magnetism — rings hanging in sequence from a lodestone — to be treated at length in the following section.
• Episode 90 - Special Guest Panelist - Preparation for Discussion of Magnetism | Discussion
  • Book 6 lines 906–998 provide the extended introduction to the magnetism discussion, with Joshua standing in for Don and performing a dramatic reading at the close. Lucretius revisits foundational atomic principles — constant particle flow, “nothing in nature but body mixed with void,” and the variety of pore sizes governing permeability. Joshua notes this passage contains the last mention of “pleasure” in the entire poem — a pig rolling in mud (iucunda) — prompting a digression on the pig as Epicurean symbol: Horace’s “hog out of Epicurus’s herd,” the Boscoreale Cup, and the leaping piglet bronze from the Villa of the Papyri. Santayana’s judgment that atomic theory is humanity’s greatest idea closes the episode.
• Episode 91 - More on Magnetism, and Introduction To Disease And Plagues | Discussion
  • Book 6 lines 1002–1125 bring the full panel back together — Don returns, Joshua rejoins — for the magnetism section and the introduction to diseases and plagues. On magnetism: Lucretius’s particle-flow explanation is wrong in mechanism, but Martin notes that field theory and particle theory are complementary models and praises Lucretius’s “ingenious tour de force.” On disease: Lucretius correctly identifies waterborne and airborne transmission vectors but subscribes to miasma theory. Joshua recounts the Great Stink of London (1858) and John Snow’s tracing of cholera to contaminated wells — work unrecognized in his lifetime. Don’s closing observation: what always impresses him about Lucretius is his powers of observation and the humanizing way he conveys them.
• Episode 92 - The Plague of Athens, And The End of the Poem | Discussion
  • The final regular episode of Lucretius covers Book 6 from line 1125 to the end — the plague in Athens adapted from Thucydides. Three interpretations of the ending are debated: the poem is complete and the plague tests whether the reader has absorbed the philosophy; Santayana’s view that a Mars hymn mirroring the Venus opening was planned but left unrevised; and DeWitt’s hypothesis that a seventh book on the gods was never written. Cassius emphasizes that this is not a moral condemnation of the Athenians but a picture of the world without Epicurean philosophy — these people predated Epicurus by a century. The episode closes with Epicurean funerary rites and the symmetry of the poem’s opening and closing words.

7. Torquatus On Ethics

• Episode 93 - Torquatus on Ethics Torquatus Leads Us Forward Into Conflict Over Epicurean Ethics | Discussion
  • A major milestone: the podcast has completed all six books of Lucretius and now begins Cicero’s De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum Book 1, in which the character of Torquatus — a historical Epicurean — presents the Epicurean case for pleasure as the goal of life. Joshua reads sections 5 and 28–31 from J.S. Reid’s translation. Historical background covers why Cicero’s portrayal is probably accurate despite his personal opposition — Epicurean friends would have called him out on gross misrepresentation. Three positions on pleasure’s self-evidence are identified from section 31 (Epicurus simply points; some later Epicureans argued logically; Torquatus represents a third, argued position). Martin raises Bertrand Russell, set theory, and whether mathematical abstractions map onto sensory reality.
• Episode 94 - Torquatus Explains Pleasure As The Goal Of Life | Discussion
  • Don reads De Finibus Book 1 sections 33–36: Torquatus explains why pleasure is the telos — no one pursues pain for its own sake; pain is only incurred to obtain greater pleasure or ward off greater pain. The Torquatus family examples follow, including the ancestor who executed his own son for breaking formation in battle — presented as fully consistent with Epicureanism, because the act was directed toward the army’s and people’s pleasure. The panel contrasts Lucretius’s dux vitae (“guide of life”) with the abstract summum bonum (“highest good”), finding the former more alive and contextual. Joshua’s map-versus-territory analogy — at some point you must stop perfecting the map and go live — applies directly to the hedonic calculus.
• Episode 95 - Understanding The Paradoxical “Absence of Pain” | Discussion
  • Martin reads De Finibus Book 1 sections 37–38 — “the greatest pleasure is that which is enjoyed when all pain is removed” — and the panel works through what this means. The state of no pain is not numbness but a positive, felt condition; numbness itself is a kind of pain. The distinction between kinetic (active) and katastematic (stable) pleasure is examined, with Don’s homeostasis analogy clarifying the latter. Chrysippus’s statue argument — an extended hand feels no lack, therefore pleasure is not the supreme good — is dismissed as applying equally to any proposed goal. For Epicureans, a painless hand is itself in the highest pleasure.
• Episode 96 - Episode Ninety-Six - The Proof That Pleasure (And Not Virtue) Is the Supreme Good | Discussion
  • Joshua and Don read De Finibus Book 1 Sections 12–13 in Don’s final episode before his sabbatical. Section 12 describes the “best life” as filled with pleasures great, numerous, and constant — explicitly both mental and bodily — which some commentators dismiss as a distortion; the panel defends it as consistent with the Letter to Menoeceus and Vatican Sayings. The “worst life” passage prompts debate on whether Torquatus’s argument is descriptive or normative. Section 13 establishes virtue as purely instrumental: like a physician’s skill, praiseworthy not for its own sake but for what it accomplishes. Frances Wright’s A Few Days in Athens and Don’s maxim — “the words of the philosopher are empty if they do not result in a life of pleasure” — close the episode.
• Episode 97 - The Virtues As Instrumental For Pleasure: Temperance and Courage | Discussion
  • Martin reads De Finibus Book 1 sections 47–54 — temperance, courage, and justice as virtues instrumental to pleasure — as Don begins his sabbatical and Charles returns to the panel. Cassius rejects the Aristotelian golden mean as a standard for temperance, favoring self-discipline. Joshua notes that virtue lists have historically been deployed to control people — citing Boccaccio and Leontion’s polemic against Theophrastus, illustrating why the Garden’s unusual openness to women was considered scandalous. Jefferson’s four-virtue letter to William Short is read. The courage section’s implicit defense of contextual suicide — “make our exit from life as we would from a theatre” — is examined alongside the Roman story of Marcus Curtius and the Lacus Curtius.
• Episode 98 - The Epicurean View of Justice (Part One) | Discussion
  • The justice section of the Torquatus material is revisited, with the panel (Charles absent) wrestling with the central question: if Epicurean justice is a convention — a compact not to harm or be harmed — does that mean there is no real right or wrong? The John Brown/Harpers Ferry raid illustrates how gut-level feelings about justice can be diametrically opposite. Principal Doctrines 37–38 show that justice changes when circumstances change, illustrated by wartime copper rationing. Thomas More’s Utopia, Montaigne on two executed innocents, and Jefferson’s “the earth belongs to the living” appear as parallel readings. Cassius closes: understanding that there is no absolute justice does not mean retreating into passivity.
• Episode 99 - The Epicurean View of Justice (Part Two) | Discussion
  • Concluding the justice section of Torquatus, Charles reads De Finibus lines 50–52: trembling before the gods, that unjust persons are better repressed than taught, and that true reason beckons men of sound mind toward justice and fairness. The panel examines whether Epicurean justice is fully self-enforcing through conscience or also requires external punishment — the answer is both. Principal Doctrine 10 and whether someone who profits from wickedness without consequences represents a genuine gap in the Epicurean framework is examined alongside the Kids for Cash judicial scandal. Lucretius’s passage on the teleological fallacy is also read: even if justice emerges spontaneously across species, this does not convert it into a universal normative law.
• Episode 100 - Concluding On Justice With A Shout To Keep The Virtues In Their Proper Place | Discussion
  • The 100th episode concludes Torquatus’s justice section, with Joshua reading lines 53–54: justice is not to be wished for on its own account but because it brings agreeableness, closing with the declaration that pleasure is “the supreme and ultimate good.” Thomas More’s argument in A Man for All Seasons — defending even the wicked under law “for my own safety’s sake” — illustrates justice as a means. Les Misérables and A Tale of Two Cities show justice pursued to extremes producing injustice. Diogenes of Oinoanda Fragment 32 (“shouting to all Greeks and non-Greeks” that pleasure is the end) and letters between Cassius Longinus and Cicero during the civil war citing Epicurean philosophy close the episode.
• Episode 101 - Corollaries to the Doctrines of Epicurus - Part One | Discussion
  • A shortened holiday episode with only Cassius and Martin. Martin reads De Finibus lines 55 and the opening of 56, delivering three corollaries: (1) people err not about pleasure and pain themselves but about the means to achieve them; (2) mental pleasures and pains arise from bodily ones, making those who deny this “unskilled thinkers”; (3) nevertheless, mental pleasures and pains far surpass bodily ones, because the mind perceives past and future while the body perceives only the present — making anticipated eternal torment far more potent than any momentary sensation. Cassius uses this to reject the caricature that Epicureans care only about bodily pleasures, and closes with end-of-year reflections and gratitude for Martin’s unbroken attendance at every episode.
• Episode 102 - Corollaries to the Doctrines of Epicurus - Part Two | Discussion
  • Joshua reads De Finibus lines 56–59: the removal of pain is itself a pleasure; memory and anticipation amplify pleasures and pains beyond their bodily source; the diseases of the mind — measureless desire for riches, fame, and power — are the root of wretchedness. The Bull of Phalaris provides the central test case: Diogenes Laertius records that “even if the wise man be put on the rack, he is happy” — but also that “when he is on the rack, then he will cry out and lament.” The Epicurean position is not that the mind wills pain away, but that mental pleasures from memory and anticipation can offset it. Joshua’s “prevention over response” principle closes the episode.
• Episode 103 - Corollaries to the Doctrines of Epicurus - Part Three | Discussion
  • First episode of 2022. Martin reads De Finibus lines 60–61 — death hanging over the foolish like the stone over Tantalus, the role of memory, present awareness, and anticipation in the wise man’s happiness, and the declaration that “no greater pleasure can be reaped from a life without end than from this which we know to have its allotted end” — followed by a direct attack on Stoics who say “nothing good exists excepting that vague phantom which they call morality.” Discussion covers Tantalus mythology as the image of paralysis by fear, Epimetheus versus Prometheus as hindsight versus foresight, the swerve as the basis for free will versus Stoic determinism, and Joshua’s “pleasure engine” concept: building a life whose natural output is pleasure.
• Episode 104 - More Torquatus and a Question: Was The Ancient Epicurean Movement A Cult? | Discussion
  • Joshua reads De Finibus lines 62–63, but the episode pivots to address forum questions: Was Epicurus arrogant? Was Epicureanism a cult? The panel works through Dr. Steve Eichel’s cult checklist and finds nearly no characteristics apply — several are directly contradicted (Epicurus explicitly prohibited holding property in common as “a sign of distrust”; the school was unusually open to women, non-Greeks, and at least one slave). Martin addresses the arrogance charge: Epicurus’s reluctance to credit Democritus looks arrogant by modern conventions that did not yet exist, and his modifications to Democritean atomism were substantive. Lucian’s portrait of the ideal Epicurean in Alexander the Oracle-Monger provides the one-sentence rebuttal to cult accusations: someone “whose intelligence was steeled against such assaults by skepticism and insight.”
• Episode 105 - More From Torquatus On The Key Doctrines of Epicurus | Discussion
  • Martin reads De Finibus line 62 — the condensed description of the wise man — and the group works carefully through each element. “Keeps his passions within bounds”: the only Epicurean reason to avoid a pleasure is that it brings greater pain. “About death, he is indifferent”: distinguished from indifference about when one dies. “Holds true views concerning the eternal gods apart from all dread”: attributing omnipotence or creative function to the gods is actually impious. “No hesitation in crossing the boundary of life if that be the better course”: the Epicurean contextual analysis of when dying might be better. The episode closes with Sidney Morgenbesser’s famous quip to illustrate why Epicurus’s contextual approach is superior to Kantian categorical imperatives.
• Episode 106 - The Epicurean Attitude Toward Fate / Fortune and the Role of Reason | Discussion
  • Two main topics from Torquatus: the Epicurean attitude toward fate and fortune — Principal Doctrine 16 (“in but few things chance hinders a wise man”), free will, the atomic swerve (clinamen), and what is versus is not in our control — illustrated by Joshua’s Chinese farmer parable. The second half introduces Epicurean epistemology through Torquatus’s claim that “the logic of your school possesses no efficacy, either for the amelioration of life or for the facilitation of debate” — and how Pythagorean and Aristotelian cosmology went wrong by using abstract logic detached from sense evidence. The next episode explores Epicurus’s approach to natural science in depth.
• Episode 107 - The Epicurean Emphasis on Natural Science | Discussion
  • Returning to section 63, the panel focuses on Epicurus’s declaration that he “laid the greatest stress on natural science.” Discussion examines what natural science meant for Epicurus — concluding it encompasses the study of all nature, not a narrow modern discipline — and why the Epicureans grouped epistemology with physics, as noted in Diogenes Laertius. The debate on how much direct scientific study modern Epicureans need settles on the view that the real benefit is learning how to think naturally: developing the habit of proposing natural explanations rather than supernatural ones. The episode closes with Lucretius’s warning that religion’s eloquence can persuade to evil deeds, and his promise to pour out proofs “until slow old age creeps in.”
• Episode 108 - The Benefits of A Proper Understanding of the Senses and of Natural Science | Discussion
  • Continuing section 64, the episode focuses on the Epicurean defense of sensation against radical skepticism. Cassius opens with Diogenes of Oinoanda’s attack on those who declare things unknowable — which destroys the grounds for natural science — and his argument that the Aristotelian flux theory is self-refuting. Joshua introduces Pyrrho of Elis and the Aristocles passage describing Pyrrhonism’s conclusion: “without views, uninclined toward this side or that” — the inevitable endpoint when sensation is denied. Extended readings from Lucretius Book 4 follow, covering optical-illusion objections and the building-on-crooked-foundations metaphor. The episode closes with Principal Doctrines 23 and 24 and Thoreau’s traveler who discovers the swamp has a hard bottom after all.
• Episode 109 - The Epicurean View of Friendship | Discussion
  • Opening the Epicurean treatment of friendship from sections 65–66, the episode centers on DeWitt’s “summum bonum fallacy” — his argument that Epicurus’s actual word was telos (goal), not summum bonum (supreme good), and that the distinction matters because summum bonum implies a ranked list of goods while telos names a single end. Vatican Saying 78 on the “mortal” and “immortal” good receives discussion. Torquatus presents three Epicurean ways of discussing friendship, beginning with the view that our own pleasure remains primary — but friendship, like virtue, cannot be dissociated from pleasure. The mythological friend pairs Theseus–Pirithous and Orestes–Pylades illustrate the rarity of genuine friendship. The episode closes with the declaration: “This is Epicurean philosophy, not hedonism.”
• Episode 110 - The Epicurean View of Friendship (Part Two) | Discussion
  • Joshua reads the remainder of sections 66–70 on friendship, mapping the three Epicurean positions: (1) friendship is always instrumental to pleasure yet inseparably linked with it; (2) through shared experience, affection persists even when immediate interest is not served; (3) wise men esteem their friends no less than themselves. The selfishness-versus-altruism debate is framed against Ayn Rand’s framework, and Principal Doctrine 28 on the security friendship provides is connected to the text. Joshua invokes the A Beautiful Mind bar scene (John Nash’s game-theory epiphany) to show how acting for a friend’s interest can serve your own. The episode closes with Gandalf’s line: “all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”
• Episode 111 - Torquatus Summarizes The Significance of the Epicurus | Discussion
  • The final session on the Torquatus material reads sections 71–72 in both Reid’s and Rackham’s translations. Section 71 is a poetic capstone praising Epicurus — doctrines “clearer and more luminous than daylight,” confirmed by the testimony of the senses — and calls for gratitude to the man who “guided all sane-minded men into the paths of peace and happiness.” Section 72 defends Epicurus against the charge of being uneducated: he refused education that did not promote happiness, and the true “Philistines” are those demanding endless study of what ought to have been learned in boyhood. The episode closes with the Letter to Menoeceus’s call to “study night and day and you will live like a god among men,” and announces the Letter to Herodotus series.

8. Letter to Herodotus

• Episode 112 - Letter to Herodotus Epicurus’ Letter to Herodotus - Introduction and Outlining | Discussion
  • Joshua reads the opening paragraph of the Letter to Herodotus from Cyril Bailey’s translation, and the group explains why Bailey was chosen over Hicks and Yonge and why the podcast spent two years on Lucretius and Torquatus before Epicurus’s own letters — the “forest and trees” problem. Two Philodemus quotes on the “unforgivable inactivity” of Epicureans who ignore the actual books motivate a discussion of outlining and David Allen’s Getting Things Done system. Cassius contrasts Epicurus’s approach with Epictetus’s Enchiridion — which strips ethics from all physics and metaphysics — using Joshua’s keystone arch analogy: physics and epistemology are the two legs, and ethics the keystone that collapses without them.
• Episode 113 - Letter to Herodotus 2 - Principles of Thinking | Discussion
  • Martin reads both the epistemological opening (sections 37–38 on grasping ideas attached to words and the three-part canon of sensations, anticipations, and feelings) and the full physics summary — the equivalent of Lucretius Book 1. Discussion focuses on what Epicurus means by “grasping ideas attached to words” and how Epicurean ideas formed from observation differ from Platonic eternal forms. Joshua contributes the Académie française as an analogy for attempted language regulation and a story from Ivanhoe on the Norman–Anglo-Saxon word divide. John Tyndall’s 1870 phrase “mental images” is traced back to this very passage. The panel concludes that Epicurus moves inductively from observation to general rules, then deductively from those rules to conclusions about the imperceptible.
• Episode 114 - Letter to Herodotus 3 - First Principles of Physics | Discussion
  • Joshua reads the physics sections again with focus on why Epicurus considered them important — not as a physics textbook but as a challenge to supernatural religion and Platonic metaphysics. Cassius observes that Lucretius makes the purpose explicit at Book 1, line 146: “nothing has ever been begotten of nothing by divine will,” tightly linking the first physics principle to the absence of supernatural creation. The Pirahã tribe — a Brazilian Amazon people whose grammar marks whether information was perceived directly, heard second-hand, or inferred — is described by Joshua as radical empiricists, leading a Christian missionary to convert to atheism. The episode closes with Torquatus’s statement that natural science provides courage against fear of death, firmness against superstition, and tranquility of mind.
• Episode 115 - Letter to Herodotus 4 - Atoms, Void, and Basic Epistemology Issues | Discussion
  • Martin re-reads the same physics sections (40–45), focusing this time on the opening claim that “body exists since itself witnesses in the experience of all men” — what it means to ground all reasoning about the imperceptible in universal testimony of sensation. Plato’s cave analogy treats the senses as unreliable, while Epicurus insists sensation is the ultimate standard even for atomic theory. Joshua tells the story of Giordano Bruno being burned in 1600 partly because atomism was incompatible with Catholic transubstantiation doctrine. Vatican Sayings 29 and 45 underscore the egalitarian character of Epicurean knowledge: nature is explicable to all men, not just the philosophical elite. Physics and epistemology must be studied together as mutual checks.
• Episode 116 - Letter to Herodotus 5 - More Fundamentals of Physics | Discussion
  • Joshua draws a direct connection between Epicurean atomism and the rejection of a “first cause”: because Epicurus affirms an infinite regress of causation extending back through eternity, the indivisibility of atoms is the stable mechanism for that eternal chain — the same stance that directly undermines Aquinas’s Five Proofs for the existence of God. The group reflects on George Santayana’s judgment that atomism is “the greatest idea that mankind has ever hit upon,” and Joshua traces its persistent challenge to religious authority through John Tyndall’s controversial 1874 Belfast Address. Translation discrepancies in Bailey’s edition are noted alongside a discussion of ancient scriptio continua manuscripts, illustrated by Timothy Dexter’s punctuation-free memoir.
• Episode 117 - Letter to Herodotus 6 - The Doctrine of Infinity of Worlds And Its Implications | Discussion
  • The entire session is devoted to section 45 on the doctrine of infinite worlds — the same physical laws that govern Earth must produce life in other regions of the universe. Martin explains that “worlds” means at minimum a solar system and at maximum a galaxy; Joshua reads the parallel Lucretius Book 2 passages. Giordano Bruno’s execution in 1600 for espousing cosmic pluralism and the European discovery of the Americas are cited as parallel challenges to orthodoxy. The panel debates whether meaninglessness is a distinctly modern problem ancient Epicureans would not have recognized, and closes with Richard Dawkins’s “lucky ones” passage and Thoreau’s “you must live in the present” as the Epicurean answer to despair.
• Episode 118 - Letter to Herodotus 7 - Images - There’s More To Them Than Meets the Eye | Discussion
  • The panel tackles the most complex topic so far — the doctrine of images (idola) from sections 46–52. Solid bodies constantly emit thin films of atoms preserving the shape of the original, producing both visual perception and direct mental impressions; this is contrasted with Plato’s rival “emission theory” in which eyes project rays like searchlights. Lucretius Book 4 provides extended commentary: centaurs and Scyllas formed by accidental image-merging, soldiers dreaming of battles, and the remarkable line 877 claim that images falling on the mind are the mechanism by which thought is first converted into physical action. Cicero’s joking letter about images of Cassius Longinus “flying through the air” and Shakespeare’s Queen Mab speech appear as literary illustrations.
• Episode 119 - Letter to Herodotus 8 - More On Perception Through The Atoms | Discussion
  • Martin reads sections 53–57 on hearing and smell as atom-particle transmissions and the critical assertion that atoms possess only shape, weight, and size — all other qualities are contextual. Joshua’s story of Marconi believing sound never disappears (imagining a “Museum of Lost Sounds” that could replay the Sermon on the Mount) and Martin’s account of a research project recovering speech from ancient clay-pot patterns illustrate the episode’s concern with perception and evidence. Section 54’s declaration that atoms have no color or taste prompts extended discussion of Democritus’s “by convention sweet, in reality atoms and void” — and why treating conventional qualities as inferior to atomic “reality” leads toward nihilism and Stoic detachment.
• Episode 120 - Letter to Herodotus 9 - Epicurus’ Rejection of Infinite Divisibility | Discussion
  • The episode covers sections 56–59 on the upper and lower limits of atom size and the doctrine that atoms, though physically indivisible, can be conceptually divided in the mind. Cassius opens with a frank disclaimer: this material is difficult, and the podcast is directed at ordinary people who need a framework for responding to arguments that would undermine confidence in sensation. The main vehicle is Zeno of Elea’s paradox of Achilles and the tortoise — why did Aristotle call Zeno “the inventor of the dialectic”? — and how Martin resolves it with basic mathematics. Martin also traces modern physics from molecules through atoms to quarks via the Rutherford experiment, noting the standard model contains around sixteen to seventeen fundamental particles.
• Episode 121 - Letter to Herodotus 10 - Atoms and The Soul | Discussion
  • Martin reads sections 60–66 covering atomic motion and the physical account of the soul. Epicurus’s claim that in an infinite universe there is no absolute “up” or “down” is compared with Aristotle’s geocentric model and illustrated by Lucretius Book 1 on the absurdity of thinking everything presses toward a single center. Sections 61–62 address the equal speed of atoms in void and mechanics of collision; Cassius connects the constant jostling of atoms within apparently solid bodies to Lucretius’s description of dust motes in sunbeams — an early observation related to Brownian motion. Sections 63–66 present the soul as fine particles distributed throughout the body resembling wind with an admixture of heat, contrasted with Marcus Aurelius’s Stoic contempt for the flesh.
• Episode 122 - Letter to Herodotus 11 - What it Means to “Exist” - Properties and Qualities | Discussion
  • Joshua reads sections 67–71 on the incorporeal and the relationship between properties, qualities, and accidents of bodies. The core purpose is the refutation of Plato’s realm of ideal forms and Aristotle’s essences: color and love exist only as qualities of material bodies under particular circumstances, not as independently existing entities. The group uses “yellow” as their central example — color is not a property of individual atoms (which have only size, weight, and shape) but an emergent quality of aggregates under specific conditions. Section 68 connects this to the soul’s material existence: the incorporeal cannot act or be acted upon, and since the soul clearly does act, it must be corporeal. “Emergent property” is the modern term for what Epicurus describes.
• Episode 123 - Letter to Herodotus 12 - Events and Time (More on Properties and Qualities) | Discussion
  • Martin reads sections 70–73 on properties, accidents/events, and the nature of time. Epicurus’s three-way distinction covers permanent properties (without which a body cannot be conceived, like heat in fire), transitory accidents (war, poverty, capitalism), and time itself — which must be grasped through direct intuition rather than treated as an independent existing thing. The senators seen under colored awnings in the Colosseum (appearing red from reflected light) serve as the central illustration of color as a contextual quality rather than a Platonic absolute. Martin connects Epicurus’s rejection of absolute time to Einstein’s theory of relativity — not that Epicurus anticipated relativity, but that he is compatible with it.
• Episode 124 - Letter to Herodotus 13 - Life On Other Worlds, Development of Language, And the Regular Motion of the Stars | Discussion
  • Joshua reads sections 74–77 on life on other worlds, the natural development of language, and why celestial motions must not be attributed to supernatural beings. The isonomia principle — no single thing of a kind — grounds the argument that other worlds must contain life, while Lucretius Book 5 on how diverse animal sounds develop naturally provides the analogy for the origin of language. Lucian’s “The Death of Peregrine” — an early description of a Christian community as prey for charlatans — illustrates the challenge Epicureanism faced. The episode is recorded on the anniversary of Thales’ predicted solar eclipse of 585 BC — what Asimov called “the birth of science.”
• Episode 125 - Letter to Herodotus 14 - Purpose and Method of Studying Nature - Conclusion | Discussion
  • Martin reads the closing sections of the Letter to Herodotus — the synthesis of the entire physics program and its relationship to peace of mind. The core argument: even an expert observer remains in greater fear without understanding the nature of what they observe, and arbitrarily locking onto a single theory is no different from myth. Section 81 identifies the principal human disturbance as thinking the gods are capricious and fearing eternal punishment — both arising “not by reasoned opinion but by some irrational presentiment.” Virgil’s “happy is he who has discovered the causes of things” is quoted as the best summary of Lucretius’s project. Joshua cites Philodemus’s lament about Epicureans’ “unforgivable negligence” regarding the books.

9. Letter to Pythocles

• Episode 126 - Letter to Pythocles Letter to Pythocles 01 - Introduction On The Basic Approach of Epicurean Philosophy | Discussion
  • With guest Don returning, Joshua reads the introduction to the Letter to Pythocles — sections 84–88. Epicurus thanks Cleon for delivering Pythocles’s request for a summary on celestial phenomena; Don notes that macarios (blessed/happy) used here is the same word as in Principal Doctrine 1. Section 86 establishes the crucial distinction: celestial phenomena admit multiple possible causes because observation at close range is impossible, unlike atomic theory. Section 87 rejects “arbitrary principles and empty assumptions,” contrasting the Epicurean method with Tertullian’s credo quia absurdum, while section 88 warns against abandoning inquiry and “having recourse to myth.” The episode closes with Cassius’s declaration that “Epicurus is the once and future philosopher of humanity.”
• Episode 127 - Letter to Pythocles 02 - The Formation of “Worlds” | Discussion
  • Don reads sections 89–90 on the formation of worlds (cosmoi), with Joshua away. A “world” corresponds most closely to what we now call a galaxy or solar system — a bounded portion of infinite space that forms from aggregating seeds, reaches equilibrium, and eventually dissolves. Section 90 refutes two competing views: that worlds form from atomic whirlings alone (insufficient), and Democritus’s view that worlds grow until they collide (contradicted by phenomena). Martin connects the aggregation-to-equilibrium process to Lucretius Book 2 on matter drawn to matter, describes modern nebulae as dust from supernovae seeding new star formation, and corrects the ancient error that galaxy collisions occur because objects “grow into” each other.
• Episode 128 - Special Episode - Short Review of the Twelve Fundamentals of Nature | Discussion
  • With Joshua and Don unavailable, Cassius and Martin detour from the Letter to Pythocles to examine the “Twelve Fundamentals of Physics” — a lost scroll referenced in Diogenes Laertius and reconstructed by DeWitt and Diskin Clay. The group compares DeWitt’s version against Clay’s more rigorous reconstructions, finding DeWitt sometimes follows Lucretius more than the Letter to Herodotus. The key point from DeWitt page 214: these fundamentals were the starting point of Epicurean education, established deductively and confirmed by sensation, in service of happiness rather than theory for its own sake. Modern cesium-133 measurement standards provide an analogy for the canon of truth as a measuring rule (kanon = straight edge or ruler).
• Episode 129 - Letter to Pythocles 03 - The Implications Of the Epicurean Position On The Size of the Sun | Discussion
  • Joshua reads section 91 on the sizes of the sun, moon, and stars — “what they appear to be, or slightly greater or less, or the same” — organized around Geller Goade’s 2022 essay “Lucretius and the Size of the Sun.” The core argument: fires do not shrink with distance like solid objects, and the sun cannot be approached to establish a changing scale, making “the size as it appears” an honest epistemological position, not naivety. Geller Goade’s “shibboleth thesis” — Epicurus used this formulation as both a teaching device and a coded challenge to astronomical orthodoxy — is supported by noting that Anaxagoras was condemned to death for saying the sun was larger than the Peloponnese. The episode connects measurement standards to the canon of truth as a measuring rule.
• Episode 130 - Letter to Pythocles 04 - More on the Sun and Moon | Discussion
  • Martin reads sections 94–98 covering moon phases, eclipses, and the varying lengths of day and night — with the warning against “becoming enamored of the single cause” hammered through every passage. Joshua cites Hitchens on Democritus and Epicurus: “we don’t have much to learn from what they thought about nature, but a great deal from how they thought.” Aristotle’s scala naturae and the medieval great chain of being are traced through Dante’s sixth circle. Dawkins’s argument that Platonic essentialism delayed the discovery of evolution is read alongside the Letter to Pythocles’s insistence on analogical explanation. Liu Cixin’s dark forest theory from The Three-Body Problem trilogy illustrates Epicurean equanimity about an infinite universe.
• Episode 131 - Letter to Pythocles 05 - Weather Phenomena | Discussion
  • Joshua reads sections 99–104 on weather signs, clouds, rain, thunder, lightning, thunderbolts, and cyclones, with section 104 closing: “early superstition must be excluded if one successfully follows the lead of seen phenomena to gain indications about the invisible.” The episode opens with a discussion of Lucretius’s Hymn to Venus — Venus as a figure for nature or pleasure, not a supernatural goddess — and uses the Iphigenia sacrifice as Lucretius’s own paradigm case: Agamemnon’s false assumption that Poseidon controls weather led his entire army to demand the killing of his daughter so the fleet could sail for Troy. Two recurring objections are addressed: the Pyrrhonist charge that Epicurus provides no certain answers, and the demand for a specific daily schedule of pleasures.
• Episode 132 - Letter to Pythocles 06 - More on The Weather | Discussion
  • Martin reads sections on earthquakes, wind, hail, snow, frost, the rainbow, and the halo around the moon — covering earthquakes through Martin’s experience in Japan, where two wave types signal a distant quake. Joshua describes the Tower of the Winds in Athens as an early attempt to systematize meteorological observation. Keats’s complaint in “Lamia” that philosophy “clips an angel’s wings” by reducing the rainbow to natural causes is rejected: Epicurean natural understanding enhances rather than diminishes wonder. The episode closes with the Lake Peigneur disaster — a Louisiana salt mine punctured by an oil rig drained an entire lake into the earth — as a modern example of how catastrophic events invite supernatural explanation.
• Episode 133 - Letter to Pythocles 07 - Conclusion Of The Letter | Discussion
  • Joshua reads the final sections of the Letter to Pythocles — comets, fixed stars, wandering stars, falling stars, and the exhortation to study “beginnings and infinity” and “the criteria of truth and the feelings.” Cassius flags a translation discrepancy: Bailey inserts “a small thing gives the greatest pleasure” into section 116, a reading absent from Hicks and other translators — a standing reminder that no single translation can be trusted uncritically. The core epistemological statement receives extended commentary: assigning one cause to phenomena that demand multiple explanations is “madness, wrongly practiced by partisans of astrology.” Martin raises the letter’s authenticity, noting that a 1980 German translation contains a much shorter version of the text.

10. Letter To Menoeceus

• Episode 134 - Letter to Menoeceus Letter to Menoeceus 01 - Context and Opening of the Letter | Discussion
  • Callistheni debuts as a new regular panelist, reading section 122 — “Let no one when young delay to study philosophy, nor when he is old grow weary of its study.” Bailey’s “study of philosophy” is compared against Hicks’s “seek wisdom” and Saint-André’s “love and practice wisdom,” the latter more alive to personal stakes. Eudaimonia receives extended examination alongside Torquatus and Diogenes Fragment 32, establishing that pleasure, not virtue, is the end of the best mode of life, and that arriving at this letter without grounding in physics and canonics leads to a naive reading. The episode closes with a contrast between the online Stoicism renaissance and what Epicurus offers anyone seeking genuine active engagement with life.
• Episode 135 - Letter to Menoeceus 02 - On The Nature of The Gods | Discussion
  • Martin reads sections 123–124 on the Epicurean gods, correcting Bailey’s translation — “engraved on men’s minds” smuggles a creationist assumption that Hicks’s rendering avoids. The foundational theological points are established: the gods possess only immortality and blessedness, lacking omnipotence, creativity, moral law-giving, or providence. A sharp distinction is drawn between the physical interpretation (beings of atoms in the intermundia) and the idealist interpretation (mental constructs useful for moral contemplation). Joshua’s image of a Greek peasant entering the Parthenon for the first time and Callistheni’s Buddhist earth-witness mudra illustrate how cultural environment shapes perception of the divine. The episode closes with Lucretius’s Prometheus passage on Epicurus as the man who “explored the vast immensities of space and came back triumphant.”
• Episode 136 - Letter to Menoeceus 03 - On Death (Part One) | Discussion
  • Reading sections 124–126 — Epicurus’s foundational treatment of death — the group establishes why this is the most practically important section of all Epicurean philosophy. Callistheni surveys Greek underworld mythology: unlike the Christian hell, Hades was not generally punitive — ordinary souls faded in formless existence, with only Ixion, Sisyphus, and Tantalus receiving specific torments. The argument that death is the deprivation of sensation makes it literally nothing to us, and Lucretius’s symmetry argument — the eternity before birth passed without suffering, so the eternity after will too — is developed alongside Pascal’s wager and Thomas More’s Utopia as evidence that fear of posthumous punishment is the real center of the religion-versus-philosophy contest.
• Episode 137 - Letter to Menoeceus 04 - On Death (Part Two) | Discussion
  • Continuing the death section of the Letter to Menoikeus, the group tackles Epicurus’s rebuke of those who say it would be better never to have been born — citing Sophocles and Ecclesiastes as the literary targets. This position is the logical endpoint of a false premise, not a prescription for the suicidal. Greenblatt’s account of his fear-haunted mother who wasted years in anticipatory grief provides a modern illustration of how Epicurean training in attitude serves both living and dying. The episode closes on an affirmative note with Richard Dawkins’s “lucky ones” passage — celebrating that we are among the improbable few who have experienced existence at all.
• Episode 138 - Letter to Menoeceus 05 - On Pleasure (Part One) | Discussion
  • (No transcript is available for this episode.)
• Episode 139 - Letter to Menoeceus 06 - On Pleasure (Part Two) | Discussion
  • On the 21st anniversary of September 11, Joshua uses the certainty of that day’s hijackers as a frame: passionate conviction is not evidence of truth, making the evidence-based Greek method for reasoning about how to live indispensable. Reading sections 130–132, the group resolves two tensions: whether “absence of pain and trouble” is a complete definition of pleasure (no — Vatican Sayings 50 and 51 confirm all pleasures are legitimate by nature); and whether a Benthamite hedonic spreadsheet is the right approach (no — prudence is lived judgment, not calculation). Discussion of bread-and-water clarifies that Epicurus recommends independence from luxury, not condemnation of it. J.S. Mill’s defense of Epicurean intellectual pleasures closes the episode.
• Episode 140 - Letter to Menoeceus 07 - Completion of the Letter | Discussion
  • Closing the Letter to Menoikeus, the group works through Epicurus’s rejection of fate and his insistence that the chief power over events lies within us. Classical fate-mythology — Oedipus, Maugham’s “Appointment in Samara,” the Oracle-Monger’s reversible battlefield prophecy — shows that accepting inescapable destiny renders all action pointless. Shakespeare’s Cassius (“the fault is not in our stars”) voices the Epicurean view against Brutus’s Platonist “tide in the affairs of men.” The episode closes with Lucretius’s declaration that Epicurus “was a god” and the Torquatus peroration offering gratitude to the man who “caught nature’s voice” and guided all sane-minded people into peace and happiness.

11. Diogenes of Oinoanda - Excerpts From The Inscription

• Episode 141 - Diogenes of Oinoanda Diogenes of Oinoanda (Part 1) The Inscription | Discussion
  • Introducing the Oenoanda inscription — roughly 262 feet long, 8 feet tall, carved in a public piazza in Asia Minor circa AD 120–150 — Martin reads the opening fragments: Diogenes composed this “anthem to the fullness of pleasure” for all passersby, including future generations, because concern for those suffering needlessly is itself a source of happiness. Joshua traces the philosophical geography from Epicurus’s birthplace on Samos through Miletus to Lampsacus and Oenoanda. Callistheni flags a textual detail: Fragment 1 says “pains that are groundless we have excised,” while Principal Doctrines speak of desires — a potentially significant distinction she plans to investigate.
• Episode 142 - Diogenes of Oinoanda (Part 2) “Reality” | Discussion
  • Reading Fragments 5 and 7, the group examines two philosophical rivals Diogenes dismantles before establishing his own position. Fragment 5 targets the Aristotelian claim that constant flux makes nothing knowable — Diogenes catches the self-refutation: they must already know white from black, which requires prior knowledge. Fragment 7 refutes Democritus’s claim that only atoms are truly real and everything else conventional — a position that would make it impossible to protect yourself from fire or slaughter. Callistheni notes that neither Lucretius nor Diogenes begins with ethics: both start with physics and epistemology, because Epicurean confidence about how to live rests on confidence about what is real.
• Episode 143 - Diogenes of Oinoanda (Part 3) The Superiority of The Epicurean Viewpoint on “Gods” | Discussion
  • Prioritizing religion as foundational, the group moves directly to Fragments 16, 19, and 20 of the Oinoanda inscription. Fragment 16 positions Epicurus against both Diagoras the atheist and Protagoras’s double-negative agnosticism, offering a third path: gods exist because evident to perception, but the truly impious man is he who projects the multitude’s attributes onto them. Fragment 19 criticizes Homer’s capricious, warring gods; Fragment 20 argues that wrongdoers fear neither gods nor laws — only correct reasoning about pain and death makes people act rightly. T.H. Huxley coined “agnosticism” only in the 19th century; the Epicurean position is a confident positive affirmation of natural, non-providential gods.
• Episode 144 - Diogenes of Oinoanda (Part 4) Virtue Not The Highest Good | Discussion
  • Concluding the Diogenes of Oinoanda series with Fragments 29, 30, and 32, the episode reaches the inscription’s philosophical climax. Fragment 30 presents the whole world as one homeland and the inscription as an open invitation requiring no forced agreement. Fragment 32 delivers the decisive argument: Diogenes declares he is “shouting out loudly to all Greeks and non-Greeks” that pleasure is the end of the best mode of life, while the virtues — wrongly elevated from means to end — are instruments, not the goal itself. The geographic reach of Epicureanism is traced from Asia Minor to a mosaic at Autun, France, showing Epicurus and Metrodorus.

12. DeWitt’s “Epicurus And His Philosophy” Parts 01-11

• Episode 145 - “Epicurus And His Philosophy” Part 01 - Chapter 1 - Introduction | Discussion
  • Launching a new series on Norman DeWitt’s Epicurus and His Philosophy (1954), the group surveys the book’s three purposes: biographical sketch, new interpretation, and the problematic bridge-to-Christianity thesis. DeWitt’s opening claim — that Epicurus is both “the most revered and most reviled” philosopher — frames the discussion: revered by seven centuries of followers including Lucretius and Diogenes of Oinoanda; reviled by Maimonides, Cicero, and the Catholic Encyclopedia. Callistheni reflects personally on entering Epicureanism through ethics and finding that it fills a gap neither atheism nor agnosticism alone had filled. The term “synoptic” — seeing the whole in proper relations — provides the structural key.
• Episode 146 - “Epicurus And His Philosophy” Part 02 - The Three Divisions of Epicurean Philosophy | Discussion
  • Opening the DeWitt series with Chapter 1’s three-part division of Epicurean philosophy — Physics, Canonics, and Ethics — the group reflects on where each panelist first encountered Epicurus: Cassius through Lucretius; Joshua through Greenblatt’s The Swerve and Stallings’s translation; Martin through a German edition; Callistheni through Catherine Wilson’s How to Be an Epicurean and then primary texts. Callistheni argues the nature of gods is foundational — settling that question changes everything. The episode surveys the hostile tradition from the Catholic Encyclopedia to Denis Lambin to Dante, and considers DeWitt’s proposal that a seventh book of Lucretius on the gods was lost.
• Episode 147 - “Epicurus And His Philosophy” Part 03 - True Opinions And False Opinions About Epicurus | Discussion
  • (No transcript is available for this episode.)
• Episode 148 - “Epicurus And His Philosophy” Part 04 - True Opinions And False Opinions About Epicurus | Discussion
  • Still in DeWitt Chapter 1, the group examines true and false opinions and what it means to reason inductively versus deductively — using the duck-billed platypus (Caldwell’s 1884 telegram forced a complete reclassification of biology) as a case study in how a single observation overturns dogma. Plato’s “featherless biped” versus Diogenes the Cynic’s plucked chicken illustrates the danger of deduction unmoored from sensation. DeWitt’s reading of Epicurus as combative, missionary, and not narrowly self-interested is defended against the “moral invalid” caricature. Lucian’s Alexander the Oracle Monger shows Epicureans and early Christians as unlikely joint opponents of the oracle cult.
• Episode 149 - “Epicurus And His Philosophy” Part 05 - The Early Years of Epicurus | Discussion
  • Continuing DeWitt’s Epicurus and His Philosophy with Chapter 2’s biography of Epicurus, the group examines how little contemporary evidence survives — contrasted with the abundant documentation for Caesar. Menander’s epigram from the Greek Anthology pairs Epicurus with Themistocles: “twin-born sons of Neocles — one saved Athens from slavery, the other from folly.” DeWitt’s “Paideia Fallacy” clarifies that Epicurus objected to the Platonic curriculum of geometry, rhetoric, and dialectic — not to education generally — explaining why his opponents consistently misread him. His first teacher Pamphilus the Platonist makes his later anti-Platonic attacks intelligible. Emily Austin’s Living for Pleasure is mentioned as an accessible modern introduction.
• Episode 150 - “Epicurus And His Philosophy” Part 06 - Development of the School in Mytilene and Lampsacus | Discussion
  • DeWitt Chapters 4–6: the development of the school in Mytilene and Lampsacus. After early philosophical training, Epicurus chose Mytilene on the island of Lesbos — famous as Sappho’s home — as his first teaching location. It was a hotbed of Platonism; Aristotle had taught there before being summoned to tutor Alexander. Epicurus was effectively run out of town. He relocated to Lampsacus on the Hellespont, a philosophically hospitable city where Anaxagoras had found refuge generations earlier. The Sorites syllogism introduced. Lampsacus became the school’s home before the eventual move to Athens.
• Episode 151 - “Epicurus And His Philosophy” Part 07 - The New School In Athens | Discussion
  • DeWitt Chapter 5: “The New School in Athens.” Epicurus arrived in Athens in 306 BC after establishing himself in Lampsacus. Questions about the physical organization of the school: was it a commune? Inside or outside the city walls? One property or two? Epicurus was an Athenian citizen with full civic rights — unlike his time in Mytilene and Lampsacus, where he was an alien subject to restrictions. Athens had a law requiring philosophers to obtain official approval before teaching; Theophrastus briefly went into exile; the law was repealed within the year. The school’s initial reception within a hostile public atmosphere.
• Episode 152 - “Epicurus And His Philosophy” Part 08 - The New Education 01 | Discussion
  • Beginning DeWitt Chapter 6: “The New Education.” Platonic education consisted of music and gymnastic, rhetoric, and dialectic with mathematics — preparation for citizenship in the Platonic mold. Epicurus was perceived as an “enemy of culture”; to understand this, you must understand what “culture” meant at the time. Joshua’s digression: Xenophon’s Anabasis — Cyrus the Younger hired Greek mercenaries, won the battle outside Babylon, but was himself killed, leaving the Greek army stranded thousands of miles from home, needing to fight their way back through hostile territory. A meditation on the Greek relationship with education and military excellence.
• Episode 153 - “Epicurus And His Philosophy” Part 09 - The New Education 02 | Discussion
  • DeWitt Chapter 6, Part 2: completing “The New Education.” How does a philosophical school systematize and transmit its teachings? Three types of textbooks: dogmatic (positive exposition), refutative (against rivals), and memorial (summaries for students already trained). Epitomes serve as reminders for those who have learned the full system — Philodemus warns against relying on outlines alone. The Socratic method criticized: Socrates never stated his own conclusions directly, leaving students without positive doctrine. Lucretius’s De Rerum Natura uniquely valuable because it integrates physics, epistemology, and ethics in full. Papyrus scroll access compared to modern random-access reading.
• Episode 154 - “Epicurus And His Philosophy” Part 10 - Chapter 7 - The Canon Reason and Nature 01 | Discussion
  • Beginning DeWitt Chapter 7: “The Canon, Reason, and Nature” — first episode of 2023. DeWitt’s foundational point: the canon was not an afterthought but integral to the whole system from the start; canon, physics, and ethics form a single unified structure. The canon means the instruments of measurement, not the content of what is measured — like a carpenter’s yardstick, not the wall being built. Three legs of the canon: the five senses, anticipations (prolepseis), and feelings of pleasure and pain. Supernatural revelation and pure abstract logic are both rejected as sources of knowledge. The question of whether Epicurus is an empiricist is introduced.
• Episode 155 - “Epicurus And His Philosophy” Part 11 - Chapter 7 - The Canon Reason and Nature 02 | Discussion
  • DeWitt Chapter 7, Part 2: “The Dethronement of Reason.” Epicurus is not anti-reason — he values prudent human intelligence — but he rejects the deification of an incorporeal, eternal, self-subsistent Reason (Platonic logos, Stoic world-soul). What is “reason”? Not formal logic but the working of the mind on what the senses provide. Nature takes precedence over reason: observations precede logical conclusions; the senses are not instruments of reason but its raw material. Jefferson’s letter to Peter Carr: “fix reason firmly in her seat.” Frances Wright on tracing causes in nature. Callistheni and Martin participate alongside Cassius and Joshua in this extended discussion.

13. Interview With Dr. Emily Austin - “Living For Pleasure”

• Episode 156 - Emily Austin Interview Lucretius Today Interviews Dr. Emily Austin - Part One | Discussion
  • Special interview with Dr. Emily Austin, Professor of Philosophy at Wake Forest University, author of Living for Pleasure: An Epicurean Guide to Life (Oxford University Press, 2022). Full panel: Cassius, Joshua, Don, Callistheni. Part One covers Dr. Austin’s background and introduction to Epicurus; the basic Epicurean position that pleasure is the highest good versus the Stoic position that virtue is intrinsically good; the key challenge of whether Epicurus could justify vice when advantageous. She argues modern Stoics who accept evolutionary biology and non-intervening gods are already standing on Epicurean ground, whether they know it or not.
• Episode 157 - Emily Austin Interview Lucretius Today Interviews Dr. Emily Austin - Part Two | Discussion
  • Dr. Emily Austin interview, Part 2. Deep dive into virtue versus pleasure as the fundamental ethical divide between Stoics and Epicureans. Ancient Stoics objected that pleasure is too “animalistic” a good — human beings have rational capacities that elevate them above animals, and only virtue befits rational nature. Dr. Austin: modern Stoics who accept evolutionary theory and materialism have already adopted Epicurean premises about human nature — what grounds do they now have for privileging virtue over pleasure? Her article “Are Modern Stoics Really Epicureans?” follows this argument. Naturalism: Epicurus studies human beings as natural animals with deliberative capacities, not as beings with divinely-elevated rational natures.

14. DeWitt’s “Epicurus And His Philosophy” Parts 12-19

• Episode 158 - “Epicurus And His Philosophy” Part 12 - Chapter 7 - The Canon Reason and Nature 03 | Discussion
  • DeWitt Chapter 7, Part 3: concluding “The Canon, Reason, and Nature.” Emily Austin’s prior interview point: pleasure is like “sugar is sweet” — foundationally self-evident; philosophical argument is needed mainly for those trained to doubt it. DeWitt identifies three legitimate types of reason: reliable deduction from first principles; analogical reasoning from visible to invisible; and ordinary human intelligence. The fourth type Epicurus rejects: Reason as an independent principle in nature — Plato’s logos, the Stoic world-soul. Seneca’s syllogism mocking dialectic. DeWitt’s two criticisms of Epicurus on reason: using reason to evaluate reason risks circularity, parallel to Vatican Saying 40.
• Episode 159 - “Epicurus And His Philosophy” Part 13 - Chapter 7 - The Canon Reason and Nature 04 | Discussion
  • DeWitt Chapter 7, Part 4: “The Priority of Nature Over Reason.” Diogenes of Oinoanda Fragment 4: Academic Skeptics and Peripatetics both claimed to follow reason, yet each reached different conclusions — reason alone cannot settle first principles. Seneca’s extended mockery of Stoic-style dialectic read in full: “A mouse is a syllable; a mouse eats cheese; therefore a syllable eats cheese.” Epicurus was never criticizing practical common-sense reason — only reason that attempts to operate independently of observation and feeling. Sherlock Holmes: even deduction from a “drop of water” starts empirically. Lucretius: animal skins preceded the loom — nature furnishes, reason expands.
• Episode 160 - “Epicurus And His Philosophy” Part 14 - Chapter 8 - Sensations, Anticipations, and Feelings 01 | Discussion
  • Beginning DeWitt Chapter 8: “Sensations, Anticipations, and Feelings” — how the Epicurean system grounds its claim to knowledge. The three criteria of truth: sensations, anticipations (prolepseis), and feelings of pleasure and pain. Main focus: what does “empiricism” really mean? Epicurus believed in atoms by deduction, not direct observation — so he is not a strict empiricist. Three ancient schools of medicine (Rationalist, Empiricist, Methodist) provide context for the debate. John Locke as a genuine empiricist; Hume on miracles. The central epistemological challenge: how to move from direct sensory data to conclusions about the unseen.
• Episode 161 - “Epicurus And His Philosophy” Part 15 - Chapter 8 - Sensations, Anticipations, and Feelings 02 | Discussion
  • DeWitt Chapter 8, Part 2: subsections on “Sensations” and “Epicurus Not an Empiricist.” The five senses are direct physical contacts with external reality — irrational and incapable of memory. This means the senses transmit without commenting; they cannot deceive because they do not interpret. The mind does the identifying. DeWitt’s claim: Epicurean physics rests on foundational principles deduced from first principles rather than directly observed — atoms and void cannot be seen, but are inferred from what is seen. This alone demonstrates Epicurus is not a strict empiricist: his most foundational conclusions are deduced, not observed. Anticipations introduced as the more complex second criterion.
• Episode 162 - “Epicurus And His Philosophy” Part 16 - Chapter 8 - Sensations, Anticipations, and Feelings 03 | Discussion
  • DeWitt Chapter 8, Part 3: abbreviated introduction to the anticipations (prolepseis), with Joshua absent. DeWitt’s key passage: the innate sense of justice versus the sense of color — justice as a later, socially-conditioned anticipation rather than a biologically immediate one. Key sources on prolepsis: Diogenes Laertius (“a recollection of an external object often presented”) versus Cicero’s Velleius (anticipations as more intuitive and direct). Voula Tsouna’s article “Epicurean Preconceptions” cited. The divergence has consequences: Diogenes Laertius’s account makes prolepseis closer to accumulated concepts; Velleius’s account makes them more like innate intuitions. Cyril Bailey sidesteps by translating with the generic word “concept.”
• Episode 163 - “Epicurus And His Philosophy” Part 17 - Chapter 8 - Sensations, Anticipations, and Feelings 04 | Discussion
  • DeWitt Chapter 8, Part 4: full panel discussion of anticipations (prolepseis) with Joshua and Don. The Canon — sensations, anticipations, feelings — as instruments of measurement, not the content being measured. Eyes provide raw data; the mind identifies “that’s a horse.” Don’s key insight: Epicurus’s canon establishes that an external world exists and is accessible to us — direct counter to Plato’s cave, where the accessible world is shadow and the real world is elsewhere. Anticipations remain the complex middle case — existing texts point in different directions on whether they are innate concepts or accumulated experience from repeated observation.
• Episode 164 - “Epicurus And His Philosophy” Part 18 - Chapter 8 - Sensations, Anticipations, and Feelings 05 | Discussion
  • (No transcript is available for this episode.) Continuing DeWitt Chapter 8 on Sensations, Anticipations, and Feelings — Part 5 of the series. Following episodes 162 and 163’s extended treatment of prolepseis (anticipations) as the second criterion of truth, this episode continues that discussion, building toward the third criterion: feelings of pleasure and pain.
• Episode 165 - DeWitt Chapter 9 “Epicurus And His Philosophy” Part 19 - Chapter 9 - The New Physics 01 | Discussion
  • Beginning DeWitt Chapter 9: “The New Physics.” Physics precedes ethics in the Epicurean system because it furnishes the major premises — the nature of the universe — from which the proper conduct of life is deduced. Martin: modern philosophy (after Hume’s guillotine, which separates is from ought) wrongly concludes that descriptions of fact cannot generate moral obligations; Epicurus was right to connect ethics to physics. Cassius: if supernatural rewards and punishments are real, that is a fact with moral implications — Epicurus isn’t escaping the is-ought gap, he’s establishing different facts as the starting point. Physics, canon, and ethics form one unified structure.

15. Interview With Dr. David Glidden - Epicurean Prolepsis

• Episode 166 - Interview With Dr David Glidden Lucretius Today Interviews Dr. David Glidden on “Epicurean Prolepsis” | Discussion
  • Interview with Dr. David Glidden, Professor Emeritus at UC Riverside, on his 1985 article “Epicurean Prolepsis” (Oxford Studies in Classical Philosophy). Glidden spent twenty years on Epicurean materialism; his work reached Harvard Medical School. Don sees prolepsis as analogous to the brain’s predictive processing — Glidden agrees. His view of DeWitt: unscholarly in form, but valuable — including his insight about the Epicurean Garden community as a precursor to Benedictine communities. Glidden argues Epicurus’s primary goal was relieving anxiety and enabling community life; atomism should serve that purpose rather than become a doctrinal requirement in itself. Buddhist parallels and Benedictine monasticism discussed.

16. DeWitt’s “Epicurus And His Philosophy” Parts 20-41

• Episode 167 - “Epicurus And His Philosophy” Part 20 - Chapter 9 - The New Physics 02 | Discussion
  • DeWitt Chapter 9, Part 2: continuing “The New Physics” — atomic motion and the question of a first cause. If atoms are self-moving and eternal, there is no need for an Aristotelian “prime mover.” Aristotle’s error: terrestrial objects stop without continuous impulsion (friction), so he concluded something must continuously sustain all cosmic motion. Epicurus’s answer: the universe is eternal in both directions — there was no “first moment” requiring an initiating cause. Joshua: if a supernatural force must continuously sustain atomic motion, it could also redirect it — which opens the door to providential control of human affairs, precisely what Epicurus aimed to close.
• Episode 168 - “Epicurus And His Philosophy” Part 21 - Chapter 10 - The New Freedom 01 | Discussion
  • Beginning DeWitt Chapter 10: “The New Freedom” — determinism and free will, one of the most emotionally charged issues in Epicurean philosophy. Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: Cassius tells Brutus “the fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars” — the Epicurean character insisting on human agency. The “Appointment in Samara” fable: fate-belief as self-fulfilling trap. Letter to Menoikeus: some things are in our power, some are not. Cassius: Epicurus says it is worse to be enslaved to hard determinism than to conventional gods — at least the gods can be appealed to. Virgil on trampling fate underfoot.
• Episode 169 - “Epicurus And His Philosophy” Part 22 - Chapter 10 - The New Freedom 02 | Discussion
  • DeWitt Chapter 10, Part 2: “Freedom and Necessity.” The mechanics of how Epicurean volition operates within a universe of atomic motion. Martin challenges DeWitt’s formulation that human beings are “miraculously exempt” from physical laws — Cassius clarifies that Epicurus means we can add our influence to outcomes, not that we operate outside physics. Jeffrey Purinton’s article on free volition and the atomic swerve examined. From On Nature Book 25: our initial atomic composition is foundational, but we can modify what we attend to and practice — downward causation and emergent properties. Joshua: the racehorse example from Lucretius — between the crack of the whip and the horse’s motion, the horse’s own volition intervenes.
• Episode 170 - “Epicurus And His Philosophy” Part 23 - Chapter 10 - The New Freedom 03 | Discussion
  • DeWitt Chapter 10, Part 3: completing the chapter on freedom with sections on “The Necessity of Death,” “Freedom, Government and Law,” and related material. Vatican Saying 31: “We inhabit a city without walls” — death cannot be evaded, which charges the present with urgency. Ecclesiastes 9:10 parallel. Vatican Sayings 14 and 10 on death and procrastination. The dual-level structure of Epicurean decision-making: the general orientation (diathesis) toward a pleasurable life, and specific choices that sometimes require short-term pain for long-term gain. A new book, Theory and Practice in Epicurean Political Philosophy, introduced — Epicurean political engagement is richer than usually acknowledged.
• Episode 171 - “Epicurus And His Philosophy” Part 24 - Chapter 11 - Soul, Sensation, and Mind 01 | Discussion
  • Beginning DeWitt Chapter 11: “Soul, Sensation, and Mind.” Opening: Don’s paper on the location of the Garden of Epicurus in Athens — closer to the city center than Plato’s Academy, not at the margins. Discussion of lathē biōsas (“live unknown”), attributed to Epicurus by Plutarch — Cassius argues it has been grossly overemphasized; every major Epicurean figure (Atticus, Diogenes of Oinoanda, Philodemus) was deeply engaged with society. In a universe of atoms and void, the mind too must be composed of atoms — it cannot be something separate and incorporeal. The soul’s atomic composition has direct implications: it does not survive the body’s dissolution.
• Episode 172 - “Epicurus And His Philosophy” Part 25 - Chapter 12 - The New Hedonism 01 | Discussion
  • Beginning DeWitt Chapter 12: “The New Hedonism” — the first chapter fully devoted to ethics and pleasure. All previous chapters (epistemology, physics, determinism, soul/mind) have been foundational preparation. Cassius raises his recurring objection to the word “hedonism”: Epicurean philosophy is a sweeping worldview, not a one-word pleasure-summary. What would the opposing position be called — “virtuism”? “Religionism”? The summum bonum fallacy: DeWitt’s argument that Epicurus cuts the Gordian knot of “what is good?” by appealing to feelings rather than abstract definitions. Dux vitae (pleasure as “guide of life”) from Lucretius Book Two introduced.
• Episode 173 - “Epicurus And His Philosophy” Part 26 - Chapter 12 - The New Hedonism 02 | Discussion
  • DeWitt Chapter 12, Part 2: more on the summum bonum question. Epicurus cuts the Gordian knot by appealing to feelings rather than abstract definitions of “good.” Plutarch’s citation: “the nature of good, if one apprehend it rightly, is this — the bare escape from some dreadful calamity.” Lucretius Book Two, line 167: pleasure as dux vitae (“guide of life”); the Book Six preface on Epicurus showing “the straight course.” Whether Lucretius explicitly identifies pleasure with summum bonum in the Latin debated. DeWitt’s own formulation: life itself is the supreme good — all else proceeds from the simple fact of being alive and able to feel.
• Episode 174 - “Epicurus And His Philosophy” Part 27 - Chapter 12 - The New Hedonism 03 | Discussion
  • DeWitt Chapter 12, Part 3: “The True Nature of Pleasure.” DeWitt: “pleasure is cognate and connate with us” — not an appendage attached to life from outside but integral to normal living. Frances Wright’s analogy: the color orange doesn’t exist apart from orange things; pleasure doesn’t exist apart from beings capable of feeling it. The homeostasis model: pain signals that something has gone wrong; the normal state of a living being is pleasure. Joshua: when you remove pain, the natural condition is one of pleasure. The Chrysippus hand analogy from Torquatus: a healthy, uninjured hand in its natural condition is experiencing the greatest pleasure — no stimulation required.
• Episode 175 - “Epicurus And His Philosophy” Part 28 - Chapter 12 - The New Hedonism 04 | Discussion
  • DeWitt Chapter 12, Part 4: “Pleasure Not Increased by Immortality.” Joshua absent; Don joins Cassius. Principal Doctrines 18, 19, and 20 read and discussed. PD 19: “infinite time contains no greater pleasure than limited time” — the full jar analogy: a jar filled to capacity is just as full now as in infinite time; more time adds nothing. DeWitt: this would have seemed gloomy to the ancient crowd and is “shocking to Christian feeling.” The Letter to Menoikeus banquet analogy: a host satisfied after a magnificent feast needs no extension. Mental pleasures take priority here: even when the body fails, the mind can grasp and be sustained by these truths about pleasure and its limits.
• Episode 176 - “Epicurus And His Philosophy” Part 29 - Chapter 12 - The New Hedonism 05 | Discussion
  • DeWitt Chapter 12, Part 5: “The Root of All Good.” The Metrodorus/Epicurus passage: “the pleasure of the stomach is the beginning and the root of all good” — directly challenging Aristotle’s ascending hierarchy of pleasures, in which intellectual pleasures are intrinsically superior to physical ones. All pleasures are measured by a single standard: does nature register them as pleasurable? There is no divine ranking. Don reads from Usener 409; the Athenaeus citation suggests this was Epicurus’s own formulation. Torquatus in De Finibus Book One says mental pleasures can be more intense than physical — but that differs sharply from claiming they are intrinsically and absolutely higher in rank.
• Episode 177 - “Epicurus And His Philosophy” Part 29 - Chapter 12 - The New Hedonism 06 | Discussion
  • Concluding DeWitt Chapter 12 with the controversial Principal Doctrine 4: extreme pain is brief; prolonged illness has more pleasure than pain. DeWitt characterizes this as “among the more unfortunate doctrines” of Epicurus, “rightly incurred the sharpest ridicule,” and showing more faith than medical knowledge. Joshua paraphrases: pain can be intense but brief, or prolonged but manageable — it cannot be both extreme and endless simultaneously. Theophrastus’s challenge: “the happy life cannot mount the scaffold.” The tetrapharmacon’s fourth leg (“what is difficult is easy to endure”) is rooted here. Cicero attacks this in both the Tusculan Disputations and De Finibus Book Two.
• Episode 178 - “Epicurus And His Philosophy” Part 30 - Chapter 13 - The True Piety 01 | Discussion
  • Beginning DeWitt Chapter 13: “The True Piety” — Epicurus’s theology. Correct understanding of the gods is foundational: Principal Doctrine 1 is first; the Letter to Menoikeus opens with it. Joshua: Epicurus uniquely renders divine intervention unnecessary — like Laplace telling Napoleon “I had no need of that hypothesis.” Cassius: the “deprogramming” function — Epicurus addressed people who genuinely feared divine punishment, not people who had already dismissed religion. Most of the ancient world believed in Providence; removing that fear was the prerequisite to philosophical liberation. Philodemus’s On Piety and Cicero’s Velleius section as primary sources.
• Episode 179 - “Epicurus And His Philosophy” Part 31 - Chapter 13 - The True Piety 02 | Discussion
  • DeWitt Chapter 13, Part 2: the Form of the Gods. Epicurean materialism requires that everything — including the gods — is composed of atoms; Epicurean gods are corporeal beings of human form. DeWitt references “twelve elementary principles” as the structure from which this is deduced; Don challenges this, arguing there is no evidence of such a document beyond DeWitt’s inference from scattered passages in Lucretius and the letters. Diskin Clay’s similar compilations noted. The fundamental claim is less controversial than the document: if everything in the Epicurean universe is atomic, the gods cannot be exempt — they too must be natural beings.
• Episode 180 - “Epicurus And His Philosophy” Part 32 - Chapter 13 - The True Piety 03 | Discussion
  • DeWitt Chapter 13, Part 3: gradation in the divine nature and how Epicurean gods maintain their incorruptibility. Niagara Falls analogy: constant replenishment of atoms in and out while maintaining form — gods are dynamically stable, not static. The Epicurean method from the Letter to Pythocles: offer multiple natural explanations rather than committing dogmatically to one. Pythagoras’s music of the spheres and Heraclitean flux both rejected. Joshua: Thomas Aquinas’s “uncaused cause” argument self-refutes — everything needs a cause, yet something must have no cause — while Epicurus holds the universe is simply eternal in both directions with no need for a supernatural originator.
• Episode 181 - “Epicurus And His Philosophy” Part 33 - Chapter 14 - The New Virtues 04 | Discussion
  • Beginning DeWitt Chapter 14: “The New Virtues.” The four classical virtues: wisdom, temperance, courage, justice. The key Epicurean inversion: for Plato and Aristotle, virtue can be examined as an end in itself and linked to citizenship and the polis; for Epicurus, virtues are instruments to a pleasurable life and have no intrinsic value apart from that function. Don: the Greek aretē means “excellence” — the Victorian translation “virtue” carries misleading baggage. Joshua: the Latin root vir (man) produces Roman virtues as civic excellence — Cincinnatus as exemplar. Without a fixed reference point, “virtue” is an empty label.
• Episode 182 - “Epicurus And His Philosophy” Part 34 - Chapter 14 - The New Virtues 05 | Discussion
  • DeWitt Chapter 14, Part 5: the virtue of Justice. Epicurean justice emerges from nature, not divine decree or Platonic ideal forms. Principal Doctrine 31: “the justice of nature is a covenant of advantage to the end that men shall not injure one another or be injured.” Principal Doctrine 32: to animals incapable of making covenants, nothing is just or unjust. DeWitt notes eight of the 40 Principal Doctrines address justice specifically — each one an anti-Platonic blow. Plato placed justice in the eternal realm, divinely ordered; Cicero’s version was “one law given by God.” Epicurean justice is a social contract arising from nature’s guidance, not inscribed on tablets from above.
• Episode 183 - “Epicurus And His Philosophy” Part 35 - Chapter 14 - The New Virtues 06 - Honesty | Discussion
  • DeWitt Chapter 14, Part 6: the virtue of Honesty (parrhesia, free speech). Athens’s gymnasium was a controlled speech zone; Epicurus’s ideas about atoms, gods, and death were precisely what got philosophers expelled or executed. Socrates condemned for corrupting youth; Anaxagoras and Epicurus both found refuge in Lampsacus after running afoul of Platonist-dominated establishments. Vatican Saying 67: “a life of freedom cannot accumulate great wealth.” Lucian’s Alexander the Oracle-Monger: an Epicurean who challenged the fraudulent oracle was nearly stoned by the mob. Joshua: proximity to the crowd is one of the dangers Epicurus specifically warned against.
• Episode 184 - “Epicurus And His Philosophy” Part 36 - Chapter 14 - The New Virtues 07 | Discussion
  • DeWitt Chapter 14, Part 7: the virtues of Faith, Love of Mankind, Friendship, and Suavity. Epicurean “faith” means confidence based on evidence — not blind assent. Epicurus as a “dogmatist”: he believed truth was discoverable and had discovered it, in contrast to Pyrrho (who concluded knowledge was impossible after encountering gymnosophists in India with Alexander) and Democritus (“truth at the bottom of a well”). Epicurus held truth was near the surface of things. Joshua: Catholic transubstantiation uses Aristotle’s substance/accident distinction to make claims untestable by observation — Epicurean faith never detaches from evidence. Lucretian events vs. accidents terminology introduced.
• Episode 185 - “Epicurus And His Philosophy” Part 37 - Chapter 14 - The New Virtues 08 | Discussion
  • DeWitt Chapter 14, Part 8: “Attitude Towards the Present.” The denial of immortality makes the present uniquely urgent — no second chance, no future life in which to compensate for today’s inaction. Frances Wright’s A Few Days in Athens: the scene where Hadea crosses a swollen stream in a storm — you observe carefully, choose your moment, then act with commitment. Horace’s carpe diem as Epicurean theme, balanced between immortality-belief and nihilism. Horace’s sapere aude incipe (“dare to translate wisdom into action; make a beginning”). Vatican Saying 30 on the folly of always beginning to live; VS 14 on the impossibility of being born twice; Seneca on procrastination.
• Episode 186 - “Epicurus And His Philosophy” Part 38 - Chapter 15 - Extension, Submergence, Revival - 01 | Discussion
  • Beginning the final chapter of DeWitt’s Epicurus and His Philosophy, mirroring the book’s opening. DeWitt’s synoptic view: Epicureanism flourished for seven centuries (three BC, four AD), spreading from Athens east through Alexandria, then west to Rome; submerged during the Middle Ages; revived in 17th-century France. Thoreau’s October 1852 journal entry on the mountain-top vantage: seeing the whole terrain at once rather than getting lost in particulars. The Epicurean school showed remarkable tenacity compared to the Stoics’ adaptability. Continental Europe — particularly France — proved more receptive to Epicurean revival than England. DeWitt criticizes several English writers for handling Epicurus less fairly.
• Episode 187 - “Epicurus And His Philosophy” Part 39 - Chapter 15 - Extension, Submergence, Revival - 02 | Discussion
  • DeWitt Chapter 15, Part 2: the Epicurean school in Alexandria. Epicurus had Egyptian contacts during his Lampsacus years, and Epicureanism spread early. Two Ptolemaic-era scholars — Ptolemaeus the White (Greek) and Ptolemaeus the Black (native Egyptian) — established the school there; Philo of Alexandria and a Christian bishop also attest to its influence. Epicurus’s 37 books on nature would certainly have been in the Library, given the Ptolemies’ policy of collecting all scrolls. Recorded near August 12, anniversary of Cleopatra’s death (30 BC) — end of the Hellenistic era. Jewish-Epicurean contact: one of Alexandria’s three original wards was Jewish from the city’s founding in 332 BC.
• Episode 188 - “Epicurus And His Philosophy” Part 40 - Chapter 15 - Extension, Submergence, Revival - 03 | Discussion
  • DeWitt Chapter 15, Part 3: Epicureanism in the Roman Empire and the rise of Christianity. Roman Stoicism eventually conflicted with government authority and underwent major transformations. Cato Uticensis’s theatrical suicide at Utica — reading the Phaedo before falling on his sword — is characterized by DeWitt as “the most stagey of all ancient suicides”; Cassius notes Cato could have accepted Caesar’s clemency. Joshua: “Cato Uticensis” is an honorific like “Scipio Africanus”; Joseph Addison’s 1713 play Cato was performed by Washington at Valley Forge and deeply influenced the American founders. Christianity absorbed Stoicism but specifically attacked Epicurus; DeWitt traces how and why.
• Episode 189 - “Epicurus And His Philosophy” Part 41 - Chapter 15 - Extension, Submergence, Revival - 04 | Discussion
  • Concluding DeWitt’s Epicurus and His Philosophy — Chapter 15’s final section on the Epicurean Revival. The 17th-century French revival began with Pierre Gassendi, a man in holy orders who resolved the theological tension by declaring God had created the atoms; Newton later absorbed this framework. Earlier Italian pioneers: Lorenzo Valla’s On Pleasure (1431) put persuasive Epicurean arguments in a character’s mouth without explicitly endorsing them; Poggio Bracciolini discovered the lost Lucretius manuscript in 1417. Both Poggio and Valla worked as secretaries in the Vatican — the unlikely center of early Renaissance Epicurean interest. Valla’s Latin expertise also exposed the Donation of Constantine as a forgery.

17. Cicero’s On Ends - Epicurean Sections Parts 01 - 02

• Episode 190 - Cicero’s On Ends - Book One - Part 01 Transcript | Discussion
  • Beginning a new series: Cicero’s De Finibus (On Ends), Books One and Two, framed as “Fighting Back Against the Anti-Epicureans.” Written 45 BC, dedicated to Brutus — the year before Caesar’s assassination and two years before Cicero’s own death. Cicero’s stated goal: examine what is the final aim by which a person should shape his life. Book One has Torquatus present the Epicurean case; Book Two is Cicero’s extended attack. Cassius and Joshua set the historical context. The podcast treats this as a chance to hear Epicurean ethics stated fully through an ancient source and to evaluate Cicero’s objections — separating genuine philosophical challenges from rhetorical distortion.
• Episode 191 - Cicero’s On Ends - Book One - Part 02 | Discussion
  • De Finibus Book One, Part 2. Torquatus’s central presentation begins. Triarius summarizes Cicero’s standing objections to Epicurus: unoriginal physics, no logic, pleasure as a narrow goal, plagiarism of Aristippus, general lack of education. Cicero responds he must state his disagreements without “reviling and insult” — which he promptly does. Torquatus offers to limit the debate to the pleasure question or range over the whole system. Discussion: in the ancient world, Epicurus’s atomism — visible in Planudean anthology epigrams naming Cassius Longinus as an Epicurean — may have been the more publicly engaged part of his philosophy, while the pleasure argument was the flashpoint for educated critics like Cicero and Triarius.

18. Special Reading - “A Few Days In Athens” Chapter 16

• Episode 192 - Special Edition - Chapter 16 of A Few Days In Athens | Discussion
  • Special solo episode: most co-hosts away. Cassius reads Chapter 16, the final chapter of Frances Wright’s A Few Days in Athens (1822), which addresses “the origin, the object, the end of our being” — the most controversial Epicurean topic: the damage caused by supernatural religion and unexamined superstition. Cassius cautions that Wright soft-pedals Epicurus’s positive view of non-supernatural gods and focuses almost entirely on rejecting supernaturalism; listeners should read primary sources. Chapter 16 concludes Wright’s novel: the protagonist returns to the Garden where Epicurus addresses the community on truth-seeking and the nature of the gods.

19. Cicero’s On Ends - Epicurean Sections - Parts 03 - 06

• Episode 193 - Cicero’s On Ends - Book One - Part 03 | Discussion
  • De Finibus Book One, Part 3. Resuming after the Frances Wright reading. The foundational question — whether a supernatural God governs and judges human affairs — must be settled before any discussion of how to pursue pleasure. Torquatus presents nature’s guidance through pleasure and pain. Section 13: those who find the good in virtue alone are dazzled by the name and fail to perceive what nature tells us — as if navigation were chosen for itself rather than for safely reaching port. Four classical virtues all valuable only instrumentally. Stephen Prothero’s God Is Not One cited: eight rival systems of value cannot all be right.
• Episode 194 - Cicero’s On Ends - Book One - Part 04 | Discussion
  • De Finibus Book One, Part 4. Torquatus concludes his major presentation. The “elephant” analogy: partial views of pleasure miss the complete picture Cicero will attack in Book Two. Don: mental pleasures are most reliably accessible — even on his deathbed, Epicurus used memory of philosophical friendship to offset physical pain. Lucretius Book Two opening: the sweetness of watching a storm from shore lies in being free from it. Usener 423 (Plutarch): “that which produces a jubilation unsurpassed is the bare escape from some dreadful calamity.” Section 19: Torquatus on why the wise man is continuously happy; mental pleasures remain available in any circumstance.
• Episode 195 - Cicero’s On Ends - Book Two - Part 05 | Discussion
  • De Finibus Book Two, Section 2. Beginning of Cicero’s sustained attack. Cicero demands Torquatus define pleasure precisely; Torquatus replies “who doesn’t know what pleasure is?” — but Cicero says Epicurus himself is unclear, conflating two different things under one name: kinetic pleasure of stimulation (Aristippean) and catastematic pleasure of absence of pain (Hieronymus’s goal). Torquatus refuses to let Cicero drive a wedge between them. Joshua’s digression: Plato’s definition of man as “featherless biped” — strict definitional projects have their own absurdities. Principal Doctrine 3 second sentence; Letter to Menoikeus on pleasure; Diogenes Laertius on the two internal sensations discussed.
• Episode 196 - Cicero’s On Ends - Book Two - Part 06 | Discussion
  • De Finibus Book Two, Sections 3–4. Cicero insists most people understand pleasure as an aroused, stimulated state — not the mere absence of pain. Callistheni’s forum post: a jury-box test — if you’re not in pain, does that mean you’re at the “height of pleasure”? Common sense says no. Her proposed resolution: Epicurean catastematic pleasure requires contemplation to recognize, just as “death is nothing to us” requires philosophical work to internalize. Book One Section 38 (Torquatus: “whatever is free from pain is pleasure”) revisited. Dr. Boeri’s observation that Cicero systematically omits Epicurean justice and friendship doctrines framed the discussion.

20. Interview With Dr. Marcel Boeri - Theory And Practice In Epicurean Political Philosophy

• Episode 197 - Interview With Dr Marcel Boeri Interview With Dr Marcelo Boeri | Discussion
  • Interview with Dr. Marcelo Boeri, Professor of Ancient Philosophy at Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, co-author of Theory and Practice in Epicurean Political Philosophy. He challenges the widespread characterization of Epicurus as politically withdrawn. The slogans “live unknown” and “stay out of politics” come from the indirect tradition, not Epicurus’s own words. Letter to Menoikeus §132: a pleasurable life requires living prudently, justly, and also honorably (kalos). “Contingent politics” — seeking offices and power whose outcomes you cannot control — is what Epicurus counseled avoiding, not civic engagement itself. Epicurean friendship and philanthropy represent genuine social engagement far richer than the anti-Epicurean caricature.

21. Cicero’s On Ends - Epicurean Sections - Parts 07 - 08

• Episode 198 - Cicero’s On Ends - Book Two - Part 07 | Discussion
  • De Finibus Book Two continuing. Cicero attacks Torquatus for covering both stimulated pleasure and absence of pain under the single word “pleasure” — two apparently different states that Hieronymus of Rhodes had kept separate. Callistheni’s forum post frames the problem as a jury-box question: would a reasonable Roman agree that freedom from pain equals the “height of pleasure”? Her resolution: this requires philosophical contemplation, like internalizing “death is nothing to us” — not self-evident but worked out through reflection. Dr. Boeri (Episode 197) noted that Cicero systematically omits key Epicurean doctrines on justice, security, and friendship. Principal Doctrine 3 and Diogenes Laertius on the two internal sensations revisited.
• Episode 199 - Cicero’s On Ends - Book Two - Part 08 | Discussion
  • De Finibus Book Two, Section 7 onwards. Cicero continues his attack: “freedom from pain is one thing, possession of pleasure another” — yet Epicurus holds both simultaneously. Principal Doctrine 10 — the Hicks translation uses “profligate persons”; Cassius’s translation reads “sybarites” — holds that pleasures of taste, sex, hearing, and vision, if they freed people from fear of death and groundless desire, would be beyond reproach. Cicero taunts Torquatus with the Principal Doctrines (“your school’s oracles of wisdom”), confirming he had the text before him. Discussion turns on whether the Principal Doctrines are self-standing or require the full Epicurean system to interpret correctly.

22. Special Episode - Lucretius Today 200th Episode

• Episode 200 - Lucretius Today 200th Episode: Retrospective, Recap, and Looking To The Future | Discussion
  • Episode 200 is a retrospective on the podcast’s history since its launch in January 2020, featuring returning guest Don alongside Cassius, Joshua, and Martin. Topics: why Lucretius was chosen as the podcast’s framework; recommendations for where newcomers should start (consensus: Emily Austin’s Living for Pleasure is the best modern introduction); the value of the three letters and Diogenes of Oinoanda’s inscription; forum projects by members including Don’s translation of the Letter to Menoeceus and Nate’s Epicurean community map; challenges of studying Epicurus — avoiding rabbit holes, resisting syncretism with Stoicism or Buddhism, building from physics and canonics up to ethics; what “absence of pain” means in Epicurean philosophy. Closes with DeWitt page 240 on the “major innovation of the new hedonism”: any daily experience not actively painful qualifies as pleasure.

23. Cicero’s On Ends - Epicurean Sections - Parts 09 - 16

• Episode 201 - Cicero’s On Ends - Book Two - Part 09 | Discussion
  • De Finibus Book Two, beginning Section 9. Cicero’s criticism of Epicurus’s three-category division of desires (natural and necessary, natural and unnecessary, neither natural nor necessary) as a logical muddle. Aulus Gellius’s second-century response to Plutarch’s stylistic criticism of Epicurus, showing that even in antiquity thoughtful readers saw through this kind of attack. Cicero’s claim that Epicurus justifies depravity. Joshua’s discovery: Torquatus’s description of the ideal life in Book One, read in reverse, directly answers Cicero’s challenge in Book Two — “to be without pleasure is the intensest pain.” Section 10: Cicero quotes Epicurus saying he cannot conceive of good apart from pleasures of taste, sex, hearing, and vision — digression on Cicero’s Pro Plancio showing his hypocrisy on sexual morality. Letter to Menoikeus 128 on when we do not feel pain.
• Episode 202 - Cicero’s On Ends - Book Two - Part 10 - The Animality Argument | Discussion
  • De Finibus Book Two, Sections 10–11. Cicero’s attack on the animality argument — the Epicurean claim that observing young animals and infants before they are corrupted reveals that pleasure is the natural goal of all living things. Cicero challenges on two fronts: animals may not pursue pleasure but only self-preservation; and even if one should look to young animals, what they show is desire for security rather than stimulated pleasure. Discussion of Manius Curius as incorruptible Roman contrast; Cicero’s name-dropping as argument; taxonomy of positions on the summum bonum — Aristippus (active pleasure), Hieronymus (absence of pain), Zeno (virtue alone), Callipho (virtue + pleasure), Diodorus (virtue + absence of pain) — and why Epicurus, by combining both active pleasure and absence of pain under the single word voluptas, appears inconsistent to Cicero.
• Episode 203 - Cicero’s On Ends - Book Two - Part 11 - Do The Senses Have Jurisdiction To Judge The Supreme Good? | Discussion
  • De Finibus Book Two, Sections 12–13. Cicero introduces a Roman legal analogy: courts have jurisdiction only over matters within their competence — the senses lack jurisdiction to judge the supreme good; reason armed with virtue is the proper judge. Epicurus excludes reason from the canon: only the sensations can make direct contact with reality. Thomas Jefferson’s enlightenment faith in reason contrasted with Epicurus. Aristotle’s “god subject to death” created for thought — countered by the Epicurean and Lucretian argument that eyes were not made for seeing but developed naturally, then found their use. Darwin on the eye (recorded near the anniversary of On the Origin of Species, Nov. 24, 1859). The is-ought problem and whether Epicurus is vulnerable to it. DeWitt on whether Epicurus involuntarily ascribes purposiveness to nature. Cicero’s section 13 hand-wave simply “assumes” any scheme without virtue is to be banished from philosophy.
• Episode 204 - Cicero’s On Ends - Book Two - Part 12 - More On The “Jurisdiction” Question | Discussion
  • De Finibus Book Two, Sections 13–14. Clarification: Cicero framed the jurisdiction question about the senses, but Epicurus’s canon has three legs — sensations, feelings of pleasure and pain, and prolepseis — so the argument must deal with all three. DeWitt on “Sensations, Anticipations, and Feelings.” Torquatus’s three-way division on how to prove pleasure is desirable. Jackson Barwis: words can never bridge the gap to feeling. Hume’s is-ought problem. Section 13: Cicero says human form or reason gives no indication man exists purely for pleasure — Epicurean answer: we didn’t come into existence for any purpose at all; Lucretius and Darwin on eyes developing naturally, not made for seeing. The Douglas Adams puddle analogy. Section 14 frames the final contest explicitly: virtue versus pleasure.
• Episode 205 - Cicero’s On Ends - Book Two - Part 13 - The Nature of Morality | Discussion
  • De Finibus Book Two, Sections 15–16. Cicero’s positive case for virtue as an end in itself: “something of such a nature that even if absolutely deprived of utility, it may with justice be eulogized for its own qualities.” The four cardinal virtues. Cicero’s appeal to “the best men” is circular. His real foundation is divine natural law from De Re Publica: “one law, eternal and unchangeable” authored by God. Joshua connects this to St. Paul and traces how this Ciceronian framework became the foundation of Christian natural law theology. The Euthyphro dilemma: Epicurus would reject both horns — no omnipotent God, no absolute good. Lucretius Book 5 on civilization arising through mutual agreements, not divine law. The violin salesman analogy: Cicero uses rhetorical bling to substitute emotional effect for logical foundation.
• Episode 206 - Cicero’s On Ends - Book Two - Part 14 - More On The Nature of Morality | Discussion
  • De Finibus Book Two, Sections 15–16. Christmas 2023 holiday episode. Cicero argues Epicurus is “compelled by the irresistible force of instinct” to concede that living pleasantly requires living morally — then claims Epicurus bases morality on “the babble of the crowd.” Joshua: one of Cicero’s worst misrepresentations — Epicurus consistently criticizes the multitude’s opinions. Manuscript difficulties around rumore (crowd) — possibly minore (smaller gathering) or timore (fear). Principal Doctrine 5 and translations of phronimos, kalos, dikaios. DeWitt on Epicurus as moral reformer. Cicero’s Section 16 appeal to the grandeur of wisdom, courage, justice, temperance — the violin salesman technique. The moralistic fallacy. Mary Porter Packer’s dissertation noting that Cicero omits the Epicurean social contract as the basis of justice. Wagner’s Tannhäuser.
• Episode 207 - Cicero’s On Ends - Book Two - Part 15 - Does Epicurean Philosophy Lead to Injustice? | Discussion
  • De Finibus Book Two, Sections 16–17. Christmas Eve 2023 episode. Cicero produces historical examples of Roman corruption to illustrate what Epicurean philosophy allegedly leads to: Lucius Tubulus (openly corrupt judge who fled rather than defend himself) and Publius Sextilius Rufus (executor who kept an inheritance by citing the Voconian law). Discussion covers the Epicurean social-contract theory of justice (which Cicero ignores entirely); Diogenes of Oinoanda Fragment 20 on why wrongdoers aren’t restrained by fear of the gods; Thomas More’s Utopia; Richard III on clothing villainy with virtue; the Albigensian Crusade. Cosma Raimondi’s 1429 defense of Epicurus argues virtue is essential to Epicurean philosophy because it guides and constrains the pursuit of pleasure. Frances Wright’s A Few Days in Athens.
• Episode 208 - Cicero’s On Ends - Book Two - Part 16 - Epicurus Stands For The Truth Rather Than Make-Believe | Discussion
  • De Finibus Book Two, Section 18. New Year’s Day 2024 episode. Cicero ups the ante with Marcus Crassus — so wealthy and powerful he feared no punishment. Cassius argues Cicero thereby makes the case for Epicureans getting involved in politics (which Cicero complains they don’t do) — yet Cassius Longinus, the Epicurean, was the one who actually acted to restrain Julius Caesar. Cicero challenges Torquatus: “you who determine all your actions by pleasure act in fact as though guided by duty.” Epicurean reply: it is pleasure widely understood, including long-term and social consequences. Two examples: warning someone about to sit on a snake; the grain ship captain who knows other ships are coming. DeWitt on Epicureanism’s “two fronts.” Lucian’s Alexander the Oracle-Monger. Thoreau: “any truth is better than make-believe.”

24. Special Reading - Foundations of Epicurean Philosophy

• Episode 209 - Special Episode - Foundations of Epicurean Philosophy | Discussion
  • Special episode — a continuous reading of arranged Epicurean texts covering the main branches of Epicurean philosophy. Read in sequence: Epicurus as conqueror of religion (Lucretius Book 1); canonics and the three criteria of truth — sensations, preconceptions, and feelings of pleasure and pain; physics — atoms and void, creation from existing matter, boundless universe and multiple worlds; theology — gods exist but are not concerned with human affairs; death is nothing to us (Principal Doctrine 2); pleasure as the highest good (Letter to Menoeceus); the full cup model and the limits of pleasure; virtue as means, not end; choices and avoidances; self-sufficiency and freedom; justice as mutual agreements rather than absolute law; closing exhortation: “You will live as a God among men.”

25. Cicero’s On Ends - Epicurean Sections - Parts 17 - 28

• Episode 210 - Cicero’s On Ends - Book Two - Part 17 - Self-Approval As Pleasure | Discussion
  • De Finibus Book Two, Sections 19–20. Opens with recap of Cicero’s Book Two attacks: definition of pleasure, animality argument, jurisdiction argument, immorality arguments, now the “glory of virtue” argument piling up historical exemplars. Digression: Joshua tracks “meaning of life” via Google N-Gram — first recorded use in English is Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus (1831), concluding “Love not pleasure — love God.” Mark Twain’s What Is Man? on “Man’s Soul Impulse, the Securing of His Own Approval” — every apparently selfless action motivated by desire for self-approval, closely related to the Epicurean position. Section 20: Lucius Thorius Balbus (life of pure sensory pleasure, died for his country) contrasted with Marcus Regulus (returned voluntarily to Carthage and torture) and Lucretia. Cassius: if Regulus had more pleasure in his hour of torture than Balbus ever had, that is precisely the Epicurean position.
• Episode 211 - Cicero’s On Ends - Book Two - Part 18 - Battle Of The Images | Discussion
  • De Finibus Book Two, Sections 21–22. Section 21: Cicero argues Epicureans cannot call any great man from history to testify on behalf of pleasure. The centerpiece is Cleanthes’s famous imagined painting: Pleasure enthroned as queen with the Virtues as handmaidens whose only job is to warn her of dangers. Mockery as anti-Epicurean tactic examined at length: Lucian on Alexander the Oracle-Monger burning Epicurus’s books; Savonarola’s 1494 Florentine bonfire of the vanities and his 1497 Lenten sermon against Epicureans; Guy Fawkes/bonfire night. The pattern: isolate an attribute, exaggerate it, turn the audience against the target. Section 22: Sergius Orata (inventor of the hypocaust heating system) as Epicurean lifestyle example. Cicero: Torquatus can’t maintain justice on an Epicurean basis. Vatican Saying 54. Virtue “upon water” answered: pleasure and pain are what nature has given.
• Episode 212 - Cicero’s On Ends - Book Two - Part 19 - Can “Pleasure” Be Defended In The Public Square? | Discussion
  • De Finibus Book Two, Sections 22–23. Cicero’s central challenge: “Torquatus, you cannot go before the Senate or a public assembly and declare that you do everything for the sake of pleasure — you would be disgraced. Why say this to me in private?” The episode treats this as a genuine practical problem. Cassius reads the 45 BC letters between Cassius Longinus and Cicero: Cassius Longinus, the Epicurean general, quotes Epicurus directly — “To live a life of pleasure is impossible without living a life of virtue and justice” — as a model for public defense of pleasure. Joshua uses Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part 2 and the Overton Window to explore cultural barriers against public Epicurean discourse. DeWitt: “It called for courage to declare that pleasure had been ordained by nature as the consummation of life.” Lorem ipsum revealed as a corrupted version of Torquatus’s presentation of Epicurean ethics.
• Episode 213 - Cicero’s On Ends - Book Two - Part 20 - Only Epicureans Define Pleasure As You Do! Why Do You Lie? | Discussion
  • De Finibus Book Two, Sections 23–25. Cicero accuses the Epicureans of deception: “You keep one set of clothes at home and another when you walk abroad.” Cicero’s friendship attack: if friendship is based on advantage, you will desert your friend when he becomes disadvantageous. Examples: Damon and Phintias (Pythagorean friends; Damon stood condemned for attempting to kill the tyrant Dionysius I — Phintias stood in as guarantor while Damon put his affairs in order; the tyrant was so moved he pardoned both) and Orestes and Pylades. Two medieval Italian Epicureans: Cavalcante de’ Cavalcanti and Farinata degli Uberti, both placed by Dante in the sixth circle of hell — their families allied by marriage, the historical backdrop for Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Epicurean response: friendship starts in advantage and develops into genuine affection.
• Episode 214 - Cicero’s On Ends - Book Two - Part 21 - Cicero Argues For Idealized Friendship and Happiness Which Epicurus Rejects | Discussion
  • De Finibus Book Two, Sections 26–27. Cicero wraps up friendship: Epicurus himself was a good man and many Epicureans are good friends — but their lives refute their principles since they act out of duty, not pleasure. Section 26: Torquatus’s “modern Epicurean” claim that friendship begins in advantage but develops into something valued for its own sake — Cicero argues this concession undercuts Epicurean logic. Section 27: “if the life of happiness may cease to be so, then it cannot be really happy.” An Oxyrhynchus papyrus written by an Epicurean on fear of the gods versus genuine friendship. Cicero idealizes friendship, happiness, and virtue as Platonic absolutes — “letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.” Callistheni: Epicurean philosophy minimizes necessity and chance. Brutus’s last words at Philippi: “Virtue, thou wert but a name.”
• Episode 215 - Cicero’s On Ends - Book Two - Part 22 - The Epicurean View Of Happiness | Discussion
  • De Finibus Book Two, Section 27. Cicero’s observation that “different thinkers make happiness consist in different things” prompts a step back to examine what the Epicurean view of happiness actually is. Key sources: Torquatus’s Book One vision of the ideal life; Diogenes of Oinoanda Fragment 32; Diogenes Laertius on two types of Epicurean happiness — complete happiness (as the gods have, admitting no increase) and human happiness that admits of increase and decrease; Letter to Menoeceus’s opening. Cicero’s attack that happiness can’t be real if it can cease treats happiness as a Platonic absolute. Epicurean response: human happiness is a dominance of pleasures over pains; it fluctuates. Lucretius’s plague ending and Nature’s speech from Book 3: “why do you not take your leave like a guest well satisfied with life?” The leaky vessel analogy from Lucretius Book 6.
• Episode 216 - Cicero’s On Ends - Book Two - Part 23 - Why Does Epicurus Say Length Of Time Does Not Contribute To Pleasure? | Discussion
  • De Finibus Book Two, continuing Section 27. Cicero attacks Principal Doctrines 18–20: infinite time contains no greater pleasure than limited time; completeness of pleasure is not increased by duration. Roots traced to Plato’s Philebus — Socrates contends that because pleasure “admits of more and less” it cannot be the highest good. Cassius responds: Epicurus can make the same move Plato makes for virtue — just as virtue is “complete” and not improved by additional time, pleasure defined as absence of pain is also complete and not improved by duration. DeWitt’s “Unity of Pleasure” (p.232) frames pleasure, health of mind/body, and freedom from fear/pain as three aspects of a single telos. Lucretius Book 1 on Epicurus as discoverer of nature’s “limits and boundaries.” Falstaff’s “the better part of valor is discretion” parodies Cicero’s absolutist virtue-language.
• Episode 217 - Cicero’s On Ends - Book Two - Part 24 - Does Luck Control Whether An Epicurean Is Happy? | Discussion
  • Recap of the time-and-pleasure debate from Episode 216, then continuing into Section 28. DeWitt’s “Unity of Pleasure”: pleasure presented under three aspects — unitary good; health of mind and body; freedom from fear and from pain — showing how ataraxia, aponia, and eudaimonia are all expressions of a single telos. The Cyrenaic view from Diogenes Laertius compared to Epicurus’s position. The “covered father paradox” illustrates how the same word can have different meanings depending on context. Main new Cicero attack: “fortune becomes lady paramount over happiness” — the wise Epicurean’s pleasures depend on externals outside his control. Epicurean response: philosophy maximizes what is within one’s control. Thoreau on true wealth; Aristotle on external goods. Diogenes of Oinoanda Fragment 32 on virtues as means to the end of pleasure, not ends in themselves.
• Episode 218 - Cicero’s On Ends - Book Two - Part 25 - Can The Epicurean Not Distinguish Between Greater and Lesser Pleasures and Pains? | Discussion
  • Continuing Section 28. Two Cicero attacks: Epicurus is inconsistent claiming cheap food brings as much pleasure as a lavish banquet; the formula that intense pain is short and prolonged pain is light is naive, citing Gnaeus Octavius who wasted away for months. Joshua (speaking from the Henry Ford Museum) distinguishes Epicurus’s actual claim — a simple meal satisfies when it meets genuine hunger. Don’s commentary on maza (barley cake) as everyday Greek food. DeWitt’s “Continuous Pain Impossible” as a logical corollary of the unity of pleasure. Torquatus’s Book One Section 15: intense pain is short, moderate pain is manageable, unendurable pain permits exit. Vatican Saying 33 versus the cheese-and-sumptuous-dining fragment. Atticus (Titus Pomponius) starving himself to death at 77 when his illness became unendurable as a concrete historical example of the Epicurean approach to end-of-life decision-making.
• Episode 219 - Cicero’s On Ends - Book Two - Part 26 - Cicero Continues His Attack On Epicurus’ Position On Pain | Discussion
  • Sections 29–30 of De Finibus. Cicero uses Sophocles’s Philoctetes — a hero suffering ten years with a festering wound — to mock Epicurus’s formula as “a mere parrot’s lesson.” Panel: research shows vocalizing pain actually extends tolerance; Diogenes of Oinoanda Fragment 32 confirms virtues as tools for enduring pain are exactly the Epicurean position; crying out is consistent with a wise person nonetheless being happy. Section 30: Cicero quotes Epicurus’s deathbed letter to Hermarchus — “I write this while passing a happy and my last day” — attacking how mental recollections can outweigh bodily pain. The Epicurean response: mind is rooted in body, so the objection collapses. The episode broadens to Epicurean denial of eternal punishment as philosophically central: Lucretius Books 1 and 3; Nietzsche’s Antichrist Section 58 on Epicurus combating the roots of Christianity; Tertullian’s ghoulish De Spectaculis.
• Episode 220 - Cicero’s On Ends - Book Two - Part 27 - Cicero Attacks Epicurus’ End-Of-Life Decisionmaking | Discussion
  • Section 31 of De Finibus. Cicero attacks provisions in Epicurus’s will — bequests for the children of Metrodorus and annual birthday/20th-day celebrations — as fatal contradiction: a man who says virtue and posterity mean nothing beyond present pleasure has no rational basis for caring about anyone after he is dead. Epicurean response: Epicurus derived real pleasure while alive from making those provisions; the will expresses friendship and anticipation, not a belief in posthumous reward. Diogenes of Oenoanda Fragment 3 as parallel. Section 32 opens with a formal syllogism: “he who is subject to the greatest possible evil is not happy so long as subject to it; the wise man always is happy though sometimes in pain; therefore pain is not the greatest possible evil.” Response draws on Torquatus’s ideal-life passage from Book One.
• Episode 221 - Cicero’s On Ends - Book Two - Part 28 - Cicero Alleges Pleasures Of The Mind Cannot Offset Pain In Epicurean Philosophy | Discussion
  • Sections 32–33 of De Finibus. Can pleasant memories genuinely offset bodily pain — can we control what we remember? Cicero cites Themistocles (who preferred to forget rather than remember) as evidence memory is not reliably under our command. Panel: the Themistocles example backfires — Epicurus’s claim is not that we force pleasant memories but that a life well lived naturally provides them. Cicero introduces Gaius Marius hiding in a swamp after his fall from power — could the memory of seven consulships make him happy? Aristotle mocking Sardanapallus; the Africanus example. DeWitt’s Unity of Pleasure: not claiming mental recollection eliminates pain but that a life rich in genuine pleasures creates resources that make pain endurable without ceasing to be what it is. Section 33: Cicero directly challenges Torquatus to identify anything giving gratification purely for its own sake.

26. Special Episode - The Relationship Between Happiness And Pleasure

• Episode 222 - Revisiting the Relationship Between Happiness and Pleasure | Discussion
  • Special episode — pause from De Finibus reading. Don joins in place of Joshua (away for the total solar eclipse). Topic: confusion about happiness and pleasure has driven misunderstanding from Cicero’s day to our own. Eudaimonia deep dive: Don explains the Greek — literally “living under a good spirit,” carrying connotations of subjective well-being, fortune, and feeling that life is going well. The central Epicurean argument: only two feelings — pleasure and pain — no neutral third state (Principal Doctrine 3). DeWitt’s “major innovation of the new hedonism” (p.240): applying the name pleasure to the normal pain-free state of living — precisely what Cicero attacks. Epicurus’s last day letter examined in Greek: makarion, chairon, and the verb meaning “to hold one’s ground in battle array against” — using the joy of philosophical friendship as a weapon against kidney disease pain.

27. Cicero’s On Ends - Epicurean Sections - Part 29

• Episode 223 - Cicero’s On Ends - Book Two - Part 29 - Are Epicureans Undergoing The Exertions Of Life For Nothing More Than A Drop Of Honey? | Discussion
  • Section 34 of De Finibus. Cicero tells Torquatus to “abandon pleasure to the beasts,” then lists animal behaviors — bearing young, wandering, socializing, memory — as “shadows of human virtues unconnected with pleasure.” Panel response: every item on Cicero’s list is pleasure under Epicurus’s definition. Cicero simply re-runs his restriction of pleasure to Cyrenaic sensory stimulation. Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire passage on desert frogs emerging to mate in brief rain-filled pools illustrates how the whole lifecycle falls under Venus’s guidance. Lucretius’s ita capta lepore — “held captive by your charm” — connects the proem’s invocation of Venus to the charm motivating all animals through their cycles, even seven thousand lines of difficult hexameter. Cicero’s Xerxes/honey analogy backfires: Xerxes’s actual motives of revenge and honor are themselves pleasures in Epicurean terms.

28. Special Reading - The Letter of Cosma Raimondi

• Episode 224 - Letter of Cosma Raimondi Special Reading - The 1429 Letter of Cosma Raimondi - In Defense of Epicurus | Discussion
  • Special reading — Cassius reads the 1429 letter of Cosma Raimondi (translated by Martin Davies), the Italian humanist’s defense of Epicurus addressed to Ambrogio Traversari. Raimondi argues that virtue is not separate from but necessary to the Epicurean good life — pleasure properly understood requires justice, wisdom, and courage because only through these can lasting pleasure be secured. Raimondi directly refutes the charge that Epicurean philosophy licenses licentious behavior. Historically significant: written in the same period as Poggio Bracciolini’s rediscovery of Lucretius, representing a Renaissance rehabilitation of Epicurus within the context of Christian humanist learning. Relevant to the question raised in the previous week’s episode: does Epicurean philosophy lead to injustice or immorality?

29. Cicero’s On Ends - Epicurean Sections

• Episode 225 - Cicero’s On Ends - Book Two - Part 30 - Cicero Argues That Commitment To Virtue Is A Bar To Pleasure | Discussion
  • Section 35 — the final section of De Finibus Book Two. Cicero reads the panegyrics of great Romans and says none were praised for skill in procuring pleasures. Would Torquatus prefer a calm life of unceasing pleasures, or to be a benefactor of humanity at the cost of Herculean labors? The dialogue ends with Torquatus declining to answer alone, deferring to his Epicurean teachers Siro and Philodemus. Triarius, a Stoic, objects as prejudiced; Cicero promises to fight more boldly when properly armed. Book Two ends. The Epicurean response is already on record: Torquatus’s Book One vision of the ideal life — philosophy, friendship, and the pleasures of the mind — already answers Cicero’s false dilemma between pleasure and service to humanity, showing that both are forms of pleasure properly understood.

30. Cicero’s On The Nature Of The Gods

• Episode 226 - Cicero’s On The Nature of The Gods - Part 01 - Introduction | Discussion
  • Introductory episode launching the On the Nature of the Gods (OTNOTG) series. Transition from De Finibus to OTNOTG — the most complete Epicurean theological presentation available, preserving concepts like isonomia found in no other work. Cicero’s own opening acknowledges the multiplicity of opinions on the gods is so great it seems to be the origin of philosophy itself. Three ancient positions catalogued: Protagoras (agnostic), Diagoras of Melos and Theodorus of Cyrene (atheists). Velleius will present first a critique of every prior school’s theology, then the Epicurean positive account. Theology is not peripheral: Principal Doctrine 1, Letter to Menoikeus, Lucretius, Diogenes of Oinoanda, and Philodemus all treat the gods as central to a complete Epicurean understanding of reality and the happy life.
• Episode 227 - Cicero’s On The Nature of The Gods - Part 02 - Velleius Begins His Attack On Traditional Views Of The Gods | Discussion
  • Second installment on On the Nature of the Gods. Velleius begins his attack on traditional views. Before the text, a Stoic-prepared comparison chart is examined: the Epicurean entry on gods reads “don’t impact our lives, ignore them” — challenged as inaccurate and harmful to understanding. While Epicurean gods don’t control our lives, they serve essential functions: Principal Doctrine 1, Letter to Menoikeus, Lucretius, Diogenes of Oinoanda, and Philodemus all extensively discuss the gods. Superstition and divination are not merely “false” but detrimental to happiness — Lucretius Book 1 on priestly manipulation. The danger of viewing Epicureanism through Stoic or Buddhist eyes: because Epicurus took a different view of divine control over humanity, this does not mean the gods are a subject to ignore.
• Episode 228 - Cicero’s On The Nature of The Gods - Part 03 - Velleius Asks “What Woke The Gods To Create The World?” | Discussion
  • Third installment on On the Nature of the Gods, continuing in Section 9. Before the text, forum discussions on what is possible versus impossible in Epicurean philosophy and on the limits of the human lifespan are connected to the core point: all Epicurean positions must be consistent with Epicurean physics. Velleius at the end of Section 8: “What can possibly have been put together which cannot be dissolved again?” Then DeWitt’s critical finding (Ch.13, pp.267–281): Epicurus never called the gods immortal — they are not deathless by nature but must actively maintain their own incorruptibility. Plutarch and Eusebius quoting Atticus confirm this doctrine. The Epicurean gods’ incorruptibility is self-maintained, just as human happiness is self-achieved.
• Episode 229 - Cicero’s On The Nature of The Gods - Part 04 - Velleius Continues His Assault On Intelligent Design | Discussion
  • Fourth installment on On the Nature of the Gods. Before the text, Cassius addresses a published article claiming modern science has invalidated Epicurus’s anti-intelligent-design argument by finding the universe finite in age. The Epicurean theory of cosmic origins is not based on simple randomness over infinite time: suitable seeds are necessary for combinations to occur; Lucretius explicitly demonstrates limits — centaurs are not possible; things occur in repetitive patterns reflecting the nature of the atoms, not pure randomness. The atomic swerve grounds free will but does not mean anything can happen randomly. Epicurean limits and boundaries are foundational, not optional. The series continues into OTNOTG Section 7, where Velleius presses that a universe with a beginning must have an end.
• Episode 230 - Cicero’s On The Nature of The Gods - Part 05 - Velleius Attacks Misplaced Ideas of Divinity | Discussion
  • Fifth installment on On the Nature of the Gods, beginning Section 11. Velleius attacks those who posit a disembodied mind or spirit as the organizing principle of the universe — Anaxagoras claimed an infinite mind created all things by its power and reason alone, but Velleius shows this requires either that the mind has sensation (which requires a body) or that it cannot truly feel an impulse or perceive anything. The extended welcome preamble for new listeners emphasizes core Epicurean distinctions: gods are not omnipotent or omniscient; pleasure refers to every experience not felt to be painful; the universe is entirely natural. The positive Epicurean account of divinity — prolepsis-grounded and physics-consistent — is being held in reserve.
• Episode 231 - Cicero’s On The Nature of The Gods - Part 06 - How would you live if you were certain that there are no supernatural gods and no life after death? | Discussion
  • Sixth installment on On the Nature of the Gods, beginning Section 12. Before the text, Joshua raises the anniversary of Thales’s prediction of a solar eclipse — the first recorded example of scientific prediction from natural causes rather than divine sign. Velleius continues his survey of pre-Epicurean theologies: Anaxagoras’s claim that an infinite mind organized and perfected all things is attacked as self-contradictory — if this mind has no body, it cannot have sensation, and without sensation there can be no conjunction of sense and motion that nature requires. A pure, simple mind without substance annexed to it is literally inconceivable, since every mind we know is joined to a body. The pattern of Velleius’s attack: each ancient theology either requires supernatural design or ends in physical self-contradiction.
• Episode 232 - Cicero’s On The Nature of The Gods - Part 07 - Velleius Attacks The Platonist And Aristotelian Views Of Gods | Discussion
  • Sections 11–13 of On the Nature of the Gods. Velleius continues his survey of failed ancient theologies, reaching the Atomists — Epicurus’s intellectual predecessors. Democritus significantly influenced Epicurean philosophy, particularly in atomism, but Epicurus diverged on two fronts: where Democritus doubted whether truth is attainable, Epicurus insisted it is and built canonics accordingly; where Democritus’s divine images are linked to knowledge alone, Epicurus roots knowledge of the gods in prolepsis, not mere cognition. Velleius’s critique of Plato and Aristotle’s theologies: logically inconsistent and empirically unsupportable. Sensation and preconceptions (prolepseis) as the dual Epicurean foundation for all knowledge — including knowledge of the gods — where both Democritus and Plato failed to establish a reliable epistemological foundation.
• Episode 233 - Cicero’s On The Nature of The Gods - Part 08 - An Epicurean Attack On The False God Of Stoicism | Discussion
  • Sections 13–15 of On the Nature of the Gods. Velleius completes his critique of Stoic theology — the Stoic god who is simultaneously reason, natural law, and fate is a self-contradictory tangle of abstractions disconnected from any real nature. Epicurean gods are zoa, animate beings — deathless and blissful, contrasting with both the Stoic’s deified abstractions and Plato’s world-soul. The Stoic doctrine of heimarmene (fate/divine necessity) versus Epicurean free will through the atomic swerve. Epicurean natural law is not imposed from without by divine reason but derived from nature’s own pleasure-and-pain guidance to living beings. The fundamental incompatibility between Stoic providential natural law and the Epicurean view of gods as natural, non-governing beings. Lucretius Book 5 on nature’s wisdom without design.
• Episode 234 - Cicero’s On The Nature of The Gods - Part 09 - Dealing With Marcus Aurelius And The Epicurean Canonical Basis for Divinity | Discussion
  • Continues the On the Nature of the Gods series. Before entering Section 16, addresses the ongoing relevance to modern Stoicism — Marcus Aurelius’s acknowledgment that one must choose between “Providence or atoms.” Stoic providential universe contrasted with the Epicurean view using quotes from Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Pierre Hadot, David Sedley, and Chris Fisher. John Mason Good’s confused Lucretius introduction, which incorrectly tries to reconcile Epicurus with belief in a first cause. Velleius opens Section 16 with a final dismissal of all previous theories, setting the stage for the Epicurean positive argument grounded in prolepsis. Diogenes Laertius on Epicurean truth; Lucretius on sensation (Books 1 and 4); Sextus Empiricus. Principal Doctrines 22, 23, and 24 on how Epicurean canonics apply directly to the question of the gods.
• Episode 235 - Cicero’s On The Nature of The Gods - Part 10 - Velleius Explains the Epicurean Proleptic View of Divinity | Discussion
  • Continues through On the Nature of the Gods, Sections 16–18. Velleius’s claim that Epicurus grounded understanding of the gods in prolepsis — the natural pre-notion all humans share. Section 17 establishes that universal human recognition of gods as “blessed and imperishable” is sufficient for piety without superstition. Epicurean prolepsis contrasted with Plato’s theory of anamnesis (recollection of innate ideas). Natural development of language, law, and bodily organs as analogies for how prolepsis functions. Section 18 read in full: Velleius’s claim that gods have a human-like form and the mind perceives them through images. Lucretius Book 5 on nature’s “pattern” for creation; Darwin on the evolution of the eye; Shakespeare’s Hamlet on the dignity of man; Montaigne on human self-importance; Jefferson’s letter to John Adams on materialism and sensation.
• Episode 236 - Cicero’s On The Nature of The Gods - Part 11 - Lucretian Support For Velleius’ Views of Epicurean Divinity | Discussion
  • Continues from the middle of Section 18 of On the Nature of the Gods. Before returning to the text, Lucretius’s own passages on the gods — the “glory of the Greeks” from Book 3 and the superstition passage from Book 1 — illuminate what Velleius is saying. Horace’s Ode 34 (recanting Epicureanism) and Tennyson’s poem “Lucretius” explore two opposite responses to the unveiled Epicurean cosmos: ecstasy versus horror. Jefferson’s “head and heart” letter; Principal Doctrines 3 and 4. Section 18: Velleius on the gods’ human-like form, the concept of images (sterea), virtue and happiness (Principal Doctrine 5), and how gods may maintain their deathlessness. Joshua explains ichor (divine fluid) and its Christian polemical misuse. Camus and absurdism. Preview: isonomia next week.
• Episode 237 - Cicero’s On The Nature of The Gods - Part 12 - Isonomia And The Implications Of Infinity | Discussion
  • Section 19 of On the Nature of the Gods introduces isonomia — Epicurus’s principle of uniform distribution: if mortals exist in finite numbers, immortals must exist in equal numbers; infinite causes of destruction imply infinite causes of conservation. Cassius connects this to Letter to Herodotus (section 117) and Letter to Menoikeus’s “live like a god among men.” Lucretius Book 2 on the infinite multiplication of types across the cosmos. Competing translations of the key Latin phrase by Young, Rackham, and Google Translate. The mechanics of how gods might maintain their deathlessness (waterfall analogy). The intermundia as a region with fewer destructive collisions. Diogenes of Oinoanda’s letter to Antipater on infinite worlds. The Orphic doctrine of metempsychosis contrasted with Lucretius’s atomic account of identity. Fibonacci sequences, fractals, and the Cyrenaic association of pleasure with smooth motion.
• Episode 238 - Cicero’s On The Nature of The Gods - Part 13 - Velleius Erupts Against Stoic Fate and Supernatural God-Making | Discussion
  • Sections 19–20 of On the Nature of the Gods. Opens with a revisit of last week’s isonomia passage — comparing Young’s and Rackham’s translations; pi’s infinite digits as an analogy for isonomia; whether identical beings exist an infinite number of times in an infinite universe (with a Shakespeare quote). Velleius on the life of the gods (no toil, no labor), contrasted with the laborious Stoic god who runs the universe like a craftsman. The famous passage where Velleius denounces the clockmaker god as imposing “an eternal master whom we must dread day and night.” Epicurus versus 18th-century Deism (Thomas Paine). Giordano Bruno’s Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast. Velleius’s closing: Epicurus freed us from superstitious terrors and restored us to liberty. References to Minority Report, Terminator 2, Mill, and the Greek soter (savior) as applied to Epicurus.
• Episode 239 - Cicero’s On The Nature of The Gods - Part 14 - The Dishonesty of Academic Skepticism vs. Epicurus’ Commitment To Truth Transcript | Discussion
  • Fourteenth installment on On the Nature of the Gods. Cotta’s opening response, Sections 21–22: as an Academic skeptic and Roman priest, he praises Velleius’s eloquence while refusing to assert any positive view — a fundamental dishonesty: in private he doubts whether knowledge of the gods is possible, yet publicly he performs religious ceremonies. Thomas Jefferson’s 1820 letter rejecting Pyrrhonism. Lucretius’s self-refutation argument against skeptics (Books 4 and 1). Diogenes of Oinoanda Fragment 5. Lucian of Samosata’s Alexander the Oracle-Monger: Epicurus, Democritus, and Metrodorus are the philosophers most capable of detecting fraud. Capital-S Academic Skepticism versus ordinary lowercase skepticism. Juvenal’s Stoic Tenth Satire versus Horace’s Epicurean Epistle 1.18 on achieving equanimity without supplicating the gods.
• Episode 246 - Cicero’s On The Nature Of The Gods - Part 21 - Examining Epicurean Evidence-Based Reasoning? | Discussion
  • Sections 31–32 of On the Nature of the Gods. Cotta mocks Epicurus’s emphasis on fear of death and the gods — thieves and temple robbers aren’t terrified. Response: Diogenes of Oinoanda Fragment 20; Lucretius on Iphigenia’s sacrifice. Callini on “hidden death” in modern institutional medicine. Death anxiety research: religiosity and irreligiosity both correlate with lower anxiety; the most anxious population sits in the middle. Cotta misrepresents Epicurus as requiring direct personal observation before believing anything — countered via Sherlock Holmes and the duck-billed platypus as examples of analogical reasoning. Cotta the priest will leave this discussion to sacrifice goats. Asimov’s “Relativity of Wrong”: Epicurean conclusions may be incomplete but are far less wrong than opponents’.
• Episode 245 - Cicero’s On The Nature Of The Gods - Part 20 - Right, Wrong, Or Incomplete? | Discussion
  • Sections 27–30 of On the Nature of the Gods, assessed via Isaac Asimov’s “The Relativity of Wrong.” Cotta describes Epicurean gods as having no concrete substance — the legendary Venus of Cos painting as analogy. Three Epicurean arguments for the human form of the gods (prolepsis; divine excellence; reason can only reside in human form) each attacked in turn. Section 28: the disposition to picture gods in one’s own form is universal across species (Xenophanes). Section 30: Egyptians worship crocodiles; quotes Principal Doctrine 1. Cassius: Cotta’s inference — because Velleius can’t specify details, the whole position collapses — is logically invalid. Lucian praises Epicurus as antidote to fraud; Horace recants Epicureanism after a lightning flash. Asimov’s essay shows Epicurus was far less wrong about the gods than his opponents.
• Episode 244 - Cicero’s On The Nature of The Gods - Part 19 - Zeno’s Paradoxes - Profundity Or Gaslighting? | Discussion
  • Zeno of Elea’s paradoxes as a lens for what Epicurus was fighting against. Parmenides’s monism — reality as a single undifferentiated whole with no void and no motion — expressed mathematically in Zeno’s paradoxes. John D. Norton’s analysis and a UC Davis “Physics of Epicurus” lecture series. The Achilles-and-tortoise paradox in full: the problem is not just overtaking but even beginning to move, because motion requires completing an infinite subdivision first. Parmenides and Zeno reached this conclusion from purely verbal reasoning — “that which is not cannot be.” Epicurus’s response rests on sensation: we observe motion, therefore void exists; atoms are indivisible, rejecting infinite divisibility at the foundations. Jefferson’s letter to John Adams; Conrad’s The Shadow Line. Edward Abbey: to refute the solipsist, throw a rock at his head.
• Episode 243 - Cicero’s On The Nature of The Gods - Part 18 - From “All Sensations Are True” to Reasoning By Similarity And Analogy | Discussion
  • Opens by revisiting “all sensations are true” — the eyes transmit data without injecting interpretation; the distinction between round and square belongs to the mind. Cassius draws on David Sedley’s “Epicurean Theories of Knowledge”: Arcesilaus’s takeover of the Academy; Colotes’s treatise attacking multiple philosophers for their epistemological support of skepticism; Timagoras’s defense against the New Academy’s “squeezed eye” illusion challenge; Philodemus’s On Signs recording the Epicurean similarity method versus the Stoic deductive elimination method. Joshua adds Lorenzo Valla’s analogy between human and animal experience. Cicero’s Section 26 attacks Epicurus’s quasi-body and quasi-blood language — traced to Homer’s ichor by DeWitt. Callini on the broader materialist versus supernatural struggle. Joshua: Epicurus was fighting a seven-front war simultaneously.
• Episode 242 - Cicero’s On The Nature of The Gods - Part 17 - Is Truth A Matter Of Logic? | Discussion
  • ”Is Truth a Matter of Logic?” Cotta charges Epicurus with inventing expedients — the atomic swerve and refusal to accept the disjunctive proposition “Epicurus will be alive or dead tomorrow” — whenever logical necessity leads somewhere Epicurus dislikes. Rationalism (a priori from axioms: Plato, Anselm’s ontological argument) versus empiricism (from sensation: Epicurus, Darwin on the evolution of the eye). Eratosthenes of Cyrene applies geometry to measure nature. Anselm’s Proslogion ontological argument laid out and countered; Hume quoted. Democritus’s radical skepticism contrasted with Epicurus’s practical epistemology. Cotta’s critique of “quasi-body” and “quasi-blood” language. Lucretius Book 4 on trusting the senses. David Sedley on Epicurus’s refutation of determinism.
• Episode 241 - Cicero’s On The Nature of The Gods - Part 16 - A Common Thread Between The Epicurean View of “The Gods” and “The Good” | Discussion
  • Revisits Section 23 of On the Nature of the Gods with a key insight: a structural parallel exists between how Torquatus defines “the good” in De Finibus and how Velleius defines “a god” in the Letter to Menoikeus. Both establish working terms before specific claims can be evaluated. The universal-versus-particular distinction: Epicurus defines a god as a blessed and imperishable living being, not as Zeus or Athena specifically. A centaurs analogy illustrates how we can define and discuss things that may not exist as particular instances. DeWitt on isonomia as the theoretical basis for belief in gods. Frances Wright’s A Few Days in Athens. Cicero’s Section 24 attack on atomic theory itself. Preview: Cotta’s question “What is truth?” and why Epicurean epistemology must answer it squarely.
• Episode 240 - Cicero’s On The Nature of The Gods - Part 15 - The False Allegation That “General Assent” Was The Epicurean Basis For Divinity | Discussion
  • Fifteenth installment on On the Nature of the Gods. Section 23 — Cotta’s main attack: Velleius based Epicurean belief in gods on “the general assent of all mankind.” This misrepresents Epicurus, who grounds knowledge of the gods in prolepsis — the pre-rational perceptual faculty analogous to the five senses. Letter to Menoikeus (123–124) shows Epicurus uses “common notion of mankind” as a working definition of what a god is, not an argument for existence. A dog-and-cat analogy: recognizing a class doesn’t require agreement on every particular instance. Diogenes Laertius on Pyrrho’s travels to India. Diagoras, Theodorus, and Protagoras discussed. Cicero’s De Senectute exposes his own philosophical inconsistency: preferring comforting error about the afterlife to honest truth-seeking.
• Episode 247 - Cicero’s OTNOTG 22 – Cotta Continues To Attack The Epicurean View That Gods Are Natural Living Beings | Discussion
  • Sections 32–34 of On the Nature of the Gods. Cotta’s three attacks on Epicurean gods as natural human-like beings. (1) Gods predate men, so men should be in gods’ image, not the reverse — in an infinite Epicurean universe there is no “first” of any kind; Lucretius Book 5 quoted. (2) Mocking the practical implications of gods having human anatomy; catalog of Epicurean polemicists — Metrodorus, Hermarchus, Leontion, Zeno of Sidon. Galen and Vesalius on analogy in anatomical study. (3) Why couldn’t divinity reside in the sun or some eternal mind? — the Platonic thrust against bodily pleasure. DeWitt on Plato’s error of applying geometric definition to virtues. Preview: a special episode on idealist versus realist interpretations of Epicurean divinity.
• Episode 248 - Cicero’s OTNOTG 23 – Cotta Pushes The “Argument By Design” Against The Epicurean View That All Is Natural | Discussion
  • Sections 34–36 of On the Nature of the Gods (note about reduced audio from Hurricane Helene). Cotta argues divine happiness could not reside in the sun or an eternal mind — signaling the Platonic agenda to divorce gods from bodies and pleasure. Cotta lays the groundwork for the Argument by Design: those beholding the stupendous works of nature and inferring a supremely excellent designing intelligence were right. Section 36: Epicurean gods’ body parts serve no purpose; Egyptians at least honor the ibis for real benefits — Joshua researches the ibis-and-flying-serpents story in Herodotus. Cassius draws the central parallel: elevating virtue over pleasure and elevating supernatural god over physical god employ the same argumentative move — assertions disconnected from nature.
• Episode 249 - Cicero’s OTNOTG 24 – Are The Epicurean Gods Totally Inactive, And Are We To Emulate Them Through Laziness? | Discussion
  • Section 37 of On the Nature of the Gods. Cotta charges that Epicurean gods are totally inactive and slothful, encouraging human laziness. Response draws on Velleius’s own text showing the Epicurean god’s freedom from burdensome labor is superior to the laborious Stoic god; Giordano Bruno’s Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast (via Greenblatt’s The Swerve) mocking divine micromanagement; and DeWitt’s analysis (Ch.13, pp.267–281) showing Epicurean gods actively preserve their own incorruptibility — their happiness is self-preserved, not supernaturally guaranteed. Lucretius Book 3 on otium and human restlessness; Letter to Menoeceus on living “like a god among men.” Core Epicurean answer: philosophy, study, friendship, and pursuit of pleasure are all activities — Epicurus himself was one of the most productive writers in antiquity.
• Episode 250 - Cicero’s OTNOTG 25 – The Relationship Of “Images” To All Human Thought – Not Just To “The Gods” | Discussion
  • Section 38 of On the Nature of the Gods and the broader Epicurean theory of images. Cassius establishes that image theory is not unique to the question of the gods — it underpins all thought in the Epicurean system. The Placita of Aetius shows Leucippus, Democritus, and Epicurus all held that sensation and thought arise from images. Lucretius Book Four on the mind’s reception of floating eidola; Cicero’s joking letter to Cassius Longinus about Epicurean simulacra. Aristotle’s De Anima: “the soul never thinks without an image.” DeWitt’s Chapter 11 — “Mind as a Super-Sense” — on how the automatic mind can err while the rational mind corrects errors. Cotta’s challenge addressed: Epicurus’s statement about the gods is a definitional conclusion, not mere perception.
• Episode 251 - Cicero’s OTNOTG 26 – How Niagara Falls Helps Us Understand The Flux, The Heap, And The Epicurean Gods | Discussion
  • Sections 39–40 of On the Nature of the Gods. Cotta attacks Velleius’s use of isonomia — if there are mortal beings, there must also be immortal beings. The flux problem is traced through Heraclitus, DeWitt’s Niagara Falls analogy, and the Sorites heap paradox. DeWitt’s Chapter 11 on the influx/efflux theory: the gods maintain substance by absorbing atoms while projecting images. DeWitt also argues Cicero deliberately selected only the “image-flow gods” for attack, suppressing a second class of Epicurean gods with more solid bodies. Section 40: Cotta attacks Epicurean happiness — gods with no body can’t experience bodily pleasures. Response: Principal Doctrines 5 and 10; Letter to Menoeceus; Diogenes of Oinoanda Fragment 56 on wisdom bringing the life of the gods to men.
• Episode 252 - Why Reverence The Epicurean Gods? | Discussion
  • After Section 40 of On the Nature of the Gods, the hosts explore broader themes: what is “real” in Epicurean philosophy (contra reductionist readings); the Sorites heap paradox and its parallel to Epicurus’s definition of pleasure. Sections 41–42: Cotta argues that if the Epicurean god “does nothing but think about his own happiness” he cuts a ridiculous figure — countered by affirming gods engage in physical activity to preserve their existence. Joshua reads Epicurus’s deathbed letter to Idomeneus to rebut the Ciceronian slur that Epicureans value only bodily pleasure. Cicero’s flat denial that Epicureans found pleasure in literature or history is called out as misrepresentation. Epicurean pietas versus Roman religio. Preview: Hume’s Dialogues and the Riddle of Epicurus.
• Episode 253 - Cicero’s OTNOTG 28 – How The “Riddle Of Epicurus” Fits Into The Epicurean View Of The Gods | Discussion
  • Examines the famous “Riddle of Epicurus” — the problem of evil as a logical puzzle — and its uneasy relationship with authentic Epicurean philosophy. The riddle’s history is traced from Lactantius’s On the Anger of God through David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. Cassius and Joshua argue the riddle almost certainly originated with Academic Skeptics, not Epicurus: attacking an opponent’s premises without offering a positive resolution is the technique of Skepticism, not Epicurean philosophy. Epicurus always moved forward to positive knowledge — Principal Doctrine 1, the Letter to Menoeceus, Lucretius Book One. Epicurean epistemology as the true answer: the Canon constructed a positive foundation for human confidence, not merely destroyed false positions.
• Episode 254 - The Skeptic Asks: Does Not Epicurus Undermine Religion As Much As Any Outright Atheist? | Discussion
  • Continues through On the Nature of the Gods, focusing on Sections 42–43. Cotta’s threefold argument that the Epicurean view of the gods destroys religion as thoroughly as outright atheism. Cotta’s catalog: radical atheists Diagoras and Theodorus; Protagoras’s agnosticism; religion as state invention; Prodicus’s personification theory; Euhemerus’s deified kings (adapted by Ennius); and Democritus’s views on divine images. Three Latin words examined: superstitio, religio, and pietas — Lucretius tramples religio underfoot but praises pietas as “looking on all things with a master eye and a mind at peace.” John Locke’s Letter Concerning Toleration and Thomas More’s Utopia. Thucydides 2.53 on the plague of Athens as an Epicurean epiphany.
• Episode 255 - Cicero’s OTNOTG 30 – Cotta Argues That Epicurean Gods Are As Despicable As Epicureans Themselves | Discussion
  • Brings the main discussion of On the Nature of the Gods Book One to a close, covering Sections 43–44. Cotta’s final argument: Epicurean gods are despicable in exactly the way Epicureans themselves are despicable — both pursue happiness and pleasure rather than virtue. Cassius identifies this as a transfer of Cicero’s attack on Epicurean friendship (from On Ends) onto the gods. The episode responds with Principal Doctrines 27, 28, 39, and 40 on friendship; Vatican Sayings 52, 56, 57, and 78; Torquatus’s defense in On Ends; Diogenes of Oinoanda Fragment 20; and Lucretius’s definition of pietas. A Gustave Flaubert quote on the historical moment between the old gods and Christ. Preview: realist versus idealist interpretation of the Epicurean gods.

31. A Review Of Key Doctrines of Epicurus

• Episode 256 - Epicurean Gods – Real Or Ideal Thought Constructs? | Discussion
  • A three-way discussion between Cassius, Joshua, and guest Don on one of the most contested questions in Epicurean scholarship: whether Epicurus’s gods are physically real beings or ideal thought constructs arising within the human mind. Organized around Sedley (idealist/thought-construct) versus Konstan (realist), both from Epicurus and the Epicurean Tradition. All three hosts reject the Posidonius accusation that Epicurus invented his gods to avoid Socrates’s fate. Key ambiguities in the Letter to Menoeceus are examined: the Greek zōon, the word enargēs, and the scholion on Principal Doctrine 1. Konstan’s four mechanisms for physically real gods are presented. DeWitt’s suggestion that gods maintain themselves by active self-regulation is endorsed as compatible with both positions.
• Episode 257 - There Is No Necessity To Live Under Necessity – Part 1 | Discussion
  • Opens a two-part discussion on Epicurean determinism. Joshua provides an extended survey of fate in Greek and Roman culture: Delphic oracles; the mythological bind of Thetis; the two prophecies about Achilles; Virgil’s Aeneid; the Maugham story “Appointment in Samarra” — trying to escape fate only drives you toward it. Cassius presents the philosophical consensus Epicurus was opposing: Stoic necessity (the logos as “soul of the world”), and Democritus, Heraclitus, Empedocles, and Aristotle as determinists. The Epicurean position from the Letter to Menoeceus: some things happen by necessity, some by chance, and some are within our control — with what is within our control subject to praise and blame. Sedley’s “Epicurus’s Refutation of Determinism” is introduced.
• Episode 258 - There Is No Necessity To Live Under The Control Of Necessity – Part 2 (Conclusion) | Discussion
  • Concludes the two-part discussion of Epicurean determinism, expanded by Tim O’Keefe’s Epicurus on Freedom, which substantially disagrees with Sedley’s “Epicurus’s Refutation of Determinism” on the role of the atomic swerve. Cassius focuses on the notable absence of the swerve from Epicurus’s own surviving letters and argues with Sedley that Epicurus’s primary arguments against determinism are logical, not physical. Vatican Saying 9 (“necessity is an evil, but there is no necessity to live under the control of necessity”) and Vatican Saying 40 (the self-refuting determinist argument) are examined. Sedley’s non-reductionist Atomism: pleasure, pain, and freedom are real at the experiential level. DeWitt’s “Double Choice” passage on choosing an attitude as a prior act of will.
• Episode 259 - Nothing Comes From Nothing | Discussion
  • Cassius and Joshua open a new series on key Epicurean physics principles, beginning with the foundational doctrine that nothing comes from nothing. Cassius explains why skipping the physics portion is a mistake: Epicurus’s method in physics is the same method he applies throughout his entire philosophy. DeWitt’s central point: Epicurus is not an empiricist — sensations serve as witnesses confirming propositions derived by deduction, not as direct sources of propositional knowledge. Lucretius Book One, lines 159–216: six arguments for “nothing from nothing” — the seed argument, fixed seasons, fixed growth rates, fixed sizes of creatures, and the necessity of agriculture. Joshua connects these to Greek mythology, Douglas Adams’s puddle analogy, John Tyndall’s Belfast Address, and Mochus of Sidon.
• Episode 260 - The Universe Is Infinite And Eternal And Has No Gods Over It | Discussion
  • Cassius and Joshua discuss Epicurean physics centered on the principle that the universe is infinite in extent and eternal in time, with no supernatural forces over it. The distinction between “universe” and “cosmos” is clarified, along with Epicurean “worlds” versus modern multiverse theories. Principal Doctrines 11 and 12; Lucretius’s logical argument for boundlessness from Book One; and the lament from Book Five: ignorance of the heavens opens the door to religious fear. Anaxagoras’s exile for proposing the sun was a mass of metal; Aristarchus’s heliocentric model provoking Cleanthes to demand prosecution for impiety. Robert Frost’s poem “Lucretius versus the Lake Poets.” The infinite eternal universe leaves no space for a supernatural force.
• Episode 261 - Death Is Nothing To Us | Discussion
  • Cassius and Joshua explore Principal Doctrine 2 — “Death is nothing to us” — as the second of Epicurus’s foundational teachings, second only to the rejection of supernatural gods. The Epicurean basis for soul mortality in Atomism is established. Lucretius’s Book Three treatment is covered: sensation as the basis of all good and evil; the pre-natal non-existence argument (the Punic Wars did not concern us before birth); the mythological underworld figures as representations of earthly rather than infernal fears. Pascal’s Wager is critiqued; Thomas More’s Utopia on the social danger of denying soul immortality; John Locke’s Letter Concerning Toleration. James Boswell’s account of David Hume’s deathbed corrects the false tradition that Hume recanted.
• Episode 262 - He Who Says “Nothing Can Be Known” Knows Nothing | Discussion
  • Cassius and Joshua explore Epicurus’s rejection of radical Skepticism and his insistence that some things can be known with confidence. The origins of ancient skepticism are traced through Heraclitus, Parmenides, and Pyrrho of Elis — whose biography in Diogenes Laertius Book Nine is examined in detail, including his connection to Nausiphanes of Teos, who later became Epicurus’s teacher and whom Epicurus nicknamed “the jellyfish.” David Sedley’s “reductionist Atomism” — Democritus’s tendency to doubt phenomenal truths since they reduce to atomic configurations — is contrasted with Epicurus’s non-reductionist alternative: truths at the phenomenal level, including pleasure, are real. Lucian’s Alexander the Oracle Monger illustrates Epicurean firmness against religious fraud.
• Episode 263 - “All Sensations Are True” | Discussion
  • Cassius and Joshua examine the Epicurean doctrine that “all sensations are true” — not a naive claim that illusions never occur, but a precise epistemological position: the senses report data faithfully; errors arise in the mind’s judgment layered on top. DeWitt’s article “All Sensations Are True” is the central scholarly reference; the analogy of the mind as judge and the senses as witnesses is explored at length. Principal Doctrines 22–24, Lucretius Book Four, and the Letter to Herodotus are analyzed. The square tower appearing round from a distance, the bent oar, the converging colonnade — all illustrate that the sensation is not false but the reasoning applied to it may be. Professor Gellar Goad’s article on “the sun is the size it appears to be” as Epicurean shibboleth.
• Episode 264 - “Bread And Water!!??” Debunking The Myth Of Epicurean Asceticism | Discussion
  • Don presents Bread and Water: Debunking the Myth of Epicurean Asceticism — delivered at the first EpicureanFriends.com live stream. Don establishes what ancient Greeks actually ate: barley was the everyday staple; meat reserved for festivals; wheat bread a relative luxury. He traces sources describing Epicurus’s actual meals across six centuries — Seneca, Plutarch, Diogenes Laertius, Porphyry, Lactantius, Julian — showing the Epicurean table included barley porridge, lentil soup, light wine, goat cheese, fruits, and nuts. The famous “send me a pot of cheese” letter is examined linguistically. Epicurus did not forbid extravagant desires, only excessive attachment. Seneca’s certis diebus of minimal eating: knowledge of sufficiency, not self-denial.
• Episode 265 - The Deep-Set Boundary Stone – Epicurus And The Perils Of Applying Geometry To Ethics | Discussion
  • Joshua presents a full prepared talk — The Deep-Set Boundary Stone: Epicurus and the Perils of Applying the Principles of Geometry to Ethical Philosophy. Cassius opens with Carl Sagan’s Cosmos tracing the Pythagorean and Platonic elevation of mathematical abstraction over sense-based inquiry, framing the Epicurean position as a principled rejection of rationalism divorced from nature. Joshua, drawing on his background as a land surveyor, examines three scholarly positions on the Epicurean critique of geometry: it contradicts the indivisible atom; it contributes nothing to living well; and contemporaries misused geometry to make unfounded ethical claims. Key sources: Proclus on Euclid, Principal Doctrines 11 and 12, Seneca, DeWitt, Plato’s cave allegory, Keynes on Newton.
• Episode 266 - The Epicurean Paradigm Shift | Discussion
  • Solo Cassius presents The Epicurean Paradigm Shift — updated version of his presentation from the first EpicureanFriends.com live stream. Thesis: Epicurean philosophy cannot be understood as isolated positions but as a comprehensive mental model overturning dominant assumptions about pleasure, gods, virtue, death, atoms, and knowledge. Paradigm shifts covered: the Chrysippus hand-statue syllogism refuted; gods as natural, perfectly happy beings — not supernatural creators; virtue as purely instrumental; death as deprivation of sensation; non-reductionist Atomism (Sedley on Epicurus’s refutation of determinism); infinite worlds; the Canon. Closes with Vatican Saying 47, Roman Epicurean generals, and Cassius Longinus’s letter to Cicero defending Epicurean philosophy.
• Episode 267 - Virtue Is Not Absolute Or An End In Itself – All Good And Evil Consists In Sensation | Discussion
  • Cassius, Joshua, Don, and Kalosyni discuss Epicurus’s most controversial position: virtue is not an end in itself but an instrumental tool for achieving a pleasant life. Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics — who ground virtue in divine order or supernatural framework — are contrasted with Epicurus, for whom pleasure is the highest good and virtue inseparably linked to it (Principal Doctrine 5). The Greek word aretē is examined. Diogenes of Oenoanda Fragment 32 as the definitive Epicurean statement. The medieval fresco of Epicurus crushed underfoot as gluttony. Nietzsche’s critique of Stoic “living according to nature.” Cosimo Raimondi’s 1429 letter defending Epicurean pleasure. Kalosyni recommends Matthew Stewart’s Nature’s God.
• Episode 268 - Pleasure Is The Guide Of Life – The Role Of Pleasure In Life | Discussion
  • Cassius and Joshua open a two-episode series on the nature of pleasure, beginning with pleasure as the guide of life. The episode contrasts pleasure with three rival candidates — piety, virtue (Stoic/Platonic), and Pythagorean/Platonic rationalism — and grounds the Epicurean position in the faculty of pleasure and pain given directly by nature. Lucretius’s invocation of Venus in Book One and his statement of pleasure as dux vitae (“guide of life”) in Book Two are both quoted. Torquatus’s argument in On Ends Book One: every creature at birth seeks pleasure “while still uncorrupted” by false religion or philosophy. Principal Doctrine 9. DeWitt on pleasure as a criterion of truth in the Canon. Vatican Saying 19 and the deathbed Letter to Idomeneus.
• Episode 269 - By Pleasure We Mean The Absence Of Pain – All Experience That Is Not Painful | Discussion
  • Cassius and Joshua explore the full Epicurean meaning of “absence of pain” — continuation of the prior week’s discussion on pleasure as the guide of life. Epicurus needed an answer to Plato’s Philebus argument that pleasure can always be increased and is therefore never complete. His answer: by expanding pleasure to include all experience that is not painful, it has a limit (like virtue) and is therefore achievable. Key texts: Letter to Menoeceus 127–130; Epicurus’s lost Peri Telous; Torquatus in On Ends Book One on the “continually happy wise man”; Lucretius Book Two’s proem reframed as an illustration of mental pleasure from philosophical confidence. David Sedley’s “Epicurean versus Stoic Happiness” recommended.
• Episode 270 - Life Is Desirable, But Unlimited Time Contains No Greater Pleasure Than Limited Time | Discussion
  • Principal Doctrines 18–21: infinite time contains no greater pleasure than limited time. Cicero’s objection in On Ends Book Two Section 27: a pleasure-based system can never yield complete or permanent happiness. Response via David Sedley’s “Epicurean versus Cyrenaic Happiness”: happiness is a property of a whole life, not discrete moments. The “force multiplier” from the Letter to Idomeneus: Epicurus extends pleasure’s coverage across past and future while confining pain to the present. Diogenes of Oenoanda Fragment Three. DeWitt’s alpinist analogy: a climber at the summit cannot go higher, but duration still matters. The completeness of pleasure is analogous to the completeness of wisdom.

32. Understanding Epicurus Through Tusculan Disputations

• Episode 271 - TD01 – Understanding Epicurus Through Tusculan Disputations | Discussion
  • Introductory episode launching the Tusculan Disputations series. Cassius explains how this late-life work of Cicero — written amid grief over his daughter Tullia’s death — exposes the contrast between Stoic/Platonic and Epicurean philosophy across five key questions: Is death an evil? Is pain an evil? Does the wise man experience grief? Does the wise man experience joy? Is virtue alone sufficient for happiness? Cicero versus Epicurus on virtue: all-or-nothing Stoic approach versus Epicurus’s pragmatic pleasure-and-pain guidance. Joshua covers available translations (Yonge and Peabody) and the circumstances of composition. Frances Wright’s A Few Days in Athens on Zeno’s perfectionism versus Epicurus’s humanistic approach.
• Episode 272 - TD02 – Is Death An Evil? | Discussion
  • TD Sections 5–11. Educated Romans would not fear mythological underworld punishments. Cicero’s chain: the dead cannot be miserable because not present to experience loss; the never-born are also not miserable — approaching the Epicurean symmetry argument. Principal Doctrine 2. Plato’s pre-existence and recollection theory. Greenblatt’s The Swerve on the unique Roman intellectual moment between the old gods and Christ. Cicero surveys ancient views of the soul — heart/blood/brain, air, fire, Aristoxenus’s harmony, Xenocrates’s number, Dicaearchus’s denial, Aristotle’s fifth element — concluding on any of these views death cannot be an evil. Epicurus solved the philosophical memory problem through summary Letters to Herodotus and Pythocles.
• Episode 273 - TD03 – Is The Soul Immortal And Death Actually A Good? | Discussion
  • TD Sections 12–16; Plato’s Apology — Socrates’s final speech arguing death is either dreamless sleep or passage to a better world. Epicurus acknowledges death can relieve unbearable suffering but emphatically rejects death as generally preferable to life. Cicero’s three arguments for soul survival: testimony of all antiquity; universal consent; great men act for future generations. Cassius and Joshua critique these as resting on hearsay and wish-thinking. Epicurean prolepsis versus Cicero’s appeal to universal consent. Section 14: teleological natural law versus Epicurus’s non-teleological view. Pherecydes of Syria: first philosopher to assert soul immortality. The senses as the guardrail of all correct thinking.
• Episode 274 - TD04 – Is The Soul Held Down By The Body, And Does Death Allow The Soul To Ascend? | Discussion
  • TD Sections 17–22; Cicero’s argument that death may actually be preferable — the soul, composed of fire or air, ascends to an eternal realm of perfect knowledge. Pythagorean cosmology: the soul as inflamed air rising to the stars; Cicero learned from Archytas and Timaeus in Italy. Cicero mocks Epicureans as cowards fleeing imaginary underworld terrors; reinterprets the Delphic “know thyself” as knowing the soul’s divine nature. Counter from Cassius and Joshua: the Pythagorean nested-sphere cosmos versus Epicurean infinite universe; progressive brain damage refutes an immortal immaterial soul. John Tyndall’s 1874 Belfast Address. Greenblatt’s The Swerve. Santayana’s Three Philosophical Poets.
• Episode 275 - TD05 – Does Motion Provide Evidence For The Existence Of God And Divinity Of The Soul? | Discussion
  • TD Sections 23–24; the self-moving soul argument from Plato’s Phaedrus: that which moves itself is eternal; the soul moves itself; therefore the soul is eternal. Cassius’s Epicurean answer: the atoms are the first movers, moving eternally through the void under their own inherent force (gravitas), requiring no external prime mover. Thomas Paine uses the same motion argument for God in The Age of Reason (1794). Joshua reads Aristotle’s De Anima cataloguing ancient views of the soul — Democritus’s spherical fire atoms, Anaxagoras’s mind as first principle. Aristotle’s hylomorphism still fails the Epicurean test. Joseph Conrad’s The Shadow-Line on the marvels of nature without the supernatural.
• Episode 276 - TD06 – Is Memory Evidence For The Divinity Of The Soul? | Discussion
  • TD Sections 24–25; memory and intellectual capacity as evidence for the soul’s divine origin. Plato’s Meno paradox: Socratic questioning appears to elicit innate geometrical knowledge, proof of pre-existence and recollection. Cicero’s catalog of divine human achievements — invention of language, civilization, Archimedes’s armillary sphere. Cassius responds: Epicurean philosophy requires no eternal existence for something to be real; Lucretius presents civilization arising naturally from human experience; appeals to “divine fire” are intelligent design under another name. Joshua reads from Lorenzo Valla’s De Voluptate (15th century): openly professing Epicurean views could be dangerous — illustrated by the fate of Giordano Bruno.
• Episode 277 - TD07 – Platonism Says This World Is Darkness But The Next World Is Light – Epicurus Disagrees | Discussion
  • TD Sections 26–31. Cicero/Plato: this world is darkness and the next world is light; the soul is divine and not of this earth. Key passages: argument from design; the soul as simple and therefore unable to perish; Socrates refusing to escape execution; the soul of the wise man released from the body’s chains; “the whole life of a philosopher is a meditation on death.” Close parallel between Platonic arguments and Christian otherworldly doctrine — Matthew 6:19. Christopher Hitchens on religion’s eagerness for apocalypse. Kalosyni: personal reflection on recovering from fundamentalist Christianity and recognizing these same patterns in ancient Platonism.
• Episode 278 - TD08 – Two Opposite Views On When We Might Be Better Off Dead | Discussion
  • TD Sections 32–37. The Stoic position: souls survive death only temporarily; Panaetius against Plato — the soul must be mortal. Main focus: even if the soul perishes, death is not an evil, because the dead have no sensation and cannot lack anything. Contrasting exemplars: Metellus (died happily with four consul sons), Priam (outlived Troy’s destruction), Pompey (fell from glory to assassination). Epicurean counter: because pleasure is the goal and the dead can experience nothing, death is never preferable to life. Epicurus’s last letter to Idomeneus: great physical pain but filled with the joy of friendship. Richard Dawkins on the lottery of birth. Parallels Lucretius’s proem to Book Two.
• Episode 279 - TD10 – On “Dying Before One’s Time” | Discussion
  • TD Sections 38–42. Cicero argues a wise man acts for posterity even knowing death is final; Aristotle on the mayfly in the Hypanis River. “Dying before one’s time” — nature lends life without a fixed repayment date. Joshua adds context: Cicero’s personal losses (his daughter Tullia died 45 BC, age 34). Theramenes drinking hemlock under the Thirty Tyrants. Socrates’s final speech before his judges — death is dreamless sleep or passage to better realms (Homer, Hesiod, Musaeus), with a closing gesture toward epistemic humility. Both speakers agree Cicero has reached the philosophical climax of TD Book One.
• Episode 280 - TD11 – On Death And Daring To Live | Discussion
  • Wraps up TD Part One on death. Leonidas at Thermopylae; Diogenes the Cynic on disposal of his body; Cicero’s Section 46 argument against “going out on top.” Joshua: the Phaethon epitaph and daring to live. Frances Wright’s A Few Days in Athens on why loving then losing is better than never having loved. The King Canute/Silenus story: “never to have been born is the greatest blessing.” Two versions of the Iphigenia story — Euripides’ willing sacrifice versus Lucretius’s unwilling one. Letter to Menoeceus 125–126; Letter to Herodotus 83. Lucretius DRN Book Six plague. Emily Austin on why Lucretius ends the poem there. Vatican Sayings 31 and 45.
• Episode 281 - TD12 – Is Pain The Greatest Evil – Or Even An Evil At All? | Discussion
  • Begins TD Part Two, “Is Pain an Evil?” Section 5: the student declares pain the greatest evil; Cicero maneuvers him to admit disgrace is worse, then argues pain is not evil at all. Cassius: the student’s position follows directly from Letter to Menoeceus §124 — all good and evil through sensation. Cicero’s rhetorical strategy: invokes shame to dismiss the claim; uses Aristippus and Hieronymus of Rhodes as a pincer on Epicurus. Cicero mocks Epicurus for allegedly calling torture “sweet” — a misrepresentation; Diogenes Laertius records the wise man would cry out but remain happy. Lucretius’s proem to Book Five: Epicurus’s conquest of inner enemies surpasses Hercules’s physical labors.
• Episode 282 - TD13 – Is A Trifling Pain A Greater Evil Than The Worst Infamy? | Discussion
  • TD Sections 10–13. Epicurus’s use of “evil” (Greek kakon, Latin malum) carries no supernatural connotation — it simply means undesirable. Joshua introduces the Euthyphro dilemma. Section 12: the Marcus Regulus hypothetical — if Epicurus says a trifling pain is worse than the greatest infamy, he brings infamy upon himself. Cassius: Cicero’s own Catiline executions and Cassius Longinus’s assassination of Caesar show infamy is always contextual. Cicero’s letter joking about Epicurean simulacra to Cassius Longinus; Longinus’s reply affirming that a life of pleasure is impossible without virtue and justice.
• Episode 283 - Philosophy For The Millions | Discussion
  • Special episode — Cassius reads aloud Norman DeWitt’s 1947 article “Epicurus: Philosophy for the Millions” from the Classical Journal in its entirety. DeWitt traces the pre-Socratic scientific tradition from Democritus; Plato’s idealist counter-revolution; Epicurus’s revival of scientific inquiry with ethical urgency; the Stoic reaction. Covers Epicurus’s social innovations: the self-propagating school, the Canon’s three criteria, Epicurean physics including the swerve, a new psychosomatic psychology, and continuous pleasure as the Epicurean norm. Standard handbooks misrepresent Epicurus: prolepseis are abstract preconceptions, not mere general concepts; Epicurus held life itself to be the greatest good, with pleasure as its fulfillment.
• Episode 284 - TD14 – In Dealing With Pain, Does Practice Make Perfect Or Make For A Happy Life? | Discussion
  • TD Sections 13–17. Cicero criticizes the Stoic “nothing is good but virtue” as a word game, while proposing his alternative: nature approves of virtue so strongly everything else becomes trifling. Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil Section 9 on Stoics projecting their values onto nature. Epictetus challenges students to show an actual Stoic. Sections 15–17: practice, custom, and military discipline build tolerance for pain — Epicurus would largely endorse via Principal Doctrine 4. Jefferson’s letter to William Short. Cicero’s charge that Epicurean gods are idle is refuted: Epicurus, Philodemus, Lucretius, Diogenes of Oenoanda, and Cassius Longinus were all vigorous and active.
• Episode 285 - TD15 – The Significance Of The Limits Of Pain | Discussion
  • TD Sections 18–19. Cicero: whatever pain is, it is not as great as it appears. He attacks Principal Doctrine 4 — mocking “excessive” and “short” as superlatives without practical guidance. Joshua confirms Cicero is linguistically correct about the Greek superlatives. The Epicurean counter: PD4 is not a clinical prescription but a philosophical assertion that pain has a limit. Combined with PD3 (pleasure has a limit), this provides the foundation for resisting religions threatening eternal punishment. Lucretius DRN 1.102: “if men could see there is a fixed limit to their sorrows, they might stand against the scruples of religion.” Torquatus’s summary of the Epicurean good life is cited.
• Episode 286 - TD16 – Confronting Pain With Reason Rather Than With “Virtue” | Discussion
  • TD Sections 20–24. Cicero appeals to “credit and reputation and glory” as reason to bear pain bravely — Cassius identifies this as circular morality (the crowd as arbiter) versus Epicurus’s appeal to nature through pleasure and pain. Cicero’s natural law from On the Republic is fundamentally incompatible with Epicurean physics. Sections 21–22: heroic exemplars — Zeno of Elea, Anaxarchus the Democritean, Calanus the Indian. Section 23: Gaius Marius’s leg operation. Section 24: Epaminondas dying at Mantinea. Joshua: the White Ship disaster (1120 AD) and Lucretius’s plague ending illustrate Epicurean focus on this life rather than abstract virtue.
• Episode 287 - TD17 – The Fear Of Pain Is Overrated, But Cicero And Epicurus Disagree As To Why | Discussion
  • Completes TD Book Two, Sections 25–27. Two contrasting Stoic responses to pain: Dionysius of Heraclea abandoned Stoicism under kidney pain, confessing pain is evil; Posidonius lectured during gout but refused to call pain evil. Section 26: desire for glory and honor motivates endurance — Scipio’s maxim, Xenophon’s Anabasis. Section 27: virtue must be applied consistently to all types of pain. Both hosts note Cicero’s practical conclusions on bearing pain largely align with Epicurus. The fundamental divergence: Cicero appeals to transcendent natural moral law underwritten by supernatural gods. Nietzsche’s critique of Stoics projecting their values onto nature closes the discussion.
• Episode 288 - TD18 – Tusculan Disputations Part 3 – Will The Wise Man Feel Grief Or Other Strong Emotions? | Discussion
  • Begins TD Book Three (grief), Sections 1–8. Cicero: mental disorders are more consequential than bodily illness; “we suck in error with our nurse’s milk.” Philosophy as “medicine of the soul.” Joshua notes that in Epicurus, pathe includes both pleasure and pain — a fundamentally different usage than Stoic terminology. Latin vocabulary for madness: furor versus insania (the Twelve Tables). Crantor of the Old Academy against Stoic total insensibility. The Stoic syllogism against grief is identified as circular word-gaming. Diogenes Laertius: the Epicurean wise man feels emotions more deeply, not less. The Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum; Cicero’s letter praising Lucretius to his brother Quintus.
• Episode 289 - TD19 – “Epicureans Are Not Spocks!” | Discussion
  • TD Sections 9–10; the question of whether the Epicurean wise man should experience strong emotions. Homer’s Achilles and Agamemnon. The Stoic conclusion: anger, grief, pity, envy — the wise man never experiences any. Ataraxia examined: Stoics, Epicureans, and Pyrrhonists use the term but mean very different things. Don Boozer’s commentary: ataraxia is a kind of pleasure in Epicurus, not an end in itself. Kalosyni: emotions function as a holistic control panel — you can’t selectively shut off compassion without damaging the whole system. Cassius Dio quotes Brutus at Philippi: “O wretched Virtue, thou wert but a word.” Natural versus supernatural as the deeper divide.
• Episode 290 - TD20 – Tiptoeing Around All Disturbance Is Not Living | Discussion
  • TD Sections 10–13; causes and treatment of grief. Cicero endorses the Stoic direction — all strong emotion incompatible with wisdom — while criticizing Peripatetics for merely moderating emotions. Elevating ataraxia as primary leads logically to Stoic conclusions: compassion and joy must also be suppressed. Section 12: mythological examples of grief leading to ruin — Thyestes, Dionysius of Syracuse, Tarquinius Superbus. Section 13: Cyrenaics recommend premeditation of evil. Joshua challenges: to tiptoe through life afraid of all strong emotion is not really living. Frances Wright’s A Few Days in Athens presents Zeno predicting Epicurean philosophy will be popular but ultimately disgraced.
• Episode 291 - TD21 – Epicurus Pushes Back Against “Expect The Worst And You’ll Never Be Disappointed” | Discussion
  • TD Sections 14–15; Cyrenaic versus Epicurean approaches to grief. The Cyrenaic prescription: premeditate future evils — Euripides’ Thyestes, Terence’s “arm yourself against the coming storm.” Section 15: Xanthippe and the unsmiling Crassus as models of preternatural calm. Epicurus’s contrasting view: evils are not diminished by being foreseen; turn the mind to contemplation of pleasure instead. The wise man’s life is “packed with the recollection of past and the prospect of future pleasures.” Letter to Menoeceus 124–125. Vatican Saying 55. Lucretius’s plague ending. W.H. Auden’s Lullaby — “the mortal world enough” — as a modern Epicurean echo.
• Episode 292 - TD22 – Is Virtue Or Pleasure The Key To Overcoming Grief? | Discussion
  • TD Sections 16–17; Cicero’s escalating attack over grief and the respective roles of virtue and pleasure. His “triple medicine against adversity”: he would follow Epicurus if virtue were the goal, but pleasure makes that impossible. Cassius and Joshua push back: Epicurus explicitly deploys the mind’s capacity to draw on past and future pleasures — Principal Doctrine 20 and the deathbed Letter to Idomeneus demonstrate this. Section 17 invokes Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato for the sufficiency of virtue. Letter to Menoeceus 131–132: prudence is the beginning and greatest good. Frances Wright’s A Few Days in Athens. DeWitt: “Cicero could not have misrepresented Epicurus so effectively had he not understood him so well.”
• Episode 293 - TD23 – Cicero Accuses Epicurus Of Evasion In Calling “Absence Of Pain” A “Pleasure” | Discussion
  • A pivotal episode entering TD Section 18 — Cicero’s sharpest attack, centered on whether calling “absence of pain” a pleasure is evasion. Three Cicero claims: Epicurus wants us to ignore the future; he doesn’t value prudence; he reduces the good to bodily pleasure. All are rebutted through Principal Doctrine 20, Letter to Menoeceus 131–132, and Epicurus’s lost Peri Telous. The Marcus Regulus hypothetical — can a man be happy under torture? — frames the central question. The sorites/heap paradox: a good life is composed of pleasures with no magical threshold. Plato’s Philebus on whether pleasure admits of limits provides the philosophical backdrop.
• Episode 294 - TD24 – Distinguishing Dogs From Wolves And Pleasure From Absence Of Pain | Discussion
  • Continues the confrontation from Episode 293 over Cicero’s charge that calling “absence of pain” a pleasure is mere evasion. Cicero’s four-pronged attack from De Finibus: Epicurus doesn’t understand logic; uses language incorrectly; his argument is self-refuting; the position is morally dangerous. The Chrysippus-versus-Carneades exchange on the sorites paradox: Chrysippus proposed falling silent at the borderline; Carneades replied that falling silent accomplishes nothing. DeWitt’s “New Hedonism” and the static/kinetic pleasure distinction are examined. Christopher Hitchens on William of Ockham and the relationship between reasoning and fact. The covered-father problem in Epicurean canonics.
• Episode 295 - Plutarch’s Absurd Interpretation Of Epicurean Absence Of Pain | Discussion
  • Dawn joins as guest to discuss Plutarch’s “That Epicurus Actually Makes a Pleasant Life Impossible.” Plutarch’s background: leading Platonist, priest of Apollo at Delphi, with a vested interest in supernatural religion. Plutarch’s three attacks: memory of bodily pleasure is mere phantom; once absence of pain is achieved, nothing worthwhile remains — animals sing and play after eating too; and Epicureans are no better than pigs. Cassius and Dawn counter: only two feelings exist — pleasure and pain — so “absence of pain” and “pleasure” name the same lived reality. Plutarch’s closing move: Epicurean philosophy deprives people of hope for afterlife and supernatural religion.
• Episode 296 - Ancient Criticisms Of Epicurean “Absence Of Pain” Echo In The Modern World | Discussion
  • Solo Cassius re-reads Plutarch’s “That Epicurus Actually Makes a Pleasant Life Impossible,” sections 7–8, then adds Paul Elmer More’s 1923 Hellenistic Philosophies. More’s challenge: “What can be said of a philosophy that begins by regarding pleasure as the only positive good and ends by emptying pleasure of all positive content?” Both Plutarch and More make the same error — accepting Cicero’s framing that “absence of pain” designates a state of nothingness. The full-cup model responds: fill life with pleasures, crowding out pain. Horace’s line on pain-purchased pleasure is examined in its full context; Epicurus says the opposite.
• Episode 297 - TD25 – Is Philosophy At War With Perfume? | Discussion
  • Joshua returns from a two-week Boundary Waters canoe trip; the TD series resumes. Zeno of Sidon’s summary of Epicurean happiness from TD III.17 is re-read. Plutarch’s animal argument is revisited: animals sing and play after hunger is satisfied, confirming pleasure extends far beyond pain’s mere absence. Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire — spadefoot toads singing after rain — and his maxim “where there is no joy there can be no courage” illustrate the Epicurean position. Kalosyni joins. Cicero’s false either/or between philosophy and pleasure is challenged. Dionysius of Heraclea abandoned Stoicism under kidney pain — Cicero blamed the patient rather than the cure.
• Episode 298 - TD26 – Facts And Feelings In Epicurean Philosophy – Part 1 | Discussion
  • Cicero levels three accusations of self-contradiction in TD Section 20: Epicurus lists sensual pleasures as good but calls absence of pain the greatest pleasure; he ignores the neutral third state; and he praises virtue while separating it from the chief good — the Piso Frugi anecdote illustrates. Cassius and Joshua untangle the category errors: all sensory pleasures are pleasurable, but not all of Epicurus’s “pleasure” is sensory stimulation. The foundational question: by what process does Epicurus identify something as good? By feeling — nature herself, not abstract deduction, is the arbiter of good and evil.
• Episode 299 - TD27 – Was Epicurus Right That There Are Only Two Feelings – Pleasure And Pain? | Discussion
  • Cicero’s second accusation: nature presents three conditions — pleasure, pain, and a neutral middle state — and Epicurus wrongly collapses the third into the first. The Chrysippus hand-statue syllogism is examined. Cassius and Joshua respond via Torquatus’s rebuttal in De Finibus: the neutral-state argument works against Cyrenaics, not Epicurus, for whom absence of pain already is pleasure. The central question: how can every conscious moment be either pleasure or pain? Answer: we are always stimulated; no zero-stimulus state exists while conscious. DeWitt on why pleasure ought to be applied to the static state. The Canon’s three criteria as epistemologically foundational.
• Episode 300 - TD28 – An Epicurean Twist On The Legend Of King Canute | Discussion
  • The 300th episode and sixth anniversary. Cassius thanks Joshua and Kalosyni. Before returning to Cicero’s Section 20, the hosts re-examine the kinetic/katastematic pleasure distinction using Diogenes Laertius 10.136: ataraxia and aponia are katastematic pleasures; chara and euphrosyne are kinetic. Joshua explores this through Lucretius’s contrast of religio with pietas in Books 1 and 5: the mind at peace within ceaseless natural motion is the Epicurean ideal. The central analogy is King Canute commanding the tide — interpreted either as hubris or as wise demonstration that nature cannot be overridden. For Epicurus, the lesson is not submission but cooperation with nature through understanding. Vatican Saying 27 closes: pleasure is concurrent with learning, not deferred until completion.
• Episode 301 - TD29 – Epicurus And The Question Of Ends Justifying Means | Discussion
  • Finishes TD Section 20’s third accusation: Cicero charges Epicurus with separating the chief good from virtue. The Gaius Gracchus/Piso Frugi anecdote — both claiming to defend the treasury, both proposing opposite policies — parallels Epicurus praising virtue while placing pleasure at the summit. Joshua traces the Gracchan agrarian reforms and the populares/optimates divide. Cassius applies Torquatus’s navigation analogy: Epicurean virtue is praised as the most reliable means to pleasure, not as an end. Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons (Thomas More giving the devil benefit of law) illustrates how shared stated goals produce opposite conclusions about means. Epicurus is framed as a consequentialist — always judging action by its consequences for pleasure or pain.
• Episode 302 - TD30 – Epicurus And Roads Paved With Good Intentions | Discussion
  • TD Section 20 (continued): good intentions are not sufficient grounds for action — results matter. The Gracchi vs. the Senate: both claimed to defend the Roman treasury while proposing opposite policies. Epicurean philosophy stresses physics and canonics because reliable knowledge of cause and effect enables accurate prediction. Vatican Saying 16: “No one deliberately chooses evil, but is enticed by it as seeming good.” Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarianism is identified as a downstream development of Epicurus. A concrete example — distributing clean syringes to drug users — illustrates consequentialism vs. virtue ethics. Cassius notes Cicero himself used consequentialist reasoning in the Catiline affair — the very kind he refuses to credit Epicurus for.
• Episode 303 - TD31 – Is It Truly Impossible To Advocate For Epicurus In The Public Sphere? | Discussion
  • TD Section 21: Cicero’s most pointed practical challenge — Epicureans hold views so embarrassing they dare not advocate them before the Senate, the Assembly, the courts, or an army. Cassius and Joshua build a systematic Epicurean response. Key counterexamples: Julius Caesar’s Senate speech against the death penalty in the Catiline conspiracy (63 BC) used explicitly Epicurean reasoning — death ends all suffering, exile is worse, and precedent will be turned against the Senate. Cassius Longinus’s conversion to Epicureanism and letters to Cicero invoking Epicurean principles are cited. Javier Aoiz and Marcello Boeri’s Theory and Practice in Epicurean Political Philosophy is referenced. Thomas Jefferson as the American exemplar of public Epicurean advocacy.
• Episode 304 - TD32 – Epicurus vs. The Stoics On Strong Emotions | Discussion
  • Transitions from Part Three (grief) to Part Four of the Tusculan Disputations — perturbations of the mind. Brief mention of Gaius Amafinius, the early Roman Epicurean whose popular writings took all Italy by storm — cited only to be disparaged. The main discussion contrasts Stoic apatheia (freedom from all passion) with eupatheia (good feelings: joy, wish, caution). The Peripatetic view allows moderate emotion and enlists anger, pity, and fear as useful motivators; Cicero attacks this via slippery slope. Cicero concludes that all perturbations are voluntary errors to be eradicated by philosophy — directly opposed to the Epicurean view that pleasure and pain are nature’s own guidance.
• Episode 305 - TD33 – Shall We Stoically Be A Spectator To Life And Content Ourselves With “Virtue?” | Discussion
  • Opens Book Five of Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations — the climactic book asking whether virtue alone is sufficient for a happy life. Cicero dedicates this book to Brutus, who at the Battle of Philippi famously lamented that virtue was “but Fortune’s slave.” Pythagoras’s metaphor introduces the Stoic ideal: the philosopher as spectator at the Olympics, seeking only wisdom. The student challenge: a man can live well even on the rack, but can the rack be consistent with a happy life? Antiochus of Ascalon’s moderate position — virtue sufficient for happiness but not a perfectly happy life — is discussed. Closes with Torquatus (De Finibus Book 1): Epicurean philosophy invites full engagement with life, not passive spectatorship.
• Episode 306 - 11 / /25 - TD34 – | Discussion
  • Covers Section 9 of Part Five of Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations, opening with how Cicero came to know so much about Greek philosophy — through lifelong study including time in Athens under Zeno of Sidon (also teacher of Philodemus of Gadara). Stephen Greenblatt’s The Swerve traces how philosophical letters survived through the Renaissance. Philodemus’s criticism that most Epicureans memorize quotations rather than read the books is introduced as still relevant. Section 9 confronts Theophrastus: his admission that torture and exile make life miserable is “consistent but not noble” by Cicero’s standard. His famous line “Fortune, not wisdom, rules the life of man” is quoted. Epicurus’s position: pain is evil but not a binary switch rendering you entirely unhappy.
• Episode 307 - How The Wise Epicurean Is Always Happy | Discussion
  • TD Sections 9–10: Cicero finds Theophrastus consistent (admitting torture makes life miserable) but ignoble, and Epicurus noble in tone but inconsistent (holding pain is evil while claiming the wise man is always happy). The episode defends Epicurus: the wise man does not claim the rack is sweet — he claims a net positive experience, drawing on memories of past pleasures and the company of friends. The Stoic binary (Stilpo: “I have all my goods with me” after his country was sacked) is contrasted with Epicurus’s analogical scale. Lucretius Book 6’s fortification of the wise. Shakespeare’s Richard II Act 3 Scene 2 as the tragic/Stoic view.
• Episode 308 - Tracing Epicurus’ Key Ideas From The Principal Doctrines To The Tetrapharmakon To Cicero’s Epicurean Speakers | Discussion
  • Steps back from TD to trace the Tetrapharmakon’s four points back to Principal Doctrines 1–4 and forward to Torquatus’s speeches in De Finibus. The Tetrapharmakon (PHerc. 1005, attributed to Philodemus): “Don’t fear God; don’t worry about death; what is good is easy to get; what is terrible is easy to endure.” Cassius warns the condensed form invites misreading. The four points are examined in sequence, cross-referenced with full Principal Doctrine texts, Letter to Menoeceus, and Torquatus. Cicero’s charge of inconsistency — holding pain is evil while claiming the wise man is always happy — is the context for this detailed exposition.
• Episode 309 - The Error of Basing Happiness On The Alleged Divinity Of The Human Mind | Discussion
  • TD Sections 11–13. The student catches Cicero in a blatant inconsistency: in On Ends Book 4, Cicero argued that Zeno and the Peripatetics differ only in words; yet here in TD, Cicero claims they differ substantially. Cicero’s reply invokes Academic Skepticism: “I live from day to day and say anything that strikes my mind as probable.” Cassius identifies this as textbook special pleading. Joshua reads from Plato’s Gorgias (Socrates on Archelaus: happiness requires virtue, not external fortune) and the Menexenus funeral oration. Section 12 roots Cicero’s position in the claim that the human mind is “derived from the divine reason.”
• Episode 310 - Neither Happiness Nor Virtue Are Binary States | Discussion
  • TD Section 14: binary vs. gradual states. Joshua opens with the “rotten onion” analogy — Stoics hold virtue is all-or-nothing (an inch under water = a mile under water). Epicurus rejects the binary: the wise man “always has more reason for joy than for vexation,” a running balance not a zero/one toggle. Cicero’s Spartan anecdote: “a fortune depending on ropes is not very desirable” — death as exit gives the virtuous man absolute security. Epicurus makes the same point from natural-philosophical grounds, not Stoic-virtue grounds. DeWitt on parresia (frankness) as the central Epicurean virtue. Sorites/heap paradox previewed.
• Episode 311 - Is Pain The Only Reason We Should Be Concerned About Any Aspect Of Death And Dying? | Discussion
  • Solo Cassius episode reviewing Dr. Emily Austin’s 2012 article “Epicurus and the Politics of Fearing Death.” Cassius corrects three common misconceptions: pleasure means only bodily pleasure; Epicurus was an absolute atheist; ataraxia as complete absence of pain leads to minimalism. Austin distinguishes four varieties of fear of death: fear of being dead; fear that life will end; fear of premature death; fear of the process of dying. Key argument: if all fear of death were merely fear of pain, there would be no Epicurean reason to avoid a painless death — obviously absurd. One form — violent death at others’ hands — is ineliminable and must be managed politically.
• Episode 312 - Word Games Are No Substitute For Reality | Discussion
  • TD Section 15: Cicero builds toward virtue alone = happiness with a chain argument (pleasant → boastable → glorious → laudable → honorable → good) and a sorites heap argument. Cassius identifies the fundamental problem: Cicero defines Epicurean pleasure as a “perturbation of the mind,” making the positions irreconcilable by definition. The real divide: whether the motivating force in life is an otherworldly divinity or nature through pleasure and pain. Cassius argues Cicero’s agenda is philosophy in service of the Roman state and state religion. Carneades enlisted as honorary arbitrator. Color gradient analogy for sorites.
• Episode 313 - Diagnosing When Words Are Empty of Meaning | Discussion
  • Uses the heap/sorites paradox as primary analytical lens. Cassius reads Epicurus (Long & Sedley, TD Book 3.41–42): he cannot conceive of any good if he removes pleasures of taste, sex, music, and beautiful sights — virtue without these pleasures is merely the means to produce them. Joshua connects the heap problem to essentialism: Platonic/Aristotelian essentialism was undermined by Darwinian evolution, just as Epicurus undermined it by grounding the good in sensation. Two portraits of the best life contrasted: Torquatus’s Epicurean man (De Finibus 1.12) vs. Cicero’s intellectual/civic ideal. Cosimo Raimondi quoted on removing pleasure from human nature.
• Episode 314 - Can Pleasures Really Overcome Pains? | Discussion)
  • TD Sections 26–27: the classic hypothetical — can the wise man be happy even in Phalaris’s brazen bull? Cicero challenges Epicurus: if pain is the highest evil, you cannot consistently say the wise man on the rack is happy. Cassius defends Epicurus: the claim is not that torture is sweet, but that the wise man’s net experience — drawing on memory of past pleasures and friendship — remains positive. Cicero’s two quoted passages from De Finibus Book 1 (Torquatus’s picture of the best life) and TD itself frame the sharpest confrontation between pleasure-based and virtue-based happiness in the entire series.
• Episode 315 - Preventing Pain From Destroying Happiness | Discussion
  • TD Sections 27–30: Cicero steps back from extreme Stoicism but insists divine goods of the mind alone reach to the heavens. Examples of pain endurance: Spartan boys torn by rods, Indian ascetics bearing snow and fire, women competing to die with husbands. Joshua traces Pyrrho of Elis to the Indian gymnosophists via Nausiphanes of Teos — Nausiphanes later taught Epicurus. Cassius: Cicero’s nature/custom distinction is actually Epicurean, but misapplied — Cicero uses it to suppress feeling; Epicurus uses it to restore nature’s guidance. TD Section 30 lists all ancient positions: Epicurus’s stated plainly as nihil bonum nisi voluptas.
• Episode 316 - Happiness Is The Goal Of Life - A Life of Happiness Is A Life Of Pleasure | Discussion
  • Marks approximately the podcast’s sixth anniversary. Cassius establishes the core Epicurean equation: happiness equals a life in which pleasures predominate over pains. Key citations: Letter to Menoeceus (“pleasure is the beginning and end of the blessed life”); deathbed letter to Idomeneus; Principal Doctrines on equal pleasure in finite and infinite time; Diogenes of Oenoanda Fragment 32; Torquatus in De Finibus 1.54 (“a life of happiness is nothing else than a life of pleasure”). Joshua surveys the Greek and Latin vocabulary (eudaimonia, felicitas, beata, makarios, summum bonum). Emily Austin on Lucretius Book 6: Epicurus arrived in Athens to find anxiety-ridden citizens — the “leaky vessel.”
• Episode 317 - The Epicurean “System of Counterbalancing” In Pursuit of Pleasure | Discussion
  • TD Section 33: Cicero presents Epicurus’s three categories of desires — natural and necessary; natural but not necessary; neither natural nor necessary. The third category must be rooted out entirely. Cassius emphasizes the counterbalancing system: the wise man submits to pain when it produces greater pleasure; the mind foresees and recollects pleasure, enabling a continual series. A significant discrepancy between Yonge and Loeb (King) translations: Yonge has Epicureans “lessening the number” of pleasures while King has them “looking out for a plentiful supply.” Cassius argues King is correct. The parallel De Finibus Book 1 Torquatus passage on temperance confirms pleasure is the goal, not temperance itself.
• Episode 318 - In The End It Is Pleasure - Not Virtue - That Gives Meaning To The Happy Life |
  • Closes the Tusculan Disputations series with TD Sections 34–42. Cicero piles up anecdotes — luxury not needed for happiness, fame not needed, country not needed — consistent with Epicurus on the surface but designed to argue pleasure itself is not needed. Cassius identifies the sleight of hand: removing luxury is not the same as removing pleasure. The blindness section: Epicurus’s wise man abounds with pleasures because the mind, not the eyes, is entertained — Antipater the Stoic’s remark to weeping women cited. Section 41 names Epicurus and Metrodorus explicitly. Closes with David Sedley’s article on the inferential basis of Epicurean ethics.
• Episode 319 - Is the Key To Happiness Found In Supernatural Causes and Geometry? |
  • Opens the Academic Questions series as background for Epicurean canonics, eventually leading to Philodemus’s On Methods of Inference. Dialogue setting: Cicero and Atticus visit Varro at Cumae. Varro explains: if you accept Epicurus (= Democritus) and eliminate supernatural efficient causes, you can write plainly; if you don’t, you need geometry. Diogenes of Oenoanda Fragment 32 establishes the question is not the means to happiness but what happiness is. Cassius develops a “funhouse of mirrors” analogy for Platonism. Zeno of Elea’s paradoxes illustrate how word games undermine confidence. Closes with Letter to Menoeceus 129 and 132.

33. Epicurean Answers To Academic Questions

• Episode 320 - Are the Good Of A Sheep And The Good Of A Man The Same? | Discussion
  • Continues Academic Questions with Varro’s charge that Epicureans are “so simple as to think the good of a sheep and of a man the same thing.” Cassius and Joshua defend Epicurus: he would embrace the comparison. Torquatus in On Ends 1.30 confirms that all creatures at birth pursue pleasure “just as fire is hot, snow is white, honey is sweet.” The real divide: competing schools posit a divine spark distinguishing humans from animals; Epicurus denies this. Varro admits the Old Academy must argue “subtly, cleverly, obscurely” — a complexity Epicurean simplicity avoids. Letter to Menoeceus 129 and 132 cited; prudence is more precious than philosophy itself.
• Episode 321 - The Epicurean Criticism of Socrates For Denouncing Natural Science | Discussion
  • Begins a two-part examination of the Epicurean criticism of Socrates. Varro praises Socrates for “bringing philosophy down from the heavens” — abandoning natural science for dialectical ethics. Cassius argues this was devastating: without natural philosophy, fear-based superstition fills the void. Sources cited: Carl Sagan Cosmos Episode 7 on Pythagoras/Plato extinguishing natural science; Plato’s Apology and Phaedo; Xenophon’s Memorabilia; Diogenes of Oenoanda Fragments 4–5 on Socratics dismissing natural inquiry; Principal Doctrines 11–13. Joshua traces Plato’s Republic Book 7: geometry as the escape route from the cave into eternal being — the exact anti-natural attitude Epicurus fought.

The EpicureanFriends Forum -

New Episodes (To Be Organized)

• Episode 322 - Epicurean Moral Outrage Against Socrates |
  • Continues the Cicero Academic Questions series. Focuses on Colotes’ and Philodemus’ Epicurean criticism of Socrates as an eiron — a hypocrite who professes ignorance while actually concealing confident opinions. Contrasts Socrates’ evasive method with the Epicurean philosopher’s therapeutic duty to speak frankly and guide students toward truth. Joshua discusses the moral outrage needed to resist Socratic and Platonic rejection of the senses.
• Episode 323 - The Pre-Epicurean View: Three Divisions of Philosophy And Three Divisions of Goods |
  • Reviews Cicero’s Academic Questions Section 5, in which Varro presents the pre-Epicurean threefold division of philosophy (ethics, nature, and dialectic) and the corresponding three divisions of goods (mind, body, and external circumstances). The hosts note where Epicurus agrees and where he sharply diverges — especially in rejecting dialectic and basing knowledge on the senses, anticipations, and feelings rather than on logical manipulation of words.
• Episode 324 - Is Pleasure The Good Or The Enemy Of the Good? |
  • Continues in Section 6 of Academic Questions. The central question: is the good one thing (virtue for the Stoics, pleasure for Epicurus) or three things (mind, body, external goods)? Joshua works through Plato’s allegory of the cave to show why Platonists regard pleasure as a weight dragging the soul away from truth. Cassius explains why Epicurus places pleasure — broadly understood as everything not painful — as the philosophically necessary answer to the problem of the good.
• Episode 325 - The False Platonic Division of The Universe Into A Force Which Causes And That Which The Force Acts Upon |
  • Continues in Sections 6 and 7 of Academic Questions. Varro explains the Platonic division of nature into an active efficient principle and passive matter — a division that leads directly to intelligent design and divine providence. Joshua reads extensively from Plato’s Timaeus on the Demiurge as creator. Cassius quotes Nietzsche’s Twilight of the Idols on the Platonic hatred of ‘becoming’ and the senses as a direct precursor to Epicurus’ rejection of any reality beyond this world.
• Episode 326 - Who Cares About Infinite Divisibility? And Why? |
  • Continues in Section 7 of Academic Questions on the Platonic view of nature. The hosts explain why infinite divisibility of matter matters philosophically: it is the Platonists’ way of insisting that nothing in this world is eternal, thereby requiring an eternal realm beyond the senses. Joshua discusses Zeno of Elea’s Achilles-and-tortoise paradox and its connection to the denial of motion. Cassius argues that the claim of infinite divisibility is itself a supernatural postulate without sensory foundation.
• Episode 327 - Intelligent Design vs Emergence |
  • Finishes Section 7 of Academic Questions. Varro concludes with the Platonic claim that nature is ‘sentient’ — governed by a divine soul, providence, and necessity. Joshua reads from Plato’s Timaeus on the Demiurge’s creation of the cosmos. Cassius presents Epicurus’ counter-argument through the concept of emergence — that complex properties including life, sensation, and intelligence arise naturally from atoms through void without any intelligent designer, citing David Sedley’s article on Epicurean anti-reductionism.
• Episode 328 - Sensation - While Neither Right Or Wrong - As The Touchstone Of Reality |
  • Covers Section 8 of Academic Questions on the Platonic view of knowledge. Varro explains that the schools agreed the senses originate in knowledge but held that the intellect — not the senses — judges truth, and that true knowledge exists only in the mind’s grasp of eternal ideal forms. The hosts parse Epicurus’ key difference: senses are neither right nor wrong and never deliver opinions; all judgment occurs in the mind working on the raw data sensation provides.
• Episode 329 - Cracks In The Academy On Ideal Forms and Virtue Lead To The Emergence of Aristotle, The Stoics, And Epicurus |
  • Covers Academic Questions Section 9, tracing the fragmentation of Plato’s Academy through its successive scholarchs. Aristotle was first to undermine the doctrine of ideal forms. Theophrastus went further, stripping virtue of its power by denying it alone was sufficient for happiness. Strato abandoned ethics entirely for the study of nature. Zeno of Citium and Arcesilaus both studied under Polemo but diverged sharply. Readings from Cicero’s De Finibus Book 4 and Tusculan Disputations illustrate Cicero’s inconsistency — praising Aristotle or Zeno depending on the argument at hand. Both Stoics and Epicureans are responding to the Academy’s collapse but reaching opposite conclusions.
• Episode 330 - In Contrast With Epicurus, The Stoics Opt For Virtue At Any Cost And Make Controversial Claims About The Senses |
  • Covers Academic Questions Sections 10 and 11. Section 10: Zeno of Citium doubles down on virtue as the sole good, classifying externals as preferred or rejected indifferents. Joshua reads Seneca’s account of Stilpo the Megarian walking out of his conquered, burning city declaring he had lost nothing — everything valuable was in his virtue. Section 11: Zeno’s physics (fire as the fundamental generative principle, mind included) and his epistemology — phantasia (impression from without), kataleptic grasp, and knowledge built on rational scrutiny. Cassius argues this diverges fundamentally from Epicurus, who locates all judgment in the mind and not in sensation itself.
• Episode 331 - The Self-Defeating Paradox of Radical Skepticism |
  • Covers the final section of Academic Questions Book One (Section 12) and previews Book Two. Arcesilaus extended Socratic humility to its logical limit: not even the claim “I know that I know nothing” can be asserted with confidence. Cassius and Joshua examine the self-defeating paradox — a skepticism so radical it cannot justify itself. Joshua notes that associates of Sulla, whose campaigns physically destroyed the Academy in Athens, were nonetheless forced to make real decisions under extreme circumstances, exposing the absurdity of radical skepticism as a guide to life. Epicurus had already diagnosed the root error before Arcesilaus pushed it to its limit.
• Episode 332 - The Stoic Failure To Grasp That Judgment Never Happens In The Senses |
  • Transitions from Book One to Book Two of Academic Questions, introducing Lucullus — Roman general, eyewitness to the Platonic Academy’s schism, and lifelong friend of Antiochus of Ascalon. Section 7 opens with Lucullus defending sense perception: the senses, when healthy, contain the greatest truth; practice and skill extend this reach; the inner touch of pleasure and pain is so certain that denying the difference would be “flagrantly mad.” Cassius and Joshua identify the critical Epicurean divergence: the Stoics locate truth in the senses themselves through katalepsis, while Epicurus holds that the senses supply raw data without opinion, and all judgment happens exclusively in the mind.
• Episode 333 - Epicurus Disputes the Stoic View Of The Senses And Anticipations |
  • Announces Martin Ferguson Smith’s newly available PDF of his life’s work on the Diogenes of Oenoanda inscription (Urbi et Orbi, 50+ years of research). Section 7 of Academic Questions continues: Lucullus argues that trained senses — painters perceiving shadows, musicians identifying a piece from the first note — demonstrate how far sensation can be refined. The inner touch of pleasure and pain is the most undeniable criterion. Cassius and Joshua identify the key Epicurean contrast: Stoic prolepseis are formed through dialectic and carry intrinsic truth derived from a divine cosmos; Epicurean prolepseis arise automatically from experience and carry no opinion.
• Episode 334 - Further Epicurean Analysis of the Problems With Stoic “Kataleptic Impressions” |
  • Steps outside Academic Questions to examine Stoic katalepsis from two external sources. The Wikipedia entry on katalepsis is read, including Zeno’s hand-gesture illustration — open palm (sensation), closing fingers (assent), clenched fist (katalepsis), two-fisted squeeze (knowledge). Joshua responds with a Zen Buddhism story about a one-eyed monk whose silent debate produces incompatible interpretations — illustrating why gestures fail where language is needed. Diogenes Laertius on Stoic epistemology follows: the seal-on-wax metaphor, two species of impression, dialectic as an indispensable virtue. Against this, Cassius reads Lucretius 4.478: equal trust must always be placed in all sensations — no single impression is ever kataleptic.
• Episode 335 - Epicurean Analysis Of Stoic Claims About Notions And Memory |
  • Completes Section 7 of Academic Questions and gives a first reading of Section 8. Lucullus claims that notions (ennoia) built from sensation are always true, and that memory cannot hold what is false — only what passed the kataleptic test. Cassius and Joshua contrast this with Epicurean prolepseis: automatic imprints from repeated experience that carry no opinion in themselves. Joshua digresses on Aristippus, who upon seeing geometric figures drawn in the sand declared “We are among civilized people” — the cultural prestige of geometry that Epicurus consciously rejected. Section 8 is then read: virtuous action itself requires confident knowledge, previewing the full ethical analysis to come.
• Episode 336 - A Coherent Whole Or An Arbitrary Mess - The Necessity of The Study of Nature and Knowledge In Addition To Ethics |
  • Steps back from Section 8 to examine why mastering physics and epistemology — not just ethics — is essential to Epicurean philosophy. Cassius argues that Lucretius and Diogenes of Oenoanda presented all three branches as a coherent whole: physics, ethics, and canonics stand or fall together. A 2026 article by Voula Tsouna and Steven Smid is read, contrasting Epicurean preconceptions (self-evident imprints from sensation) with Stoic preconceptions (grounded in divine rational order). Joshua provides Lucullus’s biography — Cicero praises Lucullus’s mastery of the facts above all else — and asks why Cicero, himself a skeptic, finds this the most admirable quality in a man of action.
• Episode 337 - Confidence In Knowledge And The Epicurean Attitude Toward Pascal’s Wager |
  • Continues Book 2, Section 8 of Cicero’s Academic Questions. Lucullus completes his Stoic argument: virtuous action requires knowledge — a man who endures torture rather than betray his duty must have grasped something that cannot be false. Cassius reads Pascal’s Wager as the modern secular analogue: if knowledge is uncertain, bet on a position and act on it. Joshua reads Virgil’s Georgics on the blessed man who understands the causes of things, and passages from John Stuart Mill and Joseph Conrad on the rarity of those willing to act on conviction. The Epicurean response: the senses, not detached reason, are the foundation of actionable knowledge.

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