Episode 002 - The Achievement of Epicurus
Date: 01/25/20
Link: https://www.epicureanfriends.com/thread/1364-episode-two-the-achievement-of-epicurus/
Summary
Section titled “Summary”(Add summary here)
Transcript (Unedited)
Section titled “Transcript (Unedited)”Welcome to Episode 2 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who lived in the age of Julius Caesar and wrote On the Nature of Things, the only complete presentation of Epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world. I’m your host Cassius and together with my panelists from the EpicureanFriends.com forum, we’ll walk you line by line through the six books of Lucretius’ poem and discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. Be aware that none of us are professional philosophers and everyone here is a self-taught Epicurean. We encourage you to study Epicurus for yourself and we suggest the best place to start is the book Epicurus and His Philosophy by Canadian Professor Norman DeWitt. Before we begin, I’d like to give you a couple of things. Before we get started with today’s episode, let me remind you.
Of our three ground rules. First, the opinions stated on this podcast are those of the people making them. Our aim is to bring you an accurate presentation of classical Epicurean philosophy as the ancient Epicureans understood it. We’ll tell you what we think Epicurus might have said, or should have said, in our own opinions. Second, in this podcast, we won’t be talking about modern political issues. How you apply Epicurus in your own life is entirely up to you. Over at the Epicurean Friends dot com web forum, we apply this approach by following a set of ground rules we call not Neo-Epicurean, but Epicurean. Epicurean philosophy is not a religion. It’s not Stoicism. It’s not Humanism. It’s not Libertarianism. It’s not Atheism or Marxism. It’s unique in the history of Western civilization. And as we explore Lucretius’ poem, you’ll quickly see how that’s the case. Third, please be willing to re-examine whatever you think you already know.
Epicurus will show that Epicurus was not focused on fine food and wine, like some people say, but neither did he teach that we should live like a hermit on bread and water, as other people say. Epicurus taught that feeling, pleasure and pain, is what nature gave us to live by, and not God’s idealism or virtue ethics. More than anything else, Epicurus taught that the universe is not supernatural in any way, and that means there’s no life after death, and any happiness we’ll ever have comes in this life, which is why it is so important not to waste time in confusion. As we get started today, remember that the homepage of this podcast is lucretioustoday.com, and there you can find a free copy of the version of the poem from which we’re reading, and links to where you can discuss the poem between episodes at epicureanfriends.com. Now let me introduce you tonight to our panelists for this episode. We have with us tonight Martin from Germany and Julie, Elaine and Charles from the United States.
This is the second episode, and we are continuing on the very early stages of the poem. Last week, in the first episode, we discussed the opening hymn to Venus, and the calling upon Venus to bring peace to Rome so that he could write the poem, and with a good frame of mind, I think was the second part. Right, and also to read the whole thing and give it a chance before you make up your mind. So we are still in the opening phase of each of the six books. It has a… A prelude where he is not really getting into the details of the atoms and the physics yet, but he’s introducing some aspect of the bigger picture, and in general referring to Epicurus as well, and this section tonight that we’re talking about is going to be where he really dives into talking about Epicurus. Anybody have anything about where we are in the book that we should say before we get started? I did want to thank you. I assume you retyped the Daniel Brown version? Yes. Because Martin read that.
I think you had retyped it last time, but he read through all those long S’s, and I would have had a hard time. Elaine, I have retyped the Daniel Brown version, I have retyped the Monroe version, and I have retyped the Bailey version. Right. The whole thing from beginning to end? Over the last several years. You know, you can scan it a little bit, and scanning a PDF works to a certain degree, and I’ve tried to do that as the base, but it makes so many… There are so many errors that you basically have to go through line by line and correct it. And so the Bailey and the Monroe versions were relatively easy to do that with because they’re good printed copies. But you’re right, Elaine, the Daniel Brown version, I’m sure that there’s a name for that style of S. It’s called a long S. It looks like an F. Right. Well, I think there might be some other technical name, too. It seems like I’ve heard of one, and I can’t call it, so you may be right. It’s just a long S. But it makes it very… difficult to read and.
Now I have gotten used to it after I’ve, I continue to look back at the PDF version of it because I like to look at the actual printed version to be sure that nobody has changed anything that I’m reading the original and you do get used to that over time but it looks like a F as opposed to an S and you know let’s talk about that for a minute too you know I’m gathering that and of course the Latin version in 1743 edition is the same way but correct me if I’m wrong we had this discussion at Facebook but I don’t think that there’s much punctuation or capitalization in the original text at all so every translator is coming up with his own paragraph sentence divisions to some degree well I’m looking at the Latin unless somebody has added punctuation in it, there is punctuation but it may have been added into the Latin also, right Charles do you know about that I’ve noticed it yeah I know that when you go to the Latin Library…
.com, which has original Latin text or this scriptorium, there’s other different places, and I think that when you look at those there, there’s really very little punctuation of any kind. In all capitals. Yes, exactly. When I see the originals in museums in Cologne, it’s all in capital letters and very little punctuation, but that might be that these are more headings and not full text, which I typically see there. Right. I’m looking at the Latin library.com. I’m glad you’re still with us, Martin. I’m looking at the Latin library.com right now under Lucretius, and it’s not in all caps here, it’s in lowercase, but there are very few… there’s a few commas, a few periods, and a few capital letters, but just about everything else is… there’s some punctuation. There’s very little, yeah, it’s mostly just capitalization. You can tell, based on, like, manuscripts from, like, the 15th century or late 1400s, there’s some addition of colons, but…
As far as the translations that I’ve looked at, I would say the most that’s changed is probably the Stallings edition. Stallings uses a comma, like, every eight words. Well, you know, you know, Charles, that’s kind of what I found myself doing. I did, when I retyped the 1743 edition, he obviously is putting capital letters in the middle of sentences as a means of emphasis. And it’s obvious that he is, you know, using his own format. He’s formatting to try to emphasize things, which is fine. But I found myself trying to read it and pace it to make sense. And that means you… It doesn’t. When you say… Who are you talking about now that’s using the capitals? The 1743 edition. Oh, the 1743. Okay, yeah. And, you know, I’m not so sure that Monroe and even Bailey, to some extent, don’t do the same thing. But the 1743 edition in particular, virtually, Every sentence has one or two.
Words capitalized in the middle of it and they’re not proper names. It’s not really clear why he chose to capitalize particular words the way he did. I presume it’s a matter of emphasis for him, but the point I guess that just hits home to me when we discuss this is that there’s so much latitude in the way these translators have put things together. It seems to me when I read what the words are in Latin that many times it is just the same thing is being repeated over and over and over almost as a means of emphasizing something itself. Like for example, my eyes falling right second on one of the ends of one of the paragraphs that says drives every creature on with eager heat in seas, in mountains, in swiftest floods, in leafy forests and in verdant plains. It’s like he does that many, many times. He uses a list of things together and so commas probably are the appropriate thing to use there, but pacing it when you speak is going to be critical to make sense of it. Right. And boy,
We try to tease so much meaning out of every word and every phrasing. And that is really, really dangerous, I think. So anyway, we were talking about that because of just the fact that I have retyped it so that we could reread it. But it just, in every case, it’s just going to make sense to compare several translations together to make sure that they’re basically the same. And if anyone deviates from it, then we need to figure out why, but they all should generally mean the same thing. Julie, do you mind reading the first paragraph there for us? Let me pull it up. Don’t know if I’ll do this as well as Martin did, but all right. Indeed, mankind in wretched bondage held like groveling on the ground, galled with the yoke of what is called religion sky. This tyrant chewed her head and with grim looks hung over us, poor mortals here below until a man of Greece with steady eyes dared look her in the face and first opposed her power, not the fame of God,
Nor his raw kept back nor threatening tumults of the sky. But still the more they roused the active virtue of his aspiring soul as he pressed forward first to break through nature’s scanty bounds, his mind’s quick force prevailed. And so he passed by far the flaming limits of this world and wandering with his comprehensive soul over all the mighty space from thence returned triumphant told us what things may have a being and what cannot and how a finite power is fixed to each. A bound, it cannot break. And so religion, which we feared before by him subdued, we tread upon it in turn. His conquest makes us equal to the gods. I’d like to make a point that towards the last few sentences, those number of semicolons, I can only imagine that in the original text, those might be the words that are, yeah, the individual words where they are capitalized. You can tell there’s a certain emphasis put on there. Right. And this transcript that we just, read from I did not.
Capitalize it the same way that he did but it probably does make sense that these are the words that are very substantive at that particular location so should we just go sentence by sentence and comment on each one sure okay so the Daniel Brown version says that we’re in the yoke of what is called religion Monroe says this also and Bailey but Stallings translated it as a superstition crushed beneath the weight of superstition so that’s not the literal translation would be it would be religion but I kind of like that extra emphasis that it’s a little bit more of a dig at religion than just the word because that really is what it is Elaine what page is Stallings version on Stallings on page five page okay thank you you have that one too I’ve forgotten Let’s see.
Also, Martin Ferguson Smith translates it as superstition. That’s interesting. Elaine, that has struck me sometimes as being a little bit the opposite of what you said a moment ago in terms of an emphasis. Sometimes it strikes me as being a little bit of a cop out that rather than rather than calling all religion bondage, some people will like to say that, well, other religions are bondage, but my religion is not. Yeah, I was about to ask. The other translation had capitalized the F’s in superstition like a proper noun. It did, unless the Smith did not. So, all right. So there was really only one major religion, maybe group of religions. Was he disputing more than one religion? I mean, there was the prevailing religion, the different gods and goddesses. Well, the Roman pantheon was pretty much stolen from Greece. Right. So there was not. I don’t think he wasn’t. talking about other.
Competing religions or if he was, he meant supernatural religions, right? I would think so. He wouldn’t have wanted to have criticized material gods as a religion. That would have gone against the taste of this. If we had somebody who was really a linguist to talk with us about, I know one of the commentators I’ve read in discussing this talked about where the word religion comes from. And if I’m remembering correctly, somebody says religio means things that bind. So that to some extent, the Latin form of that could be a more generic term of a system of thought that’s based on something supernatural. But things that bind, just like dererum natura means things of nature, things that bind is an interesting, maybe that’s part of the distinction that he’s criticizing is that, of course, his own view of gods doesn’t bind you, doesn’t require.
Anything of you because they don’t have any concern for humans. But that’s probably an example of trying to tease too much meaning out of her particular word. I was just going to say, I think it’s the Loeb edition. Do you want me to read that? What they have to say? Sure. Yes. It says, this or false religion, not religion, is the meaning of religio, or however you say that. The Epicureans were opposed not to religion but to the traditional religion that taught that the gods govern the world. That Lucretius regarded religio as synonymous with superstitio. I don’t know if that’s right either. It’s implied by super instance in 65. The connection of superstition with the celestial regions stated in 64 is emphasized by the fact that the letters of religio are contained in… Oh boy. Somebody who speaks Latin needs to read this instead of me. I actually think, Cassius, that it’s an important thing to think distinction to make between a naturalistic.
Set of practices, I guess, that would be a religion that was consistent with reality versus a superstitious religion. Probably the word superstition carries more of the right sense for us now. Modern people would understand that better. I think you’re convincing me that you’re right. Although the cop-out that I’m talking about could possibly be there in some circumstances. I would agree that that’s probably not the direction that Lucretius was coming from. But certainly today we have many people who are the most religious type in their own lives, but who are happy to brand other beliefs as superstition while they themselves have no problem calling their religion something absolutely true. I think the problem stems less from the types of religion found during Lucretius’ time, because it says here that the etymology for religion there is, you know,
Geo-obligation, bond, and reverence. But it stems from the Latin word religere, which means to bind. And I think that’s kind of what he was trying to point at, that humans were put under pressure and were weighted by this obligation, this set of beliefs, whether it’s superstitious or naturalistic. So, as we continue the sentence, I guess, he’s emphasizing that what Epicurus did, and he doesn’t call him by name, but he just calls him a man of grace, that he stood up and looked religion in the face and opposed its power. That seems to me to be a pretty affirmative, active thing. He’s not just simply dismissing it and looking away. He’s basically leading a revolution against it. And the concluding sentence of the first paragraph is, and so religion, which we feared before, by him subdued, we tread upon in turn. His conquest makes us equal to the gods. It’s turning that submissiveness away. It’s turned negative inside out.
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Which would be more closer to the etymology of the word religion to get rid of that binding, that bondage. So, well, we kind of skipped a little bit, but since you brought up that last sentence, we can always go back. We had some conversation before about this, about the translation in the, in 43 says, his conquest makes us equal to the gods. That is not a literal translation. The other versions actually translate it more literally. And then, you know, we don’t have the Stallings there, but I’ll read that. Therefore, it is the turn of superstition to lie prone, trod underfoot. By his victory, we reached the heavens. And the Smith version says, so now the situation is versed. Superstition is flung down and trampled underfoot. We are raised to heaven by victory. But so then the Latin does Kylo, the sky. capitalize.
In what I have here. So it’s not literal to say that makes us equal to the gods, but it might capture the sense of it better. My thought, if you go back to Lucretius has already told us what, in his view, or Epicurus’ view, what the gods really are. These blissful beings. So by trampling religion, superstition, this makes us blissful beings. So maybe it doesn’t have to be just the imaginary gods that are being referred to here, but actually what Epicurus imagined as real gods. Yeah, I can agree with that. And it’s not in there, but to me, I think it would be, I don’t think Epicurus would disagree. Yeah, because it’s very reminiscent of the first principal doctrine and Vatican saying 33. And it’s not saying that he’s teaching us to build airplanes or rocket ships so we can fly up into the sky.
It’s obviously an illusion going on to what the sky means, which is where the gods live. Right. And so we have skipped to the end of the paragraph, but let’s stay in the middle of it. Do you have more to add there, Elaine? Well, I do want to just point out that the courage that was required then, you can imagine how much how striking that would be. It’s not as unusual today to dispute superstitious religion, but it’s still, depending on the area of the country you’re in, it’s still risky. It still takes courage. We have not had somebody run for national office in the U.S. in any kind of a competitive way who’s an open atheist, you know, who openly disavows the supernatural. A little scary. I hate to keep bringing up Metri in every single conversation as of late, but I’m beginning to notice a lot of parallels between him and Lucretius, both poets, and Metri.
When he published Man a Machine was cast out of the war effort during the Austrian War of Succession and was kicked out of his position in administrating hospitals because of the cardinal, or no, not the cardinal the clergy in the regiment that he was serving in said that somebody who was irreligious would not be fit to practice medicine for the French Guard and he had fled to Holland. This was I forget the exact years Lucretius was alive, but this must have been 17 to 1800 years after and that was still a more adverse reaction. Charles, for somebody who’s listening, identify that person you’re talking about again. Julian O’Fray de la Metri. Who lived when? 1708 to 1750 let me just double check 1709 to 51 And you know, still today, I heard a…
Let’s say an administrator of a medical school will tell medical students that they could not practice medicine if they didn’t believe in God. So it’s still around. But what I was going to say, even more courage is required to proclaim that pleasure is the goal. There are more atheists now as far as people who disavow supernatural religion. But even among them… The atheists, you’ll hardly ever find anybody who’s willing to say pleasure is their goal of life. Very true. And Lucretius just started out doing exactly those two things. He’s talked about pleasure as controlling everything in the world and being the motivating force. And now he’s attacking religion as Epicurus is potentially his greatest achievement. So on that theme, we can continue with the next sentence because the next sentence talks about… Elaine, you want to read the next sentence? Him not the fame of.
Gods nor thunders were kept back nor threatening tumults of the sky but still the more they roused the active virtue of his aspiring soul as he pressed forward first to break through nature’s scanty bounds. On that particular one there is a reference to him breaking through nature’s in this version scanty bounds. Monroe says to burst the fast bars of nature’s portals and Bailey says to burst the close set bolts upon the doors of nature. Let’s talk for a minute about what could he be talking about there in terms of close set bolts upon the doors of nature. Who put those there? Is that purely just a poetic allusion or is it some kind of a reference to an obstacle that we need to identify? So this is how I imagined it when I read that. I thought about the early anatomists who were the first to have the courage to bring.
Reach the boundary of the skin of the cadavers to dissect them and find out what was under there because it was it was prohibited they had to sneak around and get perps out of graveyards and because it was considered something you just didn’t probe it was risky and it wasn’t for humans to look at and so it’s it’s sort of a mental barrier and it’s also a a social barrier to question about what is the nature of things what what’s what’s beneath the surface appearance of things what’s really going on here if there are not supernatural gods what’s really happening and Epicurus wasn’t afraid he had the courage to penetrate through to to explore what the nature of things is Julie and Charles comment on that um I guess I kind of took it as like the bolts and bars are kind of a off-limits notice thing From religion.
Maybe I was thinking of that, you know, kind of like a, this is a forbidden area. You’re not allowed to go here kind of a thing. That’s how I took it. Yes, I would echo that because the comment I made earlier is as I read through these things and try to assemble in my mind how the different phrases fit together, I continue from my perspective to see repetition going on. So here I wonder if we cannot just equate the end of that sentence to the beginning of the sentence. In other words, maybe nature’s scanty bounds is really an echo of how he started the sentence, which is with fame of gods, thunders roar, threatening tumults of the sky. Maybe those are part of what he’s referring to there is that separate us from nature is the threats of religion. Yeah, yeah. At least in the Daniel Brown version. I haven’t taken a look at the others yet, but there is a.
Clarification of thunder that might that might tie into the nature of the gods. As Lucretius wrote later about his predictions of meteorology and thunder is very at the very earliest stages of humankind. It was kind of associated with a deity. That was their explanation for the source of it. Yes, and of course, that’s what Epicurus does is explain that that’s not true. But that was clearly something they thought, not knowing any better. Right. So we can continue on. But actually, one second. This could just be another example where we do press too hard. I did look at the other translations and they don’t have all here. Let’s look at Monroe. Him neither story of gods nor thunderbolts nor heaven and Bailey him. Neither the stories of the gods nor thunderbolts check stallings. Neither the myths of gods nor lightning bolts. Okay. Yeah. I was reading too far.
Into the 1743 translation. But still. The point stands that. These forces of nature. The explanations behind them. Have been hidden. Until he mentions Epicurus. Pressing forward to break through the bounds. Right. And I do want to add. There’s more than just. There is definitely the religious gate. And there is. You can’t just walk up and guess. Everything that he figured out. In a flash. You do have to do some observation. And exploration. Is not all intuitive. Right. And certainly science today. We can look at things under huge magnification. It’s not everything that you can see on the surface. You have to dig for it. You have to work a little bit. So that’s another kind of courage. Absolutely takes effort. And the Christus says that over and over. That you have to study nature. In order to understand these things. It just doesn’t come to you. Dropped out of heaven.
Into your lab. Virgil quoted. Happy was he. Who knew the nature. And causes of things. Right. That’s the famous line from Virgil. Georgics. Right. Okay. I want to make a point. Based on what Charles brought up. So a point on the translation. So I have this Franco Copley. Copley. Whatever. Version. And I want to read two different versions to you. Okay. So the Franco Copley says. Not all God’s. Glory. His lightning. Heaven’s rumble. And rage. Could stop him. The Martin Ferguson Smith one. On the other hand. Says. This man. Neither the reputation of the gods. Nor thunderbolts. Nor heaven’s menacing rumbles. Could daunt. Okay. Now. I think there’s an important difference. In those two translations. Because the first one. Where it says. Oh. You know. The gods are. You know. Sending their lightning bolts. And whatever. To try and stop him.
Because according to Epicurus. The gods don’t care. About what humans do. So I like this Martin Ferguson translation. Much better. Because it says. The reputation of the gods. So it doesn’t suggest. That the gods are doing anything. To prevent. Him. You know. From. From moving forward. It’s more of a. This is. Man’s. Take on things. You know. It’s. Or you can read that into it. Well. Let’s see. The Brown says. Not the fame of gods. And then Stallings. Neither the myths of gods. Sure. So. And Rose’s story. Yeah. I do think that’s. What Luke. Saying. He wasn’t saying that. They’re really. It was the gods. It was. What was thought about them. Oh. Maybe it’s just my translation. No. I agree. I agree that your point is correct. Julie. And it’s a combination of two things. There’s the thunder going on. Which is purely natural. But then there’s this fame issue. Which is.
Human generated thing. It’s not. It’s not just. The fact that it’s difficult. To get to. Because of. Because of the nature of it. It’s that there’s active. Suppression. By the forces of religion. To. To intimidate you. From. From ever investigating. Even. Salt. Yeah. Stallings says myths. So. The Latin is. Fama. So that’s pretty clear. Yeah. But. But. I. I think. Myths. And stories. And all of those. Were to get the. And. Extension across. So we go to the next sentence. Charles. You want to read the. Third sentence. The next sentence. His mind’s quick force prevailed. And so he passed by far. The flaming limits of this world. And wandered with his comprehensive soul. Over all the mighty space. From thence returned. Triumphant. Told us what things may have a being. And what cannot. And how a finite power is fixed to each. A bound it cannot break. So there’s. There’s at least two parts there. The first part of the sentence is talking about. Epicurus and his.
Study and his exploring of the universe. And then the second part talks about the limits and bounds and things that he concluded as a result of it. But should we talk about the first part first? The wandering with his mind. He obviously didn’t have a rocket ship. He didn’t go on his own. I really, I like the 1743 is the only one that translated it like this. The comprehensive soul. It really gets, that’s a perfect description of Epicurus. He was certainly an comprehensive soul. The Bailey version is pretty good too. And so it was that the lively force of his mind won its way. Whereas the Monroe version says, therefore the living force of his soul gained the day. I don’t quite like the Monroe version. I’d like the comprehensive soul, but I don’t think that is.
I don’t think that’s the exact translation the ones that talk about him being lively let’s see Smith says and so his mind’s might and vigor prevailed Stalin says vital force of his intelligence prevailed those are more vigorous than comprehensive soul but I just I do like I think of him as a comprehensive soul so I just I like that choice of words Elaine are you gathering comprehending as the meaning or comprehensive as wide scope wide that he just oh my gosh every you know I’m constantly realizing new things that he had figured out that weren’t actually proven yet by any kind of a study and we’ll talk about some of these things later I think but in human development and physics and he just his mind just went everywhere so he was He was truly comprehensive.
And then his philosophy was comprehensive and that it was a structure that really had room for all areas of knowledge in it. So is it maybe what Lucretius is trying to convey here that Epicurus’ philosophy was just very wide ranging out into the universe, into the issues of eternity and boundlessness, again, not just something that’s concerned with day-to-day ethics, but he’s attempting to really get the biggest picture possible to fit everything together. Yes, yeah. Is it Julie that has the Loeb edition as well? I don’t have one yet. Okay, I’d like to hear that one. Okay, let me find it. If you don’t mind. All right, thank you. It says, therefore, the lively power of his mind prevailed and forth he marched far beyond the flaming walls of the world. So lively power. It’s very, very similar to Bailey. Which is not far from Monroe. Yeah. So maybe the emphasis again is this, his being active, He’s being active here.
Just sitting back, contemplating within our mind. Yeah, so 1743 uses quick and then Bailey says lively. They’re both moving. The Latin is ergo vivida vis animi per vis it. So vivida and animi are the words. Several different words meaning liveliness or life. Yeah, right. Strength. Does vis mean strength as well? I don’t know. And even stallings uses like a vital force. So the majority of the translations do imply a sort of movement. Okay, so Monroe says in mind and spirit, the immeasurable universe. And then Bailey says beyond the walls of the world and in mind and spirit, traverse the boundless hole. Those are the words we’re looking at here that correspond to comprehensive soul, right? Right. But it’s all wrapped together. in terms of an active.
Strong pressing forward type of mind I think Stalin says immeasurable cosmos in his mind and in his soul which is interesting that he would use the words mind and soul separately well it has the Latin is mente animoque so that’s mind and anima would that Latin word I didn’t quite catch it would that be derived from the Greek adamant no mente M-E-N-T-E and then animoque the que in the end is just the and so it’s animo the soul or spirit which is something we’ll come back to in detail in the second book when he discusses the relationship between soul spirit mind and uses all those words again I think it’s the beginning of book two I don’t think he dwells on that here in book one but he certainly comes back to it in the book two why don’t we move to the second part of the sentence which is the issue of bounds and finite power hours and limits and so forth.
Think of that. There’s obviously a lot of talk in Epicurus about limits and bounds in principle doctrines and some of the letters, Herodotus as well as maybe Menesia as well, talk about limits and here finite power seems to be the, and what can be and what cannot seems to be the emphasis. So what, why is that important to everything? I’ll go ahead and jump in and say that certainly I think one of the very strong keys of Epicurus is that he is talking about how. In place of the gods as the driving, organizing, controlling force of the universe, there’s something else. And he’s going to start talking about Adam soon, but the limits and bounds and the things that control the universe, which are not gods is what Epicurus has discovered and come back and explain to us. Yeah. I mean, he’s mentioning that very briefly here, but it’s a key part of the physics and from that, the ethic. If he did not have a system. for explaining how the universe’s.
Then he would have nothing. He has to come up with a, if he’s going to demolish supernatural gods as the force that controls the universe, he’s got to have a substitute, an explanation for what really does control the universe if the gods don’t, which we tend to gloss over today and just go straight for the ethics because we think that the ethics part is important, which it certainly is. But for someone who is really starting at the foundation, somebody who is, is concerned about how the world works, is concerned about the threats of religion, is concerned that he’s going to be sent to hell when he dies, he’s got to have some kind of confidence that explains what does control the world if it’s not, in fact, these ghosts that the priests are talking about. And a key part of the ethics is the behavior, or not behavior, a part of how we behave and respond to the fear of death and our actions from it. And I’ve been looking over a ton,Scholarly articles lately, and almost every single one on Epicurus, they only or exclusively quote or cite the letter to Minucius, and they lack the bigger picture. I was asked the other day about, I don’t want to get too far into it, but basically I explained the Epicurean position on death and how that’s how it’s explained because there’s no other possible explanation, solution or answer within this very materialist universe. And I think that that’s kind of what needs to be. Like you said, we kind of forget about physics, focus too much on the ethics. But if you don’t have your physics, right? Your ethics is based on nothing. If you don’t have the physics, you don’t exactly, thank you, Elaine, that bridged what I was trying to say. If you think that your life is a warm-up to eternity in heaven, then you don’t, have any sense of urgency.
To use your time as productively as you can because you think you’ve got all the time in the world. You’re just, it’s all just a warmup for what’s going to happen after you die. But if you know firmly and with confidence that you’re not going to live forever, if you know that you’ve got to use your time as best as you possibly can now, to me, I think that is a major difference in emphasis that you would have as an Epicurean. Yeah, so we talked a little bit before you and I, Cassie, about the time. We have this boundary stone issue because let’s see, the 1743 does not say boundary stone. It says abound it cannot break. And the others have this boundary stone. The Latin does have terminus, which is boundary stone. So I looked it up to see if there’s anything else about the use of that word. And I found something really cool. This is just in the Encyclopedia Britannica. So terminus.
Latin boundary stone. Originally, in a Roman cult, a boundary stone or post fixed on the ground during a ceremony of sacrifice and anointment. Anyone who removed a boundary stone was accursed and might be slain. A fine was instituted for the death penalty. From this sacred object evolved the god Terminus. So I’m sure that Lucretius was aware of that. And so I don’t. I don’t know that it was poets are we don’t pick words accidentally. And I think he was by choosing that word, maybe emphasizing this boundary stone of nature. How deep said it was that it was it couldn’t be overcome. I agree that we’re not just talking about some observation of physics like, gee, that stone is heavy. Right. Another one that’s not. Basically, we’re talking about the atom. here. The principle on which.
Everything has its powers defined is the properties of the atoms and that these properties of the atoms are really not just something of insignificance to us. They are ultimately cosmically important, which kind of reminds me of where St. Paul talks about accusing people of being the slaves of the weak and beggarly elements in that phrase from the New Testament, that those people really did consider these atoms to be really important. This is a very important concept. That nature is what’s setting these boundary marks and the guide rails of life. Julie? I don’t have a whole lot to add. I do want to call out, though, that the whole setting up the physics conversation that we were having, I mean, in addition to setting up an explanation, it also helps remove fear because it’s observable, understandable, predictable. It’s it takes out some of that.
Uncertainty of, you know, oh, all the gods might just be in a bad mood and kill you, or something. You know? Yeah. That’s the only thing I really wanted to add. Understanding it, we’re turning it over, right? Yeah, we’re victorious. Or being scared at the sight of rain, because it might never end. Sometimes I have that feeling still, but I don’t think it’s because of a god. Yeah. Julie, when you said what you said, about things predictable, to some extent repeatable, and so forth, we’ll have to come back to that thought later on when we talk about the swerve as well, because some people will also talk about the swerve as being such a primary issue, and it is because it allows for free will. But whatever the swerve does, it does not prevent the universe from being basically predictable, repetitive, and something we can understand. They work together at the same time, they’re not self-contradictive. I would like to, point out Vatican’s.
Saying number ten, which was, it perfectly mirrors and adds onto what Julie just said. Remember that you are mortal and have a limited time to live and have devoted yourself to discussions on nature for all time and eternity and have seen things that are now and are to come and have been. Excellent observation. To relate those two. Thank you. I was just going to say it’s amazing how much you can get out of just that one short paragraph. The first few sentences are an hour long. Right. This particular paragraph is one of the most, I think, well-known, rightly deserved to be, I’m not sure famous is the right word, but when people talk about the poem, this is one of the passages that is really clearly focused on Epicurus, clearly is intended to be sort of a summary of the big picture and sets it all, sets the whole philosophy of the part.
And in the context of an opposition to religion, as religion is commonly understood anyway. This one’s really just key of the whole poem. And then it’s followed by another paragraph that is very well known as well. Now, so we’ve got to decide whether we’re going to even tackle the next paragraph tonight or not, because we’ve been going almost an hour as it is. Yeah. Yeah. The whole, the paragraph in whole, the big view of the paragraph is of a vigorous, overthrowing of ideas that humans have oppressed themselves with. Yes. Vigorous, aggressive, courageous, exploring all sorts of active words, which are not the type words that you see people always associating with Epicurus. They want to talk about him living in his cave on bread and water, minimally existing and not worrying about anything, just floating through life in absence of pain,
Whether it’s thinking about the future of his future or a life that is a waste of time. You know, it’s just like, it’s like some hippie from the 60s who’s smoking marijuana all the time and just feeling no pain, as the phrase used to be when I was younger, as if that’s the goal of life. But somebody whose goal of life was to feel no pain is not going to do the things that are described in this paragraph. Mm-hmm. You can certainly explain feeling no pain and when you put it together with pain and pleasure and go into the details of philosophy, but the practical meaning and application of how he actually lived is entirely different, it seems to me, than the perception that a lot of people have of him. I agree. He’s a revolutionary leader. He didn’t need to, he wasn’t a military leader or political leader. He didn’t need to go into the Forum or to the Agora. Is that the right word, the Agora, that they would have, or the- The Market Square. Yeah, it means, yeah, like market or public square. Yeah, yeah. He didn’t charge into the academy. I mean, he didn’t charge over to the stars.
And throw sticks at the Stoics or the Platonists or people like that. But he was a revolutionary figure at writing letters, communicating with people, organizing a school, which is apparently what the garden was much more so than just some kind of a… A commune. Yes, not a commune, not a hermit’s… not a monastery where you walk around looking at the ground covered up with a sheet and… Tantrum. Right, and sackcloth and ashes. That’s exactly the opposite. It’s a school. It’s a think tank. It’s a college that’s devoting its time to writing essays, writing things that are argumentative, that are intended to teach people. And studying nature. Right. Right? Because this… so this is another thing that I’ve thought of. Sometimes we talk about what he wrote as if he decided it.
Right, and I think, you know, that’s the… I think, you know, he wanted to do it all at once, and that it was done, and it was dogma. But there was a process to get to even what was dogma, and it was probably pretty exciting. Right. And y’all, I’m going to need to go. I have a friend that has just come in. Okay. So I will look forward to next time. Thanks, Elaine, Julie, and Charles. I just want to say that part of what I’ve been doing regarding philosophy, like the past two months, is that I’ve been doing a lot of things. I’ve been doing a lot of things. I’ve been doing a lot of things. I’ve been doing a lot of things. I’ve been doing a lot of things. I’ve been doing a lot of things. I’ve been doing a lot of things. Philosophy, like the past two months, is sort of countering that, you know, pleasure is the absence of pain. Absence of pain is the goal of life. Epicure is a bread and water only. Like that sort of idea. I’ve been wanting to counter that for a while. Right. Now, the last part, bread and water alone, I think is absolutely clearly wrong. And he made a statement about it is clearly intended to be a… What would you call that kind of a… it’s a, it’s a logical,
Reduction to the extreme. Uh, it’s a statement that all you really need is bread and water, and then you can compete with, with the gods for happiness, which is a means, which means if you’re alive, but it’s not, he never, there’s no suggestion that he’s living on bread and water all the time. And that would be ridiculous to conclude that. But now the first part of what you said about the absence of pain and so forth, each of those phrases can be, uh, if properly understood, put together into sentences and paragraphs that, that are in fact true. It’s just that, it’s just that the understanding that we have for them needs to be, which is consistent with the rest of the philosophy, which is why I talked about that idea and how it’s often conflated with that, with this very ascetic, uh, frugal view. Right. But if you start off, and this is why Lucretius and things like this are so important, because if you start off reading Lucretius and you get firmly in your mind, a view of Epicurus, like we’ve been discussing tonight, there’s no way that such a person is going to be living on bread and water, water running away from.
Hangnails or the slightest pain. He’s constructing a logical argument for why pleasure, which he’s already identified at the beginning of the book, is the goal of life, and that’s pleasure as animals and everybody else understands it to be and not a word that basically inverts the meaning and turns it on its head. Yeah. I mean, even if we look at the same source that says bread and water, you know, Diogenes later to us, we know that Epicurus had more than one house and he had slaves. Exactly. He had income coming in that he divided among his people so that they could have a celebration on the 20th. He had people apparently sending him money from numerous different places. He was sending money to his parents. Yeah, he had patrons and he had financiers and he had his own slaves that acted as copyists and secretaries. And even in that main letter to Menasius, he makes very clear that we are not living in a sustainable way. just for the sake of living.
Minimally, we’re doing that so that when we have little, we won’t be upset by it. Exactly. And also that when we do approach luxury, we enjoy it even more. There’s no running away from luxury. It’s just that we don’t base our life on luxury because the majority of us in most situations, we’re not always going to have luxury available to us. But we’re trying to be happy all the time. And that mirrors what I mentioned on that one thread about metroterus. Which part, Charles? About preferring wealth or extreme modesty. When it happens upon you, you find yourself there. Right, right. And of course, there’s the Vatican saying, I get the number wrong, is it 63 or 73? The one that says being too frugal is just as bad or just as imprudent or whatever as being too devoted to luxury. It’s clear that it’s not luxury. And that’s another way of saying the same thing. Luxury in and of itself.
It’s worthless unless it brings pleasure. Simplicity in and of itself is worthless unless it brings pleasure. Pleasure is always the goal. Julie. Yeah. I had a lot of thoughts going through my head as y’all were talking, but let me try and remember my bigger points. OK, so one, what you were saying about some of the quotes, I think Epicurean philosophy more than other philosophies. Is somewhat of a disadvantage because we don’t have a lot of writings that made it. And so a lot of these are like one off quote. Right. And they could be taken completely out of context. And we can’t really put that together. So I think, you know, I think we have that that disadvantage. But I think even, you know, sometimes people will take something out of, you know, one of the existing letters and kill it, too. So. Oh my God, yeah.
Like a letter to Magesius. Yeah, yeah. The other thing that came to my mind with Charles Point on what Metrodorus said about wealth. I know we’re a little bit shaky on Philodemus, but in his On Property Management, he says that Metrodorus said that there are three things that are worth the extra effort rather than just taking whatever you get. And the three things were health, wealth, and friendship. And I just, I kind of think that’s kind of neat. And obviously, in keeping with the philosophy, there are limits to each of those. You know, so when we say wealth is worth the effort, we don’t mean like so much so that you never have enough. But as opposed to, you know, living a life of, you know, just very few things and a very austere life, you know, as opposed to that, it is worth effort to have a little bit of luxury. But of course, there’s limits, right? Yeah. and McTrodder.
Even wrote a book about wealth itself. That’s right, Charles. He did. But before we go any further, let’s bring this episode to a close and come back for more in Episode 3. Thanks again to everyone for listening to the Lucretius Today podcast. Join us at lucretioustoday.com and discuss this podcast at EpicureanFriends.com EpicureanFriends.com.