Episode 197 - Interview With Dr Marcelo Boeri
Date: 10/23/23
Link: https://www.epicureanfriends.com/thread/3437-episode-197-lucretiustoday-interviews-dr-marcelo-boeri/
Summary
Section titled “Summary”A special interview episode in which Cassius and co-host Fernando speak with Dr. Marcelo Boeri, Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, about his book Theory and Practice in Epicurean Political Philosophy: Security, Justice and Tranquility, co-written with Javier [co-author].
The conversation opens with the book’s central corrective argument: that “live unknown” (lathe biosas) and “stay completely out of politics” are not authentic Epicurean doctrines but clichés drawn from the indirect tradition — hostile secondary sources, not Epicurus himself. Epicurus and the Epicureans in fact engaged actively with the political institutions of the cities where they lived, making use of formal laws, testaments, and legal mechanisms. The pleasant life, as Epicurus explicitly states in Principal Doctrine 5 and the Letter to Menoikeus, includes living prudently and justly (phronimos kai dikaios) and even kalos — honorably, in the sense of to kalon (the fine or beautiful in both aesthetic and moral terms). What Epicurus does advise avoiding is contingent politics — everyday partisan politics, elections, and factional struggles — because these produce desires and anxieties that undermine ataraxia and aponia.
Dr. Boeri explains that Plutarch and Cicero, as hostile sources (both Platonists or Platonic sympathizers), are the main conduits through which the distorted picture has been transmitted. Crucially, both consistently omit the Epicurean themes of asphaleia (security), friendship, and philanthropy — themes that are prominent in the texts we actually have from Epicurus. This is the subject of Dr. Boeri’s article on “Cicero’s Clamorous Silences”: Cicero demonstrably read the Κύριαι Δόξαι (Principal Doctrines) in full — we have evidence he knew them — yet deliberately bypasses those doctrines where Epicurus discusses security and its connection to friendship and the laws of the city.
The interview then covers: (1) the “purest security” of Principal Doctrine 14 — inner tranquility obtained by learning to desire only what one can satisfy — as complementary to but more fundamental than the outer legal security the polis provides; (2) the genealogy of justice and its parallel with the origin of language in Lucretius Book Five, with prolepsis as the key epistemological concept (learned ostensively — “that’s a horse” — not innately); (3) Epicurean justice as a contextual modality of utility, neither a Platonic absolute form nor a pure Protagorean relativism, but something that can and should adapt to present circumstances; (4) historical Epicureans who embodied proper political engagement: Philodemus (his book on management of property), Metrodorus, Titus Pomponius Atticus, Diogenes of Oinoanda; (5) the question of what form of government Epicurus would have preferred — Dr. Boeri acknowledges the texts offer no clear answer, with some hints toward monarchy but no settled position; (6) the case of Cassius Longinus as an Epicurean deeply involved in high politics; and (7) Cicero’s awareness that Epicurean hedonism is far more sophisticated than mere sensual pleasure — yet his systematic misrepresentation of it.
The interview closes with Dr. Boeri offering an amended version of the famous slogan: “Leave a notice — but not in the sense that Plutarch says.”
Transcript
Section titled “Transcript”Cassius: Welcome to Episode 197 of the Lucretius Today podcast. Today we are very privileged to bring to you an interview with Dr. Marcelo Boeri, Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. Dr. Boeri is originally from Buenos Aires, Argentina, and after receiving his PhD from the University of Salvador in 1995, he has worked extensively in the field of ancient Greek philosophy ever since, lecturing at many distinguished universities around the world. We are greatly appreciative of Dr. Boeri taking the time to talk with us today about his excellent new book, co-written with Javier [co-author], entitled Theory and Practice in Epicurean Political Philosophy: Security, Justice and Tranquility. This book is an excellent addition to the field of Epicurean studies and I want to encourage everyone who has any interest in Epicurus’s views to be sure to check it out. Thank you for your time today, Dr. Boeri.
Many readers of Epicurus get the impression that right up there with things like “don’t worry about gods” and “don’t worry about death,” Epicurus is also focused on saying “live unknown” and “stay completely out of politics.” And it is going to come as a surprise to many who read your book that your position is that that is not true. There’s an incorrect view out there about what Epicurus thought about social engagement — politics, social engagement, you can call it a lot of things. So there’s an incorrect view out there, and what we’d like to talk with you about is: what is that incorrect view? How did we get to the point where that incorrect view became so dominant? And what did Epicurus really teach about justice and engagement with society? Let’s start with the view about living unknown and staying completely out of politics. It seems to be a real theme of your book that that’s not what Epicurus’s position really was.
Dr. Boeri: Okay. Well, I will try to formulate this more or less clearly. First of all, what you have to take into consideration is the fact that these injunctions — “live unknown” or “do not participate in politics” — are part of what we call the indirect tradition. The indirect tradition says not what Epicurus or Epicureans actually say. That’s a false point, and it’s a very important point in our view. This is one reason why many scholars during the last decade and more have called these clichés — slogans used to try to characterize the way in which Epicurus and Epicureans presented their social or political philosophy. But if you examine the primary passages that we have received from antiquity, which were attributed to Epicurus himself and to some Epicureans, you cannot find those slogans formulated in that way. That’s a first point, and in our view — mine and my co-author’s — it’s a very important point. Because if those slogans are not true, you cannot explain the way in which Epicurus himself was strongly engaged with his city in terms of the use he made of laws concerning testaments and things like that.
On the other side, according to Epicurus, living pleasurably doesn’t only imply living and enjoying sensual pleasures in the strongest sense you can imagine. Because the pleasant life — the peculiar pleasant life — also implies living prudently and justly. Epicurus says phronimos kai dikaios — these are very, very strong words. This is stated explicitly by Epicurus in Principal Doctrine 5, in the Letter to Menoikeus §132, and other passages attributed to Epicurus himself.
On the other side, the interaction of Epicurus with Athens, and the interaction of Epicureans with political communities in general, was very strong. It was not limited to actions dictated simply by living prudently and justly. This interaction was always framed by the activity of living honorably. Epicurus says kalos — an adverbial expression. In ancient Greek, to kalon literally means the beautiful, what is fine or what is noble, not only in an aesthetic sense but also in a moral sense. And that is a way of life that Epicurean doctrine recommended through friendship and philanthropy as well. So this is not a minor point.
In our book, we try to show an image of the interactions of Epicurus and Epicureans with their political communities — interactions that were more complex and varied and interesting than the anti-Epicurean tradition, which is still very strong, suggests. What you have to take into consideration is that Epicurus sometimes does recommend leaving aside what he calls the prikage — the burden, so to speak — of conventional education and politics. He says that in Vatican Saying 58. But we argue that the proper reading of suggestions like “do not participate in politics” or “live unknown” is mainly focused on the fact that Epicurus recommends not being involved in contingent politics — because contingent politics involves or can produce desires and anxieties that you cannot control, and that can be very disturbing for your practical life.
Cassius: Dr. Boeri, could you explain what “contingent politics” means? I’m not sure that all of our listeners will be familiar with that term.
Dr. Boeri: Well, it’s the everyday life of politics — real politics, in the sense of what happens in terms of elections or the struggles you have with a person who thinks exactly the opposite of what you’re thinking. Everyday politics — that’s what I call contingent politics. It’s more or less obvious why Epicurus and Epicureans recommended not participating in politics in that sense. The way in which those everyday political practices are performed surely does not contribute to ataraxia — tranquility — and the absence of pain. And ataraxia and aponia — absence of pain in both a physical and psychological sense — are the two main stable pleasures. What this shows is that the way in which Epicureans understood the notion of hedone, pleasure, was very sophisticated and was not reduced to the satisfaction of your essential desires. That is my answer to your first question.
To sum up: “do not participate in politics” and “live unknown” are part of the clichés that were imposed from antiquity. Our point is that both Epicurus and the Epicureans participated in politics in terms of the practical use they made of the political institutions of the cities where they were living. They respected the formal laws of the cities where they were living. They used the laws concerning testaments and things like that. And even more — the later Epicureans, for example Philodemus and many others after him — they were priests, they were advisors. They were very near political power. And that was a way of participating in contingent politics — not directly, but still.
Fernando: Yeah. Well, this first comment — I want to extend congratulations to you, Marcelo, and to Javier, because it’s a very clear book, very well documented. I like very much how you argue through the chapters. I can see why you called it Theory and Practice of Epicurean Political Philosophy, because in the first chapters we have the theory, and in the last chapter, for example, you describe the actual behavior of real Epicureans and show how they were involved in politics — not because they were looking for power or to get richer, but because they wanted to serve the community and obtain security for the Epicurean life. So it is a great picture that you draw in this book. It permits us as readers to see why Epicureans were so respected by all the philosophers and by the people who lived in Athens alongside them. So congratulations for the book, and I think it will be very important for Epicurean studies, especially in its relation to the entomologies. I also like how you frame Epicurean philosophy within ancient discussions — because Epicurus was responding to questions that the tradition had already raised. And also how you try to nuance the Epicurean position on things like egoism and altruism, and why the Epicurean recommendation to not involve oneself in politics doesn’t mean to hide or anything like that — it all implies that we will involve ourselves in politics insofar as we can have a pleasurable life. And the Plutarch interpretation, as you say, is mischievous, and is not very just to Epicurus. So I wanted to highlight those things from your book and thank you for being here in the conversation.
Dr. Boeri: You mentioned Plutarch. Well, Plutarch is a very important author. The problem with Plutarch is that he is an extremely hostile author — hostile not only toward Epicureans but also toward the Stoics. Plutarch was doctrinally a Platonist. He believed very strongly in the ABC of Plato’s ontology — that the real things are immaterial things. Epicureans were mainly materialists. The soul, or your mind, is a body — a very subtle body, but a body. These are not minor details.
But in addition to that, what is interesting in the case of Plutarch is that we have some evidence that he had access to texts written by Epicurus himself and by other Epicureans. And yet he provides a very biased testimony of what the Epicurean doctrine was. For instance, both Plutarch and Cicero are very hostile sources for the reconstruction of Epicurean theory. But for the most part, they avoid talking about the issue of security, friendship, and philanthropy — three issues that are very, very important for Epicurean social and political philosophy. And it’s interesting: you can contrast the Epicurean texts we have with some passages in different books by Plutarch, and it’s very impressive, knowing that Plutarch must have read something very similar to what we have — and yet he omits very cautiously certain details that would prove that what he is saying is false, or that he is providing a very biased reading of the whole argument. Both Cicero and Plutarch always minimize the issue of friendship and philanthropy, which are very basic and important themes in Epicurean political and ethical philosophy. That’s very impressive — very impressive. When you study the texts, you know it, and it becomes very obvious.
The case of Epictetus is very important too. Epictetus was also very hostile to Epicurus and Epicureans. Between the Epicureans and the Stoics there was, well — not exactly a “real struggle,” but they shared some issues (both were materialist in ontological terms) while having enormous differences. But the problem we have is that the textual evidence we have for reconstructing Epicurean doctrines is very scanty, and eventually we depend on what Plutarch, Cicero, and other sources belonging to the indirect tradition tell us.
Cassius: Dr. Boeri, I think you wrote an article with a title something like “Cicero’s Clamorous Silences.” And the point you’re making there is that in the Principal Doctrines and in the documents we do have from Epicurus, there is a great deal of discussion of justice and security and principles that go along with that — and yet Cicero and Plutarch and these other hostile writers largely ignore those points and do not discuss them.
Dr. Boeri: Right. It’s interesting. The case of Cicero is particularly remarkable because, you know, he was educated by a couple of Epicurean masters, especially by Phaedrus. And we have evidence coming from Cicero himself in the second book of De Finibus that he read the whole Κύριαι Δόξαι — the Principal Doctrines, that’s the name of that group of sentences written by Epicurus himself. And it’s very impressive the way in which Cicero makes a very selective use of the Principal Doctrines. He usually avoids commenting on those doctrines where Epicurus talks about asphaleia — security — which is directly connected with the issue of friendship and even with the issue of philanthropy: the idea that your political community, the polis, the city where you live, can provide some security in more or less formal terms through the laws that regulate the activities of the human beings living there.
Both Cicero and Plutarch try to say that Epicurus absolutely rejected the formal laws of the polis. But it’s not at all clear what they are talking about — because we have clearer evidence that Epicurus and Epicureans were making use of the formal laws of the cities where they were living.
But in addition to that, Epicurus talks about something he calls the purest asphaleia — the purest security. This is in Principal Doctrine 14, a very, very important passage. The purest security is in your own tranquility — in the way in which you can deal with the desires you have, the way in which you can learn to desire what you can actually satisfy. So if you read that passage and many others that say something similar in Epicurus and compare them with the situation of the polis where you are living — compare them with the way in which the political community can provide you some security in legal terms — it’s a fantastic combination. Because Epicurus says: the formal laws are very important, but they are not enough. You have to work on your own peace of mind, trying to learn what you have to desire because of what you are as a human being. We are very limited creatures. And that’s a very important point for Epicurus, because one of the most basic and powerful suggestions in Epicurean ethics is what you have to do to try to remove fear.
There are many passages in Lucretius — a Roman Epicurean, not exactly identical with Epicurus but a very important author — who suggests that if war, and especially civil war, is one of the most important threats for the security of your polis, the plague is not the lesser threat for your life. And so Lucretius says: your polis can provide you social and political security, but you have to learn to live without fear in your life. You need to do a very personal interior work — and you can do that while sharing your life with other people who think something similar. This is the community of Epicurean friends. But our point with my co-author was that this is not only a very small community of Epicurean friends. This is something that you can extend to the rest of the people in the polis where you live as a citizen. And this is more or less clear in the sense in which Epicureans talk about philanthropy — the sense that this project of trying to organize and order your personal life can be extended to the rest of humanity.
Fernando: Yes. One of the things that strikes me when I was reading the book is that you show that there is a lot of evidence that Epicurus and the Epicureans had a social and political thought — you mentioned Hermarchus, [Metrodorus], Lucretius’s On the Nature of Things Book Five, and the Principal Doctrines. When I see that, it’s hard for me to understand why contemporary readings of Epicurus think that he was apolitical in some sense. We had all this evidence, but we also have this interpretation, these slogans of not improving politics and basically hiding in your community of friends. But when you said this, I imagined that there was a project in political philosophy of extending these principles in society — and we know that Epicurus had this project of extending his philosophy thanks to the letters and thanks to the portraits and statues that Epicurus had in Athens. So the picture that you deploy of Epicurus is of a gentler man who was respected in the city, and the Roman Epicureans and the Athenians were alike convinced that this security — not only in terms of material resources, as you say, but also in the mind, being free from fear and trying to live a pleasant life — was the goal. You have to think that when Epicurus arrived in Athens, both the Academy — the Platonic Academy — and the Lyceum were very, very active. There were many people there discussing philosophy. One always has to recall the fact that in antiquity there were few people who were able to read and write, so I’m not suggesting that all the people in the street were talking about Epicurean atomism or Epicurean political or ethical philosophy. But it’s important to recall that when Epicurus started doing philosophy — coming from the island of Samos, though he was an Athenian citizen — and started talking about things in ontological, ethical, and political terms, it was a little strange for a Platonic mentality. And that’s one of the reasons why you can understand the strong discussions that started there. And I think that probably the peculiar philosophy was accepted by many people, and there were some struggles because of political or even economic interests.
Cassius: Dr. Boeri, we have a couple of very specific questions, but before we get into more specifics, if we could stay at the general level for just a moment more — because our listeners are probably interested in this: if “living unknown” and “staying out of politics” is an incorrect summary of Epicurus’s views, how would you summarize the correct view? We don’t want to reduce everything to a slogan, and we can’t do that, but in general — what do you think Epicurus would have suggested to his people in regard to politics and engagement with society?
Dr. Boeri: Okay. I would summarize it by saying something I have already said in part: the sense of “do not participate in politics” and “live unknown” should be understood in the sense that you have to get the correct balance between political and formal security — what can be provided by the polis where you live as a citizen — on the one hand, and on the other hand the work you have to do to try to be a good Epicurean agent: to try to neutralize fear, to try to get tranquility and peace of mind. And how can you combine these two factors? They can go together without any problem at all for an Epicurean philosopher who is not only interested in providing some theoretical arguments to explain reality as a whole, but is also interested in living according to those principles.
So I would summarize it that way: the way in which you live in a political and social context where there are more or less clear laws regulating the life of citizens — and on the other hand, not independently of that social life, the work you have to do with yourself as a rational agent to try to neutralize fear. Fear regarding the gods, for example — there is no good reason, according to Epicurus, to think that God is an entity especially worried about complicating your life. Epicurus never says explicitly that he doesn’t believe in God or doesn’t believe in the common gods as gods having human affections and emotions. No — that’s not true according to Epicurus. There are a couple of lines, maybe five lines in the Letter to Menoikeus where Epicurus says that this kind of statement — concerning the gods’ nature — can be either true or false, but according to the prolepsis, the preconception we have of what God is, you cannot expect that God is concerned with ruining your life. That’s absolutely rational for Epicurus and Epicureans. And that’s part of the work you have to do with yourself — within the Epicurean community, with your friends — to try to remove fear in your everyday life.
And again, I think that there is good reason to think that the Epicureans were worried about the fact that that work is not limited to the small group of Epicurean friends. That’s the sense in which the cover of our book tries to show something: that’s the Acropolis, and there are supposed to be — according to my reading — the Epicurean group of friends talking and living their lives with a certain projection toward the polis, the city of Athens where Epicurus lived for the most part of his active philosophical life.
Cassius: And this is the point to ask you: are there examples of Epicurean historical figures you can cite for us? I think you did a number of them in the book — but are there particularly good examples of Epicurean historical figures who were properly applying the balance you’re talking about between engagement and non-engagement?
Dr. Boeri: Oh yes, yes. Philodemus is a very good example. Unfortunately his texts are fragmentary, but he wrote a very important book — the title in English is something like On the Management of Your Property, and the title itself shows that Philodemus, in a very Epicurean sense, thinks that your property — and property there means your private property of course — is very important for having a rational life within a polis. We have some fragments from that book showing that he was thinking in very strong Epicurean terms. It’s crucial — the way in which you can work on yourself for being a rational Epicurean agent, removing fear, cultivating security, all the time in the group of your Epicurean — or eventually non-Epicurean — friends. And it’s important to deal with all these important issues belonging to Epicurean philosophy within the polis — not to live on an island, no, no.
In addition to Philodemus, there are many names — you mentioned also Titus Pomponius Atticus. There are many names. Metrodorus is another good example; we have some fragments coming from the books he wrote. You mentioned also Diogenes of Oinoanda, and Lucius of [unclear location] — this is another very important person in political terms who endorsed Epicurean philosophy.
Fernando: I think, Fernando, we turn to some of the specific questions. One of the themes in the book that you talk about is the theory of the genealogy of justice. The book compares the parallels between how justice arose and how language arose — sort of naturally, and specifically among the particular people who were involved — not handed down by God or handed down by some Platonic form. You analogize the emergence of justice with the emergence of language. Is that something you could tell us just a little bit about?
Dr. Boeri: Well, probably the most important source for understanding that is Lucretius Book Five especially, and some passages in Book Six of On the Nature of Things. Language is very important because the account Lucretius provides to explain the way in which language arises is very complex. Let me say some general things. Language is very important because it explains in part the origin of what Epicureans called prolepsis. Prolepsis is a very important notion — we usually translate it as “preconception,” which can be a complicated term because Epicurean epistemology is strongly empiricist. So what’s the sense of “pre-” in “preconception”? Because it can evoke some form of nativism. But that’s not the case in Epicurus. There is a very interesting explanation of how Epicurus thinks about this point in Diogenes Laertius when he explains the origin of language in Epicurean terms — what I would like to call the ostensive way of acquiring language. Because Epicurus provides examples: when you are a very little boy or girl and your mother says, “hey, horse!” — that’s apparently an Epicurean example — after a couple of times when someone says to you “that’s a horse,” you identify that sound, that utterance, with a certain specific kind of thing in your empirical world. This is the way in which an imprint is received in your soul or mind, associated with a certain kind of thing in the perceptible world.
That’s very important for Lucretius, because he says that the origin of language is what starts ordering — so to speak — human relations. When we pass from the totally natural and savage ways of relationship, to start ordering ourselves — he describes that in genealogical terms. He shows that there was an age in humanity when everything was very confused and nobody respected anything, and there is a certain moment in which there is some softening among human beings, and language contributes a lot to that softening. One can say: “that’s a horse, that’s mine, that’s justice.” Of course, this is a very complicated issue because it’s not the same thing to talk about a horse and to talk about justice. “Horse” is a purely descriptive or theoretical notion, and “justice” is what we call an evaluative or practical concept. This discussion was present already in Plato — the difference between these kinds of concepts. But you can see the detail of this passage, from the totally savage life to the beginning of civilized life, especially in Book Five of Lucretius’s work, and the language plays a very, very important role. It’s the way in which you can start categorizing the different things in the world — not only perceptible things such as horses, but also things such as justice — which is supposed to be one of the most important examples given by Epicurus himself of what prolepsis is. He talks about the prolepsis of justice, the prolepsis of god, and so forth. We are working right now with my colleague on a paper dealing with the connections between prolepsis and the origin of language in the terms I’ve tried to describe in a very general way.
Fernando: In the book you say that justice for Epicurus is not conventional — it’s relative. We would like you to tell us more about this.
Dr. Boeri: Yes — it’s relative. There is a certain relativism that you can attribute to the Epicurean notion of justice, but not relativism in the sense in which you can attribute it to the Sophists in general. According to our argument, the notion of justice in Epicurus and in Epicureanism generally is a certain modality of utility — a way in which you can use utility according to the present circumstances. They don’t talk about justice in absolute terms. Epicurus says — a little violently, of course, so as to insult the Platonists — “spit on the beautiful itself,” meaning spit on the Platonic form. What I’m trying to say is that Epicurus does not take justice to be a Platonic form. It’s something that you can use and adapt to the present circumstances you are living. That does not mean it’s an absolute relativism in the sense you could attribute to Protagoras.
What Epicurus seems to have thought is that you have to be able, as the rational being you are, to adapt what is just to the present circumstances. We provide an example in our book — not an Epicurean or an Epicurus example, but: think about what happens in a situation where the harvest is not very good and the production of food is scanty because it wasn’t a good year. An Epicurean would say: we have to share food in equal parts, because that’s very convenient for the survival of our social or political community. We don’t have a lot of food, but we have to share justly what we have. But this is not something fixed for all time — this can vary, because the next year the harvest can be much better. So the way in which you use justice according to present circumstances today cannot match with the way in which those circumstances indicate justice must be applied in a different situation.
The way in which we understand the Epicurean concept of justice is as a modulation of utility. The notion of utility here is not utility in an extremely egoistic sense — what is convenient for myself alone. It is what is convenient for the community as a whole. This is useful for the community, because what the Epicureans want is to preserve the social community — the only place in which you can live as a human being.
Cassius: Dr. Boeri, as we begin to close — I suspect that there’s one question that all of our listeners would be particularly interested in hearing you talk about. We stay away on our forum and in our discussions from partisan politics, but everybody has sort of an interest in terms of: what kind of a system of government would Epicurus really have preferred? Was he a democrat? Was he a monarchist?
Dr. Boeri: That’s an excellent question, and probably I don’t have the correct answer. It’s very complicated. It’s interesting to know that in the texts attributed to Epicurus and some important Epicureans, we don’t have clear indications in that way.
Cassius: Is it purely contextual, do you think — in terms of depending on the situation at a particular time, he might endorse one form of government as against another, just depending on the conditions at that particular moment? And could it in fact change over time with conditions, just like he talks about justice changing?
Dr. Boeri: Probably — probably yes. To be totally honest, I don’t know. Because monarchy — who knows? But it should be an Epicurean monarch! And that’s the reason why the real polity of the age would not allow the Epicureans to propose an Epicurean monarch. There are many considerations involved there. But we can leave it at this point: you don’t see a very clear answer to the question of whether he always would have preferred monarchy or always would have preferred democracy or some other form. There are some suggestions in different texts in the direction of a monarchy, but it can be very, very complicated to try to establish an Epicurean monarchy for very obvious reasons. You should write the next book on Epicurean political philosophy trying to answer that question — there is some textual evidence about it, but it’s not clear at all in my view.
Cassius: You have people who, when they talk about Cassius Longinus — who you mention in your book — will say: well, Cassius was not a good Epicurean because he was so closely involved in those political events, and yet he was talking to Cicero about Epicurean philosophy at the very time that they were revolting against Julius Caesar.
Dr. Boeri: Yes. Well, Cicero was writing about Epicurean philosophy but was very hostile about the Epicureans all the time. There is a very interesting passage, I think in the second book of On Moral Ends, where Cicero says: well, I’m not attacking the Epicurean persons — I’m just attacking the doctrines. I don’t believe him, because he’s a very biased witness. His testimony about Epicurus is very, very obviously biased — and that paper you mentioned, thank you for mentioning it, addresses exactly that. Cicero’s silences are very clamorous in our view, because it is very evident that he was reading the Epicurean texts that we have and he omitted them consciously.
But yes, you’re right — it’s interesting how much impact Epicurean philosophy had on the political and higher classes in Rome. That’s very impressive. They were advisors, people always near the power — the Epicureans. You have to remember: always near the power. And an Epicurean can say “I’m just an advisor, I’m just a priest” — but being a priest was a very important position in the ancient world. So “live unknown, do not participate in politics” — well, that’s a way of participating in politics, of course.
Cicero is a very, very difficult case. We owe a lot to Cicero, but you have to read him very cautiously. He knows everything. Cicero not only was able to read Greek — he was able to speak Greek as well. He was a very educated person. He invented in Latin a number of terms we still use in philosophy, for instance perceptio — where perceptio is not just sensory perception but also intellectual perception in the sense of understanding. He was a very well-educated person and a very smart man. But he was a professional politician as well, and a great orator, and he was very close to Plato and Platonism. He says that Plato was the “king of philosophers” in antiquity — he says that a couple of times. Well, it’s good, you have the right to be a Platonist. I like a lot Plato and I have studied a lot of Plato and Platonism. But of course if you have a Platonist agenda, you have good reasons to be attacking almost all the time what the Epicureans say. Another detail which is very interesting is the way in which Cicero explains Epicurean hedonism — because Cicero is absolutely aware of the fact that Epicurean hedonism is not just sensual hedonism. He is aware that Epicurean hedonism is a very sophisticated kind of hedonism, because the absence of pain and tranquility is not just a pleasure you can feel when you are eating your pizza and drinking your beer. Of course the satisfaction of bodily needs is important for Epicurus as well — as a necessary condition for getting tranquility. We are human beings, we are sensible beings, we have certain needs that we satisfy: we need to drink and eat, we have sexual desires, and so on. These are natural desires, and of course we need to satisfy them. The point for an Epicurean is that your own life, your personal life, is not just anchored in sensual desires or sensual pleasures. That’s not the way in which you have to direct your life. And Cicero knows this — but he just doesn’t explain it very well, and he accuses Epicureans of saying that life is just sensual pleasure. No — what are you talking about? That’s not present in Epicurus or the Epicureans.
Cassius: Thank you for your time today. Thank you, Fernando. I really want to thank Dr. Boeri, and hopefully at some point we may be able to have his co-author join us in another interview at another time. But Dr. Boeri graciously made himself available to us and we really appreciate his time and participation in the interview today.
Dr. Boeri: Well, thank you so much for the interview, for your interest in our work. For my last piece of advice I can give you: lathe biosas — live unknown. But not in the sense that Plutarch says.
Cassius: Very good. Well, having listened to this interview today, I think people will have a much better understanding of Epicurus’s true position on that. So thank you so much. Thank you very much. Have a nice day.
Dr. Boeri: Thank you. Bye-bye.