Episode 311 - Is Pain The Only Reason We Should Be Concerned About Any Aspect Of Death And Dying?
Welcome to Episode 311 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who wrote “On The Nature of Things,” the most complete presentation of Epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world. Each week we walk you through the Epicurean texts, and we discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. If you find the Epicurean worldview attractive, we invite you to join us in the study of Epicurus at EpicureanFriends.com, where we discuss this and all of our podcast episodes.
This week in the absence of Joshua and Kalosyni we will make a brief review of Dr. Emily Austin’s “Epicurus and The Politics Of The Fear of Death,” which we have discussed in a recent thread thanks to Pacatus bringing the article to our attention.
Next week we will be back with more Tusculan Disputations, but this week we’ll set the stage for more discussion of this very good article.
https://www.epicureanfriends.com/thread/4837-episode-311-not-yet-recorded/?postID=38045#post38045
Transcript Unedited
Section titled “Transcript Unedited”Cassius (00:10):
Welcome to episode 311 of Lucretius today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucious who wrote on the Nature of Things, the most complete presentation of Epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world. Each week we walk you through the epicurean text and we discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. If you find the epicurean worldview attractive, we invite you to join us in the study of epicurus@epicureandfriends.com where we discuss this and all of our podcast episodes. This week, both Joshua and Callini are out, so we’ll be taking a break from our review of Tuscilan Disputations and we’ll come back to that next week. For today, I have a special topic I’d like to discuss. If you’ve spent much time at all on the Epicurean Friends Forum, you know that one of the two books we recommend more than any others is Living For Pleasure.
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An Epicurean Guide to Life written within the last several years by Dr. Emily Austin, a professor at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. This past week, one of our forum members by the name of tus brought to our attention that in 2012, Dr. Austin had written an article that we’ve not previously discussed on the forum, and it’s entitled Epicurus and the Politics of Fearing Death. The reason I’ve chosen that article to talk about today is that I think that wider acceptance of epicurean philosophy is held back by a number of major misconceptions about what epicure is really taught, and I’m not talking about the gross errors of common people who don’t know anything about Epicurus who think that he is just an absolute reprobate pursuing nothing but wine, women and song. Anyone who’s read much about Epicurus knows that that is not the case at all. The kind of error and misconception that I’m talking about are not those kind of gross errors, but what I would call creeping stoicism, Buddhism, Judeo Christianity, humanism, the injection of other elements into epicurean philosophy that were not there in the ancient world at the time that Epicurus was teaching, or the time that the Roman writers such as Lucretius we’re talking about him.
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For example, there’s a misconception common in many articles today that when Epicurus talked about pleasure, he was primarily referring to the pleasures of the body when in fact what Epicurus was talking about was that the pleasures of the mind are at least as important as those of the body, and he was not limiting pleasures only to stimulation, but when he spoke about pleasure, he was talking about anything and everything in life that we find to be desirable so that for those who are concerned about art or literature or science or exploration or other things that bring them pleasure, those absolutely come within the word pleasure that Epicurus was endorsing. He was not saying food and drink or the immediate pleasures of the body are the most important things in life. He was saying that in the absence of a supernatural God or supernatural rules, whatever our makeup tells us is desirable for us is pleasure, and that feeling of pleasure is what truly guides us in life and not some imaginary supernatural God or supernatural conception of being a good person.
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Another misconception is that Epicurus considered himself to be a complete and total atheist. Now there the issue always comes down to what do we mean by the word God? But the truth of the matter is that it’s very clear from reading Epicurus his own writing, and those are the ancient epicurean that once you get past the error of thinking that Gods are supernatural, it was very important to Epicurus that you have a proper view of what a nons, supernatural divinity would really be about and a proper understanding of a blessed and imperishable being serves as an emotional and intellectual guide and a vision so to speak, of what the best life would be like. It’s always important to have a target in life, an idea of what you would like to have if you could, and the epicurean view of divinity was tightly entwined with this idea of let’s talk about what the best life really would be like.
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So Epicurus did not consider himself to be an atheist. He considered himself to be the one who had a proper conception of what divinity was all about, and having such a proper conception was an important part of Epicurean philosophy. Another of the important misconceptions that’s going to be significant to what we’re talking about today is the idea that Epicurus held the goal of life to be axia. That’s interpreted by many writers to mean that epicure as hell, that the complete absence of pain is the goal of life, and that if you don’t have the complete absence of pain, then you’re not happy. The problem with that construction is that from it, people get the idea that their prime directive in life should be to avoid every moment of pain of any kind whatsoever, and that leads them to conclude that the best way to the happiest life from Epicurus point of view is a kind of absolute minimalism, absolute separation from engagement with the world so that they can make sure that no moment of pain of any kind ever creeps into their life whatsoever, and that’s just a total misconception of what Epicurus taught.
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That’s not how Epicurus lived his own life and it’s not what Epicurus had to say when he wrote, for example to menaces, we know that Epicurus did not live that way because by the time of his death, Epicurus was the leader of a large school of philosophy with many hundreds or thousands of friends and supporters. He was engaged in extensive writing campaigns, challenging the existing system of thought of the other philosophers, and taking the argument to them, explaining to his own followers and to anyone who would listen what the correct way was when these other philosophers were teaching something that was incorrect. Epicurus was the owner of several valuable pieces of property and had considerable wealth at the time of his death. As we know from his will, we know that Epicurus did not focus on the elimination of pain as the overriding goal because in his letter to Mia, he stated that it was happiness that we should be after and that when we have happiness, we have everything.
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And he also said that we sometimes do in fact choose pain when the choice of pain leads to greater pleasure. As a result, the important point is that happiness does not require total absence of pain, and in fact, Epicurus declared himself to be happy even in his last days when he suffered from severe kidney pain and in another famous statement that Emily Austin discusses in the article we’re talking about today, he also made the statement that it’s possible for a man to consider himself happy even when he is under torture and that under some circumstances will even give up our own lives for that of a friend. This is clearly a definition of happiness that is practicable and attainable. It’s not a goal of perfection and absolute absence of pain. It is a balance of pleasure over pain. It’s not obsessively and reflexively and artistically focused on running from all pain at every moment of life.
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Today, Dr. Austin’s article gives us the opportunity to focus on one aspect of this misconception about happiness, how it relates to the issue of dying and death. We could very easily and very briefly make the point at the beginning that it’s clear that epicure has held the state of being dead is a state of non-existence. There is no harm and no pain whatsoever in the state of non-existence, and so therefore there is no reason to fear or have any concern about a state of non-existence when you feel nothing and you no longer exist. That is very clear and I think everyone who’s ever read anything about epic Peus agrees that that is the case. However, if it was so clear and everyone understood that there would’ve been no reason for writing this article about the politics of fearing death, and that’s going to give us the opportunity to discuss again that Epicurus is a practical philosopher who gives us an idea of happiness and how to attain it that is reachable for us and is not some pie in the sky equivalent of a stoic virtue or Buddhist nirvana or Judeo-Christian salvation, something that is dependent upon some non-existent and imaginary force to give to us.
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It’s something that we can attain for ourselves and it is possible to attain it, and much of Epicurean philosophy is geared towards explaining why that is the case. I’m going to be reading sections from Dr. Austin’s article as we go through here, but I’m not going to make an attempt to go over all of the arguments. What I want to stress is that this is an article that every student of Epicurus should read and they should think not only about this question of what part of the aspects of death should and should not be feared, they should also think about why Dr. Austin needed to write this article, why there appears to be confusion among people even who write supposedly in favor of Epicurus and who talk about epicurus and popular articles and Wikipedia and so forth and seem to take Epicurus position in an extreme direction that Dr. Austin argues and I will argue in support of her is not what epicure has taught whatsoever.
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Let’s start by reading the abstract of Dr. Austin’s article, which reads like this, Epicurus often serves as the standard bearer for the view that we can and should use our rational capacities to eliminate our fear of death. Although epicure has clearly thought that many varieties of the fear of death arise from errors in reasoning, I argue that he believed that the fear of violent death is inimitable not able to be eliminated and sometimes even advantageous. Humans have a natural and necessary desire for physical security and the prospect that this desire might be frustrated causes fear. Thus, the best way to manage though not eliminate one’s fear of a violent death is to establish favorable political circumstances rather than employ arguments against false beliefs. Now, one of our key rules@epicureandfriends.com is that we don’t talk about modern political controversies and we’re not going to be talking about that today here either.
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The sense in which Dr. Austin is using the word political, I think you’ll find as you read the article is a much more general sense, the question of whether we are going to take action both individually and with our friends to secure our happiness and the extension of our lives as long as naturally possible. As I read her article, what I see her saying is that there is a modern view of epicurus, which often construes the phrase death is nothing to us to mean that no attention whatsoever should be paid to any aspect of the circumstances of our death and dying. Contrary to this modern view, she’s saying that what Epicurus really held is that attention to important aspects of death and dying cannot and should not be avoided, and that these aspects to be concerned about are not limited only to those which involve pain.
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We will of course spend a lot of time being very precise as we have already, that the question of being dead is a very different question from the questions that are involved in the circumstances of our dying. In section one of this article, Dr. Austin starts off by saying The general consensus is that epicures believe the fear of death to be wholly irrational and liable. I intend to argue otherwise, and she goes on to explain that an important aspect of that question is whether epicure as hell, that fear is simply a belief or a set of beliefs that can be altered by argument, and that one can eliminate one’s fear of death by engaging in rational discourse and rehearsing arguments. Now, before we get much further, it’s important also to be careful about this word fear because we talk so much about fear and epicurean philosophy, that one, we get the idea that the philosophy was primarily devoted to schizophrenia and other psychiatric problems and that Epicurus was essentially a doctor of people whom we today might consider to be clinically diseased in some way.
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The article examines the difference between fear and pain, and that’s an important aspect of the different arguments that she’s going to address in that context. In this section one, Dr. Austin points out that there’s at least four varieties of fear of death, and she attributes this to James Warren, a British writer of Epicurus, and those four categories are, number one, the fear of being dead. Number two, the fear that one will die and one’s life is going to end. Number three, the fear of premature death and four, the fear of the process of dying. Now, these four categories are not by any means written in stone and she cites them mainly to point out the different aspects of the discussion that we’re having, but this number one, the fear of being dead is the one everybody agrees on is something that is not to be feared because we have no sensation at that time.
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We have no possibility of being harmed and therefore it makes no sense to be afraid of the state of being dead. These other sections in Warren’s categories, however, are not at all the same thing, and the question arises, do we deal with these other aspects of dying simply by philosophical reasoning about whether they are good or bad for us or do we deal with them by taking action where action is possible so as to minimize the impact of these events on our lives? Does Epicurus tell us that every aspect of these concerns that we are talking about can be addressed through words and philosophy or is it necessary to take action after understanding the details of each one and realize that it is not going to be possible to completely eliminate the possibility of them occurring and therefore we need to constantly stay on guard against them?
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Now, from one perspective, epicure clearly addresses every aspect of fear in his philosophy. As we know from the fourth principle doctrine, pain does not last continuously in the flesh, but the acutest pain is there for a very short time, and even that which just exceeds the pleasure in the flesh does not continue for many days at once, but chronic illnesses permit a predominance of pleasure over pain in the flesh. That is a very general rule, one of the first four principle doctrines that applies to all fears and shows us that even when we do feel pain, if we think and act properly, we can find a predominance of pleasure over pain and thereby from that point of view be happy even under torture, we can be happy if we understand that happiness does not require a total absence of pain. If we can focus on the good things that are still part of our awareness and offset them, array them against the pains that we’re suffering, we can still consider ourselves to be happy even though we are under tremendous pain, even through torture.
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The classic example of this is Epicurus himself in his last days says that he was happy even though he was suffering tremendous kidney disease. He would’ve known at that point under this doctrine that pain is not continuous and it will not last forever. Acute pain is therefore only a very short time and is eventually ended by death if it becomes severe enough and that even those pains that are longer permit a predominance of pleasure over pain when we bring our minds into play and focus on appreciating the good things in our experience as opposed to the pain. So yes, from a certain perspective there is an overriding philosophical position that Epicurus takes that even the fears involved in dying early in dying in a painful lingering death are fears that are manageable and are overcome by the wise man through a proper philosophy. But having said that, overcoming those pains through proper philosophy does not eliminate the fact that we don’t want to go through them if we don’t have to.
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We don’t want to experience a lingering painful death by kidney disease if we can avoid it by going to the doctor. We don’t want to die when we’re 25 years old if we can live more prudently in perhaps another location and live until we are 50. We don’t want to spend our time focusing on the shortness of life. If we can surround ourselves with people who understand our philosophical point of view and know that life is desirable and wish to pursue pleasure throughout life while also realizing that when we are dead, we no longer suffer any pain, there are actions that we can take in those circumstances beyond just thinking about the problem that are important. As we know from Epicurus his own life, he moved to school and worked not once but twice to get to a place where he was secure, able to teach and able to pursue his goals without undue interference from other people.
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That’s this political aspect of the fear of death that Emily Austin is talking about. He did not just sit back in his cave and say, well, I understand that I will not have any pain after I’m dead. I also understand that I can experience a predominance of pleasure over pain no matter what circumstances I’m in. Therefore, I’m just going to sit here and do nothing and come what may I know I’ll be able to overcome pain with pleasure? That would be a ridiculous position to take. It’s not the position that he took, it’s not the position that any rational person applying epicurean philosophy would take, but the point of Emily Austin’s article is that we need to be very clear about that because there are people in this world who see this life as a gateway to something else afterwards who think that we are better off never having been born and we don’t want to leave unstated and unquestioned their contention to us that we need not pay any attention to what will happen to us.
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We’ll be perfectly fine regardless because we have our philosophy that says that we’ll be fine once we’re dead and before we get there, we’ll have more pleasure than pain because we’ll have our mind and the other ideas of epicurus to suffice. I’m not going to put those words into Emily Austin’s mouth and say that that is why she’s writing this article, but that is the danger that I see in a lot of what I read in modern epicurean writing, this idea that all we have to do is arrange our arguments and our philosophy in our minds, and we need not worry about what’s going on around us because we’ll be fine regardless. I don’t think that Epicurus took that position in his own life and I don’t think he would recommend that anyone applying his philosophy take that position either. Dr. Austin continues in section two of her article to explain how the desire for security is well established in Epicurean philosophy as a natural and necessary desire.
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She says, Epicurus I argue classifies the desire for security among the natural and necessary desires. As such, it resembles the bru and undifferentiated desire for food and drink when such a desire remains unsatisfied, pain results and this pain cannot be reasoned away. My textual case proceeds in three stages. First, I shall show that the desire for security is a natural one with some initial attention to what makes a desire natural. Second, I consider in what manner Epicurus distinguishes natural and necessary desires from natural and unnecessary ones, and third, in light of this standard, I argue that the desire for security is not only natural but also necessary meaning again from this section that we are going to take action to obtain security and not just simply attempt to reason away the dangers that do occur to us in life. In section three, she turned to her attention to explaining how Epicurus offers strategies for securing one’s personal security wherever one finds oneself.
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In other words, those of us in a trusting and secure society are able to live our lives one way while those in hostile society among people who don’t like them and who would kill them if they understood their viewpoints or how they preferred to live their lives will have to live in a different way. I think our main point in this section is again, going towards this issue that there are actions that have to be taken. You can call them political or social or however you wish to describe it, but it’s a realization that there are true hazards in life that have to be dealt with and not just by closing your eyes and thinking that you can like stoic or Buddhist reason them or think them away, they require action if you’re really going to wish to pursue and live the happiest life that you possibly can.
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In section four of her article, she points out that the issue that we’re talking about is not simply fear of pain because otherwise there’s no reason to avoid a painless death. Now, there are several sections I want to be sure to read because I think they’re particularly important. One of them leading up to section four is at the end of section three where she says, however, most people do not happen to chance upon a garden where they can live securely and without threat. The paucity of safe refuges then explains the standard advice to abstain from political involvement in non-ideal circumstances unless failure to be involved is a greater threat to one’s safety than participation. Now, there she cites to ener. We can cite to other sources as well such as the recent book we’ve discussed on the forum theory and practice and epicure and political philosophy, security justice and tranquility by Dr.
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Javier, Oz and Marcelo Boeri in which this issue is extensively pursued. It is not epicurean philosophy that you isolate yourself from society in every situation. There are many situations where you need to be engaged in society in order to make sure that you have the security to pursue your life happily, but the issue that Dr. Austin turns to in section four is I think one of the most valuable aspects of this article and here I’d like to quote the introduction to section four as follows, someone might grant that security is crucially important to the epicurean and that a political arrangement such as found in the garden is the best way to gain security, yet deny that the epicurean quest for security is motivated by fear of death or that the sage is dependent upon favorable political circumstances to rid himself of fear. So argues James Warren, who again thinks that Epicurus beliefs all fear of death is irrational and liable.
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In light of sound, philosophical argument, Warren entertains a common objection to those who seek to eradicate the fear of death, namely that the fear of death may be prudentially and evolutionary beneficial. If the fear of death were sometimes advantageous, then there would be good reason not to eliminate it even if it were possible to do so. If the fear of death kept an agent, for instance, from walking off cliffs and unnecessarily risking his life and safety, then it would be a mistake to rid himself of a fear that keeps him alive. Thus, Epicurus could at best be justified in encouraging us to eradicate some of the many varieties of the fear of death. Perhaps being dead should be nothing to us, but dying violently matters. This in essence is what I argue that Epicurus believes. Continuing on with what Dr. Austin says, she writes, although Warren acknowledges that Epicurus needs to provide some mechanism by which his followers can avoid pursuing death or becoming ambivalent about when or how their death shall occur, he thinks the mechanism need not be a fear of death.
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Instead, the fear of pain fully explains such behavior. Now, that’s a major aspect of this article here because she’s delving into this question of whether it is fear of the pain of dying that is being discussed or fear of our condition after death or exactly what it is that’s being discussed because she continues and says, note that if Warren is right and this is my insertion and that all fear of death arises from a fear of pain and can be eliminated through philosophy, then the epicurean seems to lack a clear reason to avoid a painless death. Why should the epicurean skip town when the epicurean fears that the local tyrant has a penant for killing aspiring epicureans painlessly in their sleep? If painless deaths are not bad, then why should the epicurean carefully label and store the fast acting poison rather than leave it in the open and accessible to young children?
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One must wonder what protects the epicurean from happily courting a painless death. If the epicurean does not bother to protect himself against such deaths, then the objection that the fear of death is good if it helps us avoid death’s worth avoiding reasserts itself. And then in another paragraph, the sentence that jumps out at me as being why this article is important is this one where Dr. Austin writes occupying an argumentative space in which one lacks reason to avoid easily and ethically avoidable deaths should I think be a last resort. Now, I read that as a academic understated way of saying something that should be probably stated with a hammer and hammered home to everybody that if you have constructed a view of a philosophy that does not show a reason why a person applying that philosophy should work strongly and vigorously to avoid easily and ethically avoidable deaths, that kind of position should itself be strongly avoided.
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It is ridiculous to think that Epicurus constructed a philosophy of pleasure and happiness, which leaves us in a position that we lack the reason to avoid easily and ethically avoidable death, that we lack the reason to avoid premature and painless death if all we’re doing in life is avoiding pain. She’s saying here then a painless death is not something to be avoided. I think in this, Dr. Austin is exactly correct and it’s a point that should not need to be made, but for the position we find ourselves in much discussion of epicurean philosophy, the idea that we are fleeing from pain every moment of our lives as our prime directive has taken us to the position where we no longer understand and present the passionate reasoning for why we wish to live our lives while we can, why we do wish to remain alive as long as we can, why we wish for as much pleasure in life as we possibly can have.
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It’s not because we are focused on obsessively fleeing every moment of pain. It is because we are here through nature to pursue pleasure. As Lucretius explains at the beginning of book one of his poem, we are motivated by pleasure to pursue happiness and not simply to run from pain, which logically would lead us to this conclusion that Dr. Austin is concerned about, that if all we’re trying to do is avoid pain, then there’s nothing wrong with an early painless death. This is something that should be ridiculous to entertain, and yet in my own personal experience in reading epicurean material, I get the strong impression that this is something that is an open question for a lot of people who read Epicurus. I attribute that to their sympathy with ideas that come to us through stoicism from Buddhism, from Judeo Christianity and other traditions, but that is not compatible with epicure and philosophy.
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It’s in my point of view. Now, Dr. Austin extends that in her section four, and I particularly suggest people pay attention to this section, but we’ll pick up in the article here when she gets to section five, which is her conclusion section, and that’s worth reading in full. She ends the article this way. I have argued that Epicurus does not believe all forms of the fear of death are irrational and liable. Again, there’s that point, the fear of death includes the circumstances of dying when we die, how we die. She continues on and says, at least one fear, the fear of violent death caused by others is brute and must be managed politically. If I’m right, Epicurious beliefs would seem much more reasonable to many people who recognize that we have a vested interest in controlling the fear of death, but who are skeptical about our ability to eliminate it.
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Again, I’ll jump in and say@epicureanfriends.com, our goal is to study and promote Epicurean philosophy. She’s exactly right here in this point that it is a barrier to the understanding and acceptance of epicure and philosophy. If people think that epicure says that through a rearrangement of philosophical arguments, you can be content and happy no matter what circumstances you’re in. There is an aspect of that that is true when properly understood, but on the face of it, if you misunderstand it to imply that you need take no action in life to arrange your circumstances to live happily, that is the opposite of what Epicurus is saying. Dr. Austin continues on and in reference to those who would accept what she’s saying, she says, Epicurus would no longer believe that a person can study a set of arguments, believe them, chant them regularly to himself or with friends, and thereby rid himself of the many varieties of the fear of death.
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Others, however might think my thesis renders epic’s beliefs about the fear of death, much less exciting. If one is primarily interested in epic’s views on death because his extremism makes him a useful foil, then he might no longer be the biggest target. Likewise, if one looks to epicurus to eliminate all varieties of one’s own fear of death, then one might need to seek extra assistance. She’s talking here about how her views might be construed by those who do see Epicurus as a stoic or Buddhist like figure who’s saying that every moment of pain in life can be eliminated through proper thinking without regard to taking action to apply those thoughts. Let’s go onto the final paragraph which reads as follows. In some, I argue that Epicurus believes there is a fear of death that does not disappear, which we can control with due care and with close attention to the social environments.
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Though my thesis might render epicurus less of a radical with regards to the fear of death than heretofore believe, and though it may even make him a bit less than perfectly brave, I maintain that it is a good way to make sense of the text conceding that some particular fear of death is not fully liable, could leave epicureanism in Warren’s words, fatally wounded. I prefer to think it escapes largely unscathed. So in that final paragraph, this is the issue that really needs consideration. Again, as we started this discussion, all of us know that epicure says that the fear of being dead is not something to worry about. On the other hand, most of us also agree that the fear of a violent death, painful death and so forth are also something that we do take action to avoid if we possibly can. Everybody agrees on most of the conclusions, but what people don’t agree on is whether to construe Epicurus as a sort of ivory tower philosopher who says every aspect of death and dying should be addressed exclusively through argument and thinking.
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That is an implication that comes through in much writing about Epicurus today because it is consistent with the extremist position taken by stoicism, taken by Buddhism, taken by other religions. And what Dr. Austin is pointing out is that that is not a logical way of construing Epicurus who rejects the basis of the universe that those other viewpoints promote, and who says that we have to live in this world under the circumstances that we are given, and our view of happiness is not an extreme idealistic total absence of pain. Our idea of happiness as an epicurean is a practical one in which we employ both pleasure and pain as given to us by nature and pay attention to both of them, and that means dealing with them by taking action and not just by thinking about them. There’s a lot of subtlety in what we’re discussing today that requires reading the article to get the most out of.
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But as we close, I think this is a particularly important article for pointing out that these controversies exist even among those who generally consider themselves to be promoting epicurean philosophy. There are major differences in perspective about what Epicurus was saying and how he relates to these other positions of stoicism, Buddhism, Judeo Christianity, and so forth. Epicurus is not simply a psychiatrist who’s dispensing medicine. Epicurus is grappling with the facts of reality, the nature of the universe, and as part of that overall process, we can walk and chew gum at the same time and realize that being dead is not a situation in which we are going to have any harm come to us. We are going to cease to exist, and so therefore we will not have any reason to have any concern about the state of being dead, but we should never get carried away by thinking that just because once we are dead, we have no more concerns to think that we have no concerns about how long we live our life, the circumstances under which we live, and the ability that we have to live longer and happier lives in certain situations than in others.
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Epicurus did not simply adapt himself to his circumstances, the first place he lived and decide to live the best he could under those circumstances. He moved around. He built a school. He wrote about his ideas and expanded the circle of his influence Throughout his life, he took action to pursue life and pleasure and to avoid death and pain until it became inevitable through nature that it was time for him to go. And at that point, as metro Doris or others have recorded, you look back upon your life happy knowing that you have lived well and you have done what you could to live as long and ably as possible. That’s how it had stated in Vatican saying 47, which reads, I have anticipated the fortune and entrenched myself against all thy secret attacks, and I will not give myself up as captive to thee or to any other circumstance, but when it is time for me to go spitting contempt on life and on those who vainly clinging to it, I will leave life crying aloud a glorious triumph song that I have lived well.
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So as we bring this discussion to an end today, again, I would strongly recommend this article both on the question of dividing what part of the circumstances of death and dying should be feared and which ones should not be feared. And secondly, I recommend that people use this article to understand that there are differences in the way that Epicurean philosophy is understood and applied, and that it makes a big difference in how you understand Epicurus, which commentators you read, and how you react to their recommendations. This is why Dr. Austin’s book is among the best available in recent years about Epicurus, and it’s why in combination with the dewitt book, which gives a overview of many other aspects of Epicurean philosophy. I predict you end up with a much different understanding of Epicurus than if you simply read Wikipedia and other popular articles and stop this article by Dr. Austin is a great example of what is needed in the study of Epicurus to bring things back in line with what Epicurus started out with 2000 years ago, and to begin to purge these stoicisms, Buddhisms, Judeo Christianity aspects that have crept in and have, in my opinion, deluded what Epicurus really taught about the best way to live.
(40:10):
Happily. I hope this discussion today has been helpful. We’ll come back next week. In the meantime, we invite everyone to come by the epicure and friends.com forum and let us know if you have any questions or comments about Epicurus. Thanks for your time today. We’ll see you again soon. Bye.