Hello and welcome to Overthink.

The podcast where your two favorite philosophers encourage you to lead the good life.

I'm Dr. Ellie Anderson.

And I'm Dr. David Peña-Gusman.

David, we often tend to think of philosophy nowadays as something that is taught within particular

contexts, namely colleges and universities, at least in the

U.S., and even if more broadly, than at least something that is taught in a school.

But if you went to ancient Athens, you would have been confronted with philosophy everywhere.

I'm thinking about how when I walk down Hollywood Boulevard here in L.A., I might come across

a Scientologist proselytizer, a Hari Krishna, perhaps like a Christian telling me that Jesus will

save my sins. That was kind of the vibe of the Agorra in ancient Athens. And the philosopher

that we're going to be talking about today, Epicurus, was one of the

sages whose teachings would have been touted in the public square. In the book that we're reading,

we're going to be using the Epicurus reader for reasons that will become apparent, namely that

none of Epicurus's writing survive in their entirety, but there's this great compilation that we're

using. The editor of the Epicurious reader Brad Inwood has this great way of starting the text

in order to signal like how Epicurus would have been sort of advertised at the time. He says,

do you want to be happy? Of course you do. Then what's standing in your way?

Your happiness is entirely up to you. This has been revealed to us by a man of divine serenity and

wisdom, et cetera, et cetera. His name was Epicura. So just imagine like somebody pitching that to you

in the public square in ancient Greece.

Okay, so this introduction that you're giving us of Epicurus as a proselytizer in the public square is making me imagine him like an ancient Jehovah's Witnesses sitting on a bench with pamphlets

...