Episode 156, 'Epicurus – Worst Philosopher Ever?' with Jonny Thomson
The Panpsycast Philosophy Podcast
Jack Symes | Andrew Horton, Oliver Marley, and Rose de Castellane
4.8 • 612 Ratings
🗓️ 3 May 2026
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Hey everyone, it's Jack here. I'm still out in the camper van writing a travel book – I'm really excited to share more on this soon.
At the same time, we've been producing live events and YouTube videos – so there's been a lot going on. We'll be sharing audio from the live shows soon, as well as recording an old school Panpsycast episode at the end of May.
In the meantime, I'm excited to share another conversation I've had for the new YouTube channel with Jonny Thomson on the philosophy of Epicurus.
I confront Jonny on my verdict that Epicurus is the worst philosopher ever; and he does a tremendous job of telling me why I'm wrong.
It's a great conversation, which i'm excited for you to hear it. So without further ado: here it is!
Links
Jonny Thomson, The Art of Enough (pre-order now!)
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hey everyone, it's Jack here. I'm still out in the camper van writing my travel book, |
| 0:12.6 | and I'm really excited to share more news on that soon. At the same time, we've been producing |
| 0:17.2 | live shows and YouTube videos, so there's been a lot going on, and we'll be sharing |
| 0:21.5 | audio from those live shows here on the main podcast feed soon, as well as recording an old-school |
| 0:27.2 | panseidcast episode at the end of May. In the meantime, I'm excited to share another conversation |
| 0:33.5 | I've had for the new YouTube channel with Johnny Thompson from Big Think on the philosophy |
| 0:38.5 | of Epicurus. I confront Johnny on my verdict that Epicurus is the worst philosopher in history |
| 0:44.9 | and he does a tremendous job of telling me why I'm wrong. It's a great conversation which I'm really |
| 0:51.3 | excited to share with you. So without further ado, here it is. Johnny Thompson, welcome to the show. |
| 1:17.2 | Hi, Jack. Thanks. Thanks having me on. |
| 1:18.8 | It's great to have you here. You've been speaking about Epicurus. You're really interested |
| 1:23.1 | in the philosopher Epicurus. You may be the worst philosopher in history. |
| 1:28.4 | The worst philosopher in history? |
| 1:30.1 | Well, much depends how you define philosopher, doesn't it? |
| 1:33.6 | Because, yeah, I mean, in the sense that he is very different to the other ancient philosophers |
| 1:39.3 | in the sense that, you know, Aristotle, Plato and the Stoics see themselves in this line from Socrates, |
| 1:46.8 | don't they? Where virtue is the most important thing, the sum and bonham, whereas, yes, |
| 1:53.2 | Epicurious definitely stands out in that line. So in terms of like the worst philosopher, |
| 1:57.1 | no, he's not the worst philosopher. Who'd you say the worst was? The worst philosopher, |
| 2:00.4 | I don't know. No one I've studied what I would say is the worst philosopher. It's not the worst philosopher who'd you say the worst was the worst philosopher i don't know no one i've studied what i would say is the worst philosopher it's a very difficult |
| 2:05.1 | question in the ancient world i don't particularly like i don't know you haven't got anyone in mind |
| 2:10.3 | i haven't got anyone in mind i think i'd pick up outside of the obvious candidates who would be too |
... |
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