Episode 208: Epicurus on Seeking Pleasure (Part One)
The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast
Mark Linsenmayer
4.6 • 2.3K Ratings
🗓️ 28 January 2019
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On the extant fragments of Epicurus (341–270 BCE) dealing with ethics, including his "Letter to Menoceus," "The Principal Doctrines," and "The Vatican Collection of Epicurean Sayings." Plus Tim O'Keefe's Epicureanism (2010) and Martha Nussabum's The Therapy of Desire (1994).
How are we supposed to act once we understand nature as atoms bouncing and swerving around in the void, temporarily producing order through fortuitous collisions? Ruling out demanding gods means ethics is dictated by human nature: we avoid pain and pursue pleasure. However, we're very bad at this, and Epicurus wants to fix all of us!
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The partial exam in life depends on your support. |
| 0:02.8 | To find out how to do that and ways that are cheap or even free, go to partialexaminalife.com |
| 0:07.5 | slash support. |
| 0:16.6 | You're listening to the partial exam in life, a podcast by some guys who at one point |
| 0:20.5 | said on doing philosophy for living but then thought better of it. |
| 0:23.6 | Our question for episode 208 is something like, what is the wise way to live or maybe |
| 0:29.5 | what is the good for humanity and we are considering Epicurus. |
| 0:34.2 | The Greek philosopher who lived from 341 to 270 BC and we read most of the Epicurus reader |
| 0:40.5 | including his letter to monotias and the principal doctrine and the Vatican collection of Epicurian |
| 0:46.2 | sayings as well as some chapters from Tim O'Keefe's Epicurianism from 2010 and Martha |
| 0:50.8 | Newsbombs, the therapy of desire from 1994. |
| 0:54.1 | For more information about these texts, please visit partialexaminalife.com. |
| 0:58.6 | This is Mark Linton-Meyer and the happiest Zeus with my barley cake and water in medicine |
| 1:02.9 | Wisconsin. |
| 1:03.9 | This is Wes Alwyn, gorging myself on tranquility in Cambridge, Massachusetts. |
| 1:10.3 | This is Dylan Casey, out of ragsic in medicine Wisconsin. |
| 1:14.9 | Alright, we returned to Epicurus. |
| 1:16.8 | We covered his metaphysics a couple episodes ago with Lucretius. |
| 1:20.3 | We wanted to talk more about his ethics which happens to be what most of the extant texts |
| 1:24.6 | are about and we had a couple of nice secondary sources to give us interpretations of the various |
| 1:30.4 | fragments. |
| 1:31.4 | It was very helpful to read since what's available is so fragmented and not a kind of continuous |
... |
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