11/08/2005
Andrea Nightingale on Epicurus and Epicureanism
Andrea Nightingale is Professor of Classics and Comparative Literature at Stanford University. Her research interests include Greek literature and philosophy, Hellenistic philosophy, and ecological studies. She is currently researching and writing on the philosophy and literature of ecology. Professor Nightingale recieved her BA in Classics from Stanford University and a BA in Classics and Philosophy from […]
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[Music]
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This is KZSU, Stanford.
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Welcome to entitled opinions. My name is Robert Harrison
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and we're coming to you live from the Stanford campus.
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[Music]
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There is much that is strange but nothing that surpasses man and strangeness.
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He set sail on the frothing waters amid the south winds of winter,
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tacking through the mountains and furious chasms of the waves, pondering and plotting.
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He hunts the beasts of the wilderness,
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yokes the Hearsuit neck of the stallion and the undaunted bull.
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He wins his way between the laws of the earth and the adjurge justice of the gods.
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Rising high above his place, he who for the sake of adventure
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takes non being for being loses his place in the end.
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Everywhere journeying inexperienced and without issue, he comes to nothingness.
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Through no flight can he resist the one assault of death.
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[Music]
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[Music]
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There is much that is strange but nothing that surpasses man and strangeness.
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From the famous odon man in Sophocles and Tigany.
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Two and a half thousand years later we're still as strange as ever.
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A nervous, driven, unsettled species, nothing makes us more illidies it seems than being at ease.
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It's at best only a half-truth what philosophy has traditionally claimed about happiness,
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being the goal of all human action and aspiration.
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We don't really want to be happy. We may hank her after it as long as it eludes us
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but somewhere deep inside of us the prospect of happiness frightens and horrifies us.
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If man is the strangest of the many strange things on earth it's because our deepest desires and
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even some of our basic needs have a way of working against their own impulse.
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As if we were under a weird compulsion to remain agitated and out of place in the world.
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Could it be that what we loathe is what we love namely the stress and tumble of things?
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The fact is my friends that history thrives on our discontent and that we're history slaves.
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That's the scandal which the gross indiscretions of the 20th century exposed.
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I mean the scandal of this machine we call history which we have finally realized has no interest
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in promoting human happiness nor in redeeming the sufferings and sacrifices it exacts from us
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and it's drive to keep the story going. History is just like us. It doesn't know what it is up to,
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it doesn't really know what it wants. It doesn't know how to cope with its anxieties
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except by aggravating them. It's a beautiful planet we live on and maybe one day we'll learn to live on it
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less fitfully. Meanwhile we continue to make ourselves miserable. We know more or less what our
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survival needs are. Yet why is it that a number of our basic human needs go either unnoticed or
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untended bias? For example many of us today who inhabit urban first world environments suffer
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from a malaise for which there is no name. Let's call it for lack of a better term species loneliness.
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Since our millennial beginnings human beings have always shared their worlds, their homes,
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their nights and days with animals and I don't mean pets I mean our animal neighbors.
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Now all of a sudden many of us live in worlds without animals, without the diurnal and
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nocturnal presence of animal sounds. Why is this not an issue for us? What are the effects on us of
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finding ourselves and feeling ourselves utterly alone as a species? What happens to our souls when
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we suddenly lose this ancient kinship with the animal kingdom? Just as biofilia runs deep in our
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veins so too does what I would call our choral filia. Deprived of green of plants of trees,
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we succumb to a demoralization of spirit whose causes we often misidentify in favor of some
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existential psychological or neurochemical etiology. Then one day we find ourselves in a garden or
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park or countryside and feel the oppression vanish like magic. An environment without green is a
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form of spiritual death for most of us and yet we create such environments for ourselves day in and day out
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all around the world. Why? Why does the desertification of our life worlds meet with such little
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resistance? Indeed with so much cooperation from us. Is it because a choral filia runs so deep that
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we are barely conscious of its claims on us? Or is there something in us that actively turns
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against this basic disposition? A counter disposition? A spiritual death drive perhaps.
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I'm tempted to say that we've reached a point where we must now rest our happiness from the
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historical forces that trample on its prospects. That we must take those prospects into our own
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hands. But we need to know what we're doing. We need help from those who have been there before
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and have something to teach us about how to go about assuming responsibility for our own happiness.
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Who among the philosophers and sages can return to for help? Many philosophers have worried the
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question of human happiness yet in my entitled opinion, the one who has the most to teach us in
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this regard is Epicurus. Epicurus looked at the world and saw the absurdity of human
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compulsion of the perverse drive among men to conspire against serenity, of the wild rage and the human
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will to devalue the good and to bring on suffering and desolation that are optional rather than
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necessary. What Epicurus found when he looked at this spectacle was that it was driven by a
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deeply rooted anxiety about death. The fear of death, the dread and loathing of it was for him at
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the core of all human folly and remained the major impediment to human happiness.
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Epicurus is one of the few philosophers of the ancient world who advocated a sustained daily
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cultivation of the condition of mortality as opposed to blindly warring against that condition.
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For Epicurus and this is his distinction, happiness became a matter of personal responsibility
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to be assumed over and against the forces of history. And that is why we want to talk about him today
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to see if there is anything we can learn from him that applies to some of the challenges we face
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in our own very different yet in some respects very similar times.
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All my guests on this show are special but when I say I have a very special guest with me in the
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studio today I really mean it. Her name is Andrea Nightingale, professor of classics here at
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Stanford and one of America's leading scholars of Plato. To have her as a colleague at Stanford I
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count among my special blessings Andrea welcome to the program. Thank you Robert. Hi everybody.
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Andrea I really appreciate your willingness to talk today about Epicureanism because I think Epicurus
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is one of the most misunderstood and underappreciated philosophers. So hopefully together we'll
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be able to do him justice in the next hour. So let's start right off who was Epicurus. What do we
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know about him? Epicurus was an Athenian, a Greek philosopher who was living, he had born
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341 BCE, died in 270. This historical period was a period in which the Macedonians, Philip and
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ultimately Alexander had occupied Greece and this means that Athens had lost its political autonomy.
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So I do think that the historical context is important for understanding Epicurus. In 306 BCE
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Epicurus founded a school. It was called the Garden School and this was a unique school in the
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ancient world. There were obviously other schools. What was unique about it was first of all that
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Epicurus founded what we would call an alternative community. When you went to Epicurus
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a school you lived there. If you went to Plato's school you didn't actually live there. So this was
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a community that lived together and shared a specific set of values and practices. And the fact
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that he named his garden school the Garden is to me very very interesting. It occupied a position
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right outside the walls of Athens not far from Plato's academy and it did indeed have a garden
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and indeed it was a kitchen garden as we call it which means that people there were growing food
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to eat. The community was attempting to be self-sustaining and the reason why I think it's so
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interesting that he not only called a school the Garden but also had a garden is that this
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sub-tens Epicurus own philosophy because gardening makes us live with earth and on earth
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and the whole notion of gardening is one which brings the Epicurean closer to the earth and therefore
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is a sort of beautiful reflection of Epicurean philosophy. Yeah the Garden was not just
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distinguished from the Platonic Academy by virtue of the fact that it had a garden but
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Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum both of them were on public lands and they had gymnasiums
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which meant that they were actually under the supervision of the gymnasiacs as they were called.
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But Epicurus's Garden School from what I understand it was actually the title deeds were in his
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own name and therefore it was private property and therefore it was not subject to supervision
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by the authorities and maybe would you say that that's like the first school in history
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to have something that we would call academic freedom these days because of its titular status as
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private property? Absolutely again one of the unique and fascinating aspects of this school.
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Okay the the school itself had many differences from Plato's Academy not just institutionally but
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also philosophically. Why don't we talk a little bit about Epicurus's philosophy? The plateiness really went
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after Epicurus and his disciples in a big way. They really loathe them the Stoics loathe
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Epicureanism and so forth. What was all the animus about? What was it in the philosophy of Epicurus
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that made people like the plateness so hostile to? Epicurus has had so many detractors.
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I think one of the things that really bothered plateness Stoics and later of course Christians
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was the atheism and the materialism of the Epicurean philosophy. Can we do those once? Let's
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start with the atheism and materialism. Okay atheism did he deny the existence of the government? No he did not.
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Okay. He claimed that there were gods but that they had absolutely no interest in the human world.
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They seemed to have existed in the intermundia outside the human world and all they did they actually
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didn't do anything. They simply enjoyed pleasure and serenity at all times. So they do not
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function like any god that we know and we do have to remember that the gods themselves
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were Epicurus were material being so they were made up of atoms as well. Okay let's talk about
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the materials materialism everything in the universe is made up of atoms and the void. What does he mean
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by that? First of all he is attacking platonic dualism head on and basically arguing that there is
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no metaphysical entity whether it be a god, a form, a metaphysical soul, a metaphysical mind,
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it's attack and attack on dualism and what you have is an atomic theory where everything that
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exists is made up of atoms and void. Hmm when he denies that the gods not that the existence of
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the gods but when he denies that the gods have any interest in human affairs some people can
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take that as a form of profound pessimism it's like you know Nietzsche's death of god of
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Oladeth. Epicurus however took that invited people to take that as a huge liberation
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insofar as so much of human anxiety and ill-it-isness and suffering comes from
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the uncertainty about what's going to happen to me after my death and whether the gods are going to
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punish me for my wicked deeds on earth but if the gods are taken out of the picture
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then is it true to say that for Epicurus this opens up the possibility of focusing all our intention
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on maximizing the possibility of human happiness within our mortal lives? Yes that's very well put
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Epicurus was not only attacking traditional Greek religion but of course the conception of the gods
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articulated by Plato and Aristotle among others and also I would add the Stoics and the whole point
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of removing the god and arguing against any kind of metaphysical entity means that we have to bring
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ourselves back to earth because when you have a platonic god or even a Greek a traditional Greek
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god there's a sense that we are going to live on after our deaths so this is a denial of any kind of
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afterlife for the human being and it focuses us on earth and again when you think of a plate-nest
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Plato didn't think we really belonged on earth we belong in our metaphysical minds ideally outside
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the physical world on plate-nism is arguably arguably against the body and what Epicurus was
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doing was bringing us back to our bodies and not letting us escape into fantasies which involved a kind
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of flight from the body. Yeah and hence the importance of the garden did I
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understand you correctly to say that this activity of literal gardening that took place in the school
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was something that brought the disciples into direct contact with the earth and the laws of
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generation and decay life and death the the interdependence of these principles. I would agree with that
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we don't know as much as we'd like to know about what was going on in the Epicurean Garden.
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We're uh was every member of the Epicurean community there with his ho or his his shovel we don't
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actually know. Greeks in general lived pretty close to the earth but I do think it's important
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that the garden was as a were the center of intellectual activity and I also think it's interesting
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that he didn't call it for example the farm because farming has a sort of technological
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basis there were farming manuals in the ancient world and the notion of a garden I think I'm not
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trying to suggest that it's an attack on Technae. I'm sorry to attack on Stanford no.
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Of the farm it's but I do think that a garden is different from a farm and it doesn't have quite
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that technological aspect that a farm would have. Yeah it's also fascinating this correlation between
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the cultivation that gardens involve and require and the self cultivation which Epicureanism calls
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for in its in its notion of philosophy as a way of life we're going to talk shortly really about
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why philosophy for Epicureanism is a way of life and not just a set of doctrines and and and
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and creeds but um let's turn to this question of happiness if you take the we're taking we've
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taken the gods out of the picture it leaves us human beings in our mortal selves on an earth
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uh in the realm of a certain kind of weird materialism composed of atoms the soul he doesn't deny the
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existence of the soul but the soul is also materially constituted as well as the body it dies with the
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body and for Epicureanist it means that we have this one obligation while we're on earth which is
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to find a way to make ourselves happy now happiness is uh as as I mentioned my opening remarks a lot of
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philosophers have you know worried that question uh do you agree that Epicure is something of an
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exception among Greek thinkers almost all of whom Plato Aristotle the sophists uh really did not
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conceive of the possibility of human happiness outside of the concept of citizenship it's only within
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the police or within the uh within the political that human beings could fulfill their potential
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a cityless man is like a solitary piece of chess Aristotle says Epicure is it fair to say that he
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did not look to the city as the place where the fulfillment of human happiness necessarily had to
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take place on the contrary on the contrary that's right um the whole point of setting up the garden
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community was um based on the view that people had to give up political ambitions political activities
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social ambitions a whole range of desires that fueled um not only traditional Greek life but fueled
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plateness and Aristotelians although we know that Plato also had this other part of his philosophy
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whereby one was meant to somehow flee um beyond the physical world but Epicure is very consciously
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bringing the human being outside of political life but we need to remember that his school was very
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near Athens it was not a sort of flight into the wilderness and he was very much aware of what was
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going on in Athens so I don't I don't like the arguments that suggest that he simply
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ignoring the human world turning his back on everything human I agree entirely that's not a
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simple escapism and this is one I think one of the misunderstandings about the Epicureism is that
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it's a deliberate retreat from the world and application of responsibility for
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you know the social sphere and the political sphere it is true that he was no Plato
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Plato ultimately uh thought that philosophy that he was so committed to the police or Athens that
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he thought philosophy had to revolutionize politics and that his political commitments were
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were really quite unconditional up until the very end um one thing to point out about
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Plato I completely agree that um his last work was his longest work the laws he was still working
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on politics as a philosopher however Plato claimed that a philosopher who lives in a bad city should
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shelter behind a wall I think that's an interesting metaphor because it indicates that the philosopher
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should in some sense hide himself away and and hide behind a wall we can't actually see what's
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going on in the world and I see the Epicureans as not sheltering behind a wall but living in a garden
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community very near the city yeah it's important that it's a community too very much so it's an alternative
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community mm-hmm so the famous concept of Atatak see Andrea the every time even people who don't
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know that much about Epicure is or Epicureism they uh many people do know that it's associated
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with this Greek word Atatak see how do you translate it to begin with yeah hard to translate it
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it means sort of lack of anxiety lack of perturbation to use a very sort of ancient
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sort of Latin Latin type of word however I do want to emphasize that Atarak see that that
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definition sounds so negative as though you're simply lacking pain anxiety etc
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atarak see a really needs to be conceived of as joy in my opinion it's not just this negative
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state where sort of bad things are not present to one so it it includes joy and serenity and tranquility
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I think those are the most important aspects of Atarak seea well serenity and tranquility uh I think are
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good terms peace of mind good terms now the idea of joy I think is controversial I will be
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probably tending to agree with you but you don't have to convince me a little bit more about that
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in due time I suppose because I would like to see also Epicureism not just as striving towards
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as kind of a pathos state or a primitive state but actually a more positive one so
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don't you see joy as a positive state I do that's what I'm saying okay that I'd like to see Atatak see
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having this positive element okay not just a yeah this Atatak seea really comes for Epicure's
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through philosophy no it's philosophy the precondition for achieving the state of mind which is
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unperturbed utterly always why why is philosophy so crucial um happy it's crucial for number of
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reasons that in order to achieve this kind of lack of anxiety and this pleasure the Epicurean
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needs to take a very good hard look at his or her life the first thing you have to look at is
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the problem of desire human beings tend to have a huge range of desires potentially sort of
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infinite desires one of which would be for example the desire for immortality um we see nowadays
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also you know the desire to reshape the human body become immortal this seems to be a human impulse
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so in order to achieve serenity one of the first things you need to do is look at the fact of your
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death and the atomic theory of course makes it very very clear that you are going to die and
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that's going to be permanent and there is no afterlife so once you come to grips with your
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finitude this is very much a philosophy of finitude you can therefore look again at your desires
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and say which of these desires is leading me to pleasure to pleasures and which are actually
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harming me and certainly the desire for example for immortality or desire for political
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ambition social ambition wealth these things do not actually make us happy according to Epicurus
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they are desires that are running away with us so we need to look at our desires and actually
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limit them and i think that the sort of key point is you start with death and understand
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the limits of the human being the limits of our lives and once you accept your finitude you can
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then begin to understand the theory and practice a theory which aims at pleasure here on earth
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pleasure is another translation of the Greek term he donate if i'm pronouncing it correctly
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hey donate hey donate is that an adequate translation you think pleasure pleasure has a lot of
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connotations in our society no we we we associated i think a little bit too much with
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the gratification of desires exactly and i don't think that's what uh...
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Epicurus well you know uh... it's interesting that so many people attacked Epicurus precisely
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because they did even in in Epicurus to stay consider hey donate to be
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pleasure in the sense that we now think of pleasure and they actually considered that what was
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going on at the garden school was a kind of bakanalia that everybody was just drinking and eating
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and engaging in lots of sexual activities so again and this goes back to your point
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robert about the whole relation of Epicurus to the city one of the things that bothered people
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was that the goal of human life is pleasure not virtue this bothered the stoics this bothered
|
| 00:27:29.760 |
the platelets however we need to point out that you can't live a pleasure for life as an
|
| 00:27:35.360 |
Epicurean unless in fact you do cultivate some quite a few virtues and you wouldn't be able to
|
| 00:27:42.400 |
have a pleasurable or ataracic life without um... discipline yourself and living within your own
|
| 00:27:52.160 |
smaller range of desires yeah we're gonna go through some of these uh... typically Epicurean
|
| 00:27:57.520 |
virtues in a minute uh... but let's make sure that we understood that we're dispelling
|
| 00:28:03.280 |
this notion that Epicureanism equals uh...
|
| 00:28:08.080 |
eat drink and be married for tomorrow we die that is not what epic absolutely not
|
| 00:28:12.800 |
in fact on the contrary yeah and actually people think of Epicureans as hedonists there is
|
| 00:28:17.760 |
there not hedonists they live a very very austere life um... a life that i think many
|
| 00:28:22.960 |
modern people would find boring and dull well in fact i think uh... Epicurus consistently
|
| 00:28:30.560 |
denounced lust gluttony and uh... indulgence and excess of any sort
|
| 00:28:36.960 |
yes he was very much against excess but i do want to point out that he was in favor of
|
| 00:28:41.280 |
enjoying sensual pleasures eating drinking sex these were good things as long as one did them
|
| 00:28:50.240 |
in engaged in these in measure in measure exactly out so he's not sort of against physical
|
| 00:28:56.480 |
pleasure is very much for it
|
| 00:28:59.840 |
within limits of course yeah
|
| 00:29:02.080 |
uh... it's not it's not this grasping at the
|
| 00:29:06.080 |
pleasures of the present in this uh... anxious way that i'm gonna die i better just kind of
|
| 00:29:11.120 |
uh... feel myself as much like him on a note
|
| 00:29:13.600 |
moderation
|
| 00:29:14.800 |
measure yeah and of course the fact is that
|
| 00:29:17.920 |
an Epicurean
|
| 00:29:19.440 |
uh... has no fear of death
|
| 00:29:21.760 |
Epicure says death is nothing to us and he argues for this luchricious argues for this
|
| 00:29:27.760 |
and so the point of being an Epicurean as you is that you have
|
| 00:29:31.760 |
stopped fearing death
|
| 00:29:33.680 |
yeah and for that reason if you don't have to eat drinking b-mary
|
| 00:29:37.280 |
this moment right because tomorrow you'll die the fact is it tomorrow if you
|
| 00:29:40.640 |
die tomorrow that's just fine
|
| 00:29:43.040 |
but now we want to talk about these pleasures which are much more refined or in a sense
|
| 00:29:47.120 |
cultivated
|
| 00:29:48.160 |
and then uh... you know mirror bodily pleasures even though there's no
|
| 00:29:52.320 |
prescription against them
|
| 00:29:54.160 |
the uh... you know eating drinking the sex and all the other
|
| 00:29:57.280 |
they have their place
|
| 00:29:58.800 |
but they uh...
|
| 00:30:00.840 |
they don't have the same sweetness i think he'd he donate a hidone has a
|
| 00:30:05.360 |
root uh... at a melodically coming in the word sweet but that
|
| 00:30:09.120 |
that kind of sweetness i think uh...
|
| 00:30:11.720 |
entails cultivating a number of uh... different sort of states of mind as
|
| 00:30:16.720 |
as well as virtues
|
| 00:30:18.560 |
that we uh... that we want to talk about now
|
| 00:30:22.360 |
i'm certainly one of the great pleasures for an Epicurean was friendship
|
| 00:30:26.200 |
yeah let's start with friendship because chief among the Epicurean's
|
| 00:30:29.760 |
virtues is really friendship like i can quote something i have a quote here
|
| 00:30:32.880 |
from him
|
| 00:30:34.280 |
of all the preparations which wisdom makes for the blessedness of the
|
| 00:30:37.920 |
complete life
|
| 00:30:39.760 |
by far the most important is the acquisition of friendship
|
| 00:30:43.360 |
it's beautiful it's part of the one of the most beautiful aspects of
|
| 00:30:46.400 |
Epicurean philosophy because friendship
|
| 00:30:49.280 |
enables us to not only enjoy pleasure with one's friends
|
| 00:30:53.400 |
but also
|
| 00:30:54.480 |
expect ongoing pleasures
|
| 00:30:57.200 |
yeah in fact that the curious
|
| 00:30:58.680 |
here you go
|
| 00:30:59.640 |
he held that it was more important to have someone to eat with
|
| 00:31:02.280 |
then to have something to eat
|
| 00:31:04.040 |
he did
|
| 00:31:05.400 |
uh... actually speaking of pleasures i'd like it to take a moment
|
| 00:31:09.080 |
uh... to give robert
|
| 00:31:11.400 |
a gift
|
| 00:31:12.560 |
and uh... in this period of
|
| 00:31:15.280 |
friendship and pleasure and
|
| 00:31:19.040 |
gardening in fact
|
| 00:31:20.840 |
as well as uh...
|
| 00:31:24.800 |
this is not scripted by this is not scripted i have a gift for robert
|
| 00:31:29.120 |
which um... is celebrating
|
| 00:31:31.200 |
Epicurean virtues and this gift is a bottle of
|
| 00:31:34.120 |
luddite wine
|
| 00:31:35.680 |
her hair and i've uh... i'm showing this now to robert
|
| 00:31:39.880 |
the beauty of this wine is not only that it's called luddite wine
|
| 00:31:44.120 |
but that on the label which by the way looks a little bit like a piece of
|
| 00:31:48.040 |
parchment
|
| 00:31:49.480 |
uh... you have a picture drawn of two human hands holding a little
|
| 00:31:54.360 |
little pot of soil and out of the plot of soil is growing
|
| 00:31:58.080 |
a
|
| 00:31:59.000 |
uh... a little plant so it has a kind of gardening aspect
|
| 00:32:02.680 |
uh... i'm not trying to suggest that Epicureus is a proto-ledite but i think
|
| 00:32:06.440 |
you can see
|
| 00:32:07.800 |
the points of contact
|
| 00:32:10.040 |
so i'm uh... in this period of friendship and pleasure
|
| 00:32:13.880 |
uh...
|
| 00:32:14.840 |
i'm i'm giving this gift to robert
|
| 00:32:17.200 |
i do want to add one little point about let i'd wine for those of you who are
|
| 00:32:21.000 |
interested in this issue
|
| 00:32:24.520 |
luddite wine costs nineteen dollars in the only reason i bring this up
|
| 00:32:28.520 |
is because you'd expect that i'd like to be about three bucks fifty for the
|
| 00:32:32.080 |
ordinary let
|
| 00:32:33.640 |
uh... my guess is that they had to basically sort of import let i
|
| 00:32:37.720 |
it's all over the nation who could come and
|
| 00:32:40.360 |
step on grapes with their bare feet
|
| 00:32:42.800 |
and that this no doubt drove the price up
|
| 00:32:46.120 |
but here is let i'd wine for robert and it must be
|
| 00:32:50.080 |
uh... enjoyed in a specific context
|
| 00:32:52.800 |
in a garden setting with friends
|
| 00:32:55.280 |
uh... i think this one needs some cheese
|
| 00:32:57.600 |
maybe some let i'd cheese
|
| 00:32:59.840 |
and i'd also like to ask you if you could
|
| 00:33:02.080 |
report on a later show robert about the quality of
|
| 00:33:06.160 |
let i'd like to listen if i had a bottle open or i would pop it open right
|
| 00:33:09.920 |
no we're not we're not in a garden or not in a garden well this is uh...
|
| 00:33:13.960 |
i accept this you know i'm
|
| 00:33:16.120 |
i'm very moved thank you and i accepted the spirit of friendship which is
|
| 00:33:18.840 |
offered
|
| 00:33:19.880 |
and it's certainly that a peculiar uh...
|
| 00:33:22.920 |
spirit that uh... comes through here it is actually is called the language
|
| 00:33:26.520 |
duck
|
| 00:33:27.200 |
is that the
|
| 00:33:28.320 |
on the back there's the language we did that the language that which has a
|
| 00:33:31.920 |
kind of nice
|
| 00:33:32.880 |
city of blood i
|
| 00:33:34.040 |
thirteen point two
|
| 00:33:36.080 |
by volume that is a lot that's a very serious pleasure do you like
|
| 00:33:40.600 |
don't you love this um...
|
| 00:33:43.280 |
yes this label with the little plant
|
| 00:33:45.960 |
i do i do i like the fact that nothing is there is just a lot i'd vineyards
|
| 00:33:49.640 |
that's all yeah this great
|
| 00:33:51.240 |
anyway i'm back to the question of
|
| 00:33:54.320 |
uh... not just friendship but i think that
|
| 00:33:57.040 |
we were talking about a pecure in virtues that are not
|
| 00:34:00.000 |
just a matter of enjoying physical pleasures
|
| 00:34:02.760 |
yeah and and friendship is a is a case of where
|
| 00:34:06.240 |
these are not uh... virtues that are are are are spontaneous or natural
|
| 00:34:10.640 |
they have to be cultivated
|
| 00:34:12.360 |
in fact if you're says it is necessary however to prepare the way for
|
| 00:34:15.800 |
friendship in advance for we also so see in the ground
|
| 00:34:20.200 |
and so
|
| 00:34:21.600 |
it's a beautiful friendship is not a given it's a virtue that has to be
|
| 00:34:24.480 |
practice and refine
|
| 00:34:26.200 |
and cultivated
|
| 00:34:27.800 |
uh...
|
| 00:34:28.600 |
absolutely first and foremost cultivating certain
|
| 00:34:31.720 |
uh... virtues in your cell qualities in yourself that will render render you
|
| 00:34:35.480 |
attractive to your friend
|
| 00:34:37.240 |
that's exactly right you can't be
|
| 00:34:39.000 |
a good friend unless you've already cultivated
|
| 00:34:41.520 |
yourself yeah you have to bring something to the table yeah
|
| 00:34:44.360 |
almost literally the table because the uh... the conversation the in fact
|
| 00:34:48.560 |
let's talk about conversation which is so intimately related to
|
| 00:34:52.680 |
uh... friendship
|
| 00:34:54.520 |
that conversation is the other great virtue
|
| 00:34:57.400 |
uh... for a peculiar
|
| 00:34:58.680 |
very much so the greatest pleasure in life i think so is conversing with your
|
| 00:35:02.440 |
friends absolutely i think that was critical
|
| 00:35:05.800 |
to the a peculiar life
|
| 00:35:08.160 |
and i myself
|
| 00:35:09.460 |
i happen to think it is one of the great choice of life
|
| 00:35:12.080 |
i do too and that's why
|
| 00:35:13.840 |
i started this radio program
|
| 00:35:15.720 |
this is your you know
|
| 00:35:17.480 |
conversation in the a security spirit mostly with friends but not you know
|
| 00:35:21.480 |
or if you come on here you become my friend that's right if you're not
|
| 00:35:24.400 |
already
|
| 00:35:25.680 |
but uh...
|
| 00:35:27.120 |
it you know it's certainly the case that like with friendship you have to
|
| 00:35:29.880 |
cultivate that you
|
| 00:35:31.080 |
if a conversation is not something that we're born with either
|
| 00:35:34.600 |
to become a worthy interlocutor you have to develop a mastery of verbal
|
| 00:35:37.880 |
skills
|
| 00:35:39.200 |
you have to uh...
|
| 00:35:41.160 |
a tainic degree of let's say unaffected eloquence
|
| 00:35:44.400 |
and you also have to expand your mind you have to have something to say
|
| 00:35:47.760 |
you do have to and that means that you should be setting philosophy or what
|
| 00:35:50.840 |
is it
|
| 00:35:51.640 |
because you come to the table with ideas it's above all the exchange
|
| 00:35:55.600 |
of ideas that the pleasures of friendship
|
| 00:35:57.960 |
that's correct so there there's a sense in which
|
| 00:36:01.280 |
to be a true epicurean you actually have to be
|
| 00:36:04.040 |
a philosopher
|
| 00:36:05.200 |
we exactly
|
| 00:36:07.040 |
and this is something that if the students were listening to us really
|
| 00:36:09.760 |
should take to heart which is that uh... these uh... the kind of cultivation
|
| 00:36:15.200 |
of things that we're talking about here
|
| 00:36:17.680 |
uh... or what we're also trying to teach no
|
| 00:36:19.920 |
very much so
|
| 00:36:20.880 |
a lot of ideas
|
| 00:36:22.680 |
not to uh...
|
| 00:36:24.160 |
to expand you know your verbal skills also at the same time
|
| 00:36:28.920 |
cut
|
| 00:36:30.200 |
speaking complaints
|
| 00:36:31.880 |
and what a more actually since i am myself a let i i
|
| 00:36:35.480 |
really emphasize reading and speaking
|
| 00:36:38.160 |
in my classes i don't use power point et cetera
|
| 00:36:41.480 |
i i believe we have to do
|
| 00:36:43.600 |
develop in our students the ability to read well and to speak well
|
| 00:36:49.720 |
you know at the end of his life when uh... a peculiar with suffering from
|
| 00:36:53.160 |
uh... ailments uh... on his death bed
|
| 00:36:56.080 |
we read what do you what does he remember with grand we're going to talk about
|
| 00:36:59.360 |
gratitude in the
|
| 00:37:01.280 |
conversations with his friends know you were telling about this letter he writes
|
| 00:37:06.200 |
yet he actually light writes a letter on his death bed he's suffering from a
|
| 00:37:10.080 |
whole range of physical
|
| 00:37:12.360 |
agonies
|
| 00:37:13.440 |
and yet he's able to experience pleasure in the midst of that physical pain
|
| 00:37:18.160 |
and he writes in his will
|
| 00:37:20.360 |
uh... and he writes a letter to a friend saying you know i'm here experiencing
|
| 00:37:24.400 |
the greatest
|
| 00:37:25.640 |
pleasure failing grateful for the conversations we had with one another
|
| 00:37:31.440 |
so gratitude is absolutely critical and i would point out
|
| 00:37:35.680 |
that uh...
|
| 00:37:38.280 |
epicure us was very well aware that human beings experience pain
|
| 00:37:43.160 |
and misfortune all the time
|
| 00:37:46.520 |
and part of what we need to achieve is epicurees is an ongoing state of
|
| 00:37:51.920 |
autorexia and pleasure even in the midst of pains
|
| 00:37:55.680 |
so here's a good example of a man who was experiencing a great deal of
|
| 00:38:00.000 |
physical pain but nonetheless
|
| 00:38:02.560 |
he remains in this sort of tranquil pleasurable state because
|
| 00:38:06.840 |
he has gratitude
|
| 00:38:08.720 |
for the conversations he had with dear friends
|
| 00:38:14.240 |
i want to mention very briefly just three other
|
| 00:38:17.240 |
kind of personality traits that needed cultivation for the Epicurean
|
| 00:38:21.520 |
uh... so wavity
|
| 00:38:23.720 |
you know you're not going to get philosophers talking a lot about that but
|
| 00:38:26.360 |
so i've it the which then was very important for the romans swavitas
|
| 00:38:30.120 |
yeah and sisorog
|
| 00:38:31.400 |
you know defines it i think
|
| 00:38:33.240 |
correctly as a certain agreeableness of speech and manners again you render
|
| 00:38:36.840 |
yourself attractive to people you do to your friends in so i've it and uh...
|
| 00:38:41.240 |
another is
|
| 00:38:42.400 |
epikea or consideration for others
|
| 00:38:46.160 |
very proton christian that you had a consideration this wasn't the condescension
|
| 00:38:50.080 |
of the magnanimous man exactly or the other sort of
|
| 00:38:53.920 |
uh...
|
| 00:38:55.000 |
the courtesy of the noble no this was a real consideration or philia
|
| 00:38:59.080 |
love for mankind that he really called for a love of mankind he did
|
| 00:39:03.880 |
and it's a very sort of
|
| 00:39:05.160 |
anti-competitive he feels yes
|
| 00:39:09.080 |
and fact i think the Epicureans in roam were like the most pleasant people
|
| 00:39:13.080 |
uh...
|
| 00:39:14.440 |
probably the one that i can hang out with
|
| 00:39:17.080 |
and even though they they had that kind of uh...
|
| 00:39:20.480 |
let's say you know the criticism
|
| 00:39:22.160 |
they also if you get pattsey honesty of speech if you're not a cure in you
|
| 00:39:25.680 |
don't spare the feelings even of your best friend
|
| 00:39:28.640 |
uh... or anyone if
|
| 00:39:30.360 |
you have to tell the truth
|
| 00:39:31.960 |
about something and that was a prime directive you know so it was against
|
| 00:39:35.080 |
lottery
|
| 00:39:36.040 |
there was no radically so in fact there's a whole treatise written
|
| 00:39:39.240 |
uh... against
|
| 00:39:40.880 |
but says peri parisias
|
| 00:39:42.920 |
by a follower of epicureus
|
| 00:39:45.440 |
and it really details the ways in which you have to tell the truth to your
|
| 00:39:49.800 |
friends even if it's
|
| 00:39:51.480 |
a painful truth
|
| 00:39:53.000 |
so parisia is very very important
|
| 00:39:56.200 |
yeah so here we're talking you know friendship conversation swabity all
|
| 00:39:59.320 |
these things at and he also praises you know the traditional virtues of
|
| 00:40:02.800 |
temperance prudence encouraging all this is part of a project of self
|
| 00:40:07.040 |
humanisation
|
| 00:40:08.280 |
you don't go you don't
|
| 00:40:09.720 |
with drop in the city of athons into the garden
|
| 00:40:12.440 |
you know just to kind of
|
| 00:40:14.120 |
hang around
|
| 00:40:15.040 |
note you go there in order to uh...
|
| 00:40:18.160 |
cultivate and develop a whole series of social virtues not political
|
| 00:40:21.760 |
virtues
|
| 00:40:23.120 |
but let's face it
|
| 00:40:24.200 |
whatever we might understand by political virtues they are founded i think
|
| 00:40:27.640 |
on first and foremost social virtues
|
| 00:40:30.160 |
now and actually
|
| 00:40:31.760 |
robert makes an excellent point
|
| 00:40:33.960 |
that people think that because the epicureans are somehow turning their back
|
| 00:40:37.280 |
on the city
|
| 00:40:38.600 |
that they're turning their back on virtues that's quite wrong there they're
|
| 00:40:41.360 |
turning their back on political virtues while
|
| 00:40:44.880 |
uh... devoting themselves to the cultivation of social virtues and that's the
|
| 00:40:49.240 |
key
|
| 00:40:50.120 |
uh... difference between say epicureus and the platonists and so on
|
| 00:40:56.720 |
and we talked about gratitude why
|
| 00:40:59.600 |
is gratitude such a crucial
|
| 00:41:02.560 |
uh... state of mind or virtue for epicureus
|
| 00:41:06.440 |
you know gratitude
|
| 00:41:08.200 |
it's so interesting i've been thinking about modern day america
|
| 00:41:11.960 |
and how little gratitude
|
| 00:41:14.080 |
we have
|
| 00:41:16.400 |
i think it's because we live in a very consumerist culture where we always
|
| 00:41:19.680 |
want something more something more
|
| 00:41:22.120 |
and this is true whether one has political ambition social ambition are
|
| 00:41:26.000 |
just likes to buy things
|
| 00:41:27.920 |
uh... we're never really grateful for what we have because we want something
|
| 00:41:31.520 |
more than we can have
|
| 00:41:33.520 |
for a period that means you're going to experience pain because you're going to
|
| 00:41:36.200 |
always
|
| 00:41:37.320 |
that not have something that you you want
|
| 00:41:40.560 |
and so i take it that a lot of americans have not
|
| 00:41:44.560 |
uh... are not cultivating the virtue of gratitude
|
| 00:41:48.360 |
which to me is so essential to living a good
|
| 00:41:52.360 |
unhappy life i actually believe the gratitude is fundamental
|
| 00:41:56.480 |
and that part of
|
| 00:41:58.280 |
what a peter is called pain management is to look into the past
|
| 00:42:02.240 |
and remember
|
| 00:42:04.120 |
uh... with grateful miss
|
| 00:42:06.160 |
the pleasures one had
|
| 00:42:08.040 |
and there's even this notion of the art of forgetting that you're in some
|
| 00:42:11.560 |
sense meant to forget
|
| 00:42:13.040 |
the pains you had in the past
|
| 00:42:15.520 |
this doesn't mean going into denial it's not as though you're supposed to
|
| 00:42:18.120 |
forget things that happened
|
| 00:42:20.160 |
but i think the point here is
|
| 00:42:22.480 |
to uh... emphasize and cultivate gratitude gratitude such that those pains in
|
| 00:42:29.080 |
the past
|
| 00:42:30.600 |
uh... are put in a context of of pleasure
|
| 00:42:35.920 |
fascinating
|
| 00:42:37.400 |
here here is a quote the life of the fool is marked by ingratitude and
|
| 00:42:41.840 |
apprehension
|
| 00:42:43.440 |
the drift of his thought is exclusively toward the future
|
| 00:42:47.440 |
it's amazing isn't it this it sounds very much like at the american
|
| 00:42:50.120 |
that you're describing an america which prides itself on always forward
|
| 00:42:53.720 |
looking this
|
| 00:42:54.760 |
like uh... moving on this hold uh... but now thing about a moving on
|
| 00:42:58.760 |
and
|
| 00:42:59.840 |
the uh...
|
| 00:43:01.480 |
that's always about something that's gonna happen in the future
|
| 00:43:04.520 |
and i do think that
|
| 00:43:06.160 |
uh... epicure set of very interesting notion of temporality
|
| 00:43:09.840 |
that he understood that the human mind he actually thinks that the human mind
|
| 00:43:14.080 |
experiences more pain than the body
|
| 00:43:16.320 |
because mind rags us into the past and drags us into the future it means that we
|
| 00:43:20.000 |
can experience anxieties
|
| 00:43:22.160 |
about the future fears about the future
|
| 00:43:24.720 |
so the mind is
|
| 00:43:26.540 |
uh... something that really needs to be managed
|
| 00:43:29.200 |
and i do think that part of what he's arguing
|
| 00:43:32.760 |
is that you know these anxieties we have for the future and also desires
|
| 00:43:36.960 |
for things that are going to happen in the future and are not happening now
|
| 00:43:40.960 |
are something that need to be
|
| 00:43:43.500 |
uh...
|
| 00:43:45.840 |
if not squelged then
|
| 00:43:48.340 |
seriously we considered we need to bring ourselves
|
| 00:43:52.240 |
to the table as it were and enjoy
|
| 00:43:54.880 |
what we have here and now and that includes of course
|
| 00:43:58.200 |
enjoying
|
| 00:43:59.280 |
uh... the pleasures that we've had in the past via memory
|
| 00:44:03.200 |
and were also supposed to cultivate hope hope
|
| 00:44:06.900 |
or pleasurable activities in the future
|
| 00:44:09.680 |
and since we don't fear death
|
| 00:44:11.720 |
and death is quote nothing to us
|
| 00:44:14.520 |
there's nothing again to be anxious about
|
| 00:44:17.560 |
vis-a-vis the future
|
| 00:44:19.720 |
so i i i would i love about this philosophy is it brings us
|
| 00:44:23.720 |
uh...
|
| 00:44:24.560 |
it brings us back to earth
|
| 00:44:26.520 |
to the here and now
|
| 00:44:28.840 |
compels us to take pleasure in what we do have
|
| 00:44:32.840 |
and not be sort of striving for things that we don't have and can't have
|
| 00:44:39.160 |
and there's i i i have some quotes that
|
| 00:44:41.880 |
confirm what you're saying and so relevant to
|
| 00:44:45.560 |
i think you're absolutely right about uh... gratitude being
|
| 00:44:48.880 |
let's say the the most underrepresented
|
| 00:44:51.160 |
under cultivated
|
| 00:44:53.120 |
virtue among us but he even has hit the brilliant
|
| 00:44:56.720 |
linking of
|
| 00:45:00.160 |
ungratefulness to gluttony
|
| 00:45:02.080 |
listen to this
|
| 00:45:03.600 |
and when i read this i think i think of our society of it
|
| 00:45:06.680 |
it is the ungratefulness in the soul
|
| 00:45:09.480 |
that renders the creature
|
| 00:45:11.520 |
endlessly licorice
|
| 00:45:13.520 |
of embellishments in diet
|
| 00:45:15.720 |
amazing
|
| 00:45:16.800 |
an amazing quote
|
| 00:45:18.520 |
so the lack of gratitude is a form of greed
|
| 00:45:21.480 |
it's a form of greed and it means that you can never get enough and this is a
|
| 00:45:24.440 |
kind of gluttony that would pertain
|
| 00:45:26.440 |
what you were saying earlier about those who would if they could would want
|
| 00:45:30.120 |
to go on living forever never having had enough of life
|
| 00:45:33.400 |
yeah and you were
|
| 00:45:34.400 |
alluding i think that these would be a more lists in our midst who uh...
|
| 00:45:38.640 |
you know
|
| 00:45:39.360 |
uh... have this kind of insane sort of hope now that with modern technology and
|
| 00:45:43.560 |
stem cell research and nanotechnology and
|
| 00:45:46.360 |
and uh...
|
| 00:45:48.160 |
that that somehow life can be endlessly prolonged
|
| 00:45:53.240 |
but for epicure us
|
| 00:45:55.840 |
that is
|
| 00:45:57.680 |
on the one hand at
|
| 00:45:59.240 |
a lack of gratitude
|
| 00:46:01.520 |
and it's also doesn't he say somewhere that
|
| 00:46:04.480 |
uh... if we were to be a mortally would not add anything that's right
|
| 00:46:08.320 |
would add anything whatsoever to what we already have
|
| 00:46:12.160 |
but i do think that
|
| 00:46:16.160 |
uh...
|
| 00:46:17.120 |
that
|
| 00:46:18.080 |
you know when you think of the modern day desire for at more life
|
| 00:46:22.800 |
what you're really seeing is a body-hating culture
|
| 00:46:26.280 |
and i do think that human beings tend to have a love-hate relationship with
|
| 00:46:30.040 |
the earth and with the body might even say a hate-hate relationship in some cases
|
| 00:46:36.080 |
i think one of the reasons why people
|
| 00:46:38.840 |
eight the earth
|
| 00:46:40.960 |
will because of course we know that we're going to die and we're conscious
|
| 00:46:45.080 |
beings also we live in time which
|
| 00:46:48.400 |
doesn't allow us to just be here in the present
|
| 00:46:51.440 |
so there's a sense in which we look at earth and we see it as
|
| 00:46:55.120 |
not really our home we don't really dwell on earth
|
| 00:46:58.760 |
and therefore i think we're
|
| 00:47:00.120 |
we create fantasies of some other place that we might well something better
|
| 00:47:05.160 |
uh... we might see earth in fact as
|
| 00:47:08.160 |
in terms of a home it would be the home of our corpse rather than the home
|
| 00:47:12.400 |
that were meant to live in
|
| 00:47:14.600 |
so what i see an epicureus is an attack on this body-hating
|
| 00:47:19.540 |
earth-hating culture
|
| 00:47:21.640 |
and uh... a philosophy that asks us to embrace our bodies and embrace our
|
| 00:47:27.920 |
earthliness
|
| 00:47:29.280 |
our bodily life
|
| 00:47:30.880 |
and our finitude
|
| 00:47:32.760 |
and therefore actually experienced the pleasures that we can have
|
| 00:47:38.440 |
and the concept of finitude is crucial to understanding the wholeness of a life or
|
| 00:47:42.520 |
the fact that it's uh... like a meal i i bring up the analogy of a meal because i
|
| 00:47:47.160 |
think
|
| 00:47:48.360 |
and if not a pique is at one of his disciples
|
| 00:47:51.800 |
uh... said that we take leave of life as after a feast
|
| 00:47:55.720 |
you know we're satiated but
|
| 00:47:58.120 |
we don't want anymore it's it's it's enough
|
| 00:48:00.520 |
this is a famous limits the limits are there yet the famous passage in the
|
| 00:48:04.960 |
crease and it's also a gratitude what he says is
|
| 00:48:08.200 |
uh... if you have not enjoyed your life greatly
|
| 00:48:11.760 |
why is it that you want more life which will also not be fun for you
|
| 00:48:16.280 |
anyway why not retire from the feast with gratitude so again
|
| 00:48:21.320 |
is whole image of the feast is not only that you should
|
| 00:48:24.480 |
be satisfied with having enough but again
|
| 00:48:27.360 |
be grateful for what you have
|
| 00:48:29.560 |
and that if if you're not a grateful
|
| 00:48:32.240 |
feistor or a grateful person at the feast
|
| 00:48:35.320 |
you're only going to go on having more
|
| 00:48:37.960 |
unhappy experiences
|
| 00:48:41.160 |
and just a last thing on gratitude the uh... you know that
|
| 00:48:44.220 |
epicure says that
|
| 00:48:48.360 |
the ungrateful
|
| 00:48:50.000 |
uh...
|
| 00:48:50.760 |
become old here's the quote forgetting the good that has been
|
| 00:48:54.560 |
the ungrateful person becomes an old man this very day
|
| 00:48:58.560 |
yeah that goes that puts it well
|
| 00:49:01.920 |
and then he says
|
| 00:49:03.120 |
when
|
| 00:49:04.200 |
both when young and old one should devote oneself to philosophy
|
| 00:49:08.320 |
in order that while growing old he shall be young in blessings
|
| 00:49:12.120 |
through gratitude for what has been
|
| 00:49:15.400 |
beautiful i don't think we can
|
| 00:49:17.480 |
overestimate the importance that gratitude plays in his whole uh...
|
| 00:49:20.840 |
screwn happiness i see it absolutely crucial
|
| 00:49:24.440 |
absolutely crucial and if you cannot
|
| 00:49:27.040 |
cultivate an experience gratitude
|
| 00:49:29.920 |
then you cannot be happy and i'd like the way believe that this is true
|
| 00:49:35.400 |
happiness is uh...
|
| 00:49:37.920 |
again philosophers have
|
| 00:49:40.600 |
talked about happiness a lot uh... but
|
| 00:49:44.600 |
but
|
| 00:49:45.560 |
why don't we talk a little bit about the legacy of epicureism
|
| 00:49:49.400 |
for i think many people are realized that it was one of the most successful schools of philosophy
|
| 00:49:54.040 |
in
|
| 00:49:54.720 |
all of western history
|
| 00:49:56.760 |
uh...
|
| 00:49:57.800 |
actually they were
|
| 00:49:58.560 |
garden cultures in asian minor
|
| 00:50:01.600 |
agent
|
| 00:50:02.520 |
idli
|
| 00:50:03.640 |
uh... in addition to the school in ash
|
| 00:50:06.760 |
at the so there were garden schools all over the mediterranean in the ancient world
|
| 00:50:11.800 |
yes and and it last i mean i think he found the school in three or six b_c_
|
| 00:50:16.240 |
but then we have uh...
|
| 00:50:18.560 |
how many centuries at least until
|
| 00:50:20.920 |
the uh...
|
| 00:50:22.040 |
the
|
| 00:50:22.880 |
the air of constant
|
| 00:50:24.600 |
now and beyond
|
| 00:50:26.240 |
epicureanism was a dominant philosophy all around the world now
|
| 00:50:30.240 |
very much so or least around the epic uh... over the mediterranean world yet but
|
| 00:50:33.880 |
it is true that ultimately the christians
|
| 00:50:36.520 |
uh... especially in the period of constant
|
| 00:50:39.600 |
basically sort of killed it off to the extent that it could
|
| 00:50:43.040 |
and i don't really think that epicureanism became
|
| 00:50:48.160 |
popular again until the enlightenment when people were attacking religion and religious
|
| 00:50:53.520 |
fanaticism
|
| 00:50:54.960 |
and uh...
|
| 00:50:56.840 |
privileging reason
|
| 00:50:58.680 |
that's when you start seeing people
|
| 00:51:01.320 |
uh... warming towards epicureanism
|
| 00:51:04.160 |
some some names that come to mind are locked
|
| 00:51:06.920 |
jefferson and of course later marks
|
| 00:51:09.480 |
so uh...
|
| 00:51:11.320 |
it's interesting that while
|
| 00:51:13.520 |
at the three in a certain point underground during uh...
|
| 00:51:16.920 |
middle ages and the renaissance
|
| 00:51:19.280 |
it emerged
|
| 00:51:21.520 |
in the enlightenment
|
| 00:51:24.480 |
we're talking about seven centuries now
|
| 00:51:27.320 |
uh... before
|
| 00:51:28.480 |
let's say the the air of constant in i would also argue that
|
| 00:51:32.000 |
a lot of epicureanism doctrine was actually incorporated rather than
|
| 00:51:35.880 |
repudiated in christian now
|
| 00:51:38.440 |
in saint paul at least a call new very well with the epicurean's war
|
| 00:51:42.400 |
he refers he eludes to them i think in the first letter the salonians
|
| 00:51:47.040 |
about the peace and safety crowd
|
| 00:51:49.560 |
where this alluding to this doctrine that the only role of government
|
| 00:51:53.720 |
is to provide us with
|
| 00:51:55.320 |
peace and safety
|
| 00:51:57.040 |
that's interesting to very minimalist notion of government
|
| 00:52:00.400 |
and actually is one that uh... i think was inherited by tomas jefferson and
|
| 00:52:04.400 |
others that or that lock in notion that
|
| 00:52:06.960 |
that government governs best which governs least that's exactly right
|
| 00:52:10.560 |
although jefferson
|
| 00:52:12.080 |
uh... claim to be a materialists so he's not
|
| 00:52:15.160 |
in fact coming out
|
| 00:52:16.720 |
but not it is he does not
|
| 00:52:18.960 |
claim to be a christian in the later part of his life he adopted a kind of
|
| 00:52:22.600 |
day is a buddy was quite atman about the fact that he was a materialist
|
| 00:52:27.320 |
and indeed an epicurean
|
| 00:52:30.480 |
well i i think some strains of epicureanism getting incorporated by paul
|
| 00:52:34.680 |
for example
|
| 00:52:36.200 |
epi curse speaks about the fullness of life or the fullness of this life
|
| 00:52:40.200 |
i think that same phrase gets taken over by paul to speak about the fullness of
|
| 00:52:43.960 |
course of the next life
|
| 00:52:45.800 |
uh... and all these virtues which is supposed to be realized here for
|
| 00:52:49.160 |
the curious then are projected into this other
|
| 00:52:52.400 |
epicurean heaven you know after death but
|
| 00:52:56.000 |
it's very much joy
|
| 00:52:57.560 |
serenity
|
| 00:52:58.680 |
yes peace of mind the christian uh... paradise is
|
| 00:53:02.720 |
i think you have a cure you look at
|
| 00:53:04.840 |
the case of this
|
| 00:53:05.880 |
but you get your glorified body so it's not only but i do have to say that
|
| 00:53:09.800 |
also you know early christians were forming alternative communities and and
|
| 00:53:14.400 |
we're cutting themselves off from various sort of political
|
| 00:53:17.920 |
uh... regime so there is that similarities well
|
| 00:53:21.280 |
well finally we don't have the well they have a few minutes of how about
|
| 00:53:24.800 |
how about we talk a little bit about jefferson in what way was he an
|
| 00:53:27.240 |
epicurean
|
| 00:53:28.440 |
yet so interesting because
|
| 00:53:30.480 |
modern day america i would argue is
|
| 00:53:32.920 |
so anti-epicurean we've already talked about this but
|
| 00:53:36.640 |
the sort of consumerism in american culture in the desired to get more and
|
| 00:53:40.480 |
more and more and a better body in a longer
|
| 00:53:43.360 |
life etc
|
| 00:53:44.760 |
is
|
| 00:53:45.520 |
very anti-epicurean but what so interesting is that
|
| 00:53:49.120 |
Thomas jefferson
|
| 00:53:50.720 |
who of course wrote the declaration of independence and has so much to do
|
| 00:53:55.000 |
with
|
| 00:53:56.000 |
america and american ideology
|
| 00:53:58.560 |
identified himself as an epicurean
|
| 00:54:02.040 |
obviously very different from the modern
|
| 00:54:04.440 |
uh... american here's a quote
|
| 00:54:06.840 |
from jefferson who wrote
|
| 00:54:09.920 |
to a friend
|
| 00:54:11.400 |
in eighteen nineteen
|
| 00:54:14.240 |
i two eminepecurean
|
| 00:54:16.520 |
i consider the genuine doctrines of epicureus and as containing everything
|
| 00:54:20.400 |
rational and moral philosophy which greece and rom have left us
|
| 00:54:25.040 |
the practice of epicureanism would
|
| 00:54:27.440 |
in time it would be hope
|
| 00:54:29.720 |
affect a quiet euthanasia of the heresies of big-it-treat and
|
| 00:54:33.600 |
fanaticism which is so long triumphed over human reason and so deeply afflicted
|
| 00:54:38.960 |
mankind
|
| 00:54:40.560 |
one of epicureus's canons
|
| 00:54:42.560 |
was that the indulgence
|
| 00:54:44.240 |
which prevents a greater pleasure or produces greater pain
|
| 00:54:48.680 |
is to be avoided
|
| 00:54:50.520 |
consider the happiness
|
| 00:54:52.240 |
which the well regulated indulgences ensure
|
| 00:54:56.200 |
fortitude
|
| 00:54:57.400 |
you know is one of epicureus's cardinal virtues
|
| 00:55:01.080 |
that teaches us to meet and surmount difficulties not to fly from them
|
| 00:55:06.280 |
like cowards and to fly to in vain
|
| 00:55:09.080 |
for they will meet an arrest us at every turn of the road
|
| 00:55:13.160 |
so that's Thomas jefferson in eighteen nineteen
|
| 00:55:18.360 |
that's that's great at least not forget he's the author of the declaration of
|
| 00:55:21.320 |
independence and
|
| 00:55:22.840 |
what are we talking about their life liberty and the pursuit of happiness
|
| 00:55:27.480 |
what a weird
|
| 00:55:28.920 |
concept at the time that one of our you know
|
| 00:55:31.960 |
in a little right should be
|
| 00:55:34.040 |
the pursuit of happiness that was utterly unique
|
| 00:55:38.680 |
and and a brand new idea for uh... for a founding of uh...
|
| 00:55:44.280 |
of a country
|
| 00:55:46.040 |
so we'll leave our listeners with that uh... invitation that they should
|
| 00:55:49.480 |
uh... follow
|
| 00:55:51.080 |
the injunctions of jefferson
|
| 00:55:53.240 |
become epicurean in
|
| 00:55:55.200 |
you know a pursuit of happiness but you need to know
|
| 00:55:57.920 |
what it takes you need the teacher
|
| 00:56:00.360 |
and uh... i think you and i agree and you that
|
| 00:56:02.800 |
epicure is not a bad place to start in that regard
|
| 00:56:05.160 |
no i actually think that america could use a
|
| 00:56:08.040 |
heavy dose of epicureus and all right
|
| 00:56:12.280 |
so let me remind our listeners before we leave the air that uh...
|
| 00:56:16.240 |
coming up after me is decka with her
|
| 00:56:18.680 |
show at the cafe bohemium
|
| 00:56:21.440 |
bohemian
|
| 00:56:23.040 |
uh... followed by the bar and then sports cap
|
| 00:56:26.480 |
after that
|
| 00:56:27.840 |
we also have a web page for this program entitled opinions
|
| 00:56:31.360 |
just log on to the home page of the french and a tally in department
|
| 00:56:34.720 |
uh... and click on entitled opinions and there you can listen to pass shows
|
| 00:56:39.200 |
online and you can leave your comments
|
| 00:56:41.920 |
about the show that you heard today for example
|
| 00:56:44.800 |
uh...
|
| 00:56:46.360 |
so and yet this has been great thanks again i think we did do some justice to
|
| 00:56:50.320 |
him
|
| 00:56:51.240 |
in this hour
|
| 00:56:52.480 |
there's more to come
|
| 00:56:53.880 |
and uh...
|
| 00:56:54.800 |
i look forward to having you on the program again
|
| 00:56:57.000 |
thanks robert
|
| 00:56:57.960 |
this was really fun
|
| 00:57:00.880 |
uh...
|
| 00:57:07.880 |
uh...
|
| 00:57:14.880 |
uh...
|
| 00:57:21.880 |
uh...
|
| 00:57:25.880 |
uh...
|
| 00:57:28.880 |
uh...
|
| 00:57:31.880 |
uh...
|
| 00:57:36.880 |
uh...
|
| 00:57:41.880 |
uh...
|
| 00:57:48.880 |
(upbeat music)
|
| 00:57:51.460 |
(bouncy music)
|