Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 149
The Pursuit of Happiness 
Pleasure, Part 2: Epicureanism

Posted By Greg Johnson On In Counter-Currents Radio | Comments Disabled

RomanMosaicSkullLarge [1]40:21 / 156 words

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Beginning in August of 1999, I gave a series of eight lectures on “The Pursuit of Happiness: Philosophies East and West,” dealing with different conceptions of the good life.

Epicurus (?) in Raphael's School of Athens [5]

Epicurus (?) in Raphael’s School of Athens

The syllabus was:

  1. Introduction
  2. Harmony, Inner and Outer (Plato, Lao Tzu)
  3. Self-Actualization (Montaigne, Nietzsche)
  4. Detachment (Epictetus, the Buddha)
  5. Duty (Confucius, Kant, Montaigne)
  6. Pleasure (Callicles, Epicurus)
  7. The Conquest of Nature (Ayn Rand)
  8. The Spiritual Life (William James)

The second half of the lecture of pleasure deals with classical Epicureanism. The edition I used of Epicurus is The Epicurus Reader: Selected Writings and Testimonia [6], ed. and trans. Brad Inwood and L. P. Gerson (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994). As usual, the sound quality is clear but rather harsh due to the necessity of heavy noise reduction.

Bust of Epicurus [7]

Bust of Epicurus