Eight Podcast Episodes on Epicurus' Principal Doctrines and Letters

Epicurus is one of the thinkers whose works I teach fairly often.  Most of my Introduction to Philosophy classes will include a day or two devoted to Epicurus and Epicureanism, and in one of the classes I'm teaching next semester, Philosophy, Mindfulness, and Life, we will be spending about two weeks on the Epicurean tradition.

Quite a while back, I produced a series of lecture videos on Epicurus' main ideas (you can check out the playlist here), and over the last year and a half, I've been taking those shorter lecture videos, converting them to sound files, editing them and fixing the sound (as best as I can), and then producing them as podcast episodes.  

They really do double duty.  I use them in my academic classes as additional resources for my students.  They can download and listen to high-quality, well-informed lectures on the texts and thinkers they are studying, anywhere they'd like to.  I also make them available as resources for the general public as well, and listeners do seem to enjoy them and find them useful.

So, here's that set of podcast episodes on Epicurus.  All told, they run about 1 hour and 40 minutes, so a person could listen their way through the entire set in the space of a a longish workout or walk, or while traveling.

• Epicurean Practical Reasoning
• Pleasure, Prudence, And Justice
• Mental And Bodily Pleasures
• Moving And Static Pleasures
• Three Types Of Desires
• Two Sources Of Groundless Fears
• Nature And Usefulness Of Justice
• The Value Of Friendship

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Eight Short Videos on Epicurus' Thought

Some time back, I created a set of eight core concept videos focused specifically on several key ideas from the few texts we still possess authored by the great Hellenistic hedonist philosopher, Epicurus (which you can find assembled together here)

Although I'm far from being an Epicurean myself, I frequently teach his ideas in my Ethics and Introduction to Philosophy classes, so developing these short lecture videos has been very useful for me and my students.

I'll be discussing the Epicurean tradition again this semester in at least three of the five classes I'm slated to teach, and I'll likely be adding a few new Core Concept videos to supplement the stock of those I already have available.  Most likely, those won't be focused specifically on the founder of that school, though, but on the Roman poet and philosopher, Lucretius' main work, On The Nature of Things - and on book 1 of Cicero's On The Ends, in which his character, Torquatus, presents Epicurean perspectives on a variety of topics.

Here are the eight core concept videos focused specifically on Epicurus' thought.  Altogether, they comprise a bit under two hours of lectures, covering most of his main ideas, arguments, and distinctions in ethics.

• Practical Reasoning about Pain and Pleasure
• Pleasure, Prudence, and Justice
• The Nature and Usefulness of Justice
• Two Sources of Groundless Fears 
• Mental and Bodily Pleasures
• Moving and Static Pleasures 
• Three Types of Desires
• The Value of Friendship 

As a parting thought, although Epicurus was reportedly one of the most prolific philosophers of ancient times, we currently possess just the smallest portion of his works.  And we're very fortunate to have that, because nearly all of what we do have derives from Diogenes Laertes' work Lives of the Philosophers.  Because he liked Epicurus, Diogenes copied by hand three of Epicurus' letters and the Principal Doctrines verbatim into the last book of that work. Lucky for us he did!