 So the first thing to recognize about the work is that it's an English translation of a Latin work. And it's a Latin work that's based on describing Greek philosophy. And so the first 10 or so sections of the book, as those of you who read it will have noticed, Cicero spends a long time talking about the difficulties of translating Greek philosophical concepts into Latin. All the more so, there is a difficulty translating Latin translations of Greek terms into English. And so we have to realize that there's actually an extremely complex literary object that we're dealing with here and take into account the issues of translation. The second point is Cicero's description of the overall topic. So that comes out in section 11. So I just hope you notice that and underline it. And I'll just quote it to you. Nothing in life is more worth investigating than philosophy in general. But you all knew that, right? And the question raised in this work in particular. So isn't this great? I'm giving you to do the most worthwhile thing on earth. And so here it is. What is the end? What is the ultimate and final goal to which all our deliberations on living well and acting rightly should be directed? So that's the first question. What is the end? What is the ultimate or final goal? And then a second question comes. What does nature pursue as the highest good to be sought? What does Shishun as the greatest evil? And notice that he takes the second question to essentially be a reiteration of the first question. So whatever it is that nature pursues as the highest good to be sought and whatever Shishun's as the greatest evil will correspond to the ultimate and final goal or end to which all of our deliberations on living well and acting rightly should be directed. So that is what the book is overall about. That is the philosophical topic of the work, sorry, not the book of the work, of the entire work of On Moral Ends. The subject of the book is various dogmatic answers to that question followed by skeptical criticisms of those answers. So book one contains an account of the Epicurean answer to that question, and book two contains a criticism of the Epicurean answer to that question. And book three contains a description of the stoic answer to the question, and book four contains a skeptical criticism of the stoic answer. So five contains an examination of an older, what Cicero calls the academic or the plateness or the Aristotelian view, and then a qualified endorsement of it, although from a skeptical perspective. So that's the overall structure of the work, and it's divided into these five books. Now the next thing to realize is that the structure of each of the books is a dialogue. That is, it has a dramatic setting. They are located in a certain place and time. What is the setting of book one, for example? Where are they supposed to be? I'm hearing some mumbling saying Cicero's country house. That's true. Where is his country house? Cumay? Yeah, trick question, because he has a bunch of them. He's extremely rich. But book one is set at his house specifically in Cumay. He also has a house in Tuscalyn, where he wrote the work called Tuscalyn Disputations, which is also a work of five books, all consisting of dialogues, depicting dialogues taking place at that country house. But Alex, you're right that the setting is Cicero's country house at Cumay on the coast north of Naples. That is indicated in the 16th footnote to the chapter. That is a footnote to the part of the text that describes who the characters of this particular book are. And it says, to quote from section 13, an elaborate defense of Epicurus's theory of pleasure was once given by Lucius Torquatus, a man learned in every philosophical system. I gave the response, and Gaius Triarius, a young man of exceptional seriousness and learning, was present at the discussion. So those are the three characters. Torquatus, who gives the defense of Epicurianism. Cicero, who listens to it and asks skeptical questions. And an audience of a young man of exceptional seriousness and learning named Triarius. Now, the dialogue structure means that these people exchange speeches and make arguments and these speeches, to some extent, resemble the characters or persons they are. But Cicero is himself a character in the dialogue. Do not confuse Cicero the character in his own dialogue with Cicero the author of the overall dialogue, because there may well be differences between the views of those two entities. Also, keep in mind Cicero's philosophical allegiance. He's an academic skeptic, not a Peronian skeptic, but an academic skeptic. By the way, here's another quiz question for you. Give me the briefest possible description of the difference between academic skepticism and Peronian skepticism. The academics say that knowledge is impossible, and the skeptics just say that we're still looking for it. Yes, we can't even know whether knowledge is possible or not, or we should not assent to a proposition about whether it is possible or not. Very good. So Cicero is in the former camp. He's an academic skeptic. He doesn't think that knowledge, in the strict sense, is possible, so he investigates and overturns claims to knowledge, including the Epicurean claims, the Stoic claims, and so forth. Now, how academic skeptics get by in the world without having any knowledge, we'll talk about in due course. But keep that in mind, because what that means is that we have a witness who's describing Epicurean philosophy, who's not only writing in another language hundreds of years after the invention of that philosophy, like if I was writing about Spinoza or Leibniz's philosophy. It's already a practically an ancient historical thing for Cicero, and he's not only doing that, but he's also a card-carrying member of a school that's hostile to the schools he's describing. So there could be tendentious descriptions of their doctrines. So keep that in mind.