 Let's talk about Cicero for a second because Cicero is an Epicurus and Cicero is an Epicureanism but he's the means by which we're going to learn about Epicureanism. So the first thing is that what is this book? This book is an English translation that was done about 10 years ago, or a little more, of a Latin work that is about a Greek philosophy. So there's a big danger of a game of telephone that goes for thousands of years and through big linguistic changes here. So we are very far removed from this phenomenon of Greek philosophy and specifically Epicureanism and we're reading it through an extremely mediated literary piece here. Now, say something about the overall purpose of this work which consists of five books. So Cicero, section 11 of book one tells the overall purpose. And he begins by saying that no one who is habitually and carefully read my philosophical works will judge that any is more worth reading than this one. So like I told you, I picked good books for this class and there's no one that is better by Cicero's own estimation than this one. And here's the reason he gives. For nothing in life is more worth investigating than philosophy in general. You should say period and that's just the conclusion that you need to come to. But he says more worth investigating than philosophy in general and the question raised in this work in particular. 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? What does nature pursue as the highest good to be sought? And what does she shun as the greatest evil? So that's the overall point. The overall point of the book is what is the overall point, period, of everything in general and human life in particular. And this human life that you're living to be more specific. Now one more thing is keep in mind Cicero's philosophical allegiance. What kind of a philosopher is Cicero? He is an academic skeptic. Blythe Green lectured you all about the views of academic skeptics, the crazy views of academic skeptics if you think about it. For example, the view that knowledge is impossible. Cicero believes that. So if that's all true, then this book isn't going to produce knowledge as such. It can't do that. Its author doesn't believe that anyone can do that. So what does it do? It produces, it's an attempt to discern what is the most probably true view as a basis then for further action. Because remember, academic skeptics don't walk into walls instead of doors when they're trying to leave places because they reason probabilistically that a better way to get where I'm going would be to go through the aperture in the wall and not the wall itself. And they can reason like that without claiming that they know that that's absolutely true, but just that's what the balance of evidence seems to be, them to be true. So what Cicero does in this book is he goes through the leading ethical notions and he hears one side of them, hears a pro side, and then he hears a contraside which balances out that case for it and leads him to suspend judgment about whether that's true. Well, there might be something to that or it might, but a lot of things seem wrong with that. He does that for Epicurean ethics and then he does that for Stoic ethics. And then there's a fifth book that concludes and gives his view on what is most probably the true answer to the ethical question that he set out in that section. What is the overall end? What's the point of it all? What is the purpose of dealing with this life? So there is a very important structure here. Book one will give us a positive case for Epicureans and book two will take that case apart and then book three will give us a positive case for the Stoics and then book four will take that case apart and then book five will try to produce some results that we can act on. Okay, any questions about the overall structure of Cicero's work here? We'll be reminded of that each time we go to a new book. Now let's focus on book one. So each book consists of a dialogue that has named characters who exchange speeches and engage in a conversation about philosophy and each of them has a specific setting and a specific point in time and so it's a fictional piece that's made up about a place in time where some people got together and talked about philosophy and which characters speak and why they say what they say and why they're where they are and when they are all of that is significant to this and shouldn't be ignored. So first of all the setting is Cicero, a rich Roman senator and philosopher, his villa outside of just north of what we would what we call Naples now. Okay, so he's got a couple of big properties and he goes there and he writes philosophical books. He's got another one in Tusculum where he wrote a book called Tusculum Disputations and this one he's in happens to be in his villa in Cume. Now there are three characters. So his friend Lucius Torquatus is there and he is an Epicurean. He lives the Epicurean lifestyle and he offers quote in elaborate defense of Epicurus' theory of pleasure and there's a kind of guy in the audience, Gaius Triarius said to be a young man of exceptional seriousness and learning and he doesn't add much to the conversation and he agrees with what everybody says. Yes, yes, you're quite right about that. Oh, but you just said the opposite was true. Oh, well that's true. Sorry about that. He kind of gets instructed. There has to be a student that, you know, we're all trying to convince, right? And that's sort of the structure of it is that Torquatus thinks that Gaius should, you know, sign up and believe all this Epicurean stuff and live this lifestyle and Cicero says I'm the one who gave the response meaning he was the skeptical interlocutor who came back at him but he goes rather light on him in book one because the purpose of book one is to expound the theory and it's not until book two that he takes it apart and tries to show how it's all wrong.