Emily Austin on Stoicism's Rival (Episode 34)

In this episode, I speak with Emily Austin. Emily is the professor of philosophy at Wake Forest University and she's also the author of Living for Pleasure, which is an introduction to the ancient philosophy of Epicureanism, and that's what we'll be focusing on today.

Ancient Stoics, like Seneca, found a lot of wisdom in Stoicism’s philosophical rival, we can do the same today. We talk about Stoicism’s ancient rival, whether it makes sense as a philosophy today, and what the Epicurean life would look like.

(01:30) What is Epicureanism?

(08:11) Misinterpreting Epicureanism

(12:09) Epicureanism vs Utilitarianism

(15:52) What makes Epicureans different

(29:09) Does Epicureanism defeat itself?

(35:03) Living the Epicurean life

(40:21) Why aren't we happy all the time

(42:27) Learning how to die

(49:40) Takeaways

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Thanks to Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music in the conversations.