Last week the new translation of Cicero’s On The Nature Of The Gods was published. It is available in paperback, hardcover, and Kindle. An audiobook version will come out next month. This podcast explains what the book is about, why it is important, and the special features my translation has. I also read the translation’s Foreword.
Continue readingThe new, annotated translation of Cicero’s classic On the Nature of the Gods (De Natura Deorum) is now available in paperback, hardcover (with classic dust-jacket), and Kindle editions. An audiobook edition will follow in October.
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There is a saying referenced in Cicero’s Academica (I.5) that touches on our practical inability to give instruction to power. The reference is as follows:
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There is a passage in Cicero’s On the Nature of the Gods that is worthy of reflection and discussion. It is found in III.28 of the treatise, and reads as follows:
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Only one name in European history unites the realms of religion, mathematics, and philosophy, and that name is Pythagoras. Yet it is this very achievement that so torments posterity when assessing his legacy. Centuries of speculative accretions, hagiographic mythologizing, and the dubious testimonia of ancient authors have so obscured his original doctrines that the exasperated scholar must, at last, accept that fact and legend are in him inseparably woven.
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On April 28, 2022, the news service NewsNation published a story about the commercial use of artificial intelligence to “recreate” the deceased on a virtual level, and permit people to have “conversations” with these electronic reanimations.
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There are many men who lack a certain sense of awe and grandeur at the inscrutable workings of Nature. They are apt to favor crank theories instead of considered judgments; and they recline in negativity and pessimism when the time comes for them to perform in the face of adversity. They lack faith in the ability of the human soul to accomplish truly great things, because they themselves have no awareness of the capacities of that divine soul.
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In his treatise On the Nature of the Gods, Cicero points out a shameful personal weakness of the philosopher Epicurus. What was this character flaw? It was Epicurus’s congenital inability to admit that he had ever been influenced by the thinkers that preceded him. Cicero states:
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Oliver Stone’s memoir Chasing the Light, which I began reading two weeks ago, relates an interesting anecdote. After returning from military service in Vietnam, the future director enrolled in film school at New York University; one of the classes he attended, taught by a professor named Tim Leahy, dealt with classical drama.
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I was recently asked in correspondence to provide some thoughts on the pitfalls and obstacles to the study of philosophy. I have to admit that it was something of a relief to get this request, as it offers me a pretext to describe my own ideas on this subject. All of us seek a greater level of understanding of things; but perhaps few of us give much thought to avoiding the obstacles to understanding. A horse and its equestrian rider, however, cannot clear a hurdle until they have had experience in judging its height and length. Here, then, are some of the most commonly encountered pitfalls of the student of philosophy.
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Quintus Curtius 
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