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PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHYTHE JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY FOR PHILOSOPHY IN PRACTICEwww.practical-philosophy.org.uk www.society-for-philosophy-in-practice.org |
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PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHYTHE JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY FOR PHILOSOPHY IN PRACTICEwww.practical-philosophy.org.uk www.society-for-philosophy-in-practice.org |
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Lucretius and the Modern World
W. R. Johnson
2000 London: Duckworth,
pp. x + 163
ISBN: 0-7156-2882-8 (pb), £9.99
Practical Philosophy (Book Reviews) November 2001 Volume 4.2
Reviewed by: Trevor Curnow
There is a distinct shortage of accessible and affordable books on Epicureanism, and any additions to the meagre total are to be welcomed. That said, from a philosophical point of view Johnson's book is a somewhat eccentric contribution to the genre. Since Johnson's background is not in philosophy but in classical (and especially Latin) literature, this is not altogether surprising. It is also not altogether disadvantageous, for a different perspective can sometimes help to shed new light on an old subject.
The central focus of the book is Lucretius's On the Nature of Things, and it tackles it in three different ways. The first two chapters deal directly with the poem itself, seeking to identify its central themes. Their titles, 'No Truth But in Atoms' and 'The Gospel of Pleasure', are adequate indications of what these themes are taken to be. However, in and around his exegesis of the relevant sections of the poem, Johnson weaves a series of observations concerning its literary style and the cultural context in which it was written. Lucretius's treatment of sex, for example, is not only expounded but also contrasted with the approaches of Catullus and Cicero. Long-standing debates over whether the poem was ever finished are reprised and examined.
The next two chapters chart the history of the poem, the poet, and their reputations from the Renaissance onwards, beginning with Gassendi and ending with Santayana. Here, two related questions are addressed. First, how has Lucretius been served by his translators? Secondly, to what extent was Lucretius properly understood by either his supporters or his detractors? The fact that so little was known about him (and perhaps nothing that was really reliable) meant that, more than most, he served as a surface upon which his interpreters could project themselves. Quotations from the entries on the poet in the fourth, seventh and ninth editions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica provide a graphic illustration of the fickleness of philosophical fashion.
In the final chapter Johnson goes on something of an excursion through some unpredictable territory (both science fiction and science fact) in order to return to the themes of the first two chapters. Atoms and human happiness are here brought together in the context of nuclear weapons, their development and use. The gap, real or otherwise, between science and ethics that many bemoan in the modern world was not a feature of Lucretius's. Not only Epicureanism but other schools as well regarded an understanding of the physical world as the foundation upon which a correct way of living had to be constructed. However, Johnson allows himself perhaps a little too much latitude in his meanderings, with the result that the important points he wishes to make come across rather weakly.
As the only substantial and systematic work in the classical Epicurean corpus, On the Nature of Things is a text of the greatest importance. Lucretius and the Modern World is a useful accompaniment to it.
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