Video chat: Vittorio Bufacchi on why Cicero matters
Episode 10 of "Meet the Greco-Romans"
Welcome to another entry in an occasional series of video chats with authors and translators who have written about the philosophy, culture, and history of the Greco-Roman tradition.
In this episode I talk to Vittorio Bufacchi, Senior Lecturer in the Philosophy Department at University College Cork, Ireland. Vittorio did his PhD (1994) at the London School of Economics. He specializes in political philosophy, especially on questions of social injustice, human rights, and political violence. His last two books are on Cicero (Why Cicero Matters ā Bloomsbury 2023) and philosophy and Covid-19 (Everything Must Change: Philosophical Lessons From Lockdown ā Manchester University Press 2021).
I was particularly interested in this conversation as I too am writing a book on Cicero because, like Vittorio, Iām truly convinced that this pivotal first century BCE thinker still matters very much to us! Here is our conversation:
Great guy, great book, great conversation ! Many thanks. š
Cicero is so an important source for Stoicism and Epicureanism.
The Epicureans made a detailed analyses of his "On Ends" to defend against his criticism of Epicurean Philosophy (seems he doesnĀ“t understood kastatematic Pleasure which is more like value judgment/ataraxia and Cicero seems to limit Pleasure to only sensual kinetic Pleasure) .
Is there something similar for the Stoic critics of him ?
For who is interested in the anaysis/discussion of the first 2 books about Epicurean Philosophy here is the podcast (from august 2023 onwards) (available on most podcast platforms ):
https://www.epicureanfriends.com/thread/3292-episode-190-cicero-s-on-ends-book-one-part-01/