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Is a memory something you have, or something you’ve lost? For the Epicureans, a group of philosophers in the Hellenistic Period of Ancient Greece, memories are a secure possession of incredible psychological and practical importance. They hold the solution to a puzzle that has stumped interpreters for thousands of years: how to understand Epicurus’ strange dying words. According to our sources, as he lay dying, Epicurus described the recollection of philosophical conversations as offsetting the extreme pain of kidney stones that would soon kill him. He even calls his last day a happy one. But even those of us very fond of philosophical conversation find it implausible that these could in any way counter extreme physical pain. Moreover, Epicurus is a committed hedonist who considers avoiding pain, and experiencing pleasure, to be the goals of a good life. How then can we take his dying words seriously?

The dominant interpretation of the counterbalancing Epicurus refers to considers it to involve distraction from pain. Katharine O'Reilly will argue against this view, showing that distraction is not a plausible solution to this puzzle, and leaves the Epicureans in the unfortunate position of being unable to rid themselves of fear of future pain. Offered in its place is an alternative model focused on retention of and intense reengagement with past pleasures. The story of Epicurus’s final, happy day can only be explained with reference to the vividness of the memories he recollects. This new reading turns an otherwise problematically unsatisfactory aspect of Epicurean therapy – how to deal with pain that leads to death – into yet another source of anxiety which Epicureans need not suffer, and which might have insight to offer to us and to contemporary pain management theory.

Katharine R. O’Reilly is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Toronto Metropolitan University. She specializes in ancient philosophy, particularly ancient moral psychology in the Greek and Roman traditions. She also works on ancient women philosophers, with particular interest in the Hellenistic schools, methodologies of recovery and teaching strategies. She is a Consulting Editor for De Gruyter's Women Philosophers Heritage Collection, and a Research Associate for The Society for Women of Ideas. Her website is katharineoreilly.com.

Funded by the Department of Philosophy, the Department of Classics and the Jasper Jacob Stahl Lectureship in the Humanities

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