Travels with Epicurus, Orlando Stoics Online Friday Nights

What better way to celebrate the New Year than by discussing the end-of-life questions laid bare in Chapter 6, “Iphigenia’s Guest ”? Daniel Klein poses a bleak picture when he asks himself: “Is the reward for a well-lived long life just senility and incontinence?” (If so, Stoic virtues could be just what the doctor ordered to help us thoughtfully plan for this final phase.)
If you find Chapter 6 a bit too dreary a start to the New Year, fear not – our conversation will surely uplift you! (As will Chapter 7 and the Epilogue, which we will discuss on January 9, our last session in our “Travels with Epicurus” series.)
Chapter 6 presents us with tough questions we have pushed aside our whole life. But as Socrates would argue, the purpose of philosophy is to cultivate the soul and our character so that we can face everything, even death, with virtue and without fear. Shouldn’t we think more about these difficult, end-of-life questions now, when we are of sound mind?