Philosopher and Latin poet of the first century before Christ, Titus Lucretius Carus
is the author of one of the most important books of our civilization, De Natura Rerum, The nature of things. It is a versified poem about the reality of the universe,
from which follows what we observe as men, based on the philosophy of Epicure, without, I believe, being incompatible with deism,
assuming that what is called God, the God of Philosophers, created the universe. But let's recognize that Lucretius is fighting against all religious superstitions.
Of course, he does not know about the existence of the photon, the electron, the proton, the neutron, and even more so the quark and the gluon.
He does not know that the atom is breakable, and knows neither the electric fields nor the magnetic fields,
otherwise he could have explained that the materiality of the soul lies in a network of neurons formed of atoms and communicating through electricity.
But he would have had trouble explaining the duality wave / corpuscle of the electron, and to make compatible quantum mechanics and relativity,
since our physical knowledge does not allow it yet in the twenty-first century.
His merit, or rather that of Epicure, is to have had the intuition of the existence of atoms, and the importance of the vacuum.
Reading the text of Lucrece, even in a translation, is a pleasure, and allows to discover the reality of life, behind appearances, outside the filter of religions.
Gracq
Do you like Julien Gracq? The Opposing Shore, A Balcony in the Forest, ... On the occasion of the third meetings of Chaminadour,
France Culture dedicated a radio show to the author on October 5, 2008 :
On the Great Paths of Julien Gracq. Listen to it, Nomadic Notebooks,with Pierre Michon.
Proust
How to make want to read Proust's books to those who, while having often heard about it, sometimes as the greatest writer of all time,
have never dared to discover one of his texts ? I invite you to discover the incipit of the Research .
They are short texts, easy to read, and they open the universe of this author.
Schopenhauer
It is still difficult today to find, and therefore to be able to read, The World as Will and Representation from Schopenhauer.
But this book is, I think, important for understanding others and oneself. It should be read with an open mind,
in the same way that Marguerite Yourcenar brought Hadrian into death with his eyes open, ready to pay attention to everything,
to examine everything, to weigh everything, to think about everything. There is no more important philosophy text for me.
This book is that of the conceptualization of reality as seen man.
If we sometimes say that "pessimism is enlightened optimism", we are just a little right, because the real does not fall entirely under optimism or pessimism.
The real is, and it must be understood to deserve his life. We did not succeed by owning a Rolex at fifty ; but we understood it if we read Schopenhauer.
From a literary point of view, we can not read Yourcenar, and probably also many authors of the 19th and 20th centuries,
without having read The World because, although she does not speak much, I believe, having studied it, meditated on his texts, his conversations,
and all she left to sweat by herself, that she was influenced by these ideas.
I do not believe, for example, that the reference of oriental philosophies is so great in the philosopher and in the writer by chance.
