Posts by Eikadistes

I believe that this suggestion only comes once in Book 5 (translated by Munro):

146 Illud item non est ut possis credere, sedes
147 esse deum sanctas in mundi partibus ullis.
148 tenvis enim natura deum longeque remota
149 sensibus ab nostris animi vix mente videtur;

"This too you may not possibly believe, that the holy seats of the gods exist in any parts of the world: the fine nature of the gods far withdrawn from our senses is hardly seen by the thought of the mind..."

Just that much might paint a picture of the gods living in deep space, however...

150 quae quoniam manuum tactum suffugit et ictum,
151 tactile nil nobis quod sit contingere debet;
152 tangere enim non quit quod tangi non licet ipsum.

"...and since it has ever eluded the touch and stroke of the hands, it must touch nothing which is tangible for us; for that cannot touch which does not admit of being touched in turn."

Lucretius, as earlier Epicureans (I'll explain below and provide examples) ties in the notion that the "homes" of the gods are "untroubled", not by physical distance from weather and climate, but through physical disengagement from the bulky, terrestrial particles that comprise terrestrial matter. Epicurean authors always provide the analogy of the tiniest "mental particles".

I think the other stanzas reinforce this interpretation. In Book 2:

646 omnis enim per se divom natura necessest
647 inmortali aevo summa cum pace fruatur
648 semota ab nostris rebus seiunctaque longe;

"For the nature of gods must ever in itself of necessity enjoy immortality together with supreme of repose, far removed and withdrawn from our concerns...".

In this sense, I believe the "removal" of the gods refers to their disposition, not their location.

Here again, in Book 3:

18 ... sedesque quietae,
19 quas neque concutiunt venti nec nubila nimbis
20 aspergunt neque nix acri concreta pruina
21 cana cadens violat semperque innubilus aether
22 integit et large diffuso lumine ridet:

..."their tranquil abodes which neither winds do shake nor clouds drench with rains nor snow congealed by sharp frosts harms with hoary fall: an ever-cloudless ether overcanopies them, and they laugh with light shed largely round" (Ibid.).

I maintain, based on "On the Form of a God" by Dēmētrios of Lakonía, and from fragments by Apollodoros (the "Tyrant of the Garden") that the description of the "tranquil abodes" avoiding weathering by terrestrial forces is a description of the image of their homes in our mind. We would never imagine a perfect being to live in a dark tower, silhouetted by lightning, nor, likewise, imagine a flourishing humanoid in the deep, cold, dark, emptiness of the metakosmios.

Here's how I justify it in my paper:

Quote

Apollódōros the scholarch infers that “the dwellings” of the fearless gods, unruffled by ferocious winds and falling stars “have to be far away from the forces in our world” (Ibid., Col. 9). He stipulates that the security of these “locations” may not be preserved as a result of “distance” so much as a result of physical disengagement “from the hindering factors that clash against each other”. Epíkouros concurs that “it is possible for their nature to exist even with many troubles surrounding it” (On Piety, Col. 3.3-7). For “even if the things which generate” divine images were “as far away as anyone could wish”, the mundane images of people stored in memory would still combine with the preconception of “blessedness” and form the image of gods who “appear” to “transcend” any amount of “intervening distance” (Philódēmos, On Gods III, Col. 9). Memory, itself “transcends” the perils of our perishable plasma through a perpetual replenishment of minute, mental motes, “having changed each time for producing a thought” (On the Form of a God 12). Dēmḗtrios explains that “the memories people retain of” visual impressions were first “received as children” (Ibid., 11), and despite decades of disruption, those representations can be reproduced continuously. Through contemplation, a supplicant summons a memory of blessedness and transforms the mind into a holy menagerie, capable of hosting a variety of divine forms. After extensive consideration, Apollódōros concludes that the “dwellings” of “the gods” must be constructed “from some of their” own, finely-grained “elements”, repurposed through an act of contemplation (On Gods III, Col. 10).

Quote from EdGenX

Good morning!! I'm very interested in the science of the Epicurean philosophy and would love to learn a little Latin as well. I live in the Bible belt of America, North Carolina so superstition is strong down here.

Florida, here. I feel you.

Also, prepare to learn some ancient Greek because we'll bombard you with it.

Welcome!

Happy Thanksgiving! Have a toast to the health of the belly.

Quote from Cassius

I'm totally good with the pleasures of the stomach, but the thrust of many of these quotes makes the belly appear to be more important than any other part of the body

Well, it might be.

I was just thinking about this the other day. I was asking myself, "If I had to take a basic math test, would I score better with a stomach virus? Or with heartbreak?" I'm not sure if the answer would be the same for everyone, but I decided that I could manage with heartbreak (or turmoil better). With a stomach virus, I'd feel incapable of mustering the focus to apply critical thought. With heartbreak, through extreme focus, I can make the numbers make sense. I was thinking back to when I took the SATs, and I do well on those kind of tests, and I was a psychiatric mess when I took it. But when, back in the day, I'd suffer a hangover, I could barely focus on my name, let alone algebra.

I'm also thinking in terms of the value of digestive processes versus intellectual faculties for growing organisms. Depressive thoughts can mislead you, but a stomach ache is as honest as your eyes. It will never give you severe pain without a concerning, physical cause. Sometimes the mind hypes itself up. At that, we have the Epicurean Doctrine about the infinite desires of the mind, because, without a sharp intellect, the mind doesn't self-regulate. But the stomach won't let you trick yourself. You can't just shove something down that makes you sick the way you can repress bad memories ... well, maybe to a degree, but I think you see what I mean, in general.

Quote from Don

WHO owns the hardware

I'm eagerly anticipating evidence.

"And therefore, [when] this [proposition is] definitely, in fact, [unconfirmed, then] one must withhold a judgment, so that neither is the criteria [of the kanṓn] being confuted against the [self-evident] clarity [of nature], nor is the [evidence] being neglected [so that] similarly everything [that] is [otherwise capable of] being validated is [now] being confounded." (Ep. Her. 10.52)

Quote from Kalosyni

Quote from Cassius

I have anticipated you Fortune and I have entrenched myself against all your secret attacks. I have not and will not give myself up as captive to you or to any other circumstance. When it is time for me to go, I will spit contempt upon those who vainly cling to life, and I will leave life crying aloud in glorious triumph that I have lived well.

I also want to say that the "spitting contempt" part just doesn't make sense from an Epicurean standpoint - at least in my mind. The Epicurean would be too busy either: enjoying a last taste of something pleasurable, or busy remembering an event that was one of the best moments of life.

The original manuscript shows the verb προσπτύσαντες (prosptúsantes, or “embracing“) as opposed to the nearly-identical verb προπτύσαντες (proptúsantes, or “spitting on“). Metródōros either means to “embrace the great inevitability” or “spit upon great fear“. I'm with you in preferring the former.

Quote from Robert

The fact that Epicurus influenced thinkers as divergent as Jefferson and Marx blows my mind.

No doubt! Once I saw a few Lucretian callbacks in Shakespeare, I began compiling a list of other writers who make explicit or indirect mention of either Epicurean Philosophy or De Rerum Natura (usually the latter, having been received from Latin): Bacon, Bergson, Byron, Chaucer, de Bergerac, Darwin, Deleuze, Descartes, Diderot, d’Holbach, Dryden, Einstein, Erasmus, Frederick II, Freud, Gassendi, Goethe, Halley, Hitchens, Hobbes, Horace, Hume, Kant, La Mettrie, Leo X, Locke, Lovecraft, Machiavelli, Milton, Montaigne, Newton, Nietzsche, Pope, Rousseau, Sagan, Santayana, Shakespeare, Spenser, Spinoza, Stevenson, Tennyson, Thomsen, Virgil, Voltaire, Whitman, and Wordsworth.

Quote from DaveT

Eikadistes Yes, thank you. I understand your reply, but can you address my use of the Internet description of divine simulacra:

Quote from DaveT

"Ancient Philosophy (Epicureanism): In Epicurean philosophy, "divine simulacra" (or eidola) were believed to be fine atomic emanations that constantly stream from the "quasi-bodies" of the gods and strike human perception. Perceiving these simulacra was a way for humans to form a concept (prolepsis) of the gods, who were seen as models of perfect happiness and imperturbability, but who did not actively intervene in human affairs."

I respectfully believe that the original quote creates a misconception about the nature of "divine simulacra" by mistakenly equating the words "eidola" with "divine images": eidola are not necessarily "divine", most are just the mundane images we see throughout the day with our eyes. I have not found "eidola" to be exclusively linked with "god images" in the original texts, so far as εἴδωλᾰ (eídōla) is employed by Epíkouros in the Epistle to Herodotos, as well as the context in which eídōla are discussed by Philódēmos in his treatise On Piety , as well as the way that Lucretius fluidly employs simulacra throughout De Rerum Natura (I'll cite each Lucretius' examples).

We inherit simulacra from Lucretius, who employed it as an approximation for the Greek eídōla. It is translated by H. A. J. Munro (whom I consider to be reliable) as "images" (1.1060, 2.24, 3.433, 6.420), "representations" (2.110), "mimicry" (2.324) and "idols" (1.123, 5.62, 5.308, 6.80). Lucretius also compares the concept of simulacra as "representations" against imago or "pictures" (2.112). Munro personally inflects simulacra as "idols" instead of "images" when referring to the "pictures of the gods", however, both divine images ("of the gods") and non-divine images (of normal stuff) are constituted of simulacra as is preserved in the language that Lucretius uses.

He pays particular attention to these the visual-mental act of forming internal images in Book Four of De Rerum Natura, using declensions of the word simulacra several dozen times. A number of scholars have found it helpful to loosely equate the "films" of the "images" (eídōla and simulacra) with the contemporary concept of photons, generally speaking, the physical particles of light that we perceive. These particles (eídōla or simulacra), as the authors describe in high resolution, physically travel from an external body, through the air, and collide with our eyes, creating an impulse that travels through a perceptual relay, creating an internal cascade that yields an internal representation that is apprehensible by the human intellect, experienced by the "mind's eye".

These stanzas in Book Four corresponds with notions expressed by Epíkouros in the Epistle to Herodotos (10.46-51). Lucretius means to faithfully represent Epíkouros' teachings in Latin verse, so his neologisms and descriptions of the fact that "things open to sight many emit bodies" corresponds with the Hegemon describing that the "impinging [of images occurs] on account of a certain thing from the outside[that enables] us to observe and to consider" (10.49). In each case, the authors consistently explain that the images that human beings reproduce as visual representations in the mind are limited to real forms that have been physically observed in nature. For example, a culture cannot create the myth of a centaur without having some knowledge of a horse.

It is important to mention that in both Ep. Her. (49-51) and DRN 4, the authors do not discuss the formation of "divine" images, or delineate them as images originating from a special class of beings. Philódēmos, however, provides a high resolution description in On Piety, and compares the formation of "numerically-distinct" images that reflect a "singular", body in one's external environment versus "sublimated" streams of "compatible" images that form in the imagination from a variety of visual inspirations. Philódēmos explicitly categorizes "the images of the gods" as being the latter, images formed in the imagination from a variety of sources. By contrast Epíkouros and Lucretius only ever refer to the eídola and simulacra of everyday objects like architecture and animals. Our conception of "the form of a god" or "the gods" is necessarily conditioned by the visible particles that have previously emanated from human forms, whether those forms are the bodies of our friends, statues of the gods, or drawings of superheroes.

Given this, I want to (respectfully) caution against translators who interpret the "the images of the gods" as "a special class of 'god' particles that originate from 'god'-bodies that exist as animal-beings in a specially-privileged 'god'-biome in outer space that physically exists 'external' of the human mind". I want to caution against translators who interpret "images traveling through space" to mean "...through the vacuum of deep, outer space" rather than simply "...traveling from a Google Search page, through the two feet in front of your computer screen, into your eyeball."

I think it is really important to consider Philódēmos' delineation of images into the two categories of things that truly correspond with singular, unitary, external objects versus things that only exist as constructions within the human imagination (which is not to lessen the value of their existence as "real" things, just not things that "truly" correspond with singular, unitary objects, independent of the mind). Without considering Philódēmos, I think translators inductively project the manner in which normal images (like a horse) form onto the ways in which "divine" images form, as though the gods are like horses, but in a god barn, somewhere on a god farm, beyond our universe.

I mean all of this as respectfully as I am a total amateur when it comes to linguistics.

Quote from DaveT

And then can you address my question earlier, if divine simulacra stream from those "quasi-bodies" of the gods (in the quote above) does Epicurus consider that the simulacra comes from the gods.?

"Quasi-bodies" comes from Cicero's character Velleius — Cassius , here's an example of where I think Cicero is misleading us into an exaggerated conception without explicitly making a "false" statements. When it comes to this topic, I personally want to avoid Cicero's input, and focus strictly on what Epíkouros and Philódēmos have to say about the formation of internal images. The notion of "quasi-bodies", here again, makes it sound like "the gods" are space ghosts made of aether, and that their simulacra are traveling from deep space like x-rays from a quasar. From my humble understanding, the "quasi-bodies" of Velleius should properly refer to "the physical representation that is being physically stored in our physical, human memory" and, further, that this intellectual representation in memory was formed by seeing mundane people in everyday life. Men may think of Aphrodite as having those features that appeal to their subjective sense of arousal based on their experiences with women whom they have found to be attractive. The gods are pristine physical specimens (as per cultural standards of beauty) — the men are ripped like body builders, the women are soft and voluptuous (...here again, with everyone, I want to emphasize, context aside, that we treat Marvel superheroes eerily similarly with the way gods were depicted).

In summation, based on the above sources, I want to suggest that thinking of simulacra as "emanating from external gods" only makes sense in terms of observing stone statues, or in terms of retrieving visual constructions from memory. I don't think the gods are space radios.

Quote from DaveT

And if Epicurus does consider it so, if the gods are indeed influencing mankind's actions in a passive sort of way, isn't this opposite from being indifferent, as I thought Epicurus declared?

While I want to reinforce, as Diogénes writes, that Epíkouros "only" saw the gods as being "apprehensible" through a directed act of "contemplation" by the "intellect" (10.139), even if we are to consider "the gods" to be a class of space ghosts who broadcast dreams through radio waves ... one way of the other, "the gods'" are indifferent and unconcerned with our happiness. The "indifference" of the gods is part of their definition. They are untroubled. They have no stress, no concern, no anxiety, no fear of death, and, therefore, no bio-chemical compulsion to stick out their necks to protect temporary, fragile, extra-terrestrial forms of life (in this case, us, Earthlings). They have so many better things to do than straighten out American healthcare (for example), or ensure that human life is improved through a proliferation of universal, scientific literacy, or mitigate the impact of climate change ... regardless of whether they are space ghosts or comic books.

(I really want to emphasize the "reality" of fictional super-people. The "spirit of Christmas" is a total, mythic fabrication ... that has a measurable, socio-economic impact on our culture. The "spirit of Christmas" is indifferent to its socio-economic impact, as are the images of the gods).

I hope this helps! I'm also throwing a few of my own ideas out there for general consideration. Cicero is an exceptional source, but also, a biased one. He was a laywer... he had an agenda, and that agenda was not to produce a neutral, historical survey of competing thoughts. He meant to discredit his opponents by tearing holes in their arguments. It behooved him to exxagerate.

That's awesome! Very cool idea.

Quote from DaveT

but focusing on the definition from the Internet on Epicureanism, I'm wondering if his philosophy considers that the simulacra comes from the gods. And then if the gods are indeed influencing mankind's actions in a passive sort of way, isn't this opposite from being indifferent, as I thought Epicurus declared?

"Superman" positively inspired generations of kids, even if he only existed in 64 colors.

"Lady Liberty" continues to wield a torch for many, even if she's fixed in bronze.

So long as we identify "the gods" as images ("simulacra", "eidola"), those images, like any other symbols, have measurable impacts on our physical lives. The image of Jesus Christ, itself, is a huge influence to billions of people. "Jesus" doesn't need to "truly" exist to have influence.

Quote from Cassius

Quote from Eikadistes

Cicero is speaking through Velleius, and using him as a literary tool, ultimately to persuade his audience to his cause, not necessarily provide an objective survey of history. So, I think that anything that the character Velleius proposes in Cicero's narrative needs to be referenced against the established doctrines set by Epíkouros and preserved by Philódēmos. There are a few things Cicero records that are surprising, so I read him cautiously.

Eikadistes I agree with this general concern, but as of yet I have not (to my memory) run into anything spoken by Velleius that I have found reason to question as being in actual or potential conflict with any other authoritative texts. Have you seen anything in particular to question from that section? If any occur to you over time and you remember this thread I hope you'll point them out so we can include those caveats in future discussions.

I'm with you there. I think my primary criticism is with the authenticity of the characters' arguments rather than the coherence of the arguments. Overwhelmingly, I like what he has to say. For example, his characterization of mythic gods as "world-builders" who may have suffered from ennui, or found themselves alone in an infinite dungeon of darkness, reminds me of the critical tone Diogenes takes against the cartoonish depictions of "god". I particularly like this critical approach.

I wonder, however, if these observations reflect statements made by Epíkouros, himself, anywhere in On Nature or another text, or whether these are comical inferences (though coherent) made by a later admirer? Or else, here again, are the amusing examples described by Velleius poetic devices employed by Cicero to shape his character and enliven his text for readers? I think a sympathetic reader would find Velleius to be an enjoyable character, and I would personally wish for this likable depiction to reflects a real, likable personality from history. Though, I could also see how an opponent might find Velleius to be disrespectful or mocking, in which case, the characterizing of Velleius as mocking by his opponents (if that's how you read it) might have been Cicero's way to discredit his opponent by associating their philosophy with jarring behavior.

For example, with his discussion of the composition of the "blood" of deities — that seems (to me) like it may have been a point of fascination with Cicero, or his readers, but I'm not sure that the Epicurean philosophers had interest in the topic of "god blood". I haven't found discussion of "god blood" in any of the Hellenistic texts. This could potentially be a strawman argument to make Epicureans seem like they represent their positions in a ... cartoonish (?) way. Velleius at a point seems unable to further elaborate upon his argument, and resorts to justification by authority (which is not one of the three criteria of knowledge): "Though these distinctions were more acutely devised and more artfully expressed by Epicurus than any common capacity can comprehend". Or, I may be treating the characterization unfairly. I'm just suspicious of it as a literary tool or a rhetorical tactic.

I've been thinking about it kind of like this: imagine one philosopher shows another the spatter from someone getting shot in a video game. They point at the screen and ask, "what's happened?" The other person probably wouldn't say, "oh, well our eyes are observing the images generated on the LCD screen from optical output rendered in a computer..." — they'd say, "That's a kill streak. So bloody..." Now, of course, they wouldn't mean, warm, sticky, real blood from a human animal in need of immediate medical intervention, they'd just mean "the comic violence that just happened on-screen". ... now, imagine that you personally walk into a room, expecting to hold a symposium with two friends with opposing philosophies, and the topic of conversation is a heated discussion over ... the "reality" of the cartoon blood ... and both sides are passionately engaged in the argument ... well, I might roll my eyes and wonder "Is this the caliber of thought I'm dealing with?"

If I'm Cicero, and I want to convince undecided voters that the attractive, rational, Epicurean position is false, I might try to associate the position with figures who gets caught up on ideas like "god blood". That's not to say it's incoherent. I think a huge part of Epicurean theology was to demonstrate that the images of the mind are all "real", just not necessarily "true". Breaking down, however, god bodies into amalgamations of organs, and not eidola, seems like it could be a kind of red herring or else a sort of scarecrow from Cicero. ... or not, but, I'm suspicious.

It's an exceptional resource. It also may not be the best resource for new students.

As an academic text, The Handbook is organized as a collection of essays from respected scholars. In total (in over 800 pages), they present a synoptic view of Epicurean Philosophy; in particular, each focuses on a specific topic; some of those topics are much more narrow in scope than other overviews. Sometimes, the topics covered express interpretative disagreements in contemporary scholarship; in these cases, a background in the philosophy may be assumed by the author.

I think that students may struggle with the presentation — for example, depending on the author, and the author's voice, they may, or may not assume that you already know ancient Greek, or may or may not employ non-standard, in-text citations, or may over-use academic jargon, so I anticipate that some of the essays might strike new readers as being (understandably) obfusticating. Some of the topics are tangential, and inter-disciplinary, so I think of The Handbook as more of a supplement.

Still, each essay is filled with great information. The book is expansive, and the authors, as one would expect of academics, provide voluminous support for their analyses. You'll also find a wealth of peripheral, historical information as it relates to non-Epicureans, and modern philsophers.

It's also chunky enough that it stands up on its own on a bookshelf.

Quote from Matteng

Hi,

How do you see the Stoic theory/ view of the passions/ pathei/apatheia/ eupathei and hoe differ it in the Epicurean view ? I know Philodemus did there much.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoic_passions

As far as I know, each tradition's evaluation of "desire" and "passion" contradict.

For Epicureans, "feeling", itself, is one of the principle criteria of knowledge. We accept that the "affective sympathies" we feel are as informative as the colors we see. As Epíkouros writes, wise people will feel anger at injustice, and will experience pain upon being tortured. In each case, the lack of anger, or pain would make us numb and passive. We would feel apathy and indifference.

Meanwhile, "apathy" and "indifference" are preferred by those who see emotions, themselves, as deviant ripples the disrupt the pure, unblemished surface of the clear pond that is the mind. I think we'll find other parallels to many contemplative traditions that view pleasant emotions with suspicion, and privilege a sort of pure, neutral state to fun and laughter.

Quote from Matteng

When I understood Philodemus right, I think the Epicurean view would only match with the Stoic view when the Emotion

1) has harmful consequences ( pleasure then is not choiceworthy for example )
2) is irrational, based on empty believe
3) is based on unnecessary desire

I think you're on-point, there. Anger with harmful consequences, irrational anger, or anger based on unnecessary desires marks the line over which we are recommended not the cross, in which anger metastasizes into wrath or rage, as Philódēmos reinforces in On Anger.

Quote from Martin

There seems to be a mix-up of two different usages of "irrational":
The usage in the quote seems to indicate that "irrational" is something "bad", against reason, to be avoided.
The other usage is neutral and refers to sensations, emotions, feelings being fundamentally, by definition, irrational, in contrast to something we have obtained with reasoning.

This is a great point, and just to demonstrate the fluidity of the usage, Diogénēs' records Epíkouros as having employed the word ἄλογός (alogós), or "irrational" to refer to sensation:

“'For every' [Epíkouros] affirms 'sensation is irrational and moved by no single memory...'" (10.31)

In the Epistle to Herodotos, the Hegemon uses another declension of that same word ἀλόγῳ (alógoi) to refer to the veracity beliefs that are incoherent, foolish, or absurd:

"...[the study of nature] will banish anything irrational..." (10.81)

Quote from DaveT

How could Cicero know so much detail of the views of so many Greek thinkers on the divinities he referred to in this narrative?

Cicero, himself, visited the Athenian Garden under the leadership of Zḗnōn of Sidon, a scholarch who instructed Philódēmos — Philódēmos, himself, was a contemporary of Cicero. Many of Cicero's texts are responses to contemporary philosophical opponents with whom he was actively corresponding (not Philódēmos in this case, but other contemporaries, and Roman inheritors of the Hellenistic traditions). He lived at a unique, cultural intersection of professional law and national politics, so his relations were diverse and his resources were expansive. He was in the thick of it.

As a general observation, however, I think we should take caution against receiving Velleius at his word, because Velleius isn't always speaking — Cicero is speaking through Velleius, and using him as a literary tool, ultimately to persuade his audience to his cause, not necessarily provide an objective survey of history. So, I think that anything that the character Velleius proposes in Cicero's narrative needs to be referenced against the established doctrines set by Epíkouros and preserved by Philódēmos. There are a few things Cicero records that are surprising, so I read him cautiously.

As far as the dialogue is represented Cassius , great video! The text provides a wealth of attestation that reinforces existing opinions and the presentation exhibits it clearly; it also reliably provides a critique that accurately represents the criticism from Epicurean opponents.

Quote from Kalosyni

Since we don't have an American annual ritual of ancestor veneration, then I think it would feel awkwar to try to start doing that, especially if as Epicureans we don't believe that a spirit survives death.

I find a bit of a facsimile in Memorial Day.

Greetings!

I think I found a solution.

Happy birthdays!