Posts by Eikadistes

Quote from TauPhi

The attached pdf contains complete Book X of Diogenes Laertius' "Lives of Eminent Philosophers" in Greek and in three English translations (Yonge's, Hicks' and Bailey's) available in the public domain.

GREAT work! The comparative translations are really helpful, because, truly (especially as I've found in my attempts at translating) a number of 19th-century, British scholars literally punted and paraphrased rather than trying to find a way to make a mediopassive verb fit the context. I'm finding some sentences that don't even remotely contain the same verbs, objects, or subjects, and ignore declensions sometimes for the sake of making the concept generally digestible.

Overwhelmingly the translators are great. There are just a few things that most will gloss over that aren't appropriate. The best example I can think of, which Don discovered, is that all translators (except for Stephen White 2021, as I found) incorrectly gloss over Epicurus' birthday on the "[early] tenth of Gamelion" (i.e. "early tenth" = "20th"), so many translators overlooked the ancient Greek slang of "early tenth", ignored it, punted their creativity, and incorrectly settled on "10th".

No scholar is so infallible in their research that we should trust them 100%, and providing comparative texts really goes a long way in seeing patterns, preferences, and prejudices from the scholars. Thanks again for doing this! This is an unexpectedly pleasant surprise.

Glad you asked!

My personal favorite is from DRN 2.991, CAELESTI SVMVS OMNES SEMINE ORIVNDI meaning "We have all come from heavenly seed", which I really like because it summarizes, anticipates, and informs Carl Sagan's observation that "we are made of star stuff". (Got it tatted a while ago!)

As far as those go, ΛΑΘΕ ΒΙΩΣΑΣ is also a favorite, "Live Anonymously" (or "unknown", etc.):

Antiquity also provides us with SIC FAC OMNIA TAMQUAM SPECTET EPICVRVS, meaning "Do all things as if Epicurus were watching", a kind of ancient, Epicurean version of "What Would Jesus Do?"

Then also, we have FELIX QVI POTVIT RERVM COGNOSCERE CAVSAS meaning "Happy [is] the person who knows the causes of things" from a piece of work by Virgil that I forget.

Juvenal shares with us RANDVM EST VT SIT MENS SANA IN CORPORE SANO... meaning “You should pray for a sound mind in a healthy body...” which has a nice, confident, encouraging ring to it.

And then, of course, Horace gives us CARPE DIEM, which we all know as meaning "Seize the Day", but, personally, I prefer that we "Pluck the day [from the vine of time".

Sorry for the overshare! These are always fun questions.

I've read a lot more into Ethan Allen based on the availability of material. Nature's God introduced me to Thomas Young, but he seems to be a bit of a difficult historical figure to pin down in terms of daily activities. This book did two things that really helped me: one was to demonstrate how "Epicurean" our world really is (regardless of the bumper stickers we have), and the other was to help foster a feeling that non-Christians had a big, important, positive part to play in our history.

How would you title each of the six books of De Rerum Natura?

What would of their names be?

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Just to get the ball rolling...

1. "The True Philosophy"

Book One: Prayer to Mother Nature, Ode to Epicurus, Superstition causes the worst evils, Illuminating lost science in verse, Deities do not control nature, Nothings comes from nothings, Nothing goes to nothing, Particles cannot be seen, Matter is mostly empty space, Density, The Universe is bodies and void, Bodies are particles or compounds, Particles are indestrucible, Refutation of Herákleitos, Summary of pluralisms, Refutation fo Empedoklēs, Refutation of Stoic pneuma, As particles to bodies, so letters to words, Refutation of Anaxagoras, Purpose of poem, A spoonful of sugar, The universe has no edge, Cosmic expansion, Refutation fo Aristotle, There can be no center in infinity, Read and grow confident.

2. "The Play of Particles"

Book Two: The pleasure of prudence, Life is a struggle in darkness, Particle physics (and how!), Particles forever bounce and fall, Brownian Motion (1827), The speed of particles, Refutation of divine providence, Everything falls due to its weight, The swerve is needed for generation, Bodies fall at the same speed in void, The swerve is needed for choice, The swerve is needed for imagination, The Cosmological Principle (1687), Special Relativity (1905), The shapes of the particles, The effects of a particle’s shape, The particles have limited forms, Each form has unlimited particles, Creation and destruction, Everything is a combination, Earth, Mother of the Gods, Religious personification, Differences due to atomic form, Law of Definite Proportions (1797), Particles have no color, There is no color in darkness, Particles are insensible, Awareness arises from blind matter, We come from heavenly seed, From earth back to earth, The innumerable worlds, Inevitability from infinity, Nature is her own mistress, All things must pass,

3. "The Mortal Soul"

Book Three: Proem to Epicurus, Fearless of death, The soul is an organ of the body, Rejection fo Pythagoras, The matter of mind and spirit, The mind and spirit are material, The particle sof the soul, The qualities of the soul, The chemistry of the soul, The union of the body and soul, Experience comes from sensations, Refutation fo Democritus, We live more in mind than in spirit, The soul dies, The mind and spirit are the soul, The soul dissolves upon death, The mind is an organ of the body, Mental illness is real, The mind is a material body, Epileptic seizures, The mind is mortal, The spirit is mortal, The soul is mortal, The mind and body act as one, The soul dissolves upon dying, The mind’s seat in the body, The soul needs a body, Distribution in the body, The soul dies with the body, Refutation of reincarnation, Character is hereditary, There are no “old souls”, A mind cannot live before its body, Death is nothing to us, There is no afterlife, Grief is not the answer, There is no longing in death, What to do with the time before us, We hold but a lease on life, Hell is a bad state of being, None of us own death, Study the nature of things, Do not fear death

4. "Sight, Illusions, Dreams, Sex"

Book Four: The road less traveled, A spoonful of sugar, The nature of perception, All things emit films of particles, Tjhe fineness of the films of particles, Microscopic activities, Pareidolia, Patterns in the clouds, Constant streaming, The speed of light, Seeing or visual perception, Distinguishing distance, Mirror reflection, Lateral Inversation, Angled mirrors, Retina Adjustment, Persistence of Vision, Xanthopsia, Dark Adaptation, Distance Illusion, Beta MOvement, Induced Movement, Parallax, Vanishing Point, Vertigo, The “Moon” Illusion, More Induced Movement, Entasis, Vanishing point, Refraction of Light, Still More Induced Movement, Diplopia or “Double-Visions”, Rapid-eye movement sleep, Refutation of Skepticism, Sensations cannot lie, The other sense perceptions, Hearing or auditory perception, The nature of speech, The nature of echoes, Sitght vs. sound, Tasting or gustatory perception, Food for one is poison for another, Smelling or olfactory perception, The discharge of aroma, Each creature has its own weakness, The nature of imagination, The substance of dreams, The nature of ideas, Rejection of teleology, Consumption and replenishment, Locomotion, The nature of sleep, The content of dreams, Dogs dreaming, Nightmares, Nocturnal enuresis, Nocturnal emissions, Puberty, Sexual psychology, Dangers of Romantic Love, love is blind, Sex is recreational, Biological inheritance, The causes of infertility, Positions for conception

5. "The Story of Life"

Book Five: Proem to Epicurus, A good life requires a pure mind, For Lucretius next trick…, All things must pass, The sun is not a god, The wrold was not made for us, The world is mortal, The world is still fresh, Nature is a mix of bodies and void, Balance between the forces, The forces of creation, The Nebular Hypothesis (1734), Motion of the stars, The plurality of causes, Sourcce of the Sun’s energy, Seasonal arc of the sun, The dance of night and day, The nature of moonlight, Solar and lunar eclipses, Evolution, Mother Earth, Everythign is in flux, Natural selection, Extinction, Mythic hybrids do not exist, Early hominids, Discovery of controlled fire, The origin of civilization, The origin of speech, Fire from lightning, The origin of cooking, The origin of political power, The influence of wealth, Reponse to authocracy, Response to societyal collapse, The origin of religion, The dangers of superstition, The history of metallurgy, Value changes over time, The Stone Age, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, The laboratory of war, The origin of gender roles, The origin of agriculture, The origin of music, The sake of convenience, Behavioral acclimatization, The origin of timekeeping, The development of the arts

6. "Spectacles and Curiosities"

Book Six: Pleasure is the Greatest Good, The natural sciences, The nature of thunder, The nature of lightning, Speed of lightning vs. thunder, The nature of thunderbolts, The nature of cyclones, Seasonal changes in weather, Superstition is a bad joke, The nature of waterspouts, The nature of clouds, The hydrological cycle, The nature of rainbows, The nature of preciipitation, The nature of earthquakes, The volume of the sea, The nature of volcanos, The plurality of causes, The nature of the Nile River, The nature of toxic gas, Everything is a product of nature, The nature of springs, Burning springs, The nature of magnetism, Compound bodies are mostly void, The nature of disease, Airbone pathogens, The Plague of Athens (430 BCE), Symptoms of the plague, The plague of hopelessness, The inadequacy of religion

Frugality has a limit for Epicureans, true, but bread and water are not described as frugal pleasures:

"Therefore I teem with sweet [sensations] through a modest body, desiring water and bread, and I spit upon pleasures that come from extravagance not because of them, but because of the difficulties that follow them. (Usener Fragment 181 / Bailey 37)

"[T]hen Dioklḗs in the third [book] of his Epitome affirms [Epíkouros] lived his cheapest and simplest life; 'well a teacup,' [he] affirms 'of the cheap wine is sufficient, but just the water would be the [preferred] drink [for] us.'" (Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers 10.11).

Ah, great observation! I see what you mean.

In the first line of 91:

"...κατὰ μὲν τὸ πρὸς ἡμᾶς..."

and then, paralleled, several clauses later:

"...κατὰ δὲ τὸ καθ᾽αὑτὸ..."

I totally agree. There should be a parallel there. I'm making that change.

Also, in case anyone is interested, I made this as a tool for my study... [attached]

Every entry links to https://www.perseus.tufts.edu, which is the best resource I have found to confirm tenses and declensions. Speaking of tenses and declensions, if the spirit moves anyone, and they could use a hand with the language, feel free to ask me about mediopassive and aorist tenses.

Also, I am loving his system of physical taxonomy:

Physics below our feet is Chthonic and above our heads is Meteoric.

Of meteoric phenomena, most are some kind of glowers.

Of glowers, there are our two, favorite glowers, to which we assign personal names (the Sun and the Moon ... or Helios and Selēnē) proper glowers (stars), wandering glowers (planets), feathered glowers (comets), falling glowers (meteors), and glowers-through-holes (lightning flashes).

Epicurus also emphatically states that the kósmos includes "the remaining glowers" not mentioned above, which should have included other objects visible to the naked eye, such as the asteroid Vesta. Since the Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies are (barely) visible with the naked eye, and since they would have been much more obvious 2,300 years ago, I wonder if it would therefore be appropriate to consider that the ancient Epicurean kósmos properly includes the entire Observable Universe?

Maybe I'll save that for another thread...

All right! I've finished the Epistle to Pythoklēs!

I'll re-iterate for everyone that I'm finding tremendous value in this practice. Beyond advancing my understand of ancient Greek, this has really been a great exercise to try to get inside of Epicurus' head and understand, not simply his conclusions and doctrines, but his way of thinking and explaining.

His analogical reasoning relies on simple, personal observations that we all make (such as the correspondence between thunder and stomach aches, discharge of lightning and diarrhea). I was refreshed to discover how many anatomical words he uses to describe the features of nature.

From Pythoklēs, I have learned that the value of Epicurean geoscience, meteorology, and astronomy has less to do with his impressive, scientific foresight, and much more to do with its function as a Ethical tool to reduce anxiety. With Heródotos, I anticipate finding more accuracy with cosmology.

Isn't it a great book?!

This is an exceptional resource. I'm sharing links on my hosted Munro pages. I'm looking forward to the other books as well! This sort of tool really is invaluable in becoming familiar with the language.

EXCELLENT! This is a fantastic resource.

Quote from Kalosyni

and the extant texts of Epicurus do not provide any guidance for this.

This is an interesting perspective because (agreeably so) Epicurus does not prescribe a verbal mantra like the Lord's Prayer, nor strict recommendations about prayer times, or gestures as is the case with Salah in Islam. There might be a lose kind of correspondence between memorizing the Doxai and Christian breviaries, but I might be making a bit of a stretch there.

One important difference is the origin of prayer within the context of each tradition. For Christians, prayer isn't necessarily natural. We only know how to pray (correctly) because a super-being came to Earth, and taught us how. Allegedly, humans existed for thousands of years before any one of them figured out how to pray properly. In this regard, Jesus Christ acts kind of like Prometheus.

With Epicurus, however, prayer is natural, and comes from Nature, and arises spontaneously in human beings the same way we each independently discover masturbation or any other number of development behaviors. In that regard, those philosophers who believe in natural prayer shouldn't prescribe a mantra, because it doesn't come from teachers, its just genetic, human behavior.

He does provide some guidelines, though in terms of how not to get hurt praying: no expectation of wish fulfillment, no expectation of supernatural intervention, no expectation of holding a dialogue.

I think this brings me, personally, to a place where I start to think ... (having been raised as a Methodist) ... what good is prayer if no one is listening? Why bother praying at all if someone isn't considering fulfilling your wishes? Why not just skip the whole, weird, archaic, pseudo-magical ritual altogether? It's not like it's ever been a necessary or important part of my own life.

I entertain the idea that the functional mechanism by which prayer operates is the placebo effect. I think Epicurus whittled down the concept of prayer to the bare-bones: positive thinking is healthy, and believing in a divine nature that you can access through self-improvement is positive. The other stuff (like praying to God for wishes like a genie) are all colorful, cultural additions.

Now, all that being said, let me also add: I don't think most Christians are really reciting their prayer honestly. I think ritualized soliloquies like the Lord's Prayer just puts people's brains on auto-pilot, and they aren't really, devotedly, observantly engaged. So, in that regard, I don't want to give the impression that they are more genuine than our observances. They might be empty.

That's definitely the case with grace before dinner (based my childhood). From personal experience, that's the case with the Pledge of Allegiance in school, too. After a while, they run the risk of losing their authenticity, and become as mundane, barely-conscious, habituated behavior as locking the door when you leave the house. So I think we own prayer just as much as anyone else.

I've taken it upon myself to continue translating all of the Epistles, and about halfway through Pythokles, I came across a fantastic word that is not only entertaining but also educational, and memorable! When describing the expulsion of thunderbolts from a storm cloud, Epicurus employs the word κατάρρηξιν (katárrēxin), which means (you guessed it), "Explosive Diarrhea".

This really exemplifies Epicurus' approach to science in de-mystifying extraordinary phenomena by relating it to mundane, daily activities, of which we show neither fear nor existential dread. Earlier in Pythokles, Epicurus also uses the imagery of bloating from eating grain, and then the indigestion and expulsion of vapors that followed to represent an analogy for thunder.

I also really appreciate the colorful example. I'll always maintain that funny, gross, and colorful examples are some of the best, most memorable, most demonstrative teachings tools. Philosophy shouldn't have to be abstract to the point of relying on purely theoretical language. Knowing that clouds get gas, just like people, seems to be enough to make the point.

Quote from Kalosyni

I have some evidence that complicates things, and points to a possiblity that Philodemus held different views than Epicurus did.

One other thing I want to suggest is that we should believe Philodemos, for at least two, good reasons: (1) Philodemus pre-dates the other source by 300 years, so he had better sources, (2) Diogenes, himself, relied on Philodemus' own biography on Epicurus, so Philodemus is the real source here.

(And, of course, the best source is Epicurus, in his own words, in Menoikeus).

Still though, I don't think there's a disagreement. I don't think Diogenes was suggesting that Epicurus was actually an atheist in one sentence in Book 2, when he spend pages and pages in Book 10 sharing Epicurus, in his own words, who makes point after point arguing against Theodorean atheism.

This statement comes from Book 2: "Theodorus did all he could to overturn people's beliefs about the gods, and we came across a book of his entitled On Gods, which is not easy to dismiss; they say Epicurus took from it most of what he said." (Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers 2.97)

The last line, "they say Epicurus took from it most of what he said...", to me, means that Epicurus was using On Gods as source material against which to argue, not material to support.

Theodorus' theological propositions were incompatible with Epicurus, as shown in Menoikeus:

"First and foremost consider the deity⁶ an incorruptible and blessed figure as the common conception of a deity prescribes; attribute to him nothing either hostile to incorruptibility or alien to blessedness rather believe anything about him that is able to preserve his incorruptibility and blessedness"

"Since it is better to comply with the myths of the deities than it is to become a slave of physical inevitability; for indeed subscribing in earnest prayer to an expectation of dignity from the deities [encourages agency], but she has not [once] been moved by prayers to necessity."

On Piety will be the big resource here:

"Furthermore, | it will appear that Epíkouros loyally observed all the forms of worship and enjoined upon his friends to observe them, not only on account of the laws but for physical reasons¹⁰⁵ as well. For in On Lifecourses he says that to pray is natural¹⁰⁶ | for us, not because the gods would be hostile if we did not pray, but in order that, according to the understanding of beings surpassing in power and excellence, we may realize our¹⁰⁷ fulfilments | and social conformity with the laws. And besides writing this as well, in On Gods he¹⁰⁸ says that as being both the greatest thing, and that which as it were excels in sovereignty, it possesses everything: for every wise man holds pure and | holy beliefs about the divine and has understood that this nature¹⁰⁹ is great and august. And it is particularly at festivals that he, progressing to an understanding of it,¹¹⁰ through having its name the whole time | on his lips, embraces¹¹¹ with conviction more seriously […] not from things¹¹² (several words missing) of some things better by effectively preserving one’s conception of the gods during certain | times.¹¹³ And not only did he¹¹⁴ teach these things but also by his very deeds he is found to have taken part in all the traditional festivals and sacrifices. In the archonship of Aristonymus,¹¹⁵ for instance, writing to Phyrson about a countryman of | his¹¹⁶, Theodotus, he¹¹⁷ says that he shared in all the festivals (several words missing), and that while he¹¹⁸ was joining in celebrating the festival of the Choes¹¹⁹ and the urban mysteries¹²⁰ | and the other festivals at a meagre dinner, and that it was necessary for him¹²¹ to celebrate this feast of the twentieth¹²² for distinguished revellers, while those in the house decorated it most piously, and after making invitations¹²³ to host a feast for all of them. | Now it would be absurd to relate in addition that they¹²⁴ thought it right to make use of oaths and epithets of the gods, since their philosophical writing is filled with them. But it is proper to say that he¹²⁵ advised | them to retain asseverations made by means of these and similar expressions, and above all to preserve those made by Zeús himself in this open manner,¹²⁶ and not writing ‘by the twin shoots!’¹²⁷ or merely ‘it must be so’. Moreover to Kolotes he took pains with regard to all forms of oaths and | speaking about the gods. And in the archonship of Charinus¹²⁸ and that of Diotimus¹²⁹ he warns against violating the covenant of the sacred festival table. | […] But also writing to Polýainos that the Anthḗsteria too must be celebrated and that it is necessary to make mention of the gods (one word missing) | of many […] to conceive of their¹³⁰ nature as accurately constituting the notion of benefit according to the epistemological standard. And, lest I extend my discussion, again: ‘Let us sacrifice | to the gods‘, he¹³¹ says, ‘devoutly and fittingly on the proper days, and let us fittingly perform all the acts of worship in accordance with the laws, in no way disturbing ourselves with opinions in matters concerning the most excellent and august of being. Moreover, | let us sacrifice justly, on the view that I was giving. For in this way it is possible for mortal nature, by Zeús, to live like Zeús, as it seems.’ [...] And in his Symposium concerning the rites²⁴⁵ (he says): ‘Let us celebrate the festivals‘, | and ‘Make fine sacrifices to a god‘, […] from the holy rites in prayers against these cities..." (Philodemos, On Piety, translated by Obbink)

Quote from Kalosyni

We do not have evidence of any of the above in ancient Epicureans, and the extant texts of Epicurus do not provide any guidance for this.

I think we have a lot of material from the Epicureans, but, from our eyes (I'm speaking from mine, in particular), Epicurean spirituality doesn't look like "spirituality" because of the historical victory of anti-Epicureans in appropriating terminology. "Spirituality" in general, should mean something closer to "psychology", but, instead, has taken on the connotation of "metaphysics" and "mysticism". "Religion" should mean something more like "wisdom tradition", but is often weaponized to mean "Proper Observance of The God". Still, I think we qualify:

• Beliefs and Practices:

  Religions typically involve a set of beliefs about the nature of reality (countless particles in an infinite void), the divine (blessedness, defined as pure, uninterruptible pleasure), and the afterlife (a non-conscious re-arrangement of particles), along with practices like prayer (heavily encouraged by Epicurus and Philodemos in On Piety), rituals (civic festivals such as the City Dionysia and Anthesteria as well as personal cults to deceased family members and close friends), and ceremonies (Eikas and Hegemon Day).

• Sacred Things:

  Durkheim's definition emphasizes the concept of "sacred things," which are objects, places, or ideas that are set apart and treated with reverence and respect. (Greece in general and Athens in particular, for its historical significant based on the salvific mortals who lived there, as well as using pictures of our Leaders as decorations. We treat Herculaneum, itself, as a sort of necropolis, and privilege true knowledge over vain fantasies, as well as referring to bad habits as "sins" that must be extinguished to protect our happiness).

• Moral Codes:

  Many religions also include a system of ethics or moral guidelines that dictate how individuals should behave and interact with others. (The Epistle to Menoikeus covers the general guidelines en masse, and the fragments provide specific pieces of advice, such as a general warning against holding political office, rejecting betraying friends, approving of sacrifice for loved ones, and caution against careless attitudes toward casual sex).

• Community:

  Religion often fosters a sense of community among believers, who share common beliefs and practices. (This is something the Epicurean tradition does better than other traditions, and may be seen as one of the founding traditions that emphasized a unique, community of initiates who lived together. Though, they were not judgmentally exclusive. The primary rituals of our tradition are communal. We are encouraged to study with others along with ourselves. Our holidays are meant to be shared).

• Worship:

  While not always a defining feature, many religions involve the worship of a deity or deities. (Epicurean worship looks different than most other forms of worship. I think that's fair. Our expressions of deity-worship look a bit more like Jain and Buddhist expressions, minus the intensive, psycho-psychical, meditative practices), but, again, the culture in which we live sometimes even rejects Jains and Buddhists as proper examples of religious worshippers, so ... this is being gate-kept by Jews, Christians, and Muslims. That's my biggest comment on this section. Science is its own form of spirituality. Deities don't have to be magical, and worship doesn't have to be wish-fulfillment.)

I think we check all of the boxes.

I think that the pleasure that is having choice can be properly called freedom.

In that sense, the pleasure of having freedom is different from the pleasures had from doing things while free. In that regard, I might argue, then, that freedom is a katestamatic pleasure.

Quote from Cassius

Quote

In Democritus we recognize not merely a keener intellect, but also, in almost every way, a nobler, fuller, and stronger nature than that of Epicurus. It is only the passionate sympathy of Epicurus with the suffering, with the ignorant, and those who through their ignorance are deceived and terrified, with all who are sore beaten by the storms of life, which alone relieves a system hardly deserving to be called a philosophy.

That's a bold statement about a historical figure for whom we have no original works.

Sounds like the author is projecting his own narrative onto history.