Posts by Eikadistes

Quote from Patrikios

Quote from Don

So, τὸ κατὰ ψυχὴν χαῖρον ἐπὶ τῇ ... μνήμῃ "the enjoying throughout (my) mind... of the memory"

So I don't think we can make a firm body (flesh)/mind dichotomy with ΧΑΡΑ/ΕΥΦΡΟΣΥΝΗ. There seem to be more nuances going on, at least in Epicurus' use of the terms.

Don  Eikadistes ,

Could this use of KAPA be describing a whole-body-mind feeling of pleasure that occurs when a vivid mental recollection of a past significant joyous event, causes the mind to trigger the brain/body to release of the pleasure chemicals (endorphins)? Is this one of those nuances?

Good thought! I agree with Don that there isn't a sharp, technical division, they're just expressions of different qualities and varieties of pleasure, which is ultimately seen as a single concept.

TL;DR

If the masses don't find our words pleasing, that's their loss.

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Quote from Cassius

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I wonder how the most highly regarded English translations render Epicurus’s use of the word Pleasure. Are they agreed? Is any one of them considered above the others?

Though language is fluid (and I do think it's helpful to paraphrase), so far as I have found, "pleasure" is the universal, English translation for ἡδονή (hēdonḗ) found in the academic world of Epicurean scholars. For example, in the (x15) translations of the Kuriai Doxai that I compiled, a declension of hēdonḗ is used in Key Doctrines 3, 4, 8, 9, 10, 12, 18, 19, and 20, and all of the translators (including Yonge, Wallace, Hicks, Bailey, de Witt, Geer, Long, Sedley, O’ Connor, Inwood, Gerson, Anderson, Makridis, Saint-Andre, Strodach, Mensch, and White) use "pleasure" as their preferred term. This is one of only a few Greek words for which all translators (of the Epicurean works) seem to agree.

Quote from Cassius

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Does Epicurus’ ancient Greek word have a singular meaning or multiple meanings within the context of mental vs physical?

Is his use of the word always consistent without his explaining the distinction between mental and physical meanings?

Hēdonḗ always means "pleasure" as I have seen, and includes physical pleasures, mental pleasures, lasting pleasures, fleeting pleasures, red pleasures, blue pleasures, "me" pleasures, and "you" pleasures. All pleasures are implied by and included in the definition ἡδονή (hēdonḗ).All pleasure is pleasure: "If every pleasure were compressed, and eventually existed throughout the whole atomic assembly of the human form or even just the most important parts of one’s nature, it would never be possible to distinguish one pleasure from another” (Key Doctrine 9).

For the sake of coherence, I maintain that same conventions in my own translations. As Epíkouros further writes, "no pleasure by itself is evil" (KD 8 ) because "wherever pleasure is, for the time that it is, there is neither discomfort, nor distress, nor both" (KD 3). Since pleasure is not an evil, I feel right defending the word against those who might consider it "tainted".

Now, given that conceptual treatment of pleasure, there are different varieties of hēdonḗ. Principally, he discusses ἀταραξία (ataraxía), "impassiveness", which might be seen to correspond with the pure pleasures δῐᾰνοίᾱς (dianoías) "of the mind", and ἀπονία (aponía), which might be seen to correspond with the pure pleasure σᾰρκός (sarkós) "of the flesh". Unlike the Kyrenaics, ancient Epicureans maintained that both pleasures and pains of the mind were worse than both pleasures and pains of the flesh. Still, all pleasures are pleasurable.

He provides us (as I see it) with at least 2-4 other qualities of sorts of pleasures: on one axis, pleasures are characterized as being "of the mind" and "of the body", and on another, they are characterized as being either kinetic (or "active") or katastematic, “stable” or “static”:

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He differs from the Kyrēnaícs regarding the [definition of] pleasure; for they do not accept the katastēmatic⁵⁴ [balanced state] but only the [pleasure] in activity; but he [accepts] both, [pleasure] of mind and of body, as he affirms in the [book] On Choice and Avoidance and in that On the End, and in the first [book] On the Conduct of Life and in the Epistle to the Philosophers in Mytilḗnē. So also Diogénēs [the Epicurean] in the seventeenth book of his Epilekta, and Mētródōros in the [book] Timokrátēs, they say thus: “We then conceive of pleasure both as [kinetic] activity and [katastematic] equilibrium.” (Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.136)

Her further says, "in the [book] On Choice, simply says: “Tranquility [ataraxía]⁵⁵ and painlessness [aponía]⁵⁶ are centered⁵⁷pleasures; but the [pleasures of] joy [kharà]⁵⁸ and cheerfulness [euphronsýnē]⁵⁹ are seen to [include] action [and] activity", so we are provided with words to further characterize the [1] "active pleasures of the mind", [2] "stable pleasures of the mind", [3] "active pleasures of the flesh", and [4] "stables pleasures of the flesh". As I see it:

1. ἈTAPAΞIA or ἀταραξία (ataraxía), the katastamatic state of painlessness of the mind. ↩︎
2. ἈΠONIA or ἀπονία (aponía), the katastamatic state of painlessness of the flesh. ↩︎
3. XAPA or χαρὰ (kharà), the kinetic act of pleasuring the flesh, meaning “joy”. ↩︎
4. EYΦPOΣYNH or εὐφροσύνη (euphronsýnē) the kinetic act of pleasuring the mind, “cheer“. ↩︎

And, of course, we may also see some correspondence between the various pleasures and the types of desires. Natural, and necessary desires usually correspond with pleasures like eating, drinking, and socializing. Natural, but unnecessary desires might correspond with pleasures like sex. Vain desires correspond with pleasures that include building a ballroom to preserve your legacy. While there are differences between pleasures and desires, these help shape our understanding.

Quote from Cassius

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...considering our discussion today about Pleasure and its connotation with shamefulness? [...]

For example, Pleasure is such a loaded word! When Joshua said it should not be associated with shame, it resonated with me a lot.

Epíkouros understood that "pleasure" had a bad rap, and he saw a need to add a nuance for those who might misunderstand. So, he explicitly explains to Menoikeus that,

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Then when we say the goal is Pleasure, we are not counting the pleasures of the debauched and those lying sick with enjoyment, and those who, not knowing and not acknowledging or having barely received [advantage] from considering, but rather [seeking] neither suffering throughout the body nor grieving throughout the soul." (Epíkouros, Epistle to Menoikeus 10.131).

Quote from Cassius

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I wonder if his followers in the varied parts of the eastern Mediterranean all deduced the same meaning(s) he intended with his usage of the Greek word for Pleasure?

In general, hēdonḗ was seen by Epicurean opponents as the root of all evil. They weren't shy about it. Everyone from Platonists, to Cynics, to Stoics, to Christians contextualized hēdonḗ as the dishonorable goal of shallow people with weak minds. Everyone rejected his categorization of "mental impassiveness" as a "pleasure", including his fellow hedonists, the Kyrenaics.

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Robert wondered if “re-branding” our word choice would be useful.

I think the Hegemon gives us some attitude on this idea: "Frankly at least [as a] student-of-nature, I would prefer to deliver what is useful to all humanity, even if no one is likely to take notice, than profit from affirming the firm doctrines that fell from the side of widespread approval." (Vatican Saying 29). He also says, "Never did I reach to please the masses, for truly what pleases them, I did not understand, but what I understood was far away from their perception" (Usener 187).

I think I found a solution.

Happy birthdays!

Quote from DaveT

Quote from Eikadistes

He quotes Epíkouros as writing "...that it is possible even for many eternal and immortal gods to exist"

"Possible" does not remotely approach

Just for the record, since I've been parsing through the Greek, he writes ἐξεῖναι (exeínai), the present, active infinitive of ἔξεστι meaning "to be possible" or also "to be allowed", so, that's a fair translation. I think he's just saying that "eternal god" concept is coherent with Epicurean physics ... so long as any given "eternal god" only exists as a formation in the minds of people.

Quote from DaveT

This general topic of who, or what gods may exist and what they do seems pretty vaguely written

I don't read it as quite "vague" in On Piety, or with the description of eidola in Herodotos.

They take us through a moment-by-moment procession of the means by which different bundles of particles coalesce to form mental images. This corresponds with Epíkouros' description in the Epistle to Herodotos of "impulses" that "sequentially" travel through a kind of "relay" in the soul to then "sublimate" together to form "images" which are then "apprehended by the intellect".

Quote from DaveT

If there is only matter and void in his world view, how can transcendent gods

Definitely no transcendent thing exists or transcends bodies and void — no doubt about that.

I purport that the natural gods (natural simply meaning "made of particles") can exist as images in the mind that coalesce together from different streams of compatible images.

Quote from DaveT

I wonder how important the existence of gods was to Epicurus anyway, since his foundation was to simply not fear the gods (if they even possibly exist?)

This is a great point, and I agree, if by "existence of gods" you mean "the presence of chunky lifeforms living beyond the stars", and I think it reinforces the notion that gods are appearances in the mind. Suppose there are not gods-as-extraordinary-lifeforms-beyond-the-stars: this in no way impacts Epicurean piety, prayer, or practice. The entire process of engaging piety only requires deities to exist as deeply inspiring icons and idols. If they aren't "'really' out there", no big deal.

Quote from DaveT

He certainly never, that I have seen, propounded on where they came from and why they exist at all, did he?

I think we can take the description from the Epistle to Herodotos as a reliable description of the formation of the mental appearance of gods. As Obbink translates in On Piety, there is a further delineation of two kinds of mental images, some bundles of particles that all come from the "same" source, and some bundles of "similar" particles that come together from multiple sources; the gods, as I read it, are identified as images of the latter, a mixture of bundles from different sources.

Nonetheless, you might appreciate the following, because after going on-and-on about all of the above in On Piety, Philódēmos (if we accept Obbink's reconstruction) concedes that “no one has been prolific in finding convincing demonstrations for the existences of the gods; nevertheless all men, with the exception of some […] worship them, as do we” (οὐδεὶς εἱκνουμένας περὶ τ[οὺ θ]εοὺς ὑπάρχε[ιν τἀς ἀπο]δείξεις εύπ[όρησ]εν· ὁμῶς δε [σέβ]ονται πάντε[ς εἱ μή παρ]άκοποί τινε[ς αὑτούς, On Piety, Col. 23, 13-17), so I think your previous point, if I'm reading you correctly, is true, that the hard, chunky, massive, physical existence of animal-like-beings, beyond-the-stars is unnecessary for the Epicurean understanding of theology and practice of piety to still be true.

Quote from Don

Are the gods athanatos in some texts?

They sure are!

Philódēmos employs the word καθανατοις (kathanatois) in lines 69-70 of On Piety.

In line 1139, he refers to ἀθάνασιαν (athanasian) or "immortality".

Quote from Don

I was under the impression that the gods were "incorruptible" and not "immortal."

On Piety gives us at least three alternatives to ἄφθαρτον (aphtharton).

He quotes Epíkouros as writing "...that it is possible even for many eternal and immortal gods to exist" (lines 65-70). Obbink translates "eternal" from [2] ἀΐδιος (áidios). Then, in line 693, he uses the word [3] διαινωια (diainōia), from "δια-" and "αινωια", roughly, "for forever".

Though, they are also "incorruptible" as per KD1 and the Epistle to Menoikeus.

One problem I also seen with the notion that the gods exist, by themselves, independent of the human mind, is that they are "eternal", whereas humans had a release date. If the human-shaped gods are "eternal" as things that exist independent of the human mind, and independent of the planet Earth, then that would imply that the human form, itself, somehow existed in the metakosmios prior to the evolution of the human animal on Earth, and that contradicts his rejection of Platonic Forms. Human forms cannot exist before witnessing human animals.

Epíkouros (in Book 12 of On Nature, so Philódēmos writes) provides a historical description of early humans beings, and the ways in which they "arrived" at conceptions of the gods. So the notion of the forms of the gods as humans see them, according to Epíkouros, has a genesis in history. That seems to reinforce the notion that human gods are not more ancient than human beings.

He further describes that the ways in which we arrive at the gods has slightly changed.

As I see it, after modern humans appeared on the scene, it didn't take us too long to develop art and invent story-telling ... set on low heat for a few dozen millennia... and voilà! You get paleolithic, limestone statues like the Venus of Willendorf, and other "Mother Goddess" depictions. After that point, I consider that (with increasing frequency) new, human children were being born into cultures that were littered with visual depictions of the forms of those beings we call "the gods". Neither you nor I invented them. Those chunky statues were waiting for us, like everything else.

That's a bit of a difference, when we're discussing how we apprehend images of the gods. Prehistoric children weren't born into cultures with god-art. We're all stuck in it.

So we're situated in this colorful place in history where no living person remembers a period of time on Earth when there were no visual depictions of gods. This period has lasted for millennia, and, so long as humans continue existing, we're going to continue to be "inundated" with god-images.

I couldn't even walk through the Advent hospital in Orlando without seeing paintings on the wall of a long-haired, white-robbed, bearded hippie, holding the hands of surgeons in the operating room. For some reason, a larger-than-lifesize mural of Adam and Eve was waiting for me at the bottom of the escalator. Pictures of smiling, winged humans were abundant. Truly, "knowledge of the gods is evident" because you can't even get medical care without running into pictures of them.

And this, I think, is where I see practical coherence with the word "immortal". Friendship is also described as "immortal", and it has a definite beginning. It's not immortal both ways, it's only immortal going forward, into the future. Likewise, "the gods" don't need to have existed infinitely from the past. Their forms just need to have the possibility of being reproduced after the deaths of those who contemplate them. Visual art provides us (I think) with a great analogy: the form of Aphrodite is "immortal" in this regard, because even though individual marble constructions can be broken, the form can be reproduced forever. That's why we have busts on our desks.

So, if we distance ourselves from the idea that "immortal" means "going back forever", then that puts less necessity on the idea that "human-forms must have existed somewhere beyond the stars, over billions and billions of years ago, living life as would future-humans-on-Earth". Their mental forms are eternally-reproducible by new people imagining them, and their new forms are made of particles in new minds (just like casting new busts with new plaster to reproduce old designs).

Sorry, that was a roundabout way to make my point about "immortal".

Here's how I read Herodotos — all images are "real", because all images are made of particles, and all particles have a source in nature. I read this to mean that we cannot imagine an image that has not been impressed upon or apprehended by us. We cannot apprehend the ultraviolet colors of flowers like bees. Our mind is limited to compatible physical interactions. Like an artist, the mind is not a metaphysical creator, just a creative re-arranger of pre-existing elements loaned from nature.

So, if we can conceive of it, or retrieve it from memory, or play with it in imagination, then the particles must have come from an existing thing (or things) outside of the subjective mind. If you tell me you believe in centaurs, regardless of your fantasy, I know for a fact that you have experienced both the form of a human, and the form of a horse, both of which were real. A centaur is a real, sublimated image in the mind that so happens to not correspond with a tall, chunky creature.

The same is true of individual gods. Mental images of gods exist, like centaurs, as compound unities of particles that travelled from external objects, into the mind, and were sublimated together to form a new image that does not directly correspond 1:1 with an external object. As I read On Piety, the gods only exist in the mind as compounds made from, specifically, [1] the preconception of blessedness, [2] the concept of immortality, [3] the visual form of a human. Now, if you want to name a specific deity, you're expanding on the sublimation. Aphrodite has [4] sex or love (etc.).

This is why Epíkouros writes that the gods are only "reached" through "contemplation". You can't find a god as anything but a mental image or a physical representation crafted by a human artist because you need a human imagination to sublimate together several different concepts. Without the tool of the imagination (or the hand of the visual artist, making the contents of the mind become chunky), the components of a "god-image" are incapable of properly bonding by themselves.

Quote from Kalosyni

It seems pretty unnatural to "glorify" decay and ugliness (ugly witches, goblins, monsters, and bloodied faces/bodies) and it seems that on some level this is an expression of anger and hopelessness.

I see where you're coming from, but consider the Memento Mori visualized by Epicureans — images of death (like the skeleton mosaics) are historically on-brand when it comes to Epicurean mortality.

Celebrating mortality, in that regard, is also a celebration of the urgency of pursuing happiness, "by having been dispossessed of the yearning for immortality" (Ep. Men. 124). It's also way to face death directly with visual representations and observe that it can't hurt you. It's just a concept.

Granted, Halloween, in my experience, is more about (depending on your age): playing dress-up, collecting candy, trying to get laid, an excuse to drink, or doing it all over for your own kids. It doesn't necessarily have any particular philosophical side that is celebrated as far as that goes.

Still, intellectual-underpining aside, if it's fun, choose it. If not, avoid it.

Quote from TauPhi

2) principle of isonomia

I also want to bring up that in the extant texts, I've only ever found Epíkouros employing isonomia when discussing physical cosmology as the ideal ratio of matter-to-void. I have not come across texts where isonomia and theos are discussed as being related concepts. That's just my own study.

To be honest, I think, properly, I'll have to go back through Philódēmos' texts to reinforce this, because there are so many. I went through Epíkouros' texts before and came to that conclusion.

We do find those words correlated by an Epicurean opponent, though, several hundred years later. And, on this, I respectfully think Cicero left the Garden before he properly understood Zeno.

Quote from TauPhi

Actively constructed subjective imagination cannot be confirmed nor contradicted. 'I imagined it therefore it is', is not compatible with Epicurean system.

I think it can. Dreams are real. We don't choose our dreams, they just happen.

There is a categorical difference when I say, "Last night, I had a dream about X, Y, and Z" versus me completely fabricating a lie and saying "Last night, I had a dream..." when I didn't have a dream.

In one scenario, the dream-forms really happened in my mind. In one, I'm lying to prove a point.

Same thing on drugs. If I'm tripping on acid, and I report back to you later, I could lie to you, and make up images that the serotonin-flooded brain did not actually produce, when in reality, if you hooked some futuristic visual-cortex-reproducing machine to see what my inner-eye is seeing, you'd be able to confirm that I'm subjectively experiencing exactly what my brain is producing.

Happy birthday!

Quote from Eikadistes

Each of us can create our own "him"

Or "her", or a smaller group of "they".

Quote from Patrikios

we have an innate predisposition to form these divine images, but not because gods actually exist.

Is this a correct understanding of how to interpret how Epicurus referred to 'god(s)'?

In general, and from my humble perspective, I think this is right on the money.

I also think this creates coherence for Epíkouros to use both the plural ("deities") and the masculine, accusative, singular pronoun ("him") in the same paragraph. Each of us can create our own "him", so to speak, and the collection of our "hims" are the "they". I then think that the appearance of each of "them" can be conceived of as a reflection of "it" ("the divine nature").

I don't want to distract from your point because I think that you nailed it, but I'd add the caveat that I think ancient Epicureans would say that the gods are real, they just aren't massive animals.

This also provides coherence with the idea that the gods are infinite, not necessarily because the universe is physically infinite and there are infinite god-animals in infinite void, but because there are infinite animals capable of each conceiving of their own deity or collection of deities.

I'm also, personally coming to the conclusion that, internally, in Epicurean documents written from one Epicurean to another, within the context of their own, frank speech, when they wrote theos ("deity"), they may have always implied theon morphes ("the form of a deity") even if they didn't spell out "form" each time. If it were the case that the meant "the appearance of animal-beings" and not "literal super-animals", writing "form" may have been rhetorically redundant for them.

So far as our local holidays go, I keep two quotes from On Piety in mind:

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"...Epíkouros loyally observed all the forms of worship and enjoined upon his friends to observe them..."

"...he is found to have taken part in all the traditional festivals..."

If the Hegemon wore sneakers instead sandals, I imagine he'd carve pumpkins, too.

But also,

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"...Anthḗsteria too must be celebrated..."

The first day of Anthestḗria shared a bit in common with the theme of Halloween (and other "Day of the Dead" holidays, globally). I mention it in the second part in my essay about holy shit:

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..."beginning with [DAY 1] Πιθοίγια (Pithoígia) the “Casket-Opening” during which “libations were offered from the newly-opened jars to the god of wine” and “all the household, including servants or slaves [joined] in the festivity of the occasion” — so long as that person was “over three years of age…” (Encyclopædia Britannica 103). Pithoígia resembles in many ways the Celtic tradition of Samhain, as well as its Christian analogue, All Hallow’s Eve save that Pithoígia is set amidst the floral scenery of Anthestēriṓn (mid-February-to-March), just in time for the wine to have reached its intended perfection as the flowers of next year’s harvest begin to bloom. Participants, within fragrant “rooms […] adorned with spring flowers” would, expectantly, open their tall πίθοι (píthoi, “jars of wine”) anticipating the prize within — symbolically, the jars represent the “grave-jars” of the deceased: fumes from the the previous season’s vintage escape like the vapors of the departed, liberated from their dark tombs. The souls of the dead are mythologized to have escaped the underworld to torment the living. “To protect themselves from the spirits of the dead,” as was the Attic tradition, Athenians were seen “chewing ‘ramnon’, leaves of Hawthorn, or white thorn, and were anointing themselves and their doors with tar” (Psilopoulos, Goddess Mystery Cults and the Miracle… 268).

I think Halloween is a fair analogy to the ancient Greeks days of the dead.

Overall, it's still really popular, if economic activity is any indicator. I think it's tough to get Americans to agree on anything, so if half the neighborhood will put out cobwebs and pumpkins, I think it's a victory for community spirit, but only insofar as the pleasure of celebrating a holiday.

Unless it produces no pleasure. In which case, individuals should practice avoidance.

Quote from Eikadistes

I'm going to condense all of this somewhere soon...

I did the thing. I came up with a more exhaustive list, and found corresponding quotes by Epíkouros and Epicureans that either support or conflict with Theravada Buddhist positions.

Quote from Zarathustra

(2) Nietzsche's relationship to Epicureanism

Welcome! Have you read Nietzsche and Epicurus by Vinod Acharya? I can share a copy if you haven't.

I also keep a collection of Nietzsche's commentary on Epicurus:

• The Anti-Christ
• Beyond Good and Evil
• On the Genealogy of Morals
• Human, All Too Human
• The Gay Science

Please let me know of or find excerpts that are missing! I'm actively searching.

Quote from wbernys

I've actually already read Gellar-Goad's article Don but sad to say I find it a little muddled and think we just need to accept the Epicureans we're wrong on this, they simply didn't have the tools we have. I think explanations of "real meaning" fall a little flat and remind me of how Christians explain Jesus failed apocalyptic predictions.

From my humble attempts at translating, I have never found a statement where Epíkouros positively says that the sun is a hot melon a few miles up. He never gives a definite size, suggesting that "the [Sun] in relation to itself, either [it is] greater [than] of that which is being observed, or slightly smaller, or [it is] as great as it happens to be." (Epistle to Pythokles 91). His thesis, as I read, is that astronomical objects are too distant to allow us to make accurate measurements.

(If disagreements in measurements between the JWST and the Hubble are any indication, we are still struggling over this point of contention, except on the scale of massive, cosmic filaments).

Even as a general observation, Epíkouros seems to indicate that the sun is "truly great", as he writes to Pythokles (so I've translated personally) "the size of both the Sun and of the rest of the glowers appears of such [great] size in relation to us [and] truly is so great" (10.91). Compared to other nearby objects, the sun cannot be easily "obstructed" behind a tree the way that a piece of fruit becomes completely obstructed. You need an eclipse; in other words, the only things big enough to block the sun other massive objects whose size we cannot accurately measure.

Also, just a quick side-note: we take "the size of the sun" for granted. It's not obvious. Consider neutron stars, which are the size of New York City, and can only shed heat on planets that orbit extremely close. Hypothetically, all this time of human history, prior to the 20th-century, the sun could have been a neutron star the size of New York City, and we wouldn't have known the difference.

I'd also like to add their context as naturalists and materialists. Epíkouros' personal philosophical hero was the naturalist Anaxagoras, who uniquely theorized that the sun was, at least, as big as a massive, geographical landmass (he names the Peloponnese). Further, having regularly sailed along the Ionian coast, Epíkouros (and the rest of the Ionians, I imagine) clearly witnessed mountains shrinking in the distance as they sailed, whereas the sun never shrinks. It would have been radically anomalous for Epíkouros to have suggested that the sun is smaller than mountains.

But he did get "heat" totally wrong. There are no "heat" particles. With respect, II think "the sun is a hot melon" is an attractive argument to opponents, but it is a colorful exxageration. There are plenty of other things Epíkouros got wrong that are educational points of comparison (like "heat").

Quote from wbernys

I was immediately enthralled but didn't immediately accept all the principal doctrines (especially 3 and 18)and even was a Cyrenaic for a little bit

We all go through a Cyrenaic phase. I won't hold that against you.