Posts by Eikadistes

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!

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:

Quote

"...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,

Quote

"...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:

Quote

..."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.