Posts by Don

Max DuBoff : I want to really emphasize that I greatly appreciate your willingness to engage on these topics. This thread has grown WAY beyond a "Welcome Max DuBoff" so this has been both intellectually stimulating and fun. Thank you.

Quote from Max DuBoff

I think it'd be more helpful to write a few paragraphs than respond to individual points.

Agreed. I like your approach. I may ramble here, but I'll try and respond to your points and see where we may differ and where it may end up we have the same interpretation but different words. Possibly?

Quote from Max DuBoff

In On Moral Ends he assumes that the good simply is the summum bonum, i.e., what leads to blessedness. But Epicurus has an entirely different assumption: there are goods that don't contribute to blessedness, and some goods that actively impede blessedness.

So, my understanding of Cicero (On Ends, 1.42) and Aristotle (Nichomachean Ethics is that the summum bonum / telos / τἀγαθόν is that to which all actions and decisions point. It is the final answer of asking people "But why did you do that?":

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...the Good is That at which all things aim.” ~Aristotle

"...it clearly follows that actions are right and praiseworthy only as being a means to the attainment of a life of pleasure. But that which is not itself a means to anything else, but to which all else is a means, is what the Greeks term the Telos, the highest, ultimate or final Good. It must therefore be admitted that the Chief Good is to live agreeably. " ~Cicero (via the character of Torquatus)

If one keeps asking the question of someone, "Why did you do that? Why did you make that choice?" The final answer (from a psychological hedonist approach if we want to go there) is "It gave me pleasure." So, that is why pleasure is the summum bonum / telos / τἀγαθόν. It is "That at which all things aim."

I would also agree that all pleasures are by nature good. If actions, thoughts, memories, bring pleasure, that is good by Epicurus' definition. Pleasure = good; pain = bad.

Quote from Max DuBoff

But Epicurus has an entirely different assumption: there are goods that don't contribute to blessedness, and some goods that actively impede blessedness. So it's important to ask, on top of what is good (i.e., pleasure), what we should actually pursue, because we can't pursue all the goods (not just because we don't have time/space, but because some goods preclude other goods).

I don't know if I agree that Epicurus has an entirely different assumption. I read Epicurus as still accepting the challenge of identifying "That at which all things aim." He identifies pleasure as "That at which all things aim." He also says that some pleasures bring more pain than pleasure in the end (ex., endless drinking bouts, constant revels, etc.). He's not saying these are not pleasurable, but having insatiable appetites for them is detrimental to your physical health and mental tranquility, the goal of a blessed life (Men.128)

Quote from Max DuBoff

When I emphasize tranquility, it's in this context. PD 25 is the lode star of my interpretation: "If you do not, on every occasion, refer each of your actions to the goal of nature, but instead stop short at something else when making either avoidance or pursuit, your actions will not follow arguments" (trans. Inwood and Gerson, with my modifications). I understand "the goal of nature" as particularly connoting katastematic pleasure (following the use of this term in Men. 133 and VS 25, where it most naturally refers to katastematic pleasure).

Why do you understand "the goal of nature" as particularly connoting katastematic pleasure? I've translated that in Men. 133 as "one who has rationally determined the τέλος of one's natural state" which I take "the natural state" to be pleasure, one's telos is to pursue pleasure. And, if I understand your previous posts, you equate "pleasure" in this sense specifically with tranquility, correct? VS25 is interesting, but I don't see how katastematic pleasure plays into that "goals of nature" VS25: Poverty is great wealth if measured by the goals of nature, and wealth is abject poverty if not limited by the goals of nature. I suppose it could with the same sentiment in Lucretius (5.1117-1119, emphasis added) when he talks about a "mind content":

Yet were man to steer
His life by sounder reasoning, he'd own
Abounding riches, if with mind content
He lived by thrift; for never, as I guess,
Is there a lack of little in the world.

To me, the goal of nature / telos / summum bonum is to live pleasurably. I agree that tranquility is a vital component of the pleasurable life, but, again, Epicurus specifically says in Men. 128 that "the goal of the blessed life" is "the health of the body AND the tranquility of the mind." Both bodily health and a tranquil mind: "this is the 'goal' of a 'blessed' life." To single out tranquility as THE blessed life leaves out the first part: "health of the body." Why isn't that as important as tranquility? Is "the health of the body" the other katastematic pleasure of aponia by another name? It seems me that the pleasure of those endless drinking bouts is not choice-worthy because it would be detrimental to health of the body AND the serenity of the mind.

Quote from Max DuBoff

Lots of pleasures are good additively: when I eat ice cream, it's always better if I eat more ice cream (other things being equal, which, to be fair, they're not). ... So these kinds of pleasures can never support a perfect life.

Your ice cream analogy, to me, breaks down along these lines, too. The idea that pleasures are good additively breaks down the same as endless drinking bouts. That also seems like Plato's argument as to why pleasure can't be The Good.

Epicurus drank with his friends, he wrote a whole work titles Symposium where they talked about wine and sex. I can easily see Epicurus saying a short drinking bout or a single drinking bout can be cautiously engaged in. It's the endless string that's leads to pain. Same with ice cream. A little is tasty, more and more leads to indigestion and pain. This is where prudence is the most important instrumental virtue. To know when to stop a given pleasure before it turns to pain is an application of practical wisdom.

I'm going to leave any deeper look at katastematic and kinetic pleasure for the light of day. I think it's a useful categorization or at least interesting. If Epicurus thought it was important enough to point out, that's good enough for me to try and get a handle on it. (There are some who think Epicurus didn't even teach this, but I can't agree with that direction.)

I don't know if this is illuminating for my position, but this is what I get for putting this off until late at night.

Quote from Godfrey

"Perfect" seems to have platonic connotations of an ideal state, a state that doesn't empirically exist. "Complete," on the other hand, implies something that one can judge for oneself.

I personally like something like "complete" to riff on the connotation of "all (pan-) goals (telos) have been met or achieved." There's nothing lacking, which I realize form an English semantic perspective, you could use "perfect." But to me, "perfect" leaves the door open for the potential for that Platonic ideal concept to creep in.

Quote from Cassius

what exactly does "tranquility" mean and what does it entail?

Epicurus, Letter to Herodotus (DL 10.82; Hicks via Perseus): [82] But mental tranquillity (ataraxia) means being released from all these troubles and cherishing a continual remembrance of the highest and most important truths.

[82] ἡ δὲ ἀταραξία τὸ τούτων πάντων ἀπολελύσθαι καὶ συνεχῆ μνήμην ἔχειν τῶν ὅλων καὶ κυριωτάτων.

Quote from Cassius

Epicurus considered himself to be happy even during his last days of extreme physical pain. ..., as Epicurus tells us that his mental pleasures from friends and philosophy outweighed the physical pains.

Slight quibble: he didn't write that his mental pleasures outweighed the physical pains, but he did write that he could contend with his pains with the mental pleasure of his memories: ἀντιπαρετάττετο "metaphorical, hold one's ground against, Epicur.Fr.138: abs., stand in hostile array" (LSJ) I like the image of drawing up battle lines against your pain.

Quote from Cassius

Tranquility/Ataraxia/Ascetic construction

I think it's a jump to always immediately go from discussion of the importance of tranquility/ataraxia to seeing this as an endorsement of asceticism. I don't necessarily see people who write "tranquility is the ultimate pleasure" or "tranquility is the goal" to also always be saying "Epicurus said that it is vital to live like an ascetic hermit in a cave and never experience any source of pain ever." I also don't always see this same implication by those who talk of absence of pain but that's another thread.

I deeply respect your passion and think I understand the reasons you see this as a slippery slope, but ataraxia/tranquility IS fundamental to Epicurus' philosophy. Freedom from anxiety is absolutely foundational to Epicurus' philosophy. I would prefer Dr. Austin not use "ultimate pleasure" to describe tranquility. I'd prefer "foundational pleasure" or some other adjective, but she does an excellent job in putting that in context throughout her book.

Epicurus himself writes to Herodotus that "mental tranquillity means being released from all these troubles and cherishing a continual remembrance of the highest and most important truths." And "we must not suppose that our treatment of these matters fails of accuracy, so far as it is needful to ensure our tranquillity (ataraxia) and blessedness (makarios)." To Pythocles, he writes "if you fight against clear evidence, you never can enjoy genuine tranquility (ataraxia)." So, tranquility, peace of mind, freedom from anxiety IS foundational. Yes, it's foundational because it is pleasurable to experience tranquility, but it is also foundational because it sets the stage for every other aspect of the blessed life as well.

Quote from Cassius

Did Emily Austin make a mistake in entitling her book "Living For Pleasure?" Should she have titled it "Living For Ataraxia/Tranquility"?

As I remember, she insisted that "pleasure" be in the title.

FYI...

Epicurus: Fragments - translation

Quote from wbernys

Don, could you give a few excerpts in English? it's in German I think and I wouldn't want others to go through the hassle of translation.

I think I've quoted it elsewhere. I didn't say it was readily helpful

See also this for the sayings of Hermarchos:

(Sorry for the length of this. It grew in the telling, so to speak )

Again, welcome aboard our little boat here (in keeping with U163).

Quote from Max DuBoff

I might recommend Tim O'Keefe's Epicureanism book over DeWitt.

DeWitt can also sometimes be a slog in his writing styel and I've stated elsewhere that I don't like his fondness for reading too much into scanty evidence. I use him sparingly myself, and I like his academic papers much more than Epicurus and His Philosophy. Throwing no shade on DeWitt's fans here, but I've always found him difficult to embrace. I give him 10/10 on his passion for Epicurus though!

My go-to recommendation for anyone looking to delve into Epicureanism today as a lived philosophy is Dr. Emil Austin's Living for Pleasure. Hands down. That's my current top of the list for anyone curious about "What's this whole Epicurean thing about?" It was a pleasure getting to talk with her on the podcast.

Thanks for the links to your papers. I found them interesting. I certainly agree that the ancient Epicureans had sex, and I liked your mentions of Epicureans' marriage and long-term relationships.

One related thing that hit me very recently is that, upon reading Gedney's recent Substack post, he pointed out that Epicurus in his Will makes arrangements for the son and daughter of Metrodorus which means/implies that Epicurus was the one who had responsibility for the children so to be the one able to make this request. (The question remains: What happened to their mother? But a woman wouldn't have had "custody" in ancient Greece anyway) I don't mean to imply (necessarily) that Epicurus was playing tag with the kids when they were younger, but he seems to have had a custodial/in loco parentis relationship to these children. If he was helping to raise the children, it doesn't seem he'd disapprove of a relationship by which children come into the world.

Quote from Max DuBoff

Tranquility is a pleasure but not the only pleasure. At the same time (and here I'm wading into a perhaps controversial interpretation), tranquility is the only pleasure upon which blessedness, i.e., a perfect or complete life, is based.* (*I tend to refer to blessedness rather than happiness because "happiness" is quite nebulous. "Blessedness" is a bit nebulous too but at least connotes the life of the gods.)

LOL I like your "perhaps" there...bring on the controversy as far as I'm concerned. Discussion engenders understanding.

Quote from Max DuBoff

if there were another pleasure that could improve tranquility, a human life could never be perfect/complete (PD 20), and it couldn't be the limit of the magnitude of pleasure (PD 3).

To make sure I'm following your train and we're talking about the same things:

• tranquility = ataraxia?
• blessedness = makarios?
• happiness = eudaimonia? (I personally like "well-being" rather than happiness)

Would you say those line up generally (FULLY realizing there's never a one-to-one)?

Let's see how far apart we actually are. I would agree that "tranquility" (to stick to English for a moment) is the foundation upon which a life of blessedness or happiness is built. I understand that ataraxia refers specifically (for Epicurus) to the absence (a-) of "disturbance" (tarakhe) in the mind caused by fear of the gods, anxiety about death, worry about having "enough" and what other people think, etc. To try to get a handle on this, I tried to go through and find all the occurrences of the word and variants in the ancient texts a while ago. I was surprised at how many times it comes up in the Letter to Herodotus, like " mental tranquillity means being released from all these troubles and cherishing a continual remembrance of the highest and most important truths." (10.82) So, if we free ourselves from those sources of pain, our minds/souls/heart/psykhe become a solid foundation upon which to build our well-being/blessedness. The seas calm, and we can sail our boat with confidence that we can weather any storm because we KNOW gut-level what really matters, how much we really need if worse comes to worst, and can effortlessly enjoy pleasures without frantically grasping for them, fighting for prestige, glamor, riches, fame, constant luxuries.

It's not that other pleasures "improve" tranquility (ataraxia), it's that tranquility is the foundation by which other pleasures can be experienced as good unadulterated by fear, anxiety, disturbance.

Letter to Menoeceus 128 is very important. Completely agree. Here's my translation so readers know to what we're referring:

Quote from Letter to Menoikeus, Don (trans.)

The steady contemplation of these things equips one to know how to decide all choice and rejection for the health of the body and for the tranquility of the mind, (that is for our physical and our mental existence), since this is the goal of a blessed life. For the sake of this (i..e.,the health of the body and for the tranquility of the mind), we do everything in order to neither be in bodily or mental pain nor to be in fear or dread; and so, when once this has come into being around us, it sets free all of the calamity, distress, and suffering of the mind, seeing that the living being has no need to go in search of something that is lacking for the good of our mental and physical existence. For it is then that we need pleasure, if we were to be in pain from the pleasure not being present; but if we were to not be in pain, we no longer desire or beg for pleasure. And this is why we say pleasure is the foundation (arkhe) and fulfillment (telos) of the blessed life.

So, I read the "goal (telos) of a blessed life" is BOTH the health of the body and the tranquility of the mind (ἐπὶ τὴν τοῦ σώματος ὑγίειαν καὶ τὴν <τῆς ψυχῆς> ἀταραξίαν). Plus pleasure is the foundation and fulfillment again because there are only two feelings, and we eliminate those sources of pain that we are able to. We seek for pleasure as the foundation (the cradle analogy) and, when we eliminate pains, pleasure fills our blessed life to the brim.

I will add that Diogenes Laertius says that the Epicureans believed there were "Two sorts of happiness (eudaimonia) can be conceived, the one the highest possible, such as the gods enjoy, which cannot be augmented, the other admitting addition and subtraction of pleasures." To me, this implies that the "highest well-being/happiness" is only enjoyed by the gods. We mortals, while being able to approximate the blessed life of the gods will always have a well-being that can be augmented by addition and subtraction of pleasures.

Quote from Max DuBoff

it couldn't be the limit of the magnitude of pleasure (PD 3).

PD3 doesn't say The limit of "tranquility" is the removal of all pains. It says the limit of pleasure is the removal all pain. I won't belabor this, but if there are only two feelings - pleasure and pain - if all of one is removed, you're left with the other.

I don't believe you can read the PDs in isolation. The original text didn't have versification, so I encourage people to read "units" so to speak. I believe PD20 needs to be read in the context of PD19, 20, 21, and 22. "Finite time and infinite time contain the same amount of pleasure (τὴν ἡδονὴν)... The flesh assumes that the limits of pleasure (ἡδονῆς) are infinite, and that infinite joy can be produced only through infinite time...You must reflect on the fundamental goal and everything that is clear, to which opinions are referred; if you do not, all will be full of trouble and confusion." To me, this again is hammering home the two feelings - pleasure and pain. Pleasure is not infinite because its limit is the removal of all pain. Again, one is banished, the other one fills that void. There's no vacuum in the feelings. We can feel pleasure (positive affect) or pain (negative affect) when we're alive. There is no neutral state per Epicurus and it seems modern neuropsychology.

Okay, I've rambled on long enough for now. Look forward to discussion from all.

Quote from Cassius

One last comment for now - as to "flourishing" -- what does that word even mean?

You took the words out of my mouth. I was going to post this exact same question. I *really* dislike it when "flourishing" is used as a translation of eudaimonia. That translation does nothing to explain the original Greek. Sure, in a circuitous way if we contort certain meanings, ... maybe?? "Flourishing" is worse than "happiness" as a translation. Does "flourishing" just mean "livin' your best life"? But what does "your best life" mean? Is that subjective? Objective? GAAAHH! It's a never-ending circle. My preferred translation for eudaimonia is still well-being or more fancy: subjective well-being. To expand that "a subjective feeling of wellness, wholeness, contentment, security, and confidence in one's ability to weather the storms with a mental foundation free from fears and anxiety." But that isn't as catchy as "flourishing" (insert eye roll here)

Welcome aboard!

Don't hesitate to ask questions. Even if they've been answered before, it is always instructive and helpful to revisit topics some may take for granted. In having new conversations, new insights can occur.

Glad to have you aboard.

Perception Box on Instagram

82K views, 10K likes: "What you see, feel, and believe isn’t just �...

www.instagram.com

It's been a while since I posted anything from Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett. This short video reinforces that "there is one really" but she provides an interesting perspective on whether we really experience it "objectively." It's a "perspective dependent" experience of one reality.

To me, this gets at "all sensations are true" in that they have there source in a physical reality but our minds are the filter through which we experience and make sense of that reality. Her "for dogs, red isn't real" is a new perspective. The one comment from a father of a daughter who is "color blind" but only in one eye also sheds new light on how we experience reality.

Oh! Yeah, don't watch the whole video on that link I posted. If you do go over there, definitely skip ahead to 49:30 for just the short section of the discussion of life vs death.

FYI

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RE: If Death Is Nothing To Us, Then Life Is Everything to Us

I have found this excerpt of a debate between Matt Dillahunty and Jordan Peterson interesting where Peterson tries to defend the premise that death is preferable to life. Cards on the table: I'm in agreement with Dillahunty here:

youtu.be/FmH7JUeVQb8?si=WgELrAxNQVkzEJV_

Skip ahead to 49:30 for the discussion of life vs death.

Don

October 7, 2023 at 1:06 PM

Okay, this is good. I am genuinely curious to follow up on a couple points you made:

Quote from Cassius

normalizing a fixation on suffering as an acceptable attitude for most people in most normal situations.

Quote from Cassius

I find find the attitude i quoted offensive, and I feel offended on behalf of the ancient Epicureans that the modern "authorities" would take their philosophy of pleasure and embrace of life and turn it into into an excuse for seeing death as the ultimate reward of life rather than pleasure.

Are there instances of people "seeing death as the ultimate reward of life rather than pleasure"?

Quote from Cassius

those who say it would be better to never have been born, or once born hasten to death.

I need to go back and read deeper maybe, but is someone like O'Keefe for example actually saying Epicurus wrote that it would have been better to never have been born? I agree that Epicurus ridicules that position but I'm not sure those who write seriously about Epicurus are taking that position when they talk about Epicurus' philosophy "being about" reduction of pain in one's life. I do think some make the philosophy a little milquetoast and overemphasize the pleasure of tranquility, but that tranquility is at least a part of the philosophy. As is the reduction of pain in our lives. Shouting pleasure to all Greeks and non-Greeks also had to include how to get there, by eliminating the pain, fear, and anxiety we are living needlessly under.

Quote from Cassius

indicative of people who want to place "relief from pain" as the center of Epicurean philosophy rather than pleasure. Because of course if relief from pain is your main concern, you wouldn't want to live forever (because you'd just keep encountering more pain and suffering.

Quote from Cassius

conclude that the most important thing for any Epicurean is to avoid even a moment of pain. Truly a death-wish and death-worship

I'll concede that some people do want to smuggle in Buddhist or Stoic ideas into Epicurus' philosophy, and this is not the right way to go. However, I have come to see that not all whose concern or focus is "relief from pain" are doing this. To paint everyone one who says something like "Epicurus calls us to relieve ourselves of pain" with the same brush as those who say something like "Ataraxia is like Buddhist satori (or other concept)" isn't warranted.

To pursue pleasure one must alleviate pain. Pain is banished, and pleasure takes its place. Epicurus does write quite a bit on the need to rid ourselves of the pain caused by wrong beliefs in Gods and death and by empty desires and by imprudent choices. Not everyone whose focus is "relief" or "avoidance" of pain means "avoid even a moment of pain" because they acknowledge some pain is necessary for greater pleasure.

Maybe I'm being naive. Maybe I've not spent enough time on Reddit or Facebook. In fact, to be specific, I'm talking especially about Gedney's Untroubled Substack. His work is one place, having taken time to engage more with his articles, that is more balanced than I initially gave him credit for.

I would offer that some of these "people who want to place 'relief from pain' as the center of Epicurean philosophy" (yes, Gedney included) are potentially powerful allies in the pursuit of spreading the good news of the pleasure offered by Epicurus' philosophy.

LLMs are nothing like the way the brain works. Since I don't think prolepsis isn't necessarily how the brain actually functions, I'm sharing a couple videos explaining the brain as prediction machine. The mind doesn't break reality into tokens and assign values to then assign probabilities. The brain works with past experience and sensory input.

For y'all's consideration...

That said, I don't even think LLMs are analogous to ancient Epicurean prolepseis. As I understand, the prolepseis engrave channels in our psykhē to make it easier for similar eidola to find their channel, making our psykhē recognize the pattern and assign meaning.

The LLM video (Thanks. Kalosyni!) did a good job of breaking down the process. I don't see ancient Epicurean prolepseis nor modern brain as prediction machine working like that at all.

Quote from Bryan

Let me throw in some quotes as a jumping-off point, I may be misunderstanding.

Thank you!! No, you are not misunderstanding... I just need to "get back to the books" to paraphrase Philodemus. I am woefully out of practice!

What I was saying is that we don't have any extant texts from Epicurus himself placing the gods in the intermundia. You've demonstrated we have several secondary sources, including of course Cicero (he was the only one I remembered in my late night missive). However, allow me to be a litte cantankerous this morning ...

Quote from Bryan

"...that Cosmoi such as this are also infinite in number is able to be thoroughly comprehended, and that such a Cosmos also has the force to be produced both in a cosmos and in the intermundia [μετακοσμίῳ] – which we say is the separation intervening between cosmoi"
[Epicurus to Pythocles, Lives 10.89a]

I read this as still consistent with my point about there being no cosmoi within the intermundia by definition. There are innumerable "bubbles" of order - cosmoi - in the universe. We live in one of those areas of order. The space between them is the intermundia. In Epicurean cosmology, there are cosmoi and there is an intervening space between the cosmoi. A cosmos can be produced in the intermundia BUT that simply means there's a new cosmos that came together - setting itself off from the intermundia, a new ordered space that came together from the flow of the atoms through the intermundia which is now separated from other cosmoi. There's now separation - intermundia - between that new cosmos and the other cosmoi around it. It seems to me that the cosmos is to the intermundia as atoms are to the void.

Quote from Bryan

Saint Hippolytus of Rome (fl.c. 210 CE), "Philosophical Questions" (Refutation of all Heresies) 22.3

I was ignorant of - or had forgotten - Hippolytus. Thanks for the reminder! If Hippolytus is right (writing about 400 years after Epicurus lived), then yes, Epicurus was positing the gods lived in the intermundia... but I still don't see how that works.

Quote from Hippolytus

the divine surrenders himself to pleasure, and takes his ease in the midst of supreme happiness) – and that neither has he any concerns of business, nor does he devote his attention to them."

I will admit this description to me smacks of what I was taught as a child in church with dead people sitting in heaven playing harps in some ethereal cloud-city. And, yes, I'm being provocative a little. I can't even sincerely comprehend what that would be like, taking my ease in the midst of supreme happiness with no concerns at all. Even imagining a happiness that can neither be diminished or increased boggles my mortal mind. When I think I can grasp it, it wafts away like fog.

Quote from Bryan

Philodemus' On Piety makes a clear case for this -- the idea is that a process can be eternal -- just as if a waterfall was always fed it would never stop existing, and all waterfalls are impervious to bullets, swords, and other direct damage.

Oh, that's a good explanation. So, it seems Philodemus (and Epicurus) then are emphasizing the existence of their gods as existing as an ever-lasting process of losing and replacing atoms. The waterfall is a good analogy and I had forgotten where that came from. Thanks!

Quote from Bryan

Worlds are closed systems, so the waterfalls in a world will eventually stop -- but between worlds there is no closed system and the flow of matter is infinite.

(Smacks head with palm) Okay, NOW I think I get it. The gods HAVE to exist in the intermundia to have access to the infinite flow of atoms coursing through the universe. This makes sense then as to how ancient Epicureans could rationalize the physical existence of "gods." Unfortunately, this makes me even less likely to think there are beings like this. This is all wrapped up in ancient cosmology, and I do not see the universe actually working this way. This is beginning to make perfect sense given the cosmology and physics of the ancient Epicureans, but modern science is doing a better (not perfect, not complete) job of explaining natural processes which I believe a modern Epicurean would be a fan of - to understand the natural world as accurately as possible without getting bogged down in details. Epicurus' fundamental pivotal importance to me is, at its heart, the firm knowledge that the universe is material, governed by natural laws, not created by supernatural beings, and gods (which are NOT supernatural to him) have no interest in us. I don't need to believe in intermundia, cosmoi, gods, etc. to be an Epicurean living in the 21st century of the common era. It's good to understand what the ancients believed, but I think the foundations - the kernel - of what they taught are why a 2,500 year old philosophy can still be relevant.

Quote from Bryan

I am being cheeky at this point -- you know the term better than most! The “religious-based” affirmative of choice was:

"νὴ Δία"

(slaps forehead again) Not cheeky at all! I appreciate the reminder, by Zeus!!

I'm running up against the clock to get ready for work, and I'll have other thoughts but I greatly appreciate the reply Bryan . Your grasp of the materials and deep knowledge of the subject are an inspiration. Thank you!!