Posts by Don

Welcome aboard, mctimkat

Echecrates

By Zeus, Phaedo, they were right. It seems to me that he made those matters astonishingly clear, to anyone with even a little sense.

Ἐχεκράτης
νὴ Δία, ὦ Φαίδων, εἰκότως γε: θαυμαστῶς γάρ μοι δοκεῖ ὡς ἐναργῶς τῷ καὶ σμικρὸν νοῦν ἔχοντι εἰπεῖν ἐκεῖνος ταῦτα.

I find it intriguing that the word for astonishingly clear here is ἐναργῶς (enargōs), a form on the same word Epicurus uses to describe our apprehension of the guards in the Menoikeus.

Oh, in response to Kalosyni 's thread title, "Prayer" vs "Choice and Avoidance", I see choice and rejection (see other threads for my rants on "avoidance" as a translation of φεύγω) as a tactic of Epicurean living practice. Honestly, if we subjected EVERY decision to a decision tree of pros/cons and pleasure/pain, we'd be paralyzed. "Ham sandwich or peanut butter and jelly? Which will give me the most pleasure?" Ideally, practicing choice and rejection should become second nature. Easier said than done!! As an example, I'll admit I like to frame my decision to go to work as a choice, even when I'm tired or frustrated or just REALLY don't want to get out of bed on a cold winter morning. I could quit or not go in, but the pain that would ensue from lost wages, etc., would far outweigh any fleeting pleasure. Therefore, I choose the greater pleasure over time. We need not subject every choice to this tactic, but we should keep it in mind and do it thoughtfully and deliberately when necessary.

Prayer, on the other hand, is a moment of reflection. Taking time from our busy day to reflect, acknowledge gratitude, really feel our connection to our bodies and the natural world. Take a beat. Take a breath.

That would be my take on the connection between "Prayer" and "Choice and Avoidance"

Interesting topic. Thanks for starting this Kalosyni !

I fully agree that the popular notion of the word prayer is "Oh God, I know you're busy but I need a favor." I'm intentionally being flippant, but this idea isn't new. Lucian gave us Icaromenippus, an Aerial Expedition where we read:

Quote

we reached the spot where he was to sit and listen to the prayers. There was a row of openings with lids like well-covers, and a chair of gold by each. Zeus took his seat at the first, lifted off the lid and inclined his ear. From every quarter of Earth were coming the most various and contradictory petitions; for I too bent down my head and listened. Here are specimens. ‘O Zeus, that I might be king!’ ‘O Zeus, that my onions and garlic might thrive!’ ‘Ye Gods, a speedy death for my father!’ Or again, ‘Would that I might succeed to my wife’s property!’ ‘Grant that my plot against my brother be not detected.’ ‘Let me win my suit.’ ‘Give me an Olympic garland.’ Of those at sea, one prayed for a north, another for a south wind; the farmer asked for rain, the fuller for sun. Zeus listened, and gave each prayer careful consideration, but without promising to grant them all;

But there are different forms of prayer, even in Christianity, though some are not as familiar to the general populace. I know that I was probably in my 30s (LOL decades ago now) when I discovered this. Even in the psedo-Pauline epistle 1 Timothy 2:1, the author gives four types of what can be called generally "prayer": supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings (δεήσεις προσευχάς ἐντεύξεις εὐχαριστίας). A Catholic site provides the Four Basic Types of Prayer:

1. Prayer of Blessing and Adoration (praising God)
2. Prayer of Petition (asking for what we need, including forgiveness)
3. Prayer of Intercession (asking for what others need)
4. Prayer of Thanksgiving (for what God has given and done)

I can see 1 (as Eikadisteshas done with Pleasure and Lucretius has done for Epicurus) and 4 being open to Epicurean applications, not so much 2 and 3. 4 especially seems fruitful given Epicurus' emphasis on gratitude for the good things we have and/or had in our lives. They also include Meditative Prayer in that list further down, and that too seems a potential area of exploration: really noticing our experience of our senses and feelings to get a handle on what our bodies and minds are trying to tell us rather than simply busying ourselves scrolling etc as a distraction from ourselves.

That's all for now. More thoughts later.

fwiw, here's where I started my dive into Nichomachean Ethics:

I'll admit I abandoned it after awhile due to lack of time (and interest). Maybe I'll go back in at some point and hit specific passages, especially the ones on pleasure.

Quote from Socrates/ Plato

That occurred to me, and I was afraid that my psūkhē might be blinded altogether if I looked at things with my eyes or tried by the help of the senses to apprehend them. And I thought that I had better have recourse to ideas, and seek in them the truth of existence. I dare say that the simile is not perfect—for I am very far from admitting that he who contemplates existence through the medium of ideas sees them only as an image, any more than he who sees them in their working and effects. However, this was the method which I adopted: I first assumed some principle which I judged to be the strongest, and then I affirmed as true whatever seemed to agree with this (emphasis added)

By Zeus, *THIS* is the basis of Western philosophy??

*THIS* is why society or culture or academia refer to the natural philosophers as *PRE-SOCRATIC* and largely dismiss them as irrelevant???

I admit I've never heard of the "second sailing" but, from my perspective, that is a house of cards built on shifting sand. To put it another way:

Quote from Matteng

Perfect sense for me now makes the sentence in the letter to Menoeceus (Actually, every sentence in it is pure gold.):(Not only) wisdom, honor, and justice are necessary for Pleasure, but also Pleasure (in the sense of physical/mental health) is necessary for living prudently, honourly, and Just.

This idea occurs as PD5, VS5, and in Menoikeus, so it must have been important. I like Peter Saint-Andre's rendering:

It is not possible to live joyously without also living wisely and beautifully and rightly, nor to live wisely and beautifully and rightly without living joyously; and whoever lacks this cannot live joyously.

οὐκ ἔστιν ἡδέως ζῆν ἄνευ τοῦ φρονίμως καὶ καλῶς καὶ δικαίως <οὐδὲ φρονίμως καὶ καλῶς καὶ δικαίως> ἄνευ τοῦ ἡδέως· ὅτῳ δὲ τοῦτο μὴ ὑπάρχει, οὐχ ἔστι τοῦτον ἡδέως ζῆν.

Menoikeus gives the version:.

οὐκ ἔστιν ἡδέως ζῆν ἄνευ τοῦ φρονίμως καὶ καλῶς καὶ δικαίως <οὐδὲ φρονίμως καὶ καλῶς καὶ δικαίως> ἄνευ τοῦ ἡδέως. συμπεφύκασι γὰρ αἱ ἀρεταὶ τῷ ζῆν ἡδέως, καὶ τὸ ζῆν ἡδέως τούτων ἐστὶν ἀχώριστον.

a pleasurable life does not exist without the traits of wisdom, morality, and justice; nor do the traits of wisdom, morality, and justice without pleasure: because the virtues grow together with a pleasurable life and the pleasurable life is inseparable from these. (My translation)

So it doesn't say exactly what you paraphrased, but very close. From my reading, the living wisely and well and justly arises at the same time as living pleasantly, and vice versa. It's not that they're necessary, it's the fact that they're inseparable and they grow together with each other.

Had supper at a taco place with a huge complex mural. Been there before, but didn't realize the Bull of Phalerus was featured in the corner.

Fascinating article! Thanks for posting. Still working through it. But this jumped out at me:

Quote

Perhaps the story to be written about near-death experiences is not that they prove consciousness is radically different from what we thought it was. Instead, it is that the process of dying is far stranger than scientists ever suspected. The spiritualists and parapsychologists are right to insist that something deeply weird is happening to people when they die, but they are wrong to assume it is happening in the next life rather than this one.

And the house was big enough for Memmius to consider tearing down and making into a villa, so there's that.

M. Tullius Cicero, Letters to his Friends, CXCVIII (F XIII, I)

Cicero Epistulae ad Familiares 13.1 (Memmius)

Welcome aboard, jlpendall

Matteng You went right where I was going. Here's my translation of the start of 10.133 (emphasis added):

[133] "Seeing that, whom do you consider is better or more powerful than one who holds pious beliefs concerning the gods; one who has absolutely no fears concerning death; one who has rationally determined the τέλος of one's natural state; and the one who grasps that, on the one hand, good things (namely pleasures) are both easily attained and easily secured, and, on the other hand, evil things (or pains) are either short in time or brief in suffering; someone who laughs at Fate which is introduced onto the stage of life by many as the mistress of all things? For that person, even though some things happen by necessity, some by chance, and some by our own power, for although necessity is beyond our control, they see that chance is unstable and there is no other master beyond themselves, so that praise and its opposite are inseparably connected to themselves."

To me. There's almost a "trichotomy of causes" (not a dichtomy of control) for Epicurus:

• things that happen by necessity
• things that happen by chance
• things that happen by our own power

This goes back to there being no divine plan. If something happens to us and we night to mull or obsess about it, we can look at whether we did something to cause it or was it really by chance or necessity. If something pleasurable or painful happened, we can try to do it or not in the future. If, on the other hand, what happened really was a chance accident, it really was just chance.

Thanks for the kind words, and respect and congratulations to all who made all those milestones possible! ... Which in a sense is everyone who's on the forum. Well played!

Quote from Adrastus

I also want to make the aesthetic choice to have it be a "Men's" group explicitly in the title in the same way the Boy Scouts allows girls if they really want to be there and fit in.

I would find it hard to square that circle. The Garden was famously open to everyone: friends, strangers; men, women; enslaved, free. That was one of the criticisms against it back in the day. Saying you want to explicitly create a "men's" group but would "allow" women "if they really want to be there and fit in" seems to go against the egalitarian nature of the Garden. I would find it hard to think of women who would want to join an explicitly "men's" group with that aim in its title. That said, if you want to create an Epicurean Men's Study Group, by all means, that's up to you and it could have its place. But I find the idea that women would be allowed if they fit in to be a little problematic.

The Boy Scouts example is actually a good example of why not to do this. In an article from 2024: "starting in February of 2025, the entire organization will become Scouting America to reflect its commitment to serving all genders in all programs." So the entire organization is now Scouting America to be more inclusive.

Welcome aboard, claire46 !

If you haven't read Dr. Emily Austin's book Living for Pleasure, I highly recommend it. We also have interviews with her posted to the forum.

Whenever anyone brings up the modern Stoics, this article from Dr. Austin always comes to mind:

Welcome aboard, Hyakinthos !

Not sure if someone has mentioned yet, but Emily Austin's Living for Pleasure is an excellent, modern introduction to the philosophy. You can also listen to our podcast interviews with her for more insight.

Quote from kochiekoch

Io Saturnalia! A little belatedly.

Io Saturnalia right back atcha!

Merry Christmas to all!

As Epicurus took an active role in the civic and religious festivals and rites of his day, we too can participate in our time's civic and religious festivals with a fresh Epicurean perspective.

May Christmas/Yule/Solstice give us an opportunity to reflect on the presence of light in the world; to bring us joy in the hope that darkness is a passing thing, no matter how long the night; and to give us the encouragement to bring pleasure to and to experience pleasure in our little corner of the world while we can.

Although not directly related to the topic at hand, I found this excellent summary of Dr. Austin's perspective on Epicurus' philosophy in an article I didn't remember her writing:

How to live like an Epicurean | Psyche Guides

Forget shallow hedonism. Follow this philosophy for wondrous, unexpected joys and resilience against inevitable misfortune

psyche.co

This forum and the podcast get great shout-outs, too!

My reason for bringing it up here is that she brings up in several spots the fact that people often miss the joy and pleasure they have readily at hand. Epicurus calls us to recognize the pleasure we already have in daily life and to cultivate pleasure here and now to store up memories for future recall. Any tool that makes us slow down and appreciate the pleasure we have now seems to me to be beneficial.

Granted, Epicureans reject the underlying Buddhist motive of mindfulness meditation, to realize anatta. We are not "no thing." Okay, maybe at the atomic level, there is no sweet, no color, etc. But we don't live at the atomic level. We live at the level of compound things and need a way to negotiate that world. Any practice, even those from the "enemy camp" that can be retrofit and retooled to run better and more practically for the use of slowing down, paying attention to what we're feeling here and now, and teaching us how to appreciate the joys in front of our eyes and how to avoid future pains is worth taking a look at.

Quote from Patrikios

Meditate Οn Τhese Things: Epicurus’s Letter to Menoikeus - A New Translation with Commentary © 2021 by Don Boozer]

LOL it's still weird - but rewarding - to see my work quoted and referred to. I'm glad it continues to be of service.