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Thanks for posting this food for thought, Kalosyni ! Those are valuable points to ponder. As I mentioned in reply to Scott , we should be able to explain the basics of the philosophy to a child.
But that begs the question: Even if we could explain it have basic intros, how to get them in front of people's eyes?
The philosophy has to be accessible in more ways than one, that's for sure: able to be understood & able to be obtained!
I doubt this philosophy was so wildly successful for 7 centuries without being able to be presented in simpler form, easy to understand and remember
Absolutely!! Wired has YouTube videos where an expert explains a complex topic in 5 levels of detail to different ages:
We should be able to explain Epicurean philosophy in the same way. Epicureanism spread throughout the Hellenistic world not because there were so many scholars but because it appealed to such a wide swath of society. Some had deeper understanding than others, but the "basics" could be grasped by anyone, and the summaries and epitomes like the Principal Doctrines were memory aids.
If only we had more of the original content! Some of this must surely have existed.
Oh, I bemoan this all the time! 
Epicurus alone wrote over 300 works. Another early Epicurean, Apollodorus, is said to have written 400 works. And that's just 2 and not mentioning Philodemus even!!
(How are our finances? Do we have enough to engage a top tier marketing/promotions firm to develop and deploy the content?
)
LOL No wealthy benefactors here.
Good post, Scott . Thanks!
Thanks, Cassius. You also raise some good points.
PS I think it's important to point out that eudaimonia is just what we call a pleasurable life. It's a description of what happens as we experience the pleasures in life.
Neither must one who is young delay in loving and pursuing wisdom; nor should one who is old grow weary of loving and pursuing wisdom; because it is neither out of season nor untimely for the health of the psykhē. And one who says either the season to love and practice wisdom is not yet arrived or the season has passed by is like someone who is saying either the proper time has not arrived or is no more for eudaimonia. Therefore, both the young and old must love and pursue wisdom. On the one hand, the old can be young by means of gratitude for the pleasures which have happened; on the other hand, the young can be as if they are old in years by means of the fearlessness of facing what is intended to be done or what is to come. You must study and meditate upon that which produces eudaimonia. For if indeed that is present, we have everything; if that is not present, we do anything to have it.
I'd paraphrase by saying "You must study and meditate upon how to experience pleasure (i.e., that which produces eudaimonia). If pleasure is present, we have everything. If pleasure is not present, we do anything to experience it."
Is the The Terminator an Epicurean movie series???? 
I’ve seen Zuckerberg’s ads for his dystopian matrix world where we all will have animal avatars walking around in an artificial Zoom conference room looking at a holographic 3D PowerPoint.
Wicked exciting. 😂 The future….
I watched the video and OMG! (or should I say Paian Anax! (By Apollo!)) That looks... terrifying? superfluous? intriguing??
I can see applications for VR but actually getting work done? I'm very skeptical. Visiting a virtual version of a reconstructed Herculaneum? Yeah, I'd "visit" that. But having the "metaverse" be the primary or only means of accessing information online? That seems superfluous. If I want to look up who starred in a movie (to take a trivial example), I don't want to strap on a headset, choose an avatar, etc. I don't know. Maybe I'm old fashioned? I don't find typing that onerous. ...sigh...
Didn't we already do this with Second Life???
It was all the rage for a while.
Shouldn't we be focused on our one life? Just sayin'.
Welcome to the Meta verse!
Shouldn't that be Meta Garden 
Or is that ΚυβερΚεπος CyberKepos?
But the walls need to remain reinforced as purely Epicurean.
(Let's call those last two "big toes up!)
Oh yeah! Fully agree! By definition, if there was a sign near the *gate,* that means there had to be walls for the gate to be in. It was The Garden, not The Field 
Matt and Cassius , I think you've identified Fundamentalism/Absolutism in all its many-tentacled form as the problem. Whether it's religious or secular in nature, any institution that holds up any non-evidentiary dogma as THE way to live *or else* is going to, shall we say, present problems. I'm not sure if that covers the Temple of TikTok (good one!), but it covers those who are bent on shoving their virtue on everyone.
t does not allow us to withdraw to our own communities and live in peace to ourselves.
I don't think that's a fair description of the Garden (or, I'll say, should be a goal of any modern incarnation of the Garden). The Garden was/is/should be open to all as a refuge and retreat to which people can visit, learn, rest, and refresh then go back out into the world to walk the walk and talk the talk. The Garden wasn't/isn't/shouldn't be a commune, cut off from society. Epicurus explicitly said we don't hold communal property. People can come and go as they needed to. By Zeus! The original Garden was on one of the most traveled roads of ancient Athens directly outside the city walls!! With its sign posted outside (per Seneca) welcoming strangers to stop in, it was basically a billboard for Epicurean philosophy on Main Street.
I feel certain I would experience an increase of pleasure. What am I missing here?
That's because you're a human being living in the material world:
"Two sorts of happiness (eudaimonia) can be conceived: (A) the one the highest possible, such as the gods enjoy, which cannot be augmented; the other (B) admitting addition and subtraction of pleasures."
That scenario you play out sounds great! If you could make choices to achieve such a day, that would be a pleasureable day. The gods - completely filled with blissful happiness and confident in its incorruptible continuation - experience Happiness A. I think the goal of the mortal is to see that kind of happiness *as a goal* and to make choices and rejections that can get the arc of our lives as close to that as possible. To live the most pleasureable life possible. That's why I'm drawn to Sedley's "idealist" position on the gods. I won't go into details here, but that makes more "sense" to me than beings living between universes.
To continue, even Epicurus couldn't escape pain and was in excruciating pain near his death, but he was happy, filled with all the pleasure he could muster, embracing an appreciation for all the pleasures he had experienced in his life, surrounded by friends who cared about him, and imagining the continuation of his dream of the Garden (whether or not he would see it).
That's my take on your question. Others may have different responses.
Keep the questions coming!
This reminds me of VS11:
For most people, to be quiet is to be numb and to be active is to be frenzied.
I'm not aware of the specific source of this, but it does seem to reinforce Don's post above.
Thanks for the reminder. My own translation of VS11 is:
For the majority of people, to be at rest is to be bored stiff; but to be active is to be raving like a rabid dog. [It seems to be saying that there needs to be a balance or that stillness is important and that most people don't recognize this. Plus they're just running around to appear important or just simply to do something, they can't be alone with their own thoughts… they're not self-reliant.]
I found it interesting that the word used to describe the active people could also refer to rabies: λύσσα I. rage, fury, esp. martial rage, Il. 2. after Hom. raging madness, raving, frenzy; II. canine madness, rabies.
PS: This is Bailey's commentary on VS11:
XI. There is no close parallel to this sentence, but it is obviously a striking contrast with the life of the Epicurean philosopher, for whom both rest and activity are a part of his αταραξία [ataraxia].
A lot of very good people ARE in danger of looking only to "tranquility" - to "rest" - to passivity, and to other and more darker forms of resignation that border on "giving up" everything in life just for the sake of "absence of pain."
While I agree that some may misinterpret "tranquility" and equate it with passivity, that does a disservice to idea of rest, relaxation, and re-energizing. That's not Epicurus's fault. I agree that that's a Stoic and Academic (in both senses of the word) misinterpretation. Epicurus's "tranquility of the mind" is not a passive numbness or unconsciousness or anesthesia. It's a *pleasurable experience* not a lack of feeling. It is experienced with the mind, just as aponia is experienced as relaxation and "freedom from pain" and experienced by the body. That's why Epicurus touts:
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, 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.
It's not numbness that is the goal here, it is that feeling of complete pleasure that comes from being free of all distress and suffering of body and mind. To be filled with pleasure, head to toe, body and mind... The limit of pleasure, as if living the life of a god. We take personal responsibility to make choices and rejections to bring this about. To paraphrase, when the health of the body and the tranquility (ataraxia) of the mind has "come into being," that is, when we are filled with pleasure (which is what aponia and ataraxia are!), we are free of all distress and suffering precisely because we are filled with pleasure. That's not something to hide under a bushel. That's a feature, not a bug.
I also have to say your "war footing" sounds exhausting! Whew! I know where you're coming from - and I applaud your efforts - and providing an alternative to the Stoic manly-man look-at-my-virtue i-take-cold-showers mindset is a laudable goal, but I go back to some of the characteristics of the sage when this comes up. I do agree we're "fighting" an "uphill battle" against the minimalist, 'freedom from pain' academic interpretations, but all those struggle, battle, war, fighting metaphors are making me tired. I will say I can't believe "resistance is futile" (There's your Star Trek reference 
) or I wouldn't have gone to the trouble of writing up my Menoikeus notes and posting them. But even Epicurus took rest in the Garden from time to time, took time to celebrate festivals, to commemorate friends at shared meals... Then took up pen and papyrus and fired off diatribes against rival schools and wrote encouragements to friends and students. Breathe in and out, attack and retreat, rest and engage.
First, Epicurus's "limit" or "boundary stone" of pleasure seems eminently practical to me. If your mental and physical being is completely imbued with pleasure, by definition, you are feeling no pain. If you are feeling as much pleasure as possible with no hint of pain, there's no way that could be increased. You could feel different kinds of pleasure at that point, but you can't feel "more" pleasure if you're experiencing an absolute lack of any pain. This could be complete relaxation and calm or some other kind of all-encompassing pleasurable experience.
Now, that being said, I don't think that's *humanly* possible: to experience that limit of pleasure. Diogenes Laertius provides commentary on this (X.121): "Two sorts of happiness (eudaimonia) can be conceived: (A) the one the highest possible, such as the gods enjoy, which cannot be augmented; the other (B) admitting addition and subtraction of pleasures." Only the gods can experience happiness that cannot be ἐπίτασιν "augmented" or "increased in intensity or force." The pleasures of the rest of us can be προσθήκην καὶ ἀφαίρεσιν "added/supplemented and taken away/removed." (These two words are the opposite of each other, i.e., plus and minus.) Theoretically, humans could enjoy the happiness/pleasure/good that cannot be increased. Theoretically. But as a practical matter, that's going to be difficult. However, that goal is maybe what is provided by the idea of a god (or maybe the sage, the sophos): "And never, neither awake nor in sleep, throw yourself into confusion, and you will live as a god among humans; because no person who lives among eternal pleasures is like a mortal being." (End of the letter to Menoikeus)
All that being said, I think pleasure is sometimes conflated with desire in those dialogues and these discussions. Full disclosure: I have not read Philebus. On my list, not read yet. From what I have read, it seems this conflation may be part of the problem. A *desire* for wealth or fame can never be satisfied. There's always more money to get. There's always more fame to acquire. Somebody on Earth will have money you don't have and somebody won't know who you are. That's why those *desires* are empty/vain/κενός. Now, the *pleasure* you get from getting a taste of fulfilling those *desires* is real and good. But those *desires* lead to frustration and so they are not to be recommended.
Finally, pleasure is the telos because it is what everything else points to. Why do we act virtuously? Because we feel pleasure when doing it. Some do it because they like to be seen acting virtuously. They take pleasure in being seen acting virtuously. Virtue is a means to an end, the end, which is pleasure. "Why do we feel pleasure?" seems to me to be a nonsensical question. That's how nature evolved us! I know this argument doesn't/didn't convince everyone, but it seems patently obvious to me. Pleasure is the telos not because it's "perfect." It's the telos because it's what everything else works towards. In the game of life personified as Old MacDonald's Farm, pleasure is the cheese. It stands alone. Okay, not the best metaphor but we'll leave it there.
I think we have to be careful not to throw the proverbial baby out with the bath water. Epicurus writes fairly often about the health of the body and the tranquility of the mind. He is concerned with both our physical and mental well-being. There's nothing wrong with having a calm, tranquil mind. I would argue it's much easier to enjoy any pleasure if your mind is calm or is able to return to being calm and tranquil. I equate that calmness with re-energizing, with calm seas and safe harbor. I would not enjoy being always in a state of elation or excitement. That sounds exhausting! I also am more and more coming around to the idea that biological homeostasis is what equates to ataraxia, and it was this kind of balance, calm, tranquility in our minds and bodies to which Epicurus was - correctly, in my opinion - able to identify as a pleasure. Not THE pleasure, but a pleasure.
I recently heard a science podcast (source amnesia for which one) that said, contrary to popular belief, humans are not rational creatures that feel emotions, we are emotional creatures that sometimes employ rationality. That doesn't do the episode justice, but I found that formulation intriguing.
Sounds similar to a good ole συμπόσιον symposium
I was going to waffle, but the reality is that I've released the work into the wild and posted it to your forum. So, if you think it's worthwhile, go for it.
Okay, as teased way back in October 2020 and excerpted a few times since then, I am officially releasing my new in-depth translation and commentary of Epicurus's Letter to Menoikeus into the wild.
96-page PDF available for download here:
Epicurus's Letter to Menoikeus - A New Translation and Commentary
I plan to make this a work-in-progress and will revise it in the future. For now, I hope it provides a starting point for discussion, but, more importantly, I hope it serves as an inspiration for others to go back to the original ancient texts.
Enjoy!
40 is from Bailey's The Greek Atomists and Epicurus 557.1.
