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The Epicurus reader is well respected
Agreed.
I'd be wary of Yonge and Hicks too, but all of them are going to have their idiosyncrasies per our conversation above. You can't rely on one translation, which is what makes the plethora of online editions so beneficial.
In listening to the podcast, I was reminded - in reference to the section on the gods and lightening - this seems to be an argument against the beliefs in the gods as held by the hoi polloi - the many - as mentioned in the Letter to Menoikeus. There, Epicurus writes about the gods - being good - bestow good things to good people and vice versa. This section in Lucretius is a direct attack on that view. And I really liked the fact that hoi polloi *is* what they're called: οι πολλοί. So that phrase was directly adopted into English.
That might be better but I doubt it will suit us as a final position. This is something that is going to take some long thought and discussion probably.
As my high school English teacher told me:
"You can't revise something until you have something to revise." 
Consider this the VERY rough first draft.
Mea culpa! I forgot about this post of mine from awhile ago: RE: Did Epicurus Advise Marriage or Not? Diogenes Laertius Text Difficulty
Seems I spoke too hastily. It's the difference between those letters that's the controversy. So, yes, I fully agree that needs footnoted or something in any translation.
Well, the original does say:
Original text: Καὶ μηδὲ καὶ γαμήσειν καὶ τεκνοποιήσειν τὸν σοφόν....
Here marriage is specifically mentioned: γαμήσειν "to be married" and τεκνοποιήσειν "to bear children" and μηδὲ is negation so..
And neither marry nor bear children..
But the following phrases seem to say that "under certain circumstances" the wise one will turn aside (from this course) and marry.
Good comparison side by side. I agree with the importance of μεγέθους there.
I think if I were buying one I might go with Loeb too, for the benefit of the side-by-side Greek text.
As for the Bailey edition, that would be Bailey's "Extant Remains" which would be good to have if you can find a used copy, and would have a lot more material on it about Epicurus.
Agreed on Loeb.
The question also depends on whether one just wants Book X - in which case Bailey would need fine - or of you want the entire Lives to see all of Epicurus's mentions plus all the other philosophers.
To purchase, I'd mention Loeb Classics edition or Mensch.
PS You can get an idea of Hicks, Yonge, and Mensch from my website https://sites.google.com/view/epicureansage
Here is Brian Cox doing the dropping things in a vacuum experiment, bowling ball and feather:
I'm not sure I have a better one than "feeling" but I'm searching.
As important as this "of the ____________ there are two" is, it's probably worth putting some real effort into finding a way to convey this more clearly, or at least a way to explain why whatever term is used should not carry all the connotations that we place on it in modern English.
What about something like "Epicurus taught that we can only react to things in two ways: with pleasure or with pain. There is no neutral reaction. Some pleasure and pain will be intense, some not so much. But there is no such thing as a neutral reaction to that which happens to us. We use those feelings of pleasure and pain to determine what path to follow in our choices and what actions to avoid or flee from."
That is all just off the top on my head btw... Not attached to any of it.
What do you see as the preferred translation of "pathe"?
Passion? Or what?
LOL. You have a couple hours? 
The problem is that the literal meaning, and one that some translators grapple with, is "that which happens to someone" (as opposed to that which someone does, an activity).
It's related to the verb πάσχω http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?do…57:entry=pa/sxw
so if you read that definition, you'll get an idea of the connotations and complications behind that word.
Feeling isn't a bad translation. But you get that ambiguous English connotation. I know I've advocated for "reaction" before. I'd avoid passion since it gets tied up with sex and love. I'm not sure I have a better one than "feeling" but I'm searching.
but we have a communication mismatch to deal with between English "feeling" of which there are many, and Greek "Pathe" of which there are only two.
Well, the famous declaration about the "pathē are two, pleasure and pain" is clear; however, of I remember correctly, Epicurus and Philodemus use pathē and its derivatives in their
extant writings to refer to things other than pleasure and pain. So, I think "The Declaration of The Two" (yes, I just coined that 
) is extremely important, there's more going on with the word pathē. It could very well be as problematic as the word feelings in English.
My bad! I clicked Related articles, not Cited for Nikolsky. Here's the correct link:
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=6253070204066435775&as_sdt=5,36&sciodt=0,36&hl=en
I'm not sure about that though; the circumplex and kinetic/katastematic are two completely different models and it's probably a stretch to equate them too closely.
See, that's where I'm not so sure anymore. We've been so conditioned to read that as "moving"/"static" and I'm not sure that is the way Epicurus intended. It seems to me that he did use the words, but Nikolsky makes a good case that they're not hard and fast categories or divisions. Especially katastematic as "static", I'm needing to delve deeper into the original texts where that and its derivations are used. I'm beginning to think that's a mischaracterisation. I should also do a search for what papers cite Nikolsky to see if we can expand on his ideas with other (of any) authors.***
Understanding the interaction of degrees of pleasure and arousal is useful in finding guidance from your feelings. As LFB explains, our feelings are often influenced by things we don't expect. The more we understand and notice about our feelings, including whether or not we have a neutral state, the better we can use them for guidance.
Getting back to the original post in this thread, I believe the Dopamine Nation author stated that there is a neutral state of dopamine (arousal, production, reaction?). I may be way off base, but I think that this corresponds to one axis in the circumplex model.
Agreed. Even in listening to the podcast, it struck me that she wasn't really describing a "neutral" state as much as a state of balance. To muddy the waters even more, mayhaps a state of eudaimonia? 
Neutral to me has connotations of numb. Balance has a connotation of pleasure.
***PS: I don't know why I didn't do this before posting 
Here are the papers that cite Nikolsky per Google Scholar. Looks like some interesting ones at first glance:
****This one was interesting:
Personally, I doubt that the denial of a neutral state is of as much practical significance as it is of "logical" significance in debating with Plato on the nature of pleasure as the greatest good.
I'm not sure about that. It could have been (and I admittedly need to return to the texts) connected with his observation in PD2 that all feeling is based on consciousness and if you were neutral that might imply not having any sensation. If you're alive you're either feeling pleasure or pain
Since we're (that is I ) seem to have taken us down a modern science research track on this thread, here's an interesting article after skimming it. Putting it here for future reference:
This is actually even more interesting because the intersection of the axes could be considered a neutral state, but if all states in this model must occur on the circle itself then there is no neutral state.
Thanks for that, Godfrey ! I think you're right. The only truly "neutral" state would be at the intersection of the two axes which can't actually exist if the affect exists in the circle. So Epicurus was "right" in a sense that there is no neutral state. You're either feeling pleasure or pain.
The two parts of the division about which Epicurus is speaking - απονια and αταραξια, on the one hand, and χαρα and ευφροσύνη, on the other - are not separate, mutually exclusive types of pleasures. According to Plutarch, who examines these concepts in Chapters 7 and 8 of his dialogue A Pleasant Life Impossible (109la-1092d), the states of painlessness and tranquillity invariably bring about joy. This essential connection between the concepts mentioned by Epicurus compels us to view Epicurus' passage quoted by Diogenes Laertius not as a classification of pleasures but rather as a definition of two coexistent aspects of any pleasure: its passive aspect, i.e., a certain state of the body or the mind, and its active aspect manifesting itself in an emotional response of the soul.
I'm skimming Nikolsky and came across this passage. Is it me or do the "two coexistent aspects" sound somewhat like the arousal axis on the circumplex? I need to go back and read that more closely.
Is there some reason for the circle rather than just the two axes?
It's the natural curve from high pleasure valence/low arousal to low pleasure/high arousal and right around.
Think of it as plotting points like:
X0, Y10
X1, Y9
X2, Y8
etc.
