Posts by Don

There's also the Getty Villa copied from the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum. Walk (virtually) in the footsteps of Philodemus?

When talking about expectations, I would assume that some people can't wrap their heads around Epicurus's distrust (Is that the right word?) of Reason. It's such a mainstay of Western philosophy as it's come down thru the Socratic/Platonic lineage. Epicurus saw the application of prudence to be positive, but it's not part of the Canon. And I think many people can't get over that. Getting people to see that Reason and our cognitive assessments can deceive us could be jarring. We use our "higher" reasoning but should be wary of it.

IF I've characterized Epicurean philosophy circle.

The Wikipedia article on Pain and Pleasure gives a very basic overview of the physiology in this area. The whole idea of nociceptors and dopamine seems like that whole immediate contact with the world without judgement that we've been talking around. Elayne may have more insight into this area.

I know Epicurus had no knowledge of this physiology but he did have his experience and knew they're was some kind of pre-judgemental component of pleasure and pain. Might be another way to get at these concepts.

Quote from Cassius

If Bailey's "internal sensations" is referring to the same subject, then maybe what we're missing is a word or terminology that ties pleasure and pain more tightly to some kind of "internal natural guidance system" that does in fact stand shoulder to shoulder as an equivalent with "divine inspiration" or "logic" as a concept in the fight to determine what is the proper goal of life. As it is, when we talk of "pleasure" the connotation is so tightly tied to "chocolate cake" and the like that it is hard to see the forest for the trees. When we explain to people that "pleasure and pain" are the guides to life, it would be nice to have an articulate way to explain to them that Epicurus was not meaning to list PARTICULAR pleasures or pains, but was referring to the overall mechanism given to us by nature to fulfill that guidance role.

It seems hugely important to me to be able to start with the observation that Diogenes Laertius made that "the feelings are two - pleasure and pain" in order to explain the whole issue of absence of neutral states, limits of pleasure, and especially how the presence of one equals in quantity the absence of the other.

I bet that the ambiguity that we experience in the term "feeling" would almost without a doubt have been addressed and explained by Epicurus if we had more of the texts. On that same point, my bet is also that certain aspects of this, like with the issue of "preconceptions" are buried unrecognized in plain view in front of us in Lucretius - we just fail to recognize it.

If you're referring to your first clip as Bailey and "internal sensations", yes, that's the same pathē.

I think you're onto something. Maximizing Pleasure is the goal, but we use both pathē to make our choices and rejections (okay, avoidances, but I dislike that translation). One feeling without the other as part of the Canon is like trying to ride a bicycle with one wheel.

This abstract I found online I found interesting:

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In the first chapter, which is new to this edition, Konstan calls on psychology to flesh out the Epicurean understanding of empty fears and irrational desires—ancient psychology, that is: a science of the soul. Konstan’s reading of the relation between sensation (aisthēseis), the passions (pathē) of pleasure and pain, and belief (doxa) in Epicurean doctrine is unorthodox but thorough. Rather than mapping pathē onto either the soul as a whole or the body, Konstan assigns pathē to the non-rational part of the soul, the seat of sensation. He locates the emotions, which “do not seem to have a special name in Epicurean theory,” in the rational part (11). Crucial to this schema is Konstan’s claim, based on Lucretius’s De Rerum Natura and Diogenes Laertius’s doxography of Epicurus, that Epicureans did not consider emotions such as fear and joy to be pathē at all, since emotions depend on memory and reasoning, whereas pathē do not. The upshot is that fear, as a rational emotion, involves belief and evaluation, and is therefore susceptible to error; whence the psychological roots of pernicious “empty beliefs.”

This is possible direction to talk of unifying the pathē into one description.

From what I can see, all those "feelings" are translating πάθη pathe (citations are to Diogenes Laertius sections in Chapt. X of Lives):

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X.31: Now in The Canon Epicurus affirms that our sensations and preconceptions and our feelings are the standards of truth

ἐν τοίνυν τῷ Κανόνι λέγων ἐστὶν ὁ Ἐπίκουρος κριτήρια τῆς ἀληθείας εἶναι τὰς αἰσθήσεις καὶ προλήψεις καὶ τὰ πάθη

X.63: Next, keeping in view our perceptions and feelings...

Μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα δεῖ συνορᾶν ἀναφέροντα ἐπὶ τὰς αἰσθήσεις καὶ τὰ πάθη

X.68: If, then, we bring all these arguments concerning soul to the criterion of our feelings and perceptions...

Ταῦτα οὖν πάντα τὰ διαλογίσματα τὰ περὶ ψυχῆς ἀνάγων τις ἐπὶ τὰ πάθη καὶ τὰς αἰσθήσεις

X.73: No further proof is required : we have only to reflect that we attach the attribute of time to days and nights and their parts, and likewise to feelings of pleasure and pain and to neutral states, to states of movement and states of rest

καὶ γὰρ τοῦτο οὐκ ἀποδείξεως προσδεῖται ἀλλ᾽ ἐπιλογισμοῦ, ὅτι ταῖς ἡμέραις καὶ ταῖς νυξὶ συμπλέκομεν καὶ τοῖς τούτων μέρεσιν, ὡσαύτως δὲ καὶ τοῖς πάθεσι καὶ ταῖς ἀπαθείαις, καὶ κινήσεσι καὶ στάσεσιν, ἴδιόν τι σύμπτωμα περὶ ταῦτα πάλιν αὐτὸ τοῦτο ἐννοοῦντες, καθ᾽ ὃ χρόνον ὀνομάζομεν. (πάθεσι is just the dative form)

X.147 PD 24: If you reject absolutely any single sensation without stopping to discriminate with respect to that which awaits confirmation between matter of opinion and that which is already present, whether in sensation or in feelings or in any presentative perception of the mind, you will throw into confusion even the rest of your sensations by your groundless belief and so you will be rejecting the standard of truth altogether. If in your ideas based upon opinion you hastily affirm as true all that awaits confirmation as well as that which does not, you will not escape error, as you will be maintaining complete ambiguity whenever it is a case of judging between right and wrong opinion.

PD 24: Εἴ τιν᾽ ἐκβαλεῖς ἁπλῶς αἴσθησιν καὶ μὴ διαιρήσεις τὸ δοξαζόμενον κατὰ τὸ προσμένον καὶ τὸ παρὸν ἤδη κατὰ τὴν αἴσθησιν καὶ τὰ πάθη καὶ πᾶσαν φανταστικὴν ἐπιβολὴν τῆς διανοίας, συνταράξεις καὶ τὰς λοιπὰς αἰσθήσεις τῇ ματαίῳ δόξῃ, ὥστε τὸ κριτήριον ἅπαν ἐκβαλεῖς. εἰ δὲ βεβαιώσεις καὶ τὸ προσμένον ἅπαν ἐν ταῖς δοξαστικαῖς ἐννοίαις καὶ τὸ μὴ τὴν ἐπιμαρτύρησιν, οὐκ ἐκλείψεις τὸ διεψευσμένον: ὡς τετηρηκὼς ἔσῃ πᾶσαν ἀμφισβήτησιν κατὰ πᾶσαν κρίσιν τοῦ ὀρθῶς ἢ μὴ ὀρθῶς.

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Quote from Cassius

I think the place to start there would be Diogenes Laertius when he says "the feelings are two" and I think there is a reference in the letter to Herodotus where the same word is apparently used.

You know me, doesn't take much to get me to look something like that up

Πάθη δὲ λέγουσιν εἶναι δύο "and they say the Πάθη are two."

Here's the link to the Greek Word Study Tool for that word at the Perseus Digital Library. There's also this from Wiktionary.

I find it interesting that "what happens" seems to be a common definition:

• (in neutral sense) what is done or what happens to a person
• (in negative sense) suffering, misfortune

I did find this page on Google Books that discusses pathe and includes a snippet about Epicurus and the Stoics.

This is definitely one of those instances that the connotations of the word don't necessarily map well - one-to-one - with English.

Quote from Cassius

(1) In item three, the "BUT." I explain it the same way, but why is our description so focused on "buts" which imply that what we have said before is not clear. Why is it not clear enough to say "choose pleasure and avoid pain" without having to emphasize the BUT DON'T choose unwisely (or some variation). We end up looking like the "wisdom" is the end goal rather than the pleasure, and we end up sounding sometimes like we are talking to stubborn children. Is it really necessary, once we say that pleasure is the good, to have to harp on the fact that some pleasures are going to come at a cost that is not worth that pleasure? (To repeat, I am not complaining about your formulation, I am complaining about our not being in a position to have this more easily understood).

I hear you. It would be nice to put that more positively or integrated instead of X... BUT Y... It looks like we're hedging our bets or something.

I must admit that I think I'm liking DeWitt's contention that the summum bonum of Epicureanism is life itself and that the telos/goal is pleasure. I'm still wrapping my brain around that idea but feel that I like it.. I think. Maybe that's a way to go? Maybe we're starting too far along the path so we have to use the BUTs...

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(2) Your item 6 ("thus leading to pain")

This is another part of the "rhetoric" issue we face. The act of being alive "leads to pain" so we cannot expect to pursue many of the pleasures we value most without some cost in pain. So the continuing underlying issue is HOW we stack the pleasure up against the pain and decide how much pain is worthwhile.

Excellent point! The "HOW" could lead to those "recipes". I've also seen the HOW as exemplified by the Principle Doctrines and other list type epitomes. The problem is there is no one HOW for everyone but (AH! There's that BUT!) we can provide principles you can apply to your life.

I don't think that's off topic at all! By the way, well done here...

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In other words, focusing on either feeling to the exclusion of the other leads to an unbalanced diet.

I liked that!

It's always struck me that Epicureanism is a philosophy of personal responsibility. You are responsible for your choices and rejections. You are responsible for assessing the consequences of those actions. You are responsible for deciding what gives you pleasure and what gives you pain without harming others or letting them harm you. And so on. It's not an easy path but is one that provides for a lot of variation. We're not going to proscribe how to live your life. We can provide a framework and foundation around which you can build a life.

Thanks for the comments, Cassius . And I don't see any major differences of opinion here

On the cookbook idea, my favorite most inviting cookbooks include the following:

- Step by step directions of recipes

- Nice full color pictures to show you what the dish is supposed to look like

- Interesting prose interspersed to share background of the dishes, cultural history, or personal experiences of where the dishes came from.

A cookbook that can be browsed, simply read for enjoyment, and used in the kitchen is a winner in my book (pun intended)

Now, how this translates into an "Epicurean Cookbook for Life" is another conversation. Hmm...

- Summaries of philosophy in bite sized chunks (recipes)?

- Artwork that exemplifies Epicurean tenets?

- Short background readings of biographies, real-like applications of EP, the Tetrapharmakos, etc.

Just off the top of my head here.

Just some general thoughts on the topic. An interesting one! Thanks for getting this thread going, Cassius and Godfrey.

I see what you mean by one size not fitting all, but it seems to me that Epicurus and classical Epicureans were apparently big into supplying epitomes and summaries, both large and small (They were also fans of multi-volume behemoths), for ease in memorizing and really embedding the doctrines in one's mind for easy retrieval in any situation. So the idea of "cookbooks" within the philosophy has a fine pedigree.

What's *in* those "cookbooks" is a whole other on-going conversation

As for PD10 and the Letter to Menoikos, we've had an in-depth discussion on that over in that thread on the forum. I've never seen a contradiction between those two. My take is as follows:

1. Pleasure is pleasure.

2. All pleasures are good.

3. BUT. we choose and reject pleasures with an eye to their consequences.

4. There's nothing inherently wrong with enjoying a drink, sex, etc., See 1.

5. BUT the "profligate" try to overindulge those pleasures... Filling the cup after it's already full.

6. Thus leading to pain. See 3.

7. We don't judge the profligates' pleasure but we are within bounds to critique their choices and rejections if they're objectively resulting in pain in their lives.

8. Epicurus offers a way out of those unwise choices and rejections of the profligate.

I don't want to hijack this thread into a PD10 discussion but felt it was ok to weigh in since it came up.

Looking forward to seeing where this thread goes.

The Epicurus Wiki has an interesting commentary on KD9.

Quote from Godfrey

Laurie Anderson has a lyric to the effect that when her father died, it was if a whole library burned down.

That is so poignant, and I know exactly what you/she are talking about. I've also worked on my family history and been grateful (Isn't showing gratitude an Epicurean trait?) for the work of others. I have an unbroken chain of photos back in one line 7 generations starting with my children to my 3rd-great-grandparents born in the 1810s. I often wonder what my ancestors would think of my philosophical leanings. One of my ancestors was the first Lutheran pastor in Pennsylvania.

I haven't read much of Montaigne but I'm intrigued by what I've read about him. I sent looking for the essay when Godfrey mentioned that the remainder of it was "a meditation on death". Wikisource has all of his essays and I went looking for Book I.XIX. That to study philosophy is to learn to die.

I found all the Lucretius references interesting and the section that begins:

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Young and old die upon the same terms; no one departs out of life otherwise than if he had but just before entered into it; neither is any man so old and decrepit, who, having heard of Methuselah, does not think he has yet twenty good years to come. Fool that thou art! who has assured unto thee the term of life?

reminded me of De Rerum Natura III.1026-1052 that begins talking about Ancus the Good dying.

Thanks for the reminder about Montaigne. Color me intrigued.

One thing I think we have to keep in mind when taking about Cicero is that On Ends doesn't offer us a transcription of an actual Epicurean speaking to Cicero. As I understand it, Cicero is using "Torquatus" as a character in his work to explain Epicureanism. I have no doubt Cicero was generally accurate (he had living Epicureans to call "foul!" if he went too astray) but I'm also sure her was very deliberate in his word choices for the Epicurean's "contribution" to the "conversation." Cicero was no fan of Epicureanism and if he could provide a shade of meaning he preferred to steer the interpretation his way, I have no doubt he did. So, there's that problem of seeing Epicureanism "through a glass darkly" or at least through Cicero's "glasses."

Quote from Godfrey

Thanks Eugenios!

I've actually begun learning the Greek alphabet: you've got me inspired! Baby steps though

You're welcome. That was fun!

I learned the Greek alphabet in junior high school and would take notes in them (using them more like a code than a language). Eventually, I thought I better learn some of the language they were used to write .

Here are the sections translated as "seeds" in the Letter to Herodotus (numbers are to sections in Diogenes Laertius). Perseus Digital Library uses the "Lives of Eminent Philosophers." Diogenes Laertius. R.D. Hicks. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1972 (First published 1925).

Section 38 in that translation has "germs" but uses the same Greek word: σπέρμα (sperma) and each of the sections just uses a different declension. It literally means "seed." Below are the sections for context. Here is a link to the Perseus Digital Library's Greek Word Study Tool that has links to LSJ, Middle Liddell, Slater, and Autenrieth. I *love* that Greek Word Study Tool! Also like Wiktionary for the declensions.

[38] ... For in that case anything would have arisen out of anything, standing as it would in no need of its proper germs.
πρῶτον μὲν ὅτι οὐδὲν γίνεται ἐκ τοῦ μὴ ὄντος. πᾶν γὰρ ἐκ παντὸς ἐγίνετ᾽ ἂν σπερμά των γε οὐθὲν προσδεόμενον

This section uses σπέρματα (another declension)

[74] "And further, we must not suppose that the worlds have necessarily one and the same shape. [On the contrary, in the twelfth book "On Nature" he himself says that the shapes of the worlds differ, some being spherical, some oval, others again of shapes different from these. They do not, however, admit of every shape. Nor are they living beings which have been separated from the infinite.] For nobody can prove that in one sort of world there might not be contained, whereas in another sort of world there could not possibly be, the seeds out of which animals and plants arise and all the rest of the things we see. [And the same holds good for their nurture in a world after they have arisen. And so too we must think it happens upon the earth also.]

[74] "Ἔτι δὲ καὶ τοὺς κόσμους οὔτε ἐξ ἀνάγκης δεῖ νομίζειν ἕνα σχηματισμὸν ἔχοντας : : [ἀλλὰ καὶ διαφόρους αὐτοὺς ἐν τῇ ιβ᾽ Περὶ φύσεως αὐτός φησιν: οὓς μὲν γὰρ σφαιροειδεῖς, καὶ ᾠοειδεῖς ἄλλους, καὶ ἀλλοιοσχήμονας ἑτέρους: οὐ μέντοι πᾶν σχῆμα ἔχειν. οὐδὲ ζῷα εἶναι ἀποκριθέντα ἀπὸ τοῦ ἀπείρου.] οὐδὲ γὰρ ἂν ἀποδείξειεν οὐδείς, ὡς <ἐν> μὲν τῷ τοιούτῳ καὶ οὐκ ἂν ἐμπεριελήφθη τὰ τοιαῦτα σπέρματα, ἐξ ὧν ζῷά τε καὶ φυτὰ καὶ τὰ λοιπὰ πάντα <τὰ> θεωρούμενα συνίσταται, ἐν δὲ τῷ τοιούτῳ οὐκ ἂν ἐδυνήθη. [ὡσαύτως δὲ καὶ ἐντραφῆναι. τὸν αὐτὸν δὲ τρόπον καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς νομιστέον.]

In the Letter to Pythocles, we find σπερμάτων:

[89] "That there is an infinite number of such worlds can be perceived, and that such a world may arise in a world or in one of the intermundia (by which term we mean the spaces between worlds) in a tolerably empty space and not, as some maintain, in a vast space perfectly clear and void.116 It arises when certain suitable seeds rush in from a single world or intermundium, or from several, and undergo gradual additions or articulations or changes of place, it may be, and waterings from appropriate sources, until they are matured and firmly settled in so far as the foundations laid can receive them.

[89] "Ὅτι δὲ καὶ τοιοῦτοι κόσμοι εἰσὶν ἄπειροι τὸ πλῆθος ἔστι καταλαβεῖν, καὶ ὅτι καὶ ὁ τοιοῦτος δύναται κόσμος γίνεσθαι καὶ ἐν κόσμῳ καὶ μετακοσμίῳ, ὃ λέγομεν μεταξὺ κόσμων διάστημα, ἐν πολυκένῳ τόπῳ καὶ οὐκ ἐν μεγάλῳ εἰλικρινεῖ καὶ κενῷ, καθάπερ τινές φασιν, ἐπιτηδείων τινῶν σπερμάτων ῥυέντων ἀφ᾽ ἑνὸς κόσμου ἢ μετακοσμίου ἢ καὶ ἀπὸ πλειόνων κατὰ μικρὸν προσθέσεις τε καὶ διαρθρώσεις καὶ μεταστάσεις ποιούντων ἐπ᾽ ἄλλον τόπον, ἐὰν οὕτω τύχῃ, καὶ ἐπαρδεύσεις ἐκ τῶν ἐχόντων ἐπιτηδείως ἕως τελειώσεως καὶ διαμονῆς ἐφ᾽ ὅσον τὰ ὑποβληθέντα θεμέλια τὴν προσδοχὴν δύναται ποιεῖσθαι.

This section uses the same word, different declension: σπερμάτων

Quote from Charles

The issue we're facing is that for the rest of philosophy: free will is a matter of ontology, but for us its a matter of physics, coming from the swerve.

I'll admit I'm still "iffy" on the swerve (in relation to modern physics), but free will being a "matter of physics" for us caught my eye. I agree. In light of that, I thought this Scientific American blog post was interesting. Of course , other posts said physics disproved free will, but I like Charles characterization here in any case.

Wondering: Is the practice of "choice and avoidance" predicated on the fact that we are able to exercise our free will? Sometimes we choose wisely, sometimes we choose poorly in our desire to achieve pleasure. But it's up to us to make those choices?

Welcome, and Happy Twentieth!

Quote from Godfrey

Happy 20th!

Attached is an image of Epicurus which works well as wallpaper for a phone. It came from the BBC podcast with Catherine Wilson, David Sedley et al. (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/ww3cszjv4)

I hope all are well!

Happy Twentieth!

Home screen on my phone set! Thanks for the image