Posts by Don

Quote from Robert

Thank you for the recommendation! I did have Living for Pleasure on my list; I'm now moving it up in the queue. Excited to start reading it.

I describe it as erudite but conversational. It's very approachable but comes with a deep understanding of Epicurus's philosophy. Hope you enjoy.

Her article "Are the Modern Stoics Really Epicureans?" is worth a read, too!

Quote

As a more controversial point, I suspect that many Modern Stoics are already Epicureans, at least by the standards of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Let me explain...

If you haven't read Emily Austin's book, Living for Pleasure, highly recommend that one for you to add in your "self-conducted crash course" Great phrase, by the way. Her book is by far my personal favorite for an introduction to the philosophy.

Maybe he died the year he would have turned 72 but it was before his birthday that year?

FYI

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One thing to keep in mind, from my perspective, in all this is that αἵρεσις (hairesis) and φεύγω (pheugo) are not necessarily meant to be opposites or antonyms of each other. They describe two different actions that can be taken in relation to desires and courses of action.

αἵρεσις gets at the conscious decision to "choose" a course of action oneself as opposed to flipping a coin or letting chance take its course. I think this is why it came to be used for "heresy" - the heretic had a chance to make the "right" choice and didn't

φεύγω gets at the urgency of jettisoning or getting away from or leaving behind, or "setting one free" if you will, from beliefs or ideas or desires that will, in the long run, be detrimental to one's eudaimonia and the living of a good life. The opposite semantic field in relation to φεύγω is to chase or pursue.

Quote from Julia

My commentary:
The connotation of "setting oneself free" is exactly what I miss in words like "to reject / rejection" and also "to avoid / avoidance" (which I had initially chosen myself). It is, in my mind, somewhat present in "evade" (which I chose after). It is strongly present, but also strongly obscured in the modern English "to flee / flight". To translate the Epicurean sense of φεύγω (pheugo), "setting oneself free" might actually be the best I've seen so far. It goes along well with the associations of fears and addictions, it has commitment, agency, and a certain urgency without the necessary connotation of immediate danger to life and limb. If I set myself free of something, I also reject it. If I set myself free of what haunts me, I evade it.

This translation seems to have it all!

I think I like that direction... Although it's not the single word you were looking for initially.

I'll grant you that you have to find English translations that speak to you for the Greek words Epicurus used (or the Latin ones Lucretius used). But I also maintain translation can obfuscate the original meaning, so we all need to be careful.

Quote from Cassius

"fleeing" is not a normally something an Epicurus would do) mainly in the context of coming up with words that are generally useful.

Well, the words he used are φυγή (noun) and φεύγω (verb). Here are the dictionary entries for each, so I encourage everyone to dig into the connotations of each and decide for themselves. Maybe "flee" isn't the best, but I need something with more agency than "avoid":

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, φυ^γή

Woodhouse, S. C. (1910) English–Greek Dictionary: A Vocabulary of the Attic Language‎[1], London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Limited.
avoidance
banishment
disappearance
escape
exile
flight
outlawry
proscription
refusal
rejection
repudiation
stampede
transportation

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, φεύγω

Antonyms
(antonym(s) of “to flee, be accused”): διώκω (diṓkō, “to pursue, accuse”)

Related to Latin fugio:

fugio - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

PD25 If at all critical times you do not connect each of your actions to the natural goal of life, but instead turn too soon to some other kind of goal in thinking whether to avoid or pursue something, then your thoughts and your actions will not be in harmony.

εἰ μὴ παρὰ πάντα καιρὸν ἐπανοίσεις ἕκαστον τῶν πραττομένων ἐπὶ τὸ τέλος τῆς φύσεως, ἀλλὰ προκαταστρέψεις εἴτε φυγὴν εἴτε δίωξιν ποιούμενος εἰς ἄλλο τι, οὐκ ἔσονταί σοι τοῖς λόγοις αἱ πράξεις ἀκόλουθοι.

PD25 literally uses εἴτε φυγὴν εἴτε δίωξιν which are the antonyms of each other mentioned above: flee/escape from and pursue/chase. Saint-Andre chooses to use the traditional "avoid" but that doesn't translate the dichotomy of φυγὴν and δίωξιν.

Quote from Cassius

Just gotta say to close the night, I don't like the sound or connotations of "flee" at all!

I am curious to read why.

Take your pick:

1. (intransitive) to flee, run off, go a certain direction with haste (often with prepositions)
2. (transitive) to flee, escape, avoid, get away from (danger or trouble)
3. (transitive or intransitive) to leave the country, go into exile
   1. (intransitive) to be exiled, banished, driven out of the country [with ὑπό (hupó, + genitive) ‘by someone’]
   2. (intransitive, present and imperfect) to be in exile, live in banishment
4. (perfect) to have escaped, be safe from quotations ▼

I **much** prefer "flee" to "avoid". There's nothing wrong with fleeing a dangerous situation, which is what one should literally do when confronting empty desires, anxiety-producing ideas, harmful beliefs, and so on. Flee from them. Escape from them. Get away from them. There's nothing wrong with a strategic retreat. There's nothing wrong with fleeing from or escaping from a city under siege. Avoiding, to me, makes it sound like you're stepping around external threats. The threats are coming from inside the house - unsound beliefs, harmful ideas, empty desires, anxieties, and so on. Leave them behind and flee from them, get as much distance from them as possible.

Quote from Julia

In addition, it seems like pretty much each of these meanings can be employed figuratively, which causes a little tree of meanings to grow from both words

Quote from Godfrey

This is an excellent case study in the difficulties of translation

LOL! Welcome to the wonderful world of translation!

To get an idea of what this would look like in a text some might be familiar with, here is a page from Pride and Prejudice:

Quote from Godfrey

Am I correct in understanding that, based on the above, a proper English replacement for choose/avoid would be pursue/flee?

If so, it's much more action-packed

Technically, it's not "pursue" ... Which is weird. αίρεση is more take deliberately or choose deliberately, rather than let chance choose for you. But given the squishy nature of English, you could conceivably use "pursue" and "flee" if you wanna.

Col.36... oh my! The entire right half is gone!

Col.37 is *slightly* better...

Quote from Bryan

Great Discussion! Allow me to throw in these quotes as well:

Philódēmos, On Piety, 1.36.1023 – 1.37.1054: ^[Obbink] And for the production of benefits from the gods for good people and harms for bad people, they [the kathēgemónes] allow. And for the wise and just it must be conceived that benefits and harms which are no feebler or even greater than people in general suppose are made complete, not out of weakness or because we have need of anything from God, even in return [of] his benefit [here], and these things [the kathēgemónes] say most piously. And in On Gods what kind of source of retribution and preservation for humans through the deity must be accepted he outlines in some detail. And in book 13 he speaks concerning the affinity or alienation which God has for some people.

And of course we all remember SV65 "it is pointless begging from the gods for what one is sufficiently able to obtain for himself."

I will say I'd be interested in seeing how much of that is extant and how much is Obbink's reconstruction.

I would offer this additional (imperfect) metaphor on φευγω:

Consider that a person is trying to *flee* a burning building. They're trying to carry their full garbage bags, old clothes, half-used toothpaste tubes, etc. They feel this necessary for whatever reason. If they got rid of those, they would have a much better chance of escaping the burning building and getting out into the fresh air and being able to continue living.

Those bags of garbage, etc., are the fears of the gods, anxieties about death, and other disturbances of the mind that hold us back from truly enjoying our existence.

Like I said, "imperfect" but posting for thoughts and improvements.

Quote from Cassius

So the general thrust is words like 'shared in festivals' and 'participated in worship' - and nothing specific about praying in terms of asking for things and expecting a reply (?)

That would be my general understanding. We know his asking for favors from the gods would have been completely against his understanding of the gods. However, the details of his participation in the rites, ceremonies, and worship are intriguing.

Quote from Cassius

Twentier could you clarify your thoughts about what you think the ancient Epicurean toward prayer was?

I'll jump in here. Philodemus's On Piety is probably the most detailed account we have left of Epicurus's attitude to worship writ large. For example:

Post

RE: Philodemus On Piety

The following are excerpts and notes from columns 27-36 of Obbink's Philodemus On Piety which outline the participation of Epicurus himself and the early Epicureans in religious festivals and other rites and practices. Obbink also shared more detailed notes in his book, so I may try and share some of those pages in later posts. For now, the material below has proved quite interesting...

Quoted in col. 27, On Piety: Epicurus, On Gods (Περί θεών): as being both the greatest thing and that…

Don

December 25, 2020 at 10:05 PM

Quote from Joshua

The planets are stars in this analysis--they are the "wandering stars" spoken of in the Letter to Pythocles;

Exactly. The ancient Greeks saw those as literally "wandering stars." They didn't think of them as "worlds" or "planets" like we conceive of a planet as another body circling a star. They're not a kosmos. They're simply ἄστρων πλανᾶσθαι, astron planasthai, stars who for some reason wander across the άστρα that are fixed in place in the night sky.

I said I was going to respond to some of Eikadistes 's thoughts on prayer.

Let me say from the outset that I don't pray. I don't intend to pray, but I could see some use for it in the following ways... even without believing in god or God or gods.

It comes down to how one define's "prayer." If it is asking god/God for favors or bargaining with the deity ("Dear Lord, help me pass this test and I'll start going to Wednesday services.")... yeah, that's devoid of utility and basically empty.

However, to me, prayer can also be something like the meal-time "grace" that was used in the Buddhist Plum Village Center where the first line goes "‘We are thankful for this food, The work of many people and the sharing of other forms of life." It is a mind-shift to an attitude of gratitude. That kind of grateful-attitude form of prayer is in keeping with Epicurean tradition, from my perspective.

There's also contemplative prayer, concentrating or studying a specific text or phrase, sitting with it to really dig into it. POSSIBLY an Epicurean form of this is to contemplate what it means to be a "blessed and incorruptible being" and how that can be manifested in this mortal body and a materialistic world. This could also be an attitude-adjustment in that keeping in mind how a "blessed and incorruptible being" might move in the world and trying to emulate - to the best of one's mortal abilities - that behavior to be more "like a god."

These are off the top of my head. I also said above that "I don't intend to pray" but looking at what I've typed... who knows. Maybe I'll try one of those forms of "prayer" in the future after all.

Quote from Cassius

This isn't likely to be satisfactory, but I am tempted to suggest that we might sort of parallel the view that DeWitt suggested - that "life" rather than "pleasure" was Epicurus' greatest good. We might observe that from an Epicurean perspective the meaning of "pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain" comes down to a proper perspective on the verb "to live!"

Nope, nope, nope. (Another broken record of mine!)

Life *cannot* be the greatest good in the philosophical sense. Sure, life is good compared to the alternative, of course. But the "greatest good" is "that to which everything else points." The greatest good "in the opinion of all philosophers must needs be such that we are bound to test all things by it, but the standard itself by nothing." DeWitt's argument, as I remember, hinges on Latin not having a definite article

That said, I generally agree with your "pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain" comes down to a proper perspective on the verb "to live!" That "proper perspective" includes (but is not exclusive to) removing those fears, anxieties, empty beliefs, etc., that stand in the way of experience life as pleasurable.