Posts by Don

fwiw...

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, πρό-ληψις

LOL! "his framework for the concept." You'll get a wide range of answers to that request from a multitude of scholars, academics, and interested laypeople.

Some of us here have settled(?) on the idea of prolepseis as being the ability of the human mind to recognize patterns of significance in the flood of sense data that pours in. That's the very basic idea we've hit upon.

Somehow the autocorrect of 8 and ) to seems to work for mention of Horace.

To honor the poet, here's a link again to Natalie Haynes ' episode:

Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics - Series 4 - Horace - BBC Sounds

Natalie Haynes stands up for Roman poet Horace. With guests Llewelyn Morgan and Ben Okri.

www.bbc.co.uk

Welcome aboard, frank1syl !

Many of us found Epicurus via the Stoics, so you're in good company.

Quote from frank1syl

All of Epicureanism interests me, though I admit to having the least interest in Epicurus's beliefs about the god

From my perspective, the primary things Epicurus wants to get across about "the gods" are that:

1. They didn't create the universe.
2. They don't control - or even have any interest in - our lives.

If that's as far as anyone goes, I think they've got solid ground to stand on.

We've had looooong threads about the nature of the gods, whether they're concepts or beings (from Epicurus's perspective), and so on. Epicurus lays vital importance on having a "proper" attitude towards "a god" but as long as one doesn't "fear" them, you're probably good to go for the most part.

You're also not the only one here that finds that topic of less interest, so you're certainly not alone in that sentiment.

Quote from BrainToBeing

"all good and all evil come to us through sensation". While there is a lot of wisdom in this statement, it needs consideration in this era - or at least definition. If "sensation" is a proxy for "thinking" then perhaps the statement still holds (though the bounty of nature would still stand as challenge vis a vis "good" coming from the planet). Alternatively, if "sensation" is held to be derivatives of sensing then we have problems.

I agree with Godfrey . Plus there's also Principle Doctrine 2:

"Death is nothing to us, for that which is dissolved into its elements is without consciousness, and that which is without consciousness is nothing to us."

That seems fairly uncontroversial to me.

ἀναίσθητος = conveys "unconscious, insensate, unfeeling; senseless"

I would also add that, as I understand it, "good" and "evil" only have relevance in Epicurean philosophy as "that which brings pleasure" and "that with brings pain," respectively.

As to the "tabula rasa," I completely agree that notion is outdated. I think the Epicurus's idea of prolepses addresses this, predispositions at pattern recognition are inborn. Many of us go back to the psychology experiments with babies, toddlers, and animals in awe and fairness, for example.

I agree with Godfrey ! At the risk of speaking for him, the intersection between Epicurean philosophy and modern neuroscience is an area that both he and I have expressed interest in for some time.

I've brought up the work of Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett, Dr. Anna Lembke, and others in bringing neuroscience research to a lay audience. They don't provide an Epicurean perspective, but I've brought up their work in light of the implications (I think) it has for understanding Epicurus's psychology (for lack of a better term) through a modern lens.

I would greatly enjoy reading your thoughts, BrainToBeing (John)!

Wonderful post and insights. Welcome aboard!

The articles are meant to be humorous, and Godless Mom's social media channels are amusing.

Top 10 Influential Atheists in History and Their Impact

The people from history who had a significant influence on atheism and atheists.

www.godlessmom.com

Godless Mom included Epicurus in her list of "influential atheists." Her take on Epicurus is obviously not meant to be exhaustive! And her "While not an atheist in the modern sense, his ideas laid the groundwork for secular thought" seems spot on to me.

Epicurus gets a longer look in "A Very Quick and Quite Silly History of Atheism"

A Very Quick and Quite Silly History of Atheism

Taking a brief look at atheism and atheists throughout human history.

www.godlessmom.com

Again, purposefully silly! She's not a historian. But it was a fun find, and I think does not misrepresent Epicurus. She, of course, mentions "bread and cheese" but at least she doesn't imply what many others do with that. I liked "chilling in his garden"!

To refer back to Cassius 's original post, here is a translation of Cleanthes' hymn:

Cleanthes’ Hymn to Zeus – Hellenion

I will freely admit I was being slightly provocative. Stoics aren't evil nor is their philosophy wholly without merit. Even Seneca, a Stoic's Stoic, makes some good points; and Marcus Aurelius appears to have been an honorable man worthy of respect. Do I think the Stoics are misguided or, in the case of many modern Stoics, fooling themselves? Yes, of course I do, or I'd be over there.

However...

Quote from TauPhi

There is a good reason why The Holy Church of Sticking Pencils into Eyeballs doesn't exist...An idea has to have some merit in order to get widespread and passed on.

Unfortunately, cultures and religions are full of meritless practices or movements not far removed from the Holy Church of SPiE, admittedly from my personal perspective. Medieval flagellant monks. Female genital mutilation. The Jonestown massacre. The Heaven's Gate mass suicide cult. The SPiE Holy Church doesn't (necessarily) last long in any one incarnation maybe, but it certainly keeps cropping up again and again.

Would I include Stoicism within the Holy Church of SPiE tradition? No, emphatically no. No question or equivocation. Do I agree with Dr. Austin "that many Modern Stoics are already Epicureans, at least by the standards of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius"? Yes, indeed!

I think we're trying to diagnose Martin from a distance everyone. I think he's okay.

Quote from TauPhi

It has to have some merit to it. If it fell away quickly, it would have been forgotten long time ago.

Your points are well taken. I'd just add as an aside that...

Remember that Stoicism and Neo-Platonism were palatable enough to early Christians that they could be co-opted into their religion. Merit isn't always what sustains something. Sometimes it's who you know.

Quote from Godfrey

Judging by this, "calculus" wasn't even a word in Greek. So "hedonic calculus" would be a later overlay onto choices and rejections, which probably doesn't add any clarity to this thread. 🤔

Jeremy Bentham came up with the idea of the "felicific calculus" although he didn't use that exact phrase in his An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789). If you want to see someone apply mathematics to pleasure and pain, that book is a tour de force!

The words Epicurus used translate to things like decide, judge, etc. Section 129 of Menoikeus is probably the most succinct exposition. Here's my paraphrase/translation:

[129] Because we perceived pleasure as a fundamental good and common to our nature, and so, as a result of this, we begin every choice and rejection against this, judging every good thing by the standard of how that pleasure affects us (i.e., how we react to considering experiencing that pleasure). And because pleasure is the fundamental and inborn good, this is why not every pleasure is seized and we pass by many pleasures when greater unpleasant things were to result for us as a result: and we think many pains better than pleasures whenever greater pleasure were to follow for a longer time by patiently abiding the pain.

κρίνοντες “judging, deciding + (accusative” πᾶν ἀγαθὸν “every good thing,” i.e., “every pleasure” against or by the κανόνι τῷ πάθει “the standard of how we react to what happens to us when we experience - or consider experiencing - that specific good thing.

“And against this (that pleasure is a fundamental good and common to our nature), judging every good thing (i.e., every possible pleasurable experience) by the standard of how that pleasure affects us or how we react to considering experiencing that pleasure.”

By the way, I'm translating πάθει (pathei) in its literal sense as "that which is experienced."

See also:

DL 10.34 (Diogenes' commentary)

They affirm that there are two states of feeling, pleasure and pain, which arise in every animate being, and that the one is favourable and the other hostile to that being, and by their means choice and avoidance are determined

κρίνεσθαι < κρίνω "judge, decide"

So, it seems to me we're more of a judge than a mathematician.

Thanks, Martin , for that clarification. You make some thought-provoking points.

Your post made me think of this from my musings about the characteristics:

Quote from Bryan

The word here is ὁρίζω

Trivia: From which we get the English word horizon.

Quote from Cassius

Don the part where I underlined there -- should that be "desired" rather than "defined"?

I got that primarily from a Google Translate of the French in Les Epicureans, then fine tuned it in English from there. Unfortunately, I don't have time right now to parse the Ancient Greek, but if anyone else wants to dig in, here's column 4 in context:

καὶ [τὸ κ]ακ̣ὸ[ν οὐ] μό̣νο[ν ἔ-]

χον̣ ὅ̣[ρ]ους [κατ]ὰ̣ τὸ μέγε̣θ̣ος

καὶ κατὰ [τὸν] χρόνον, ἀλλὰ

καὶ εὐεκκα[ρτ]ακ(*)ητον, ἐπει-

5δήπερ οὐδ[ὲ]ν̣ ὄφελος ὡ[ρίσθ]αι

μέν, ἡμῖν δ̣' [ἄκ]τητον ἢ δ[ύσ-]

κτητον ε[ἶναι] τἀγαθόν, ἢ [πε-]

περάνθα[ι μέ]ν, ἀνεγκαρτέ-

ρητον δ' [εἶν]αι διὰ τὴ[ν πο-]

10λυχρονιότ[ητ]α τὸ κακόν· πε-

ριγίνεται γὰρ ἐκ τῶν γνώσε-

ων τούτων τό τε μηθὲν δι-

ώκειν ὃ μὴ πέφυκεν ἀλγη-

δόνα περιαιρεῖν, οἷα τὰ πλεῖσ-

15τα τῶν κατεσπουδασμέν[ων]

ἐστὶν παρ' ἀνθρώποις, μή[τε]

φεύγειν ὃ μὴ κωλύει τ[ὴν ἡ-]

δονὴν ἔχειν, οἷ(*)α τὰ πλεῖσ[τ]α

τῶν ἐν προκοπῆι δεῖ ν[οῆσαι·]

20κ̣αὶ πάλ̣ιν πρὸς μηδεο̣[ ̣ ̣]ς

For aponia, we can take a look at LSJ:

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

non-exertion, laziness

freedom from pain (Epicurus)***[see PS note at bottom]

Xenophon, in Cyropaedia: And so, when people are bad only because of laziness and indolence (βλακείᾳ καὶ ἀπονίᾳ), I believe that they, like drones, damage their associates only by the cost of their keeping. But those who are poor companions in toil, and also extravagant and shameless in their desire for any advantage, these are likely also to lead others to what is vicious; for they are often able to demonstrate that vice does gain some advantage. And so we must weed out such men at any cost.

Plutarch, in Romulus: They also applied themselves to generous occupations and pursuits, not esteeming sloth and idleness (ἀπονίαν) generous, but rather bodily exercise, hunting, running, driving off robbers, capturing thieves, and rescuing the oppressed from violence. For these things, indeed, they were famous far and near.

Aretaeus, De causis et signis acutorum morborum (lib. 1)

This is what we call Peripneumonia, being an inflammation of the lungs, with acute fever, when they are attended with heaviness of the chest, freedom from pain, provided the lungs alone are inflamed; for they are naturally insensible (απονος), being of loose texture, like wool. But branches of the aspera arteria are spread through them, of a cartilaginous nature, and these, also, are insensible (απονος); muscles there are nowhere, and the nerves are small, slender, and minister to motion. This is the cause of the insensibility to pain (απονος). But if any of the membranes, by which it is connected with the chest, be inflamed, pain also is present; respiration bad, and hot; they wish to get up into an erect posture, as being the easiest of all postures for the respiration.

***

And remember aponia is a "not/un" + ponos.

Ponos carries the meaning in Ancient Greek of "pain" but that's woefully inadequate.

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

work, esp. hard work, toil, in Hom. mostly of the toil of war, μάχης π. the toil of battle; generally, toil, labour

stress, trouble, distress, suffering

pain, esp. physical; distd. from λύπη (pain in general) (see the use of lype in Philodemus above)

So when the word a+ponia is being used, we can't just think of pain like a sprained ankle or upset stomach. To my reaading, it refers to the physical components (which *can* include the mind since it is connected to the physical body, the sarkos) working without exertion, to be free from distress, suffering, trouble in the physical body. All that rolled into one succinct word.

***PS: Note: In thinking about this more, it seems to me that LSJ provides the "freedom from pain" definition and attributes it to Epicurus because that is the usual paraphrase used by academic translators. To my reading, Epicurus is using the word as its literal meaning given in the connotations of a+ponos.

Uses of πόνος (or αλγος and related words)

VS4. Pain (algedon) is easily disdained; for a pain (ponoun) that causes intense suffering is brief, whereas a pain (ponon) that lingers in the flesh is weak and feeble.

πᾶσα ἀλγηδὼν εὐκαταφρόνητος· ἡ γὰρ σύντομον ἔχουσα τὸ πονοῦν σύντονον ἔχει τὸν χρόνον, ἡ δὲ χρονίζουσα περὶ τὴν σάρκα ἀβληχρὸν ἔχει τὸν πόνον.

VS457. Passion for true philosophy destroys every disturbing (epi+ponos > painful, toilsome, laborious) and troublesome desire.

ἔρωτι φιλοσοφίας ἀληθινῆς πᾶσα ταραχώδης καὶ ἐπίπονος ἐπιθυμία ἐκλύεται.

Philodemus

On Choices and Rejections (peri haireseon kai phygon)

[Column 4] [Epicurus teaches us that good is easy for us to procure] and that evil is [not] only limited by precisely because it is useless to have defined the good (τἀγαθόν), if it is difficult, if not impossible, for us to attain, nor to have fixed limits to evil, if it is difficult to bear because of its long duration. This knowledge has the effect of prohibiting both the pursuit of any [good] which is not by nature capable of eliminating pain (ἀλγηδόνα) - such are, most of the time, the [goods] which have motivated a search eager in humans -, and let none be discarded which does not prevent having pleasure -- that is how one must [conceive] most of [those which are acquired] gradually.

Column 10: And the pain (λύπην > grief, sadness; pain of mind or body, suffering, distress; LSJ antonym = ἡδονή hedone!) that grips them at the idea of dying makes them irascible, never happy or in a good mood

Column 12: although they do not have the [fundamental ideas (ἀξιοῦμεν ὑπο[λή][ψ]εις)] that we are talking about. And what leads him instead to upright behavior are the laws, which brandish threats over his head: death, punishments of divine origin, as well as punishments (pains) considered very difficult to endure

πόνους ὡς δυσ[εκπο]νήτους) and deprivation of certain things which are said to be difficult to obtain.

Column 17: They are not ready, for insignificant gain, [both] to say goodbye to the only things that can give pleasures, and to bear pains (πόνους) in vain -- indeed, they also turn away entirely from philosophy, each saying: "Am I now going to start giving myself endless pain only to then get thrown like a disc halfway through?" -- even to share anything because, they believe, it is up to the immortals to do so, or to those who wait to be thanked.

Thanks for re-posting that! I forgot I had put that list together. I was literally thinking today that I needed to do it for this thread.