Posts by Kalosyni

I found this on how Athenian Ephebeia were religiously educated:

Chapter 6 Religion

"Chapter 6 Religion" published on 30 Jul 2020 by Brill.

brill.com

Is it possible that Cicero and others in ancient times used similar thinking as Anselm to decide that there are gods?

Anselm: Ontological Argument for the God’s Existence | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Quote from TauPhi

During my study of it all this piousness seems to be coming back notoriously and sticking like a chewing gum to a shoe. Maybe Epicureanism was not intended as a guide for people trying to come up with their own recipes for their lives. Maybe Epicureanism was designed as yet another concealed ideology for people who are perfectly fine with buying a cookbook and never stray from its content.

I think that the main problem for us now is that half of the pages of the "cookbook" are missing.

We can see that people turned to Epicurus for answers about living a happy and good life. It seems unlikely that the "Epicureanism" during the life of Philodemus was exactly the same as the "Epicureanism" during the life of Epicurus. A whole group of people said: "yes "x,y, z" works but then it evolved and changed over time.

Quote from TauPhi

I'm thinking about this sentence for few minutes now and I can't see how obeying someone in authority is not 'blind faith'.

Now if you think about it, the original authority was "God". In current modern times many people do not believe in God, or perhaps they believe in a God which is only remotely involved with humans (more like "new-age" spirituality). So there will be many who feel taken-aback by the idea of "obeying". We live in a very independent-minded society also.

What about Mercury retrograde? Here is a fun, short explanation

Wishing you a Happy Birthday Pacatus !

I did not take good notes at last night's Zoom, and I can't remember very much about what was said...

Is psychological hedonism the same as saying "motivated by your own self-interest"?

And it doesn't say much about what should be the focus of your self-interest, or about the kinds of choices you make, and whether or not things work out to give you good results.

Quote from kochiekoch

Years ago, I read there was actual scientific evidence supporting this concept; so I did a quick search and came up with this item confirming the idea.

From the US government of all places!

Happy Twentieth!

The word "eudaimonia" comes up in the Letter to Menoeceus, in the Torquatus section of Cicero, and on the wall of Oinoanda. Can we say that Epicurus believed that both pleasure AND happiness were simultaneously the goal of life? Or would we say that eudaimonia is the same as pleasure?

It seems that eudaimonia isn't just a fleeting emotion of giddiness that arises when you get something that you want, but instead it is an expansive sense of fulfillment and completeness.

The word "complete" comes up in the PD's and VS's... Don or Bryan if you click on the note below you can see the Greek word μακαρία is used, which is a different word than eudaimonia. (Yet how things are translated depends on the translator).

PD27 (Saint-Andre translation)

Don ... likely only one omphalos, which was located in Delphi? and was Delphi considered to be the center of the world, at that time? And which would mean that it is the Pythia and not Cassandra. (I was wondering why anyone would take the time to paint Cassandra onto a wall, but I haven't studied much about the frescos of Pompeii).

btw...seers were different than oracles (seers used divination rituals such as bird signs, animal entrails, etc, where as oracles "heard" the voices of the gods).

Welcome to the forum!

CLSB Wecome to the forum!

Perhaps you have already noticed this brief overview, created by Cassius:

Post

Seven Steps With Epicurus - A Slide Presentation

epicureanfriends.com/wcf/attachment/3636/

As part of our collaborative work toward an "Epicurean Week" we have come up with a series of "power-point" slides which introduce the philosophy in seven simple steps. The formulation here may change over time as we fine tune this as part of our course materials. This will eventually be expanded into a "7 Weeks with Epicurus". Questions and comments are welcome. Click here for the presentation or you can just click on the graphic above to begin the…

Cassius

April 4, 2023 at 9:31 AM

This morning I woke up to the most beautiful day, yet with the current state of the world (events over the last half year, and some events yesterday) an image of my Christian upbringing came into my mind - the scene after Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden of Eden, where there were angels blocking the gate so that they could not return to the garden.

In Judeo-Christian beliefs God created Adam and Eve, and I found this interesting article with the following quote:

Quote

From my viewpoint, a historical Adam and Eve is absolutely central to the truth claims of the Christian faith," says Fazale Rana, vice president of Reasons To Believe, an evangelical think tank that questions evolution. Rana, who has a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Ohio University, readily admits that small details of Scripture could be wrong.

"But if the parts of Scripture that you are claiming to be false, in effect, are responsible for creating the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith, then you've got a problem," Rana says.

Rana and others believe in a literal, historical Adam and Eve for many reasons. One is that the Genesis account makes man unique, created in the image of God — not a descendant of lower primates. Second, it tells a story of how evil came into the world, and it's not a story in which God introduced evil through the process of evolution, but one in which Adam and Eve decided to disobey God and eat the forbidden fruit.

The article also discusses how some evangelicals are grappling with coming to terms with a more scientific way of seeing the world, and that with an understanding of the science of genetics makes it clear that it is impossible that all of humanity descended from just two people. (This article was from 2011 -- read the article here.

Here we are in 2024 and the US is still very much under the influence of those who want to hold to the fundamentalist and strictly Biblical view in all things, with pushing for laws which are in alignment with their Biblical worldviews.

We could list out some very stark differences between Epicureans and Christians, such that they would be on opposite ends of a spectrum on several important issues.

Also, I wonder how the "myth-story" of Adam and Eve being barred from returning to Eden plays out in the minds of those who were taught this story as children (including myself). Is there is any subconscious retention of the idea that the earth is so imperfect and painful that there is no possibility of creating the pleasure and peacefulness of what existed in Nature?

Of course in Christianity there is the underlying story of how God created everything and that Nature is a subset of God...yet reading Lucretius/Epicurus helps us overcome this myth-story.

Today when I was out for a walk with my dog and we were heading toward a dirt road route we don't take very often, I noticed that grass had grown up and potentially could have ticks since there are deer living in the area. And then I thought to my self: "I shouldn't walk that way, I don't want to tempt the fates and get ticks on us."

So then I started thinking about "Don't Tempt the Fates" and why I said that. Seems like I was intending: "don't test your luck".

Found this in the Letter to Menoeceus:

"...and he holds that Fate is not an uncertain cause because nothing good or bad with respect to a completely happy life is given to men by chance, although it does provide the beginnings of both great goods and great evils. And he considers it better to be rationally unfortunate than irrationally fortunate, since it is better for a beautiful choice to have the wrong results than for an ugly choice to have the right results just by chance."

PD16: "Chance steals only a bit into the life of a wise person: for throughout the complete span of his life the greatest and most important matters have been, are, and will be directed by the power of reason."

In last night's Zoom, Joshua mentioned that he had memorized the opening section of Lucretius' De Rerum Natura, on Venus, and recalled it to mind when at work to cheer himself up during dull moments (hopefully I am correctly recalling what you said Joshua). I am wondering which translation you use?

Thinking that we could use this thread for people to post about any specific verses that they like to use (recall) on a regular basis.

In last night's Zoom meeting a PDF document by Bryan contained an image of Epicurus with calendula flowers. (Bryan perhaps if by chance you feel you want to upload the image to the gallery?)

I looked up and found this info on Wikipedia.

Quote

Ancient Romans and Greeks used the golden Calendula in many rituals and ceremonies, sometimes wearing crowns or garlands made from the flowers. ...

...Calendula officinalis oil is still used medicinally as an anti-inflammatory and a remedy for healing wounds.

Chryso Welcome to EpicureanFriends forum!

In last night's Zoom I presented the following Principal Doctrines (Long and Sedley translation) because these deal with the "limits of pleasure and pain" and are very important for one's personal hedonic calculus. These provide guidance so as not to be overcome by excessive desires or unwanted pains.

I used the Long and Sedley translation of selected Principal Doctrines and placed them in the following order:

11. “Were we not upset by the worries that celestial phenomena and death might matter to us, and also by failure to appreciate the limits of pains and desires, we would have no need for natural philosophy.”

10. “If the causes of the pleasures of the dissipated released mental fears concerning celestial phenomena and death and distress, and in addition taught the limit of desires, we should never have any reason to reproach them [i.e. the dissipated], since they would be satisfying themselves with pleasures from all directions and would never have pain or distress, which constitutes the bad.”

(*dissipated - of a person or way of life overindulging in sensual pleasures)

3. “The removal of all pain is the limit of the magnitude of pleasures. Wherever pleasure is present, as long as it is there, pain or distress or their combination is absent.”

18. “The pleasure in the flesh does not increase when once the pain of need has been removed, but it is only varied. And the limit of pleasure in the mind is produced by rationalizing those very things and their congeners which used to present the mind with its greatest fears."

(*congener - a thing or person of the same kind or category as another).

20. “The flesh places the limits of pleasure at infinity, and needs an infinite time to bring it about. But the intellect, by making a rational calculation of the end and the limit which govern the flesh, and by dispelling the fears about eternity, brings about the complete life, so that we no longer need the infinite time. But neither does it shun pleasure, nor even when circumstances bring about our departure from life does it suppose, as it perishes, that it has in any way fallen short of the best life.”

28. “Confidence that nothing terrible lasts for ever or even for a long time is produced by the same judgement that also achieves the insight that friendship's security within those very limitations is perfectly complete.”

4. “Pain does not last continuously in the flesh: when acute it is there for a very short time, while the pain which just exceeds the pleasure in the flesh does not persist for many days; and chronic illnesses contain an excess of pleasure in the flesh over pain.”

29. “Natural and necessary [desires], according to Epicurus, are ones which bring relief from pain, such as drinking when thirsty; natural but non-necessary are ones which merely vary pleasure but do not remove pain, such as expensive foods; neither natural nor necessary are ones for things like crowns and erection of statues.”

(excessive quantities of foods would make more sense here compared to expensive (if you are really hungry then food is food whether or not it is cheap or expensive).

30. “Whenever intense passion is present in natural desires which do not lead to pain if they are unfulfilled, these have their origin in empty opinion; and the reason for their persistence is not their own nature but the empty opinion of the person.”

21. “He who knows the limits of life knows how easy it is to obtain that which removes pain caused by want and that which makes the whole of life complete. He therefore has no need for competitive involvements.”

25. “If you fail to refer each of your actions on every occasion to nature's end, and stop short at something else in choosing or avoiding, your actions will not be consequential upon your theories.”

Thank you to all who attended last night's meeting!

We had a total of seven people. I gave a short presentation on several select Principal Doctrines, as translated by Long and Sedley - highlighting the importance of understanding the limits of pleasure and pain, and then we discussed how those PDs applied to everyday life.

I've posted source material from the presentation over in this other sub-forum.