Posts by Kalosyni

Quote from TauPhi

My proposition is rather more poetic than literal translation; more in the style of Lucretius than Epicurus and purely for entertainment purposes.

Here it is: 'those who are sleepwalking in boundless, sensual indulgence'.

This brings up a further idea...and just wanting to mention, that sensation and sensual indulgence naturally has a limit when one is paying attention to the underlying feeling of pleasure or pain. So when we are paying attention then we naturally stop doing things which are painful. It is only things like fame and fortune (and other "groundless" desires) that do not have limits (maybe because they exist in an abstract sense beyond pleasure and pain).

(There is nothing "wrong" with sensual experiences).

It is possible we already have a chart for this but just for fun I am making this one, and will add in more details soon.

Chart comparing the goal for the various ancient Greek philosophies

Quote from Pacatus

Professor Austin, how did you yourself come to Epicureanism – both as a subject for your scholarship, and for your personal life?

(I know you fleshed this out a bit in the final chapter of your book.)

Thanks Pactatus for the question...and Emily explains that in the opening of the previous podcast interview, so we may end up skipping that question and instead jumping right into the philosophy questions (or possibly having a very short two sentence summary).

Her introduction is in Episode 156 (see post 6 above for the link).

Quote from ThinkingCat

“what does it mean to you personally to be epicurean in 30 words or less?”, what would your response be?

Pleasure, my natural goal: to remove pain and anxiety and experience the pleasures of sensation. With prudence overcoming the sorrows of life and experiencing sweetness. Smiling, being alive feels good!

(And...study and practice the philosophy with others of like mind).

Possible questions for Emily:

Now that you have written the book and also been interviewed a number of times...

---Do you have thoughts on how to bridge the gap between people who like to "philosophize" and those who are more into "self-help"?

---Will Epicureanism be forever deemed as somehow "esoteric" and beyond the ability or interest of many people?

---Do you see dangers in the possible development of a "pop-culture Epicureanism"?

---Any further thoughts on the parts of Epicurean philosophy which seem to be understood with divergent interpretations...for example "ataraxia" or the meaning of "pleasure"?

Quote from ThinkingCat

Some people quite into physical pleasure for its own sake calling themselves cyreaniacs (or something like that).

Pleasure for its own sake is the goal given to us by nature which we observe in babies, animals, and as adult humans we redeem pleasure from the false belief that it is somehow "wrong".

As for the ancient Cyrenaics, they didn't take the relief from pain as a pleasure, nor the pleasure of mental pleasures, so they focused on "in the now" and stimulating pleasures -- and this is very different than the Epicurean understanding of pleasure. Perhaps if there are people on here saying they are "cyrenaic" then they are just trying to emphasize the sensual aspect of pleasure as being okay.

As we see that Diogenes Laertius says that Epicurus said:

“I know not how to conceive the good, apart from the pleasures of taste, of sex, of sound, and the pleasures of beautiful form.”

So the Epicureans are totally fine with sensual pleasure, but as long as they also address the removal of any mental disturbances such as fear of death, fear of "irrational" punishment from the gods, or fear of pain (strong pain is short, and dull pains don't stop the enjoyment of pleasure).

Quote from ThinkingCat

The problem I’m having reading around the forum is that everyone seems to have their own interpretation of what Epicureans should be. I understand this is going to happen but reading between the lines people seem to hold quite different views. Some people quite into physical pleasure for its own sake calling themselves cyreaniacs (or something like that). This doesn’t seem to fit with the Epicurean view at all and I’m finding it quite confusing and almost contradictory and rather go back to the source if possible.

The way that I take it is to always return to the extant writings and to contemplate them. Then you must work to apply them to your own life. For one person a very sensual pleasure may end up bring too much pain, as compared to another person - some people choose not to drink any alcohol where as others are able to choose to drink in such a way that it doesn't cause them future pains (they drink to enjoy the taste and not to "medicate" into drunkeness, although there may be a time a place for a slight drunkenness if one is able to still hold onto free choice while intoxicated, and wisely making sure not to drive a vehicle while drunk).

So we don't categorize things as "right" or "wrong" -

Principal Doctrine 8:

"No pleasure is bad in itself; but the means of paying for some pleasures bring with them disturbances many times greater than the pleasures themselves." So it is a case by case situation that only you can decide for yourself.

I just created this graphic which may help:

I was looking at line 131 of this translation and noticed that it included "the enjoyment of sleep" as a type of pleasure not to be pursued. Don what is your take on this? I looked at your translation and didn't see anything referring to sleep.

Here is the text from Peter Saint-Andre:

"So when we say that pleasure is the goal, we do not mean the pleasures of decadent people or the enjoyment of sleep, as is believed by those who are ignorant or who don't understand us or who are ill-disposed to us, but to be free from bodily pain and mental disturbance. For a pleasant life is produced not by drinking and endless parties and enjoying boys and women and consuming fish and other delicacies of an extravagant table, but by sober reasoning, searching out the cause of everything we accept or reject, and driving out opinions that cause the greatest trouble in the soul."

Letter to Menoikos, by Epicurus

Let's use this thread to accumulate questions for Emily Austin. Everyone can post their questions here in this thread, and then as we go along we will update this post with the best questions and use it as a guide at the meeting.

********************************************************************************

Questions for Dr. Emily Austin: Well be coming from a slightly different vantage point compared to our previous interview on the Lucretius Today Podcast. We'd like to gear this interview for folks who have read the book and have a basic grasp of Epicurean philosophy. Your book has been out for some time now and also you have been interviewed a number of times. We can refer listeners to our earlier interview if they want to find more in depth info about your background and how you came to write the book, so this interview can jump right in to the philosophy.

List of Questions (to be updated)

1 - If you were writing the book over again today, would you change anything?

2 - Many people seem to have conflicting interpretations of what "ataraxia" or "tranquility" really mean. For some people tranquility is just a specific frame of mind, and for others it may be a specific list of actions that imply a very strict list of activities that a person will or will not do. Does pursuit of these goals mean there is specific list of do's and don'ts that everyone must follow? If not, how is the best way to get a firm grip on what pursuit of these goals means in real life?

3 - Epicurus seems to lay great emphasis on considering the condition of normal healthy living without pain be a state of pleasure. Do you see this observation - that the healthy activity of a living thing in a way that is natural to it is pleasure - as helpful to explaining to people why absence of pain does not imply "inaction" but indeed "healthy normal activity"?

4 - Related to that last question, can you tell us your thoughts on Torquatus' rejection of the "does your hand long for pleasure" argument from Chrysippus? Is this to be understood as making the same point made in the illustration that the host (who is not thirsty) pouring wine for his guest (who is thirsty) is in a similar state of pleasure to the guest who is drinking it? Can you explain these two illustrations? [Do these two examples illustrate that absence of pain is not a state of numbness but normal healthy pain-free action, and that the reason "absence of pain" is the greatest pleasure" is that an experience filled with pleasures cannot by definition be "filled" any further?]

5 - Do you have thoughts on how to bridge the gap between people who like to "philosophize" and those who are more into "self-help" so as to make the discussion of Epicurus more relevant and understandable?

6 - Do you see dangers in the possible development of a "pop-culture Epicureanism" similar to the way that there seems to be a "pop Stoicism" that has abandoned the roots of what it originally meant to be a Stoic?

7 - Do you think that Epicureanism is enjoying a resurgence of interest, as a scholarly topic, especially among women – such as yourself, Catherine Wilson and Pamela Gordon? If so (in your opinion), why?

8 - Dr. Austin, I bought "The Epicurus Reader: Selected Writings and Testimonia (Hackett Classics)" by Epicurus, Brad Inwood, Lloyd P. Gerson because you recommend it in your book. Can you say something about why you recommend this particular collection of primary sources?

9 - What other schools of philosophy are close to your heart? Which schools you find worth studying in detail?

10 - Do you have any plans for future writing on Epicurus?

*Update For May 28th* -- we will cover the last 8 chapters because we would like to devote the entire session on June 4th to the Q&A with Emily Austin. -- Onenski, Cleveland Okie, @TauPhi that will give us a lot to cover but I think we can do it just fine.

*Update For June 4th* -- "Meet the Author" -- We would like to have people submit questions ahead of time, and then the moderator will ask Emily Austin the questions. So please go ahead and post all questions in the new thread we created.

Yes, Zoom has a chat interface -- *Edit* -- we would like questions submitted ahead of time.

The video "To Scale: Time" is really good and Joshua you might like it too (they survey the distance to scale).

Quote from Don

Sign me up too please.

Okay, Thanks Don!

Quote from Godfrey

I'd like to attend.

Godfrey, Thanks for the RSVP! -- your name is included the private conversation with the Zoom link, so you should have access to the link -- and we will send out a message as a reminder as the event approaches.

June 4th at 8:30pm ET will be an opportunity to meet author Emily Austin! And we will have a Q&A session!

This is open to all forum members regardless of previous book review attendance.

So mark your calendars! And let us know if you are interested in attending -- forum members please post here if you are interesting in attending and we will get the Zoom link to you by private forum message.

Note: For previous book review attendees, we will use the same Zoom link as previous weeks.

(For ongoing attendees: the May 28th meeting will cover chapters 17 - 24).

Highlight 3: The best pleasures can occur with the simultaneous removal of pain, and this an important aspect of pleasure often overlooked because most people focus on the simple pleasures of sensual enjoyment (taste, smell, sight, sound, touch).

From section 37:

For the pleasure which we pursue is not that alone which excites the natural
constitution itself by a kind of sweetness, and of which the sensual enjoyment is attended by a kind of agreeableness, but we look upon the greatest pleasure as that which is enjoyed when all pain is removed. Now inasmuch as whenever we are released from pain, we rejoice in the mere emancipation and freedom from all annoyance, and everything whereat we rejoice is equivalent to pleasure, just as everything whereat we are troubled is equivalent to pain, therefore the complete release from pain is rightly termed pleasure. For just as the mere removal of annoyance brings with it the realization of pleasure, whenever
hunger and thirst have been banished by food and drink, so pain is removed. For just as the mere removal of annoyance brings with it the realization of pleasure, whenever hunger and thirst have been banished by food and drink, so in every case the banishment of pain ensures its replacement by pleasure.

[38] Therefore Epicurus refused to allow that there is any middle term between pain and pleasure; what was thought by some to be a middle term, the absence of all pain, was not only itself pleasure, but the highest pleasure possible. Surely any one who is conscious of his own condition must needs be either in a state of pleasure or in a state of pain. Epicurus thinks that the highest degree of pleasure is defined by the removal of all pain, so that pleasure may afterwards exhibit diversities and differences but is incapable of increase or extension.

Consider for contemplation:

1) your experience between eating a warm, just-out-of-the-oven slice of your favorite kind of pizza when you are hungry vs. when you are not really hungry.

2) your experience of eating when you are hungry and eating just the right number of slices of pizza to feel no longer hungry (and comfortably full) vs. eating several slices too many (eating past the point of fullness and then feeling the pain of your over-full belly).

3) the removal of your hunger by eating the right amount is more pleasurable than eating too much.

Highlight 2: We desire pleasure and move away from pain, but we must consider the future results and future advantages -- and so there are times we will choose to endure pain for the sake of future pleasure, or choose to postpone current pleasures so that the future pleasures will be greater.

From section 32:

Surely no one recoils from or dislikes or avoids pleasure in itself because it is pleasure, but because great pains come upon those who do not know how to follow pleasure rationally. Nor again is there any one who loves or pursues or wishes to win pain on its own account, merely because it is pain, but rather because circumstances sometimes occur which compel him to seek some great pleasure at the cost of exertion and pain. To come down to petty details, who among us ever undertakes any toilsome bodily exercise, except in the hope of
gaining some advantage from it? Who again would have any right to reproach either a man who desires to be surrounded by pleasure unaccompanied by any annoyance, or another man who shrinks from any pain which is not productive of pleasure?

From section 33:

For at our seasons of ease, when we have untrammeled freedom of choice, and when nothing debars us from the power of following the course that pleases us best, then pleasure is wholly a matter for our selection and pain for our rejection. On certain occasions however either through the inevitable call of duty or through stress of circumstances, it will often come to pass that we must put pleasures from us and must make no protest against annoyance. So in such cases the principle of selection adopted by the wise man is that he should either by refusing certain pleasures attain to other and greater pleasures or by enduring pains should ward off pains still more severe.

Excerpt from section 36: "...pleasures are neglected for the purpose of obtaining pleasures still greater, or pains are incurred for the sake of escaping still greater pains."

Highlight 1: Sensation is the method of perception and evalution of both pleasure and pain. It comes to us out of our natural constitution.

[30] Every creature, as soon as it is born, seeks after pleasure and delights therein as in its supreme good, while it recoils from pain as its supreme evil, and banishes that, so far as it can, from its own presence, and this it does while still uncorrupted, and while nature herself prompts unbiased and unaffected decisions. So he says we need no reasoning or debate to shew why pleasure is matter for desire, pain for aversion. These facts he thinks are simply perceived, just as the fact that fire is hot, snow is white, and honey sweet, no one of which facts are we bound to support by elaborate arguments; it is enough merely to draw attention to the fact; and there is a difference between proof and formal argument on the one hand and a slight hint and direction of the attention on the other; the one process reveals to us mysteries and things under a veil, so to speak; the other enables us to pronounce upon patent and evident facts. Moreover, seeing that if you deprive a man of his senses there is nothing left to him, it is inevitable that nature herself should be the arbiter of what is in accord with or opposed to nature. Now what facts does she grasp or with what facts is her decision to seek or avoid any particular thing concerned, unless the facts of pleasure and pain?

I am coming at this from a different focus than Cicero, and I want to highlight those sections which shed light onto the Epicurean worldview. I may come back later to the discussion on "the good", which we find in the text's previous paragraph. (In section 29 it says: The problem before us then is, what is the climax and standard of things good, and this 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. Epicurus places this standard in pleasure, which he lays down to be the supreme good, while pain is the supreme evil; and he founds his proof of this on the following considerations). As this line of thinking is coming from a different philosophical school (Platonic), and which the Epicureans had to deal with this line of questioning from the opposing philosophy. It is a very different focus than the recognition of the mortality of life and the desire to live in such a way as to enjoy the experience of this life we find ourselves in.

This highlighted paragraph (section 30) sheds light on both the sensations and the feelings -- and which together with anticipations (prolepsis - the faculty of pattern recognition) are the three legs of the canon of truth. The sensations are the primary method in which we gather information about the outside (material) world. And we see that the feelings are two: pleasure and pain.

It worth contemplating both the sensations and the feelings. How do we sense things? How to we come to label things? Regarding sensations and feelings can we notice that they fall into only two catagories -- "okay" and "not okay"? And there could be further contemplations (more on this soon).

Here is a thread for further discussion on the Torquatus section of Cicero's "On Ends". Back in the fall of 2021 the Lucretius Today Podcast covered this text. You can find the text here, and the first of that podcast here (Episode 93).

Back at that time I was still new to the forum, and so wasn't able to properly absorb it. Since then I have listened to the audio recording several times, as read by Joshua, which you can find here, and that significantly improved my understanding.

As I have studied Epicurean philosophy further, I have found that this narrative has its usefulness, and yet there are parts that need to be "unpacked" with care.

Here in this thread I want to present the highlights, and also point out (with a word of caution) parts which "muddy the waters". So I will post more soon.

Quote from ThinkingCat

What brought to these forums, is that I have started reading about Epicurus and have ideas of how I want to try and live my life yet it’s difficult to have these conversations with my ‘real life’ friends about this so I seek an ‘online epicurean garden’ here! I wonder what Epicurus would say about this and what he would think about my ‘online friends’ as opposed to my ‘real life friends’

We have some Zoom events for both Level 1 and Level 3 members -- which is a great way to meet people and discuss Epicurean philosophy -- and it is one step closer to "real life friends".

The book review group is open to all forum members, and you are welcome to drop in even if you haven't read the book. Click here for more info.