Posts by Kalosyni

I found this on summer solstice festivals:

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Ancient Greeks

According to certain iterations of the Greek calendar—they varied widely by region and era—the summer solstice was the first day of the year. Several festivals were held around this time, including Kronia, which celebrated the agriculture god Cronus. The strict social code was temporarily turned on its head during Kronia, with slaves participating in the merriment as equals or even being served by their masters. The summer solstice also marked the one-month countdown to the opening of the Olympic games.

Ancient Romans

In the days leading up to the summer solstice, ancient Romans celebrated the Vestalia festival, which paid tribute to Vesta, the goddess of the hearth. Rituals included the sacrifice of an unborn calf remove from its mother’s womb. This was the only time of the year when married women were allowed to enter the sacred temple of the vestal virgins and make offerings to Vesta there.

Source

Quote from Cassius

Yes I think Don's answer applies in most cases in the last comment. But I am not sure it is a good idea for us to take the "everyone pursues pleasure whether they admit it or not" too far. Some people do seem to choose pain for the sake of pain, under the influence of warped thinking. EG - "I am a worm and I deserved to be squashed by God.".

Not sure about the "worm deserving to be squashed" -- that sounds like someone who feels "guilty for their sins", which in my book is whole other issue coming out of Christianity.

There is the saying: "No pain, no gain":

From Wikipedia:

"No pain, no gain (or "No gain without pain") is a proverb, used since the 1980s as an exercise motto that promises greater value rewards for the price of hard and even painful work. Under this conception competitive professionals, such as athletes and artists, are required to endure pain (physical suffering) and stress (mental/emotional suffering) to achieve professional excellence. Medical experts agree that the proverb is wrong for exercise."

And then from a mental side: "no growth without pain" and the belief that achieving success requires pain. This could occassionally be true. But what kind of success is this for anyway? "cutthroat marketing" or generating the highest profits, not for pleasure but for big money.

And this is all about an either/or -- either pleasure or pain -- which is incorrect because it leaves out the option of engaging in pleasureable exercise -- or pleasureable work which isn't focused on hugh profit.

Quote from Matteng

Beside the pure sense-pleasures, I value for example that:

-I am not addicted to something/someone

-value friends/familiy, progress in society,

-have compassiong for humans and animals

-love to learn new things and philosophy (like Epicurus), learning about nature, value/ like to improve abilities.

Are that "pleasures of the soul" ?

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Quote from Cassius

If something brings you a feeling OF ANY KIND then the feeling is ultimately pleasurable or painful. All human mental and physical activities fall in one of these two categories, no matter how much the abstractionists want to protest that their virtues are higher than pleasure.

Good questions Matteng. And both Don and Cassius, I am enjoying reading your replies, and I'd like to throw in this into the mix:

From the Letter to Menoeceus:

"Third, keep in mind that some desires are natural whereas others are groundless [note]; that among the natural desires some are natural and necessary whereas others are merely natural; and that among the necessary desires some are necessary for happiness, some for physical health [note], and some for life itself."

To illustrate what is unnecessary: This morning I was offered a chocolate covered cream filled donut (because my sister bought an entire box yesterday). Yet I have been slowly gaining weight (and I do not want to go out an buy new bigger pants). So I am choosing to reduce my sugar intake. I acknowledged my desire when I said "yes, those do look good" and then, acknowledged the recognition that the donut was unnecessary when I said: "but no thank you" as I had already in mind to choose to eat unsweetened oatmeal with some strawberries. I made this choice for the sake of physical health. Good health is both a pleasure and a value.

What is unnecessary is that which is either not needed for long-term enjoyment/happiness and/or that which brings pain as a long-term result.

It up to each person to make wise choices about what for themselves is "necessary vs unnecessary" and we might each make different choices depending on our circumstances. There are some PDs which do point out important pleasures, such as PD27 --"Of all the things that wisdom provides for the complete happiness of one's entire life, by far the greatest is friendship."

And I would say friendship is both a pleasure and a value. It brings both physical and mental joy. And Letter to Menoeceus ends with: "So practice these and similar things day and night, by yourself and with a like-minded friend..."

Quote from Kalosyni

The following translation is sure to spark debate:

I should rather say "fun debate" or interesting discussion

The following translation is sure to spark debate:

"If the things that produce the delights of those who are decadent washed away the mind's fears about astronomical phenomena and death and suffering, and furthermore if they taught us the limits of our pains and desires, then we would have no complaints against them, since they would be filled with every joy and would contain not a single pain or distress (and that's what is bad)."[note] (translation by Peter Saint-Andre)

You can click here to see other translations and forum pages.

Please join us on June 22, 2022 for further discussion on PD 10.

Brand new attendees: please register through Eventbrite.

If you already attended once before you can simply re-use the link given in your registration.

Here is my own wording on PD9:

"Because the pleasures are of differing lengths in time, and occur spread out through time and in differing parts of the body, this is why they feel different from each other."

Yet I still think that there is an implication that the underlying sensation of pleasure is the same for all types of pleasure inducing stimulus - the only thing that varies is the intensity, the duration, and the part of the body that feels the pleasure.

My own wording on PD9:

"Because the pleasures are of differing lengths in time, and occur spread out through time and in differing parts of the body, this is why they feel different from each other."

The way I understand it is a "good" or to be more specific a "natural good" is condition or a virtue which leads to pleasure and pleasant life.

So just like you can have goods that you buy from a store (which are physical and extrinsic) then you have intrinsic goods which are conditions or virtues.

Quote from Don

...for the record - I have no problem with "tranquility."

In fact, I'm coming around to the idea that ataraxia and aponia actually refer to something like homeostasis or basically just the sensation that the body and mind are working well and in-tune. One can more easily or readily experience pleasure - of all kinds - when neither the body nor the mind are troubled.

Thank you Don, what you say is very helpful, and I realize that I need to study up more on this.

I find that it makes more sense for me to think of "peace of mind" instead of "tranquility". So essentially anytime the word tranquility comes up then substitute that. Also to think about how pleasure can be at its greatest when there is "absence of stress and anxiety".

What is further interesting about this article (which I haven't quite finished reading yet) is that it seems to point toward goods that we can cultivate -- personal Epicurean goods as those that are possessed through the efforts of those who cultivate them (they are internal and which we come to possess due to our own efforts rather than through fortune).

And it gives VS 45 as a reference:

"The study of what is natural produces not braggarts nor windbags nor those who show off the culture that most people fight about, but those who are fearless and self-reliant and who value their own good qualities rather than the good things that have come to them from external circumstances."note]

The above article needs to be critically read since it does touch on tranquility, and kinetic/katastematic pleasure. Read this article with care. I would say that we here on the forum view tranquility as an abstract ideal which is not the ultimate goal of living. I find that reading this opens up the whole tranquility question, all over again. And so then this question pops up: Is a life of tranquility happy or pleasureable? It really all depends on how you define tranquility, and how you make choices. Do you stay home and do nothing?

From the article:

That which causes or leads to the elimination of bodily and mental pain is an instrumental good. A constitutive good is an intrinsic good. Not clear about what benefit the categorization of instrumental vs. constitutive goods hold.

VS 32 -- reverence is an instrumental good (showing reverence for a wise man is itself a great good for him who reveres).

PD 27 / VS 28 -- wisdom is an instrumental good (of all the things that wisdom provides for the complete happiness of one's entire life, by far the greatest is friendship).

Self-suficiency is a constitutive good (Ep. Men. 130)

Phronesis is a good (Ep. Men. 132)

Friendship is a good (PD 27 / VS 28)

There is also a section on personal goods.

The topic of natural goods briefly came up in last Wednesday's Zoom discussion. So thinking about what are natural goods within Epicureanism, as well as references such as the Principle Doctrines, etc.

It seems that friendship, freedom, and self-sufficiency are all natural goods, and there could be others?

Also, I just found this article (written in 2021) by Alex R. Gilham.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/27007901

This article starts out with saying that pleasure is the only intrinsic good, but that there are various other non-intrinsic goods, and the aim of the paper is to classify the Epicurean goods. Will post more after I read it. And if anyone else wants to post thoughts after reading the article, or about the natural goods question, please do so.

The image in this week's meeting announcement is Bacchus by Italian painter Caravaggio, painted in 1598.

I thought it was fitting for Principle 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." (Monadnock)

Thanks Don for sharing the article, simple as it is.

I think his negative opening comment on Epicurus was because he might think that the fear of death will help motivate someone to enjoy the present moment.

I think everyone is at their own level of dealing with time and the idea of death, depending on how much they have contemplated their own mortality. Unlike the author of the article, I personally think that no matter how old one is, that some amount of planning is a good thing. But of course if one is retired, then one will plan different types of activities compared to if one is still employed. Also, it does take some planning in order to organize social events, so hopefully we all keep that up until the day we die. I think some amount of planning also can help make life more enjoyable, but also not being too attached to any one specific outcome (being able to go with the flow as things unfold).

This was a fun quote, as I myself do tend to live in the future:

Quote

 

The result is what’s been called the “when-I-finally” mindset: the sense that real fulfilment, or even real life itself, hasn’t quite arrived yet, so that present experience is merely something to get through, en route to something better. The person stuck in such a mindset, wrote John Maynard Keynes, “does not love his cat, but his cat’s kittens; nor, in truth, the kittens, but only the kittens’ kittens, and so on forward for ever to the end of cat-dom”.

Eventbrite Link

beasain, I just looked up about propolis, and found an online article which says that

Greek and Roman physicians used it as mouth disinfectant and as an antiseptic and healing product in wound treatment, prescribed for topical therapy of cutaneous and mucosal wounds.

Joshua, hope to see you next week.

New folks are welcome to drop in to our next Open Invitation Epicurean Zoom, Wednesday evening, June 8th, at 8:30 ET!

We start out each meeting by going "around the table" and giving an opportunity for each participant to introduce themselves as they wish, such as a brief reference to previous background, level of interest in Epicurus, or current areas of study within Epicureanism.

This week we will discuss PD 6 & 7.

PD06. Whatever you can provide yourself with to secure protection from men is a natural good. [see note below]

PD07. Some men wished to become famous and conspicuous, thinking that they would thus win for themselves safety from other men. Wherefore if the life of such men is safe, they have obtained the good which nature craves; but if it is not safe, they do not possess that for which they strove at first by the instinct of nature.

*Note: The translation given is by Eugene O’Connor from “The Essential Epicurus.” Bailey: “To secure protection from men anything is a natural good by which you may be able to attain this end.” New Greek Version: “In order to obtain security from other people, there was (always) the natural good of sovereignty and kingship, through which (someone) once could have accomplished this.”

You can find the link to join the zoom here:

Epicurean Open Invitation Zoom - Wednesday 8:30pm EDT

Epicurean Open Invitation Zoom - Wednesday nights at 8:30pm EDT

www.eventbrite.com

Welcome to the forum Beasain!

Thank you for your introduction and for sharing about your reading of Lucretius.

Quote from beasain

What are the reasons of hiding Hellenistic philosophy, and especially Epicurism? The Plato mafia of Hegel?

I don't know enough about Hegalian philosophy, but this question is interesting to me. I tend to focus mostly on the ethics of Epicureanism, and I would say that it is a very subtle teaching that not everyone can understand. Not only does it require a certain ability to critically think, but it requires one to think outside the box of Western civilization and the abstractions of thinking which come down from Platonic philosophy, and which have been reinforced and continue to be reinforced by Christianity. I think Epicureanism will remain a philosophy only for the few, as it requires one to move beyond "either-or" thinking and live a viceral and sensorial life within the physical world, while always remembering that this very life is all that we have. So we have this focus on the importance of making it a pleasant and pleasurable life, which goes against the current understanding of pleasure -- pleasure as being an escape from responsibility, or pleasure always leading to excess (and even being synonymous to excess). But we who are Epicureans are wiser than this. First we have to overcome all our previous conditioning with regard to experiencing pleasure. So at the beginning, it may seem that dancing with pleasure is like walking across a sharp edge of a razor blade: one misstep and you fall off. But yet with the practice of paying attention, then it is more like learning to ride a bike, and you see that it is quite natural actually, and it is the best way to live.

Continuing on with more on the "Medicine of Epicurus":

Vatican Saying 81 (from Monadnock)

"One will not banish emotional disturbance or arrive at significant joy through great wealth, fame, celebrity, or anything else which is a result of vague and indefinite causes".

From a practical standpoint, I would say that emotional disturbance is anything above and beyond natural reactions and natural emotions. Both positive and negative emotions are part of life. Emotions give us feedback to know what to move toward and what to move away from in a given situation, so all emotions are life serving, even painful ones.

Yet I would say that there are certain feelings that indicate a need for some kind of intervention (help from friends or a therapist). These would be overwhelming feelings (or emotional disturbances) such as hopelessness, long-lasting anger or sadness, chronic lethergy, or long-lasting feelings of anxiety or overwhelm. I can only recommend finding a therapist to help sort through these kinds of chronic emotional disturbances.

This Vatican Saying 81 also points to the idea that there are specific and definite causes of joy in life. What is joy? Is it the same as happiness? When the naturally good things in life come to us, we feel happiness. A good meal (and the right kind of food and the right amount of food) brings pleasure and we can feel happy in that experience. Also, spending time with those we love brings happiness. Doing activities we enjoy brings happiness. Having work that is interesting and not too taxing on the body (and not too mentally stressful).

Some ideas about: What are some mental conditions which lead to happiness?

1. You don't compare yourself to others as being less than in some way, but instead you know what your strengths and weaknesses are and you keep those in mind or in perspective as you navigate through life.

2. You don't feel badly about yourself or internally put yourself down -- instead you feel effective, and you feel you have a certain amount of control or choice over your circumstances. (See PD16)

3. You have supportive relationships in your life and people who you enjoy talking to, and you can share smiles and laughter, because you have things which you share together that you both can smile about. (See VS 52)

4. You have interesting things that you like to do, and have fun and enjoyment engaging in those activities.

5. You don't spend a lot of your time worrying about the future. (See PD39).

6. Of the people in your surrounding community, you don't think badly of anyone and they don't think badly of you. (See PD40)

Thoughts? Is there anything else that should be on this list?

Ancient Greek clothing / Ancient Roman clothing, if anyone is interested.

An idea -- that it could be fun at some point to dress up for the 20th celebration, as a way to make it more festive. And I could help anyone with getting their costume together.

For ancient Greek clothing:https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clothing_in_ancient_Greece

And for ancient Roman clothing:

Clothing in ancient Rome - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Ancient Roman Clothing | UNRV