Posts by Kalosyni

Quote from Don

I wouldn't call ataraxia the "main constituent" but I may go so far as to call it a necessary condition but not a sufficient one.

Questions to find more clarity:

-- Is there a physiological need in some people to seek out more "tranquility" because they are very sensitive to stimulus and easily disturbed by sensations of sounds.

-- Is "tranquility" a need which only arises in dependence with a given environment? Some environments are so tranquil that there is actually a much greater need for new sensory stimulation to allieviate boredom.

-- Is the basis of "tranquility" suggesting that Epicureans will live in out in the country-side and away from noisy cities? No need to find a "cave" to live in, but for some there is a need to move out of a city and live in the country -- at least for those who have overly-sensitive physiology.

Ancient Honey Cakes! And Birthday Cakes!

Excerpt from a website with a recipe (but this one has nuts):

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One of the foods mentioned several times in my novel are honey cakes, which are offered up to the gods in thanks. I was intrigued by the idea of these cakes and how I could recreate them today. What were their origins? Why did the ancients offer up cakes to their deities?

If any of the ancient myths are to be believed, the gods of ancient Greek and Roman antiquity loved a bountiful meal. The stories left to us by Ovid, Herodotus, Virgil, Homer and others are ripe with stories of grand feasts enjoyed by the gods, or the gods meddling in mortal banquets such as the feast of King Midas in which all of the food tragically turned to gold. In fact, for centuries beyond ancient times, the wedding celebrations of Cupid and Psyche and Peleus and Thetis have been common artistic subjects for vases, frescoes and paintings of the great masters.

The feasts on Mount Olympus were similar to those enjoyed on earth save in abundance, superior taste, luxury and perhaps the addition of the divine ambrosia. A traditional ancient Roman banquet would have begun with eggs and ended with fruit, and the final course was often accompanied by sweet desserts such as cake.

Cake is a dish that has been around for thousands of years, and was enjoyed by the ancient Egyptians well before the Greeks and Romans had their fill. Paintings in the tomb of Pharaoh Ramesses II, who ruled from 1304 to 1237 B.C.E. show what archaeologists think might be a type of folded honey cake, likely made from flour, eggs, honey, dates and nuts. The Egyptian specialty feteer meshaltet, which is a thin folded pastry (and might even be the precursor to the French croissant), is descended from these cakes.

One of the first printed recipes for honey cake appears in Athenaeus’ Deipnosophistae, published in Greece in 180 B.C.E.. It is called Enkhytoi and the book describes it as a flat, molded cake made from honey, fine flour and eggs. Like many recipes of the time there were no proportions listed, but modern recreations of these cakes show us that the consistency is that of a sponge cake.

Birthday cakes are also ancient, as the first century poet, Ovid, wrote about in his elegiac letters, titled Tristia,..."

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Logic might have it that honey cakes very well could have been eaten at the monthly 20th celebrations? Just an idea that is fun to think about. I do wonder if there are recipes without the nuts.

Yet another Epicurean article claiming that ataraxia is the goal:

The Epicurean guide to digital life
It's an Ancient Greek philosophy known for its lessons on material existence and pleasure-seeking. So what might Epicureanism say about living well on social…

BBC - Homepage

An excerpt from the article:

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Despite how that sounds, the Epicureans did not feel that this consisted in a life of sex, drugs and dithyrambic poetry (Dionysiac party songs). Rather, they felt, the pursuit of pleasure would be best effectuated by a simple life – and Epicurus himself, and his followers, were known for a moderately ascetic lifestyle, eschewing the excesses of sensual gratification. (This makes it especially ironic that in modern English idiom "epicurean" often refers to foodie culture, a legacy of later misinterpretations and critics of the doctrine.)

For pleasure, as they conceived it, is not something you add up, cumulatively – rather, it is defined negatively, as the absence of pain. The term for this freedom from pain was ataraxia — literally, a state of not-being-shaken-up, a freedom from turbulence.

Preserving your ataraxia was a matter of balance. Should you drink some wine? Sure! – a little. Should you have sex? Yes! – some. If resisting these urges disturbs your mind, then satisfy them with moderation – there's no moral superstructure barring you from doing so. But don't overdo it, for it will shake you up, disrupting your ataraxia.

In certain ways Epicureanism is strikingly congenial to modern thought – it seems to foreshadow the physicalism that underlies modern science, and the pragmatic hedonism that characterises secular society. In my academic life, whenever I've asked students to the choose the school of philosophy they'd join, a majority of them have declared, "the pleasure one!"

If "freedom from pain" is the goal, then there are lots of things we will never do, and some people may end up choosing suicide since this is the ultimate freedom from pain.

Would it be better not drive your car anywhere because you don't want to experience some "turbulence" (mental pain)? But the truth is that the small amount of mental disturbance we feel during driving leads to greater pleasure later when you arrive at your destination. Drivers in the city that I now live are much more reckless than in the town I used to live in, and I have narrowly escaped car accidents at least 3 times in the last 4 months.

I've been think that Epicurus must have provided therapeutic teachings (but they were lost???) because when you are alive you will encounter pain and "turbulence". We choose to navigate through life by seeking out pleasure and enjoyment, and also by effectively (and rationally) dealing with mental pain which arises.

This brings up the ethics of war -- discovered "just war theory":

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For millennia, philosophers and Christian theologians have worked on a framework for guiding the ethical prosecution of wars. Just war theory—the most influential source of objective guidance for the ethical prosecution of wars—is traditionally attributed to Ambrose (ca. 339-397 CE) and Augustine (354-430 CE). Nine hundred years later, Thomas Aquinas established the theological, systematic conscience-based foundations under which a war could be justified. Aquinas’s views became the model for later scholars, who universalized just war theory beyond its Christian foundations, recasting it in terms of what is allowed or forbidden in wars between modern nation-states.

The absence of an ethics of conflict termination hinders the civic polity’s ability to judge whether a conflict should be over. This omission vitiates a founding tenet of democracy: civilian control of the military.

Contemporary just war theory has branched into two schools—traditionalist and revisionist. The traditionalist camp is best represented by Michael Walzer’s seminal 1977 book Just and Unjust Wars, which defended a non-religious justification of national self-defense, combatant equality, and civilian immunity. In the last decade or so, a revisionist camp, spearheaded by Jeff McMahan’s work, questioned these tenets of traditional just war theory. McMahan’s book, Killing in War (2009), revolutionized the philosophical discussion on the ethics of war by questioning the moral standing of states and the justification of national self-defense as a just cause for war, problematizing the notion of civilian immunity, and systematically attacking Walzer’s argument regarding the moral equality of combatants—instead, McMahan contended that combatants fighting for an unjust cause have no right to kill.

Historically, just war theorists distinguished between just two stages of conflict: jus ad bellum, the limitations on the resort to war, and jus in bello, the restrictions on the conduct in war. In the past twenty years philosophers in both camps—traditionalists and revisionists—have argued for adding jus post bellum as a third branch of just war theory as a way to provide guidance on what is owed after a conflict has ended. The construction of peace treaties and the reconstruction of states, for example, raise difficult questions about retribution and vengeance and what can be demanded of the defeated.

Now, only more recently have philosophers started to address the gap between jus in bello and jus post bellum. As Cecile Fabre notes, “there is hardly any work on the transition from war to peace, and more specifically on the ethics of war termination.” As such, philosophers have begun arguing that the moral principles governing the end of armed conflicts require a new regime in just war theory, called either jus ex bello (Darrel Moellendorf’s terminology), or jus terminatio (David Rodin’s terminology). (The U.S. Military Academy at West Point is holding a conference on these subjects, called “How to End a War: Peace, Justice, and Repair,” just next week.) As Rodin puts it, such a framework should be a “fourth and independent component of the morality of war standing alongside jus ad bellum, jus in bello, and jus post bellum.”

Defining a framework for guiding the termination of wars, however, is not a straightforward task. You might start, for example, by just continually checking the conditions required to start a war. (Jus ad bellum requires meeting six distinct criteria.) Once the reasons that justified resorting to force do not apply any more, that framework would say, the war needs to be terminated. Yet this view simplifies the task at hand too much. First, the very fact that the war has begun has changed the moral situation. For example, there are those who already died in the war, new atrocities planned by the enemy could be discovered, or new, unpredictable costs, as well as termination costs, might emerge. Mechanical applications of the ad bellum principles could lead to morally perverse situations, since circumstances alter cases.

Second, and crucially, ad bellum conditions are not themselves the groundwork of the morality of war. They are the application of moral principles to specific situations, in which the two competing aims—to allow the victim to use defensive force while minimizing the harm of war—are balanced. To paraphrase Amartya Sen in his The Idea of Justice (2011), the task of a moral theory of ending wars is in “the prevention of manifest injustice in the world, rather than seeking the perfectly just.” To achieve progress in developing such a theory, we must recognize that there are differences in the moral evaluation between resorting to force and ending the use of force.

https://bostonreview.net/articles/elad-…er-ending-wars/

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From Letter to Menoeceus:

"And because this is the primary and inborn good, we do not choose every pleasure. Instead, we pass up many pleasures when we will gain more of what we need from doing so. And we consider many pains to be better than pleasures, if we experience a greater pleasure for a long time from having endured those pains. So every pleasure is a good thing because its nature is favorable to us, yet not every pleasure is to be chosen — just as every pain is a bad thing, yet not every pain is always to be shunned. It is proper to make all these decisions through measuring things side by side and looking at both the advantages and disadvantages, for sometimes we treat a good thing as bad and a bad thing as good."

I think to answer "is it better to suffer harm than to harm?" would be taken on a case by case basis, so there would not be an absolute rule on this. Sometime you might choose to suffer some small harm in the short term if it led to a better long-term outcome.

Quote from waterholic

My question is: could Epicurean philosophy be of any use to someone in abject powerty and misery as a starting position? After all, much of religion has historically been used to create contentment in misery. Being satisfied with one's own position is all well if the society is just (broadly). Nearly all sources of Epicurean-leaning thought from Buddha (a rich prince who decided to leave the palace and spend some time under a tree) to Bertrand Russell (who argued in favour of idleness while really not needing much gainful employment) happens to originate in the "opulent quarters" of the city.

More practically, partly due to chance and partly due to choice, I am somewhat independent and can have comfortable life without overstressing. How do I suggest to those significantly less fortunate to be satisfied with whatever is within their reach?

I think that it might be good to consider that happiness depends on a certain level of fulfillment of basic necessities. If you don't have the basics (food, shelter, clothing) then you will have a high level of discomfort in life. Also, you need to know that your basics are going to be covered in the future, or else you will be absorbed in worry. So you need to have a sense of a secure future (there may be a PD on this?). And all of this depends upon the ability to problem solve as to what to do so as to secure one's future. I would guess that possessing the abiltity to problem solve and then also carry out necessary actions may be dependent on intelligence levels (and also having good mental health).

So then the question: How many people go through life feeling worry about their own financial stituation? (and doubt their ability to secure food and shelter in the future). This isn't a problem of just poor people, but also some in the middle class who feel uncertain about their future (if you don't save enough money for retirement or have loans that you need to pay off).

Quite a number of times Maslow's hierachy of needs has come up on the forum -- and I would say that there is something to that. Once basic needs are met then one can turn to intellectual pursuits and also deal with "spiritual" issues (fear of death, question of life after death, nature of the universe, etc)

Quote from Cassius

I am not as conversant with the details of some of the Philodemus material (on property management)

I also still need to study Philodemus. But it almost appears to me that the implications are that many Epicureans were well off (perhaps in a similar manner as the "landed gentry" in England). Managing wealth can be a time consuming endeavor, and I think that is one thing that Philodemus gives advice on. Interestingly, I do wonder if later Epicureans such (as Philodemus) are the ones who developed more therapeutics (beyond dealing with fear of death, etc) and in the aid of removing discontent and increasing happiness.

Quote from Pacatus

I want to apologize if anything I’ve said has offended anyone – especially Kalosyni. Mea culpa, entirely.

Oh no, you didn't offend me. I maybe haven't kept up with this thread as much as I ought to -- I probably should be saying something more in response, so I apologize for my lack of additional comments. Sometimes there is so much going on in the number of responses that I then feel like I am not sure if I can say anything new or brilliant, and so then I go "silent" for a time.

Quote from waterholic

My goal here is to seek help in reconciling Epircurean thought, which is very close to my learnt experience, and the modern life

Welcome to the forum! We look forward to any questions or discussion you might like to engage in to gain clarity

Quote from Cassius

no absolute basis for ethics - that everything ultimately rests on the feelings of pleasure and pain

I feel the need to say something in response to this (and we must have a thread on this already) -- no absolute basis for ethics means that we don't do things to please God or to attempt to prove that we are perfectly behaving according to some ideal standard, but instead we act ethically because it brings pleasure and a happy life. And we make ethical choices based on pleasure and pain -- not just my own pleasure or avoidance of pain, but that if I cause pain in someone else it will usually (but yet not always in every case) result in more pain for myself. Now we can go a step further and apply a kind of heuristic which is that we will more quickly guess (or sense) whether or not we are causing pain to someone, and then be sure to avoid any behavior that might cause pain. The usual impulse is when a human feels pain then a reaction results, as we naturally seek to find a way to end the pain, whether or not the method found to end the pain actually works or not. So if I hurt you in some way, even if it is by accident, then you look around to see who or what hurt you (and then you react in myriad ways in response).

I just think that this ethical understanding needs to be clear. Any thoughts Cassius?

Quote from Pacatus

Why is some further organization/organizing needed? Or wanted? How organized is the Garden supposed to be (e.g., to meet modern needs)?

Pacatus it sounds like your focus is on presentation of the Epicurean philosophy, and so this forum is a good way to do that. Would it be correct to say that your desire could be for learning (or sharing); maintaining reference material or literature of some kind; and mainly for sharing the philosophy through written word? And currently this most often occurs in an anonymous format, as we have readers who visit this site who are not members of the forum.

As for myself, I would like to see more social engagement -- both online and potentially in-person, because I have a desire for more social connection and conversation. I don't know if there are any others who feel this way?

Quote from Cassius

Once you're clear that there is no life after death and no supernatural gods and no absolute basis for ethics - that everything ultimately rests on the feelings of pleasure and pain -- that is a very clearly-denominated world view in itself that is more than sufficient to be a basis for "organization" in a world that is very hostile to those ideas.

Belief in these tenets (as listed above) would determine entry into the fellowship (no life after death; no supernatural gods; no absolute basis for ethics (everything ultimately rests on the feelings of pleasure and pain).

Yet, I think there will need to be additional substance to organize around -- the importance of friendship and community within the organization. And this could be expressed through specific "rituals" -- we could celebrate everyone's birthday, we could celebrate holidays together (and need to think about what holidays we might hold as important?). And we could find ways to bring together people within the organization who have common interests, focusing on shared enjoyments such as enjoyment of nature, enjoyment of cooking, enjoyment of study/teaching of philosophy, etc, etc -- so we could create friendship peer groups or affinity groups within the organization which might have monthly meetings to share fun events focused on that particular interest. While of course the 20th would always be reserved for the larger organization meeting.

Thinking further about organization names:

Koinonia of Epicurus

or

Fellowship of Epicurus

Thank you Don for sharing those links, which brings up an important point: the word "Epicurean" is associated with food, and culinary arts/culinary professionals.

So what do you think that means for us moving forward? Does it seem that the word "Epicurean" in some sense is already taken to mean something different. Even if we say "Epicurean Philosophy" the common person will think "Food Philosophy"?

Do we need to use a name that is vastly different?

-- The Society of Volitionary Philosophy

or

-- The Society of Volitionary Enjoyment

It's not that we are trying to convert the whole world, but rather just add a few new friends that most likely already think the way that we do.

And do we want to continue with the "Epicurean" word and be seen as simply food related?

To start the ball rolling...just throwing out some of my ideas.

Who we are?

We share a common world-view based on Epicurean philosophy, and see the world through materialism (a non-supernatural world). We take personal responsibilty as the basis of our choices and avoidances. In life we prudently seek to increase pleasure, and choose ethical and practical actions which lead to a pleasant and happy life.

What might we hope for in Epicurean community?

We hope for a community of friends to join in the study of Epicurean philosophy, and engage in discussion and contemplation of Epicurean principles. We hope to create a place where supportive friendships of like-minded people can develop and be enjoyed.

I am using the word "we" instead of "I" because I want to see a big picture of what community might look like, and also what it is that we all might agree on.

If you think of different phrasing, more to add, or different ideas, please post.

This is a thread to explore ideas about organizing and developing Epicurean community. Any one can add any thoughts or ideas about this.

Who are we?

What do we need or want?

What are we hoping for?

Here is an interesting article excerpt:

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What defines a community?

As long as there have been people, there have been communities. People are social animals. In every human civilization groups of people have organised themselves into tribes or societies. A large part of our self-image is derived from the social groups that we are part of. This is where we want to fit in and what gives us self-confidence, comfort, motivation, inspiration and purpose. We all belong to various different communities: Your neighbourhood, sports club, hobby club, student group, work colleagues.

So, what defines a community?

Bind defines community like this:

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“A community is a group of people with common characteristics, such as background, ambitions or interests, who gather in a physical or virtual location to talk to each other or do things together.”

Social psychologists David McMillan and David Chavis describe a sense of community as:

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“A feeling that members have of belonging, a feeling that members matter to one another and to the group, and a shared faith that members’ needs will be met through their commitment to be together.”

They argue that without clearly defined membership, an exchange of influence, fulfillment of needs, and a shared emotional connection, it’s fair to assume that the strength of community amongst a group is pretty weak.

Here is what we at Open Social think are characteristics of a true community:

• Members have common characteristics, such as background, ambitions or interests
• Working towards a common interest or goal
• “Mutualistic symbioses”: Members enter in to a social contract of give & take which is beneficial for everyone
• Members have longer-term connections
• Members join voluntarily
• Community is all about enabling connections and many-to-many communication
• It can exist in a physical or virtual location

Unfortunately, social media has contributed to an inflation of the term ‘community’ being used to describe any scenario in which people congregate online. Facebook for instance uses the term community to position its platform as a valuable instrument for a better society, even though it often leads to polarizing its members instead of bringing them together. There are lots of companies that throw around the term community, using it to describe their customers and audience regardless of whether or not there’s an actual deep sense of community amongst the people they’re referring to. Marketers love titles like Community Manager, while in practice their job usually entails broadcasting branded messages from a social media channel to an audience. The word community is thrown around without much thought for its actual meaning.

The Six Types of Communities

To understand communities better, we can categorize them into 6 community types, each with a different common denominator among participants.

What we at Open Social like about using these types is that it forces us to take the community member point of view and think about the purpose of the community, which helps when defining your community strategy and objectives. Working with community types helps us and our clients better understand the unique needs and drivers of members and the common goal towards which they are contributing.

We can identify these six types of communities, each with a different common denominator among participants:

A Community of Action is all about mobilizing volunteers as a movement to jointly make a change in the world

A Community of Practice consists of professionals sharing knowledge and skills, and learning together.

A Community of Circumstance consists of people in the same life stage or circumstance sharing tips & support.

A Community of Place consists of people living or working in the same geographical area, like residential areas, the local bar or a public space, like a park or library.

A Community of Interest consists of people sharing the same interest or passion, always comprising a passion, hobby or interest shared by participants.

A Support Community consists of people helping each other, usually non-professional and non-material, with a particular shared question or problem.

It is good to note that this classification provides theoretical handles for understanding different communities. In daily practice, the different types often bleed into each other or are combined.

Also, groups within a community can be of different types. You might have a Community of Interest to discuss hobbies or a Community of Place with members from one city, country or region within a scientific Community of Practice in which professionals are sharing knowledge.

https://www.getopensocial.com/blog/community…munity-are-you/

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In the future we could become a registered non-profit, but we need to clarify what it is we are doing and what we want to see happen within our Epicurean community.

Also perhaps we have differing viewpoints or ideas about what we want?

Who are we?

What do we need or want?

What are we hoping for?

Need to start the ball rolling about talking about these questions, so that we can move beyond our virtual community.

So if anyone has any thoughts or ideas in response to this please post them

This has good info:

Ancient Greek cuisine - Wikipedia

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Barley was more demanding than wheat. Barley preparations were nutricious but also rather hard to diggest. This is why barley was toasted over a fire before it was ground into flour. Barley flour (alfita) was used to prepare a very basic type of bread, the maza, which is first mentioned by Hesiod (Works and Days):

Grain

The gift of the goddess Demeter

cycladic.gr

About the grinding of grains:

"Grinding the grain was no easy task. First it was pounded with a pestle and mortar to remove the shell, then ground in a simple hand mill consisting of two circular stones, a lower stationary one (quern) and an upper rotating one (muller). Later hand mills have a central hole (hopper) for pouring the grain in the upper one. The flour was then sieved and used to make the dough, which was baked in wood-burning ovens.

Bread was made at home and was an important time-consuming and laborious chore for women. Large urban centers also had bakeries, where one could buy bread maza (a kind of barley bread), but this was a luxury..."

This seems to say that the barley grains were roasted and then ground into flour:

Romans in Britain - Recipe for Maza (Barley Cake)

Ancient recipe for Maza (Barley Cake)

www.romanobritain.org

So great see your experiment Don -- and just found this -- tried to copy and paste recipe but wasn't able to for some reason. Be sure to scroll down past the covid introduction. Also it has some odd historical facts about ancient rituals which come before the recipe (which needs more research) -- so you have to scroll down the page quite a ways -- but the end result looks beautiful paired with cheese and figs.

Bread for the Gods: Pharmakos Barley Cakes with Cheese and Figs

A pestilence is sweeping our land. The gods are pissed. It's time to take this situation into our own hands with an ancient Greek sacrifice. Be gone,…

tavolamediterranea.com

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“For my part I find no meaning which I can attach to what is termed good, if I take away from it the pleasures obtained by taste, if I take away the pleasures which come from listening to music, if I take away too the charm derived by the eyes from the sight of figures in movement, or other pleasures by any of the senses in the whole man. Nor indeed is it possible to make such a statement as this – that it is joy of the mind which is alone to be reckoned as a good; for I understand by a mind in a state of joy, that it is so, when it has the hope of all the pleasures I have named – that is to say the hope that nature will be free to enjoy them without any blending of pain.” And this much he says in the words I have quoted, so that anyone you please may realize what Epicurus understands by pleasure. (Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, III.18.41)

Cassius --It does seem to be listed, and maybe this is the only location?

Quote from Kalosyni

In other words the highest form of sensual pleasure (at it's height) will also be free from mental pain (we will be free from worry and fear).

Also, this has to do with a certain segment in time -- it isn't going to be at every moment of every day -- But rather it will unfold depending on a given situation. Ideally we will experience some parts of our day in this way -- we will have the experience of situations that feel very sweet and enjoyable.