Posts by Kalosyni

Instead of tranquility or mindfulness, how about clear-mindedness and ease...lots of other possibilities?

Mindfulness sometimes could end up being too focused inward or on inner sensations.

Quote from Pacatus

“For ataraxia, ultimately and simply, is a physical undisturbedness.” [That is, not simply a mental state.]

Well now, this got me thinking about when the startle reflex is activated -- heart-rate, blood pumping, adrenaline all amped up and that is the "fight or flight response".

Quote from Don

"Metrodorus, in his book On the Source of Happiness in Ourselves being greater than that which arises from Objects, says: 'What else is the good of the soul but the sound state of the flesh, and the sure hope of its continuance?'"

And also, this brings up the firm belief that an Epicurean would not choose to be employed in any kind of high-risk/high-adrenaline enterprises -- or anything which disturbs the physical body or threatens its continuance.

Just this last Saturday there was an afternoon/evening event in a nearby little town, in honor of Oktoberfest (but chose not to partake for various reasons, one of which was no designated driver). Also, the US, breweries often celebrate with a new release of some kind. Anyway, lately I've got beer on my mind (haven't had any in many months). I really can only drink about a half pint at a time, otherwise it hits me too hard. Perhaps I will choose to imbibe just a little on my birthday. Something with a chocolate/coffee finish

Quote

Oktoberfest is a German tradition known around the world for its beer, delicious food, and celebration of German culture. It’s a chance to put aside differences, raise a glass, and shout, “Prost!” (That’s “Cheers!” in German.)

Given the name, one would think that it would also be a chance to celebrate the great month of October. And it is. What’s shocking, though, is that this festival’s namesake month barely gets to take part in the festivities.

That’s right—the majority of Oktoberfest takes place in September, which makes Oktoberfest seem like one of the biggest misnomers we use all the time. The entire festival runs 16-18 days, depending on the year, and most of them are in September. For example, the 2019 dates were September 21–October 6. Sadly, the 2020 festival was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. However, when Oktoberfest began in 1810, it did take place entirely in October, from the 12th to the 17th.

The first Oktoberfest was a celebration of the marriage between Bavarian Crown Prince Ludwig and Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen. It lasted five days, during which the citizens of Munich were invited to eat and drink to their hearts’ content while listening to live music and watching parades. The party ended with a horse race at the edge of town. Learn more about the origins of Oktoberfest—and why it’s not all about beer.

https://www.rd.com/article/oktoberfest-starts-september/

Quote from Godfrey

Are you saying that desires add in pleasures? Or that desires equate to pleasures? Or desires are additional to pleasures and pains?

There are some desires for adding in experience of sweetness and enjoyablenes, and there are some desires which are to stop the experience of pain. Eating chocolate cake is a desire which brings in extra stimulation beyond just the removal of hunger -- and if it was just for removal of hunger then we could eat bread instead of cake. If we eat too much cake we may start to feel overly full, and so we then stop eating cake to stop the discomfort. But there are other desires for additive pleasures besides just eating cake.

And some people may be more oriented (motivated) to stop pain rather than seek pleasure. For example a person who calls up a friend to talk because they feel lonely (and want to remove the pain of loneliness) vs a person who calls up a friend because they enjoy telling jokes and laughing together (desire for adding in fun).

Quote from Godfrey

Since the purpose of the inscription was evangelism, saying that we've excised and minimized pains is much more appealing to the average passersby than saying we've excised and minimized desires. Working with desires is a way that pain can be minimized, but that detail can come later.

lol -- this made me laugh, and yet there could be truth to it. But of course this brings up the whole "tranquility problem" -- which for me seems unresolvable. To be tranquil or not to be tranquil - perhaps we have to move beyond the "either/or" -- because sometimes we will take on pains if future pleasures will be greater.

Quote from Don

I'm definitely leaning toward seeing "τῶν τε λυπῶν τὰς μὲν κ̣εν̣ὰ̣ς ἐξεκόψαμεν" as referring to completely excising pains that are fruitlessly or unnecessarily experienced.

Those pains that one needlessly experiences, probably stemming from trying to satisfy groundless desires.

This does bring up the additive vs the subtractive. The word "desires" has a sound of adding in something. Where as "removing pains" is getting rid of something. I think all of this is open to further contemplation. We are going to be engaging in choices and avoidances that sometimes are one and sometimes are the other. And we may have differences in which direction we tend to go in (removing pain/adding in pleasure). We will be on the right track, as long as our choices are not bringing great pain (bad results).

This recipe looks interesting, but I would guess this is a modern version of honey cake (no nuts). I like how she says it is good with coffee or tea, and you just make it an call some friends over, lol.

Greek Honey Cake

Simple and extra moist Greek honey cake! Honey Cake Watch the Video My extra moist Greek honey cake is light, sweet, and has a lot of honey flavor. Orange zest…

www.dimitrasdishes.com

Cassius, I want give you credit for your mentioning the following idea:

The phrasing at the end of fragment 1, "pleasure / pain" is not being differentiated from "desire for pleasure / pain" so he must be talking loosely. If you feel pain there is always a reason for that pain, and the desire to remove that pain -- so that is how we get either groundless or natural

So this wording on the wall is a quick way to wrap up the whole idea quickly.

So the Wall of Diogenes of Oinoanda may be the only place where we see the idea of "pains which are groundless", and "pains which are natural"?

Quote from Don

when I use tranquility or ataraxia.

I don't mean some mystical state or some "special" state or some woo-woo state.

I do mean simply a clear-headed, calm mind unruffled by anxiety or fear.

A person can have that state if they are relaxing, if they are engaged in action, even if they're on the battlefield. It means someone isn't freaking out. It means they approach decisions clearly, decisively, with no equivocation or regret.

Does that state arise naturally? Yes.

Does it take practice to achieve and maintain that state? Absolutely.

Is it better to have that state as a foundation from which to confront the "slings and arrows" of daily life than other states? Yes indeed, in my opinion.

In the end, I don't think one can truly be happy, be filled with well-being, or experience satisfaction unless you're working towards having that calm baseline to work from.

Display More

So then this "working towards having a calm baseline" would require therapeutics?

And if so, then we need to list all of them -- sourced from PD's, Vatican Sayings, Letter to Menoeceus, Diogenes Laertius wise man sayings, and Cicero's Torquatus -- so we see what specifically leads to this calm baseline.

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):

Quote

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,..."

Display More

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:

Quote

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":

Quote

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/

Display More

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?