That's a comforting thought from the man himself!
But I'm not worried about me -- it's a privilege that I finally found Epicureanism. I worry about the people who will never have a chance. Stoicism may be having a moment, but Epicureanism isn't, at least yet.
I went through the forum trying to find the right place to post this, I hope I am correct.
"Self Help Is Like a Vaccine" is not an Epicurean book per se, so let me explain what the book is and why I have posted about it.
Bryan Caplan is an economist, a university professor and a blogger, and he has lately been publishing a series of books that reprint his blog posts, collected together by subject area. This is a collection of some of his advice pieces. I mention Caplan here because as I have mentioned before, I became interested in Epicureanism because Dr. Caplan recommends that everyone read the "Letter to Menoeceus."
In the new book, Caplan recommends that people "repeatedly read" the "Letter to Menoeceus" (in the "Make Your Own Bubble in 10 Easy Steps" essay). He also mentions Epicurus in a couple of other places, including referring to Epicurus as "the great Epicurus."
I like the book, but let me also say something about the main reason I am bringing it up. I discovered Buddhism when I was a teenager, and for decades I read about it, tried meditating on and off, etc. (My favorite Buddhism book is "What the Buddha Taught" by Walpola Rahula).
Although obviously I have heard about Epicureanism for decades, I did not really discover the philosophy until I ran across one of Capaln's recommendations to read the "Letter to Menoeceus" (he has repeatedly recommended it!), I sat down to read it, and I realized it made a lot of sense. Since then, I have been reading one book after another about Epicureanism (I am currently reading "A Few Days in Athens" by Frances Wright.)
My point is this: I didn't read the "Letter to Menoeceus" until I was in my 60s! If only I had read it earlier!
So I think a lot lately about what we can do to bring Epicureanism to the attention of more people, turning over ideas in my mind. And as i am grateful to Caplan, I feel obliged to let y'all know about his new book.
I would certainly be interested in talking about technology, social media, etc. Please include me if you decide to go ahead with a meeting.
Have you heard of Nostr? It's a new social media platform that is supposed to be impossible to censor:
Nostr seems interesting to me and I have been trying to set up an account there, although to be honest it's relatively hard. I do worry I spend too much time on social media as it is: I am on Facebook, I am on X.com (three accounts), I have a Blue Sky account I don't use very often and I also am on Mastodon.
I do know of it and I do plan to read it. It looks very interesting!
Emily Austin's book is my favorite, too, and I also kind of like Epicurus and the Pleasant Life. Hiram Crespo's Tending the Epicurean Garden is kind of up and down for me, but it has its moments.But I also wanted to put in a good word for a book I just finished, Epicureanism by Tim O'Keefe, which has a good overview of the whole philosophy and has a big section on the ethics. It's not a very long book, but it is definitely a work of philosophy, written for people with a serious interest, although it does seem to be aimed at undergraduates.
One of my favorite historians is Christopher Beckwith, a provocative but also very interesting scholar who likes to write particularly about Eurasia and the "Silk Road." I just finished his book Empires of the Silk Road.
One of Beckwith's central ideas in the book is about the comitatus, a unit in warfare which Beckwith says was central to the armed warriors of very many different groups, including Scythians and Germans. The comitatus were the "friends" or "companions" of the king, who were expected to remain loyal to the king and to be rewarded by him. In particular (as described, for example, by Tacitus in The Germania) it was considered a complete disgrace if the leader fell in battle and any of his companions survived; they were expected to defend him to death and, if necessary, die with him. Anyone who survived was infamous for the the rest of his life. (As a quick aside, his would seem to shed light on the famous "last stand" of Leonidas and the 300 at Themopylae).
Compare with Vatican Sayings 56-57: "The wise man feels no more pain when he is tortured than when his friend is tortured and will die on his behalf; for if he betrays his friend, his entire life will be confounded and utterly upset because of a lack of confidence." (I am quoting from The Epicurus Reader by Inwood and Gerson, which I bought because Emily Austin recommended it.)
Anyway, all this is background, because I wanted to share a quote from Empires of the Silk Road. In a section suggesting that Central Eurasians influenced Chinese and Greek Philosophy, Beckwith writes, "Do the social and religious ideas of Central Eurasians, including the importance of friendship and the beliefs behind the comitatus, imply philosophical positions or interests, such as the quest for happiness, or the perfect state?"
He doesn't mention Epicureanism specifically, but it sure would seem to apply to the particular Greek philosophy we are interested in. Do any of y'all (correct English plural of "you," in Oklahoma and in the South) know of anyone else who has talked about the possible connection between the comitatus and the Epicurean idea of friendship? Beckwith kind of tosses it out there and moves on, but it seemed interesting to me.
Wanted to make sure everyone had a chance to see this interesting podcast interview with Nat Friedman on the Vesuvius scrolls project:
Audio is at the top, scroll down for a transcript. The project is not just a matter of sticking some money out there and waiting for someone to claim it; Friedman has been very active in managing the project.
Thought there might be some interest in this interview with classicist Mary Beard, from the New York Times magazine:
I don’t know if this is novel to you, but in the last few years there has been a real resurgence ofpopular interest in Stoic philosophyThanks to the popularization efforts of, among others, groups like Modern Stoicism, the philosophy entrepreneur Ryan Holiday (author of “The Obstacle Is the Way”) and a wealth of Stoicism-themed podcasts. — why’d you just roll your eyes?
All to the good when people are interested in the ancient world, but this is one of the more mystifying bits of interest: clichéd self-help from a philosophy that, if you looked at it really hard, was nasty, fatalistic, bordering on fascist.
But what’s your hunch about why people are being drawn to Stoicism?
What comes out in Marcus Aurelius particularly is rather clichéd thoughts: Never take a major decision when your mind is troubled. We can all agree with clichés like that. And they come with the rubber stamp of great antiquity because they were written by an emperor — an emperor who was about as brutal in massacring the enemy as Julius Caesar. But we tend to forget that side of him because he’s a bearded “philosopher.” It’s not very salutary to look at your Amazon ratings, but I always feel terribly pleased — though it doesn’t happen often — when I’m higher up than Marcus Aurelius.
Thank you to everyone who took the time to make a suggestion. I will save this link and use it to find more books to read.
By coincidence I am currently also read a book about U.S. history, "The Vineyard of Liberty" by James MacGregor Burns, and on Page 170 there's a description of dinner at the White House: "Mr. Jefferson said that the Epicurean philosophy came nearest to the truth, in his opinion, of any ancient system of philosophy, but that it had been misnunderstood and misrepresented. He wished he work of Gassendi concerning it had been translated ... I mentioned Lucretius. He said that was only a part -- only the natural philosophy. But the moral philosophy was only to be found in Gassendi." (That's John Quincy Adams who is being quoted).
I am sorry I have not checked in very much at this Forum, but I intend to be better about that.
My main avenue for learning about Epicureanism has been through reading books. Here is what I have read so far:
Tending the Epicurean Garden, Hiram Crespo.
The Epicurus Reader: Selected Writings and Testimonia, Epicurus, Brad Inwood, Lloyd P. Gerson
Reading Lucretius in the Renaissance, Ada Palmer.
Living for Pleasure: An Epicurean Guide to Life, Emily
Austin.
How to Be an Epicurean: The Ancient Art of Living Well, Catherine Wilson.
Epicureanism: A Very Short Introduction, Catherine Wilson.
Epicurus and His Philosophy, Norman W. DeWitt.
EPICURUS and THE PLEASANT LIFE: A Philosophy of Nature Kindle Edition– November 30, 2022 - Revised and Expanded 2nd Edition, Haris Dimitriadis
Swerve, Stephen Greenblatt.
(I tried to read the William Wallace book but just couldn't get into it).
Except for the Greenblatt, which I read years ago, I have read all the others in the last few years after reading the "Letter to Menoeceus" and thereby becoming really interested in Epicureanism.
I am particularly interested in how to apply Epicureanism to my actual life, so I found the Austin, Crespo and Dimitriadis particularly useful. The Austin book is my favorite and I've already read it twice and will likely read it again soon. The Crespo had some features I didn't care for -- I particularly disliked all the talk of Epicurean "therapy" -- but I thought the chapter on the four remedies was quite good. The Dimitriadis has its moments for me.
I have put Tim O'Keefe's book on hold at the library, simply because Emily Austin recommends it in her book, and I plan to finally read a translation of Lucretius. But what else should I try?
Logged on to make sure everyone heard about this. This link has a lot of substance:
I blogged about this today:
I want to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving, and I'm grateful for this forum. I did a Thanksgiving post on my blog today and pointed to the New Epicurean website:
Sorry I haven't logged on lately.
I wanted to report that the Vesuvius Challenge, the effort to read hundreds of charred scrolls, apparently has reached an important milestone. As many of these scrolls apparently are Epicurean writings, this is of particular importance to our community. Apparently there is a potential for some other lost classical documents to be recovered.
I'm afraid it's just a coincidence; I had not seen the thread.
I don't know how many of you are familiar with Standard Ebooks, but it is a nonprofit which produces carefully edited, nicely produced editions of classic public domain texts. When I am looking for a public domain book, I generally look there first. Completely unrelated to my interest in Epicureanism, I love Sinclair Lewis, and the site has four of his classic novels.
Anyway, I am on the email list which announces new Standard Ebook titles each month and one of the new ones for August is
Marius the Epicurean by Walter Pater, which as the title suggests is an historical novel about a man in the Roman Empire who is particularly interested in Epicureanism but also explores other philosophies; the Wikipedia article on the book may be useful for anyone trying to decide whether to read it.
Amazon's send to Kindle feature now supports ePub, one of Standard Ebooks' file formats, and there are nice ereaders for smartphones, such as ReadEra, which is my favorite.
Thanks, Cassius, I have saved the URL for backup epicureanfriends.com and I hope others will take the precaution to save the link.
I meant to post about this sooner, but the New York Times ran an interesting article on June 8, "Gratitude Really Is Good for You, Here's What the Science Shows," which shows how much Epicurus was ahead of his time in urging his followers to cultivate gratitude. Here is a link that will get you behind the paywall:
Hi Cassius,
Thank you for including me on the thread.
My technical knowledge is perhaps not high enough for me to really chip in, but I like Kalosyni's idea of compiling email addresses for everyone who would like to be included in the emergency network, simply because everyone could easily take part without having to learn another platform and would be something everyone would have access to. I do have Signal on my cell phone, as many people do, and I think that would be a relatively practical option, too.
Proton Mail offers free encrypted email accounts that I would think would be accessible to everyone, so that could be an option, too.
I just finished reading Ada Palmer’s book, “Reading Lucretius in the Renaissance.” I figured there might be some interest if I posted about it.
The preface and the first chapter discuss Epicureanism, Lucretius’ poem and how many of the poem’s concepts challenge Christian thinking. The first sentence of the preface is, “If you were told that reading this book could send you to Hell, would you keep reading?”
Palmer argues that there were essentially two “waves” of how Lucretius was read, from 1417, when an old manuscript was found by Poggio Brocciolini, to 1600, when her study concludes. The first phase was that scholars copied and edited manuscripts by hand. During this phase, most of the emphasis was on correcting the texts and preserving the poem, with little attention to Lucretius’ theories on atoms, or what Palmer calls “proto-atheist” views, such as the soul isn’t immortal, the gods don’t interfere in the affairs of men, etc. The assumption, Palmer says, was that fixing and circulating any prominent work of Latin literature was assumed to be a moral thing to do in reviving civilization.
A second wave of reading occurred when the text had largely been corrected and made much easier to read, and when printing of this corrected Latin text made the poem much easier to find and to read. Along with printing, there came translations of the poem into the local vernacular, which also expanded the readership of the book.
During this second phase, much more attention was paid to the heretical views in the poem, and as science began to arise as an important intellectual current, the science discussions in the poem took on more meaning. Printing of the book stopped in Italy by about 1515 when the Catholic church realized the poem had seriously heretical thoughts, and later editions were printed in France and other countries.
Palmer examined dozens of manuscript copies of “De rerum natura” in libraries in the U.S. and Europe, carefully recording comments and marks written in the margins so that she could track what scholars were interested in, and also studied early printed copies. There are tables that tabulate all of this. Particular attention is paid to the notes made in the margins by figures such as Machiavelli and Montaigne.
I took the time to read the whole book, but you can get most of what she has to say by reading the preface, Chapter One and the conclusion. In comparison to “The Swerve,” is is written much more for an academic audience.
Much of the discussion of the tenets of Epicureanism takes place in Chapter One. In general it seemed accurate, although I thought Palmer overcorrected for the prevailing impression that Epicureanism advocates gluttony, lust and other physical forms of hedonism, making Epicurus more of an ascetic than Emily Austin does.
I really know Ada Palmer more as a writer of science fiction and fantasy; I am a fan of her “Terra Ignota” series of four novels. She is appearing at a science fiction convention in Pittsburgh that I plan to attend the weekend of July 21-23. In her day job, Palmer is a history professor in Chicago. She has a blog and website at http://www.adapalmer.com/.
Thanks for sharing this.
