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I've yet to register an opinion on the -ism question; as Nate has put forth a comprehensive effort at surveying the field, I'll offer it here. To put it simply—I suppose I mean by that, To put it frankly: I haven't found the objections to this usage persuasive, and I doubt whether I can be bothered to police myself in the matter! 😁 I will unhesitatingly grant to our Hellenic friends the etymological point. I share their concerns regarding affinities in language, and I think I can appreciate—at l…

https://www.theonion.com/i-don…a-s-little-box-1824207087 Here's some satire that came to memory as I was writing, re: -isms and ideologies

I am VERY sympathetic to the idea that our Greek friends should have 'naming rights'! It's just a difficult transition. Out of curiosity I thumbed through DeWitt while I wrote that post. He must use "Epicureanism" a hundred times in that book; since that's the academic text "of record" in our circle, the problem is unlikely to go away.

(Quote) We should ask those schools; they have a different opinion. There is not one of them that wouldn't plead the same or a similar case. Or the same case couched in different terms. I know for a certainty from personal experience that in Buddhism the argument is identical; that instead of Buddhism, many would prefer Buddhadharma (Sanskrit) or -dhamma (Pali). "Stop calling [my belief] an -ism!" Buddhism Christianity Mohammedanism Humanism Capitalism Marxism Judaism Sometimes it goes the other…

Oh, I don't mean to imply that I am finding this discussion tedious. I continue to think Nate and Elli are making fair points. But to say, for example, that Christianity is a relationship, not a religion, is to fortress one's opinion with something like an inverse Kafka-trap; they want to control the terms so that definitionally they can't be argued against—and I find that tedious.

You've put that extremely well, Cassius!

(Quote) Ok, this is an excellent point! Those people have almost completely ruined search engine utility re: "Epicurean"

Excellent topic, Nate! He is of course using "cult" as a Classicist here, free of its modern sinister connotations. To my mind there are two questions here. Could the Epicurean system of thought have developed independent of Epicurus? I should think the answer to that—at least in broad strokes—would be, "Of course!" Already in Greece, prior to Epicurus, there was atomism (Democritus), indeterminism (Aristotle), hedonism (Aristippus), and cosmic pluralism (Anaximander). There's no "secret sauce";…