Posts by Cassius
Listen to the latest Lucretius Today Podcast! Episode 223 is now available. In this episode, we address Cicero's accusation that Epicureans Are Undergoing the Exertions Of Life for The Equivalent Of A Drop of Honey.
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Maybe no need but I will anyway. I think you're on the track of what quite possibly is the very most important aspect of Epicurus which as always impressed me as not so much the conclusion ("pleasure" as the highest good) but the method of establishing confidence that the conclusion is correct.
We will never be omnipotent or omniscient and therefore to hold "confidence" to that standard or proof is nonsensical. But that's what 2000 years has told us to do.
Aristotle was apparently in the process of breaking free from Plato but did not go nearly far enough. Artificial rules and categories are just as misleading as platonic absolutes. (That's the critique of "essentialism" that Dawkins makes.) Epicurus finished the job, but that aspect has been buried.
There is a lot to be uncovered in the final step from Aristotle to Epicurus (some of it is in Philodemus on Signs) but I am convinced if we uncover and expose to a wider audience the insufficiency if Aristotle then we not only blow a hole in Objectivism (desirable in itself) but we show the way to a common sense method of thinking that also finally kicks the supports out from supernatural religion.
And going through Nichomachean ethics is a good place to start
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Thanks for posting that Kalosyni!
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I am sorry I am slow in reading the commentary but I will eventually get there. As to the Stoic assent issue, it seems to me that either in DeWitt or one of the commentaries I've read in the past, an analogy is made (by someone, can't remember who) between the "assent" issue and the Epicurean discussion of "phantastic" impressions. I know that DeWitt has a section on this but I don't think that's the only place I have read this.
I seem to also recall that the parallels or similarities are wrapped up in something else that we've not discussed very much, that the Stoics were in a way "materialists" too (perhaps in relation to sensation that is what I am remembering). There's a lot of confusing discussion in the commentaries about thought processes and how the mind "grasps" things, but I don't have any impression as to where Aristotle was on grasping /assent.
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Course Correction: We have just learned that Onenski can't attend for the next several Thursdays, so let's stay with Wednesdays for the time being.
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Thank you! And yes that Attalus site is excellent!
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This week (October 26th, 2022) will be our last Weekly Zoom meeting on a Wednesday, and we will finish up our discussion of the last Principal Doctrines.
Starting next week (November 3) we will move to Thursday night, and the main topic of each week will be those topics discussed in the preceeding Lucreius Today podcast.
Moving to Thursday will give us more time to get the podcast up and allow people to listen and be ready for the discussion on Thursday night. For those who aren't able to listen, we will have the show notes available for each episode and we'll cover the main topics of discussion there.
The main purpose of this change is to allow us to get more traction on the joint "project" that the Lucretius Today podcast represents. Now that we are going through DeWitt's "Epicurus And His Philosophy," what we are really in the progress of producing in the podcast is an up-to-date series of media presentations of the basic elements of Epicurean Philosophy. We will eventually put versions of this on youtube and it should become a major resource for outreach to newer students of Epicurus.
This is an important project and we need all the help we can get to produce a quality product. By discussing the topics on Thursday, in a wider group setting that is not recorded, we can produce new notes for the episode thread and even decide if they are additional points that need to be covered before we move forward.
Like Lucretius and Diogenes of Oinoanda, if we really take Epicurean philosophy to heart we need to find ways to share it with our circle of friends, and also find ways to widen that circle. Reviewing the podcast in the weeking discussion setting will help the podcasters sharpen their message and help us all work toward better material that we can share with others.
Please consider joining us in this effort.
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Happy birthday Joshua and happy birthday to Kalosyni too!
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Right. We can use that facility for everything except martins physical book idea - and we might even be able to use it for that.
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As to Goodreads perhaps we create an Epicurean section?
I am thinking that Martin is focused on the community-building aspects of person to person physical books, but Martin tell me if otherwise.
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Yes even though there are numbers of "grey market sites" where they can be downloaded, it's not a good idea to post here and be trading PDFs of modern works that we know to be in copyright, for which distribution would appear to be in violation of applicable laws.
In addition to books another difficult area is that of PDFs imprinted and downloaded from JSTOR, of which the status is not particularly clear but which seems likely to be controversial.
I think Martin's main idea here is that of person-to-person forwarding of hard-copy books as in the example in the photos.
Being one myself, I wonder if this is likely to appeal only to "Boomers," but that doesn't mean we should not do it. "We" (superannuated as "we" are) are probably the only ones who still have hard-copy libraries, and as we "age out" (when the play ceases to please us ) do we really want our books to end up at the local Thrift store when we are gone? Nope.
Death may be nothing to us but we need to make provisions for our Epicurean books!
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I was listening to the final product and caught Kalosyni's comment to the effect that a simple "atheist" perspective is not nearly sufficient as a full worldview. That's an important benefit that Epicurus can bring to people who know enough to reject supernatural religion, but who don't know where to go from there and think that Western philosophy offers them nothing. That's something that Nietsche pointed out - that until Christianity took over (like bad money drives out good), many of the greatest minds of Greece and Rome were Epicurean.
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Martin are you able to edit this page?
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We also have a page dedicated to the book here:
DeWitt (Norman) - "Epicurus And His Philosophy" - Epicureanfriends.comADMIN EDIT: Norman DeWitt's "Epicurus and His Philosophy" is available in PDF and EPUB format at various places around the internet, and is also available in…www.epicureanfriends.com -
A full preview of the entirely of chapter one of Epicurus and His Philosophy is available at Google Books here:
Epicurus and His Philosophybooks.google.com -
I fixed the extra attachment Martin.
Sounds like a great idea.
Possibly we ought to expand the list of exceptions so that it includes all books that are overtly modern politics so as to not violate our general forum rules, but in this case I would not consider it inappropriate to trade copies of books devoted to other philosophies or most amy other topic beyond what you listed.
Over the years I have had people send me books, and lent some from my library, and I think this is a great idea toward building community.
We can set up a table feature using the "lexicon" tool and allow all registered members of a certain level of participation to edit the list.
We can set that up and post a link here in the thread.
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Welcome to Episode One Hundred Forty-Six of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who wrote "On The Nature of Things," the only complete presentation of Epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world.
Each week we'll walk you through the ancient Epicurean texts, and we'll discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. If you find the Epicurean worldview attractive, we invite you to join us in the study of Epicurus at EpicureanFriends.com, where you will find a discussion thread for each of our podcast episodes and many other topics.
We're now in the process of a series of podcasts intended to provide a general overview of Epicurean philosophy based on the organizational structure employed by Norman DeWitt in his book "Epicurus and His Philosophy."
This week we take a look at the three major divisions of Epicurean philosophy. Now let's join the discussion:
Epicurus employed teaching devices which are important in understanding his philosophy.
- Setting The 'Attitude' or (diathesis, Greek). This device stresses at the very beginning the attitude to take toward the subject. For example, the Principal doctrines set the attitude to take toward gods, death, pleasure, and pain.
- Start With An 'Outline' or the 'Synoptic View.' This means starting with the 'big picture' before proceeding to detailed discussion of the finer points, so that the fine points are kept in perspective. Epicurus' teachings were therefore presented in order from the general to the particular.
- Physics:
- The first principles of Physics were presented as the Twelve Elementary Principles
- The First Epitome of Physics was the Letter to Herodotus
- The Second Epitome of Physics is what we have today as the material adapted into poem form in Lucretius On The Nature of Things.
- The Full presentation of Physics was the Thirty-Seven Books on Nature.
- Ethics:
- Ethical passages of 40 Doctrines
- Letter to Menoeceus
- Longer Works Now Lost.
- Canonics:
- Epistemological passages of 40 Doctrines
- Epistemological passages in “On the Nature of Things”
- The “Celestial Book” on Canonics now lost.
- Warning: View The Literature On Epicurus With Great Care
- Little remains of the trustworthy texts other than a small amount of original material from Epicurus, supplemented by the poem of Lucretius. The secondary literature is mostly hostile and cannot be received uncritically. Most modern scholars prefer to “hunt with the pack” and take the secondary literature at face value. This results in the greatly distorted picture of Epicurus dominant today.
- In separating out the false material it is useful to employ another device used by Epicurus: that of contrasting and opposing “True Opinions” against “False Opinions.”
- Physics:
We're starting a new series in the "Lucretius Today" podcast. We'll be going through Norman DeWitt's Book "Epicurus and His Philosophy" and working to provide a basic overview of the philosophy from the ground up. Our first installment - Episode 145 - The Philosophy of Epicurus - Part 1 - Chapter 1 of "Epicurus And His Philosophy" is now available:
Thanks for that Link. I need to explore what an "OpenAthens" account entails.
In the meantime here is one of his most significant articles, that serves as sort of a precursor to the book itself:
FileNorman DeWitt - Philosophy For The Millions (1947)
Norman DeWitt's 1947 article summarizing he significance of Epicurus and his philosophy.CassiusJuly 11, 2022 at 12:04 PM