Should Epicurean Philosophy Be Made More Accessable?

    I found this article and wanted to share. This platform is clearly for highly literate people...and the 2 percent also need to have enough free time to enjoy the resources here.


    There is so much good stuff here, and interesting exchanges that I want to post comments on....plus my own thoughts and questions...and yet life calls me to other fun projects and activities.


    If anyone is wondering why there are so few people actively engaging, this could be why. Any individual who is curious to study Epicureanism is in the top 2 percent reading literacy level. Many people will never encounter Epicurean philosophy simply because they can't. (This article breaks down the five levels of literacy and what kind of competency each possesses).


    Should Epicurean philosophy be made more accessible?



    What’s the latest U.S. literacy rate?
    Can they read you now? Half of Americans have basic or below-basic skills.
    www.wyliecomm.com

    I don't know about the percentages, but I think you bring up an important point, Kalosyni. I personally plan to put a good deal of effort into understanding EP, and I've only begun. I can already see how incredibly much value there is in this philosophy, but with my brief introduction so far, it is obvious there is a LOT to figure out and understand. And there are those who will put in the time, and who have the ability to digest and work with this complex material. But those are few.


    I doubt this philosophy was so wildly successful for 7 centuries without being able to be presented in simpler form, easy to understand and remember (of course from there, individuals could continue to learn more as they were motivated, but most folks then and now would only dive in if initial content made sense and drew one in to learn more).


    If only we had more of the original content! Some of this must surely have existed. Since we don't have that (and even any we might have already or will yet find would have been prepared for presentation to ancient cultures, not to people in our modern world), I agree it would seem worthwhile today to develop basic materials that make this philosophy engaging and accessible to as wide an audience as reasonably possible.


    (How are our finances? Do we have enough to engage a top tier marketing/promotions firm to develop and deploy the content? :/ :D )

    Quote from Scott

    I doubt this philosophy was so wildly successful for 7 centuries without being able to be presented in simpler form, easy to understand and remember

    Absolutely!! Wired has YouTube videos where an expert explains a complex topic in 5 levels of detail to different ages:

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    We should be able to explain Epicurean philosophy in the same way. Epicureanism spread throughout the Hellenistic world not because there were so many scholars but because it appealed to such a wide swath of society. Some had deeper understanding than others, but the "basics" could be grasped by anyone, and the summaries and epitomes like the Principal Doctrines were memory aids.

    Quote from Scott

    If only we had more of the original content! Some of this must surely have existed.

    Oh, I bemoan this all the time! ;( Epicurus alone wrote over 300 works. Another early Epicurean, Apollodorus, is said to have written 400 works. And that's just 2 and not mentioning Philodemus even!!

    Quote from Scott

    (How are our finances? Do we have enough to engage a top tier marketing/promotions firm to develop and deploy the content? :/ :D )

    LOL :D No wealthy benefactors here.


    Good post, Scott . Thanks!

    Quote from Scott

    (How are our finances? Do we have enough to engage a top tier marketing/promotions firm to develop and deploy the content?

    Ha! We can pay the server bills but hard to say we have many resources beyond that!



    Quote from Scott

    I doubt this philosophy was so wildly successful for 7 centuries without being able to be presented in simpler form, easy to understand and remember

    Yes I agree with that too. Trying to help people with that was and is also a part of the reason for this section of the forum: Personal Outlines of Epicurean Philosophy


    I think we found it pretty useful and we had a number of people participate when we first put it up, but over time and after the first rush it hasn't been as well used. It would be fun if some of the newer people who haven't yet tried it also take a stab at it.


    I can't remember where at the moment, but in terms of Epicurean philosophy being relatively easy and straightforward, Cicero made that point a number of times. This graphic isn't exactly it, but I think his exact quote on it being easy is somewhere nearby:




    And really, truthfully it IS easy, and it DOES all follow from the basic principles of physics and epistemology, as Lucretius observes several times. From the 12 fundamentals of physics it is directly derivable that there is nothing eternal except matter and void, and when you apply that directly to "Is there an eternal soul?" "Is there a supernatural god?" "Are there eternal standards of absolute virtue?" even a child could deduce NO! NO! NO!


    I know that I am terribly unfair to the dead horse but I keep beating him anyway because it's so important. The main complexity in Epicurus is more the upside-down perspective on ethics that the Stoicizers from Cicero to Okeefe keep arguing. They've confused everybody into thinking:


    "Epicurus didn't mean what he said about pleasure" and thereby into thinking that:


    "We can ignore issues of consistency; Epicurus may have preached Pleasure over and over and over, but when it comes down to it, Epicurus adopted a totally inconsistent viewpoint on the place of active pleasure in life!"


    And even worse, they talk and act as if the Epicurean physics was nothing but a novelty not worth spending time on today, when it truth the basic principles of atomism and eternal in time / infinite in space universe were the direct supports for the argument that supernatural gods and fate do not exist.


    They rip the heart out of the ethics and make it neo-Stoicism, and rip the heart of the physics and make it irrelevant -- little wonder that people today find it confusing to read Epicurus! But the fault is ours, not Epicurus's.

    Thanks for posting this food for thought, Kalosyni ! Those are valuable points to ponder. As I mentioned in reply to Scott , we should be able to explain the basics of the philosophy to a child.

    But that begs the question: Even if we could explain it have basic intros, how to get them in front of people's eyes?

    The philosophy has to be accessible in more ways than one, that's for sure: able to be understood & able to be obtained!

    Quote from Don

    we should be able to explain the basics of the philosophy to a child.

    And we should be ashamed not to have learned these basics as children, per the point made by Torquatus in Book One of On Ends.

    Quote from Don

    But that begs the question: Even if we could explain it have basic intros, how to get them in front of people's eyes?

    At least a part of that answer is social media, at least as long as it is freely accessible and relatively free of censorship.

    Quote from Don

    Even if we could explain it have basic intros, how to get them in front of people's eyes?

    Right! And not only get it in front of eyes, but ...it must GRAB you. One can't simply produce good information/explanations. One needs "hooks" to be "fishers of men"! (if I may steal a quote from a different philosopher) :)

    I feel like I want to thoroughly understand the ethics of Epicureanism before I start "proselytizing"... :)


    But eventually I could create a very simple "zine" format presenting the Epicurean philosophy which could be left in "progressive" coffeehouses and also given to one's friends that one knows are "free-thinkers".


    There was an "anarchist" coffeehouse here in Eugene, but I don't know if it is still open. Probably also someplaces in Portland. Plus also the "ecstatic dance" community (though it's been a while since I participated in that and it has just barely reopened again).


    The zine would just be an 8-1/2" x 11" piece of paper that is folded, and anyone could download it and print copies.

    I was pretty OK with the "progressives" and "freethinkers", but if we get too many "anarchists" and "ecstatic dancers" we may have to stsrt worrying about our reputstion with the Stoics! :)

    It just occurred to me...I wonder how many people in the U.S. would actually identify at a "free thinker"?

    I am admittedly losing my grip on popular culture more everyday, but it is my understanding that "freethinker" is still an identifiable term as referring to having an open mind about whether there is a god (and thinking probably not) so I would bet that that is a term a significant number of people consider themselves to be.

    I like to be clear that I don't represent or think that I have all the answers either, but there are some things I do like to strongly assert:


    1. That Epicurus was attempting to be absolutely consistent from bottom to top of his philosophy. In other words, I think he did his best to make his ethics (which seems to be the focus of this current conversation) as consistent with his physics and his epistemology as possible.
    2. That means that any interpretation of Epicurus' ethics which would appear to conflict with Epicurus' physics and epistemology is not likely to be a correct interpretation of what he actually taught.
    3. That his physics established without room for doubt (in his system) that:
      1. There are no supernatural gods or other forces.
      2. There is no "fate" either supernatural based or through hard determinism in physics (because of the swerve)
      3. There is no life after death (there is no immortal soul; mortal cannot unite with immortal; etc) which means we only have one life to live.
      4. There is no absolute virtue or eternal "concepts" of any kind (because there is nothing eternal in the universe except the atoms, which means that there are no eternal combinations that could form a basis for anything absolute; and because there is no "center" to the universe from which there could be a single perspective by which to judge all others; because there is no supernatural god whose perspective could be deemed to be the only correct one, etc.)
    4. That his epistemology establishes without room for doubt (in his system) that:
      1. The senses are the ultimate foundation for all reasoning that can be deemed to be correct.
      2. That there is ultimately no standard for "good" except pleasure and no standard for "bad" except pain.
      3. That knowledge we can have confidence in is possible in many things, even in some important things that we can't observe directly, such as items 1-4 above. However omniscience about everything we might like to speculate about is not possible and not therefore we can't hold our own conclusions up to a standard of omniscience.


    So I would argue that any conclusions that we would come to about Epicurus' ethics have to be tested against those basic ideas about the universe and about how we ascertain knowledge.. If the assertion about the ethical conclusion appears to flow from these premises then that understanding of Epicurus' ethics is likely accurate to what he actually taught. If assertion about the ethical conclusion appears to conflict with these premises, then it's unlikely to be a correct interpretation of what Epicurus taught.


    Obviously this kind of analysis isn't foolproof, but I do think Epicurus did his best to tie everything into a coherent whole, so it's a good place to start, and a good way to check the assertions of the commentators. And that's one benefit of new people starting with DeWitt - he does a good job of covering both physics and epistemology and doesn't lead the reader to think that Epicurus' ethics are the only important thing about his system.


    And this is why it seems to me that I observe the commentators who have the least interest in Epicurus' physics and epistemology seem to go furthest astray from a plausible reconstruction of Epicurus' ethics. That's why we've spent a lot of effort over the last two years going over Lucretius, and why as soon as we finish discussing the Torquatus material on the podcast I'd like to see us go back and cover the Letters to Herodotus and to Pythocles before we tackle the letter to Menoeceus.

    Quote from Don
    Quote from Kalosyni

    The zine would just be an 8-1/2" x 11" piece of paper that is folded, and anyone could download it and print copies.

    Hmmm... An 8-page zine... Wheels are turning...

    Okay, so here's my quick rough draft of a basic outline of what could be covered in an 8-page zine from a folded 8.5x11 paper. Each page would need illustrations and be eye-catching. In any case, for your consideration:

    1 General invitation/intro/cover

    2 Who is Epicurus?

    3 Living in a material world (physics, atoms and void, etc)

    4 Knowing what you know (Canon, evidence from senses)

    5 Choosing the best life (Ethics, personal responsibility)

    6 If it feels good, consider the consequences (all pleasure feels good, some pleasures aren't chosen)

    7 Epicureanism vs Stoicism

    8 Where do I find more information?

    That looks like a great outline Don!


    I was thinking about a new thread to make this point but I'll make it here. All this work is a team effort and we all have different interests and capabilities. Something like this requires not just writing skill but art skill, and area where I am woefully deficient (among many others).


    I hope every time someone reads a thread and someone is proposing something that if they have a talent that would help they will volunteer without waiting for an invitation. There's not a lot of "pride of ownership" here among our creators and I have never seen someone turn down help when offered. Epicurean philosophy is a huge project which requires teamwork if we're to make the kind of progress that's possible.