June 8, 2022 Epicurean Zoom Gathering

    New folks are welcome to drop in to our next Open Invitation Epicurean Zoom, Wednesday evening, June 8th, at 8:30 ET!

    We start out each meeting by going "around the table" and giving an opportunity for each participant to introduce themselves as they wish, such as a brief reference to previous background, level of interest in Epicurus, or current areas of study within Epicureanism.

    This week we will discuss PD 6 & 7.

    PD06. Whatever you can provide yourself with to secure protection from men is a natural good. [see note below]

    PD07. Some men wished to become famous and conspicuous, thinking that they would thus win for themselves safety from other men. Wherefore if the life of such men is safe, they have obtained the good which nature craves; but if it is not safe, they do not possess that for which they strove at first by the instinct of nature.

    *Note: The translation given is by Eugene O’Connor from “The Essential Epicurus.” Bailey: “To secure protection from men anything is a natural good by which you may be able to attain this end.” New Greek Version: “In order to obtain security from other people, there was (always) the natural good of sovereignty and kingship, through which (someone) once could have accomplished this.”

    You can find the link to join the zoom here:

    Epicurean Open Invitation Zoom - Wednesday 8:30pm EDT
    Epicurean Open Invitation Zoom - Wednesday nights at 8:30pm EDT
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    I wanted to share with you a few links that give me a lot of pleasure.

    I was always desiring to learn more about antiquity and especially the relation between history and the way of thinking. Each philosopher is a child of his time, so to understand him you need to know about his time.

    A great gift are a lot of the courses of Wondrium, and not alone those about Antiquity. You find there introductions to Greek and Roman history and Culture, but also more specialized courses like the one on Pompeii, with a class completely dedicated to the Villa of the Papyrus and the Epicurean library. Each course consists mostly of 24 classes of half an hour. Most professors are quite good, and some are amazing. They al have a course book that you can download, and the level is quite gentle. It is a pleasure to listen to. The price for access to all the course at once is about 20 $ a moth (year plan around 10 $ a month first year). Also in the Physics Section there are some good courses about the philosophical implication of modern physics (like the vacuum flickering that mentioned somebody in the post about Parmenides: matter and anti-matter as a couple can appear from nothing, contradicting apparently Parmenides).

    Included in the package are two very good introductory courses of Ancient Greek and Latin of professor Mueller.

    A somewhat more serious free course is Introduction to Ancient Greek History of the famous Yale professor Donald Kagan. It stops just when Epicurus appears.

    The most amazing internet thing is Philosophy without any Gaps of the British expert in the the history of philosophy Peter Adams. A series of high level postcasts about most ancient philosophers that are known (still in construction, now till the 16th Centuries. There are also interviews with important specialists

    Another incredible free tool is the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

    One of the ways to feel pleasure is sharing.