Post-show notes:
On the meaning of the word eudaimonia, from Wikipedia article, which contains entries on Classical/Hellenistic philosophical understanding of the word.
Eudaimonia (Greek: εὐδαιμονία [eu̯dai̯moníaː]; sometimes anglicized as eudaemonia or eudemonia, /juːdɪˈmoʊniə/) is a Greek word literally translating to the state or condition of 'good spirit', and which is commonly translated as 'happiness' or 'welfare'.
Episode 134 - The Letter to Menoeceus 01 - Context and Opening - is now available. This week Kalosyni joins the panel and we begin the Letter to Menoeceus.
This letter is so important we need maximum time for reflection and comment! 
The word used in the first section is φιλοσοφείν , the infinitive of the verb φιλοσοφέω 'philosopheō'
The word literally is composed of:
φίλος philos φιλιά philia "love/friendship" (deeper than this but we'll let it stand for now)
+
σοφια sophia "wisdom"
Philos/philia is the same component in Philadelphia "love + brotherly"
As well as things like anglophile "England-love"
& philanthropy "love (of) human beings ('anthropoi')"
Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, φι^λί-α
The word philia has more of a connotation of friendly love, affection, friendship, distinct from ἔρως erōs "erotic, romantic love"
So, to be philosopheō had the sense to me if having an affection for wisdom, being close friends with wisdom.
And here are the definitions of sophia:
σοφία
1. skill in handicraft and art, Il., Xen., etc.:— ς. τινός or περί τινος knowledge of, acquaintance with a thing, Plat.
2. sound judgment, intelligence, practical wisdom, such as was attributed to the Seven Wise men, Theogn., Hdt.; in not so good a sense, cunning, shrewdness, craft, like δεινότης, Hdt.
GREAT episode! I even stayed up late listening 
Excellent thought-provoking, conversation! Well done!!
Always for a Tolkien meme 
So... "All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us." Gandalf (JRR Tolkien), The Fellowship of the Ring.
One thing I wish I had commented on more emphatically was when Joshua responded to Kalosyni's point about happiness.
At 15:30 Kalosyni says "Everyone knows what happiness is - that it's a feeling."
At 16:20 in part of his response Joshua says "Epicurus says the feelings are two - pleasure and pain."
Joshua didn't pursue that particular point further, but I don't think we can hammer it hard enough:
In the Epicurean worldview, Nature gives us only TWO faculties by which to determine what to choose and avoid, pleasure and pain. There are only TWO feelings - pleasure and pain. And that means that if something is a feeling - if something can be felt - then it is either pleasure or pain, one of the two most comprehensive and basic categories.
And that means that since happiness can be felt, happiness is a pleasure, "by definition." It's not the other way around - pleasure is not properly thought of as being "a happiness." Pleasure is the wider and most basic category, not happiness.
So when the word happiness is used, the Epicurean context demands that happiness be understood as a form of pleasure, not pleasure as a form of happiness.
I think if we keep that hiearachy in mind and apply it rigorously its much easier to avoid the pitfalls of weird definitions of happiness which are not "feelings" at all.
So, both Kalosyni and Joshua are right, depending on one's perspective.
That wording reminds me of how big an issue "perspective" is in Epicurean philosophy. Over the years so many times I see people bounce between "All truth is absolute" and the go for "objective-ism" and then others will bounce to "absolutely nothing is absolute and absolutely everything is "relative."
A lot of the key to Epicurus I think is getting a more firm grip on this issue. Yes our "perspective" is a huge determinant of what is "true" in many situations, but in others (our perspective on a train coming down the track toward us) our perspective is really of very little relevance.
So neither extreme of relativism or absolutism is correct, but on the other hand it doesn't help much to say that the truth is "in the middle." The "truth" has to come from understanding our makeup as humans and evaluating exactly what is and is not relevant to us. And those are questions that can't be answered without the information that the Epicurean physics and epistemology gives to us.
So neither extreme of relativism or absolutism is correct, but on the other hand it doesn't help much to say that the truth is "in the middle."
Oh, I wasn't even going the absolute/relative track in my mind. I just meant that one "feels" eudaimonia. And eudaimonia is, by definition, a pleasurable feeling.
You're going deeper than I was
This is a fabulous podcast and post discussion. It helps put into context what happiness is. Thank you. I'll be playing this podcast for our philosophy group next Thursday.
This is a fabulous podcast and post discussion. It helps put into context what happiness is. Thank you. I'll be playing this podcast for our philosophy group next Thursday.
Given the topic of this episode, you may be interested in my deep dive into the letter:
Thank you for the kind words GnothiSeauton and hope you find it useful!
Don, what a remarkable piece of work you have accomplished. Your explanation of the problems concerning translation bring into focus for me a more contemporary work of literature, Arthur Rimbaud's poetry. Originally written in French, his poems lose their power when one stumbles through them in English despite the best efforts of the translator (Wallace Fowlie). Your passion for embracing the original Greek reminds me that in order to truly understand the ancient wisdom available to us, one must dive into the original.
GnothiSeauton Thanks for the kind words.
If you poke around the forum or stick around a while (hope you do), you'll see me jump on the "but what does the original text say!" soapbox fairly often
We had our philosophy evening last Thursday and used a portion of this podcast as a discussion point. It went really well. Fortunately, we had in attendance, Mark, the young man who first introduced me to Epicurus as a counterpoint to Stoicism. He had a solid understanding of Epicurus and shared it with the group, helping to inspire a number of interesting questions/discussions. However, despite my best efforts (and our group guidelines) to keep folks focused on the philosophy, we had a couple participants who wanted to argue about its merits and connect it with contemporary society. People appear to be trained these days to lead with judgement rather than curiosity.
One particular point of contention regarded the avoidance of sexual relations. We emphasized that the principal should be seen today as a note of caution to be recognized (as opposed to dogma) as a number of participants agreed that sexual encounters had indeed ended up causing a lot of anxiety and loss of friendship in their lives.
We regained our focus by explaining that Epicurean thought is not a rigid list of laws enforced by some kind of authority (police force - their term), but rather guidelines to help one seek a pleasureful life no matter their position in society. Did we get this right?
I was reminded by the guidelines here to avoid argumentation regarding virtues, political positions, etc. It's a tough standard, but one that is essential if a group ever expects to engage in an enlightened conversation with the intent of understanding philosophy.
Looking forward to using more of the material from this site for future discussions. Thanks again for putting so much work into this valuable resource.
Thanks for letting us know about that GnothiSeauton, and I hope your post here will spur lots of discussion. And more thoughts from you on it as well.
The issue of how to deal with people who have firm pre-existing ideas about what Epicurean philosophy is all about, when those ideas turn out in fact to be an eclectic blend of Stoicism, Buddhism, humanism, and general "virtue-based-ethics," is never going to go away.
Those who are committed to those viewpoints don't understand that they are not Epicurean, and they are unlikely to be interested in changing them. As pointed out in A Few Days In Athens, argument over core ideas accomplishes little but disruption and bad feelings.
What we have tried to do here on the forum is be straightforward at the very beginning about core controversial issues. Hopefully no one who glances over the opening page or the new member materials will have any illusions - IF they read them.
The idea of any effort to force people to hold ideas with which they disagree would be absolutely anti-Epicurean, but at the same time freedom of thought doesn't mean that we have to ignore the thoughts of those who want to participate. There are many fundamental points of Epicurean philosophy involving controversial issues of determinism, skepticism, and the nature of what "absence of pain" really means that are non-negotiable if you're going to have a truly "Epicurean" group.
One point I always make is that there are plenty of other places on the internet, or meetup groups in the world, for those who want to study Buddhism or Stoicism or just want to do general riffing because they love to talk philosophy of any kind. It's my experience that trying to work with people who are commited to a generalist / eclectic / anything-goes approach rarely leads to anything truly beneficial and never lasts for long.
Every person and group has to decide for himself with whom they want to interact, but I think it's essential to have boundaries, and to be up-front and honest about where those boundaries are.
Here at the forum we have put a lot of time into refining our front page, our member rules documents, and our welcome messages about where those boundaries are. Those are there because it's a fact of life that Stoicism and Buddhism and humanism are much more popular than reading closely what Epicurus really wrote. And it's a fact of life that the prevailing view is that Epicurus was basically a Stoic or Buddhist who used different terminology. Therefore anyone who sets up any kind of "Epicurean" public endeavor has to expect that many who ask to participate are going to hold attitudes that are deadly to a "truly" Epicurean project.
So the first and most important comment I have is that your experiences are problems that we'll always be dealing with, but the rewards are worth dealing with them.
