Welcome Ontologix!

Welcome ontologix

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This forum is the place for students of Epicurus to coordinate their studies and work together to promote the philosophy of Epicurus. Please remember that all posting here is subject to our Community Standards and associated Terms of Use. Please be sure to read that document to understand our ground rules.

Please understand that the leaders of this forum are well aware that many fans of Epicurus may have sincerely-held views of what Epicurus taught that are incompatible with the purposes and standards of this forum. This forum is dedicated exclusively to the study and support of people who are committed to classical Epicurean views. As a result, this forum is not for people who seek to mix and match Epicurean views with positions that are inherently inconsistent with the core teachings of Epicurus.

All of us who are here have arrived at our respect for Epicurus after long journeys through other philosophies, and we do not demand of others what we were not able to do ourselves. Epicurean philosophy is very different from most other philosophies, and it takes time to understand how deep those differences really are. That's why we have membership levels here at the forum which allow for new participants to discuss and develop their own learning, but it's also why we have standards that will lead in some cases to arguments being limited, and even participants being removed, when the purposes of the community require it. Epicurean philosophy is not inherently democratic, or committed to unlimited free speech, or devoted to any other form of organization other than the pursuit of truth and happy living through pleasure as explained in the principles of Epicurean philosophy.

One way you can be assured of your time here will be productive is to tell us a little about yourself and your background in reading Epicurean texts. It would also be helpful if you could tell us how you found this forum, and any particular areas of interest that you already have.

You can also check out our Getting Started page for ideas on how to use this website.

We have found over the years that there are a number of key texts and references which most all serious students of Epicurus will want to read and evaluate for themselves. Those include the following.

"Epicurus and His Philosophy" by Norman DeWitt

The Biography of Epicurus by Diogenes Laertius. This includes the surviving letters of Epicurus, including those to Herodotus, Pythocles, and Menoeceus.

"On The Nature of Things" - by Lucretius (a poetic abridgement of Epicurus' "On Nature"

"Epicurus on Pleasure" - By Boris Nikolsky

The chapters on Epicurus in Gosling and Taylor's "The Greeks On Pleasure."

Cicero's "On Ends" - Torquatus Section

Cicero's "On The Nature of the Gods" - Velleius Section

The Inscription of Diogenes of Oinoanda - Martin Ferguson Smith translation

A Few Days In Athens" - Frances Wright

Lucian Core Texts on Epicurus: (1) Alexander the Oracle-Monger, (2) Hermotimus

Philodemus "On Methods of Inference" (De Lacy version, including his appendix on relationship of Epicurean canon to Aristotle and other Greeks)

"The Greeks on Pleasure" -Gosling & Taylor Sections on Epicurus, especially the section on katastematic and kinetic pleasure which explains why ultimately this distinction was not of great significance to Epicurus.

It is by no means essential or required that you have read these texts before participating in the forum, but your understanding of Epicurus will be much enhanced the more of these you have read. Feel free to join in on one or more of our conversation threads under various topics found throughout the forum, where you can to ask questions or to add in any of your insights as you study the Epicurean philosophy.

And time has also indicated to us that if you can find the time to read one book which will best explain classical Epicurean philosophy, as opposed to most modern "eclectic" interpretations of Epicurus, that book is Norman DeWitt's Epicurus And His Philosophy.

(If you have any questions regarding the usage of the forum or finding info, please post any questions in this thread).

Welcome to the forum!

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Care Cassi

i have been an admirer of Epicure for over 60 years. His teachings changed my life.

I am a retired teacher of Latin and am familiar with Titus Lucretius Carus.

Years ago I attended a seminar on Epikuros at the university of Munich. Petrarca's essay on Epikuros was unknown to the organisers.

I had found it somewhere in the internet. It is in Latin and about a page long. Petrarca correctly outlines some principles of Epicure's teachings. At the end however he felt obliged to state that all this was wrong. Well, he obviously had to.

The essay is in Latin and i translated it into German. But this was long ago.

It seems to me that Petrarca was the first rediscoverer of Epikuros after the dark ages.

Thank you for running this admirable page.

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Ontologix I take it your first language is German so this question may not apply, but as you are a Latin teacher, do you have a favorite English translation of Lucretius?

ontologix

I took the liberty of pasting here your response to my post 6 above (which you wrote on my wall). Unfortunately the forum software does not do a good job of searching walls when someone is looking for something, and I want your very interesting post to be findable. Thanks for the reply!

Quote from Ontologix on Cassius' Wall

Yes, my first language is German. No, I do not have a favourite English translation of Lucretius. I read Lucretius either in German or in the Latin original which is not als difficult to read as e.g. Livius or Tacitus.

There are two translations of Lucretius into German. Both are by a publisher called Reclam, one in West Germany and the other in former East Germany.

I do not like the older West German translation. The title "Die Welt aus Atomen" (The World Made of Atoms") is misleading because Epicure was an atomist but not only an atomist, by far not. Also the translation is not so easy to read stylistically.

The East German translation in the Aufbau-Verlag is much more readable and also the title is much more appropriate "Vom Wesen des Weltalls" (On the Nature of the Universe) This is suprising since Latin was practically not taught in East German secondary schools.

Epicure was a favourite with East German ideologues since he was rightly seen by Marxists as one of the precursors of Marx whose doctoral thesis was on The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature.

After the fall of the Berlin wall everything East German was sold off at ridiculously low prices and I bought a heap of their Lucretius edition and gave them to my students.

So, I am afraid, I do not know any English translations of Lucretius.

What I may add is my gratitude to Cicero whom we owe the edition of Lucretius' poem although Cicero, a devotee to the Academy, was anything but a follower of Epicure. Materialist thinking was definitely not Cicero's cup of tea. Without Cicero's edition however Lucretius' whole poem might have been lost.

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ontologix

Also, I find it interesting that we have what is probably a disproportionately large number of native Germans here on the forum, and that prompts me to ask something else:

By no means all, but a significant number, of people I have run into who are fans of Epicurus are also fans of Nietzsche. I know Nietzsche had some negative things to say about Epicurus, but especially in "AntiChrist" he also spoke positively. Given that you are German I am curious about your views of the intersection (or lack thereof) between Epicurus and Nietzsche. And do not be concerned that you will offend anyone regardless of your views because we have people on all sides of how to appraise Nietzsche.

I know this is a deep subject so of course feel free to respond as fully or as briefly as you like.

On the hedonism question, we've recently gone over what Cicero reports Zeno the Epiurean was teaching about Epicurus in his time (Tusculan Disputations, Part 3 Section XVII):

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Do I explain your opinion rightly? for your disciples are used to deny that we understand at all what Epicurus means. This is what he says, and what that subtle fellow, old Zeno, who is one of the sharpest of them, used, when I was attending lectures at Athens, to enforce and talk so loudly of; saying that he alone was happy who could enjoy present pleasure, and who was at the same time persuaded that he should enjoy it without pain, either during the whole or the greatest part of his life; or if, should any pain interfere, if it was very sharp, then it must be short; should it be of longer continuance, it would have more of what was sweet than bitter in it; that whosoever reflected on these things would be happy, especially if satisfied with the good things which he had already enjoyed, and if he were without fear of death, or of the Gods. You have here a representation of a happy life according to Epicurus, in the words of Zeno, so that there is no room for contradiction in any point.

We talk frequently here about the issue of how Epicurus advised the fine-tuning of luxuries, but as in your earlier comments Ontologix I would say that the standard label of Epicurus as "atomist" is far to restrictive, as are the standard views that he was either a pursuer of food that was either primarily luxurious or primarily simple.

The way that Zeno characterizes the main point seems to me to be authoritative and focuses properly on the most important issues. Zeno doesn't fine-tune our tastes as ends in themselves, but seems to focus on enjoying a life in which we have a general level of confidence about core goals. Those goals that Zeno lists are that physical and mental pleasures will predominate over pains, that we appreciate what we have without obsessing over the shortness of life, and that there are neither any supernatural gods to threaten us nor life after death in which we are punished or rewarded.

I personally don't like the term "hedonist" either. As best I can tell the ancient Epicureans identified themselves as "Epicureans," not "hedonists," because Epicurean philosophy is much more subtle and wide-ranging than what the term "hedonist" evokes.

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The problem lies with Nietzsche who wrote on a wide variety of questions without having a clearly defined system.

Yes that's a big problem in saying anything definitive about Nietzsche!