Welcome Max Duboff

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    Welcome Max DuBoff

    There is one last step to complete your registration:

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    Please say "Hello" by introducing yourself, tell us what prompted your interest in Epicureanism and which particular aspects of Epicureanism most interest you, and/or post a question.

    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.

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    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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    Dear Cassius,

    I'm confirming that I registered for an account on Epicurean Friends. I mainly did so to let members of the community know about some scholarly articles I have forthcoming: one on why/how an Epicurean can die for a friend, and another on Epicurean approaches to sex. I'm also happy to provide some extra help with tracking down or translating sources if anyone needs; and I'd be happy to come on the podcast.

    Wishing you well--and major kudos on your work popularizing Epicureanism! (In addition to being a scholar of Epicureanism, I do consider myself an Epicurean.)

    Cheers,

    Max DuBoff

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    Thank you so much! Glad to be here. In addition to what I said to Cassius (posted above), I'll add that I found Epicureanism through general reading in classical philosophy, and I was attracted to it because of the focus on both theoretical and practical ethics. I was particularly interested in philosophical therapy (which also drew me to Marcus Aurelius at the time, though over time I've been less influenced by Marcus's philosophy, while still appreciating his style). I've seen posts from this community on Google searches a number of times over the years, and I've been consistently impressed by the focus on classical texts and perspectives.

    By the way, I might recommend Tim O'Keefe's Epicureanism book over DeWitt. Although DeWitt has some important merits, and can certainly provide a good introduction, one of my main complaints is his dismissal of later Epicureanism as derivative. I think that later Epicureanism was quite frequently innovative (not as different from Epicurus as, for example, later Stoics were from earlier ones; but still meaningfully different).

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    Thanks for the kind words Max and it's a pleasure to hear from you.

    No doubt you've been reading somewhat on the forum and you've seen that we are a somewhat "opinionated" website, actually trying to build a community true to the ancient model and not just trading information.

    In that regard I am very pleased to see the two articles you mentioned, and though I haven't had a chance to read them in full yet, they both seem to indicate a direction that would likely be consistent with what you'll find here. I think most of our participants would agree that "yes" Epicureans do engage in sex, and even marriage, and even having children, not a a universal rule but under the "right circumstances." And that we would do so, when those opportunities arise, because in fact our prime supreme goal is not in fact "Tranquility" but Pleasure, with tranquility being one pleasure - an an important one - but not the only pleasure or the highest, because pleasure includes all experience that is not painful, and that includes joy and delight as well as those that are more "stable." Most of us find it inconceivable that Epicurus would have provided in his will for female minors to be married to members of his school if he had thought he was sentencing them by necessity to a less than happy life.

    And likewise as to your article on dying for a friend, most all of us embrace that as well, not just because of the importance to be placed on friendship, as stated throughout the texts, and specifically stated to have been Epicurus's position by Diogenes Laertius, but again because our prime directive is NOT "Tranquility' but happiness based on pleasure, and we are not going to sentence ourselves to living on when the pain of not dying for that friend (again under the right circumstances) would be worse than living on.

    You're probably much more familiar with many of these issues than most of us are here, and I'm hopeful that you will be an "ally" on them ;)

    Another issue that's regularly debated in general circles is whether Epicurus was simply "covering himself" with his views on religion so he would not have to meet the end of Socrates. Again on that issue, our community takes Epicurus' views on divinity seriously, and while that doesn't fit neatly under the category of "atheist" it does rule out belief in supernatural forces or that there are supernatural gods who choose to favor some people and condemn others.

    It's both a privilege and a challenge to have someone like yourself here, because most of our new members have to wade through weeks or months or years to begin to see the importance of these issues, and you come to the table fully stocked - so to speak - with knowledge and opinions on these issues and more.

    I hope we can explore some of these issues here in this thread and that you'll let us know your thoughts on these and other key issues which academics have opinion back and forth for so many years.

    Again, thanks for taking an interest in the forum and we look forward to hearing more from you!

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    Thanks for this note, Cassius! Yes, I'm very glad for your opinionated-ness, as you put it. And I wanted to share my papers as part of that project: I'm very interested in your feedback (including objections), and I don't consider my interpretations of Epicurus to be the only plausible ones.

    I am a bit uncertain what you mean (both in this note and in some of the guiding posts on this site) in distinguishing tranquility from happiness or pleasure. Tranquility is a pleasure but not the only pleasure. At the same time (and here I'm wading into a perhaps controversial interpretation), tranquility is the only pleasure upon which blessedness, i.e., a perfect or complete life, is based.* I take this to be the straightforward reading of Letter to Menoeceus 128 and also to be clear from Principal Doctrines 3 and 20; if there were another pleasure that could improve tranquility, a human life could never be perfect/complete (PD 20), and it couldn't be the limit of the magnitude of pleasure (PD 3).

    Perhaps what you mean is that the absence of pain will not be experienced as simply an absence, both because it's itself good to experience, and because it'll almost always go along with a number of other pleasures. So tranquility is the goal of life, but we don't need to rule out everything else in order to focus on it. If that's what you mean, then yes, I agree.

    PD 20 is a lode star for my (sometimes controversial) interpretation; I take very seriously the argument that, for pleasure to ever be perfect, it must not be be additive. But if that's true, then the prime directive is tranquility.

    Great points about religion! Definitely with you on that; we need to take the gods seriously as exemplars of happiness, whether they literally exist or not. (And certainly they don't affect us no matter what.)

    More to say about death and sex/marriage, of course, but yes, I thought you'd be sympathetic to my general approach (as I am to yours).

    *I tend to refer to blessedness rather than happiness because "happiness" is quite nebulous. "Blessedness" is a bit nebulous too but at least connotes the life of the gods. By the way, I think Cicero's biggest mistake in On Moral Ends 2 is conflating the good with the goal of life; for Epicurus, there are goods which don't contribute to the goal of life.

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    Thanks Max. Here's one way to get at some of these issues:

    If there are only two feelings, pleasure and pain, which seems well established in the texts by Diogenes Laertius and by Torquatus in On Ends, then where does "Tranquility" fit into that scheme, and how would you say Epicurus defined tranquility?

    Of course we want to go to the texts and not to modern commentary, but the direction of this question goes toward the analysis of David Sedley in his "Inferential Foundations of Epicurean Ethics."

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    I'm not aware of the accepted interpretation of PD20. My personal understanding is that Epicurus is simply pointing out that every human life has a natural limit. If we understand that our lives are finite, then infinity becomes irrelevant and wishing for infinite time is an unnatural desire. In my mind this is a continuation and elaboration of PD19.

    Of course pondering infinity is a useful philosophical pursuit. But understanding that our lives are just little blips in time is key for a proper perspective of the limits of our lives. Particularly in a world with nothing supernatural and no afterlife.

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    (Sorry for the length of this. It grew in the telling, so to speak :))

    Again, welcome aboard our little boat here (in keeping with U163).

    Quote from Max DuBoff

    I might recommend Tim O'Keefe's Epicureanism book over DeWitt.

    DeWitt can also sometimes be a slog in his writing styel and I've stated elsewhere that I don't like his fondness for reading too much into scanty evidence. I use him sparingly myself, and I like his academic papers much more than Epicurus and His Philosophy. Throwing no shade on DeWitt's fans here, but I've always found him difficult to embrace. I give him 10/10 on his passion for Epicurus though!

    My go-to recommendation for anyone looking to delve into Epicureanism today as a lived philosophy is Dr. Emil Austin's Living for Pleasure. Hands down. That's my current top of the list for anyone curious about "What's this whole Epicurean thing about?" It was a pleasure getting to talk with her on the podcast.

    Thanks for the links to your papers. I found them interesting. I certainly agree that the ancient Epicureans had sex, and I liked your mentions of Epicureans' marriage and long-term relationships.

    One related thing that hit me very recently is that, upon reading Gedney's recent Substack post, he pointed out that Epicurus in his Will makes arrangements for the son and daughter of Metrodorus which means/implies that Epicurus was the one who had responsibility for the children so to be the one able to make this request. (The question remains: What happened to their mother? But a woman wouldn't have had "custody" in ancient Greece anyway) I don't mean to imply (necessarily) that Epicurus was playing tag with the kids when they were younger, but he seems to have had a custodial/in loco parentis relationship to these children. If he was helping to raise the children, it doesn't seem he'd disapprove of a relationship by which children come into the world.

    Quote from Max DuBoff

    Tranquility is a pleasure but not the only pleasure. At the same time (and here I'm wading into a perhaps controversial interpretation), tranquility is the only pleasure upon which blessedness, i.e., a perfect or complete life, is based.* (*I tend to refer to blessedness rather than happiness because "happiness" is quite nebulous. "Blessedness" is a bit nebulous too but at least connotes the life of the gods.)

    LOL I like your "perhaps" there...bring on the controversy as far as I'm concerned. Discussion engenders understanding.

    Quote from Max DuBoff

    if there were another pleasure that could improve tranquility, a human life could never be perfect/complete (PD 20), and it couldn't be the limit of the magnitude of pleasure (PD 3).

    To make sure I'm following your train and we're talking about the same things:

    • tranquility = ataraxia?
    • blessedness = makarios?
    • happiness = eudaimonia? (I personally like "well-being" rather than happiness)

    Would you say those line up generally (FULLY realizing there's never a one-to-one)?

    Let's see how far apart we actually are. I would agree that "tranquility" (to stick to English for a moment) is the foundation upon which a life of blessedness or happiness is built. I understand that ataraxia refers specifically (for Epicurus) to the absence (a-) of "disturbance" (tarakhe) in the mind caused by fear of the gods, anxiety about death, worry about having "enough" and what other people think, etc. To try to get a handle on this, I tried to go through and find all the occurrences of the word and variants in the ancient texts a while ago. I was surprised at how many times it comes up in the Letter to Herodotus, like " mental tranquillity means being released from all these troubles and cherishing a continual remembrance of the highest and most important truths." (10.82) So, if we free ourselves from those sources of pain, our minds/souls/heart/psykhe become a solid foundation upon which to build our well-being/blessedness. The seas calm, and we can sail our boat with confidence that we can weather any storm because we KNOW gut-level what really matters, how much we really need if worse comes to worst, and can effortlessly enjoy pleasures without frantically grasping for them, fighting for prestige, glamor, riches, fame, constant luxuries.

    It's not that other pleasures "improve" tranquility (ataraxia), it's that tranquility is the foundation by which other pleasures can be experienced as good unadulterated by fear, anxiety, disturbance.

    Letter to Menoeceus 128 is very important. Completely agree. Here's my translation so readers know to what we're referring:

    Quote from Letter to Menoikeus, Don (trans.)

    The steady contemplation of these things equips one to know how to decide all choice and rejection for the health of the body and for the tranquility of the mind, (that is for our physical and our mental existence), since this is the goal of a blessed life. For the sake of this (i..e.,the health of the body and for the tranquility of the mind), we do everything in order to neither be in bodily or mental pain nor to be in fear or dread; and so, when once this has come into being around us, it sets free all of the calamity, distress, and suffering of the mind, seeing that the living being has no need to go in search of something that is lacking for the good of our mental and physical existence. For it is then that we need pleasure, if we were to be in pain from the pleasure not being present; but if we were to not be in pain, we no longer desire or beg for pleasure. And this is why we say pleasure is the foundation (arkhe) and fulfillment (telos) of the blessed life.

    So, I read the "goal (telos) of a blessed life" is BOTH the health of the body and the tranquility of the mind (ἐπὶ τὴν τοῦ σώματος ὑγίειαν καὶ τὴν <τῆς ψυχῆς> ἀταραξίαν). Plus pleasure is the foundation and fulfillment again because there are only two feelings, and we eliminate those sources of pain that we are able to. We seek for pleasure as the foundation (the cradle analogy) and, when we eliminate pains, pleasure fills our blessed life to the brim.

    I will add that Diogenes Laertius says that the Epicureans believed there were "Two sorts of happiness (eudaimonia) can be conceived, the one the highest possible, such as the gods enjoy, which cannot be augmented, the other admitting addition and subtraction of pleasures." To me, this implies that the "highest well-being/happiness" is only enjoyed by the gods. We mortals, while being able to approximate the blessed life of the gods will always have a well-being that can be augmented by addition and subtraction of pleasures.

    Quote from Max DuBoff

    it couldn't be the limit of the magnitude of pleasure (PD 3).

    PD3 doesn't say The limit of "tranquility" is the removal of all pains. It says the limit of pleasure is the removal all pain. I won't belabor this, but if there are only two feelings - pleasure and pain - if all of one is removed, you're left with the other.

    I don't believe you can read the PDs in isolation. The original text didn't have versification, so I encourage people to read "units" so to speak. I believe PD20 needs to be read in the context of PD19, 20, 21, and 22. "Finite time and infinite time contain the same amount of pleasure (τὴν ἡδονὴν)... The flesh assumes that the limits of pleasure (ἡδονῆς) are infinite, and that infinite joy can be produced only through infinite time...You must reflect on the fundamental goal and everything that is clear, to which opinions are referred; if you do not, all will be full of trouble and confusion." To me, this again is hammering home the two feelings - pleasure and pain. Pleasure is not infinite because its limit is the removal of all pain. Again, one is banished, the other one fills that void. There's no vacuum in the feelings. We can feel pleasure (positive affect) or pain (negative affect) when we're alive. There is no neutral state per Epicurus and it seems modern neuropsychology.

    Okay, I've rambled on long enough for now. Look forward to discussion from all.

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