Posts by Cassius

Quote from EyalA

Essentially, the Epicurean would argue that selective rejection of struggle isn’t life-denying but life-enhancing. The key difference is that Nietzsche sees the act of struggling itself as inherently valuable, while Epicurus sees struggle as a tool to be used wisely, only when it serves greater happiness.

Yes i think that's correct, and epicurus would say that it's wrong to put the cart before the horse by elevating the means to the end.

I would say Epicurus is being more consistent by defining happiness as the goal and remaining consistent that all tools are subservient to the goal.

Where we won't find much help from Nietzsche or Epicurus' detractors, and where we have to look to the Epicurean texts, is in seeing that pleasure and happiness are in no way an equivalent to passivity and inaction, as Epicurus' detractors claim. Cassius Longinus and Torquatus and other Epicureans of Cicero's period (and I cite those only because we have the best records of them) would have labored under no illusion that Epicurean philosophy is necessarily "soft." Epicurean philosophy has always been recognized as morally revolutionary, and "soft" people don't launch revolutions - they go along to get along.

This is a recurring argument against Epicurean ethics, so I wanted to make sure we had a thread on where to find instances of it:

Cicero argues against Epicurus on the distinction between the good of an animal and the good of a human being in several of his works. Here are the relevant references:

1. De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum (On the Ends of Good and Evil)
   • Book I, Sections 29-30: Cicero challenges the Epicurean idea that pleasure is the highest good and argues that human beings have a higher nature than animals.
   • Book II, Sections 12-15: He critiques the Epicurean view that human beings begin life seeking pleasure in the same way as animals and questions whether this is sufficient for defining human good.
   • Book V, Sections 23-25: Cicero, through the character of Piso, refutes the idea that human good can be reduced to pleasure, emphasizing the role of reason and virtue.
2. Tusculanae Disputationes (Tusculan Disputations)
   • Book V, Sections 76-77: Cicero distinguishes between human and animal pleasures, arguing that reason elevates humans beyond the mere pursuit of bodily pleasure.
3. De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods)
   • Book I, Section 41: He critiques the Epicurean notion that gods exist in a state of perfect pleasure, drawing a parallel to how animals and humans conceive of the good differently.

This also appears in Aristotle:

Aristotle, EN I .5 1095b19-20 (Cf. Heraclitus frr. 4 and 29, and Plato, Rep. 586 a-b)
Most entirely slavish people clearly choose the life of cattle...

Welcome Eyala. I've rearranged the thread to fit our pattern and I'm sorry I did not see your registration earlier. Thanks for joining us and we look forward to hearing more from you.

Thank you for the post EyalA - there are a number of us here who like Nietzsche, including me.

Also, I just posted a "Welcome" thread for you. Please introduce yourself over there in that thread.

As to Nietzsche, you're probably aware of N's anti-stoic views, and his sometimes good things to say about Epicurus, as in Antichrist, so it's a complex subject.

I admire a lot of what Nietzsche had to say, but in my view he was wrong to ultimately dismiss Epicurus on what we might call "absence of pain" grounds. If i thought that Epicurus was guilty of what Nietzsche apparently considered him to be guilty of, I too would never have stayed with Epicurus. Obviously Nietzsche was a brilliant guy, and no doubt smarter than me by a lot, but I don't think he worked as hard has he should have to pursue the wider meaning of 'pleasure' in the Epicurean worldview. It's in doing that where I think that N. and Epicurus can be reconciled and brought into much closer harmony than the initial chatgpt response would indicate.

Glad to have you with us, as I think an appreciation of Nietzsche goes a long way toward appreciating Epicurus' "this-worldly" focus.

Welcome EyalA

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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 other viewpoints, 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 by our community of happy living through 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!

Welcome to Episode 271 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who wrote "On The Nature of Things," the most complete presentation of Epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world.

Each week we walk you through the Epicurean texts, and we discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. If you find the Epicurean worldview attractive, we invite you to join us in the study of Epicurus at EpicureanFriends.com, where we discuss this and all of our podcast episodes.

This week we begin a new series covering Cicero's Tusculan Disputations from an Epicurean viewpoint. This series addresses five of the greatest questions in philosophy, with Cicero speaking for the majority and Epicurus the main opponent:

1. Is Death An Evil? (Cicero says no and Epicurus says no, but for very different reasons)
2. Is Pain An Evil? (Cicero says no, Epicurus says yes)
3. Does the Wise Man Experience Grief and Fear? (Cicero says no, Epicurus says yes)
4. Does the Wise Man Experience Joy and Desire? (Cicero says no, Epicurus says yes)
5. Is Virtue Sufficient For A Happy Life? (Cicero says yes, Epicurus says no)

As we found in Cicero's "On Ends" and "On The Nature of the Gods," Cicero treated Epicurean Philosophy as a major contender in the battle between the philosophies, and in discussing this conflict and explaining Epicurus' answers to these questions, we will deepen our understanding of Epicurus and how he compares to the other major schools.

We'll be reading from the Charles Yonge edition.

Here is a link to our discussion guide: Epicurean Views Of Tusculun DIsputations

Our thread here at the forum specifically dedicated to Tusculan Disputations is here.

As usual, this guide is a work in progress, and at the moment the titles of the sections are in flux. Each bullet point contains a section of text referencing Epicurus, but the heading assigned may not reflect the full topic of the discussion. Feel free to make suggestions on the heading titles, additional surrounding text which should be included for clarity, or any other commentary that would be good to insert to explain each section, and we'll update the discussion guide as we proceed.

The current list of headings includes:

1. Epicureans argue that at death we neither become gods nor companions of gods, so death is not a better state for us
2. Epicureans charge Democritus with having said that the body has feeling after death.
3. No one but Epicureans read Epicurean texts
4. Epicurus gave in to effeminacy in fearing pain
5. Epicurus said there is no evil in infamy itself unless accompanied by pain
6. Epicurus is allegedly laughing at us in regard to pain.
7. Epicurus says that grief arises naturally when we imagine an evil.
8. Epicurus on anticipating future pains - he says it is folly to do so as the Cyreniacs suggest we should.
9. On the happy life according to Epicurus (and Zeno the Epicurean)
10. On Epicurus' consolation
11. Epicurus on attraction as physical
12. On Epicurus' alleged inconsistency
13. Epicurus on the wise man while being tortured
14. Epicurus on nothing good but pleasure
15. Epicurus on the division of desires
16. Epicurus on living in accord with local law.
17. Epicureans on the wise man being always happy.

For purposes of planning ahead, this series will be followed by a series on "Debating Epicurus in Academic Questions." A thread devoted to that series where you can make comments on what aspects of "Academic Questions" to include is here.

As I edit this podcast, if anyone has any recent thoughts on the interplay of these two citations, and why the same word is not used in both places (it appears one implies that the focus is happiness and the other says pleasure), now would be a particularly helpful time to offer them :

1 Letter to Menoeceus: "We must then meditate on the things that make our happiness, seeing that when that is with us we have all, but when it is absent we do all to win it."

2 On Ends Book One Torquatus: "We are inquiring, then, what is the final and ultimate Good, which as all philosophers are agreed must be of such a nature as to be the End to which all other things are means, while it is not itself a means to anything else. This Epicurus finds in pleasure; pleasure he holds to be the Chief Good, pain the Chief Evil.

It seems that the ultimate key is expressed in sentences to the effect that "a life of happiness IS a life of pleasure" from at least both Diogenes of Oinoanda and Torquatus. I don't think I have exactly the same statement in Lucretius or Epicurus, but presumably they would say the same thing. We might have something similar in Philodemus, but if so I am unable to cite it.

Any thoughts or cites on pithy ways to summarize this relationship?

I'll have to look back in the threads for where this was discussed earlier, but Martin reminded me that one way he looks at this is with a "comfortable temperature" analogy, with pleasure in the role of temperature.

Once a comfortable temperature is reached, the temperature does not get more or less comfortable by changing, or remaining in place for a longer period of time.

In this analysis, that would mean that the question of "how long to remain" at a comfortable temperature (whether it is better to remain at a comfortable temperature for a longer time) would need to be answered by other considerations.

At this point it's probably good to remember how this thread started (emphasis added):

Has the idea that everyone pursues pleasure whether they admit it or not resulted in progress toward possible solutions to the problems listed in the bullet points?

If so, how?

Very interesting in many ways.

Never heard of some of those gods. Anything relevant about them in particular?

Quote from Patrikios

Then we can get into proper positioning of PD-5 about “living wisely, honorably, and justly“ in order to live pleasantly. There can often be more agreement around that approach, before getting into the more controversial details around afterlife vs death’s finality.

There's definitely a time and place for everything. As Titus said (which is reflected in the Lucian story of the Epicurean who almost got attacked by the local religiious crowd) you have to be very careful what you say to very religious people, who frequently are very intolerant.

To me the big picture is that you have to look at your circumstances and do what makes the most sense. But in the end, after you look at your circumstances, you then act to change them if you can. As Epicurus says in the last of the PD's if you find yourself surrounded by people who have very different world-views from yours, you probably need to rethink how and where you are spending your time.

Of course we can't change everything about our circumstances in an instance, or overnight. But in the end the overriding consideration to me is that life is short, so we can't indefinitely delay the hard decisions that lead to the happiest living. To me it's a very big deal not to think that I was lazy or procrastinating of just didn't have enough courage to take the steps that would lead to the best life possible to me. In the past lots of people crossed oceans and deserts and mountains and gave up their lives looking for a "better life," and I'd like to think that I haven't become so "soft" that I'm not willing to make hard choices myself.

Quote from Titus

Even in this case people are seeking pleasure (reward). Additionally, as long as I am in this world, I am still rewarded with pleasant impressions.

I know, from a logical point of view both arguments exclude each other. But I think, the Epicurean perspective overturns this logic epistemologically.

I think some of this discussion revolves around the issue of "psychological hedonism" and I will be the first to admit that I have never found "psychological hedonism" to be a very helpful way to analyze things.

Saying that "You're doing what you're doing - whatever you're doing - because you think it will bring you pleasure" does not seem to me to be a very helpful way of looking at much of anything. I realize that many people that this helps them defend "hedonism," and if so than I suppose whatever floats one's boat is good.

But to me, it's an argument that smacks of circularity and even disrespect for the other person who is earnestly suggesting that whatever they are pursuing is not pleasure at all.

I'm all for a very wide perspective on what the word "pleasure" includes, but once you've come to the place in a discussion where you disagree with someone on their definition, it doesn't seem to me that anything helpful is achieved by saying "you really agree with and you're just not willing to admit it."

Most of the time in an Epicurean vs Non-Epicurean discussion, the issue comes down to the fact that Epicureans say that Nature tthrough the faculty of pleasure and pain is the proper standard to which to look on how to live, and the non-Epicureans are saying "Supernaturalism or logic of virtue is the proper standard too look to on how to live." And the debate btweeen those two standards is important tto address directly.

Quote from Titus

(Supernatural) Religion is a mechanism of life that very often benefits the people pursuing it. In a functional way of understanding it can make sense, as it helps people to connect with each other, giving an ethical framework and trust in the world.

Yes, but the same could be said for cannibalism or any other system of the type that Epicurus references in PD10. No matter how ridiculous the system, since there is in fact no "fate" or "supernatural gods." then it is "possible" for even the most upside down theories to provide pleasure at least for short periods of time. It's probably greatly exciting and even pleasurable for the first couple of seconds to fly through the air after jumping off a skyscraper. And there are examples of terrible people who succeed in remaining on the top of the heap for very long periods of time.

So yes even supernatural religion "can" sometimes lead to success, and in fact Epicurus says it would be better to believe in such things rather than give in to hard determinism.

But I don't think that observations makes "both statements true" in terms of them "making sense." It does not "make sense" to structure one's life based on fantasies and made-up notions about supernatural forces unless you are in an extremely unusual situation -- extreme to the point of practical nonexistence.

Also I think it's useful to point out that you're right that supernatural religion does give people a way to "connect" with each other and provides an ethical framework. That's why "connecting" -- even "friendship" itself -- has to be seen for what it is -- a TOOL, and "instrument," which is sometimes very productive, and sometimes the worst thing you can do. Unless you have solid plans to be the "top cannibal" yourself, I wouldn't want to be a "connected" with a group of cannibals.

Let's get input from several people on this including Bryan but one preliminary comment I would make is that I read Lucretius (and therefore presumably Epicurus) as using words that are translated as "soul" and "mind" and "spirit" somewhat interchangeably, so I would be cautious about dividing them up more specifically without very clear text references.

Quote from Patrikios

So, are our spiritual feelings innate Prolepsis of the gods, or just higher aspects our nervous system that we can attempt to control through breath work.

So as to this question I tend to think that anything regarding consciousness (which would include words like nervous system and mind and soul and spirit, and the processing work of the mind, including prolepses (which is related to images and how they over time shape our thoughts) is going to be generally considered to be a function of the soul/mind/spirit part of the body, but getting much more specific beyond that (especially "control through breath work") is going to be hard to do from the existing texts.

Bryan?

This is a crosspost of a handout that is available here:

File

Application of the Fundamentals of Nature

This is number two in a series of handouts on the Fundamentals of Nature and Key Doctrines.

Cassius

November 22, 2017 at 5:12 PM

This is a crosspost of a handout that is available here:

File

Foundations of Epicurean Philosophy - Single Page Handout

A single-page PDF of the 12 Fundamentals of Nature (Physics) and the 40 Key Doctrines (Canonics, Ethics).

Cassius

November 21, 2017 at 11:18 AM

This is a thread to cross-post and file this here in the "Brochures" section.

File

Major Characteristics of the Epicurean View of Life

This is a list of major characteristics of the Epicurean view of life.

Cassius

November 22, 2017 at 9:46 PM

Ha. I bet not yet 😀

Quote from Don

We got some work to do

Very much true.

If supernatural religion, and life after death with reward and punishment are true, then the Epicurean worldview makes no sense.

If the Epicurean worldview is true, then supernatural religion and life after death with reward and punishment make no sense.

Pointing this out doesn't mean that we have to go on a crusade and hit people over the head with a crowbar with these issues on first meeting. Probably all of us here, and even Epicurus and the founders of the school themselves, started out being taught and believing to at least some extent a standard religious worldview. It would be very hypocritical to lock out people "who are well-disposed" from coming to the same adjustments in thinking that we went through ourselves. Some will never be disposed to accept these views, but many can and will.

As Bryan cited in our zoom last night, Lucretius said in Book Three (this is the 1743 / Daniel Brown / Dunster? translation):

Quote from Lucretius Book 3

[307] The mind of man is formed of the same principles; though the discipline of philosophy may polish and correct some, yet it leaves behind the marks of the original nature of the mind, nor are we to think that the seeds of vice can be wholly rooted out. One man, we see, runs more rashly into passion, another is more disposed to fear, and a third is apt to be more merciful than just; It is impossible but the various tempers of mankind, and actions that follow them, must differ in many other instances, the reasons of which are at present out of my power to explain; nor can I find words to express that variety of figures by which the seeds are distinguished, and from which this variety of disposition is produced. This, however, may justly be asserted on this occasion: that the traces of original nature which cannot be corrected by the rules of reason are so very small that nothing hinders us from leading a life worthy of the Gods.

If we're concerned about living the best life that we can, and we should be, then we have to plan out how to work toward as complete an implementation of core Epicurean positions as possible. And in most cases, we'll want to do that without getting driven out of our towns (Epicurus) or stoned (the Epicurean in Alexander the Oracle-Monger).

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