Posts by Cassius

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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!

I completely agree, Bryan, and I see in this one of the most obvious problems with stoicism and all sorts of rationalism. Setting up "virtue" (in this case honesty) as an end it itself, never to be secondary to any other goal, is a prescription for disaster if what you value is a human life of pleasure rather than some arbitrarily selected abstract goal. It is absurd to think that you must be honest with the burglar who asks for the location of the keys so he can invade your house and murder your family.

"Pleasure" is not an arbitrarily selected abstract goal because it is based on a feeling given by nature, and even when the term "pleasure" is used as an abstraction, it can be immediately tested against the feeling.

And the whines of the past and current Ciceros and Senecas who push asceticism and virtue are especially easy to see through once you demolish their "pleasure = sex drugs and rocknroll" definition and realize that pleasure is everything in life that is desirable.

Both Cicero and Seneca preserved some important information about Epicurus so I give them credit for that, but I see in Cicero a greater willingness to be frank even in disagreement. And toward the end of his life Cicero maybe even made a few steps in the right direction by giving credit to Cassius for showing Cicero more vigor in Epicureanism than Cicero had expected to see. I would trade a hundred Senecas for one Cicero any day of the week.

Very interesting - thank you Tau Phi!

From the angle on the ring the face is reasonably approximate despite the lack of hair - wonder why the book cover is so off......

I want to really commend Joshua for his first segment here in this episode. Going back into Diogenes Laertius Book 9 for information on Pyrrho and his relationship with Epicurus is really helpful for understanding this issue.

Episode 262 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available: "He Who Says 'Nothing Can Be Known' Knows Nothing."

Welcome to Episode 263 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 are continuing our review of the key doctrines of Epicurus that are featured here at Epicureansfriends on the front page of our website.

This week we will address "All Sensations Are True"

Discussion Outline (work in progress!) - "All Sensations Are True."

Ultimately not significant probably, but it's interesting to me that one of the things Sisyphus did was to halt death on earth. Aside from the comment here about no relief for the sick and dying, I would have thought that this would have made him a positive figure to be admired, almost like a Prometheus. I do see the other references to him killing visitors and so forth, but most if not all of the bad things he did would pale in comparison to him putting a stop to death (and wars) even temporarily. From Wikipedia

Cheating death

Sisyphus betrayed one of Zeus's secrets by revealing the whereabouts of the Asopid Aegina to her father, the river god Asopus, in return for causing a spring to flow on the Corinthian acropolis.^[8]

Zeus ordered Thanatos to chain Sisyphus in Tartarus. Sisyphus was curious as to why Charon, whose job it was to guide souls to the underworld, had not appeared on this occasion. Sisyphus slyly asked Thanatos to demonstrate how the chains worked. As Thanatos was granting him his wish, Sisyphus seized the opportunity and trapped Thanatos in the chains instead. Once Thanatos was bound by the strong chains, no one died on Earth, causing an uproar. Ares, the god of war, became annoyed that his battles had lost their fun because his opponents would not die. The exasperated Ares intervened, freeing Thanatos, enabling deaths to happen again and turned Sisyphus over to him.^[13]

In some versions, Hades was sent to chain Sisyphus and was chained himself. As long as Hades was trapped, nobody could die. Consequently, sacrifices could not be made to the gods, and those that were old and sick were suffering. The gods finally threatened to make life so miserable for Sisyphus that he would wish he were dead. He then had no choice but to release Hades.^[14]

Yes Godfrey your experience is more what I would expect. Maybe there's more going on with Joshua's experience that played a role beyond vegetarianism. Maybe he had enough time to think "Yay I'm now free, and I'm about to travel around the country in a truck" before he had his test and that improved his results!

The plural of anecdote may not be data, but depending upon the nature of the anecdotal testimony it's still "some" evidence - and that's at least a start and better than the pure speculation on which so much of what passes for "established truth" is based.

Some day more work needs to be done on: Epicurean Rules of Evidence

I doubt anyone will ever claim that our work "on evidence" meets the standard of "falling from the heavens," but apparently Epicurus' work on the Canon - pretty much the same subject - was impressive!

Joshua is probably a pretty fair evaluator of facts, so it would be interesting to hear about changes in the diet before and after and how that might relate to blood and vision. Since this is a thread on "vegetarianism" that wouldn't be far off topic.

This is a good topic to discuss. But I need to remind myself of the specifics of using Sisyphus as the example. This is the person who repeatedly pursued political power, right? Which is the reason for the title of the article "Not all politicians are Sisyphus...."

But do we have a good fix on "why" the person in the political example wants power? And that's where I am forgetting why Sisyphus was pushing the rock too.

So where I am going is that I would see the decision as to whether to "stop pushing" is very closely tied to the reason for the pushing in the first place. And so it might be good to comment more specifically on Sisyphus to help unravel that.

Just a short quick note to add to this topic because I recently heard someone say "If it can't die, it's not food."

That struck me as helpful in this analysis of the ethics of vegetarianism. Of course I presume that the emphasis at least most of the time in the debate is on "consciousness" as the dividing line between what is "ethical" to eat and what is not.

Nevertheless I can see that it would be useful to think of the problem in terms of the fact that even plants must "die" for us to eat them.

I'm still in the general camp that it makes a lot of sense to minimize conscious suffering whenever possible. Plus, it's hard for me to say that plants fall under any reasonable definition of consciousness.

But when you look at the issue from the more general point of view of "living" vs. non-living," it's also hard for me to argue the conversation ought to be judged in terms of "death" vs. "consciousness." And if you do look at the issue on that level, it seems to be more apparent that it's impossible for any living creature to survive except after the death of other living creatures.

So I guess that leaves me at "minimize the conscious suffering but it's ok to eat meat." And I should add that there are specific steps I would support to make sure conscious suffering is minimized, but agricultural / slaughtering practices are beyond the scope of this post.

Of course what we're talking about here as well is the "you can't bathe twice in the same river" paradox.

It seems Epicurus is telling us to realize that both things are true: (1) the drops / atoms of the river are constantly changing, but (2) it is perfectly proper and beneficial to consider that the "river" is the same river from moment to moment.

If this perspective were not adopted, we would be in all sorts of variations of Plato's cave, and we'd think that nothing we sense is "real" but only a shadow flickering on a wall. Or as Diogenes of Oinoanda attributed to Aristotle, we'd be in the position of thinking that everything was moving so fast that we could never be sure of anything.

The importance of this issue is that Epicurus' perspective allows us to be confident in dealing with both levels of experience and seeing them in a relationship that is proper to human life. It gives us confidence that we don't have to constantly agonize over the mind-bending games of philosophers who wish to attack the reliability of the senses and the possibility of knowledge -- with the goal of making you see things the way they want you to see them!

Quote from Lucretius Book 1 - [102]

You yourself sometime vanquished by the fearsome threats of the seer’s sayings, will seek to desert from us. Nay indeed, how many a dream may they even now conjure up before you, which might avail to overthrow your schemes of life, and confound in fear all your fortunes.

Yes, but it's interesting that it applies to us as well, and it highlights that the reality of the emergent form is not limited to the continued participation of the same individual components.

As i understand it nothing has been deleted, just rearranged so that posts that are more 'personal' are now more likely to be in a "non-public" section.

Over the years we've accumulated many posts on many topics, some of which are not really related to the purpose that non-members here would have in coming to the forum to get basic info on Epicurus. This rearrangement should make it easier for non-members to find the material they are looking for among the large numbers of posts and forums.

I think your own description is good Don, which is why I find fault in the formulation:

Quote from Okeefe

"An example of this sort of thing would be a flock of sheep. A flock of sheep is a real entity, but it is nothing above and beyond the group of sheep gathered together

I can't read "nothing above and beyond" the sheep gathered together as saying anything more than that the individual sheep have a higher status of significance to us than does the flock.

A more complete statement would be more like :

"An example of this sort of thing would be a flock of sheep. A flock of sheep is a real entity with real attributes, just as the individual sheep are real entities with different attributes. Just as the individual sheep are made of atoms, the flock is made of individual sheep."

Then one among many further points that Velleius among others might make would be that individual sheep can come and go from the flock so long as a large number of sheep remain. The flock maintains its existence and attributes despite the coming and going of individual sheep. And in fact the flock can remain in existence far beyond the lifetime of an individual sheep, and in fact indefinitely, so long as the flock or the shepherd maintain the flock against hazards that come against it.

Quote from Bryan

Many things are "greater than the sum of their parts" and have emergent qualities that absolutely exist, even if those qualities do not exist in-and-of-themselves.

And a key issue is focusing in on what is mean by "absolutely exist."

I've taken to focusing on those things that have "an eternal and unchanging existence" (atoms, void, the universe as a whole) vs those things that do not -- things that can change over time.

But that's only one way to look at it, and I suspect it really means "real to us" in the sense that Epicurus is saying that if our senses, anticipations, and feelings, register it, then we should consider it to be "real." just don't make the mistake of thinking that everything that they register has an eternal unchanging existence, or that everything is equally significant to us.

You picked out a very interesting comment that does get to the heart of the issue:

Quote

First, the mind is a real thing, but it is nothing above and beyond the atoms that constitute it. An example of this sort of thing would be a flock of sheep. A flock of sheep is a real entity, but it is nothing above and beyond the group of sheep gathered together. Second, although the mind has properties and powers which none of its atoms have, it has these only in virtue of the properties of and relationships amongst its constituent atoms, and the possession of these properties can be explained by reference to these properties and relationships. Third, appeals to structural and formal elements are permissible, but only if they are ultimately reducible to relationships amongst atoms, e.g., the tendency of a group of atoms to clump together because of the atoms' hooks getting entangled.

I do not think that Epicurus would recommend the formulation "First, the mind is a real thing, but it is nothing above and beyond the atoms that constitute it. An example of this sort of thing would be a flock of sheep. A flock of sheep is a real entity, but it is nothing above and beyond the group of sheep gathered together."

As I see it, the entire point of Epicurus' canonism is to emphasize exactly the point that the mind IS something above and beyond the atoms that constitute it. To say that the mind is "nothing" other than the atoms and the void is to ignore the entire "event" and "emergent property" analysis as if it is "nothing" separate from the particles themselves.

Yes I acknowledge that O'Keefe' is bouncing back and forth and saying in the same sentence that "it is a real thing" and "a real entity," but he is also insisting that in the end these emergent characteristics are "nothing" separate from the atoms moving through the void.

And I don't see Sedley as skirting "woo" at all - he's simply seeing that Epicurus insisting that we see what our canonical faculties tell is real as no less significant and real as what our minds tell us that these events are ultimately composed of indivisible atoms and void. And Epicurus goes all the way to the ultimate conclusion - it is only because the study of natural science and the identification of atoms and void gives us confidence to live our lives properly that we really have need of natural science and atomism in the first place.

These are points that appear to me not only absent in O'Keefe's presentation, but points which it appears he's not comfortable with, thus leading to the entire project of making a point of disagreeing with Sedley's conclusions.

So when you say....

Quote from Don

Scholars can argue (and I enjoy it!) over whether that's an omicron or an upsilon in the text that completely changes the word. Where there is ambiguity, obscurity, or simply absence of text, we need to step back - if we're going to think of ourselves as Epicureans and try to figure out the big takeaway UNTIL more evidence comes to light. That's where the value of scholarship comes in in this argument. As Epicureans, we withhold final judgement on a thorny problem until more evidence is available. Was Epicurus a reductionist or a determinist or an eliminativist or a fatalist or a compatibilist or a ....? We can be more or less sure on each of those; however, we can be sure that he taught we live in a material universe with no need of supernatur

... I would say that where texts conflict as to placement of an omicron it's perfectly appropriate to "wait" until more evidence is found. Such an issue is not essential to day to day life.

However issues of determinism or fatalism or reductionism are essential to day to day life, and they directly relate to Epicurus' overall focus on our place in the universe and our relationship to the biggest issues such as supernatural control and life after death. I think that Epicurus would say that most everyone of normal education should have a working view on these issues that informs the way they live their lives daily. I see such a workable view in Sedley's formulation but i do not see it in O'Keefe's.

In the end, I have the uneasy feeling that one of the major takeaways of O'Keefe's point is that he is ultimately trying to defend Democritus from Epicurus' attacks. To the extent that is what he is doing, I see nothing to be gained from that. The Epicureans had much more of Democritus' texts than we will ever dream to have, and they concluded based on those texts that Democritus had crossed a red line over into skepticism and determinism. I see very little to be gained from an approach that amounts to "maybe Epicurus was wrong about Democritus."

It's worthy of note that I wasn't the one who started this conversation - that was Bryan! And it's also worthy of note that for those of us who wade through these details, I think we come out on the other side with a stronger appreciation for how important these issues are, no matter which commentator we decide is doing a better job.

I've reread the thread and I can certainly see that it's legitimate to say that O'Keefe winds up in the same place as Sediey ultimately, with O'Keefe agreeing that the idea that our reality is unreal is bad, but saying that reductionism doesn't necessarily mean that our reality is unreal.

But that observation just leads me back to Bryan's initial inclination that O'Keefe was "splitting hairs." The real question is not how to get the finest dictionary definition of the term "reductionism," but to understand what the philosophical issue is and why it has practical importance. That's what David Sedley did very eloquently in his original observations in Hellenistic Philosophers and his later article.

If all someone has time for is the big picture, I'd suggest that page 34 of Dr. Sedley's article will give them most everything they really need to know about the relationship between Epicurus and Democritus on this point. But if someone finds that the additional points made in "Epicurus On Freedom" provides them a more clear picture, or fills in some gap that they find missing in Sedley's viewpoint, then of course that's helpful.

Quote from Don

Sorry, I'll admit I don't understand to what you're referring with that maxim here. [Comment from post #5 above.]

What I think I am trying to get at is that I see Dr Sedley's statement of the general situation as a very reasonable and understandable description of the issue. The problem Epicurus faced and we face too is that we need to honor both of the two levels of apparent truth. We have to reconcile both (1) that the only thing of eternal unchanging nature is atoms, void, and the universe as a whole, with (2) that the things the senses reveal to us are also "true," even though they are not eternally unchanging. It seems to me that's the whole motivating force behind the "all sensations are true" canonical approach that Epicurus developed.

If normal people are going to find a way to resist supernaturalism, they have to have a graspable method of reasoning that explains to them in a sufficient way how the universe operates naturally. I think Sedley's perspective is essentially decoding for us today exactly what Epicurus was up to, and I think he's right that this is something that is very underappreciated about Epicurus. It explains not only his physics approach, but it also puts into context the justification for his reasoning in ethics, in taking such positions as "there are only two feelings, pleasure and pain" which is the keystone of the entire pleasure / pain analysis. It's easy for opponents from Cicero to today to argue that this either/or approach is gross oversimplification, but it's very similar to the logic-based reasoning by which we categorize everything as either matter or void. Just like Sedley is saying, that the theory has to be able to explain what we see, but not every minute step along the way, we don't have to worry about the details of atoms forming brains any more than we need to worry about the details of fitting every experience of life into the pleasure/pain framework. We can be confident that no matter what the development of science eventually tells us the detailed mechanism actually is, the detailed mechanism will fit within our global theory of how things should be categorized. If it exists and can affect us, it is "material," no matter what we choose to call the details of the "matter." If it's not painful then it is pleasurable, no matter what we choose to call the details of the particular pleasurable experience.

I read Tim O'keefe's perspective as attempting to go further than is possible in looking for detailed explanation. That's why I say that we have to be careful that we don't make the mistake of looking for "the perfect" by focusing on a perfect explanation of exactly how things work and being disappointed when we can't find it. All we need is a "good" explanation of the big picture, and that good explanation is that while we don't know exactly how the atoms do it, we are confident that that atoms do it naturally and without supernatural control. By all means we should always look for more information, because that will improve our quality of life in any number of ways. but we should not get confused by thinking that we are failures if we aren't disappointed with what we are able to find with the effort available to us.

"Reductionism" is a pretty good term, it seems to me, for those who ignore this issue and argue (as apparently Democritus did or was tempted to do) that only the atoms and void are "truly real." The implication I read in O'Keefe's perspective is that we should not consider reductionism to be a bad word, and I don't see him kicking back aggressively against the implication that reductionism leads exactly to Democritus' conclusion that our level of existence is not truly real. I can understand that he is adopting a more a technical perspective, but to stop there leaves the layman back in the same place as before. Embracing "reductionism" without focusing on its limitations leaves the laymen defenseless and without an understandable theory for having confidence that things are natural rather than supernatural. Graspable lines have to be drawn, and it's exactly the wrong thing to do to leave laymen without a way to understand the dangers of improper views of reductionism no less than determinism or skepticism.

Again, I'm not on a crusade against Tim O'Keefe's work, but I can see a legitimate charge that he's "missing the point" that both David Sedley and Epicurus are trying to make. From a practical perspective we'll never in our lifetimes (and probably many more lifetimes, if ever) have a 100% explanation of every step from atom to human brain, and we have to get comfortable with that fact. No one in history has had that level of knowledge, and we won't either, but that didn't mean that the ancient Epicureans had to admit the possibility of supernatural explanation any more than we do.

I forget whether it was DeWitt or Sedley or both who make the comment that "intellectuals" are not put off by the implications of determinism, and the same goes for reductionism / skepticism. Intellectuals revel in "what if" games that have no end.

So those who wish to can save this post and use it against me in the future, but I don't think Epicurus was concerned about playing to intellectuals, and I don't think we should be either. Our concern should be for ourselves and our families and friends, very few of whom are professional intellectuals who revel in the doubt and uncertainty of radical skepticism and determinism and atomic (or material) reductionism.

To the contrary, most normal people see these views as a total cop-out on the necessity of making important decisions in their own lives. I don't see Epicurus' response to the dialecticians or the determinists or the skeptics as anti-intellectual at all. In fact, given the conclusions of the philosophy , Epicurus was more intellectual than any of the rest, because he took into account the outcome rather than all the often insignificant details that surround it.

No doubt I've rambled and repeated myself but I do think this is a fascinating topic on which to get a handle. And it's on my mind because it's basically the subject of the podcast tomorrow .:-)