Posts by Cassius

Yes it seems that the battle of Philippi could easily have gone the other way, and it's fascinating to think of what might have changed if a devoted Epicurean (as opposed to Caesar, who may have been Epicurean to some extent but didn't seem so philosophically inclined) had become one of the most powerful men in Rome for a much longer time.

Quote from Joshua

...I had no idea that there was even a suggestion that the authorship of the Letter to Pythocles was in dispute in the late second and early first centuries BC; that actually blows my mind.

I can't cite a source but I know I've read in background reading (maybe one of Bailey's books or something like that) but I know I've seen it elsewhere asserted that the authorship of Pythocles was disputed. I've never put much stock in that, but I suppose it's possible. However the content as far as I am concerned gives no reason to doubt its reliability. I've never seen anyone question any of it's content - that would be interesting to discuss if anyone has seen that.

I merged our recent discussion of the effect of unmixed wine with the previous thread on voluntary death since the topic is essentially the same. As discussion on this has progressed one aspect that seem particularly interesting is Bryan's latest post as to the Gaul who was reported to have committed suicide by unmixed wine. Further, there seem to be reasonable conjecture that drinking unmixed wine might have been an accepted euphemism for suicide, or that drinking of unmixed wine was at times accompanied by poison. All of this would need citations to texts for them to become more viable suggestions, so we can pursue all of this discussion here with all the background in one place.

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We discussed this issue briefly in tonight's Wednesday Zoom and I thought I remembered that there was another Epicurean thought to have committed suicide. As is often the case i can sometimes remember the first letter of a name but often mess up the main part. In this case the name I could not remember did start with a D, but it appears to be one Diodorus as referenced by Seneca (see below).

And I see in that earlier thread that there is some issue that maybe Democritus went out in similar way.

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RE: Did Epicurus Commit Suicide Due To His Disease? (Merger of Two Threads On When Voluntary Death Makes Sense)

More from James Warren (same source):

it is the result of a calculation that the alternative would be a continued life of pain. Provided life has pleasure left in it,we will continue to live. And the Epicurean sage will be sufficiently schooled to continue to find pleasure in life under conditions which others would find unbearable—Epicurus' own example of composure in the face of terminal illness demonstrates this. 345 Seneca reports the suicide of an Epicurean named Diodorus. On this…

Cassius

December 8, 2022 at 10:14 PM

I don't know that we've previously discussed this article by Maria Bitsori:

Epicurus' death

The aim is to present how an eminent philosopher perceived, reported and faced his progressing and ultimately fatal uropathy, 23 centuries ago. All available…

www.academia.edu

It gets close to the issue but as I read through it doesn't really address the argument at length. I see that it does include a reference I've never seen before. The way it's written it sure sounds like it's referencing Epicurus, but the footnote refers to Marcus Aurelius (Marcus Aurelius (1930) Meditations: 9. 41. Edited and translated by Haines CR. The Loeb Classical Library. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, pp 254–257) Perhaps Aurelius is referring to Epicurus, or perhaps I'm just not reading it properly.

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Epicurus obviously followed these palliative measures in his final-stage disease. Surgery could have been a more appropriate management. Surgical interventions in urinary tract diseases were not unknown at the time [7], but most probably they couldn’t help in this specific case. On the other hand, the philosopher himself did not seem eager to accept any extraordinary medical intervention: ‘‘nor did I let the physicians ride the high horse as if they were doing grand things’’ [15]

Very interesting! There must be something else going on, or else we need to revise our general view that Epicurus did not commit suicide!

This is a pretty important point, actually, so will be good to do our best to track it down.

In reading further today I see this post by Al-Hakiim von Grof

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RE: The “Absence of Pain” Problem

[…]

At the potential risk of repeating concepts already shared in this thread I’ll take a stab at explaining my understanding. What follows is just opinion based on my understanding of Epicurus and lived experience.


To answer your question directly: absolutely. Not stubbing one’s toe is pleasurable. Not just in the nervous “rush” and laughter that happens after a near miss or just in the idea of not stubbing one’s toe, or recalling a stubbed toe’s pain and therefore being grateful for…

Al-Hakiim von Grof

April 29, 2025 at 9:41 PM

What he describes there is the way I would interpret "there are two feelings, pleasure and pain." The default state of life is pleasure (of all kinds and manners of description). Whenever there is any deviation from that state of pleasure, that deviation (of all kinds and manners of description) deserves the name of "pain."

That's the only logically rigorous way I can interpret "there are two feelings, pleasure and pain." Any attempt to subdivide the pleasures and the pains is going to require some kind of further intellectual analysis that may at times be helpful but may equally lead to all kinds of rabbit holes that take the focus off of the fact that we should ultimately look to Nature to tell us what pleasure is, not to gods or to ideal forms.

To make it easier for Patrikios to find the other main article referencing this topic, here's the Diskin Clay article where he goes down a similar path to DeWitt's interpretation. Don is definitely correct to say that the list does not survive for us to be sure what it said:

File

"Epicurus' Last Will and Testament" - by Diskin Clay

Article by Diskin Clay

Cassius

January 23, 2021 at 3:15 PM

Quote from Pacatus

This seems to me to point up what I consider to be the major error of the Cyrenaics (as articulated by Aristippus the Younger): that there is a third “neutral” condition that is neither pleasure nor pain. The Epicurean category of katastematic pleasure – in addition to the kinetic pleasures that seem to be the only ones the Cyrenaics recognized – corrects this error.

Yep I agree that this was an error by the Cyreniacs. But there's a book to be written to explain exactly "why" this was an error. Were the Cyreniacs less human than everyone else and "felt" things differently, or were they failing to make an intellectual point that Epicurus made later?

Further, I am not sure that it is correct to say that "katastematic" pleasure is what fills in the "neutral" gap. That would be an interesting question. While Don and I differ on the implications of katastematic pleasure, I am not sure that even Don would say that.

The relevant text from Diogenes Laertius 10-136 (Hicks) is:

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He differs from the Cyrenaics with regard to pleasure. They do not include under the term the pleasure which is a state of rest, but only that which consists in motion. Epicurus admits both; also pleasure of mind as well as of body, as he states in his work On Choice and Avoidance and in that On the Ethical End, and in the first book of his work On Human Life and in the epistle to his philosopher friends in Mytilene. So also Diogenes in the seventeenth book of his Epilecta, and Metrodorus in his Timocrates, whose actual words are: “Thus pleasure being conceived both as that species which consists in motion and that which is a state of rest.” The words of Epicurus in his work On Choice are: “Peace of mind and freedom from pain are pleasures which imply a state of rest; joy and delight are seen to consist in motion and activity.”

In relation to 10-34 Hicks:

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Opinion they also call conception or assumption, and declare it to be true and false; for it is true if it is subsequently confirmed or if it is not contradicted by evidence, and false if it is not subsequently confirmed or is contradicted by evidence. Hence the introduction of the phrase, “that which awaits” confirmation, e.g. to wait and get close to the tower and then learn what it looks like at close quarters. They affirm that there are two states of feeling, pleasure and pain, which arise in every animate being, and that the one is favourable and the other hostile to that being, and by their means choice and avoidance are determined; and that there are two kinds of inquiry, the one concerned with things, the other with nothing but words. So much, then, for his division and criterion in their main outline.

I can see how it would be easy to read these two together and say that rest vs motion fills in the gap. But DL also implies that the mind vs body distinction is relevant. (Did the Cyreniacs exclude the mind from pleasure?) And I don't think it's logically necessary that adding "states of rest" to "states of motion" thereby rules out any other kind of pleasure. And to me the implication of "there are only two feelings" does not equate to "Yes, and those two categories are "Pleasure of rest" and "Pleasure of Motion." At the very least one might equally say "Yes, and those two categories are Pleasures of the Mind and Pleasures of the Body." And there are probably other ways of subdividing pleasure up as well.

Not trying to pick nits here, but as this subject is so important, we want to be sure that we are not projecting our own views so as to miss other implications.

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in relation to this topic we also have what Diogenes Laertius recorded about Epicurus' view of the wise man on the rack. i note that Yonge disagrees with Bailey and Hicks as to whether the wise man will cry out in pain (Yonge says that he will not; the other two say he will) but that all agree that the wise man is considered to be happy even while on the rack / under torture.

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Laërtius, c. 222-235 κἂν στρεβλωθῇ δ’ ὁ σοφός, εἶναι αὐτὸν εὐδαίμονα. μόνον τε χάριν ἕξειν τὸν σοφόν, καὶ ἐπὶ φίλοις καὶ παροῦσι καὶ ἀποῦσιν ὁμοίως διατε εὐλογοῦντα. ὅτε μέντοι στρεβλοῦται, ἔνθα καὶ μύζει καὶ οἰμώζει. γυναικί τ’ οὐ μιγήσεσθαι τὸν σοφὸν ᾗ οἱ νόμοι ἀπαγορεύουσιν, ὥς φησι Διογένης ἐν τῇ Ἐπιτομῇ τῶν Ἐπικούρου ἠθικῶν δογμάτων. ...

Yonge, 1853 That even if the wise man were to be put to the torture, he would still be happy. That the wise man will only feel gratitude to his friends, but to them equally whether they are present or absent. Nor will he groan and howl when he is put to the torture.

Hicks, 1925 Even on the rack the wise man is happy. He alone will feel gratitude towards friends, present and absent alike, and show it by word and deed. When on the rack, however, he will give vent to cries and groans.

Bailey, 1926 And even if the wise man be put on the rack, he is happy. Only the wise man will show gratitude, and will constantly speak well of his friends alike in their presence and their absence. Yet when he is on the rack, then he will cry out and lament.

I cite this because - not trying to flippant but to make a point -- i am not aware that anyone has good evidence that Epicurus had first-hand experience of being on the rack. We know that he was in extreme pain from kidney disease at the end of his life, but that's not the same as being under intentional torture, and yet Epicurus (or later Epicureans) none of whom we know to have been speaking from personal experience, took a strong position on the point.

I would cite this as additional evidence that Epicurus was motivated to speak "philosophically" about "absence of pain." My point in the first post was that the perfect is not the enemy of the good, and that the presence of some amount of pain, even a large amount, does not prevent an Epicurean from pronouncing himself "happy."

Epicurus would never have suggested that we regularly choose pain if a literal state of "total absence of pain" was required to be happy. Epicurus wasn't totally without pain on his last day, and a person on the rack is also not without pain, so there's something about the definition of the term "happy" from an Epicurean viewpoint that allows it to coexist with pain. And a "reduction to the absurd" interpretation of "absence of pain" therefore clearly cannot be what Epicurus was holding up as the practical goal of life from an Epicurean perspective.

Just like happiness can coexist with pain, the goal of life has to take into account that some degree of pain will be present, even chosen, unless we have literally advanced to the state of being totally in control of our circumstances, which no one we know of has yet achieved.

So to close again on my ultimate point, it appears to me that what Epicurus is doing is laying out an extremely practical goal that is also logically consistent. In a universe with no supernatural god and no absolute right and wrong there can be no single course of life that is "best" for everyone. Instead, the general way to state the goal is to take Nature's guidance - physical and mental pleasure and pain - and then do the best we can to make sure that our pleasures outweigh our pains as much as possible. Everyone is different, and for some of us that is indeed going to mean a life of predominantly physical pleasures.

But may of us think more deeply about how we only live for a short time and forever after cease to exist. Those people are going to remember (per Torquatus) that Epicurus held that mental experiences are often longer-lasting and more intense that physical ones. Those people are then going to make a personal assessment of what mental and physical activities bring them the most pleasure, and they will make their choices accordingly. And they will do everything they can to pursue that goal as vigorously as possible, regardless of what anyone tells them that "the gods" want or what "virtue" calls them to do.

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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.

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I saw the following posted recently, and the comment about gulags prompts me to use it as an exercise in talking about several ongoing issues. For easy of reading I've placed the original post in separate quote blocks, with my comments following each block. The original, of course, was a single post.

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I’m currently studying Hellenistic philosophy so I’ve got a decent familiarity with epicureanism and stoicism. The stoics tended to really dislike epicurean ideas, especially the virtues being good for pleasure rather than for their own sake, but their ends look kind of similar in a lot of places if you ignore the semantics (eg am I removing desires because unfilled desires are painful and pain is bad, or because desire comes from the false belief that its object is good?). The idea of the Sage being happy on the rack is common to both philosophies.

I think it’s important to emphasize that the Epicureans were not passive, and that the Epicureans were no less vigorous than the Stoics in denouncing their rival school, especially as to the relationship between virtue and pleasure. Both Torquatus in Cicero’s “On Ends” and Diogenes of Oinoanda in the inscription on his wall strongly denounce the stoic viewpoint. Most importantly, the Stoics and Epicureans don’t end up in the same place as to general removal of desires. Probably its fair to say that the Stoics were against all desire in general other than the desire for virtue, since the stoics held virtue is the only thing in life worth pursuing. But the Epicureans were far calling for the removal of all desires “in general.” The only desires that were explicitly ruled out where those which are by nature impossible to fulfill and therefore by nature lead to more pain than pleasure. This paragraph seems to be presuming that all desire is inherently unfulfilled and therefore painful, and that’s simply not true, at least from an Epicurean perspective. Epicurus held that life is desirable, and it’s not correct to say that we find tomorrow painful, even though we desire to live it if we can do so with more pleasure than pain. As for “happiness,” yes it appears that both schools said that it is possible to be “happy” even while on the wrack, but from an Epicurean perspective that doesn’t mean that being on the rack is desirable. Stoics are likely to say that they are indifferent to the pain and claim that it should be disregarded for the sake of virtue, while an Epicurean is going to admit the pain, and even cry out in pain, and contemplation of “virtue” is going to be the furthest thing from his mind at the time.

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Yes, Epicurus believed that pleasure is the highest moral good. However, pleasure in the Epicurean view is freedom from pain. Anything else is just a variation of pleasures. Needing to have fancy meals or the like to be happy is antithetical to epicureanism. You don’t need to abstain from nice things, and having those memories is part of how an epicurean copes with hard times, but you can’t rely on them.

This formulation has numerous problems. Yes Epicureans identify “pleasure” as the highest good, but summarizing pleasure as “freedom from pain” with no further explanation leads to the error here of implying that “fancy meals or the like” are “just variations” and are not pleasures themselves and are “antithetical to Epicureanism.” It is correct to say that “needing” such pleasures is a problem, and it is correct to say that you should not “rely on them” when they are not available. But isn’t it obvious that there’s a problem with saying that “memories [of such pleasures] is part of how an Epicurean copes with hard times?” That sounds like we shouldn’t be interested in eating tasty food, but it’s ok to rely on memories of tasty food when times are hard. The basic problem here is that “freedom from pain” is made to sound like something different from pleasure, when in fact everything that is not painful is pleasurable when there are only two alternatives, and tasty food is as legitimate a part of the set of total pleasures as is poetry or literature or friendship or anything else. Epicureans don’t narrow the definition of pleasure to an ambiguous state of “absence of XXX” - they expand the definition of pleasure to include all experiences of life that are desirable – and life itself is desirable, with the only undesirable experience falling under the name of “pain.”

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In Epicureanism, death is nothing to us since our souls dissipate after leaving the body, so we can’t suffer. Similarly, bodily pain is either brief or bearable. Thus we don’t need to worry about either of those.

A causal reader of this paragraph might take away that this means that we don’t have to worry about when we die or how we die, or when or how we experience pain. That would not be consistent with the thrust of the philosophy. We are always concerned about avoiding experiences involving unnecessary pain, meaning that we always avoid experiences and activities that we cannot justify as bringing us more pleasure in total than pain. The better way to say what is the target here is that we don’t have to worry about anything happening to us after we die, and we don’t have to worry about pain in life being unmanageable and impossible to escape. Pains that are long but not intense can be managed; pains which are intense and cannot be alleviated can be escaped by death. But there are many situations in life where you don’t want have to go through the process of making that calculation in real time, and “worrying” about those situations (meaning devoting your thoughts to how to act to avoid those situations) is perfectly appropriate.

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An epicurean alleviates irrational fears of the unknown and of death or pain by understanding that they can’t actually hurt them. It’s pretty similar to how death to stoics is a dispreferred indifferent.

This statement has the same problem as the prior paragraph. Yes indeed pain can actually hurt us, and depending on the timing and how it occurs, the process of dying can hurt us too. The Epicurean is going identify and dismiss irrational fear of death and pain, but he will also devote all the vigor of mind and body that he can muster to avoiding the very many real dangers that can in fact bring death and pain.

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From the perspective of an Epicurean, having good friends and forming memories with them means when you are suffering, those memories will be there to comfort you. If you are in a gulag, you can overcome your bodily suffering by thinking about your friends and your pleasant memories.

This sentence: “If you are in a gulag, you can overcome your bodily suffering by thinking about your friends and your pleasant memories.” is what motivated me to write this post.

Yes, if you wrap that last sentence in a lot of context and parse it carefully, there are certainly aspects of this that are true. But without that context and explanation, it’s the worst kind of characterization of Epicurean philosophy.

First, “overcome” is not the correct word at all. The reference to being “in a gulag” epitomizes the modern “passive” approach to philosophy in general and Epicurus in particular. The entire purpose of Epicurean philosophy is to avoid “being in a gulag” in the first place, and if you approach everything in life from the point of view of “maybe I’ll happen to find myself in XXXXX” then that’s the best way to end up being there. As with Epicurus on his last day, you can offset mental pleasures against bodily pains, but those mental pleasures aren’t going to make the bodily pains go away. Stoicism has planted in the minds of many people that it is in fact possible for the mind to override the real world – since nothing else matters to them but “virtue,” it makes sense to say that pain is irrelevant, no matter how intense. That’s what most people see as the insufferable arrogance and unreality of Stoicism. But the opposite of insufferable arrogance and unreality is not “I’m happy-go-lucky and I’ll take whatever comes my way because I have a lot of stored up memories of ice cream and cake to offset against the tortures of the gulag.”

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TLDR In epicureanism, pleasure doesn’t mean “I’m enjoying eating this caviar” it’s freedom from pain and worry—ataraxia/tranquility is specifically about having no mental pain because that’s easier to control. Epicureanism supposedly teaches you how to be free from mental pain even in the worst circumstances.

No doubt the “supposedly” is included here because the writer sees the weakness of his argument. Epicurean philosophy cannot teach you to be “free” from mental pain “even in the worst circumstances,” but that is the trap that people get into when they take “absence of pain” to be the real goal of Epicurean philosophy.

No one in real life is ever completely free from mental pain, and if we think Epicurus was realistic then that is not what he could have meant the “absence of pain” discussion to mean. When you get past superficial readings of the letter to Menoeceus, there’s plenty of textual evidence that explains that Epicurus held there to be only two feelings, and that means - just as stated in Principal Doctrine 3, that when pain is absent then pleasure is present, and the reverse also.

While it is proper to state the “goal of life” in terms of absolute pleasure from which pain is absent, no person in real life is completely free of all mental and physical pain at any particular moment. And it hardly needs to be said that death (which is the only time when all pain is gone) is certainly not a pleasure.

The total elimination of all mental and physical pain from our lives is a very explicit and useful statement of the Epicurean goal. However Epicurus is nothing if not practical, and Epicurus does not make the perfect the enemy of the good. Every person’s circumstances are different, and because of those differences the highest and practical good cannot be stated more precisely and universally than maximum pleasure and minimum pain, or as Cicero stated in regard to Clodius, sarcastically but accurately, “nothing is preferable to a life of tranquility crammed full of pleasures.” (The Latin is “nihil esse praestabilius otiosa vita, plena et conferta voluptatibus.” Cicero, In defense Of Publius Sestius, 10.23)

Nothing can be better than a life full of pleasures combined with no disturbances of any kind, but for us this means that at times we will choose pain, when that choice avoids worse pain or brings more pleasure than pain. Epicurus would never have advised the choice of pain - even for a moment - if he had expected “absence of pain” to be applied rigidly or hyperlogically as the true goal of life. The true Epicurean goal is to do the best we can to achieve a happy life through the predominance of pleasure over pain. Identifying that properly and working to achieve it realistically requires both dismissing Stoic pretensions to “virtue” as well avoiding well-meaning but misguided attempts to reconcile Epicurus with Stoicism, Buddhism, and other philosophies of passivity and detachment.

Yes I agree we can pick up the pace and that outline will be helpful! Most of what needs to be said about death we've covered already, and we have four more major topics to pick up when we're finished with death.

I was thinking Don might weigh in from another direction as well. Don is very strong on PD10 being a reference to reprobate acts being bad because they do in fact lead to pain in most cases. I always insist that it is important to observe that there is no "necessity" that they lead to a bad result, and that that is part of the point of PD10. But we both agree that Epicurus is saying that pursuing the life of a reprobate is a bad idea. And in that case someone who is against making lists of undesirable characteristics might say that both Don and I sound like prudish Stoics to dare to say anything that implies that being a reprobate is generally bad.

As I read Kalosyni, she is objecting to Lucretius listing these character traits as undesirable "in general" because she thinks that sounds too much like a Stoic.

I would apply Don's reasoning on PD10 to this list by Lucretius, and I think most people would say, as Don would, that even though it might be theoretically possible that a particular human being might pursue these courses and yet still manage to experience a happy life, the weight of experience is strongly against anyone being successful in doing so except in the most unusual of circumstances.

(As a reminder, the list is : (1) lusts that tear a man in two and trouble his life! How many (2) fears will follow! What (3) insolence, (4) filth, and (5) shamelessness! How many Disasters they deal! What (6) sloth and (7) debauchery!)

Therefore I do not think it smacks of Stoicism to think that generally sloth and debauchery and filth and the rest are going to lead in the end to more pain than pleasure. Therefore I think it's fine for an Epicurean like Lucretius to create a list of such things to be generally avoided.

The red line I think needs to be respected is that you need to be clear, like Lucretius is being, that this list doesn't come from the gods, or from abstract logic divorced from experience. An Epicurean gets lists like this from practical experience, and that's all the difference in the world from a Stoic who says that these things are "bad in themselves" or "bad because Zeus / Home / Plato's ideal forms say so."

So I think an Epicurean can easily maintain a personal list of desirable character traits that is in many cases (not all) similar to a list written by a Stoic. Certainly a Stoic would embrace Lucretius' list (and that's probably why Kalosyni is suspicious of it.) Further, making such a list is explicitly what PD05 is doing in saying that the happy life requires prudence, honor, and justice.

But the difference in how you get your list, and how you support it and explain it to other people, makes all the difference in the world.

I don't agree that this list indicates what you are concerned about, but before I weigh in much more I'd like to hear what others have to say. This should be a good opportunity to talk about where Stoicism and Epicureanism diverge and why.

Welcome to Episode 278 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 continue our 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. 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.

Today we continue debating the nature of death in Section XXXII.

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Our general discussion guide for Tusculun Disputations is here: https://epicureanfriends.github.io/tusculundisput…lish/section:12

And a side-by-side version with comments is here:

EpicureanFriends SideBySide Commentary on TD

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In the past we have had threads that touched on the issue of pain, pleasure, and addition, such as this one.

In addition, we regularly get questions such as:

I've been rethinking my relationship with XXXXX and how to navigate it in a way that’s consistent with a grounded materialist worldview. The religious structure of some self-help programs (like AA in particular) just doesn’t seem consistent with what Epicurus would recommend.

First of all, we always remind people that clinical / biological / genetic problems require professional help. No matter what the Stoics might say, you can't through sheer willpower "think" your way out of problems like that. Epicurus is reported by Diogenes Laertius at 117 that "A man cannot become wise with every kind of physical constitution, nor in every nation." It seems to me that that "physical constitution" part definitely includes issues that we'd describe as "clinical."

So the first step in this analysis is always to determine if you have a problem that requires professional help, and then get that professional help if you do.

But if the problem we are talking about is more on the order of "bad habits," then Epicurus definitely had things to say about that, such as:

Quote

VS46. "Let us utterly drive from us our bad habits, as if they were evil men who have long done us great harm." (Bailey)

That certainly seems to indicate that bad habits are to be taken seriously and are to be dealt with vigorously, not because there is anything intrinsically sinful in them, but because they produce great pain.

It's also likely that bad habits and addictions were addressed face to face among the ancient Epicureans, and it's for that reason that we see so much discussion of "frank speech." A personal level of interaction and accountability is very helpful and probably necessary. That's something that probably doesn't exist and probably impossible to get in an online communities.

Also, when we get questions about particular additions or habits, it's helpful to find someone in the community with recovery experience in the precise issue (either firsthand or as a therapist). If someone has experience in that area and is willing to let others know about it, starting a Zoom support group could be a baby step toward a fuller expression of Epicurus' original vision of friendship and support. If this strikes you as something you would be interested in volunteering to do in some capacity, let me know by private conversation and we can explore setting something like that up

We've definitely had people let us know that they've been through tough experiences and would have benefited from support with philosophically like-minded people. So if anyone has any experience or interest in being resources in such situations, again let us know.

So let's use this thread for those who can offer general comments that they've found helpful themselves and that fit within an Epicurean perspective. We'll see what direction this goes, and if we have any people who are interested in volunteering to be resources, let us know.