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As an aside I think it's a useful technique for learning Epicurean philosophy to offset against each other two or more reliable citations that on the surface seem to conflict with each other, and then explain how they can be reconciled.
Lots of issues can be addressed that way.
Good points Don. And I think this begins the trip toward asking "under what circumstances -if any - do mental or emotional concerns (pains) outweigh what some would focus on the "simple pleasures that are almost always available to us."?
That's the challenge to articulate, I think, because while the wise man will (almost?) always have more reason for joy than for vacation, we will also sometimes die for a friend.
Reconciling those perspectives is doable I think but requires articulation as I think the question bothers significant numbers of people.
It would be highly interesting to read something in depth on Twain's ultimate religious views. There's clearly very much in his viewpoint and manner of expression that is Epicurean - adjacent.
And yet there seems to have been a failure to take a few steps further that would have made him more consistent from an Epicurean point of view. I don't know why he failed to go a little further and it would be an interesting study to explore why. As an example maybe in the end he saw himself more as an "entertainer" than a real "social reformer" or "phllosopher." I haven't read nearly enough of his overall work to have a basis for a firm opinion.
This subject came up briefly in the Wednesday Zoom last night and I could not even remember the name of the book or work by Twain that we discussed some time ago as being arguably Epicurean-adjacent, and Joshua was awol ( 
) and could not remind me!
So here it is -- something that would definitely fit into a discussion of this topic -- What Is Man?
Definitely questions of what is actually "Epicurean-adjacent" vs "the camel of virulent anti-Epicureanism has his nose under the tent" are always of interest.
We had several good conversations in our Wednesday night Zoom tonight, and one of them stemmed from a nearby discussion started by Kalosyni:
Rather than add this question to that thread, however, I think it's useful to consider this question separately because it does not just relate to natural vs necessary desires, it also requires us to consider explicitly the relationship between "mental" desires vs. "purely physical" desires.
(The state motto of New Hampshire, for those who aren't from the USA, is "Live Free or Die." )
How would Epicurus advise someone who was confronted with the choice that is contained in that slogan?
Let me say at the outset that I think a proper analysis of this question will consider the relationship between "physical" pleasures and "mental" pleasures. That's the way this relates to the "simple pleasures" question.
Some people will point out that it is very easy to obtain the natural and necessary "purely physical" desires which keep us alive, so we should not be concerned with "psychological desires" such as "being free,"
This is not an easy distinction to articulate, but one text that is potentially related is referenced by Torquatus in On Ends:
XVII. The doctrine thus firmly established has corollaries which I will briefly expound.
(1)The Ends of Goods and Evils themselves, that is, pleasure and pain, are not open to mistake; where people go wrong is in not knowing what things are productive of pleasure and pain.
(2) Again, we aver that mental pleasures and pains arise out of bodily ones (and therefore I allow your contention that any Epicureans who think otherwise put themselves out of court; and I am aware that many do, though not those who can speak with authority); but although men do experience mental pleasure that is agreeable and mental pain that is annoying, yet both of these we assert arise out of and are based upon bodily sensations.
So with that as background, the question for discussion is: "How Would Epicurus Analyze The Slogan "Live Free Or Die"?" as an ethical guide?
Yes Joshua has in my mind quoted the best citation that can be raised in support of the proposition that all desires should be limited: ""If you wish," said he, "to make Pythocles rich, do not add to his store of money, but subtract from his desires."
And you can add in the statement about how when we are in no pain we have no need of pleasure.
BUT in response to those there are very many good arguments that those statements are contextual, and that life and pleasure are desirable, and those those general principles override the contextual instances in which impossible desires necessarily lead to more pain than pleasure.
This is an excellent discussion to pursue in great detail.
Yes the natural / necessary desires are of the highest value.
Depending on the contextual meaning assigned to the word "value," I don't think that can be sustained as a foundational Epicurean rule.
Yes you need them to live, but that does not mean necessarily that they are "most pleasant." Epicurus clearly states in his letter that the wise man is not going to seek the longest life, but the most pleasant.
And he also states that sometimes we will choose to die, as for a friend, or when we are sure that the pain of our future life will make living on not worthwhile in terms of pleasure.
So I think more work needs to be done on stating that most accurately in Epicurean terms.
Also, the stark finality of death described in points 8-10, while generally aligned with Epicurean thought, might be slightly oversimplified.
That's an interesting observation - I wonder what kind of nuance on "stark finality" the chatbot thinks exists? 
Like I said I am a great fan of Mark Twain, but as I look back again I read that section as even more off the mark:
....and the presence of a deep content and unbroken satisfaction in that hundred million years of holiday which I look back upon with a tender longing and with a grateful desire to resume, when the opportunity comes
You don't read that as implying both (1) some kind of awareness and contentedness while being dead, and (2) the desire to resume that experience (of death) later when he dies?
While it's clear that Epicurus doesn't hold there to be any pain in death, nor is there any kind of pleasure whatsoever in death, and death is not a thing to be welcomed, except when one faces pain for which there is no other remedy.
Do you see that differently?
I agree that there is some echoing of taking a devil-may-care attitude toward death that is consistent with Epicurus, but doesn't this cross a line and imply or in fact flatly express that death should flatly be viewed as a desirable experience?
"....when the opportunity comes"?
Welcome GnothiSeauton!
There was a peace, a serenity, an absence of all sense of responsibility, an absence of worry, an absence of care, grief, perplexity; and the presence of a deep content and unbroken satisfaction in that hundred million years of holiday which I look back upon with a tender longing and with a grateful desire to resume, when the opportunity comes.
There's definitely lots of good stuff in Mark Twain! His "Connecticut Yankee" will always be one of my favorite books, largely for its can-do and anti-religious content. But here is he saying that he was "alive" during that hundred million years? ("presence of a deep ...satisfaction?")
Welcome GnothiSeauton !
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This forum is the place for students of Epicurus to coordinate their studies and work together to promote the philosophy of Epicurus. Please remember that all posting here is subject to our Community Standards / Rules of the Forum our Not Neo-Epicurean, But Epicurean and our Posting Policy statements and associated posts.
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 some 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 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.
One way you can be most assured of your time here being productive is to tell us a little about yourself and your background in reading Epicurean texts. It would also be helpful if you could tell us how you found this forum, and any particular areas of interest that you have which would help us make sure that your questions and thoughts are addressed.
Please check out our Getting Started page.
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! We look forward to hearing more from you!
Welcome Lua050904
There is one last step to complete your registration:
All new registrants must post a response to this message here in this welcome thread (we do this in order to minimize spam registrations).
You must post your response within 72 hours, or your account will be subject to deletion.
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 / Rules of the Forum our Not Neo-Epicurean, But Epicurean and our Posting Policy statements and associated posts.
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 some 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 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.
One way you can be most assured of your time here being productive is to tell us a little about yourself and your background in reading Epicurean texts. It would also be helpful if you could tell us how you found this forum, and any particular areas of interest that you have which would help us make sure that your questions and thoughts are addressed.
Please check out our Getting Started page.
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!
Anothe Facebook exchange in this thread:
Greg Anastasi : This is an excellent thread! I've spent a lot of time looking at Stoicism. And I'm circling around to Epicureanism. so I'm still "getting the vibe".
Cassius:
Welcome Greg!
I suspect you're using "vibe" informally, but it is a good word to think about. Epicurus rejected the idea of there being a "harmony" of the spheres (Lucretius specifically addresses that) because such ideas presume some kind of supernatural creative and guiding force behind the universe. Ultimately and regardless of how the modern stoics try to rebake the cake, Stoicism makes sense only if you take the position that there is an ultimate divine force that justifies the pursuit of "virtue" as the ultimate goal.
That's why I think when you drill down to brass tacks, and you eliminate concerns about the supernatural as Epicurus did, you then realize that everything worth having is going to come to you - if at all - in this life, because there is no other.
One of the most difficult hurdles to overcome is that of seeing that the Stoics and others are misrepresenting Epicurus in accusing him of equating "pleasure" with "sex, drugs, and rock and roll."
Epicurean philosophy is very clear that if you are alive and experiencing anything at all, what you are experiencing should be viewed as either pleasure or pain. That means that all experiences of life which are not explicitly painful fall within the term "pleasure," and that includes everything worthwhile and meaningful in life, not just sensual pleasure, but all the art and literature and wisdom and nobility that the Stoics want to claim for themselves but which they at at same time hold to consider merely preferable or to be indifferent about, all for the sake of the ambiguous word "virtue."
Epicurean philosophy incorporates the benefits of stoicism (including appreciation of calmness of mind and the need for work and exertion and reason-based action) by recognizing that we sometimes choose pain in order to obtain a greater pleasure. In sum, Epicurean philosophy provides what some see as the benefits of stoicism, but explains the reasoning and full analysis properly, in terms of all of the desirable aspects of life as constituting pleasure, which provides a sound basis for a complete approach to life that is consistent with a totally natural universe.
Much of our podcast discussion of Epicurus' opposition to both Necessity and Skepticism is going to turn on Dr. Sedley's article "Epicurus' Refutation of Determinism."
I'd like to note here that one insight that I think we're going to take away from that article is that Dr. Sedley believes (with good reason I think) that Epicurus' primary grounds for objecting to determinism was not "the swerve," which is not mentioned in the letter to Menoeceus.
The primary and very interesting basis that I think we'll find has lots of applications is that Epicurus was objecting to reasoning by infinite regression. This is the basis for
VS40. The man who says that all things come to pass by necessity cannot criticize one who denies that all things come to pass by necessity: for he admits that this too happens of necessity.
... and it's implicit also in VS09. Necessity is an evil, but there is no necessity to live under the control of necessity.
As Dr. Sedley its also the basis for the defense of the senses as in Book 4 of Lucretius and in DIogenes of Oinoanda Fragment 5:
[Others do not] explicitly [stigmatise] natural science as unnecessary, being ashamed to acknowledge [this], but use another means of discarding it. For, when they assert that things are inapprehensible, what else are they saying than that there is no need for us to pursue natural science? After all, who will choose to seek what he can never find? Now Aristotle and those who hold the same Peripatetic views as Aristotle say that nothing is scientifically knowable, because things are continually in flux and, on account of the rapidity of the flux, evade our apprehension. We on the other hand acknowledge their flux, but not its being so rapid that the nature of each thing [is] at no time apprehensible by sense-perception. And indeed [in no way would the upholders of] the view under discussion have been able to say (and this is just what they do [maintain] that [at one time] this is [white] and this black, while [at another time] neither this is [white nor] that black, [if] they had not had [previous] knowledge of the nature of both white and black.
We need to discuss the implications of the infinite regression objection, but I think one of the primary take-aways is that the argument amounts to pointing out that an infinite regression proves nothing. If it proves nothing, what then are we left with? We are left with what we can observe through the senses, the feelings, and the anticipations.
We perceive through the canonical faculties that we *can* know some things, and that we *can* make some decisions that affect the future on on our own. Since nothing can be more reliable than these faculties (they are the test of truth of everything) then neither arguments by infinite regression nor on any other basis which cannot be validated through them should be accepted as persuasive.
Sedley seems to me to be saying that this kind of logical argument is the real basis for Epicurus' reasoning on the critical issues of skepticism and determinism, and i think he's right. As for the swerve, it makes sense, but as Lucretius himself says, it is impossible for us to observe the swerve in action, and as Sedley says, the swerve is not really logically needed to explain how the atoms first came together to create worlds - and thus it is not included in the letter to Herodotus.
(This is not to say that the swerve isn't significant at all, but does indicate that we should not place excessive reliance on it in basic discussion, especially since Epicurus didn't mention it to either Herodotus or Pythocles.)
Only the wise can judge the wise... therefore we should all be skeptics?
Here is the Meno problem stated another way, In Cicero's Academic Questions (the person speaking is Cicero himself, speaking as an Academic Skeptic, if I read this correctly):
Nor is there any difference between ourselves and those who think that they have positive knowledge except that they have no doubt that their tenets are true, whereas we hold many doctrines as probable, which we can easily act upon but can scarcely advance as certain ; yet we are more free and untrammeled in that we possess our power of judgement uncurtailed, and are bound by no compulsion to support all the dogmas laid down for us almost as edicts by certain masters. For all other people in the first place are held in close bondage placed upon them before they were able to judge what doctrine was the best, and secondly they form judgments about matters as to which they know nothing at the most incompetent period of life, either under the guidance of some friend or under the influence of a single harangue from the first lecturer that they attended, and cling as to a rock to whatever theory they are carried to by stress of weather. For as to their assertion that the teacher whom they judge to have been a wise man commands their absolute trust, I would agree to this if to make that judgement could actually have lain within the power of unlearned novices (for to decide who is a wise man seems to be a task that specially requires a wise man to undertake it) ; but granting that it lay within their power, it was only possible for them after hearing all the facts and ascertaining the views of all the other schools as well, whereas they gave their verdict after a single hearing of the case, and enrolled themselves under the authority of a single master. But somehow or other most men prefer to go wrong, and to defend tooth and nail the system for which they have come to feel an affection, rather than to lay aside obstinacy and seek for the doctrine that is most consistent. Academica II iii Lucullus
These comments were part of a recent conversation on the costs of food and other items. I'm pasting them here as they might be usable to others in the future.
1 -
I wonder if there is anything to the idea that the diet in the garden was simple most of the time, perhaps largely home-grown, but then they went all-out once a month. Spending a mina on a dinner party is quite a lot, even if they had 100 guests.
A mina was equivalent to 100 drachmas. A drachma was about 4.3 grams of silver and was an average daily wage for average labor and had the purchasing power of around $30 during Epíkouros lifetime. A full meal with meat, cheese and wine could easily cost a drachma. Epíkouros probably only spent so much on special occasions when hosting many people.
2 - Is it clear from the text that they're referring to a unit of currency rather than a measurement of weight? 1 Mina is either a lot of money or about 15 ounces. 15 ounces is a typical ribeye steak.
3 - Yeah, we'll have to figure this out together! I dont think a mina was ever in coin form, 15oz of silver (which was worth 100 drachma, and would be worth about $350 today), would probably just be in the form of a small ingot/bar. But 15oz held more value in the past, and would have felt more like $6,000 at the time... but I could be missing something.
4 - I guess the question is whether drachma, mina, etc were only used for the weights of precious metals or not. A dram (itself derived from drachma) is variously 1/16th or 1/8th of an ounce.
It looks like it's Plutarch's Lives to the rescue once again
[2] συνήρχοντο δὲ ἀνὰ πεντεκαίδεκα καὶ βραχεῖ τούτων ἐλάττους ἢ πλείους. ἔφερε δὲ ἕκαστος κατὰ μῆνα τῶν συσσίτων ἀλφίτων μέδιμνον, οἴνου χόας ὀκτώ, τυροῦ πέντε μνᾶς, σύκων ἡμιμναῖα πέντε, πρὸς δὲ τούτοις εἰς ὀψωνίαν μικρόν τι κομιδῇ νομίσματος: ἄλλως δὲ [p. 238] καὶ θύσας τις ἀπαρχὴν καὶ θηρεύσας μέρος ἔπεμψεν εἰς τὸ συσσίτιον. ἐξῆν γὰρ οἴκοι δειπνεῖν ὁπότε θύσας τις ἢ κυνηγῶν ὀψίσειε, τοὺς δὲ ἄλλους ἔδει παρεῖναι.
[2] They met in companies of fifteen, a few more or less, and each one of the mess-mates contributed monthly a bushel [medimnus] of barley-meal, eight gallons [χοῦς] of wine, five pounds [mina] of cheese, two and a half pounds [half-mina] of figs, and in addition to this, a very small sum of money for such relishes as flesh and fish. Besides this, whenever any one made a sacrifice of first fruits, or brought home game from the hunt, he sent a portion to his mess. For whenever any one was belated by a sacrifice or the chase, he was allowed to sup at home, but the rest had to be at the mess.
[bracketed text is mine]
That settles the question as far as I'm concerned. They're talking about the weight of the food, not the weight and value of the silver that was traded for the food.
5 - If there are 15 messmates, and every month each messmate brings five mina of cheese and two and a half mina of fruit (figs perhaps), that's 112.5 mina of food for the mess each month, which comes out to 3.75 mina per day per messmate not including the barley and wine, and, less frequently, meat.
Going by Wikipedia, a medimnus of barley was ~31 kg, and an Attic mina weighed ~0.4366 kg (nearly one pound)--71 mina per medimnus of barley. 35.5 mina of barley per messmate per day. That's clearly an absurd amount of barley, so I'll have to go deeper. The following two paragraphs are also from Wikipedia;
Sparta's agriculture consisted mainly of barley, wine, cheese, grain, and figs. These items were grown locally on each Spartan citizen's kleros and were tended to by helots. Spartan citizens were required to donate a certain amount of what they yielded from their kleros to their syssitia, or mess. These donations to the syssitia were a requirement for every Spartan citizen. All the donated food was then redistributed to feed the Spartan population of that syssitia.[143] The helots who tended to the lands were fed using a portion of what they harvested.
It is believed that an active adult male in the sixth century BCE would have needed to consume about eight medimnoi per year, with a typical female consuming a slightly lower amount. From these figures, it can be estimated that a young family including a father, a mother and three children would have consumed approximately 25 medimnoi every year. The payment required to receive a very high rank, therefore, would feed approximately 20 families.
If instead of trying to convert the medimnus to mina (likely a fool's errand) I just use this paragraph as a guide, it tracks with the amounts listed by Plutarch. Each messmate eats a half-medimnus of barley per month, which would make 6/8ths=3/4ths of his diet at the mess barley, with the remainder of his diet being cheese, fruit, wine, and meat.
Edit; then again, even that would be 3.75 (cheese and fruit) + 11.25 (barley) = 15 mina per day of food. Roughly 4 to 5 times the usual amount by weight, but not out of the ordinary for a modern Olympic athlete during training (8000-10000 calories per day).
6 -
This is all good, helpful stuff, but a mina was definitely a unit of commerce during Epicurus' lifetime, whether coinage or not, because:
[redacted]
While we will probably never know the exact location of Epicurus’s Garden in ancient Athens, we can take a number of educated guesses.
April 19, 2023
Source 2: The Testimony of Apollodorus the Epicurean (2nd century BCE via 3rd century CE)
Source 2 Text: Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Book 10.10-11.
Friends indeed came to him from all parts and lived with him in his garden (ἐν τῷ κήπῳ). This is stated by Apollodorus, who also says that he purchased (πρίασθαι) the garden for eighty minae (ὀγδοήκοντα μνῶν); and to the same effect Diocles in the third book of his Epitome speaks of them as living a very simple and frugal life…
Also remember the context of the "spending a mina" on meals was in the slanderous book of Timoctates entitled Εὐφραντός ("Merriment"):
Again there was Timocrates, the brother of Metrodorus, who was his disciple and then left the school. He in the book entitled Merriment asserts that Epicurus vomited twice a day from over-indulgence, and goes on to say that he himself had much ado to escape from those notorious midnight philosophizings and the confraternity with all its secrets ; [7] further, that Epicurus's acquaintance with philosophy was small and his acquaintance with life even smaller ; that his bodily health was pitiful,12 so much so that for many years he was unable to rise from his chair ; and that he spent a whole mina daily on his table, as he himself says in his letter to Leontion and in that to the philosophers at Mitylene.
My response to the Facebook post:
Good use of a chatbot! Of course I disagree with it, because it doesn't consider the nuances of the reason for the post or the subtlety of Epicurean philosophy, but it's helpful to draw out the issues.
It also systematically reveals the standard non-Epicurean perspective on Epicurus common among those who are primarily Stoic or Humanist or do not take the time to read the texts closely enough and take Epicurus seriously. Here are a few responses:
1 - Yes friendship is important, but friendship is not an end in itself. Friendship is desirable because it is among the most important tools to obtain pleasure. Friendship and community are subservient to pleasure, not the other way around. That's a thread of error that runs through the entire AI analysis.
2. Same for the AI positions on katastematic and kinetic pleasure and tranquility. Those are aspects and types of pleasure, but not the goal in itself. Pleasure is the goal, not some single type of pleasure or tranquility. Epicurus says that PLEASURE is the alpha and omega of a blessed life, not tranquility.
3. Communal living is also a "tool" and not an end in itself. Epicurus in fact specifically is recorded to have held that community holding of money is not appropriate, because holding money in common is not the way friendship operates. The AI bot is misinterpreting the issue of individualism vs collectivism as if collectivism or community or friendship were the goal of Epicurus. The goal of Epicurus is pleasure - which includes the pleasure of your friends, because the welfare of your friends is pleasurable to you - and there are times when you will even die for a friend. But every random stranger is not your friend, and you have no duty or obligation to them except to the extent that other people contribute to your goal of pleasure.
4. Same with necessary and unnecessary desires. The principle of the classification, as Torquatus explains, is that by considering these factors you can estimate the amount of pleasure and pain that will arise from certain choices and avoidances. But it is clearly established that you will sometimes choose pain in order to obtain a pleasure that is greater than the pain. Once again, this analysis is a tool, not an end in itself. Many tools are possible, but no tool - especially the tool of "virtue"- is an end in itself, nor is any tool choiceworthy unless it leads to pleasurable living.
A response from Facebook:
This is written with the help of Claude 3.5:
Let me analyze this interpretation of Epicurean philosophy point by point. While there are some accurate elements, there are also some oversimplifications and potential misunderstandings.
Accurate elements:
- Points 1 and 2 broadly align with Epicurean thought, though it's more nuanced. Epicurus didn't deny the existence of gods but argued they were distant and uninvolved in human affairs.
- Points 3 and 4 capture Epicurus's views on free will and determinism fairly well. He believed in a form of libertarian free will within atomic determinism.
- Points 8-10 about death and the afterlife are largely consistent with Epicurean teachings.
Areas needing refinement or correction:
- Points 5-6 significantly oversimplify Epicurus's complex theory of pleasure. He distinguished between:
* Kinetic pleasures (active pleasures)
* Katastematic pleasures (static pleasures, like peace of mind)
He emphasized that the highest good was not maximizing momentary pleasures but achieving ataraxia (tranquility) and aponia (absence of physical pain).
- The text presents pleasure too individualistically ("agreeable to you"). Epicurus emphasized friendship and community as essential to the good life. He ran a philosophical school called "The Garden" where communal living was central.
- Point 11 contradicts Epicurus's emphasis on friendship and community. He would say that the opinions of our friends and philosophical community matter greatly.
- Point 12 frames things too individualistically. Epicurus would say the question is how to live wisely in accordance with nature and in community with others to achieve tranquility.
Key missing elements:
1. The importance of philosophy in achieving happiness
2. The role of friendship and community
3. The distinction between necessary and unnecessary desires
4. The emphasis on moderation and self-sufficiency
5. The therapeutic aspect of Epicurean philosophy - its role in relieving anxiety about death, gods, and fate.
(I decided to post this on Facebook and Twitter just to keep up Epicurean conversation over there. There's nothing new here that we don't frequently dscuss on the forum, but I'll post it anyway as another formulation of what we often discuss.)
I see the teachings of Epicurus as coming down mostly to this:
Whether you like it or not, and regardless of what anyone tells you, the following things are true:
