Posts by Cassius

Good catch kochie. It wasn't clear to me whether he meant something like "true Epicureanism is so ascetic that it isn't possible for a normal person to follow," or rather "if you don't have the thread of hell or the promise of heaven hanging over your head then the normal person doesn't have the willpower to follow it" or rather something else. Maybe if I had seen his facial expression I would have a better idea but I was just listening at the time.

My take from listening was that he genuinely did not sound hostile to Epicurus, more on the order of "mystified" about what certain things meant. There was one part in particular where he said that there was something about the situation that he didn't understand and that he asked the professor to explain to him, but I can't recall exactly the context. But even if my memory is wrong on that, it was interesting to me that he didn't come across to me as a "true believer" either of CIcero's own viewpoint or of the Stoic viewpoint. Given that he's not a professional academic himself, he might well fit the mold of a lot of people who drop in around here, who find these topics fascinating and yet they know they've been told all their lives that they are not supposed to like Epicurus.

A vibe very similar to that other podcast I posted recently from the Florida "Madisonian" professor who chose to focus on Hume but in doing so seemed to be surprised how much he agreed with Epicurus and Hume.

I actually find both of these last two podcasts encouraging, in that neither are overtly pro-Epicurean, and probably both are oriented in favor of other philosophic positions, and yet both seemed to treat Epicurus in an unexpectedly (to them) favorable way.

Has anyone seen any studies or well-founded recommendations on how many items in a list can be comfortably handled at one time? I am thinking i have hear recommendations as to how long a list of things is manageable, but maybe that's in relation to how high crows seem to be able to count rather than humans

At the moment I think we should enforce a limit of 15 categories in any single forum list, and if we get up to 15 we combine one or more of the others so that the number never gets higher than 15.

But it's possible that it would be better for the number to be 10 or less.

Anyone have any ideas or links or "gut feels" as to how long a list can be before it becomes too irritating to scroll through?

Happy Birthday to tariq! Learn more about tariq and say happy birthday on tariq's timeline: tariq

I will broaden the "Lifestyle" title

Attempting to keep the forum organized where posts are findable is a never-ending task. We've made some more updates to forum structure today with a goal (admittedly arbitrary!) that there be no more than 15 items in any category. That means at the top level there will be no more than 14 forums, and each subforum will have no more than 15 subcategories - we will group categories together anytime they exceed 15 in number. This is to prevent interminable scrolling in any one listing.

The forum software is very good at making automatic adjustments, but one downside of forum reorganization is that existing links can break. If you run into broken links let us know here in this thread and we'll fix them as quickly as possible.

At present, the top level structure of the forum will be:

1. General Information And Discussion - Start Here
2. Private Section - Includes Level 03 And Above Discussions and 20th Zoom Meeting
3. The Lucretius Today Podcast and other Projects
4. Events, Outreach, and Activism, Including EpicureanFriends Zoom Meetings
5. Physics - The Nature of the Universe
6. Canonics - The Tests of Truth: The Five Senses, Anticipations, and Feelings of Pleasure and Pain
7. Ethics - How To Live As An Epicurean
8. Epicurean Historical Figures - Biographies of Epicureans from Epicurus To The Present
9. Ancient Epicurean Texts - 300 BC to 300 AD
10. Material Of Special Significance (Commentaries and Textbooks)
11. Materials After the Classical Epicurean Period (300 - 2000's)
12. Comparisons With Non-Epicurean Philosophies
13. Epicurean Lifestyle, Culture, And Places of Interest

14. Epicurean Symbolism in Art, Music, Literature, and Poetry

    *****

    *Admin Note: Forum category names and order have been changed - 01/05/2025

It's looking great, Twentier. You do excellent work.

Great video and comments Julia.

Very interesting Pacatus! To extend my comparison from post 22 above, here is the first paragraph from Chapter one of "Epicurus and the Pleasant Life." I note that this is a total rewrite from the first edition"

"If we were to describe the Epicurean Philosophy in a single word, it would be "pleasure." And if we were to sum it up in a sentence, it would be this excerpt from the letter of Epicurus to Menoeceus: "Pleasure is the beginning and the end of the happy life." With this simple statement, Epicurus establishes the emotion of pleasure as both the means and the purpose of life, in contrast to all other philosophies that introduce rational means and ends such as achievement, success, wealth, morality, social justice, and so on."

From here I am going to move or copy these over into a thread on Haris' book so we can continue this. Based on what I am seeing I might want to affirm that this would be my third suggestion for new readers.

I'll combine it with this thread too:

Thread

Second Edition of Haris Dimitriadis' "Epicurus And the Pleasant Life" Now Released

epicureanfriends.com/wcf/attachment/3135/

It has just come to my attention that Haris has released a second edition of his "Epicurus and the Pleasant Life." His detailed preface is available on his website here. The following is an excerpt:

[…]

I have been an appreciative fan of Haris for the many years that I have been in (unfortunately sporadic) communication with him over at Facebook. In fact we have at least one article from him featured here on Epicureanfriends:

…

Cassius

December 15, 2022 at 9:13 AM

Yes I agree Pacatus - of the books I recommend I would probably rank his as third as well.

I know in my case you are pointing out an oversight I am making personally. I have a copy of Harris' first edition, but I understand it has been updated and improved significantly since that edition. When the upgrade came out, for some reason my Kindle edition did not update, and I don't think I have seen the new edition.

You post is going to motivate me to fix that.

Even given my current memory, I do agree that I would rate this highly. How would you compare it to the Catherine Wilson books?

I see that our friend Eikadistes has launched a brand new website where he collects much of his outstanding research into many aspects of Epicurean Philosophy. I have not had a chance to go through it yet so I can't comment on specific sections, but I thought I would go ahead and post this link for those who might be on the internet on Memorial day. I'm sure it will be excellent quality.

Here's the link:

Twentiers

Hogs from the Herd

twentiers.com

I am glad you posted further to give me a chance to clarify a few things:

Quote from Don

I agree that Dewitt was a "fanboy" of Epicurus, but I don't see that as necessarily a negative.

Actually i predicted to someone else here on the forum that that would be exactly your take on it! And of course I agree. "Reverence" for the sage is of great help to those during the "reverencing."

Quote from Don

He obviously gave them lots of thought, but it seems he didn't feel her could write them as part of his academic career.

It occurs to me that that observation applies not only to DeWitt, but I suspect it has very personal application to someone we've had the privilege to interact with on the podcast - Emily Austin - who may undertake other work on Epicurus in the future. Becoming known as a defender of Epicurus could get your head chopped off some recent centuries ago, it was a guaranteed way to fail to win friends and influence people in the last century, and it's entirely unclear to me what the future holds. Anyone who undertakes that job could be forgiven for thinking that have decided to emulate Don Quixote.

Quote from Don

To TauPhi 's assertions...

There's always some tension between what needs to be said in context and what might be misunderstood by new readers who skim over threads. TauPhi is a longstanding and respected member of the forum who attends many of our zoom meetings, and as a result those of us who know him know him to be extremely constructive and helpful. I would not normally have responded quite so directly, but we just had an exchange with recent member @Josh about books to read, so I wanted to make an important point.

Since writing that post, I've thought of a better way to make the point.

Here's one way to decide whether someone should read "Living for Pleasure" first or DeWitt's book first (in my estimation anyway).

Below is the first paragraph from the first chapter of both books, and the difference gives you an excellent hint of what to expect:

---

Living For Pleasure, Chapter One, Paragraph One: "Imagine yourself on vacation. Not everyone enjoys beaches, and some people would rather eat sand than sleep in the woods. Maybe you prefer to vacation in your living room. Now that you've figured out where you are, who's there? You, obviously, but people rarely want to be entirely alone for all that long because we're social creatures. You might be with your romantic partner, or maybe your children or some close friends. Maybe you're there with George Clooney because why not?"

Epicurus And His Philosophy, Chapter One, Paragraph One: "This book attempts to present for the first time a fairly complete account of the life and teachings of Epicurus. At the very outset the reader should be prepared to think of him at one and the same time as the most revered and the most reviled of all founders of thought in the Graeco-Roman world."

---

If that doesn't help someone pick which book to start first, I don't know what will.

BOTH approaches are legitimate and important, but they appeal to two entirely different segments of readers. BOTH segments are important to and well represented on this forum, and we want to be responsive to the interests and friendship desires of both. And i have both books and recommend them both, sometimes in one order and sometimes in another, depending on what I know about the person who is asking for a place to start.

I would say both are "best in class" for (1) the generalist reader who may be entirely new to Epicurus, and (2) the reader who probably already knows a considerable about about Epicureanism, Stoicism, and other classical philosophy, and who wants to begin to learn more about where Epicurus fits into that picture.

Episode 230 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available, with Velleius attacking misplaced ideas of divinity expressed by other philosophers.

Joshua does what Don posted joggle your memory?

Also as a reminder as we proceed with this episode, around the 30 minute mark Joshua mentions a disciple of Pythagorus who asserted that the number 10 was of special significance to the geometric forms. During the podcast we weren't able to recall this person's name but if we come across it we can add it into thjs episode's notes.

Quote from Don

If there's only one infinite being, by definition there would be nothing exterior to itself with which to interact with it

I agree that sounds reasonable. Does that leave the question of whether it could be aware of itself? Does it leave additional questions anyone can think of about why an infinite being could not be aware of itself. Does "infinity" contradict the idea of being "a being"?

Addendum: I should note in addition to criticizing Xenophanes on this "infinity can have no sensation" argument that Velleius had raised essentially he same point shortly before, in the same section, against Anaxagorus:

Quote

XI. Anaxagoras, who received his learning from Anaximenes, was the first who affirmed the system and disposition of all things to be contrived and perfected by the power and reason of an infinite mind; in which infinity he did not perceive that there could be no conjunction of sense and motion, nor any sense in the least degree, where nature herself could feel no impulse. If he would have this mind to be a sort of animal, then there must be some more internal principle from whence that animal should receive its appellation. But what can be more internal than the mind? Let it, therefore, be clothed with an external body. But this is not agreeable to his doctrine; but we are utterly unable to conceive how a pure simple mind can exist without any substance annexed to it.

So this argument appears to be something that the Epicureans considered very significant, and presents an issue that we need to understand about the issue of infinity.

Quote from TauPhi

However, when someone invests any time in the study of Epicureanism, it becomes very clear very quickly that DeWitt wrote his book not as a scholar but more as a fanboy of Epicurus. With all due respect to his work, he doesn't seem to have problems drawing conclusions out of thin air to make Epicureanism what he wants Epicureanism to be instead of presenting it for what it was, to the best of available resources.

There's no need for us to "take a poll" or line up likes and dislikes on this point, but since I have and will continue to recommend "Epicurus and His Philosophy" as one of the two best starting points for someone who wants to get an overview of the entire philosophy, I don't want people reading this thread in the future to see it without a response from me, because i strongly disagree with this characterization of the DeWitt book. No other academic writer has had the courage to break from the negative prevailing consensus about Epicurus as thoroughly as DeWitt, and no one else comes close to presenting the entire sweep of the philosophy in a sympathetic and approachable way. Some may disagree with some of this conclusions, but he deserves a lot of credit for what he accomplished, and indeed his attitude that the prevailing texts have been mistranslated and unappreciated is very close to the same observation that brought up the subject in this thread.

The other book I rank at the same level of usefulness is "Living for Pleasure," but that has a different target market, and makes no effort to cover many of the details that you will find brought together in one place only in DeWitt.

The two books go well together, with "Living for Pleasure" as a very well written "self-help" book to get people who might not otherwise think about Epicurus started in reading about him, and "Epicurus and His Philosophy" providing many additional background details and explanatory analysis about many other important aspects of his philosophy.

Thanks for the opportunity to repeat this because I fully recognize, and it's important to understand, that DeWitt's book is not universally appreciated in the world of Epicurean writing, the best evidence of which is that it is rarely if ever cited as a source in most Epicurean commentary over the last 50 years.

Regardless of how opinions divide, one fact I can state with confidence is that were it not for DeWitt's interpretations and explanations, which cast Epicurus in an entirely different light than most, this forum would not exist.

In this episode one criticism made by Velleius is I think particularly interesting (and difficult), in that involves infinity, which is one of the subjects to which Epicurus said to pay special attention. Here is the quote, from Book One section XI, this translation by Rackham:

Quote from Velleius in On The Nature of The Gods XI

Next, Xenophanes endowed the universe with mind, and held that, as being infinite, it was god. His view of mind is as open to objection as that of the rest ; but on the subject of infinity he incurs still severer criticism, for the infinite can have no sensation and no contact with anything outside.

My interpretation of this, as stated in the podcast (if it survives editing) is that Epicurus would say that "infinity" is a concept that itself "can have no sensation and no contact with anything outside [itself?]. I suggested that there might be a parallel here in the argument made by Socrates/Plato that the greatest good cannot be pleasure because pleasure can be made better (by adding more) and thus something that can be made better is itself not perfect or complete. Analogously, is there an argument that a divinity cannot be infinite because that means the divinity is not complete (or "perfect" in the sense of completed)?

That's just my first thought, but I wanted to add this to the thread because it seems that Velleius (and therefore probably Epicurus) took the position that a divinity cannot be infinite "for the infinite can have no sensation....."

Thoughts?

Over at facebook today someone asked about this same quote, and Holly expressed questions. Elli gave an answer worth recording here:

Holly hello and joy! In the above fragment, I smell the bad smell of platonism and stoicism.

The above fragment 221 in greek language is: "κενὸς ἐκείνου φιλοσόφου λόγος, ὑφʼ οὗ μηδὲν πάθος ἀνθρώπου θεραπεύεται· ὥσπερ γὰρ ἰατρικῆς οὐδὲν ὄφελος μὴ τὰς νόσους τῶν σωμάτων ἐκβαλλούσης, οὕτως οὐδὲ φιλοσοφίας, εἰ μὴ τὸ τῆς ψυχῆς ἐκβάλλει πάθος".

First of all, and as Epicurus suggests in his LTH, is to grasp quickly the meaning of the words. Here in our situation we grasp the meaning of the greek word "πάθος" [pathos].

In my opinion this above fragment 221 comes from Porphyrs' platonic mind, and not from the mouth of Epicurus. Why I say that? Because...

Please look how controversial is with the following saying by Epicurus "on the wise man" by Diogenis Laertius. Since, when Epicurus uses the greek word "πάθος" [pathos] or in plural "πάθη" [pathi] he means the feeling (s) and not any "suffering".

For Epicurus the word for "suffering" is given usually and frequently in his writings with the word "πόνος" - PAIN (for the body) and "λύπη" SAD (for the soul) or "ταραχή" [agitation]. Also for the word "πόνος" [PAIN] Epicurus uses another synonym greek word that is the "άλγος" [algos]. For "algos", see the drugs that remove the pain, and we call them as analgesics.

The saying "on the wise man", by Epicurus - which is controversial with that fragment 221 by Porphyrs - in greek is : "O σοφός <<πάθεσι>> μάλλον συσχεσθήσεσθαι ουκ αν εμποδίσαι προς την σοφίαν".

In english: "The wise man will be more deeply moved by <<feelings>> than others, but this will not prove to be an obstacle to his wisdom".

Moreover, Epicurus in his letter to Pythocles, he uses again this word "παθών" [pathon] with the same meaning. The greek text is "ἔτι δὲ κριτηρίων καὶ <<παθῶν>> καὶ οὗ ἕνεκεν ταῦτα ἐκλογιζόμεθα"· And means "and also of the criteria of truth and of the <<feelings>>, and of the purpose for which we reason out these things".

And finally, please, think also and another english word that is the word "empathy" that includes the greek word "πάθος" [pathos-passion] and means something very important that is : the ability to share someone else's feelings or experiences by imagining what it would be like to be in that person's situation.

Conclusion: The neoplatonists, along with stoicism, the only that they have in mind is to remove, expel, uproot all the feelings [πάθη-pathi] from the human being.

In regard to the comment that has been referenced recently that Voltaire is recorded to have praised "On The Nature of the Gods" very highly, I've found this on wikipedia:

This work, alongside De Officiis and De Divinatione, was highly influential on the philosophes of the 18th century. David Hume was familiar with the work and used it to style his own Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.^[17] Voltaire described De Natura Deorum and the Tusculan Disputations as "the two most beautiful books ever produced by the wisdom of humanity".^[18]

De Natura Deorum - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The footnote for that is:

'Les deux plus beaux ouvrages qu’ait jamais écrits la sagesse qui n’est qu’humaine' [Voltaire, "Cicéron", Dictionnaire philosophique (1764); Œuvres complètes (Garnier) 18:181]