Posts by Cassius

Well the reason it may have sounded good to Usener (and LittleRocker and others) is that it does fit the upbeat mood that I think we agree the Epicureans were trying to capture. The truth about death being nothing to us is not a downer but the ultimate in liberation, and one way we can cheer up LittleRocker and others is to emphasize that we understand the point by making it clear that even if the line *didn't* end that way, it *could* have ended that way, and maybe even if Metrodorus or whoever wrote it had thought about the allusion, they *would* have ended it that way!

Quote from Don

Aristophanes ended his plays like that a lot.

A number of plays were ended explicitly saying "follow me singing triumph, triumph!" (??)

If so, then that helps further to understand Usener's point.

Earlier today I got a chance to review the video I posted above in post #2 and I want to expand my earlier comment. (Caveat: I listened to it, rather that watched it, so I didn't consider facial expressions or motions, so I don't know if those would detract from my otherwise favorable reaction)

I was VERY impressed with the discussion and I think it's well worth watching for most anyone, even if you're not listening to the current episodes of the podcast.

The subjects covered in OTNOTG appear to be much more broad and deep than I expected, so I think we're going to get as much out of it as we got out of "On Ends." This discussion does a good job of pointing out how important these issues are, and how much they turn on issues of physics and of epistemology rather than any narrow view of "religion."

I think over time this video may prompt discussion that will apply to much more than this Episode 230 of our podcast, so I will move it to a separate thread of its own and I encourage further discussion about it.

Anyone familiar with the reference to Aristophanes? The suggestion that there was an intentional reference to what happens at the end of it does seem something that is possible, so worth considering, if it is famous enough to be considered a common cultural reference.

Maybe in this case Usener is suggesting a reasonable possibility. At least it is good to know a potential basis for the suggestion.

I am finding that there has been a lot of recent activity around Cicero's "On The Nature of the Gods."

In addition to the current series that Professor Greg Sadler is doing from a Stoic perspective, I see there is this video which is an interview with someone who did a new translation (last year) of the same work.

The translator is George J. Thomas (a lawyer who writes under the pen name Quintus Curtius) and Michael Fontaine, Professor of Classics at Cornell University.

I think it's pretty clear that neither of these gentlemen consider themselves to be Epicurean, but I was very impressed with their interest and enthusiasm of interest in Epicurus and in Cicero's work in systematizing a presentation of the major philosophical issues of his day.

Quite possibly the main reason I would suggest people watch this video is that it does a great job of discussing how "On The Nature of the Gods" is a very important work that deals with a lot more than just dry issues of "religion." One quote from the video is that apparently Voltaire said that this book "On The Nature of the Gods" was one of the two most important books ever written. Unfortunately they did not mention what he said the other book was.

They make lots of remarks in this video that are of great interest to our current series of Lucretius Today Podcast episodes, so this is separate thread that we can link to as time goes by.

Also I should say that I purchased a Kindle edition of the new translation, and i am very pleased with it. I also purchased the audio version on Audible, which I'll be frank and say that I am less pleased with, because I personally find the narrator's dramatic tone off-putting. But of course that's a purely personal take and your mileage may vary. I'll continue to look for a "neutral" voice in a free edition and I'll link it here if I can find one. There's a librevox version available, but I have to say I don't find that one to my taste either.

Welcome to Episode 230 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.

For our new listeners, let me remind you of several ground rules for both our podcast and our forum.

First: Our aim is to bring you an accurate presentation of classical Epicurean philosophy as the ancient Epicureans understood it.

Second: We won't be talking about modern political issues in this podcast. How you apply Epicurus in your own life is of course entirely up to you. We call this approach "Not Neo-Epicurean, But Epicurean." Epicurean philosophy is a philosophy of its own, it's not the same as Stoicism, Humanism, Buddhism, Taoism, Atheism, Libertarianism or Marxism - it is unique and must be understood on its own, not in terms of any conventional modern morality.

Third: One of the most important things to keep in mind is that the Epicureans often used words very differently than we do today. To the Epicureans, Gods were not omnipotent or omniscient, so Epicurean references to "Gods" do not mean at all the same thing as in major religions today. In the Epicurean theory of knowledge, all sensations are true, but that does not mean all opinions are true, but that the raw data reported by the senses is reported without the injection of opinion, as the opinion-making process takes place in the mind, where it is subject to mistakes, rather than in the senses. In Epicurean ethics, "Pleasure" refers not ONLY to sensory stimulation, but also to every experience of life which is not felt to be painful. The classical texts show that Epicurus was not focused on luxury, like some people say, but neither did he teach minimalism, as other people say. Epicurus taught that all experiences of life fall under one of two feelings - pleasure and pain - and those feelings -- and not gods, idealism, or virtue - are the guides that Nature gave us by which to live. More than anything else, Epicurus taught that the universe is not supernatural in any way, and that means there's no life after death, and any happiness we'll ever have comes in THIS life, which is why it is so important not to waste time in confusion.

Today we are continuing to review the Epicurean sections of Cicero's "On the Nature of The Gods," as presented by the Epicurean spokesman Velleius, beginning at the end of Section 10.

For the main text we are using primarily the Yonge translation, available here. The text which we include in these posts is the Yonge version, the full version of which is here at Epicureanfriends. We will also refer to the public domain version of the Loeb series, which contains both Latin and English, as translated by H. Rackham.

Additional versions can be found here:

• Frances Brooks 1896 translation at Online Library of Liberty
• Lacus Curtius Edition (Rackham)
• PDF Of Loeb Edition at Archive.org by Rackham
• Gutenberg.org version by CD Yonge 

A list of arguments presented will be maintained here.

Today's Text

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.

Alcmæon of Crotona, in attributing a divinity to the sun, the moon, and the rest of the stars, and also to the mind, did not perceive that he was ascribing immortality to mortal beings.

Pythagoras, who supposed the Deity to be one soul, mixing with and pervading all nature, from which our souls are taken, did not consider that the Deity himself must, in consequence of this doctrine, be maimed and torn with the rending every human soul from it; nor that, when the human mind is afflicted (as is the case in many instances), that part of the Deity must likewise be afflicted, which cannot be. If the human mind were a Deity, how could it be ignorant of any thing? Besides, how could that Deity, if it is nothing but soul, be mixed with, or infused into, the world?

Then Xenophanes, who said that everything in the world which had any existence, with the addition of intellect, was God, is as liable to exception as the rest, especially in relation to the infinity of it, in which there can be nothing sentient, nothing composite.

Parmenides formed a conceit to himself of something circular like a crown. (He names it Stephane.) It is an orb of constant light and heat around the heavens; this he calls God; in which there is no room to imagine any divine form or sense. And he uttered many other absurdities on the same subject; for he ascribed a divinity to war, to discord, to lust, and other passions of the same kind, which are destroyed by disease, or sleep, or oblivion, or age. The same honor he gives to the stars; but I shall forbear making any objections to his system here, having already done it in another place.

XII. Empedocles, who erred in many things, is most grossly mistaken in his notion of the Gods. He lays down four natures as divine, from which he thinks that all things were made. Yet it is evident that they have a beginning, that they decay, and that they are void of all sense.

Protagoras did not seem to have any idea of the real nature of the Gods; for he acknowledged that he was altogether ignorant whether there are or are not any, or what they are.

What shall I say of Democritus, who classes our images of objects, and their orbs, in the number of the Gods; as he does that principle through which those images appear and have their influence? He deifies likewise our knowledge and understanding. Is he not involved in a very great error? And because nothing continues always in the same state, he denies that anything is everlasting, does he not thereby entirely destroy the Deity, and make it impossible to form any opinion of him?

Diogenes of Apollonia looks upon the air to be a Deity. But what sense can the air have? or what divine form can be attributed to it?

It would be tedious to show the uncertainty of Plato’s opinion; for, in his Timæus, he denies the propriety of asserting that there is one great father or creator of the world; and, in his book of Laws, he thinks we ought not to make too strict an inquiry into the nature of the Deity. And as for his statement when he asserts that God is a being without any body—what the Greeks call ἀσώματος—it is certainly quite unintelligible how that theory can possibly be true; for such a God must then necessarily be destitute of sense, prudence, and pleasure; all which things are comprehended in our notion of the Gods. He likewise asserts in his Timæus, and in his Laws, that the world, the heavens, the stars, the mind, and those Gods which are delivered down to us from our ancestors, constitute the Deity. These opinions, taken separately, are apparently false; and, together, are directly inconsistent with each other.

Xenophon has committed almost the same mistakes, but in fewer words. In those sayings which he has related of Socrates, he introduces him disputing the lawfulness of inquiring into the form of the Deity, and makes him assert the sun and the mind to be Deities: he represents him likewise as affirming the being of one God only, and at another time of many; which are errors of almost the same kind which I before took notice of in Plato.

Quote from Twentier

My conclusion is that Usener took MAJOR liberties, not only with translations, not only with his personal additions, but in the basic act of assigning symbols the wrong syllable.

Pretty close to the same conclusion DeWitt reached about Usener.

Quote from Don

Always the killjoy here at the forum ...

No need to consider anyone who is committed to accuracy to be a killjoy - we need to be committed to accuracy above all if we are ever going to understand this stuff!

Don can you tell how that proclaiming/exclaiming compares with Martin Ferguson Smith's translation of Diogenes of Oenoanda's "shouting" in fragment 32?

Fr. 32

... [the latter] being as malicious as the former.

I shall discuss folly shortly, the virtues and pleasure now.

If, gentlemen, the point at issue between these people and us involved inquiry into «what is the means of happiness?» and they wanted to say «the virtues» (which would actually be true), it would be unnecessary to take any other step than to agree with them about this, without more ado. But since, as I say, the issue is not «what is the means of happiness?» but «what is happiness and what is the ultimate goal of our nature?», I say both now and always, shouting out loudly to all Greeks and non-Greeks, that pleasure is the end of the best mode of life, while the virtues, which are inopportunely messed about by these people (being transferred from the place of the means to that of the end), are in no way an end, but the means to the end.

Episode 229 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available, with Velleius continuing his attack on Intelligent Design

Godfrey I think that's the most important point.

To me the word "satisfaction" is much too ambiguous of abstraction to be of much help. I can much more identify with the attitude of Vatican Saying 47, which I find much more concrete. I want to be able to say at all times, and under any circumstances, no matter what may happen to me, that when it is time for me to go, spitting contempt on life and on those who vainly cling to it, I will leave life crying aloud a glorious triumph-song that I have lived well.

VS47. Bailey: “I have anticipated thee, Fortune, and entrenched myself against all thy secret attacks. And I will not give myself up as captive to thee or to any other circumstance; but when it is time for me to go, spitting contempt on life and on those who vainly cling to it, I will leave life crying aloud a glorious triumph-song that I have lived well.”

Well at the hazard of sounding pessimistic I would say that you can't *always* try again, if things go badly enough, but at the very least you won't be in the position of having to say to yourself "I didn't even try" and if the activity involved is important enough to you, I would think having to say to yourself "I didn't even try" would be the worst possible outcome.

I would place that right up there with the depth of error involved in wishing one had never been born.

I see that episode can currently be viewed at the link below. If you want to skip the good but extensive lead-in you can start around the 11 minute mark:

In this episode Joshua spends some time going through the background of the Milesian school, and that reminds me that if anyone has not seen Episode 7 of Carl Sagan's Cosmos - "Backbone of Night," he does a great job of describing the background of these early philosophers.

I see that episode can currently be viewed here. If you want to skip the good but extensive lead-in you can start around the 14:30 minute mark:

As i mention in our 20th Zoom, thanks to Kalosyni I have become aware of a new series of five videos put out just in the last month by noted Stoic philosophy professor Greg Sadler. Here's a link to the first of the series of five:

The episodes don't seem to have numbers in their titles, you just start with the oldest and go from oldest to newest to get them in order.

Here in episode three at right around the 14:43 mark is the place where he makes what I think is a pretty clear error - He references how it is interesting that Lucillus is objecting to Cotta's skeptical presentation on the gods. The issue is that he calls Lucilius the EPICUREAN and says it is interesting that an EPICUREAN would talk about defending the gods. At 15:21 he again says that it is the Epicurean who is objecting.

I though to myself that that WOULD be pretty interesting, and actually very impossible, given that the Epicureans were strongly defending their views of the gods. However in checking the actual text it is in fact Lucilius who objects - Professor Sadler just calls Lucilius an Epicurean rather than a Stoic.

I haven't listened to the rest yet, and I am sure it isn't going to go through the book the way we will on the podcast, but it sounds like a very good overview that will be helpful to set the stage for deeper analysis.

To expand on this: "You generally don't know how much more time you have to live, but one thing you know for certain is that once passed you never get that particular moment back again."

I don't have a suggested resolution to this, but to me this points the opposite way from nihilism, which strikes me as the worst enemy, at least for us today. I don't get the idea that the ancient Greeks or Romans were plagued by nihilism like we are today, so maybe that's an example that there really are changes in thought patterns over time, as in some recent discussions we're having. (Or maybe we can just chalk it up to that German word "Zeitgeist.")

If every moment you are alive you are focused on how short life is and how important it should be to you to make the most of your time, then you don't drift through life and inevitably run into the regret that you wish you had done more with your time.

That's pretty much why I have so little sympathy with a flat "me-oh-my-i-am-satisfied-with-what-i-have" approach.

Maybe you should be satisfied with your life, because you understand how the world works and you understand that variation, while it may be desirable, is not necessary in order to be able to say that you have experienced the "greatest" pleasure / "best life" possible.

But maybe you shouldn't be satisfied with your life if you've drifted from one false idea to another, exposing yourself to totally unnecessary pains and forgoing easily possible pleasures, and never really grasped what life is all about.

I think Epicurus' comments about satisfaction have to be taken in that context, such as:

VS68. Nothing is sufficient for him to whom what is sufficient seems too little.

That "what is sufficient" shouldn't be read to mean that "whatever you have is sufficient," but that it's important to think about what really is sufficient and target your plans for pleasure based on your circumstances. The same with:

VS35. We must not spoil the enjoyment of the blessings we have by pining for those we have not, but rather reflect that these too are among the things desirable.

That doesn't mean that you should be happy no matter what your current circumstances are, but that it's likely that during the ups and downs of life you have in fact achieved many thinks that you always wanted but never thought possible.

But even that isn't a blanket endorsement of the status quo. Simply "being satisfied for the sake of being satisfied" sounds like an awfully Platonic or even Stoic reading of Epicurean philosophy to me. Feeling satisfied is certainly a type of pleasure, but it's far from the only type of pleasure. I would reject the idea that "satisfaction' is a complete and correct statement of the goal for the same reason I would reject "tranquility" as a complete and correct statement of the goal. Epicurus and his successors spent hundreds of years debating the precise way to articulate the goal, and it seems to me there's a very good reason that they settled on "pleasure" as the best single word statement, rather than on some more narrow subset of pleasure.

Quote from Kalosyni

Pondering the Hedonic Calculus or prioritizing "smart choices" would lead one to choose less risky activities.

I think as stated that's overbroad. Risk is only one aspect of the equation, and the major (and really only elements ultimately in play) are the pleasure and pain that result - the question is your prediction as to each and is not limited to chance of failure.

As Godfrey illustrated in post 3 above, sometimes the biggest improvements in life come through the greatest risk. The problem is that no none can make that risk/reward decision for you but yourself, in part because only you can factor in the pain that will come from thinking "you didn't even try" when you get to the end of your life and realize that you have no further options forward.

Certainly everyone has different tolerances for risk and there's no single right or wrong answer, but to adopt a general rule to *always* choose the less risky alternative would almost certainly lead to huge regret in the end.

We have at least one clear example of Epicurus noting this himself, and I would say that he would apply the same rule across the board with all aspects of the context needing to be considered all the time:

VS28. We must not approve either those who are always ready for friendship, or those who hang back, but for friendship’s sake we must run risks.

This is a very important point because I think we see a large number of people who otherwise listen to Epicurus's suggestions think that he is always telling them to flee from ALL pain and ALL risk ALL the time - which I think is perversely wrong in the big Epicurean picture. The *only* way to succeed in a goal stated that way is to choose death.

Quote from Kalosyni

But this does have me wondering...if the failure is in the mental realm of the mind, such that it doesn't affect the body, but only the mind could be affected by the thought "I tried but I failed" then seems like the risk of failure shouldn't be feared, and because you know that you can then just move on to something else.

But you CAN'T always move on to something else, and that's the point of why it is so important to emphasize that death leads to nothingness. You generally don't know how much more time you have to live, but one thing you know for certain is that once passed you never get that particular moment back again. And you add that to the observation that mental pain and pleasure are often more significant, because the mind is aware of the past, present, and future, while the body is aware only of the present.

Very interesting quote. And I agree with how speculative this reconstruction of the text seemed to me when I first checked out his book. But I agree with his reasoning that Epicurus would have thought that there would always be intelligent beings somewhere thinking about these things.

I was listening yesterday to Greg Sadler deride the Epicurean arguments in "On The Nature of the Gods" as easier to refute than the Stoic arguments, but one of the things he said prompts this comment about what Velleius said:

Quote

“You see therefore that the foundation (for such it is) of our inquiry has been well and truly laid. For the belief in the gods has not been established by authority, custom, or law, but rests on the unanimous and abiding consensus of mankind; their existence is therefore a necessary inference, since we possess an instinctive or rather an innate concept of them; but a belief which all men by nature share must necessarily be true; therefore it must be admitted that the gods exist. And since this truth is almost universally accepted not only among philosophers but also among the unlearned, we must admit it as also being an accepted truth that we possess a ‘preconception,’ as I called it above, or ‘prior notion,’ of the gods. (For we are bound to employ novel terms to denote novel ideas, just as Epicurus himself employed the word prolepsis in a sense in which no one had ever used it before)."

Right now I am entertaining the thought that the focus ought to be not on Epicurus inventing the idea and the term prolepsis from nothing, but on the "in a sense in which no one had ever used it before." (I'm sure that this has been probably obvious to everyone but me.

If Epicurus was expanding the term prolepsis to cover more things in the same way that he expanded use of the word "pleasure," then you could analogize that:

- just as Epicurus appears to have expanded the existing term "pleasure" to cover not just agreeable stimulative sensations (which the Cyreniacs and everyone else too agrees with), but to include all awareness of feeling that is not painful (with which standard philosophers would disagree);

would it not make sense to consider that:

- Epicurus may have expanded the existing term "prolepsis" to cover not just the recognition of physical objects like men or horses or oxes as a result of having seen examples of them over time (which is the example Diogenes Laertius gives, and everyone agrees with as a process that definitely happens), but to include identification of abstractions such as justice or divinity which require considerably more organizing in the mind because they aren't physical objects that can be touched or seen or heard or smelled or tasted (which is a process with which other philosophers - especially blank slate philosophers - would disagree).

The point of this post being that maybe the emphasis on prolepsis can be analogized to the expansion of the word as an explanation of why Diogenes Laertius' explanation does not seem complete.

For reference this is pretty close to what Dewitt says around page 142 et seq.

Quote from Bryan

What has "nature used to impress a notion of gods on our minds" if not the very images of the gods that come from their bodies?

Yep I think that is definitely the question, but even as I argue for the realist position I am not sure that the question is answered very easily.

Do we have notions of "atoms" impressed on our minds even though we have never seen them?

Do we have notions of "justice" impressed on our minds even though justice is an abstract concept which cannot be seen in bodily form?

Quote from Pacatus

At least for me. But prolepsis really seems to be the key.)

Prolepsis being the key to LOTS of things, not just the gods, and that's a huge subject in itself.

I understand that we have to take the senses, anticipations, and feelings as given, as they are our connection with reality, but it seems to me it's all one big question: We have good reason to think that no supernatural god created them, and that they didn't occur simply by chance, but through the natural aspects of atoms moving through void. But I think we all have the tendency to presume that there must have been a **First** combination or event that led to everything else, and I think we have to get past that to connect with where Epicurus would have been going by asking us to study principles of infinity. Whatever process allows for life to develop and then evolve, that process has *always* been something that is naturally part of the universe, so we have to think through what that *always* means. If we take the optimistic view that mankind (our closest example) won't eventually destroy itself,*** then we've got infinite number of species with tremendously developed technologies all across the universe, and that's going to make it important eventually that we distinguish (1) advanced civilizations far ahead of us, which we expect to exist from (2)universe-creating supernatural gods, which we are confident cannot and do not exist.

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*** And even if mankind does destroy itself, we should presume that it wasn't fated that it do so, and that other speicies would not necessarily destroy themselves.