Posts by Cassius

I think that Peter k's and Kalosyni's posts are reconcilable by pointing out that "looking for the goodness and pleasure that you can experience while you are let alive" comes in many different forms. Some people have a greater tolerance to the type of society they live in than do others, but I don't think it is valid from an Epicurean point of view to say that one perspective is "wrong" and the other "correct." Peter K is focusing on the "soul-destroying" aspects of certain circumstances, while Kalosyni probably doesn't see the things that Peter K sees as "soul-destroying" as nearly so much of a problem.

I would feel sure that the ancient school had similar differences of opinion. That doesn't mean that one is wrong and the other right, as much as it means that Peter K is focusing on the survival of the school in the face of opposition as a greater pleasure to him than some others might rank it. But it's not a matter of wrong or right nearly so much as it is a matter of what we each individually value the most, and each person has to make their choices based on what they value the highest.

Welcome to Episode 219 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 you will find a discussion thread for each of our podcast episodes and many other topics.

This week we continue our discussion of Book Two of Cicero's On Ends, which is largely devoted Cicero's attack on Epicurean Philosophy. Going through this book gives us the opportunity to review those attacks, take them apart, and respond to them as an ancient Epicurean might have done, and much more fully than Cicero allowed Torquatus, his Epicurean spokesman, to do.

Follow along with us here: Cicero's On Ends - Complete Reid Edition. Check any typos or other questions against the original PDF which can be found here.

Last week we focused on Cicero's allegation that luck places the happy life out of reach of many Epicureans. This week we pick up at the start of Section XXIX - REID EDITION -

XXIX. Again when you say that great pain is short, while prolonged pain is light, I do not understand what it is that you mean. For I am acquainted with instances where pains were not only great but also prolonged for a considerable time; and yet for enduring them there is another and truer method, of which you who do not love morality for its own sake cannot avail yourselves. There are certain maxims, and I might almost say enactments, concerning courage, which prohibit a man from being womanish in the midst of pain. So we must think it disgraceful, I do not say to feel pain (for that certainly is occasionally inevitable) but to make that old rock of Lemnus ghostly with the roarings of a Philoctetes, which, by echoing back the shriekings, cryings, groanings, sighings, dumb though it be, returns the sounds of lamentation.

Let Epicurus chant his prophecy to such an one, if he can, one whose veins within him, tainted with poison from the serpent’s tooth, bubble with foul torments. Says Epicurus: hush, Philoctetes, your pain is short. But for nearly ten years already he has been lying sick in his cave. If tis long ‘tis light; for it has its pauses, and sometimes slackens. First, it is not often so; next what is this slackening worth, when not only is the recollection of past pain fresh in the mind, but the dread of future and imminent pain causes a torment? Let the man die, says he. Perhaps it is best so, but what becomes of your saying there is always a balance of pleasure? For if that is true, see that you be not committing a crime in advising death. Rather hold language such as this, namely, that it is disgraceful, that it is unmanly to be weakened by pain, to be broken by it and conquered. For your maxim "if ’tis hard, ’tis short, if ’tis long, ’tis light," are a mere parrot’s lesson. Pain is usually assuaged by the soothing application of virtue, I mean loftiness of spirit, endurance and courage.

XXX. Not to digress too far, hear what Epicurus says on his death-bed, that you may perceive how his actions are at variance with his maxims: Epicurus wishes health to Hermarchus. I write this letter (he says) while passing a happy day, and the last of my life. Pains in the bladder and intestines are upon me, so severe that their intensity cannot be increased. Wretched creature! If pain is the greatest of evils we cannot call him anything else. But let us listen to the man himself. Still, all these are outweighed, he says, by elation of mind arising from the recollection of my theories and discoveries. But do you, as befits the feelings you have entertained from your youth up for me and for philosophy, remember to protect the children of Metrodorus.

After this I do not admire the death of Epaminondas or of Leonidas more than this man’s death; though one of these, after winning a victory over the Lacedaemonians at Mantinea, and finding that his life was ebbing away, owing to a serious wound, asked, as soon as he saw how things stood, whether his shield was safe. When his weeping comrades had answered that it was, he asked whether the enemy had been routed. When he heard that this too was as he desired, he ordered that the spear which had pierced him should be extracted. So he died from the copious flow of blood, in a moment of exultation and victory.

Leonidas again, the king of the Lacedaemonians, along with the three hundred men whom he had led from Sparta, when the choice lay between a base retreat and a splendid death, confronted the enemy at Thermopylae. The deaths of generals are celebrated, while philosophers mostly die in their beds. Still it makes a difference how they die. This philosopher thought himself happy at the moment of death. A great credit to him. My intense pains, he says, are outweighed by elation of mind. The voice I hear is indeed that of a true philosopher, Epicurus, but you have forgotten what you ought to say. For, first, if there is truth in those matters which you say it causes you joy to recall, I mean, if your writings and discoveries are true, you cannot feel joy, since you now possess no blessing which you can set down to the account of the body; whereas you have always told us that no one can feel joy unless on account of the body, nor pain either. J feel joy in my past joys, he tells me. What past joys? If you say those relating to the body, I read that you set against your pains your philosophical theories, and not any recollection of pleasures enjoyed by the body; if you say those relating to the mind, then your maxim is untrue, that there is no joy of the mind, which has not a relation to the body. Why after that do you give a commission about the children of Metrodorus? What is there about your admirable goodness and extreme loyalty (for so I judge it to be) that you connect with the body?

I meant to post this yesterday too, but since we are diving back into the Greek it would probably help to compare the Latin, since those words are more familiar to most of us.

So in the recent back and forth between Cicero and Torquatus it appears that the words that are most often being translated into happy / happiness is a form of beatus:

Book II:XXVII : (Rackham)

Latin: XXVII. Sed in rebus apertissimis nimium longisumus. Perfecto enim et concluso neque virtutibus neque amicitiis usquam locum esse si ad voluptatem omnia referantur, nihil praeterea est magno opere dicendum. Ac tamen, ne cui loco non videatur esse responsum, pauca etiam nunc dicam ad reliquam orationem tuam. Quoniam igitur omnis summa philosophiae ad beate vivendum refertur, idque unum expetentes homines se ad hoc studium contulerunt, beate autem vivere alii in alio, vos in voluptate ponitis, item contra miseriam omnem in dolore, id primum videamus, beate vivere vestrum quale sit. Atque hoc dabitis, ut opinor, si modo sit aliquid esse beatum, id oportere totum poni in potestate sapientis. Nam si amitti vita beata potest,beata esse non potest.

XXVII. “But we dwell too long upon the obvious. For when it has been conclusively proved that if pleasure is the sole standard there is no room left either for virtue or friendship, there is no great need to say anything further. Still I do not want you to think I have failed to answer any of your points, so I will now say a few words more in reply to the remainder of your discourse. The end and aim of every system of philosophy is the attainment of happiness; and desire for happiness is the sole motive that has led men to engage in this study. But different thinkers make happiness consist in different things. According to your school it consists in pleasure, and conversely misery consists solely in pain. Let us then begin by examining what sort of thing happiness as you conceive it is. You will grant, I suppose, that if there is such a thing as happiness, it is bound to be attainable in its entirety by the Wise Man. For if happiness once won can be lost a happy life is impossible.

What does that tell us? That we ought to be looking into the subtleties of "blessedness".... but that takes us back to "happy" as the asserted best translation.

https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=b%C4%95%C4%81tus&la=la&can=b%C4%95%C4%81tus0&d=Perseus:text:1999.04.0059:entry=beatus&i=1

beatus - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

Etymology of Beatus

Latin word beatus comes from Proto-Indo-European *deh₂-, and later Proto-Italic *dweos (Happy.)

cooljugator.com

The Latin appears to have no "religious" or "divine" connotation at all(?)

For those who prefer dark themes' we've added five new options to the site today. Go down to the "Change Style" option at the very bottom right of the page, or go into your user control panel, and select one of the "Ambience" options, which come in five separate color options.

This theme was just released in the last several days and there are some rough edges, but i expect those to be ironed out soon. The edges I know about are that on the desktop. the option to expand or collapse the sidebar is labelled with the German "Seitenleiste." A little more of a problem is that the User Icons for notifications and conversations don't "stick" to the top left of the window as you scroll down the page. As far as the mobile versions go, I don't see any problems with those at all.

I think those who miss some of the dark themes that we had in the past will find these 'Ambience' options more to their liking.

If you have any questions or issues just let us know in the thread below.

Quote from Don

it's not satisfaction of "specific" desires but more being satisfied - taking pleasure - in what is currently available... while at the same time being open to luxuries when they become available

If "being open to luxuries when they become available" means waiting for them to drop in your lap without making effort to obtain them, I would argue that is wrong. We would never choose pain to achieve a greater pleasure if that were the case.

Since I know you don't do that personally I know you don't mean that extreme conclusion, but that's why I would always warn against any kind of formulation that sounds like a very flat "whatever you have now is good enough" approach. In many cases, what you have "now" is not good enough to just stand by and stay in the same condition. A wise person can be happy even when on the rack, but that doesn't mean he should be content to stay there.

I doubt anyone here would fall into that trap, but I would say that a lot of people who study Epicurus get exactly that impression, and reach some very damaging conclusions about Epicurus because of it.

Yes the translation of well being suits me fine and that serves just as well to kick the can down the road to the question "What is well-being"? Satisfaction of desires isn't sufficient there either because you still have to ask "what desires?"

You then arrive again at the same resolution that Epicurus is basing his goal on pleasure, and then you go back to discussing the unique way he looks at pleasure, as both stimulative and nonstimulative. Then you are also back to whether pleasure requires the external goods that Kalosyni started talking about in the first post.

Every step requires clarity if you're going to say something worthwhile, and sometimes it's a lot easier to say what you are *not* saying than what you are.

Quote from Cassius

Further, they say that once obtained, happiness like wisdom or any other virtue is never lost. (Anything less than true is no longer true and anything less than straight is no longer straight. If something we thought was true or straight becomes untrue or bent, then we obviously misunderstood its perfection in the first place since it had within it the potential for imperfection.)

In support of the different way that Epicurus looked at virtue, and held that sometimes actions we think to be virtuous can lose that character in different circumstances, I think we can cite below as to the particular virtue of "justice."

Justice is a virtue in everyone's dictionary so far as I know, so here is Epicurus clearly saying that something can be virtuous (in this case just) at one moment, and then in another moment under different circumstances can change into something we see to be no longer just. But that change doesn't mean that it wasn't just when it appeared to be just: And even if the advantage in the matter of justice shifts from one side to the other, but for a while accords with the general concept, it is nonetheless just for that period, in the eyes of those who do not confound themselves with empty sounds, but look to the actual facts.

PD37. Among actions which are sanctioned as just by law, that which is proved, on examination, to be of advantage, in the requirements of men's dealings with one another, has the guarantee of justice, whether it is the same for all or not. But if a man makes a law, and it does not turn out to lead to advantage in men's dealings with each other, then it no longer has the essential nature of justice. And even if the advantage in the matter of justice shifts from one side to the other, but for a while accords with the general concept, it is nonetheless just for that period, in the eyes of those who do not confound themselves with empty sounds, but look to the actual facts.

PD38. Where, provided the circumstances have not been altered, actions which were considered just have been shown not to accord with the general concept, in actual practice, then they are not just. But where, when circumstances have changed, the same actions which were sanctioned as just no longer lead to advantage, they were just at the time, when they were of advantage for the dealings of fellow-citizens with one another, but subsequently they are no longer just, when no longer of advantage.

Just so this thread has a target, here's the situation as I understand it:

We translate the Greek "eudaemonia" as "happiness" even though the Greek is really an idiom of an expression that developed along the lines of "having a good demon or spirit."

In our discussions we aren't targeting writing a Greek dictionary, we're targeting the practical concept of "happiness," which "everyone agrees" is the goal of life. The precise question discussed now is something like "To what extent does happiness depend on matters that are outside of ourselves (to what extent are they "external" to us)?"

The issue appears to involve the well acknowledged fact that life requires things that are external to us (food, water, air), and so it is necessary to determine the impact of the observation that no person is entirely self-sufficient.

Some Platonists turned into radicals like the Stoics and wanted to conclude that happiness requires *nothing* external to us. To achieve that, they wanted to work through our minds to obtain happiness by obtaining complete virtue, which they defined happiness to mean. Since their happiness is virtue, they say we obtain complete happiness when we obtain complete virtue. (Virtue is an end in itself: there is nothing truer than true or straighter than straight.) Further, they say that once obtained, happiness like wisdom or any other virtue is never lost. (Anything less than true is no longer true and anything less than straight is no longer straight. If something we thought was true or straight becomes untrue or bent, then we obviously misunderstood its perfection in the first place since it had within it the potential for imperfection.)

Aristotle thought that direction was a bridge too far and so he held that some things that must be obtained are indeed outside ourselves and are indeed out of our control. Aristotle focused on virtue too, but in the end Aristotle held that the universe was created by a divine prime mover so whatever happens you can be happy because you are part of the divine plan.

Epicurus held there is no divine mover and no plan and that definitely some things are out of our control, but much is within our control. Epicurus said Nature gives us only pleasure and pain as guides, and that our Natural goal is pleasure. But since we are not "gods" who have the ability to achieve pleasure 100% of the time, sometimes we have to choose pain to obtain pleasure, or avoid worse pain, so Epicurus also talked about happiness as what we are aiming for. Epicurus defined happiness to mean total pleasures predominating over total pains, as he (for example) experienced in his last days while happy but in extreme pain. Therefore the smart person is going to order his affairs through studying nature and applying the lessons he learns from nature. The smart person is going to use all available means, internal and external, to obtain the goal of happiness (pleasures dominating over pains). Just like you take advantage of all resources to generate pleasure, whether they are internal or external, you work to minimize pains from all sources internal and external. And in the end from the Epicurean point of view you don't obsess over categories like "external goods."

Endlessly looking for definitions of "eudaemonia" or worrying about whether things that lead to happiness are "internal" or "external" is a good way to let the fans of Aristotle draw you into a major waste a lot of time. It seems to me the perspective Epicurus was teaching is that the goal of life is living happily, you live happily when you experience pleasures predominating over pains, and pleasures predominate over pains when you wisely keep your focus on all pleasures and pains, both mental and physical and whether past, present or future, and you use all the mental and physical resources at your disposal to pursue that goal.

An email from Academia sending a link to the Manetti article reminded me of this thread. Skimming through it this morning i think one thing that is at least for me personally un-done is to find and post a link to the 1978 update of the DeLacy book. I rely on the appendix to the older edition a lot, so it would be good to locate a source for the "current" (now 40+ year old) edition.

Who said this and what does it mean? Wikiquote says that Solon said this to Croesus but gives no citation.

End - Wikiquote

Lucretius Today Podcast Episode 217 - Cicero's On Ends - Book Two - Part 24 - "Does Luck Control Whether An Epicurean Is Happy?" Is Now Available -

Welcome to Episode 218 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 you will find a discussion thread for each of our podcast episodes and many other topics.

This week we continue our discussion of Book Two of Cicero's On Ends, which is largely devoted Cicero's attack on Epicurean Philosophy. Going through this book gives us the opportunity to review those attacks, take them apart, and respond to them as an ancient Epicurean might have done, and much more fully than Cicero allowed Torquatus, his Epicurean spokesman, to do.

Follow along with us here: Cicero's On Ends - Complete Reid Edition. Check any typos or other questions against the original PDF which can be found here.

Last week we focused on Cicero's allegation that luck places the happy life out of reach of many Epicureans. This week we pick up at the start of Section XXVIII,

REID EDITION

XXVIII. Come, you will say to me, these are small matters. The wise man is enriched by nature herself, whose wealth, as Epicurus has taught us, is easily procured. His statements are good, and I do not attack them, but they are inconsistent with each other. He declares that no less pleasure is derived from the poorest sustenance, or rather from the most despicable kinds of food and dink, than from the most recherché dishes of the banquet. If he declared that it made no difference to happiness what kind of food he lived on, I should yield him the point and even applaud him; for he would be asserting the strict truth, and I listen when Socrates, who holds pleasure in no esteem, affirms that hunger is the proper seasoning for food, and thirst for drink.

But to one who, judging of everything by pleasure, lives like Gallonius, but talks like the old Piso Frugi, I do not listen, nor do I believe that he says what he thinks. He announced that nature’s wealth is easily procurable, because nature is satisfied with little. This would be true, if you did not value pleasure so highly. The pleasure, he says, that is obtained from the cheapest things is not inferior to that which is got from the most costly. To say this is to be destitute not merely of intelligence, but even of a palate. Truly those who disregard pleasure itself are free to say that they do not prefer a sturgeon ‘to a sprat; but he who places his supreme good in pleasure must judge of everything by sense and not by reason, and must say that those things are best which are most tasty.

But let that pass; let us suppose he acquires the intensest pleasures not merely at small cost, but at no cost at all, so far as I am concerned; let the pleasure given by the cress which the Persians used to eat, as Xenophon writes, be no less than that afforded by the banquets of Syracuse, which are severely blamed by Plato; let the acquisition of pleasure be as easy, I say, as you make it out to be; still what are we to say about pain? Its agonies are so great that a life surrounded by. them cannot be happy, if only pain is the greatest of evils. Why, Metrodorus himself, who is almost a second Epicurus, sketches happiness almost in these words; a well regulated condition of body, accompanied by the assurance that it will continue so.

Can any one possibly be assured as to the state of this body of his, I do not say in a year’s time, but by the time evening comes? Pain then, that is to say the greatest of evils, will always be an object of dread, even though it be not present, for it may present itself at any moment. How then can the dread of the greatest possible evil consort with the life of happiness? Someone tells me: Epicurus imparts to us a scheme which will enable us to pay no heed to pain. To begin with, the thing is in itself ridiculous, that no attention should be given to the greatest of evils. But pray what is his scheme? The greatest pain, he says, is short. First, what do you mean by short? Next, what by the greatest pain? May the greatest pain not continue for some days? Look to it, that it may not continue some months even! Unless possibly you refer to the kind of pain which is fatal as soon as it seizes any one. Who dreads such pain as that? I wish rather you would alleviate that other sort, under which I saw that most excellent and most cultivated gentleman, my friend Gnaeus Octavius, son of Marcus, wasting away, and not on one occasion only or for a short time, but often and over quite a long period. What tortures did he endure, ye eternal gods, when all his limbs seemed on fire! Yet for all that we did not regard him as wretched, but only as distressed, for pain was not to him the greatest of evils. But he would have been wretched, if he had been immersed in pleasures, while his life was scandalous and wicked.

Epicurus gives an analogy in the Vatican Sayings that I'd like to speculate about:

VS37. Nature is weak toward evil, not toward good: because it is saved by pleasures, but destroyed by pains.

What I am about to say is far from a perfect analogy to VS37, but I think it might be meaningful for those of us who are constantly reading about health and diet. Unfortunately I don't have time for a long post with lots of cites so I will stick to what I think is strictly non-controversial.

1. In order to be strong, our bodies need energy.
2. Energy can come either from "carbohydrates" or "fat/protein."
3. Both sources of energy appear to have important uses.
4. The body stores fat/protein and burns fat/protein when carbohydrates are not present.
5. People can experience "sugar highs" from carbohydrates, but (unless I missed the article) there are rarely if ever "fat-highs or protein-highs."
6. It's obvious where this would go:
7. Stimulative pleasures analogize to our bodies burning the carbohydrates / sugars that we find so stimulatively pleasing when we eat them.
8. Non-stimulative pleasures analogize to burning the stored fat/protein (fat first) in the body during which we can function just as well as from carbohydrates, but this energy arises from the natural healthy operation of our bodies. In fact it happens either through mentally sticking to a low-carb diet or simply not having the option of carbohydrates, and not from the stimulative addition of food in the form of the carbohydrates that we can find so addictive but also damaging if overused.
9. Both types of bodily processes (burning carbohydrate and burning fat/protein) are normal and natural and meet separate needs.
10. Carbohydrates in nature are not always available (in older times, mainly in spring and summer when fruits were available). Fats/proteins are "always" available, either through burning our stored excess fat/protein, or from killing and eating animals, which themselves store fat/protein.
11. Our natures are "saved by pleasures" but "destroyed by pains" analogizes to that we need pleasure like energy from food. Pleasure can come from stimulative or non-stimulative pleasures, and energy can come from burning carbohydrates or it can come from burning fat/protein. The selection between the two is largely a matter of circumstances and keeping the two options in a balance that leads the body as a whole to be healthy and strong.
12. No reasonable person thinks that carbohydrates are "bad in themselves" unless they are misused. No rational person thinks that fat or protein are "superior" forms of energy in themselves, because there are many benefits from consuming foods that contain both.
13. No reasonable person would argue that carbohydrates are included under the term "food" but that fat/protein is not, nor would they argue the reverse, or that the term "food" contains only one type or the other. Both types are food, just like both types of pleasure are pleasure.
14. No reasonable person thinks that we consume carbohydrates because the "goal" of our bodies is to produce fat and protein. Likewise, no reasonable person should think that "stimulative" pleasures are in themselves better or worse than "non-stimulative pleasures. Both are required for healthy living.
15. The goal of our bodies is to live a healthy life, which requires a healthy total relationship between carbohydrates and fat and protein. The goal of a philosophically-correct person is to live a happy life, which requires that pleasures are always found to be available either from stimulative or non-stimulative sources, adding up to a total picture in which pleasures predominate over total pains.

I seem to recall from the dim past of my schooling that I was taught that the "proper" forms are "more nearly perfect" and "most nearly perfect" leading up to perfect itself.

If Jefferson had written the constitution I bet he wouldn't have made that grammatical slip!

What do you make of that Bryan?

Reliable? Totally False? Totally made up? Partly made up? Evidence that Epicurus was never an ascetic?

Another separate comment: Of Course, if the purpose of the "covered father" exercise is to point out that words like "know" can have multiple meanings, and that it is important to know which meaning you are referring to in a particular circumstance, then that is very beneficial.

So you'd have to decide whether the purpose of the philosoper is (1) skepticism, or (2) a stronger view of knowledge that takes into account perspective.

Quote from Don

These kinds of "paradoxes" seem so disingenuous to me.

Presumably because they *are* disingenuous - so what are we to make of that?

One thing I would assert is important to make of them is not just that they are silly, but that they show that there are people who will definitely use philosophy for manipulation just like priests use religion!

So it definitely pays to be discreet on which philosophers you choose to ally with.

Thank you again Bryan. I'd like to test opinions on this part in particular. Do we think that this part, which is not stated to be inconsistent with Epicurus, would be something that Epicurus would have agreed with? If so, this would be a helpful statement of detail on the relationship between pleasure and happiness that i don't think we have preserved in the Epicureans' own texts to this level of detail. Much of this *does* seem to be consistent with Epicurus and at the moment I am inclined to believe that all of it may represent the Epicurean view as well as Cyreniac.

Anyone see a reason to reject any of this?

Quote from Bryan

They also hold that there is a difference between "end" and "happiness." Our end is particular pleasure, whereas happiness is the sum total of all particular pleasures, in which are included both past and future pleasures.

[88] Particular pleasure is desirable for its own sake, whereas happiness is desirable not for its own sake but for the sake of particular pleasures. That pleasure is the end is proved by the fact that from our youth up we are instinctively attracted to it, and, when we obtain it, seek for nothing more, and shun nothing so much as its opposite, pain. Pleasure is good even if it proceeds from the most unseemly conduct, as Hippobotus says in his work On the Sects. For even if the action be irregular, still, at any rate, the resultant pleasure is desirable for its own sake and is good.

Quote from Bryan

This statement is in part a response to the view of the Κυρηναϊκοί (Cyrenaics), following Ἀρίστιππος ὁ Κυρηναῖος (Aristippus of Cyrene), that (1) pleasures do not differ from one another, (2) one pleasure is not more or less pleasant than another, and (3) any particular pleasure is momentary, unable to be prolonged. This incorrect understanding leads to indiscrimination in choosing pleasures.

That's very helpful Bryan! Is the source of that information from Diogenes Laertius, or somewhere else? It's probably worth it to track this down to a particular cite so that we can annotate PD09 with this information. Do you know how they come up with that (what seems to me) very strange set of positions? Is the explanation in the cite you are referencing?