Posts by Cassius

It's my understanding that there is not much left of Apion other than what Josephus wrote against him to defend Judaism against Apion's attacks, and that Apion is largely viewed in that context alone.

However it strikes me that if we consider that Christianity had not arisen during Apion's time, and that Apion was living at a time of great Epicurean activity, it would be logical to look to see if Apion was criticizing Judaism from what would amount to an Epicurean point of view rather than simply as a Stoic or as a generic believer in the Greco/Roman gods.

I gather for example that Apion criticized Judaism for being impious, and that sounds consistent with what Epicurus says about incorrect beliefs about the gods.

At this point I don't have anything more but I've downloaded Josephus "Against Apion" and see what i can find.

Josephus; with an English translation by H. St. J. Thackeray, in nine volumes : Josephus, Flavius : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Translators vary

archive.org

Quote

So if someone is in a state of total inactivity, and thinks about nothing pleasurable or troubling and feels no pain in his body, the reward system of the brain is not working*

Quote from TauPhi

if none of the hormones and neurotransmitters are at work at any given time in one's body, wouldn't that be a strong indication that this individual is as alive as a dodo?

i agree Tau Phi, if the hormones and neurotransmitters are not working at all, then that sounds like death.

However, the tone of hypothetical questions like this seems to be that the person under discussion is simply sitting quietly and still and not receiving any stimulation, rather than being dead.

The part of the question about "thinks about nothing pleasurable" is also a problem. It appears that from Epicurus' point of view, "thinking" of any kind is itself pleasurable if it is not painful. One doesn't have to be "thinking about something pleasurable" in order for thinking to be pleasurable.

The hand analogy applies directly to the mind. So long as the hand is alive and not feeling pain it is feeling pleasure. So long as the mind is alive and not feeling pain it is feeling pleasure.

Shahab here is my answer to this excellent question. i think this part of your question leads to the answer:

Quote from shahabgh66

From a neuroscientific outlook, when brain produces any of these six hormones of Endorphins, Dopamine, Oxytocin, Norepinephrine, Cortisol and Adrenaline, one feels pleasure.

You'd have to to through each of those hormones to describe them more specifically, but for the moment let's consider those hormones to be the biological expression of what most people often refer to as the pleasure - an agreeable stimulation felt by the senses.

When you read through the discussion that remains in Diogenes Laertius and Cicero as to how Epicurus was defining his terms, Epicurus was not limiting pleasure to an agreeable biological stimulation felt by the senses. Epicurus was specifically taking the position that whether the feeling arises from stimulation or simple awareness, there are two and only two categories of feelings, pleasure and pain, with no middle ground or third condition. All feelings in life, whether stimulated or not, are considered by definition to fall within either one category or the other. If you are conscious of your condition at all, you are at all times feeling either one or the other. While you can feel many things at one time in separate parts of your mind and body, a single feeling at any part of your mind and body at a particular moment is one or the other never both or some third condition. For example as to the feelings being two:

Diogenes Laertius 10:34 : ”The internal sensations they say are two, pleasure and pain, which occur to every living creature, and the one is akin to nature and the other alien: by means of these two choice and avoidance are determined.“

On Ends 1:30 : ”Moreover, seeing that if you deprive a man of his senses there is nothing left to him, it is inevitable that nature herself should be the arbiter of what is in accord with or opposed to nature. Now what facts does she grasp or with what facts is her decision to seek or avoid any particular thing concerned, unless the facts of pleasure and pain?

As to the assertion that you are feeling either one or the other at all times:

On Ends 1:38: Therefore Epicurus refused to allow that there is any middle term between pain and pleasure; what was thought by some to be a middle term, the absence of all pain, was not only itself pleasure, but the highest pleasure possible. Surely any one who is conscious of his own condition must needs be either in a state of pleasure or in a state of pain. Epicurus thinks that the highest degree of pleasure is defined by the removal of all pain, so that pleasure may afterwards exhibit diversities and differences but is incapable of increase or extension.“

As to the two conditions being separate and unmixed in any particular feeling:

PD03 : ”The limit of quantity in pleasures is the removal of all that is painful. Wherever pleasure is present, as long as it is there, there is neither pain of body, nor of mind, nor of both at once .“

All of those taken together mean that Epicurus did not limit pleasure to what we generally think of as sensory stimulation, but included within pleasure all states of awareness of life that are not felt to be painful. You can see an explicit example of that here in regard to discussion of one's hand in its normal state of affairs, whenever it is not in some affirmative pain:

On Ends 1:39 : For if that were the only pleasure which tickled the senses, as it were, if I may say so, and which overflowed and penetrated them with a certain agreeable feeling, then even a hand could not be content with freedom from pain without some pleasing motion of pleasure. But if the highest pleasure is, as Epicurus asserts, to be free from pain, then, O Chrysippus, the first admission was correctly made to you, that the hand, when it was in that condition, was in want of nothing; but the second admission was not equally correct, that if pleasure were a good it would wish for it. For it would not wish for it for this reason, inasmuch as whatever is free from pain is in pleasure.

You also see this position being asserted in comparing the conditions of two people who are not in pain, but who are seemingly in very different conditions: A host at a party who is pouring wine to a guest who is drinking it. Here is the example:

On Ends 2:16 : “This, O Torquatus, is doing violence to one's senses; it is wresting out of our minds the understanding of words with which we are imbued; for who can avoid seeing that these three states exist in the nature of things: first, the state of being in pleasure; secondly, that of being in pain; thirdly, that of being in such a condition as we are at this moment, and you too, I imagine, that is to say, neither in pleasure nor in pain; in such pleasure, I mean, as a man who is at a banquet, or in such pain as a man who is being tortured. What! do you not see a vast multitude of men who are neither rejoicing nor suffering, but in an intermediate state between these two conditions? No, indeed, said he; I say that all men who are free from pain are in pleasure, and in the greatest pleasure too. Do you, then, say that the man who, not being thirsty himself, mingles some wine for another, and the thirsty man who drinks it when mixed, are both enjoying the same pleasure?”   [Torquatus objects to the question as quibbling but the implicit answer is "yes" based on the condition of "not being thirsty" and "the thirsty man who drinks" both being conditions of pleasure."]

This means that Epicurus was defining all conditions of awareness where pain is not present to be pleasure. It's significant to remember "conditions of awareness" because he is not saying that a rock, which is not feeling pain, to be feeling pleasure. Only the living can feel pleasure or pain, but when you and aware of your condition all of your feelings can be categorized as either painful or pleasurable. You can see this sweeping categorization stated specifically here:

On Ends 2:9 : Cicero: “…[B]ut unless you are extraordinarily obstinate you are bound to admit that 'freedom from pain' does not mean the same thing as 'pleasure.'” Torquatus: “Well but on this point you will find me obstinate, for it is as true as any proposition can be.”

On Ends 2:11: Cicero: Still, I replied, granting that there is nothing better (that point I waive for the moment), surely it does not therefore follow that what I may call the negation of pain is the same thing as pleasure?” Torquatus: “Absolutely the same, indeed the negation of pain is a very intense pleasure, the most intense pleasure possible.”

This is how Epicurus can say that the wise man is continuously feeling pleasure, and how he defines the absence of pain as the highest pleasure. He is not talking about the most intense stimulation, he is talking philosophically about the most pure and complete condition of pleasure where pleasure is defined as a condition where absolutely all pain is gone. The wise man is about to consider this condition to be the most complete pleasure even though it is not the most intense stimulation:

On Ends 1:56 : By this time so much at least is plain, that the intensest pleasure or the intensest annoyance felt in the mind exerts more influence on the happiness or wretchedness of life than either feeling, when present for an equal space of time in the body. We refuse to believe, however, that when pleasure is removed, grief instantly ensues, excepting when perchance pain has taken the place of the pleasure; but we think on the contrary that we experience joy on the passing away of pains, even though none of that kind of pleasure which stirs the senses has taken their place; and from this it may be understood how great a pleasure it is to be without pain. [57] But as we are elated by the blessings to which we look forward, so we delight in those which we call to memory. Fools however are tormented by the recollection of misfortunes; wise men rejoice in keeping fresh the thankful recollection of their past blessings. Now it is in the power of our wills to bury our adversity in almost unbroken forgetfulness, and to agreeably and sweetly remind ourselves of our prosperity. But when we look with penetration and concentration of thought upon things that are past, then, if those things are bad, grief usually ensues, if good, joy.

On Ends 1:62 : But these doctrines may be stated in a certain manner so as not merely to disarm our criticism, but actually to secure our sanction. For this is the way in which Epicurus represents the wise man as continually happy; he keeps his passions within bounds; about death he is indifferent; he holds true views concerning the eternal gods apart from all dread; he has no hesitation in crossing the boundary of life, if that be the better course. Furnished with these advantages he is continually in a state of pleasure, and there is in truth no moment at which he does not experience more pleasures than pains. For he remembers the past with thankfulness, and the present is so much his own that he is aware of its importance and its agreeableness, nor is he in dependence on the future, but awaits it while enjoying the present; he is also very far removed from those defects of character which I quoted a little time ago, and when he compares the fool’s life with his own, he feels great pleasure. And pains, if any befall him, have never power enough to prevent the wise man from finding more reasons for joy than for vexation.

So as I see it your question is a variation of what gets asked all the time: How can a condition of absence of pain be considered pleasure? The answer is that absence of pain can be considered to be pleasure, and in fact the total absence of pain can be considered to be the highest pleasure, because we are considering pleasure to include not just sensory stimulation, but also to include all conditions of awareness of life, mental or bodily, which are not painful, regardless of whether those conditions result from stimulation or from simple awareness of pain-free existence.

One or more of those hormones you refer to may or may not be something that we can consider to be the result of awareness of non-painful existence. Or all of those hormones may be the result of some kind of "stimulation." Sort of like with the issue of the word "atom" being meant to refer to something that is indivisible, rather than specifically to atoms or subatomic particles I think Epicurus would say that no matter how you slice your hormones or any other parts of biological awareness, what we are doing in describing pleasure is not looking at the structure but at the effect that is felt. Atoms are "whatever matter is indivisible" and Pleasure is "whatever feeling is not painful."

This may appear to be a word game, but it is not. It is the assertion that the normal healthy default condition of life is and should be considered to be pleasurable whenever it is not painful. I think Norman DeWitt says it best:

“Epicurus And His Philosophy” page 240 (emphasis added)

“The extension of the name of pleasure to this normal state of being was the major innovation of the new hedonism. It was in the negative form, freedom from pain of body and distress of mind, that it drew the most persistent and vigorous condemnation from adversaries. The contention was that the application of the name of pleasure to this state was unjustified on the ground that two different things were thereby being denominated by one name. Cicero made a great to-do over this argument, but it is really superficial and captious. The fact that the name of pleasure was not customarily applied to the normal or static state did not alter the fact that the name ought to be applied to it; nor that reason justified the application; nor that human beings would be the happier for so reasoning and believing."

So Shahab for me personally, when I think about the fact that for an eternity before I was born I felt nothing at all, and for an eternity after I die I will feel nothing at all, I have no problem at all considering to be pleasure all of my non-painful awareness in this brief period when I am alive.

Thanks for that information! Paperback much cheaper than ebook - that's pretty weird!

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"Epicurus and His Philosophy" by Norman DeWitt

The Biography of Epicurus by Diogenes Laertius. This includes the surviving letters of Epicurus, including those to Herodotus, Pythocles, and Menoeceus.

"On The Nature of Things" - by Lucretius (a poetic abridgement of Epicurus' "On Nature"

"Epicurus on Pleasure" - By Boris Nikolsky

The chapters on Epicurus in Gosling and Taylor's "The Greeks On Pleasure."

Cicero's "On Ends" - Torquatus Section

Cicero's "On The Nature of the Gods" - Velleius Section

The Inscription of Diogenes of Oinoanda - Martin Ferguson Smith translation

A Few Days In Athens" - Frances Wright

Lucian Core Texts on Epicurus: (1) Alexander the Oracle-Monger, (2) Hermotimus

Philodemus "On Methods of Inference" (De Lacy version, including his appendix on relationship of Epicurean canon to Aristotle and other Greeks)

"The Greeks on Pleasure" -Gosling & Taylor Sections on Epicurus, especially the section on katastematic and kinetic pleasure which explains why ultimately this distinction was not of great significance to Epicurus.

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Welcome to the forum!

Wow all the way down to the detail of spitting in its mouth -- I presumed it was just spitting on anywhere! I am not so sure I would try to get close enough to aim for the mouth!

Sounds pretty "conclusive" (as the article says) to me!

Yes that would be a good idea Cyrano. This question has now arisen twice in two days so we will think about a way to "institutionalize" the process. In the meantime. if you will send it to me in a private message, I will get the other moderators invovled and we will consult about it and get back to you.

Pacatus I strongly suspect anything you write would be ok, but maybe you could send a sample to Joshua and he could share with the other moderators.

I am trying to think ahead to what implications might arise. One distant glimmer of a concern I have is just for the size of the forum data. Surely poetry would be largely text, but in the distant future I can see people wanting to share other types of art that are more space intensive (music, artwork) and for that I would encourage placing the material somewhere else and just posting links here. There are reliable websites where things can be stored (like Archive.org) and then links posted here.

In general I think we want to help "our people" share their work in whatever there interest is, and for that we can collaborate on suggestions as to how to do that.

But my first thought is as above - send the proposed material to Joshua (he is the poetry expert among our moderators), and he can share with the others.

Yes Epicurus.net was always the place I turned to first for the core text, and I regularly still use it for that since the page loads so fast. And I remember the links you refer to as to the Austrian economics. Discussion of some aspects of that would probably run against our no-politics rule but some of it would be ok as philosophical. However going too far there now would derail this thread so if someone is interested in that probably best to start a new thread in the general ethics section.

Wow. That's a good reason to develop our own summary and not refer to that one!

I gather that it would probably be more clear how all this developed if we had a more clear article on how Antiochus Epiphanies was specifically Epicurean rather than just generic Greek. And the key there would be his advisor (whose name escapes me at the moment) who was specifically Epicurean. All I have ever seen written up on this was on the Epicurus.net website on their history page under the section about the Judeans.

Epicurean History

Wow that looks right on point -

JOURNAL ARTICLE

"Know What to Answer the Epicurean": A Diachronic Study of the ʾApiqoros in Rabbinic Literature

Jenny R. Labendz

We definitely want to encourage everyone who has a particular interest in a topic or historical figure, and to assist with that we've set up a dedicated page with links to "Active Research Projects." This kind of thing lends itself particular to topics like Cyrano de Bergerac and William Shakespeare that have been suggested recently, but the list might also include other types of topics, depending on who is interested in what. Hopefully this will make it easier for those who take the lead in a project to find "helpers" who can contribute in their spare time. There's now a prominent button for this on our front page which takes you to the page.

Let's use this thread to discuss what additional topics should be listed. If you think of something that's a good candidate please add to the thread below and please include the link to the existing (or new) thread discussing the topic.

Thanks very much!

Active Research Projects - Epicureanfriends.com

www.epicureanfriends.com

Aside: I find this subject fascinating, but sometimes I too wonder if we are chasing rabbits down holes where we have no business going.

But then I look back at Epicurus saying explicitly in the letter to Pythocles that these exact subjects should be included in basic studies so as to escape from superstition, so I think we're doing the right thing.

[116] ... All these things, Pythocles, you must bear in mind; for thus you will escape in most things from superstition and will be enabled to understand what is akin to them. And most of all give yourself up to the study of the beginnings and of infinity and of the things akin to them, and also of the criteria of truth and of the feelings, and of the purpose for which we reason out these things. For these points when they are thoroughly studied will most easily enable you to understand the causes of the details. But those who have not thoroughly taken these things to heart could not rightly study them in themselves, nor have they made their own the reason for observing them.

Quote from Bryan

yet nevertheless states that there are “parts of which no one on the planet understands,”

Giving Tong (the presenter) the benefit of the doubt (that the person who suggested that part of the equation understood what he was suggesting) to me this emphasizes how necessary it is to understand the limits of the equation rather than oversell it. In the end, can you take that overall equation and actually do anything with it other than perhaps predict the output of some experiment that you've developed in parallel with the equation? It's not like being able to conceptually state the equation is equivalent to an incantation that can bring something into being from nothing. In the end you are always working from what was there already to change it, not bringing something into being from nothing.

Quote from Bryan

After all, who will choose to seek what he can never find?

This is a line that strikes me as super-important every time I read that. I remember years ago in a Facebook discussion someone made the comment "But yeah, people do that all the time," and he was probably right that they do, at least in a way. But in most cases sane people don't keep searching for things that they know they can never find, and that's where the philosophical point comes in that you have to have an opinion about whether something really exists or not before you decide to invest your life into looking for it. And it seems to me pretty important to start off at the very beginning of this discussion finding some common ground and being clear about the playing field. People like Tong and those who are persuaded by Epicurus are confident that natural answers exist which could answer the questions if we had further details, and so we go on pursuing those details. But that presumption that there is a natural answer is a big one, and can't be left to implication.

Quote from Bryan

how can the empty be represented? What then are they?... for films which are so subtle and lack the depth of a solid constitution cannot possibly possess these faculties.”

Yep. That's a visual description of the disconnect. No way that they video of the globs moving around is what most people would understand by the term "empty."

Quote from Bryan

I feel that the explanation the presenter repeats -- basically the endorsed explanation since the world wars -- simply takes pre-suppositions from other schools, which are contrary to our school, and then labors to argue that recent experiments and technological advances prove their pre-suppositions correct.

Yep. I don't see a reason why most of what is being said could not be stated in traditional "universe means everything" and "nothing means nothing" terms. It's as if somewhere along the line someone decided to intentionally shift the traditional meanings of the words explicitly to undercut the Epicurean interpretation of an eternal and infinite universe. In fact the more I think about it, what possible "good" reason was there to shift the meaning of "universe" and "nothing" *other than* to distance themselves from the ultimate conclusions?

Quote from thatchickinpa

My point is not to convince you or anyone else to accept the Big Bang as true.

This might be understood in what you are saying, but I would say that I wouldn't entertain any doubt that our "corner of the universe" came to be as a result of an explosion from a central location. To the extent that is what big bang implies, I would be fine with it as I would not challenge the idea that the data shows everything in our observation expanding. (I am not aware of anyone challenging that part.)

The points in dispute would be whether what exploded came from nothing, and whether the universe as a whole is indeed unbounded, such that these big bangs are infinite in number and going on eternally, expanding and then collapsing without end.

Quote from Don

For me, the idea that the particles that make me are ripples on a cosmic ocean, connecting me to every other thing in the universe, is awe-inspiring in the best way.

I'm not disagreeing at all, just this thought occurs to me --- does an analogy of ripples on an ocean have any different emotional impact or philosophical implication than the particles in space analogy?

What about the entire structure of the use of "atoms" as the basis for regularity in the processes of nature. We've been talking about the field theory in terms of nothing from nothing, but is it any more difficult to also construct from the field theory the basis for the regularity at which we see the world proceed without the direction of any gods?

I suspect there's no real difference, but worth a thought probably.

Happy Birthday Onenski! It's good to realize that some of us have many more to look forward to than do others like me! (that's a joke - just an age reference )

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

Quote from Don

In modern physics, they're not saying "nothing comes from nothing" either. Their confusing shorthand provocative layman's "nothing" is just the quantum fields permeating all of space. The idea of the cosmos - our observable universe - coming out of a quantum fluctuation... similar to what some cosmologists posit is the ultimate fate of our cosmos (NOT the universe remember) an unimaginable number of billions and trillions of years in the future - strikes me as elegant. The new cosmos and our current one doesn't/ didn't come from nothing. It was birthed from the very existing underlying structure of the infinite universe.

Just watched it and Don's summary is good. Bottom line of his talk is that the latest theories don't talk in terms of "particles" anymore but rather "fields" - though as the lecturer demonstrates, it's easy to fall back into using the word particle because of the way fields tend to clump together. But in the end whether particle or field, most fair-minded people I think would consider a field to be "something," and thus as Don says the cosmos doesn't come from nothing, but from the underlying structure of the infinite universe.

All of which leaves the biggest questions that Epicurus wanted to address, such as whether there is something outside of "this observable universe" that these physicists are talking about (something which implicitly might be "god") totally unanswered. That larger question is at least as important to our daily lives as it is to get a better understanding of fields.

To be clear again I really enjoy watching presentations like this given by people who are obviously enthusiastic about them. But there's a line between this and philosophy that makes the latter a better contender for "Queen of the Sciences."

It seems to me that Epicurus had a great respect for "science" in the way that this lecturer is pursuing it, but he also kept it in perspective as not sufficient for determining how to live one's life. That seems to me to be the right balance.