Posts by Cassius

Going further:

What would be the implications of holding that *all* nonpainful experiences in life are pleasureable? Here are my thoughts on some, and I am sure there are many more:

First, this perspective makes it much easier to be confident in identifying "Pleasure" as your goal. Since you are including every non-painful activity of life within pleasure, you are in no way limiting yourself to "sex, drugs and rock'n roll." You are not phased at all by the Highbrow / Blueblood argument that you are failing to include the "higher" things in life in your overall goal. If the higher things bring pleasure, you as an Epicurean want those "higher things" even more firmly than do other people, because you understand truly *why* you want them. You gain confidence that this is a true philosophy that really has merit, and you grow ever more immune to false philosophic and religious alternatives.

Another major implication is that there would be no drive toward asceticism or minimalism any more than an obsession with opulence and luxury. You would see your best life not as that which contained the least absolute amount of pain, but the life in which pleasure most predominates over pain. Given any particular set of real life pains, a larger amount of pleasure offsets those pains more than does a smaller amount of pleasure. The effort involved in writing a monumental poem that is likely to win you affection and friendship and preserve your favorite philosophy for the ages, or the effort of setting up a school to wage intellectual war against the world of existing priests and philosophers, fades into insignificance compared to the pleasure of realizing what your hard work has accomplished.

A man who suffers from normal types of back pain would want to remedy it completely if he could, but not to the exclusion of all the other benefits of life. In many cases he does not have the ability to completely end the back pain short of suicide, and he knows that his best life involves much more than spending every waking moment pursuing a totally pain-free back. (Again, we're talking normal amounts of back pain.) Such a man would be better served by taking reasonable steps to alleviate his pain and then "drown out" the rest of his pain with experiences of pleasure, by adding activities which bring more pleasure than pain, than he would by reducing his total engagement with life to a mere minimum. This is because in relative terms the back pain is more likely to be offset by the pleasure of ten interactions with ten friends than the pleasure of one interaction with a single friend. While in this example we can use "friendship" as the activity because that is a pleasure that is easier to see as more heavily predominant in pleasure, in truth the individual circumstances will determine which activities involve the most benefit of pleasure (considering here duration, intensity, and location) at the least cost in pain. And in general, less engagement in life is going to result in the relative magnification of such pains as do exist than would more engagement in life. This increasing predominance of pleasure over pain would be true whatsoever activities you engage in so long as they bring more pleasure than pain.

And there is *no* disposition to read "engagement in life" as something that is painful. Rather the opposite is true - all experiences of life are pleasurable unless they involve some specific pain. It is not the norm of life's most important activities that they necessarily bring undue pain. Through the use of prudence you can normally live a pleasurable life that is full and complete while still keeping pain to a reasonable minimum.

Quote from Don

If every pleasure were condensed and were present at the same time and in the whole of one's nature or its primary parts...

But every pleasure cannot be condensed.

I did not pick that out initially but I think Godfrey is right on that point. I would extend that sentence to say "But every pleasure cannot be condensed so much as to occupy the whole organism." A pleasure can be intensified, but not so much as to consume all our experience, at least for very long.

I gather that other than that sentence Don and Godfrey (and I) would be in agreement with what Don wrote.

Quote from Godfrey

clarifying this PD as well. It's describing the individual components of pleasures, and at the same time saying that it's pretty unlikely that a person can experience 100% pleasure.

It certainly does seem to be based on the assumption that we are talking about individual pleasures being the norm, and speculating what would happen if any one of them were expanded in duration, intensity, and location to consume our full experience.

The premise of the whole statement seems to be that the pleasures are not normally so expansive, and that normal state of affairs is that the individual pleasures (and pains) occupy many separate parts of our experience at any one time.

A life of pleasure would seem to be a life composed of many individual pleasures predominating over the many individual pains. This is more attainable for an Epicurean because he or she doesn't have to face the fear of death or gods, he is trained to pursue those activities that are going to bring more pleasure than pain, and he is trained to appreciate that life is short and therefore any part of his mental or physical experience which is not painful is pleasurable.

Quote from Godfrey

At which point I become totally befuddled, and I realize why Epicurus didn't give mathematicians and geometricians any credence: math and geometry aren't very useful for describing biological phenomena. But the quote above is quite concise in describing the relationship of pleasure and pain.

Godfrey here I would cite Sedley as saying something important as to the limitations of biology and even psychology in understanding what Epicurus is saying as a philosopher, especially the underlined parts:

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34 DAVID SEDLEY - EPICURUS' REJECTION OF DETERMINISM:

Epicurus’ response to this is perhaps the least appreciated aspect of his thought. It was to reject reductionist atomism. Almost uniquely among Greek philosophers he arrived at what is nowadays the unreflective assumption of almost anyone with a smattering of science, that there are truths at the microscopic level of elementary particles, and further very different truths at the phenomenal level; that the former must be capable of explaining the latter; but that neither level of description has a monopoly of truth. (The truth that sugar is sweet is not straightforwardly reducible to the truth that it has such and such a molecular structure, even though the latter truth may be required in order to explain the former). By establishing that cognitive scepticism, the direct outcome of reductionist atomism, is self-refuting and untenable in practice, Epicurus justifies his non-reductionist alternative, according to which sensations are true and there are therefore hona fide truths at the phenomenal level accessible through them. The same will apply to the nétflrj, which Epicurus also held to be veridical. Pleasure, for example, is a direct datum of experience. It is commonly assumed that Epicurus must have equated pleasure with such and such a kind of movement of soul atoms; but although he will have taken it to have some explanation at the atomic level, I know of no evidence that he, any more than most moral philosophers or psychologists, would have held that an adequate analysis of it could be found at that level. Physics are strikingly absent from Epicurus’ ethical writings, and it is curious that interpreters are so much readier to import them there than they are when it comes to the moral philosophy of Plato or Aristotle.“

I don't think you can get to where Epicurus is going solely through biology or psychology any more than you can get there solely through mathematics or geometry or dialectical logic.

Here's another point on whether this is just the discretion of looking at the glass as half full or half empty:

I don't know about you, but looking at something as half empty and drained is a painful experience, and looking at something as half full with plenty of good experience left to go is a pleasurable experience.

And while the measure of the liquid in terms of quantity may be exactly the same, I can sure as heck feel the pleasure of saying "half full!" as different from the pain of saying "half empty'!"

It's not just a word game. In the end I don't care what the precise measure of liquid really is. What I care about is whether I am living a pleasurable or a painful life.

I expanded these comments in talking with Titus and I am going to take the liberty of inserting them here as they assist in the conversation.

TITUS:

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Quote from Cassius "That which is free from pain is in a state of pleasure."

I definitely agree. Can you describe more precisely what you mean? Does this change anything for you?

Personally, I experienced phases with chronic pain and I can simply enjoy freedom from pain. The fixed vessel gets filled by so many beautiful impressions that there is no need for a hunt for especial amusement.

CASSIUS:

Please comment as you can cause I think this is a very important issue.

Yes, the review of how Torquatus is explaining this to Cicero is changing my perspective. In other words, if you take the position that ALL experiences in life which are not explicitly painful are pleasurable, then your sitting in your chair or whatever else you are doing (if you are not in physical pain) and your thinking about whatever you are thinking (so long as you are not thinking about anything painful) means - without any more information at all - that you are in a state of pleasure. And if you are stating to me flatly that in your present condition of body and mind while sitting in your chair you are feeling no mixture of specific pains, then you are not only in a state of pleasure, you are at the LIMIT of pleasure in your current condition.

There is no way in my mind to understand Torquatus' explanation of Epicurus, especially as to Chrysippus hand or the host pouring wine for the guest analogy, in any other way.

As DeWitt says, Epicurus is defining the "normal" state of everyday pain-free life - no matter what you are doing - as the height of pleasure. The only reason that anyone can ever be designated as not at the height of pleasure is if they are feeling specific pains of mind or body that they can identify as painful.

It is the identification of the "normal" state - such as Chrysippus' hand - as being pleasurable that allows you to say that unless some specific pain is included in the mix you are at the height of pleasure. Nothing mysterious, nothing exotic, just the simple logic that is involved in observing that if you are feeling anything at all you are feeling either pain or pleasure. Take that to its logical conclusion and you have the realization that every activity which is not painful is pleasurable, and the height or limit of pleasure is just your personal combination of experiences so long as none of those are painful. It is ideal to hit 100% pleasures if you can, but even when you are in bad circumstances you just shoot for as high a percentage of pleasures as you can. Nothing hard to understand at all.

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Quote from Titus Personally, I experienced phases with chronic pain and I can simply enjoy freedom from pain. The fixed vessel gets filled by so many beautiful impressions that there is no need for a hunt for especial amusement.

Yes that is absolutely true, but there is something missing from the statement when people simply focus on "escape from pain" as the reason for making the statement. The basis for any statement describing your condition is that life itself is a pleasure to experience, no matter what you are doing, so long as it isn't painful. It is desirable to remove the pain down to the last drop, but the focus and emphasis is on the pleasure of living, not the irritation of the pain. It is "Pleasure" that is the focus of Epicurus and what makes life worth living, not any aspect of "Pain."

Some are going to say that this is like insisting on saying that the glass is half full rather than half empty, but I do believe that is what Epicurus is doing.

Quote from “Epicurus And His Philosophy” page 240 - Norman DeWitt (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."

This is all very simple and common sense, but when people obsess over "katastematic pleasure" or "ataraxia" or otherwise fail to make very clear what they are saying, then most normal people are going to conclude that "absence of pain" is some kind of woo-woo experience of mystical exaltation that "isn't pleasure at all." That's what they keep saying either explicitly or implicitly -- they are using various words for saying that this goal of "painlessness is "not pleasure at all, but the real reason for existence!" What a total inversion of the real meaning!! And it is all because they - like Cicero - refuse to accept the designation that life itself - whenever you are not suffering from some specific pain - is pleasurable!!

From the perspective I am describing, how much more clear can this quote be?

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.

These jokers who are saying that you don't experience true pleasure or the real goal of life unless you've removed 100% of pain keep looking for "katastematic pleasure" or "ataraxia" or "aponia" as if it some high-priced drug, when all Torquatus / Epicurus is really saying is that when you aren't for some specific reason in pain, whatever you are doing with your body or thinking with your mind constitutes pleasure!. Rather than having to go looking for some experience that no one can really explain, he's simply saying that however you choose to live your life, unless you're experiencing some specific pain - is an experience of pleasure!

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TITUS:

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Quote from Cassius That's what they keep saying either explicitly or implicitly -- that this goal of "painlessness is "not pleasure at all, but the real reason for existence! What at total inversion of the real meaning -- and it is all because they refuse to accept that life itself - when you are not suffering from some specific pain - is pleasurable!!

I think there is a comment in the forum from me or I wrote an essay on this topic: When another group e.g. the Buddhists experience their system of thought sometimes working, it's just because they come across the calm ocean of Epicurean Philosophy. Some of other philosophies strategies and habits may coincide with the happy life. Their main mistake is heading for alien/otherworldly experiences instead of to what Nature provides, which will finally keep them unsatisfied.

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CASSIUS:

Yes I agree. Life when you are not in pain is in fact pleasurable, even if you are only sitting crosslegged on the floor staring at a candle and chanting a single word over and over.

But why in the world would you ever LIMIT yourself to that!!! If you like reading - read! If you like biking, bike! If you like cooking, cook! If you like playing football, play football! But good God man you've only got a brief time to live - don't be afraid to use it! Why not experience all the innumerable pleasures that are open to you so long as they bring more pleasure than pain!

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TITUS:

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Quote from Cassius Why not experience all the innumerable pleasures that are open to you so long as they aren't more painful than they are worth!

I would always start with eliminating pain as far as possible and then moving on according to the pleasure/pain calculus. I'm a relatively frugal, hence in my case it's rather about an openness towards my sensual experience which I gather "by the way" than being excited about exceptionalities.

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CASSIUS:

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Quote from Titus I would always start with eliminating pain as far as possible and then moving on according to the pleasure/pain calculus. I'm a relatively frugal, hence in my case it's rather about an openness towards my sensual experience which I gather "by the way" than being excited about exceptionalities.

Now there I would say that the "I would always" is a personal preference. Everyone is different and has different priorities and preferences. That takes us back to the "week as Epicurus in pain or week as an uneducated shepherd" hypothetical. Both choices are "legitimate" in that no god or Nature cares which one you choose, but different people are going to make different choices. For the sake of honesty it is essential to respect that the universe doesn't care, and not fall into the mistake of believing that our own choice is a categorical imperative for the universe of all people at large. Only you can decide what is most important to you and what you're going to conclude is the best way to spend your life.

I'd like to use this as a starting point to ask a new question:

Quote from Godfrey

Basically I'm toying with the idea that k/k may not deserve the amount of attention that it gets. My thinking is that k/k is really just a way of describing duration, and we don't have any existing texts from Epicurus to which would give it any more importance.

An existing text that we do have is PD09. I'm currently interpreting it as defining the three components of pleasure as intensity, duration and location. The more I think on it, the more useful these seem to be for working with maximizing one’s pleasure. And if I'm interpreting PD09 correctly, which is open to debate, then to my mind it has more relevance than the texts dealing with k/k, as it is directly attributed to Epicurus.

So I'm suggesting that the three components of pleasure as described in PD09 are a more valuable topic of study than katastematic and kinetic pleasure. As far as I can tell, PD09 has been pretty much ignored, possibly due to its confusing wording, while k/k is the subject of endless, and endlessly open-ended, discussion. And I'm wondering if the focus on k/k is more useful to opponents of Epicurus than to practicing Epicureans.

Regardless of whether the topic of k/k pleasure is a blessing or a curse, I would like to put that aside for the moment and address what I think is a more basic question.

It seems to me that we are often not very clear when we are discussing "pleasure" as to whether what we are referring to is (1) any number of individual discrete experiences that occur at the same time (such as my being aware that my tooth is hurting at the same time I am aware that I am pleased to be talking with a friend) or (2) some kind of a "sum" of all experiences lumped together into one statement.

I think that people are often talking about pleasure as if it is (2) when they should first be examining the issue under the framework of (1).

I ask this because I would suggest we evaluate the quote currently at the top of the forum (Torquatus' "whatever is free from pain is in pleasure"), and compare it to a statement most people seem to agree is authentic Epicurus (Diogenes Laertius 22): "The disease in my bladder and stomach are pursuing their course, lacking nothing of their natural severity: but against all this is the joy in my heart at the recollection of my conversations with you."

I find it impossible to interpret this statement in his letter to Idomeneus as anything other than a statement by Epicurus that he is able to walk and chew gum at the same time: he is able to feel pain in one part of his experience (his abdomen) at the same time that he is able to feel plessure in another part of his experience (his mind). Is this not a statement that what Epicurus is doing is offsetting one against the other that he is both feeling simultaneously?

I do not think that this conflicts with PD03 ("Wherever pleasure is present, as long as it is there, there is neither pain of body, nor of mind, nor of both at once.") because he is not saying that either his mind or his abdomen experience both pain and pleasure at the same location at the same time. These are different locations and sources of pain/pleasure - the "wherever" - and the overall common sense context that we can feel numbers of different things simultaneously explains why both can be going on at the same time.

Likewise, Torquatus says: "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," (On Ends Book 1:38) Torquatus further says "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." Torquatus continues in the same balancing vein with: And pains, if any befall him, have never power enough to prevent the wise man from finding more reasons for joy than for vexation. (On Ends Book 1:62)

Do these passages not establish clearly that the Epicureans are presuming that life is continually a combination of pleasurable feelings and painful feelings, often occurring simultaneously in different parts of a person's full experience, and that through philosophy our goal should be to continually produce a preponderance of pleasure over pain?

Most of us will agree (I believe) that Epicurus would say that having 100% of our experience composed of pleasures would be desirable. Most of us I again believe would agree with that proposition as being a theoretical limit to how good life could be. I doubt many of us would argue that life should be 200% pleasure -- and I doubt that even entertaining that proposition would make any sense at all.

What does make sense is that like Epicurus, sometimes we can find mental pleasures to offset physical pains, and sometimes we can find physical pleasures to offset mental pains, not to mention physical pleasures offsetting physical pains and mental pleasures offsetting mental pains. Is that not our common experience as human beings?

If all that is the case does not "absence of pain" really means "absence of any experiences of pains - meaning discrete experiences of pain?"

And whether we refer to painlessness as aponia or ataraxia or any other word we choose, does not "pure pleasure" or "100% pleasure" simply mean "all my experiences over the time period being considered are pleasurable."

If these propositions are correct, I think they support the conclusion that in referring to "the limit of pleasure" Epicurus was in no way referring to a unique experience that everyone experiences in the same way. Is Epicurus not more likely to be saying that 100% pleasure (which is the same as saying 0% pain) is not different in kind or type from the experience of 99% pleasure, and the difference exists only in the 1% degree of pain that still remains, whatever that pain (or pains) might be?

Is there any reason to think that there is a "big bang" when that last 1% is finally eliminated? Is there any reason to think that looking for a "total elimination of pain" serves as more than a theoretical limit that helps us target how to get from where we are to a better place of even more pleasures and fewer pains? I would say "No." The perfect is not the enemy of the good, and there is nothing magical at all about getting from 99% pleasures to 100% pleasures.

Eliminating that extra 1% is desirable, but by no means is obsessing over the final 1% the exclusive object of Epicurus' advice. Nor is eliminating that final 1% in any way a justification for pursuing a life of asceticism or minimalism. If you yourself judge that the particular combination of 99% experiences that you believe worth pursuing is worth the cost of that 1% of your life encumbered by pains, then why not take what you can get and be satisfied that you have lived a great life even if it had a few irritations?

Just as we should be weighing "pleasure" in terms of duration, location, and intensity, as Godfrey's post (I think rightly) suggests, we should then move to the next step of the evaluation: All sorts of feelings of varying duration, location, and intensity are registering in our lives at any particular moment (or over our lifetime).

The most logical and common sense way of understanding what Epicurus is saying is that in the same way that there's no god in heaven writing a report card and giving us a "pass" or "fail" grade on the sum of our lives, there's also no mystical or difficult-to-understand experience that only he as a Greek intellectual was able to capture in words that the rest of the world finds difficult to comprehend.

Over every time period we can consider, we can personally add up our experiences of pleasure and experiences of pain and talk about which ones predominated. If we wish, we can assign a tag name such as "happy" to describe those periods when pleasures predominates over pains. But we're never doing anything except comparing our pleasurable experiences to our painful experiences and doing our best to increase the predominance of pleasures over pains.

We talk a lot about Epicurus having a "calculus of pleasure" without going much further. I think it would help if we start first with the basic arithmetic and get more familiar with comparing our pleasures to our pains. If we see pleasures and pains as discrete, as Epicurus weighed them against each other on his last day, I think we then see a very practical and easy-to-understand philosophy. The natural goal is to maximize the predominance of pleasures over pains. No one but us can ultimately judge whether we have done that well because no one else feels what we feel. And as our lives near their ends, no one's opinion about how we spent our lives matters but our own, and we have to be prepared to justify to ourselves - and not to gods or to anyone else - that we have lived well.

Thank you Joshua for the action and Don for the warning. Just woke up and saw this. The user has been banned along with another recent user - fuser73 - whom the system had already disabled due to his address showing up in a forum spam database. As Joshua said if anyone sees any remaining spam or anything else unusual, please let us know.

In tonight's zoom we discussed Vatican Saying 33 with a focus on this question:

Is the man being described rivaling Zeus purely because he is not hungry, thirsty, and cold (and confident that he will stay that way) or is it because such physical stability then allows his mind free reign to study nature, talk with friends, and/or do all the other pleasurable activities that a mind is able to do?

In other words, is the "happiness" being generated purely from the satisfaction of having these physical needs secured now and for the future? Or is something else part of the picture? If so, what else, and what does that tell us?

One text that may be on point comes from Lucretius, near the beginning of Book Two:

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Ah! miserable minds of men, blind hearts! in what darkness of life, in what great dangers ye spend this little span of years! To think that ye should not see that nature cries aloud for nothing else but that pain may be kept far sundered from the body, and that, withdrawn from care and fear, she may enjoy in mind the sense of pleasure!

[2::20] And so we see that for the body’s nature but few things at all are needful, even such as can take away pain. Yea, though pleasantly enough from time to time they can prepare for us in many ways a lap of luxury, yet nature herself feels no loss, if there are not golden images of youths about the halls, grasping fiery torches in their right hands, that light may be supplied to banquets at night, if the house does not glow with silver or gleam with gold, nor do fretted and gilded ceilings re-echo to the lute. And yet, for all this, men lie in friendly groups on the soft grass near some stream of water under the branches of a tall tree, and at no great cost delightfully refresh their bodies, above all when the weather smiles on them, and the season of the year bestrews the green grass with flowers. Nor do fiery fevers more quickly quit the body, if you toss on broidered pictures and blushing purple, than if you must lie on the poor man’s plaid.

[2::37] Wherefore since in our body riches are of no profit, nor high birth nor the glories of kingship, for the rest, we must believe that they avail nothing for the mind as well; unless perchance, when you see your legions swarming over the spaces of the Campus, and provoking a mimic war, strengthened with hosts in reserve and forces of cavalry, when you draw them up equipped with arms, all alike eager for the fray, when you see the army wandering far and wide in busy haste, then alarmed by all this the scruples of religion fly in panic from your mind, or that the dread of death leaves your heart empty and free from care. But if we see that these thoughts are mere mirth and mockery, and in very truth the fears of men and the cares that dog them fear not the clash of arms nor the weapons of war, but pass boldly among kings and lords of the world, nor dread the glitter that comes from gold nor the bright sheen of the purple robe, can you doubt that all such power belongs to reason alone, above all when the whole of life is but a struggle in darkness?

Of course I have an opinion on this but I would like to hear what others think.

Lucretius Book Four:

[469] Again, if any one thinks that nothing is known, he knows not whether that can be known either, since he admits that he knows nothing. Against him then I will refrain from joining issue, who plants himself with his head in the place of his feet. And yet were I to grant that he knows this too, yet I would ask this one question; since he has never before seen any truth in things, whence does he know what is knowing, and not knowing each in turn, what thing has begotten the concept of the true and the false, what thing has proved that the doubtful differs from the certain?

[478] You will find that the concept of the true is begotten first from the senses, and that the senses cannot be gainsaid. For something must be found with a greater surety, which can of its own authority refute the false by the true. Next then, what must be held to be of greater surety than sense? Will reason, sprung from false sensation, avail to speak against the senses, when it is wholly sprung from the senses? For unless they are true, all reason too becomes false. Or will the ears be able to pass judgement on the eyes, or touch on the ears? or again will the taste in the mouth refute this touch; will the nostrils disprove it, or the eyes show it false? It is not so, I trow. For each sense has its faculty set apart, each its own power, and so it must needs be that we perceive in one way what is soft or cold or hot, and in another the diverse colours of things, and see all that goes along with colour. Likewise, the taste of the mouth has its power apart; in one way smells arise, in another sounds. And so it must needs be that one sense cannot prove another false. Nor again will they be able to pass judgement on themselves, since equal trust must at all times be placed in them. Therefore, whatever they have perceived on each occasion, is true.

[500] And if reason is unable to unravel the cause, why those things which close at hand were square, are seen round from a distance, still it is better through lack of reasoning to be at fault in accounting for the causes of either shape, rather than to let things clear seen slip abroad from your grasp, and to assail the grounds of belief, and to pluck up the whole foundations on which life and existence rest. For not only would all reasoning fall away; life itself too would collapse straightway, unless you chose to trust the senses, and avoid headlong spots and all other things of this kind which must be shunned, and to make for what is opposite to these. Know, then, that all this is but an empty store of words, which has been drawn up and arrayed against the senses.

[513] Again, just as in a building, if the first ruler is awry, and if the square is wrong and out of the straight lines, if the level sags a whit in any place, it must needs be that the whole structure will be made faulty and crooked, all awry, bulging, leaning forwards or backwards, and out of harmony, so that some parts seem already to long to fall, or do fall, all betrayed by the first wrong measurements; even so then your reasoning of things must be awry and false, which all springs from false senses.

To Be Collected!

Lucretius Book Two:

[1090] And if you learn this surely, and cling to it, nature is seen, free at once, and quit of her proud rulers, doing all things of her own accord alone, without control of gods. For by the holy hearts of the gods, which in their tranquil peace pass placid years, and a life of calm, who can avail to rule the whole sum of the boundless, who to hold in his guiding hand the mighty reins of the deep, who to turn round all firmaments at once, and warm all fruitful lands with heavenly fires, or to be at all times present in all places, so as to make darkness with clouds, and shake the calm tracts of heaven with thunder, and then shoot thunderbolts, and often make havoc of his own temples, or moving away into deserts rage furiously there, plying the bolt, which often passes by the guilty and does to death the innocent and undeserving?

So are you saying that you have found in your studies that there is in fact not much of a historical precedent for the use of letter-writing for spread of philosophical ideas before Epicurus?

Another very interesting post and I am glad you are pleased with the level of engagement. I am no longer sure if you are Greek or German but your English is top notch!

Lucretius Book Three:

[B-3:417] Come now, that you may be able to learn that the minds and the light souls of living things have birth and death, I will hasten to set forth verses long sought out and found with glad effort, worthy to guide your life. Be it yours to link both of these in a single name, and when, to choose a case, I continue to speak of the soul, proving that it is mortal, suppose that I speak of mind as well, inasmuch as they are at one each with the other and compose a single thing.

[B-3:425] First of all, since I have shown that it is finely made of tiny bodies and of first-beginnings far smaller than the liquid moisture of water or cloud or smoke—for it far surpasses them in speed of motion, and is more prone to move when smitten by some slender cause; for indeed it is moved by images of smoke and cloud: even as when slumbering in sleep we see altars breathing steam on high, and sending up their smoke; for beyond all doubt these are idols that are borne to us:—now therefore, since, when vessels are shattered, you behold the water flowing away on every side, and the liquid parting this way and that, and since cloud and smoke part asunder into air, you must believe that the soul too is scattered and passes away far more swiftly, and is dissolved more quickly into its first-bodies, when once it is withdrawn from a man’s limbs, and has departed. For indeed, since the body, which was, as it were, the vessel of the soul, cannot hold it together, when by some chance it is shattered and made rare, since the blood is withdrawn from the veins, how could you believe that the soul could be held together by any air, which is more rare than our body \[B-3:and can contain it less\]?

[B-3:445] Moreover, we feel that the understanding is begotten along with the body, and grows together with it, and along with it comes to old age. For as children totter with feeble and tender body, so a weak judgment of mind goes with it. Then when their years are ripe and their strength hardened, greater is their sense and increased their force of mind. Afterward, when now the body is shattered by the stern strength of time, and the frame has sunk with its force dulled, then the reason is maimed, the tongue raves, the mind stumbles, all things give way and fail at once. And so it is natural that all the nature of the mind should also be dissolved, even as is smoke, into the high breezes of the air; inasmuch as we see that it is born with the body, grows with it, and, as I have shown, at the same time becomes weary and worn with age.

[B-3:459] Then follows this that we see that, just as the body itself suffers wasting diseases and poignant pain, so the mind too has its biting cares and grief and fear; wherefore it is natural that it should also share in death. Nay more, during the diseases of the body the mind often wanders astray; for it loses its reason and speaks raving words, and sometimes in a heavy lethargy is carried off into a deep unending sleep, when eyes and head fall nodding, in which it hears not voices, nor can know the faces of those who stand round, summoning it back to life, bedewing face and cheeks with their tears. Therefore you must needs admit that the mind too is dissolved, inasmuch as the contagion of disease pierces into it. For both pain and disease are alike fashioners of death, as we have been taught ere now by many a man’s decease.

[B-3:476] Again, when the stinging strength of wine has entered into a man, and its heat has spread abroad throughout his veins, why is it that there follows a heaviness in the limbs, his legs are entangled as he staggers, his tongue is sluggish, and his mind heavy, his eyes swim, shouting, sobbing, quarrelling grows apace, and then all the other signs of this sort that go along with them; why does this come to pass, except that the mastering might of the wine is wont to confound the soul even within the body? But whenever things can be so confounded and entangled, they testify that, if a cause a whit stronger shall have made its way within, they must needs perish, robbed of any further life.

[B-3:487] Nay more, some man, often before our very eyes, seized suddenly by violent disease, falls, as though by a lightning-stroke, and foams at the mouth; he groans and shivers throughout his frame, he loses his wits, his muscles grow taut, he writhes, he breathes in gasps, and tossing to and fro wearies his limbs. Because, you may be sure, his soul rent asunder by the violence of disease throughout his frame, is confounded, and gathers foam, as on the salt sea the waters boil beneath the stern strength of the winds. Further, the groaning is wrung from him, because his limbs are racked with pain, and more than all because the particles of voice are driven out, and are carried crowding forth from his mouth, along the way they are wont, where is their paved path. Loss of wits comes to pass, because the force of mind and soul is confounded, and, as I have shown, is torn apart and tossed to and fro, rent asunder by that same poison. Thereafter, when by now the cause of malady has ebbed, and the biting humours of the distempered body return to their hiding-places, then, as it were staggering, he first rises, and little by little returns to all his senses, and regains his soul. When mind and soul then even within the body are tossed by such great maladies, and in wretched plight are rent asunder and distressed, why do you believe that without the body in the open air they can continue life amid the warring winds?

[B-3:510] And since we perceive that the mind is cured, just like the sick body, and we see that it can be changed by medicine, this too forewarns us that the mind has a mortal life. For whosoever attempts and essays to alter the mind, or seeks to change any other nature, must indeed add parts to it or transfer them from their order, or take away some small whit at least from the whole. But what is immortal does not permit its parts to be transposed, nor that any whit should be added or depart from it. For whenever a thing changes and passes out of its own limits, straightway this is the death of that which was before. And so whether the mind is sick, it gives signs of its mortality, as I have proved, or whether it is changed by medicine. So surely is true fact seen to run counter to false reasoning, and to shut off retreat from him who flees, and with double-edged refutation to prove the falsehood.

[B-3:526] Again, we often behold a man pass away little by little and limb by limb lose the sensation of life; first of all the toes and nails on his feet grow livid, then the feet and legs die, thereafter through the rest of his frame, step by step, pass the traces of chill death. Since this nature of the soul is severed nor does it come forth all intact at one moment, it must be counted mortal. But if by chance you think that it could of its own power draw itself inwards through the frame, and contract its parts into one place, and so withdraw sensation from all the limbs, yet nevertheless that place, to which so great abundance of soul is gathered together, must needs be seen possessed of greater sensation; but since such place is nowhere found, you may be sure, as we said before, it is rent in pieces and scattered abroad, and so perishes.

Nay more, if it were our wish to grant what is false, and allow that the soul could be massed together in the body of those, who as they die leave the light of day part by part, still you must needs confess that the soul is mortal, nor does it matter whether it passes away scattered through the air, or is drawn into one out of all its various parts and grows sottish, since sense more and more in every part fails the whole man, and in every part less and less of life remains.

[B-3:548] And since the mind is one part of man, which abides rooted in a place determined, just as are ears and eyes and all the other organs of sense which guide the helm of life; and, just as hand and eye or nostrils, sundered apart from us, cannot feel nor be, but in fact are in a short time melted in corruption, so the mind cannot exist by itself without the body and the very man, who seems to be, as it were, the vessel of the mind, or aught else you like to picture more closely bound to it, inasmuch as the body clings to it with binding ties.

[B-3:558] Again, the living powers of body and mind prevail by union, one with the other, and so enjoy life; for neither without body can the nature of mind by itself alone produce the motions of life, nor yet bereft of soul can body last on and feel sensation. We must know that just as the eye by itself, if torn out by the roots, cannot discern anything apart from the whole body, so, it is clear, soul and mind by themselves have no power. Doubtless because in close mingling throughout veins and flesh, throughout sinews and bones, their first-beginnings are held close by all the body, nor can they freely leap asunder with great spaces between; and so shut in they make those sense-giving motions, which outside the body cast out into the breezes of air after death they cannot make, because they are not in the same way held together. For indeed air will be body, yea a living thing, if the soul can hold itself together, and confine itself to those motions, which before it made in the sinews and right within the body. Wherefore, again and again, when the whole protection of the body is undone and the breath of life is driven without, you must needs admit that the sensations of the mind and the soul are dissolved, since the cause of life in soul and body is closely linked.

[B-3:580] Again, since the body cannot endure the severing of the soul, but that it decays with a foul stench, why do you doubt that the force of the soul has gathered together from deep down within, and has trickled out, scattering abroad like smoke, and that the body has changed and fallen crumbling in such great ruin, because its foundations have been utterly moved from their seat, as the soul trickles forth through the limbs, and through all the winding ways, which are in the body, and all the pores? So that in many ways you may learn that the nature of the soul issued through the frame sundered in parts, and that even within the body it was rent in pieces in itself, before it slipped forth and swam out into the breezes of air.

[B-3:592] Nay more, while it moves still within the limits of life, yet often from some cause the soul seems to be shaken and to move, and to wish to be released from the whole body; the face seems to grow flaccid, as at the hour of death, and all the limbs to fall limp on the bloodless trunk. Even so it is, when, as men say, the heart has had a shock, or the heart has failed; when all is alarm, and one and all struggle to clutch at the last link to life. For then the mind is shaken through and through, and all the power of the soul, and both fall in ruin with the body too; so that a cause a whit stronger might bring dissolution. Why do you doubt after all this but that the soul, if driven outside the body, frail as it is, without in the open air, robbed of its shelter, would not only be unable to last on through all time, but could not hold together even for a moment?

[B-3:607] For it is clear that no one, as he dies, feels his soul going forth whole from all his body, nor coming up first to the throat and the gullet up above, but rather failing in its place in a quarter determined; just as he knows that the other senses are dissolved each in their own place. But if our mind were immortal, it would not at its death so much lament that it was dissolved, but rather that it went forth and left its slough, as does a snake.

[B-3:615] Again, why is the understanding and judgment of the mind never begotten in head or feet or hands, but is fixed for all men in one abode in a quarter determined, except that places determined are assigned to each thing for its birth, and in which each several thing can abide when it is created, that so it may have its manifold parts arranged that never can the order of its limbs be seen reversed? So surely does one thing follow on another, nor is flame wont to be born of flowing streams, nor cold to be conceived in fire.

[B-3:624] Moreover, if the nature of the soul is immortal and can feel when sundered from our body, we must, I trow, suppose it endowed with five senses. Nor in any other way can we picture to ourselves the souls wandering in the lower world of Acheron. And so painters and the former generations of writers have brought before us souls thus endowed with senses. Yet neither eyes nor nose nor even hand can exist for the soul apart from body, nor again tongue apart or ears; the souls cannot therefore feel by themselves or even exist.

[B-3:634] And since we feel that the sensation of life is present in the whole body, and we see that the whole is a living thing, if some force suddenly hew it in the middle with swift blow, so that it severs each half apart, beyond all doubt the force of the soul too will be cleft in twain, torn asunder and riven together with the body. But what is cleft and separates into any parts, disclaims, assuredly, that its nature is everlasting.

[B-3:642] They tell how often scythe-bearing chariots, glowing in the mellay of slaughter, so suddenly lop off limbs, that the part which falls lopped off from the frame is seen to shiver on the ground, while in spite of all the mind and spirit of the man cannot feel the pain, through the suddenness of the stroke, and at the same time, because his mind is swallowed up in the fervour of the fight; with the body that is left him he makes for the fight and the slaughter, and often knows not that his left arm with its shield is gone, carried away by the wheels among the horses and the ravening scythes; and another sees not that his right arm has dropped, while he climbs up and presses onward. Then another struggles to rise when his leg is lost, while at his side on the ground his dying foot twitches its toes. And the head lopped off from the warm living trunk keeps on the ground the look of life and the wide-open eyes, until it has yielded up all the last vestiges of soul.

[B-3:657] Nay more, if you should choose to chop into many parts with an axe the body of a snake with quivering tongue, angry tail, and long body, you will then perceive all the hewn parts severally writhing under the fresh blow, and scattering the ground with gore, and the fore part making open-mouthed for its own hinder part, in order that, smitten by the burning pain of the wound, it may quench it with its bite. Shall we say then that there is a whole soul in all those little parts? But by that reasoning it will follow that one living creature had many souls in its body. And so that soul which was one together with the body has been severed; wherefore both body and soul must be thought mortal, since each alike is cleft into many parts.

[B-3:670] Moreover, if the nature of the soul is immortal, and it enters into the body at our birth, why can we not remember also the part of our life already gone, why do we not preserve traces of things done before? For if the power of the mind is so much changed that all remembrance of things past is lost to it, that state is not, I trow, a far step from death; wherefore you must needs admit that the soul, which was before, has passed away, and that that which now is, has now been created.

[B-3:679] Moreover, if when our body is already formed the living power of the mind is wont to be put in just when we are born, and when we are crossing the threshold into life, it would not then be natural that it should be seen to grow with the body, yea, together with the limbs in the very blood, but ’tis natural that it should live all alone by itself as in a den, yet so that the whole body nevertheless is rich in sensation. Wherefore, again and again, we must not think that souls are without a birth, or released from the law of death. For neither can we think that they could be so closely linked to our bodies if they were grafted in them from without—but that all this is so, plain fact on the other hand declares: for the soul is so interlaced through veins, flesh, sinews, and bones that the teeth, too, have their share in sensation; as toothache shows and the twinge of cold water, and the biting on a sharp stone if it be hid in a piece of bread—nor, when they are so interwoven, can they, it is clear, issue forth entire, and unravel themselves intact from all the sinews and bones and joints.

[B-3:698] But if by chance you think that the soul is wont to be grafted in us from without, and then permeate through our limbs, all the more will it perish as it fuses with the body. For that which permeates dissolves, and so passes away. For even as food parcelled out among all the pores of the body, when it is sent about into all the limbs and members, perishes and furnishes a new nature out of itself, so soul and mind, however whole they may pass into the fresh-made body, still are dissolved as they permeate, while through all the pores there are sent abroad into the limbs the particles, whereof this nature of the mind is formed, which now holds sway in our body, born from that which then perished, parcelled out among the limbs. Wherefore it is seen that the nature of the soul is neither without a birthday nor exempt from death.

[B-3:713] Moreover, are seeds of soul left or not in the lifeless body? For if they are left and are still there, it will follow that it cannot rightly be held immortal, since it has left the body maimed by the loss of some parts. But if it has been removed and fled from the limbs while still entire, so that it has left no part of itself in the body, how is it that corpses, when the flesh is now putrid, teem with worms, and how does so great a store of living creatures, boneless and bloodless, swarm over the heaving frame? But if by chance you believe that the souls are grafted in the worms from without, and can pass severally into their bodies, and do not consider why many thousands of souls should gather together, whence one only has departed, yet there is this that seems worth asking and putting to the test, whether after all those souls go hunting for all the seeds of the little worms, and themselves build up a home to live in, or whether they are, as it were, grafted in bodies already quite formed. But there is no ready reason why they should make the bodies themselves, why they should be at such pains. For indeed, when they are without a body, they do not flit about harassed by disease and cold and hunger. For the body is more prone to suffer by these maladies, and ’tis through contact with the body that the mind suffers many ills. But still grant that it be ever so profitable for them to fashion a body wherein to enter; yet there seems to be no way whereby they could. Souls then do not fashion for themselves bodies and frames. Nor yet can it be that they are grafted in bodies already made; for neither will they be able to be closely interwoven, nor will contact be made by a sharing of sensation.

[B-3:741] Again, why does fiery passion go along with the grim brood of lions and cunning with foxes; why is the habit of flight handed on to deer from their sires, so that their father’s fear spurs their limbs? And indeed all other habits of this sort, why are they always implanted in the limbs and temper from the first moment of life, if it be not because a power of mind determined by its own seed and breed grows along with the body of each animal? But if the soul were immortal and were wont to change its bodies, then living creatures would have characters intermingled; the dog of Hyrcanian seed would often flee the onset of the horned hart, and the hawk would fly fearful through the breezes of air at the coming of the dove; men would be witless, and wise the fierce tribes of wild beasts.

[B-3:754] For it is argued on false reasoning, when men say that an immortal soul is altered, when it changes its body: for what is changed, is dissolved, and so passes away. For the parts are transferred and shift from their order; wherefore they must be able to be dissolved too throughout the limbs, so that at last they may all pass away together with the body.

[B-3:760] But if they say that the souls of men always pass into human bodies, still I will ask why a soul can become foolish after being wise, why no child has reason, why the mare’s foal is not as well trained as the bold strength of a horse. We may be sure they will be driven to say that in a weak body the mind too is weak. But if that indeed comes to pass, you must needs admit that the soul is mortal, since it changes so much throughout the frame, and loses its former life and sense.

[B-3:769] Or in what manner will the force of mind be able along with each several body to wax strong and attain the coveted bloom of life, unless it be partner too with the body at its earliest birth? Or why does it desire to issue forth abroad from the aged limbs? does it fear to remain shut up in a decaying body, lest its home, worn out with the long spell of years, fall on it? But an immortal thing knows no dangers.

[B-3:776] Again, that the souls should be present at the wedlock of Venus and the birth of wild beasts, seems to be but laughable; that immortal souls should stand waiting for mortal limbs in numbers numberless, and should wrangle one with another in hot haste, which first before the others may find an entrance; unless by chance the souls have a compact sealed, that whichever arrives first on its wings, shall first have entrance, so that they strive not forcibly at all with one another.

[B-3:784] Again, a tree cannot exist in the sky, nor clouds in the deep waters, nor can fishes live in the fields, nor blood be present in wood, nor sap in stones. It is determined and ordained where each thing can grow and have its place. So the nature of the mind cannot come to birth alone without body, nor exist far apart from sinews and blood. But if this could be, far sooner might the force of mind itself exist in head or shoulders, or right down in the heels, and be wont to be born in any part you will, but at least remain in the same man or the same vessel. But since even within our body it is determined and seen to be ordained where soul and mind can dwell apart and grow, all the more must we deny that it could continue or be begotten outside the whole body. Wherefore, when the body has perished, you must needs confess that the soul too has passed away, rent asunder in the whole body.

[B-3:800] Nay, indeed, to link the mortal with the everlasting, and to think that they can feel together and act one upon the other, is but foolishness. For what can be pictured more at variance, more estranged within itself and inharmonious, than that what is mortal should be linked in union with the immortal and everlasting to brave raging storms?

[B-3:806] Moreover, if ever things abide for everlasting, it must needs be either that, because they are of solid body, they beat back assaults, nor suffer anything to come within them which might unloose the close-locked parts within, such as are the bodies of matter whose nature we have declared before; or that they are able to continue throughout all time, because they are exempt from blows, as is the void, which abides untouched, nor suffers a whit from assault; or else because there is no supply of room all around, into which, as it were, things might part asunder and be broken up—even as the sum of sums is eternal—nor is there any room without into which they may scatter, nor are there bodies which might fall upon them and break them up with stout blow.

[B-3:819] But if by chance the soul is rather to be held immortal for this reason, because it is fortified and protected from things fatal to life, or because things harmful to its life come not at all, or because such as come in some way depart defeated before we can feel what harm they do us \[B-3:clear facts show us that this is not so\]. For besides that it falls sick along with the diseases of the body, there comes to it that which often torments it about things that are to be, and makes it ill at ease with fear, and wears it out with care; and when its evil deeds are past and gone, yet sin brings remorse. There is too the peculiar frenzy of the mind and forgetfulness of the past, yes, and it is plunged into the dark waters of lethargy.

1. Velleius, in Cicero's On The Nature of The Gods, XIX - Moreover, there is the supremely potent principle of infinity, which claims the closest and most careful study....
2. Epicurus to Herodotus 45 - These brief sayings, if all these points are borne in mind, afford a sufficient outline for our understanding of the nature of existing things. Furthermore, there are infinite worlds both like and unlike this world of ours. For the atoms being infinite in number, as was proved already, are borne on far out into space. For those atoms, which are of such nature that a world could be created out of them or made by them, have not been used up either on one world or on a limited number of worlds, nor again on all the worlds which are alike, or on those which are different from these. So that there nowhere exists an obstacle to the infinite number of the worlds. [46] Moreover, there are images like in shape to the solid bodies, far surpassing perceptible things in their subtlety of texture. For it is not impossible that such emanations should be formed in that which surrounds the objects, nor that there should be opportunities for the formation of such hollow and thin frames, nor that there should be effluences which preserve the respective position and order which they had before in the solid bodies: these images we call idols.
3. Epicurus to Pythocles 117 - 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.
4. Epicurus to Menoeceus - [135] ... Meditate therefore on these things and things akin to them night and day by yourself; and with a companion like to yourself, and never shall you be disturbed waking or asleep, but you shall live like a god among men. For a man who lives among immortal blessings is not like unto a mortal being.
5. Lucretius Book 2, Bailey: [522] And since I have taught this much, I will hasten to link on a truth which holds to it and wins belief from it, that the first-beginnings of things, which are formed with a shape like to one another, are in number infinite. For since the difference of forms is limited, it must needs be that those which are alike are unlimited, or else that the sum of matter is created limited, which I have proved not to be, showing in my verses that the tiny bodies of matter from everlasting always keep up the sum of things, as the team of blows is harnessed on unbroken on every side. [532] For in that you see that certain animals are more rare, and perceive that nature is less fruitful in them, yet in another quarter and spot, in some distant lands, there may be many in that kind, and so the tale is made up; even as in the race of four-footed beasts we see that elephants with their snaky hands come first of all, by whose many thousands India is embattled with a bulwark of ivory, so that no way can be found into its inner parts: so great is the multitude of those beasts, whereof we see but a very few samples. [541] But still, let me grant this too, let there be, if you will, some one thing unique, alone in the body of its birth, to which there is not a fellow in the whole wide world; yet unless there is an unlimited stock of matter, from which it might be conceived and brought to birth, it will not be able to be created, nor, after that, to grow on and be nourished.
6. Lucretius [2:1048] First of all, we find that in every direction everywhere, and on either side, above and below, through all the universe, there is no limit, as I have shown, and indeed the truth cries out for itself and the nature of the deep shines clear. Now in no way must we think it likely, since towards every side is infinite empty space, and seeds in unnumbered numbers in the deep universe fly about in many ways driven on in everlasting motion, that this one world and sky was brought to birth, but that beyond it all those bodies of matter do naught; above all, since this world was so made by nature, as the seeds of things themselves of their own accord, jostling from time to time, were driven together in many ways, rashly, idly, and in vain, and at last those united, which, suddenly cast together, might become ever and anon the beginnings of great things, of earth and sea and sky, and the race of living things. Wherefore, again and again, you must needs confess that there are here and there other gatherings of matter, such as is this, which the ether holds in its greedy grip.
7. Lucretius [2:1067] Moreover, when there is much matter ready to hand, when space is there, and no thing, no cause delays, things must, we may be sure, be carried on and completed. As it is, if there is so great a store of seeds as the whole life of living things could not number, and if the same force and nature abides which could throw together the seeds of things, each into their place in like manner as they are thrown together here, it must needs be that you confess that there are other worlds in other regions, and diverse races of men and tribes of wild beasts.
8. Lucretius Book 2: 1077 - Bailey: [1077] This there is too that in the universe there is nothing single, nothing born unique and growing unique and alone, but it is always of some tribe, and there are many things in the same race. First of all turn your mind to living creatures; you will find that in this wise is begotten the race of wild beasts that haunts the mountains, in this wise the stock of men, in this wise again the dumb herds of scaly fishes, and all the bodies of flying fowls. Wherefore you must confess in the same way that sky and earth and sun, moon, sea, and all else that exists, are not unique, but rather of number numberless; inasmuch as the deep-fixed boundary-stone of life awaits these as surely, and they are just as much of a body that has birth, as every race which is here on earth, abounding in things after its kind.
9. Lucretius Book 3 Bailey - [843] And even if the nature of mind and the power of soul has feeling, after it has been rent asunder from our body, yet it is naught to us, who are made one by the mating and marriage of body and soul. Nor, if time should gather together our substance after our decease and bring it back again as it is now placed, if once more the light of life should be vouchsafed to us, yet, even were that done, it would not concern us at all, when once the remembrance of our former selves were snapped in twain. And even now we care not at all for the selves that we once were, not at all are we touched by any torturing pain for them. For when you look back over all the lapse of immeasurable time that now is gone, and think how manifold are the motions of matter, you could easily believe this too, that these same seeds, whereof we now are made, have often been placed in the same order as they are now; and yet we cannot recall that in our mind’s memory; for in between lies a break in life, and all the motions have wandered everywhere far astray from sense.
10. Diogenes of Oinoanda Letter to Antipater - Fr. 63 So, as I was saying, having had my appetite most keenly whetted by all the advantage of the voyage, I shall try to meet you as soon as winter had ended, sailing first either to Athens or to Chalcis and Boeotia. But, since this is uncertain, both on account of the changeability and inconstancy of our fortunes and on account of my old age besides, I am sending you, in accordance with your request, the arguments concerning an infinite number of worlds. And you have enjoyed good fortune in the matter; for, before your letter arrived, Theodoridas of Lindus, a member of our school not unknown to you, who is still a novice in philosophy, was dealing with the same doctrine. And this doctrine came to be better articulated as a result of being turned over between the two of us face to face; for our agreements and disagreements with one another, and also our questionings, rendered the inquiry into the object of our search more precise. I am therefore sending you that dialogue, Antipater, so that you may be in the same position as if you yourself were present, like Theodoridas, agreeing about some matters and making further inquires in cases where you had doubts. The dialogue began something like this: «Diogenes,» said Theodoridas, «that the [doctrine laid down] by Epicurus on an infinite number of worlds is true [I am confident], ................ ................., as [if] ............. Epicurus .......

NOTHING FROM NOTHING:

1. Epicurus - Letter to Herodotus: [38] ... Having made these points clear, we must now consider things imperceptible to the senses. First of all, that nothing is created out of that which does not exist: for if it were, everything would be created out of everything with no need of seeds.
2. Lucretius Book One Line 146:
   1. [146] This terror then, this darkness of the mind, must needs be scattered not by the rays of the sun and the gleaming shafts of day, but by the outer view and the inner law of nature; whose first rule shall take its start for us from this, that nothing is ever begotten of nothing by divine will. Fear forsooth so constrains all mortal men, because they behold many things come to pass on earth and in the sky, the cause of whose working they can by no means see, and think that a divine power brings them about. Therefore, when we have seen that nothing can be created out of nothing, then more rightly after that shall we discern that for which we search, both whence each thing can be created, and in what way all things come to be without the aid of gods.
   2. [159] For if things came to being from nothing, every kind might be born from all things, nought would need a seed. First men might arise from the sea, and from the land the race of scaly creatures, and birds burst forth from the sky; cattle and other herds, and all the tribe of wild beasts, with no fixed law of birth, would haunt tilth and desert. Nor would the same fruits stay constant to the trees, but all would change: all trees might avail to bear all fruits. Why, were there not bodies to bring each thing to birth, how could things have a fixed unchanging mother? But as it is, since all things are produced from fixed seeds, each thing is born and comes forth into the coasts of light, out of that which has in it the substance and first-bodies of each; and ’tis for this cause that all things cannot be begotten of all, because in fixed things there dwells a power set apart.
   3. [174] Or again, why do we see the roses in spring, and the corn in summer’s heat, and the vines bursting out when autumn summons them, if it be not that when, in their own time, the fixed seeds of things have flowed together, then is disclosed each thing that comes to birth, while the season is at hand, and the lively earth in safety brings forth the fragile things into the coasts of light? But if they sprang from nothing, suddenly would they arise at uncertain intervals and in hostile times of year, since indeed there would be no first-beginnings which might be kept apart from creative union at an ill-starred season.
   4. [184] Nay more, there would be no need for lapse of time for the increase of things upon the meeting of the seed, if they could grow from nothing. For little children would grow suddenly to youths, and at once trees would come forth, leaping from the earth. But of this it is well seen that nothing comes to pass, since all things grow slowly, as is natural, from a fixed seed, and as they grow preserve their kind: so that you can know that each thing grows great, and is fostered out of its own substance.
   5. [192] There is this too, that without fixed rain-showers in the year the earth could not put forth its gladdening produce, nor again held apart from food could the nature of living things renew its kind or preserve its life; so that rather you may think that many bodies are common to many things, as we see letters are to words, than that without first-beginnings anything can come to being.
   6. [199] Once more, why could not nature produce men so large that on their feet they might wade through the waters of ocean or rend asunder mighty mountains with their hands, or live to overpass many generations of living men, if it be not because fixed substance has been appointed for the begetting of things, from which it is ordained what can arise? Therefore, we must confess that nothing can be brought to being out of nothing, inasmuch as it needs a seed for things, from which each may be produced and brought forth into the gentle breezes of the air.
   7. [208] Lastly, inasmuch as we see that tilled grounds are better than the untilled, and when worked by hands yield better produce, we must know that there are in the earth first-beginnings of things, which we call forth to birth by turning the teeming sods with the ploughshare and drilling the soil of the earth. But if there were none such, you would see all things without toil of ours of their own will come to be far better.

NOTHING TO NOTHING:

1. Epicurus - Letter to Herodotus: [39] And again, if that which disappears were destroyed into that which did not exist, all things would have perished, since that into which they were dissolved would not exist.
2. Lucretius Book One:
   1. [215] Then follows this, that nature breaks up each thing again into its own first-bodies, nor does she destroy ought into nothing. For if anything were mortal in all its parts, each thing would on a sudden be snatched from our eyes, and pass away. For there would be no need of any force, such as might cause disunion in its parts and unloose its fastenings. But as it is, because all things are put together of everlasting seeds, until some force has met them to batter things asunder with its blow, or to make its way inward through the empty voids and break things up, nature suffers not the destruction of anything to be seen.
   2. [225] Moreover, if time utterly destroys whatsoever through age it takes from sight, and devours all its substance, how is it that Venus brings back the race of living things after their kind into the light of life, or when she has, how does earth, the quaint artificer, nurse and increase them, furnishing food for them after their kind? how is it that its native springs and the rivers from without, coming from afar, keep the sea full? how is it that the sky feeds the stars? For infinite time and the days that are gone by must needs have devoured all things that are of mortal body. But if in all that while, in the ages that are gone by, those things have existed, of which this sum of things consists and is replenished, assuredly they are blessed with an immortal nature; all things cannot then be turned to nought.
   3. [238] And again, the same force and cause would destroy all things alike, unless an eternal substance held them together, part with part interwoven closely or loosely by its fastenings. For in truth a touch would be cause enough of death, seeing that none of these things would be of everlasting body, whose texture any kind of force would be bound to break asunder. But as it is, because the fastenings of the first-elements are variously put together, and their substance is everlasting, things endure with body unharmed, until there meets them a force proved strong enough to overcome the texture of each. No single thing then passes back to nothing, but all by dissolution pass back into the first-bodies of matter.
   4. [250] Lastly, the rains pass away, when the sky, our father, has cast them headlong into the lap of earth, our mother; but the bright crops spring up, and the branches grow green upon the trees, the trees too grow and are laden with fruit; by them next our race and the race of beasts is nourished, through them we see glad towns alive with children, and leafy woods on every side ring with the young birds’ cry; through them the cattle wearied with fatness lay their limbs to rest over the glad pastures, and the white milky stream trickles from their swollen udders; through them a new brood with tottering legs sports wanton among the soft grass, their baby hearts thrilling with the pure milk. Not utterly then perish all things that are seen, since nature renews one thing from out another, nor suffers anything to be begotten, unless she be requited by another’s death.

Kalosyni recently posted a thread to comment on a description of Epicurean Philosophy on Reddit, and it seems like it might be a good idea to have a similar thread as to the description of Epicurean philosophy on Wikipedia. This is a topic that has been discussed more than one, including here:

Blog Article

Parsing The Wikipedia Introduction To Epicurus As Of February 6, 2020

Below is the Wikipedia introduction to Epicurus as of 02/06/20. I will highlight in red, and add a footnote to each statement which I contend is in serious need of correction or amplification.

[…]

[1] Calling Epicurus a "sage" adds nothing, but injects confusion, suggesting that this term denotes some status that is important the reader should know about in this context, which is not correct.

[2] Eating simple means and discussing a wide variety of philosophical subject is what they were known…

Cassius

June 6, 2020 at 9:22 AM

As of this date (early October, 2023) here is the section on Ethics:

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This post isn't adding anything new to the subject, just making it easier to find. Here are some current comments:

1. I question the addition of adding "morally" to pleasure being good and evil, as it sounds like a concession to Platonic idealism that there is an absolute morality. Pleasure is desirable and pain is undesirable because Nature gave us feelings that work that way, not because there is an intrinsic standard of "morality."
2. I strongly disapprove of implying that "he idiosyncratically defined pleasure as the absence of suffering" without the full explanation that pleasure is EVERY activity in life that is not painful. The formulation is easily and justifiably twisted into asceticism / buddhism / etc.
3. I strongly disapprove of stating baldly that "ataraxia" is what "all humans should seek to attain." This requires much more explanation.
4. While I think it has its uses I strongly disapprove of elevating the Tetrapharmakos as a primary "summary of the key points of Epicurean ethics." "What is terrible is easy to endure" was never stated by Epicurus and is borderline offensive. (And I question whether I should hedge with "borderline.")
5. I expect that the wording that Epicurus "strongly disapproved of raw excessive sensuality" will be misinterpreted as implying that he strongly disapproved of all sensuality.
6. The way this is written I think that implying that a "single piece of cheese can be equally pleasing as an entire feast" will also be misinterpreted as overly-minimalist asceticism.

Most of these statements can be reworked and explained in a satisfactory way, just like Epicurus uses "gods" and "virtue" in acceptable ways. But the big problem is this:

When you pull concepts out of context and drop them in the laps of people whose mentality has been conditioned by religion and orthodox "humanism" to operate in a context totally opposed to Epicurus' viewpoints, you end up with a total misrepresentation.

That's exactly the technique Cicero is using in "On Ends" to disparage Epicurean philosophy. He knows that his readers don't understand Epicurus' sweeping definition of pleasure, and so he ignores Epicurus' definition and acts as if Epicurus is an alien from another planet.

Like Cicero, the people writing this wikipedia article very likely know that "pleasure is the absence of pain" will be interpreted by at least 90% of their readers as some kind of Buddhist / Stoic asceticism, aloofness, and detachment. To leave it unsaid that Epicurus was advocating the *opposite* of asceticism and aloofness and detachment is not doing justice either to Epicurus or to the reader.

Unless you close the door firmly on the kind of misrepresentation that Cicero is advocating you never make any progress with the people who are studying Epicurus in good faith. You leave them convinced that there IS no explanation and that all viewpoints are equally valid, as seems to be the goal of the Talmudic approach.

In fairness to Cicero, however, or just ironically, we wouldn't have the very explicit explanation that Torquatus does provide us on these issues if Cicero had not included them in his argument against them. Cicero may have scored points for his side in 50BC, but in preserving the core explanation of Epicurus' view of pleasure he preserved critical material that we otherwise wouldn't have. So I am glad we have Cicero, but we now have the ability to move forward with restating the core material with more clarity.

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.

1. Epicurus' Letter to Menoecus [129]:- And for this cause we call pleasure the beginning and end of the blessed life. For we recognize pleasure as the first good innate in us, and from pleasure we begin every act of choice and avoidance, and to pleasure we return again, using the feeling as the standard by which we judge every good.