Posts by Cassius

No one seems to agree on what "pleasure" means, which is why Cicero could take the position that he did and that is currently in our "quote of the week" at the top of the forum.

Torquatus laughed. Come, that is a good joke," he said, "that the author of the doctrine that pleasure is the End of things desirable, the final and ultimate Good, should actually not know what manner of thing pleasure itself is!" "Well," [Cicero] replied, either Epicurus does not know what pleasure is, or the rest of mankind all the world over do not."

- Torquatus in Cicero's "On Ends" Book Two III:1 (Rackham)

"What do we mean by pleasure" is the real problem, and I suspect it adds much unnecessary complexity to the issue to have to drill down to decide whether people are talking about "bodily" vs "mental" or "static" vs "kinetic." Those two distinctions strike me as two entirely separate categories of things, and if we aren't clear about what we are talking about at the beginning then we never make any progress. Epicurus seems to be labeling every mental or physical living experience as "pleasure" so long that experience is not explicitly felt to be painful. That labeling right there is the keystone on which everything else stands or falls, and shifting the terminology to whether that should be labeled as kinetic or static just adds confusion.

And as we've discussed, we have only mentions by Cicero and Diogenes Laertius to thank for that terminology shift, which Boris Nikolsky points out is probably a later overlay and figures not at all in Lucretius or the core material we have from Epicurus himself. Cassius Longinus said to Cicero himself that it is easy to explain how pleasure is the good rather than virtue, and the question that everyone wants to know is how to weigh "sex, drugs, and rock and roll" against what we can lump together under "mental pleasure."

So I would think that *most* conversations in the surviving texts would be oriented toward comparing "mental" vs "bodily" experiences, as that is the obvious practical and threshold question that confronts everyone. Only after you weigh the bodily vs mental would you start talking about types of mental pleasure and getting technical about whether they are "static" vs changing.

Only once you get past that would I think you start drilling down between "types" of mental pleasure.

For those who were not there last night we discussed to what extent "eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die" would be considered Epicurean.

Very different answers can be arrived at depending on whether you take the words of the phrase literally or allegorically.

I personally have no problem taking them allegorically and considering them consistent with Epicurus along the lines of the "live like you are dying" song referenced earlier this week.

However most of us do expect to live past "tomorrow" taken literally as 24 hours, and that requires a different calculation.

Tonight at 8pm, we will cover Vatican Saying 32 & 33. Please join us. (Post here in this thread if you have never attended one of these sessions as we do have a vetting process for new participants.)

VS32. The veneration of the wise man is a great blessing to those who venerate him.

VS33. The flesh cries out to be saved from hunger, thirst, and cold. For if a man possess this safety, and hope to possess it, he might rival even Zeus in happiness.

Quote from Joshua

I should note that the words 'kinetic' and 'katastematic' made a rare appearance on this week's podcast episode, along side a few quotes from John Stuart Mill. Most notably his claim that it is better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.

Yes - it's probably going to take me until Friday but there is some good material in this episode, primarily because we encounter Torquatus saying this as to mental vs bodily pleasures:

Quote

[55] XVII. I will concisely explain what are the corollaries of these sure and well grounded opinions. People make no mistake about the standards of good and evil themselves, that is about pleasure or pain, but err in these matters through ignorance of the means by which these results are to be brought about. Now we admit that mental pleasures and pains spring from bodily pleasures and pains; so I allow what you alleged just now, that any of our school who differ from this opinion are out of court; and indeed I see there are many such, but unskilled thinkers. I grant that although mental pleasure brings us joy and mental pain brings us trouble, yet each feeling takes its rise in the body and is dependent on the body, though it does not follow that the pleasures and pains of the mind do not greatly surpass those of the body. With the body indeed we can perceive only what is present to us at the moment, but with the mind the past and future also. For granting that we feel just as great pain when our body is in pain, still mental pain may be very greatly intensified if we imagine some everlasting and unbounded evil to be menacing us. And we may apply the same argument to pleasure, so that it is increased by the absence of such fears.

[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.

I personally am fully on board with Torquatus in these statements. What I am not on board with is the apparent tendency of modern constructions to consider mental pleasures to be "katastematic" or in any other reason inherently superior to bodily pleasures. My reading of this is that depending on circumstances the significance of mental vs bodily ebbs and flows with the context of daily life.

I was thinking already about this before Joshua posted, but I believe this implicates Joshua's regular observation that humans are not inherently different from or similar to other animals.

Just like other animals we have our inherent abilities and capacities, and we have unique attributes that make us human just like cats have attributes that make them cats and dogs have attributes that make them dogs. We spend more time and effort (apparently) than do some other animals in mental activities, but that doesn't mean that we are "spiritual beings" or in any way different than other forms of life. It's useful to talk about specific activities in specific ways, but it's not useful, and in fact harmful, to take some activities out of the context of the whole and deify them as if they are all that we are about.

The Torquatus material is exactly where I would expect Epicureans to be after almost 200 years of discussion: We are beings with both mental and physical activities and life is a constant balancing and processing of different experiences between them. We are no more born with a goal of achieving some specific mental state than a cat is born to live anything but a cat's life or a dog a dog's life. A human's life is a mix of mental and physical activities day in and day out, and all of us - cats, dogs, and humans - are just doing the best we can to live the best mix of experiences.

When you pull things like "mental state" out of context and focus on them exclusively, as if achieving them for a moment is the single goal of your life for which everything else is subordinate, you're headed for trouble. In my view Epicurus is saying that pleasure and pain are navigation beacons, not destinations. The only stable and static point that comes along after birth is death, and death is *not* the goal of life.

Wikipedia:

Gaius Valerius Catullus

Another version:

My sweetest Lesbia, let us live and love;
And though the sager sort our deeds reprove,
Let us not weigh them. Heaven's great lamps do dive
Into their west, and straight again revive;
But, soon as once set is our little light,
Then must we sleep one ever-during night.

And my favorite version:

Just for reference from "On The Nature of the Gods" --

“If we sought to attain nothing else beside piety in worshipping the gods and freedom from superstition, what has been said had sufficed; since the exalted nature of the gods, being both eternal and supremely blessed, would receive man's pious worship (for what is highest commands the reverence that is its due); and furthermore all fear of the divine Power or divine anger would have been banished (since it is understood that anger and favor alike are excluded from the nature of a being at once blessed and immortal, and that these being eliminated we are menaced by no fears in regard to the powers above). But the mind strives to strengthen this belief by trying to discover the form of god, the mode of his activity, and the operation of his intelligence.

“For the divine form we have the hints of nature supplemented by the teachings of reason. From nature all men of all races derive the notion of gods as having human shape and none other; for in what other shape do they ever appear to anyone, awake or asleep? But not to make primary concepts the sole test of all things, reason itself delivers the pronouncement. For it seems appropriate that a being who is the most exalted, whether by reason of his happiness or of his eternity, should also be the most beautiful; but what disposition of the limbs, what cast of features, what shape or outline can be more beautiful than the human form? You Stoics at least, Lucilius, (for my friend Cotta says one thing at one time and another at another) are wont to portray the skill of the divine creator by enlarging on beauty as well as the utility of design displayed in all parts of the human figure. But if the human figure surpasses the form of all other living beings, and god is a living being, god must possess the shape which is the most beautiful of all; and since it is agreed that the gods are supremely happy, and no one can be happy without virtue, and virtue cannot exist without reason, and reason is only found in the human shape, it follows that the gods possess the form of man. Yet their form is not corporeal, but only resembles bodily substance; it does not contain blood, but the semblance of blood.

“These discoveries of Epicurus are so acute in themselves and so subtly expressed that not everyone would be capable of appreciating them. Still I may rely on your intelligence, and make my exposition briefer than the subject demands. Epicurus then, as he not merely discerns abstruse and recondite things with his mind's eye, but handles them as tangible realities, teaches that the substance and nature of the gods is such that, in the first place, it is perceived not by the senses but by the mind, and not materially or individually, like the solid objects which Epicurus in virtue of their substantiality entitles steremnia; but by our perceiving images owing to their similarity and succession, because an endless train of precisely similar images arises from the innumerable atoms and streams towards the gods, our mind with the keenest feelings of pleasure fixes its gaze on these images, and so attains an understanding of the nature of a being both blessed and eternal.

Now Velleius does say this about inactivity:

“You Stoics are also fond of asking us, Balbus, what is the mode of life of the gods and how they pass their days. The answer is, their life is the happiest conceivable, and the one most bountifully furnished with all good things. God is entirely inactive and free from all ties of occupation; he toils not neither does he labor, but he takes delight in his own wisdom and virtue, and knows with absolute certainty that he will always enjoy pleasures at once consummate and everlasting.

“This is the god whom we should call happy in the proper sense of the term; your Stoic god seems to us to be grievously overworked. If the world itself is god, what can be less restful than to revolve at incredible speed round the axis of the heavens without a single moment of respite? But repose is an essential condition of happiness. If on the other hand some god resides within the world as its governor and pilot, maintaining the courses of the stars, the changes of the seasons, and all the ordered processes of creation, and keeping a watch on land and sea to guard the interests and lives of men, why, what a bondage of irksome and laborious business is his!

-- - - - - - - - -

I don't think that version of "inactivity" is any harder to explain than the special definitions of "gods" in the first place, or of virtue, or of pleasure. They aren't "toiling" or doing any "work" that they don't want to do, but that doesn't mean they are sitting in one place staring at candles either. But at least as to the plain meaning of "inactivity" in English, which implies "doing nothing," I can't see how gods with bodies analogous to humans and blood analogous to humans and speaking language analogous to Greek can be considered to be "doing nothing." The don't toil or work any more than they superintend the universe, but that doesn't mean we should think of them as "doing nothing."

I note in the article that the author thanks someone for helping with this English, which is presumably not his first language. Maybe my complaint can be chalked up to nothing more than terminology, but still I would be careful with the implication of "inactivity."

I agree with his conclusion and think it is well worded. A proper attitude toward divinity has a very important impact on the way we live. But I will say as to the earlier parts of the article that no prolepsis or anticipation or logical deduction or image or anything else can in my world lead to a divinity which is totally inactive in its own sphere.

The idea that an "inactive" divinity should be a model for humans could not in my mind be reconciled with a philosophy that would not know the good but for the pleasures of the senses. I would pinpoint his problem as being that once you start identifying katastematic pleasure as the only "authentic" kind of pleasure, inactivity is the kind of distorted end-point at which you arrive. I would go so far to say that I think Epicurus would consider this position as blasphemous and unworthy of the gods as the reverse position, that they spend their days pushing around the stars and counting the feathers on birds and watching for the animals to tell them when to change the seasons. Inactivity in their own sphere is as unworthy of the gods as is burdensome work.

But to close the post on a positive note i do think this is correct here:

Quote

In conclusion, Epicurus, with his vision of divinities, unique in the Greek religious tradition, and of all the philosophical systems of Antiquity, leads neither to atheism nor to crypto-atheism, that is total disinterest in the divine, but to a healthy relationship with the divinities. This new relationship does not eliminate the traditional prayers and rites, rethought by Epicurus in a manner and perspective strictly in line with his philosophy. In this way, the gods represent the image of complete happiness. This image represents an important stimulus for men, because it shows the true purpose of human life: all humans continue to live a mortal life, but they can achieve a bliss comparable to that of the immortal gods.

I am not familiar with the cite to a text by Atticus on page 203 - that would be interesting to explore.

I'll have to come back to this but I remember that deWitt has citations against this position, to the effect that there are reliable cites that Epicurus held that the gods must act to maintain their deathlessness:

"On the contrary, divine happiness is immediate, effortless and perennial. The gods must not even «hope» to
continue to remain in the state of bliss, as happens to men: they are always in this condition, without any effort."

I am slow to read this but have now started. Other than his labeling of katestematic pleasure as "authentic" pleasure, to which I would strongly object, what is this?

In this sense, the divine is the representation of happiness according to the philosophy of Epicurus. Therefore, the philosopher of Samos, far from diminishing the importance of the divine, places it as the highest example of
a happy, indeed blessed entity. Such bliss, however, as has been mentioned, presupposes an absolute lack of activity, which, if it did not exist, would in fact constitute, for Epicurus, a debasement of the divine nature.

WHAT? Of course, no activity in regard to HUMANS, but where in the world does he get the contention that the gods are totally inactive in their own sphere?

I hope he returns to that later in the article but I would find that to be totally unacceptable as an Epicurean view of the gods or the best life or, as Epicurus might have said, of any being of any intelligence whatsoever.

Almost two years ago I made a post which included this song reference, but it was included in a larger "music" thread, and I would like to pull our the idea for more emphasis. For me, there is no way that Epicurean philosophy can be understood properly without always keeping in mind this core idea: that we are mortal and that we need to "live like we are dying" - because we are.

Below are the original cites I included in the first post, but now I have an additional one to add, from Lucretius Book 3:

[B-3:1053] If only men, even as they clearly feel a weight in their mind, which wears them out with its heaviness, could learn too from what causes that comes to be, and whence so great a mass, as it were, of ill lies upon their breast, they would not pass their lives, as now for the most part we see them; knowing not each one of them what he wants, and longing ever for change of place, as though he could thus lay aside the burden. The man who is tired of staying at home, often goes out abroad from his great mansion, and of a sudden returns again, for indeed abroad he feels no better. He races to his country home, furiously driving his ponies, as though he were hurrying to bring help to a burning house; he yawns at once, when he has set foot on the threshold of the villa, or sinks into a heavy sleep and seeks forgetfulness, or even in hot haste makes for town, eager to be back. In this way each man struggles to escape himself: yet, despite his will he clings to the self, which, we may be sure, in fact he cannot shun, and hates himself, because in his sickness he knows not the cause of his malady; but if he saw it clearly, every man would leave all else, and study first to learn the nature of things, since it is his state for all eternity, and not for a single hour, that is in question, the state in which mortals must expect all their being, that is to come after their death.

I'll repeat my earlier caveat that I don't particularly care for much "country" music, and this song has a line in it implying that we will be around for an eternity thinking about how we spent his life, which is wrong. And this clip brings in a Bible picture which is totally off (I need a better version of the video with the text without the religious reference.)

But if you excise those references, the rest comes into harmony: it is your state for all eternity that you need to consider as the basis for how you spend your time. Not everyone is going to want to spend their time "skydiving" or in the kind of activities the song includes, although many of the examples do follow more standard Epicurean advice. Regardless of what activities float your boat, mental, physical, or a combination, you better take advantage of the time that you have and pursue what brings you pleasure, and not run around mindlessly confused about how much time you have and how you want to spend that time.

It's mainly because of this position that I have such little patience with the "ascetic" interpretation of measuring pleasure as the absence of pain. At this point in my reading of Epicurus (Torquatus makes this crystal clear), I see an obvious common sense interpretation of this idea. Once you accept the position given the dearness of life that every experience of life should be considered to be pleasurable unless it involves some specific mental or bodily pain then you explode any implication of asceticism or esotericism or mysticism or darkness in these words. Cicero can employ his rhetoric to insist that pleasure is limited to "sex drugs and rock and roll," but that is the opinion of a theist or virtue signaler who wants to put you in a box of complying with his morality. When you open up the definition of "pleasure" to include the privilege of being alive - to all experiences mental and bodily which are not specifically painful -- then you get a direct "live like you are dying" attitude where you cherish and appreciate every moment of life that you have, and you find ways to put up with every kind of pain which isn't truly unendurable. And add to that that there is no necessity to tolerate anything truly terrible or unendurable when you see that there is nothing terrible or unendurable in no longer being alive.

If someone truly wants to spend the short time that they have "minimizing" their experiences, living in a proverbial desert and detached from the world and all the many pleasures that are possible, and they truly enjoy that, then more power to them. I have no right and would never attempt to substitute my judgment for theirs on how they should spend their time. It's entirely possible that some people are born that way and truly want to spend their lives that way from start to finish.

But from my point of view, as to the way I read the Greek and Roman Epicureans, that attitude is totally foreign to the way Nature leads every other living being to conduct itself, and thus that view is counter to the thrust of Epicurean philosophy. Does it really make sense that someone who truly accepts that they exist for a relative moment, and that they will not exist for an eternity after death, wants to spend their lives detaching and minimizing their engagement in life? To each his own, but that is not for me - we can leave that to the Stoics and to the religionists who think that they will find their reward elsewhere.

So while we don't seem to spend too much time here emphasizing a "You Only Live Once" attitude, but I think we should spend more on it. I don't think there is any more important core attitude to have given the nature of the way things are.

• Live like you are dying (because you are).
  1. Song possibilities
     1. "live like you were dying" (Tim McGraw)
        1. Edit: This is a better version of the lyrics where it's easier to imagine that the "good book" is Lucretius:
  2. Texts:
     1. PD02. Death is nothing to us, for that which is dissolved is without sensation; and that which lacks sensation is nothing to us.
     2. VS10. Remember that you are mortal, and have a limited time to live, and have devoted yourself to discussions on Nature for all time and eternity, and have seen “things that are now and are to come and have been.”
     3. VS14. We are born once and cannot be born twice, but for all time must be no more. But you, who are not master of tomorrow, postpone your happiness. Life is wasted in procrastination, and each one of us dies while occupied.
     4. VS30. Some men, throughout their lives, spend their time gathering together the means of life, for they do not see that the draught swallowed by all of us at birth is a draught of death.
     5. VS47. "I have anticipated thee, Fortune, and I have closed off every one of your devious entrances. And we will not give ourselves up as captives, to thee or to any other circumstance; but when it is time for us to go, spitting contempt on life and on those who cling to it maundering, we will leave from life singing aloud a glorious triumph-song on how nicely we lived."
     6. VS60. "Every man passes out of life as though he had just been born."

For this I offer a standing ovation to the writers:

Quote from Cicero and His Clamorous Silences

To make our point clearer, we think that Cicero and other writers (such as Plutarch) «absolutize», so to speak, the slogans «do not participate in politics» and «live unnoticed» as if they were principles of conduct of the Epicureans. However, they do not dedicate a single line to the specification of which text of Epicurus it comes from and what its original context was. Diogenes Laertius (10, 119) states that «do not participate in politics» was contained in the first book of On Ways of Life but offers no further information. The case of the slogan «live unnoticed» is even more significant and, to some extent, more intriguing, since Plutarch devoted to it an entire treatise (Live Unnoticed) which does not contain the slightest information about its meaning or the text of Epicurus from which it comes. From this perspective, Plutarch’s opusculum is especially disappointing, although very illustrative of how some topics in ancient thought were formed. Plutarch, in fact, not only does not provide any indication about the context of the expression λάθε βιώσας but almost makes it the appropriate motto for a hidden way of life by emphasizing its perversity (Live Unnoticed 1128d-e). These are undoubtedly characteristic rhetorical procedures in the philosophic diatribes of antiquity that require caution regarding the absolutization of the motto «live unnoticed». In fact, none of the Key Doctrines (hereafter KD) offers categorical rules of conduct and, not for nothing, Epicurus places prudence at the top of the doctrine (LM 132). As we will show in this paper, the testimonies about Epicurus do not paint a picture of a person shut away in the Garden and isolated from the life of Athens, but of someone who, while refusing to participate actively in politics, respected the laws and institutions of the city, participated in its worship and piety, integrated family relationships into the exercise of philosophy and cultivated friendships and philanthropy.

(underlined emphasis is mine)

It appears to me that these two may be among the very best interpreters of Epicurus active today, and they appear to be on a campaign to refute the conventionalist attitudes of Epicurus as a passivist and isolationist that date back 2000 years. They dare to call "cliches" the labels of "live unknown" and "do not participate in politics"? Yes they do. Here's the opening:

Quote from Cicero And His Clamorous Silences

The opponents of Epicureanism in antiquity successfully established a cliché that has remained to this day: the theoretical and practical disinterest of Epicurus and the Epicureans in political communities. The best proof of their success is the transformation of the expressions «live unnoticed» (λάθε βιώσας) and «do not participate in politics» (μὴ πολιτεύσεσθαι) into famous Epicurean slogans. It is worthwhile, however, to note two well-known facts that cast doubt on this cliché. On the one hand, the Epicurean Lucretius’ poem On the Nature of Things constitutes, as Strauss has underlined, one of the best and most influential documents of the conventionalist theory of justice. On the other hand, Epicureanism underpins one of the foundational works of modern political philosophy, Hobbes’ Leviathan. Before Hobbes, Pierre Gassendi had also viewed Epicurus’ philosophical project with sympathy. In fact, Hobbes and Gassendi had at their disposal the same Epicurean texts as did opponents of Epicureanism such as Cicero, Epictetus, and Plutarch (though the ancients also had access to works that have not been preserved). But while Hobbes and Gassendi found valuable considerations of political philosophy in Epicureanism, neither Cicero, Epictetus nor Plutarch refer to these ideas in their anti-Epicurean writings. The treatment by Cicero, Epictetus, or Plutarch of Epicureanism was not doxographical; it was part of the philosophical diatribes of antiquity (i.e., the usual debates among the schools). These undoubtedly included some relevant testimonies and criticisms, but some of their usual techniques were the omission of the adversary’s views, simplification, exaggeration, and even the use of an overly melodramatic tone.

CICERO AND HIS CLAMOROUS SILENCES

CICERO AND HIS CLAMOROUS SILENCES

www.academia.edu

There's a lot more to comment on but for the moment here is some that catches my eye. I am sure there is much more:

Epicurus stresses that the circumstances constitute a fundamental ingredient of the Epicurean sage’s decisions. In fact, none of the Key Doctrines offers categorical rules of conduct and, not for nothing, Epicurus places prudence at the top of the doctrine (LM 132).

We really need to try to interview these guys for the Lucretius Today podcast and I will look into that further.

Started 9/24/23:

Torquatus laughed. Come, that is a good joke," he said, "that the author of the doctrine that pleasure is the End of things desirable, the final and ultimate Good, should actually not know what manner of thing pleasure itself is.!" " Well," I [Cicero] replied, either Epicurus does not know what pleasure is, or the rest of mankind all the world over do not."

- Torquatus in Cicero's "On Ends" Book Two III:1 (Rackham)

"A theistic interpretation of Epicureanism is entirely possible."

What? Where does he get that?

Happy Twentieth to everyone!

Youtube link:

Just bumping this thread to see if anyone has read this and has any comments. It is still on my reading list.

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

There's a lot in this Chapter 16 that people might want to discuss. I felt compelled to put in the caveat that Frances Wright doesn't seem to be entirely following Epicurus on the nature of the "real gods," but I don't think that should overshadow what I think was a brilliant job of denouncing supernatural religion. This is really a powerful presentation and I hope my amateurish version will inspire some of the real "voices" here to consider recording their own versions. The writing in Chapter 16 pretty much stands on its own, and it deserves a lot more attention and one of the best full-bore arguments against supernatural religion anywhere.

Episode 192 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available! Most of our regular podcasters were away this week, so Cassius fills in with a reading of Chapter 16 of Frances Wright's - A Few Days In Athens. This Chapter is devoted to a fictional presentation of a speech given by Epicurus on the subject of the evils of supernatural religion. We'll be back next week to resume our series of episodes on Cicero's "On Ends."