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  • Episode 223 - Cicero's On Ends - Book Two - Part 29 - Are Epicureans Undertaking The Exertions Of Life For Nothing More Than A Drop Of Honey?

    Sounds like "Honey from Hymettus" is Thyme:

    Thyme Honey - Honey Traveler
    Wild Thyme (T. Capitatus) Thyme honey is produced from many species of Thyme (Thymus spp.). But of the 350 different species or so, the notable honey producing…
    www.honeytraveler.com

    Known historically as Hymettus Honey from Attica near Mt. Hymettus Greece and Hyblaean Honey from the Iblei (Hyblaean) Mountains of Sicily, it is still produced in both countries today. Sardinia & Corsica produce a unique version of honey from caraway thyme. Found in many countries around the Mediterranean (Southern Europe, Malta, Croatia, N. Africa), thyme has spread to similar climes around the world, including the northeastern United States Berkshire and Catskill mountains (T. Serpyllum) and New Zealand.

    Garden Thyme (T. Vulgaris)

    Mother-of-Thyme (T. Serpyllum)

    Renowned for its aroma and flavor, it is produced between the second half of June and the first half of July. The color of Thyme honey is light amber to amber when liquid, beige to brown when it is crystallized. It is a very strong, intensely aromatic honey with resinous, herbal, savory flavors; fresh and reminiscent of tropical fruits, dates and white pepper. The taste is persistent, lingering in the mouth. Crystallizes spontaneously in a short time into medium or fine grains.

    Its intense and complex aroma has been described as; floral, spicy, dried flowers, magnolia flowers, cedar, herbs, flowers, rubbed, clove, burnt plastic, pencil drawing, mulled wine, and Marsala. The flavor has been described as: salty, thymol, pharmacy, plastic, pencil, dates and pepper.

    Roman author, naturalist and philosopher, Pliny the Elder, wrote in his Naturalis Historia published circa AD 77-79. “…The honei which commeth of Thyme, is held to bee the best and most profitable: in color like gold, in taste right pleasant…”

  • Episode 223 - Cicero's On Ends - Book Two - Part 29 - Are Epicureans Undertaking The Exertions Of Life For Nothing More Than A Drop Of Honey?

    Topics for this week:

    • Topics To Be Sure To Include
      • The fragment about "They Have Nothing To Say About Pleasure"
      • Cicero argues that we should "abandon pleasure to the beasts'
      • This time he says that you Epicureans like to use them as witnesses, but you don't see that the beasts themselves often do many things for reasons other than pleasure. They are kind to their young, they "rejoice" in exploring, they meet together like houses of burgessses, they have affection for each other, they have knowledge, they have memory, they have regrets - Cicero says that these are all - like human virtues - unconnected with pleasure! And you are trying to tell me that the beasts can be virtuous without pleasure but humans cannot?
      • And even beyond the beasts, don't men have peculiar gifts from nature to enable them to look beyond pleasure?
      • If Epicurus is right, we are far inferior to the beasts, but Cicero can't believe that the supreme good is the same for animals and man.
      • Why pursue the virtues if their only end is pleasure? That's like Xerxes invading Greece because he wanted some Honey from Hymettus! Your saying that the goal is pleasure is liking thinking that the wise man who has so many endowments engages them for the sake of a drop of honey!
      • We are born to a loftier destiny! That's proved by the power of the mind to remember the past, to predict the future to govern our passions, to use justice, and to disregard pain and death for the sake of our goals. Even the body prefers strength and health and beauty rather than pleasure!

      • Our wise men say that we are like gods, but you say that the goal of life in a state of continual sensory stimulation, but who deserving of the name of man would choose to live even a day like that?


  • Added Menu Item - Wednesday Zoom

    Regulars to the forum are often looking for the place to find the latest agenda item for the Wednesday Zoom Sessions. The two best places to do that are (1) clicking on the calendar for the specific day, or now (2) using the "Home" dropdown menu where you will see a new item, next to the Lucretius Today podcast, pointing to the forum where agendas are kept.

  • Newly Discovered Frescoes From Herculaneum

    The caption to this says: A fresco discovered in a banquet hall in the ancient Italian city of Pompeii depicts the Greek god Apollo attempting to seduce the priestess Cassandra

    I wonder sometimes how much these descriptions can be trusted . It would be interesting to know how they come up with these conclusions.

  • Episode 223 - Cicero's On Ends - Book Two - Part 29 - Are Epicureans Undertaking The Exertions Of Life For Nothing More Than A Drop Of Honey?

    Welcome to Episode 223 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who wrote "On The Nature of Things," the most complete presentation of Epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world. Each week we walk you through the Epicurean texts, and we discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. If you find the Epicurean worldview attractive, we invite you to join us in the study of Epicurus at EpicureanFriends.com, where you will find a discussion thread for each of our podcast episodes and many other topics.

    Last week when Joshua was away we discussed with Don some of the most important high-level conclusions we can learn about Epicurus based on Cicero's attacks against it. We will continue to apply those as we proceed to the end of Book two, but when we were last in Cicero's text we were dealing with Cicero's claim that the Epicurean happy man model will not only not be constantly happy, because he will sometimes be wretched; but that Epicurean philosophy can never prove its point so long as it connects everything with pleasure and pain. This week we pick up with Cicero saying that as a result, Epicureans like Torquatus should "abandon pleasure to the beasts."

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


    XXXIII ... Hence, Torquatus, we must discover some other form of the highest good for man; let us abandon pleasure to the beasts, whom you are accustomed to summon as witnesses about the supreme good. What if even beasts very often, under the guidance of the peculiar constitution of each, shew some of them kindness, even at the cost of toil, so that when they bear and rear their young it is very patent that they aim at something different from pleasure? Others again, rejoice in wanderings and in journeys; others in their assemblages imitate in a certain way the meetings of burgesses; in some kinds of birds we see certain signs of affection, as well as knowledge and memory; in many also we see regrets; shall we admit then that in beasts there are certain shadows of human virtues, unconnected with pleasure, while in men them- selves virtue cannot exist unless with a view-to pleasure? And shall we say that man, who far excels all other creatures, has received no peculiar gifts from nature?

    XXXIV. We in fact, if everything depends upon pleasure, are very far inferior to the beasts, for whom the earth unbidden, without toil of theirs, pours forth from her breast varied and copious food, while we with difficulty or hardly even with difficulty supply ourselves with ours, winning it by heavy toil. Yet I cannot on any account believe that the supreme good is the same for animals and for man. Pray what use is there in such elaborate preparations for acquiring the best accomplishments, or in such a crowd of the most noble occupations, or in such a train of virtues, if all these things are sought after for no other end but that of pleasure? Just as, supposing Xerxes, with his vast fleets and vast forces of cavalry and infantry, after bridging the Hellespont and piercing Athos, after marching over seas, and sailing over the land, then, when he had attacked Greece with such vehemence, had been asked by some one about the reason for such vast forces and so great a war, and had answered that he wanted to carry off some honey from Hymettus, surely such enormous exertions would have seemed purposeless; so precisely if we say that the wise man, endowed and equipped with the most numerous and important accomplishments and excellences, not traversing seas on foot, like the king, or mountains with fleets, but embracing in his thoughts all the heaven, and the whole earth with the entire sea, is in search of pleasure, then we shall be in effect saying that these vast efforts are for the sake of a drop of honey.

    Believe me, Torquatus, we are born to a loftier and grander destiny; and this is proved not merely by the endowments of our minds, which possess power to recollect countless experiences (in your case power unlimited) and an insight into the future not far removed from prophecy, and honor the governor of passion, and justice the loyal guardian of human fellowship, and a staunch and unwavering disregard of pain and death when there are toils to be endured or dangers to be faced - well, these are the endowments of our minds; I beg you now also to think even of our limbs and our senses, which will appear to you, like the other divisions of our body, not merely to accompany the virtues, but even to do them service. Now if in the body itself there are many things to be preferred to pleasure, strength for example, health, swiftness, beauty, what I ask do you suppose is the case with our minds? Those most learned men of old thought that mind contained a certain heavenly and godlike element. But if pleasure were equivalent to the supreme good, as you assert, it would be an enviable thing to live day and night without intermission in a state of extreme pleasure, all the senses being agitated by, and so to Say, steeped in sweetness of every kind. Now who is there deserving the name of man, that would choose to continue for one whole day in pleasure of such a kind?

    The Cyrenaics I admit are not averse to it; your friends treat these matters with greater decency; they perhaps with greater consistency. But let us survey in our thoughts not these very important arts, lacking which some men were called inert by our ancestors; what I ask is whether you suppose, I do not say Homer, Archilochus, or Pindar, but Phidias, Polyclitus, or Zeuxis, to have regulated their arts by pleasure. Will then an artist aim higher in order to secure beauty of form than a preeminent citizen in the hope to achieve beauty of action? Now what other reason is there for so serious a misconception, spread far and wide as it is, but that the philosopher who pronounces pleasure to be the supreme good takes counsel, not with that part of his mind in which thought and reflection reside, but with his passions, that is to say, with the most frivolous part of his soul? If gods exist, as even your school supposes, I ask you how they can be happy, when they cannot realize pleasure with their bodily faculties, or if they are happy without that kind of pleasure, why you refuse to allow that wise man can have similar intellectual enjoyment?


  • Episode 221 - Cicero's On Ends - Book Two - Part 28 -Cicero Alleges Pleasures Of The Mind Cannot Offset Pain In Epicurean Philosophy

    From Facebook in Response to Anthony Adams

    Elli Pensa

    Admin

    Top Contributor

    Cicero all of his life was following his teacher Platos' first principles who said that a) A perfect being (god) was the demiurge who knew "geometry", felt lonely and one day decided to create the one and only this world of ours that is a reflection of his perfect world b) There is an idea of an absolute justice that exists in the god's world and it is reflected in the world of ours, and the more we will try to implement that absolute justice, in our world, so much more we become virtuous men c) Senses and feelings are not criteria of truth to judge all the things around since only the mind and the soul of that perfect being (god) knows the absolute truth and has his representatives that give all the oracles in Delphi and Asclepiia c) Pleasure is not a good, because it has no limits and can't be never fullfilled so, it has to be thrown in the fifth and the last category d) Our soul is immortal and with reincarnation we will born again in a new body with a mind and soul that have “oblivion”, but in the meantime we will remember again – with the teachings in Plato’s Academy - some of the ideas-virtues - of our past lives. And alas if your soul will be reincarnating again in the body of a woman. It would be better to be reincarnating again in the body of a dog "speaking with woof – woof”!

    Thus, if you would follow Plato’s' first principles and connected them with ethics you fall into the trap of becoming, in the end, a miserable stoic who measures all the things in the basis of virtue, duty, and apathy. And when we say virtue, duty and apathy means to not measure all the things with senses and feelings and for this you are doubting continuously for any established Knowledge, and of course the most important is to not accept "the atoms and the void" by Democritus and Epicurus. Thus, with these three cores of the Stoa - that is the miserable branch of the teachings by Plato - with the virtue, duty and apathy in the end, you will accept easily your fate-destiny of a violent and dishonorable death same as Socrates, Seneca and Cicero and with this death you become a martyr and a hero… and hooray, for that “great” man! Because for the evolution of our species there must be and some “useful idiots” that they should always be glorified. Since the “posthumus reputation” is a "great pleasure" for the dead martyr. Since, the dead have "feelings" and "feel the pleasure" of their deeds as they would be alive! 😛

    We are talking about for so much of an ambiguity and empty-vague ideas, and as Epicurus said: these are all the false opinions that is the source of most of the turmoil that seizes upon the souls-minds of men! 😛

  • Episode 221 - Cicero's On Ends - Book Two - Part 28 -Cicero Alleges Pleasures Of The Mind Cannot Offset Pain In Epicurean Philosophy

    From Facebook:

    Anthony Adams

    Loved this podcast! It seems that Cicero is intent on denying that the good can be derived from the duality that man is made of, mind and body. He is intent on extolling only virtues and believes they can only come from a mind that is virtuous in and of its self. One would have to be born with a virtuous mind as any experience of pain or pleasure in the body is to be discounted. This is not in accordance with nature and reality.

    I wonder if one could flip Cicero’s argument that since we Epicureans believe in bodily pleasure as a good we cannot be serious about the power of mental pleasure…since we say all pleasure has root in/ or is impossible without bodily or sensory pleasure. One could ask what is the virtue of temperance with out the body? Can the mind be temperate without the body sensing pain or pleasure? Can one have courage without a body? How can one have courage if there is no fear of bodily harm to overcome. How about Justice? With no bodily punishment or reward how is justice dealt out, by words of praise or condemnation?Tongues and ears are required for that. So Cicero you do not believe virtue is an end in and of itself as you have to admit that the body and its sense of pain and pleasure is needed in order to determine what is virtuous.

    It seems that Cicero’s ideal of virtue for virtues sake can only exist in a mind without a body or a body without sensation…and all observable nature indicates to us that this is an absurd idea.

  • Episode 222 - Revisiting the Relationship Between Happiness and Pleasure

    Welcome to Episode 222 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who wrote "On The Nature of Things," the most complete presentation of Epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world. Each week we walk you through the Epicurean texts, and we discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. If you find the Epicurean worldview attractive, we invite you to join us in the study of Epicurus at EpicureanFriends.com, where you will find a discussion thread for each of our podcast episodes and many other topics.

    This week we will pause in our reading of Book Two of Cicero's On Ends to take stock of recent conversations, as Joshua is away this week and we have with us our friend Don from the EpicureanFriends.com forum. Don has spent a lot of time looking into the various Roman and Greek words used by the ancients to discuss happiness and pleasure, and we will try to bring that to bear on the logical sparring such as the one we focused on last week, raised by Cicero at the beginning of Section XXXII. Here's the way Cicero put it:

    XXXII. But to return to our theme (for we were speaking about pain when we drifted into the consideration of this letter) we may now thus sum up the whole matter: he who is subject to the greatest possible evil is not happy so long as he remains subject to it, whereas the wise man always is happy, though he is at times subject to pain; pain therefore is not the greatest possible evil.

    ...

    Cicero continues:

    But when you maintain that the mental pleasures and pains are more intense than those of the body, because the mind is associated with time of three kinds, while the body has only consciousness of what is present, how can you accept the result that one who feels some joy on my account feels more joy than I do myself? But in your anxiety to prove the wise man happy, because the pleasures he experiences in his mind are the greatest, and incomparably greater than those he experiences in his body, you are blind to the difficulty that meets you. For the mental pains he experiences will also be incomparably greater than those of the body. So the very man whom you are anxious to represent as constantly happy must needs be sometimes wretched; nor indeed will you ever prove your point, while you continue to connect everything with pleasure and pain.

    So what we are going to do today is drop back and see if we can do what Torquatus is not allowed to do by Cicero - to "prove our point" that Epicurus' positions on the basics of happiness, pleasure, and pain make much more sense than those advocated by Cicero and the non-Epicurean schools of the classical world.

    Some of the questions we will talk about today include:

    1. Did Epicurus hold that Pain is properly thought of as the ultimate or Chief Evil, and how do we make sense of that statement? Is there a particular type of Pain that is the Chief Evil?
    2. Did Epicurus hold that the Happy Man can still be Happy while experiencing tremendous pain while at same time holding that pain can be the chief evil? If so, how do we make sense of that?
    3. Is it Happiness which is being described by Torquatus when he said earlier that the wise man always has more reason for joy than for vexation? ([62] XIX. But these doctrines may be stated in a certain manner so as not merely to disarm our criticism, but actually to secure our sanction. For this is the way in which Epicurus represents the wise man as continually happy; he keeps his passions within bounds; about death he is indifferent; he holds true views concerning the eternal gods apart from all dread; he has no hesitation in crossing the boundary of life, if that be the better course. Furnished with these advantages he is continually in a state of pleasure, and there is in truth no moment at which he does not experience more pleasures than pains. For he remembers the past with thankfulness, and the present is so much his own that he is aware of its importance and its agreeableness, nor is he in dependence on the future, but awaits it while enjoying the present; he is also very far removed from those defects of character which I quoted a little time ago, and when he compares the fool’s life with his own, he feels great pleasure. And pains, if any befall him, have never power enough to prevent the wise man from finding more reasons for joy than for vexation.)
    4. Can we look to Epicurus on his last day as an example that is equivalent to the wise man being tortured, and are they both to be considered Happy? If so, why?

    If we have time, we will probably incorporate into the discussion a number of the other excerpts we have been reading recently, including:

    1. Diogenes of Oinoanda Fr. 32 … [the latter] being as malicious as the former. I shall discuss folly shortly, the virtues and pleasure now. If, gentlemen, the point at issue between these people and us involved inquiry into «what is the means of happiness?» and they wanted to say «the virtues» (which would actually be true), it would be unnecessary to take any other step than to agree with them about this, without more ado. But since, as I say, the issue is not «what is the means of happiness?» but «what is happiness and what is the ultimate goal of our nature?», I say both now and always, shouting out loudly to all Greeks and non-Greeks, that pleasure is the end of the best mode of life, while the virtues, which are inopportunely messed about by these people (being transferred from the place of the means to that of the end), are in no way an end, but the means to the end. Let us therefore now state that this is true, making it our starting-point.
    2. Cicero On Ends 1:54 (XVI) RACKHAM - If then even the glory of the Virtues, on which all the other philosophers love to expatiate so eloquently, has in the last resort no meaning unless it be based on pleasure, whereas pleasure is the only thing that is intrinsically attractive and alluring, it cannot be doubted that pleasure is the one supreme and final Good and that a life of happiness is nothing else than a life of pleasure. REID: But if the encomium passed even on the virtues themselves, over which the eloquence of all other philosophers especially runs riot, can find no vent unless it be referred to pleasure, and pleasure is the only thing which invites us to the pursuit of itself, and attracts us by reason of its own nature, then there can be no doubt that of all things good it is the supreme and ultimate good, and that a life of happiness means nothing else but a life attended by pleasure .
    3. Epicurus 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 .“
    4. Epicurus Letter to Menoeceus : ”By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul.“
    5. Diogenes Laertius X-34 : ”The internal sensations they say are two, pleasure and pain, which occur to every living creature, and the one is akin to nature and the other alien: by means of these two choice and avoidance are determined.“
    6. On Ends Book One, 30 : ”Moreover, seeing that if you deprive a man of his senses there is nothing left to him, it is inevitable that nature herself should be the arbiter of what is in accord with or opposed to nature. Now what facts does she grasp or with what facts is her decision to seek or avoid any particular thing concerned, unless the facts of pleasure and pain?
    7. On Ends Book One, 38 : Therefore Epicurus refused to allow that there is any middle term between pain and pleasure; what was thought by some to be a middle term, the absence of all pain, was not only itself pleasure, but the highest pleasure possible. Surely any one who is conscious of his own condition must needs be either in a state of pleasure or in a state of pain. Epicurus thinks that the highest degree of pleasure is defined by the removal of all pain, so that pleasure may afterwards exhibit diversities and differences but is incapable of increase or extension.“
    8. On Ends Book One, 39 : For if that were the only pleasure which tickled the senses, as it were, if I may say so, and which overflowed and penetrated them with a certain agreeable feeling, then even a hand could not be content with freedom from pain without some pleasing motion of pleasure. But if the highest pleasure is, as Epicurus asserts, to be free from pain, then, O Chrysippus, the first admission was correctly made to you, that the hand, when it was in that condition, was in want of nothing; but the second admission was not equally correct, that if pleasure were a good it would wish for it. For it would not wish for it for this reason, inasmuch as whatever is free from pain is in pleasure.
    9. On Ends Book One, 56 : By this time so much at least is plain, that the intensest pleasure or the intensest annoyance felt in the mind exerts more influence on the happiness or wretchedness of life than either feeling, when present for an equal space of time in the body. We refuse to believe, however, that when pleasure is removed, grief instantly ensues, excepting when perchance pain has taken the place of the pleasure; but we think on the contrary that we experience joy on the passing away of pains, even though none of that kind of pleasure which stirs the senses has taken their place; and from this it may be understood how great a pleasure it is to be without pain. [57] But as we are elated by the blessings to which we look forward, so we delight in those which we call to memory. Fools however are tormented by the recollection of misfortunes; wise men rejoice in keeping fresh the thankful recollection of their past blessings. Now it is in the power of our wills to bury our adversity in almost unbroken forgetfulness, and to agreeably and sweetly remind ourselves of our prosperity. But when we look with penetration and concentration of thought upon things that are past, then, if those things are bad, grief usually ensues, if good, joy.
    10. On Ends Book One, 62 : But these doctrines may be stated in a certain manner so as not merely to disarm our criticism, but actually to secure our sanction. For this is the way in which Epicurus represents the wise man as continually happy; he keeps his passions within bounds; about death he is indifferent; he holds true views concerning the eternal gods apart from all dread; he has no hesitation in crossing the boundary of life, if that be the better course. Furnished with these advantages he is continually in a state of pleasure, and there is in truth no moment at which he does not experience more pleasures than pains. For he remembers the past with thankfulness, and the present is so much his own that he is aware of its importance and its agreeableness, nor is he in dependence on the future, but awaits it while enjoying the present; he is also very far removed from those defects of character which I quoted a little time ago, and when he compares the fool’s life with his own, he feels great pleasure. And pains, if any befall him, have never power enough to prevent the wise man from finding more reasons for joy than for vexation.
    11. On Ends Book Two, 9 : Cicero: “…[B]ut unless you are extraordinarily obstinate you are bound to admit that 'freedom from pain' does not mean the same thing as 'pleasure.'” Torquatus: “Well but on this point you will find me obstinate, for it is as true as any proposition can be.”
    12. On Ends, Book Two, 11: Cicero: Still, I replied, granting that there is nothing better (that point I waive for the moment), surely it does not therefore follow that what I may call the negation of pain is the same thing as pleasure?” Torquatus: “Clearly the same, he says, and indeed the greatest, beyond which none greater can possibly be.” (Plane idem, inquit, et maxima quidem, qua fieri nulla maior potest. Cic. Fin. 2.11)
    13. On Ends Book Two, 16 : “This, O Torquatus, is doing violence to one's senses; it is wresting out of our minds the understanding of words with which we are imbued; for who can avoid seeing that these three states exist in the nature of things: first, the state of being in pleasure; secondly, that of being in pain; thirdly, that of being in such a condition as we are at this moment, and you too, I imagine, that is to say, neither in pleasure nor in pain; in such pleasure, I mean, as a man who is at a banquet, or in such pain as a man who is being tortured. What! do you not see a vast multitude of men who are neither rejoicing nor suffering, but in an intermediate state between these two conditions? No, indeed, said he; I say that all men who are free from pain are in pleasure, and in the greatest pleasure too. Do you, then, say that the man who, not being thirsty himself, mingles some wine for another, and the thirsty man who drinks it when mixed, are both enjoying the same pleasure?”
    14. Epicurus to Idomeneus, Diogenes Laertius: On this blissful day, which is also the last of my life, I write this to you. My continual sufferings from strangury and dysentery are so great that nothing could increase them; but I set above them all the gladness of mind at the memory of our past conversations. But I would have you, as becomes your lifelong attitude to me and to philosophy, watch over the children of Metrodorus.


  • Welcome Chryso!

    Thank you for the extensive introduction! Given all the reading you have done i would recommend you add to that list at some point Norman Dewitt's "Epicurus and His Philosophy." You will find it touches on many specifics of the philosophy not mentioned in the other books you listed.

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