Posts by Cassius

Welcome to Episode 191 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who wrote "On The Nature of Things," the only complete presentation of Epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world. Each week we walk you through the Epicurean texts, and we discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. If you find the Epicurean worldview attractive, we invite you to join us in the study of Epicurus at EpicureanFriends.com, where you will find a discussion thread for each of our podcast episodes and many other topics.

This week we continue our discussion of Books One and Two of Cicero's On Ends, which are largely devoted to Epicurean Philosophy. "On Ends" contains important criticisms of Epicurus that have set the tone for standard analysis of his philosophy for the last 2000 years. Going through this book gives us the opportunity to review those attacks, take them apart, and respond to them as an ancient Epicurean might have done, and much more fully than Cicero allowed Torquatus, his Epicurean spokesman, to do.

This week we continue in Book One, and we will cover from VIII to the end of the chapter. Follow along with us here: Cicero's On Ends - Complete Reid Edition

We are using the Reid edition, so check any typos or other questions against the original PDF which can be found here.

As we proceed we will keep track of Cicero's arguments and outline them here:

Cicero's Objections to Epicurean Philosophy

Started 090323:

And when the question is asked, as it often is, why Epicureans are so numerous, I answer that there are no doubt other motives, but the motive which especially fascinates the crowd is this; they believe their chief to declare that all upright and honorable actions are in themselves productive of delight, or rather pleasure. Cicero, On Ends, Book One VII:25

Here's something we discussed from Cicero in today's podcast:

Quote

Quote from Cicero On Ends Reid Book 1 VII 25 What pleasure do you, Torquatus, or what does our friend Triarius here derive from literature, from records and the investigation of historical facts, from conning the poets, from learning by heart so laboriously so many lines? And do not say to me “Why, these very actions bring me pleasure, as theirs did to the Torquati!”

Never indeed did Epicurus or Metrodorus or any one possessed of any wisdom or any knowledge of the tenets of your school ever maintain such a position by such arguments

This is a blatant misrepresentation of Epicurus. If ANY activity which does not bring pain is pleasant, then reading any literature, or poetry, or history is going to being AT LEAST the type of pleasure that the hand experiences when it is not in pain (per the Chryssipus argument) and of course it is generally going to bring about a much more stimulating pleasure if it is good poetry, literature, or history.

It should be obvious that when we are in physical pain we often seek mental pleasure as a way of getting our minds off that pain, but Cicero seems to want to allege that Epicureans seek nothing but immediate sensory bodily pleasure.

This is blatantly false under Epicurean theory, and Cicero should (and likely did) know better.

The responsive argument would include:

1 - There are only two feelings, pleasure and pain, and if we are feeling anything at all we are feeling one or the other. [ Diogenes Laertius 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."]

2 - 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."

Let me bootstrap onto that comment something I was about to post separately.

First, I think you're right that this amounts to a prescription that the best way to avoid pain is to be sure that you're experiencing pleasure. Maybe that is Captain Obvious when you admit that there are only two feelings, pleasure and pain, and that when you are experiencing one you are not experiencing the other, but that's an Epicurean position (that there are only two) which forms the heart of some of Cicero's key arguments against Epicurus.

Here's something we discussed from Cicero in today's podcast:

Quote from Cicero On Ends Reid Book 1 VII 25

What pleasure do you, Torquatus, or what does our friend Triarius here derive from literature, from records and the investigation of historical facts, from conning the poets, from learning by heart so laboriously so many lines? And do not say to me “Why, these very actions bring me pleasure, as theirs did to the Torquati!”

Never indeed did Epicurus or Metrodorus or any one possessed of any wisdom or any knowledge of the tenets of your school ever maintain such a position by such arguments

This is a blatant misrepresentation of Epicurus. If ANY activity which does not bring pain is pleasant, then reading any literature, or poetry, or history is going to being AT LEAST the type of pleasure that the hand experiences when it is not in pain (per the Chryssipus argument) and of course it is generally going to bring about a much more stimulating pleasure if it is good poetry, literature, or history.

It should be obvious that when we are in physical pain we often seek mental pleasure as a way of getting our minds off that pain, but Cicero seems to want to allege that Epicureans seek nothing but immediate sensory bodily pleasure.

This is blatantly false under Epicurean theory, and Cicero should (and likely did) know better.

I think if I elect to have a tombstone instead of being cremated I am going to have to have it inscribed:

"Don't Let The Perfect Be The Enemy Of The Good"

I am sure there must be many such lists out there, like this one, but I want one also that has the Greek lettering to make it easier to fix up OCR scans, which seem to struggle with Greek. I am running into that now with the Cicero "On Ends" scanning. Such a list can't be a dictionary with full definitions, but can serve as a starting point for new readers and uses like I am describing where the Greek version is used and new readers find it hard to decipher.

Don do you know of or do you have any where a "syllabus" of key Greek words that we are constantly referring to?

It seems like it might be a good a idea to have a list in a single place of these key words in alphabetical order so we can refer to them extremely quickly, and perhaps put a list in a sidebar or a special page.

In fact a three-column format of Greek / Latin / Closest English equivalents would be even better.

I bet such a thing already exists somewhere that we might take and adapt.

Here's an article (unfortunately not fully readable) on Lucy Hutchinson:

Lucy and Lucretius | History Today

I am really not familiar with the Puritan period and Cromwell, but in closing out DeWitt's book I note that he focused on this time as the end or submergence of a period of interest in Epicurus.

Probably there is a lot of interest in the works of that period and if we eventually develop enough material on it maybe we should have a subforum on Epicurus vs The Puritans.

I see a summary introduction here: https://philarchive.org/archive/WALAOT-11

For Aristotle, philosophical contemplation, or theôria, is, in some sense, the ultimate end for human beings. Contemplation is that for the sake of which our rational actions aim. The power to contemplate also has a special position in the human soul – for Aristotle, an integrated system of life-functions. Contemplation is the authoritative, or dominant, function for the sake of which the human soul’s subordinate functions (e.g., nutrition, perception, and practical reasoning) exist. As the telos of our rational actions and of our other life-functions, contemplation is, for Aristotle, the main organizing principle in our kind-specific good as human beings.

On standard readings of Aristotle, contemplation has another, striking feature: it is thoroughly useless. Choiceworthy for its own sake, and lacking subservience to any higher functions, contemplation is free and leisured. Its proper objects eternal and divine, contemplation does not concern itself with pressing issues in the contingent realm of human affairs. Unlike other life-functions, it seems, contemplation makes no contribution to human self-maintenance.1

Standard readings of Aristotle’s remarks on contemplation’s uselessness are partly correct. On Aristotle’s account, contemplation’s objects are eternal and divine. Contemplation is not directly concerned with practical affairs. Nor does contemplation subserve any functions higher than itself. No higher functions exist in the human soul, after all, for contemplation usefully to subserve. So, Aristotle provides good reason to think that contemplation is, somehow, a useless activity.

ENDING WITH:

In sum: even if contemplation has the divine objects Aristotle explicitly insists it does, contemplation still has a role in meeting basic vital human needs. Even if contemplation is useless in a certain sense, contemplation can still be useful in the way that Aristotle’s broader views suggest it should be. Ultimately, I contend, Aristotle’s account of the human good is fully at home in Aristotle’s larger vision of the world.

We have a good topic for discussion that unfortunately may not be appearing in everyone's updates because it is in the form of comments to a lexicon entry.

Don has pointed out some concerns about the wording by Bailey and I think it would be good to be sure that it is easy to find and add to the discussion.

Please check out the thread here and comment either there or in this current thread. It presents interesting questions of translation choices and dealing with issues that may need (at least for us today) explanation beyond the words of an original text.

Classical Epicurean Philosophy - Four Points of Emphasis At EpicureanFriends.com - Epicureanfriends.com

www.epicureanfriends.com

We have several other interesting conversations going on right now but here is something that may ultimately be related that I think deserves a separate thread:

In Epicurean theory, what is the relationship, if any, between"images" and "thoughts"?

It seems to me that in Book Four and other places in Lucretius, there is a close relationship between the impact of images on the mind and then the operation of the mind in forming a picture of what it wants to think or do.

Book 4 of Lucretius:

[877] Next, how it comes to pass that we are able to plant our steps forward, when we wish, how it is granted us to move our limbs in diverse ways, and what force is wont to thrust forward this great bulk of our body, I will tell: do you hearken to my words. I say that first of all idols of walking fall upon our mind, and strike the mind, as we have said before. Then comes the will; for indeed no one begins to do anything, ere the mind has seen beforehand what it will do, and inasmuch as it sees this beforehand, an image of the thing is formed. And so, when the mind stirs itself so that it wishes to start and step forward, it straightway strikes the force of soul which is spread abroad in the whole body throughout limbs and frame. And that is easy to do, since it is held in union with it. Then the soul goes on and strikes the body, and so little by little the whole mass is thrust forward and set in movement. Moreover, at such times the body too becomes rarefied, and air (as indeed it needs must do, since it is always quick to move), comes through the opened spaces, and pierces through the passages in abundance, and so it is scattered to all the tiny parts of the body. Here then it is brought about by two causes acting severally, that the body, like a ship, is borne on by sails and wind.

Another example that is outside the core material but which may shed light on the question is Cicero's question to Cassius:

[15.16] Cicero to Cassius

[Rome, January, 45 B.C.]

L I expect you must be just a little ashamed of yourself now that this is the third letter that has caught you before you have sent me a single leaf or even a line. But I am not pressing you, for I shall look forward to, or rather insist upon, a longer letter. As for myself, if I always had somebody to trust with them, I should send you as many as three an hour. For it somehow happens, that whenever I write anything to you, you seem to be at my very elbow; and that, not by way of visions of images, as your new friends term them, who believe that even mental visions are conjured up by what Catius calls spectres (for let me remind you that Catius the Insubrian, an Epicurean, who died lately, gives the name of spectres to what the famous Gargettian [Epicurus], and long before that Democritus, called images).

2 But, even supposing that the eye can be struck by these spectres because they run up against it quite of their own accord, how the mind can be so struck is more than I can see. It will be your duty to explain to me, when you arrive here safe and sound, whether the spectre of you is at my command to come up as soon as the whim has taken me to think about you - and not only about you, who always occupy my inmost heart, but suppose I begin thinking about the Isle of Britain, will the image of that wing its way to my consciousness?

-----

I will see what other cites I can come up with to use for discussion, but has anyone got any thoughts (no pun intended) on this relationship?

Part of the reason I am asking this question is to try to get a better handle on the pleasure and pain that is involved in making the "mental" vs "bodily" distinction. Are mental pains and pleasures felt as a kind of "touch"? If so, to what extent are images involved?

I am not sure what we will choose to focus on after we near the end of Book 2 but I agree that the full 5 books are very worthwhile. I have not studied them in full but several years ago I listened to them all in speech to text over a long trip and I found them very very helpful - the slashing attacks on Stoicism especially.

Thanks Don.

Thank you for all that information Joshua! It seems clear now that More definitely provides us a good example of the issues involved in mixing incompatible views.

Unfortunately we have lots of those examples to choose from and too few of the Frances Wright variety who in the main stuck to Epicurus.

While some of what More is saying could possibly be described as Platonic or Aristotelian friendliness to some amount of pleasure, sounds like he is clearly aware of the Stoic hostility to the word and his utopians would clearly fail any test of Stoicism.

Again thanks for all those cites.

Looks to have a significant amount of good material:

If you don't listen to any other part of this episode, listen to what Joshua has to say at 46:10 to 50:12.

Unfortunately I didn't follow up on it til later in the episode, but I think Joshua's analysis there is probably the best summary of the main issue that confronts those who support Epicurus and want to talk to others about the philosophy.

Episode 189 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available!

The final 15 minutes of this episode are creating some difficult editing decisions so I want to emphasize several things in case the editing doesn't reflect their significance.

1 - Joshua's statement about the problems caused when people try to advocate Epicurean positions without including (a) the mortality of the soul and (b) denial of supernatural providence. That's what the conversation about More's Utopia is all about, and it's very difficult to overstate the significance of this. I was very tempted to end the episode with Joshua's observation on this, but we also needed to include:

2 - Kalosyni's question about what cautions to give for people new to reading DeWitt or other introductory books, which produced some important observations, and

3 - Martin's cite to the final sentence of DeWitt's "Bibilography" section, about the need to focus on the texts of Epicurus in unemended form rather than the secondary literature (ancient or modern), which would have made a better closing sentence to the book than the sentence DeWitt actually used.

I want to again thank the podcasters for their work in producing forty-one episodes for this series of the podcast.

I also want to include Don in that thank you, and as you will hear when this episode is released we did not forget his contributions to many episodes of this series.

This episode should be out soon, and in reviewing it I want to thank Joshua for bringing up one final time Thomas More's "Utopia."

In the future I think we really need to single that out for examination and reflection, because as Joshua points out, More seems to want to accept many of the "life for happiness and pleasure" aspects of Epicurus, but he wants to condemn and banish as totally unacceptable the core viewpoints of an absence of providential god and reward and punishment after death.

I have not read this material recently enough to pass judgment on the extent to which More really believed this, or was just hedging his bets or protecting himself from the church, but the way Joshua describes his enthusiasm in the position, it sounds to me like More may serve as a classic example of the type of person who wants to pick and choose what they regard as beneficial ethics without taking the full medicine of a proper understanding of the universe.

Joshua indicates that More would expel true Epicureans from his otherwise "Epicurean-lite" society, and so it sounds to me like "Utopia" might serve as an ultimate example of the problems with an "eclectic" or "syncretic" approach to Epicurus that fails to appreciate the full philosophy.

I set up this thread for future discussion:

Thread

Thomas More and his "Utopia"

As Joshua points out in several of our podcasts, More seems to want to accept many of the "life for happiness and pleasure" aspects of Epicurus, but he wants to condemn and banish as totally unacceptable the core viewpoints of an absence of providential god and reward and punishment after death.

I have not read this material recently enough to pass judgment on the extent to which More really believed this, or was just hedging his bets or protecting himself from the church, but the way Joshua…

Cassius

August 31, 2023 at 3:19 PM

I know we have discussed Utopia before but I think always in some other context. If we need to set up a sub-forum for this to handle multiple posts we can do that as well.

As Joshua points out in several of our podcasts, More seems to want to accept many of the "life for happiness and pleasure" aspects of Epicurus, but he wants to condemn and banish as totally unacceptable the core viewpoints of an absence of providential god and reward and punishment after death.

I have not read this material recently enough to pass judgment on the extent to which More really believed this, or was just hedging his bets or protecting himself from the church, but the way Joshua describes his enthusiasm in the position, it sounds to me like More may serve as a classic example of the type of person who wants to pick and choose what they regard as beneficial ethics without taking the full medicine of a proper understanding of the universe.

Joshua indicates that More would expel true Epicureans from his otherwise "Epicurean-lite" society, and so it sounds to me like "Utopia" might serve as an ultimate example of the problems with an "eclectic" or "syncretic" approach to Epicurus that fails to appreciate the full philosophy.

These hazards are such that if this reading of "Utopia" is accurate, I would label More as "Anti-Epicurean."

Now I have had a chance to scan the whole thing. Lots of detailed arguments about the infinite universe. It seems he is referencing something else and this is a sort of summary, but the opening and the ending contain a lot of inflammatory material -- he is certainly outspoken. I haven't read far enough yet to see what his views were about the soul and Jesus and so forth but I presume he must have retained some degree of conventionality in those areas (?)

I think the key issue generally revolves around this:

That everyone of intelligence agrees that knowledge can be difficult to get, and that we need to question authority and not take anything on blind faith.

The real issue is that those who truly buy into "skepticism" conclude that **nothing** can ever be known with confidence, while Epicurus rejects that and says that in many cases we CAN have confidence in our conclusions, and that even where we can't be sure which of several possibilities is correct, we can be confident that we have eliminated the supernatural as a possibility. Epicurus considered Plato and even Aristotle as tending toward skepticism, because Plato and Aristotle and many of similar theistic viewpoint insisted that knowledge cannot come through the type of reasonable processing of the information provided by the senses that Epicurus advocates.

From Diogenes of Oinoanda:

Fr. 5

[Others do not] explicitly [stigmatise] natural science as unnecessary, being ashamed to acknowledge [this], but use another means of discarding it. For, when they assert that things are inapprehensible, what else are they saying than that there is no need for us to pursue natural science? After all, who will choose to seek what he can never find?

Now Aristotle and those who hold the same Peripatetic views as Aristotle say that nothing is scientifically knowable, because things are continually in flux and, on account of the rapidity of the flux, evade our apprehension. We on the other hand acknowledge their flux, but not its being so rapid that the nature of each thing [is] at no time apprehensible by sense-perception. And indeed [in no way would the upholders of] the view under discussion have been able to say (and this is just what they do [maintain] that [at one time] this is [white] and this black, while [at another time] neither this is [white nor] that black, [if] they had not had [previous] knowledge of the nature of both white and black.