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This is *definitely* a question of great interest. Many people come to Epicurean philosophy thinking he is focused on "bodily" pain, and it's a surprise to find that he puts equal or really greater stock in the mental side.
I file sure anything you'd offer on pain would be of great interest here so thanks for offering!!
Just for what it's worth I've reached a sort of milestone today of getting at least one citation in the outline for each of the major bullet points. In most cases I have several, but there's definitely a lot more to add.
After stops and starts through the years this version of the outline has built on past efforts and on contributions of citations from lots of people, and I'll work to continue to expand it and make it available in different formats.
Thanks for the contributions so far as I think this will be very useful over time.
Epicurean Philosophy Navigation Map
On my list of things to do is to figure out how to add what I think is a "meta" tag that will provide a link to a "snapshot" picture of the outline, so that when the above link is shared those browsers that know how to it will provide a snapshot (maybe it's called a card view or something like that) rather than a raw URL.
Seems to work now on Twitter and Facebook but not here yet --
Epicurus to Menoeceus: [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. And since pleasure is the first good and natural to us, for this very reason we do not choose every pleasure, but sometimes we pass over many pleasures, when greater discomfort accrues to us as the result of them: and similarly we think many pains better than pleasures, since a greater pleasure comes to us when we have endured pains for a long time. Every pleasure then because of its natural kinship to us is good, yet not every pleasure is to be chosen: even as every pain also is an evil, yet not all are always of a nature to be avoided.
Torquatus In Cicero's On Ends, Book One, X - But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of reprobating pleasure and extolling pain arose. To do so, I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness. No one rejects, dislikes or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure? On the other hand, we denounce with righteous indignation and dislike men who are so beguiled and demoralized by the charms of the pleasure of the moment, so blinded by desire, that they cannot foresee the pain and trouble that are bound to ensue; and equal blame belongs to those who fail in their duty through weakness of will, which is the same as saying through shrinking from toil and pain. These cases are perfectly simple and easy to distinguish. In a free hour, when our power of choice is untrammeled and when nothing prevents our being able to do what we like best, every pleasure is to be welcomed and every pain avoided. But in certain emergencies and owing to the claims of duty or the obligations of business it will frequently occur that pleasures have to be repudiated and annoyances accepted. The wise man therefore always holds in these matters to this principle of selection: he rejects pleasures to secure other greater pleasures, or else he endures pains to avoid worse pains.
Epicurus Letter To Herodotus - [40] - And if there were not that which we term void and place and intangible existence, bodies would have nowhere to exist and nothing through which to move, as they are seen to move. And besides these two, nothing can even be thought of either by conception or on the analogy of things conceivable such as could be grasped as whole existences and not spoken of as the accidents or properties of such existences. Furthermore, among bodies some are compounds, and others those of which compounds are formed.
Lucretius Book One (Bailey Edition)
[329] And yet all things are not held close pressed on every side by the nature of body; for there is void in things. To have learnt this will be of profit to you in dealing with many things; it will save you from wandering in doubt and always questioning about the sum of things, and distrusting my words. There is then a void, mere space untouchable and empty. For if there were not, by no means could things move; for that which is the office of body, to offend and hinder, would at every moment be present to all things; nothing, therefore, could advance, since nothing could give the example of yielding place. But as it is, through seas and lands and the high tracts of heaven, we descry many things by many means moving in diverse ways before our eyes, which, if there were not void, would not so much be robbed and baulked of restless motion, but rather could in no way have been born at all, since matter would on every side be in close-packed stillness.
[346] Again, however solid things may be thought to be, yet from this you can discern that they are of rare body. In rocky caverns the liquid moisture of water trickles through, and all weeps with copious dripping: food spreads itself this way and that into the body of every living thing: trees grow and thrust forth their fruit in due season, because the food is dispersed into every part of them from the lowest roots through the stems and all the branches. Noises creep through walls and fly through the shut places in the house, stiffening cold works its way to the bones: but were there no empty spaces, along which each of these bodies might pass, you would not see this come to pass by any means.
[358] Again, why do we see one thing surpass another in weight, when its size is no whit bigger? For if there is as much body in a bale of wool as in lead, it is natural it should weigh as much, since ’tis the office of body to press all things downwards, but on the other hand the nature of void remains without weight. So because it is just as big, yet seems lighter, it tells us, we may be sure, that it has more void; but on the other hand the heavier thing avows that there is more body in it and that it contains far less empty space within. Therefore, we may be sure, that which we are seeking with keen reasoning, does exist mingled in things—that which we call void.
[370] Herein lest that which some vainly imagine should avail to lead you astray from the truth, I am constrained to forestall it. They say that the waters give place to the scaly creatures as they press forward and open up a liquid path, because the fishes leave places behind, to which the waters may flow together as they yield: and that even so other things too can move among themselves and change place, albeit the whole is solid. In very truth this is all believed on false reasoning. For whither, I ask, will the scaly creatures be able to move forward, unless the waters have left an empty space? again, whither will the waters be able to give place, when the fishes cannot go forward? either then we must deny motion to every body, or we must say that void is mixed with things, from which each thing can receive the first start of movement.
[384] Lastly, if two broad bodies leap asunder quickly from a meeting, surely it must needs be that air seizes upon all the void, which comes to be between the bodies. Still, however rapid the rush with which it streams together as its currents hasten round, yet in one instant the whole empty space cannot be filled: for it must needs be that it fills each place as it comes, and then at last all the room is taken up. But if by chance any one thinks that when bodies have leapt apart, then this comes to be because the air condenses, he goes astray; for in that case that becomes empty which was not so before, and again that is filled which was empty before, nor can air condense in such a way, nor, if indeed it could, could it, I trow, without void draw into itself and gather into one all its parts.
[398] Wherefore, however long you hang back with much objection, you must needs confess at last that there is void in things. And besides by telling you many an instance, I can heap up proof for my words. But these light footprints are enough for a keen mind: by them you may detect the rest for yourself. For as dogs ranging over mountains often find by scent the lairs of wild beasts shrouded under leafage, when once they are set on sure traces of their track, so for yourself you will be able in such themes as this to see one thing after another, to win your way to all the secret places and draw out the truth thence. But if you are slack or shrink a little from my theme, this I can promise you, Memmius, on my own word: so surely will my sweet tongue pour forth to you bounteous draughts from the deep well-springs out of the treasures of my heart, that I fear lest sluggish age creep over our limbs and loosen within us the fastenings of life, before that the whole store of proofs on one single theme be launched in my verses into your ears.
[418] But now, to weave again at the web, which is the task of my discourse, all nature then, as it is of itself, is built of these two things: for there are bodies and the void, in which they are placed and where they move hither and thither. For that body exists is declared by the feeling which all share alike; and unless faith in this feeling be firmly grounded at once and prevail, there will be naught to which we can make appeal about things hidden, so as to prove aught by the reasoning of the mind. And next, were there not room and empty space, which we call void, nowhere could bodies be placed, nor could they wander at all hither and thither in any direction; and this I have above shown to you but a little while before.
[430] Besides these there is nothing which you could say is parted from all body and sundered from void, which could be discovered, as it were a third nature in the list. For whatever shall exist, must needs be something in itself; and if it suffer touch, however small and light, it will increase the count of body by a bulk great or maybe small, if it exists at all, and be added to its sum. But if it is not to be touched, inasmuch as it cannot on any side check anything from wandering through it and passing on its way, in truth it will be that which we call empty void. Or again, whatsoever exists by itself, will either do something or suffer itself while other things act upon it, or it will be such that things may exist and go on in it. But nothing can do or suffer without body, nor afford room again, unless it be void and empty space. And so besides void and bodies no third nature by itself can be left in the list of things, which might either at any time fall within the purview of our senses, or be grasped by any one through reasoning of the mind.
Welcome to Episode 205 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 Book Two of Cicero's On Ends, which is largely devoted Cicero's attack on Epicurean Philosophy. 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.
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.
This week we move on to the middle of Section XIV, starting roughly here:
CIcero says: ... Well, by what is moral we understand something of such a nature that, even if absolutely deprived of utility, it may with justice be eulogized for its own qualities, apart from all rewards or advantages. Now the nature of this object cannot be so easily understood from the definition I have adopted (though to a considerable extent it can) as from the general verdict of all mankind, and the inclinations and actions of all the best men, who do very many things for the sole reason that they are seemly, right and moral, though they see that no profit will follow. Men indeed, while differing in many other points from brutes, differ especially in this, that they possess reason as a gift of nature, and a sharp and powerful intellect, which carries on with the utmost speed many operations at the same moment, and is, if I may so speak, keen- scented, for it discerns the causes of phenomena and their results, and abstracts their common features, gets together scattered facts, and links the future with the present, and brings within its ken the entire condition of life in its future course. And this same reason has given man a yearning for his fellow men, and an agreement with them based on nature and language and intercourse, so that starting from affection for those of his own household and his own kin, he gradually takes wider range and connects himself by fellowship first with his countrymen, then with the whole human race, and, as Plato wrote to Archytas, bears in mind that he was not born for him-self alone, but for his fatherland and his kindred, so that only a slight part of his existence remains for himself. And seeing that nature again has implanted in man a passion for gazing upon the truth, as is seen very clearly when, being free from anxieties, we long to know even what takes place in the sky; so led on by these instincts we love all forms of truth, I mean all things trustworthy, candid and consistent, while we hate things unsound, insincere and deceptive, for instance cheating, perjury, spite, injustice. Reason again brings with it a rich and splendid spirit, suited to command rather than obedience, regarding all that may happen to man as not only endurable, but even inconsiderable, a certain lofty and exalted spirit, which fears nothing, bows to none, and is ever unconquerable. And now that we have marked out these three classes of things moral, there follows a fourth endued with the same loveliness and dependent on the other three; in this is comprised the spirit of orderliness and self-control. When the analogies of this spirit have been recognized in the beauty and grandeur of outward shapes, a man advances to the display of moral beauty in his words and deeds. For in consequence of the three classes of meritorious qualities which I mentioned before, he shrinks from reckless conduct, and does not venture to inflict injury by either a petulant word or action, and dreads to do or utter anything which seems unworthy of a man.
Added under the second bullet point of the Canonics section:
Diogenes Laertius 31: "Thus in The Canon Epicurus says that the tests of truth are the sensations and anticipations and the feelings; the Epicureans add to these the intuitive apprehensions of the mind." Direct perceptions of the mind (phantastikai epibolai tes dianoias) are mentioned in the Letter to Herodotus [51] and Principal Doctrine #24, but the remaining texts are unclear as to how direct perceptions of the mind relate to the sensations (aistheseis), anticipations (prolepseis), and feelings (pathe).
Thanks Tau Phi.
Great suggestion and I will add that in!
Here is a link to the Pie Chart Presentation mentioned in the episode:
Episode 204 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available!
Is that enough?
Very helpful on that big philosophical issue of whether we're born "blank slate!"
What are examples of "bootstrap" behavioral programs?
Sounds like almost a computer reference as well, an allusion to bootloaders and other more basic software (maybe the kernel) that are loaded prior to the full operating system, which is itself loaded before the "application programs" and any data which has been fed into those.
Some of us here have settled(?) on the idea of prolepseis as being the ability of the human mind to recognize patterns of significance in the flood of sense data that pours in. That's the very basic idea we've hit upon.
Prolepsis / Anticipations was the focus of our interview with Dr. David Glidden .
One of the big issues in debates about what Epicurus meant was whether prolepsis refers to a logical process of "concept-formation after repeated exposure to certain things," or whether (as seems more likely) Epicurus was constructing a theory of how what we refer to as concepts are developed "intuitively" with less reliance on logical syllogisms and the like.
You'll find that some of the most interesting debates about Epicurus revolve around his attitude toward "logic" -- and how he at the same time both elevated "reasoning" while deprecating syllogistic logic. Prolepsis seems to be at least in part the mechanism by which he was approaching how humans learn and think without being reliant on syllogistic logic.
This is much fun!
And that is among our top goals, and something we've been discussing recently so that expectations are proper for all of us. No cult-building or religion-building here; the best we can provide is friendship and help to those interested in Epicurus.
Out aim isn't to out-scholar the scholars but to provide a community where people interested in Epicurus can interact. Hopefully in the future there will be enough people for live local meetings and other engagement, In the meantime we can use technology to emulate in virtual space what an ancient Epicurean community might have provided in terms of friendship and engagement with like-minded people who are working in parallel on a similar path.
You're also not the only one here that finds that topic of less interest, so you're certainly not alone in that sentiment.
Thanks for that reply Don as it pointed out to me that I had misread the post about the gods (I corrected mine in response!) 
I have listened to all of the Lucretius Today podcasts on De Witt's book, "Epicurus and His Philosophy".
Wow that's great! It's always good to hear that someone is listening because it's hard to tell from the "statistics" whether the listens/downloads we see are real people or just computers talking to themselves 
It's good to have you and we look forward to discussing any topic (even the gods as needed!) with you.
Thanks for saying hello and let us know if you need anything with which we can help.
Joshua has commented that today (December 
is Horace's Birthday:
As Don said, great first post and thanks for taking time to talk with us.
Rather, in my opinion, it gives us insight into what may be concluded based on the information they had, versus what can be concluded based on the information we have. And, it puts into focus the importance of education which is focused on perspectives rather than just small facts.
Yes it's amazing to follow their thought processes and realize that they were able to reach so many good conclusions based on the limited information that they had.
To me Epicurean philosophy is particularly interesting due to its "materialist" perspective that looks for answers in understandable phenomena rather than abstracted "logic" that frequently gets divorced from the reality of the biological organism. One example we've been discussing recently is the question of the relationship of the "senses" to the feeling of pleasure and pain (as well as to the mechanism of prolepsis/anticipations that Epicurus also considered). Cicero attacked Epicurus alleging that Epicurus was relying solely on the senses to conclude that "pleasure" is the goal of life, but given that the Epicurean standard of what is true and real includes not only the five senses but also the faculty of pleasure/pain and the faculty of anticipations, it seems like there was much more to Epicurus' analysis than the simple contention that eyes or ears themselves - without further connections - judge what is pleasurable or painful.
Anyway that's just one recent discussion. Thank you for dropping in, and though our community isn't huge we have good number of sincere people who are interested in these discussions, so feel free to post whenever you see or think of something interesting.
As per some comments in the thread for Episode 203, in 204 we return to the discussion of whether it was accurate of Cicero to allege that Epicurus relied *solely* on the senses for his deduction that pleasure is the highest good.
Joshua points out in this current episode that what Torquatus really said in book one was (note the underlining):
IX. I will start then in the manner approved by the author of the system himself, by settling what are the essence and qualities of the thing that is the object of our inquiry; not that I suppose you to be ignorant of it, but because this is the logical method of procedure. We are inquiring, then, what is the final and ultimate Good, which as all philosophers are agreed must be of such a nature as to be the End to which all other things are means, while it is not itself a means to anything else. This Epicurus finds in pleasure; pleasure he holds to be the Chief Good, pain the Chief Evil. This he sets out to prove as follows: Every animal, as soon as it is born, seeks for pleasure, and delights in it as the Chief Good, while it recoils from pain as the Chief Evil, and so far as possible avoids it. This it does as long as it remains unperverted, at the prompting of Nature's own unbiased and honest verdict.
Hence Epicurus refuses to admit any necessity for argument or discussion to prove that pleasure is desirable and pain to be avoided. These facts, be thinks, are perceived by the senses, as that fire is hot, snow white, honey sweet, none of which things need be proved by elaborate argument: it is enough merely to draw attention to them. (For there is a difference, he holds, between formal syllogistic proof of a thing and a mere notice or reminder: the former is the method for discovering abstruse and recondite truths, the latter for indicating facts that are obvious and evident.) Strip mankind of sensation, and nothing remains; it follows that Nature herself is the judge of that which is in accordance with or contrary to nature.
What does Nature perceive or what does she judge of, beside pleasure and pain, to guide her actions of desire and of avoidance? Some members of our school however would refine upon this doctrine; these say that it is not enough for the judgment of good and evil to rest with the senses; the facts that pleasure is in and for itself desirable and pain in and for itself to be avoided can also be grasped by the intellect and the reason. Accordingly they declare that the perception that the one is to be sought after and the other avoided is a notion naturally implanted in our minds. Others again, with whom I agree, observing that a great many philosophers do advance a vast array of reasons to prove why pleasure should not be counted as a good nor pain as an evil, consider that we had better not be too confident of our case; in their view it requires elaborate and reasoned argument, and abstruse theoretical discussion of the nature of pleasure and pain.
Based on the underlined parts I think we have a clear line that "the senses alone" are not really the end of the story for Epicurus. Here's a couple of questions;
Now this last item 5 seems to belong to a list that Torquatus is not attributing to Epicurus himself, but I think that there's ample reason even in what Torquatus has said to think that Cicero was overstating his case to say that Epicurus was relying *only* on the five senses.
We didn't spend an overly long amount of time talking about this but I think it's an important point worth further thought.
I am pretty sure Joshua that the forum does an excellent job handling movement of the posts. I have not seen issues arise with unfulfilled redirections after moving things around. If anyone *does* observe that at any point, let us know here, but the forum software is set up to allow exactly the kind of thing Kalosyni is doing.
