Posts by Cassius

"This line caught me by surprise! Is Epicurus endorsing the idea of "neutral states" in addition to pleasure and pain?! As always, back to the books"

Thanks for pointing that out and yes we need to address it!

For as long as we continue with the front page greeting and footer referencing the traditional calendars, we can plan to use the calculations from Wikipedia in the links below:

Thank You For Visiting EpicureanFriends.com, Where We Are Pleased To Be Alive In September Of The Year 2776 AUC And The 3rd Year Of The 700th Olympiad!

If someone thinks these calculations are not correct please let me know. Those Wikipedia links will stay in the footer version so they will always be easy to find.

Also, it may be tricky to know when to change the Olympiad year calculation, so if someone knows a good way to keep track of that, or sees that we fall behind in updating, please post about that too.

A little more Latin parsing:

Reid's choice of "their chief" sounds a little odd to the modern ear, so I for a moment switched that to Epicurus, but in looking at the Latin the name does appear only once, and in the context of "Epicureans" --

Et quod quaeritur saepe cur tam multi sint Epicurei, sunt aliae quoque causae, sed multitudinem haec maxime allicit quod ita putant dici ab illo, recta et honesta quae sint, ea facere ipsa per se laetitiam, id est voluptatem.

So I'll just annotate the Welcome header to say (Reid), but I wonder as a Latin exam where the reference back comes in.

Nodictionaries.com:

All leading toward a conclusion that seems to be pointed to from many directions, that Epicurus is telling us to consider being alive as itself an experience to identify as pleasurable and to take pleasure in, unless you are specifically in pain - and even then you can take pleasure because pain is short if intense and if long allows for pleasure to offset it.

Cicero is trying to twist that position into something absurd, and it's true that people are often so jaded that they no longer see the pleasure in life.

But this seems like a huge part of the Epicurean "attitude" toward life itself that explains an awful lot, and maybe even relates to this criticism of cynicism and jadedness in Lucretius:

Lucretius Book 2:1023 - "Now turn your mind, I pray, to a true reasoning. For a truth wondrously new is struggling to fall upon your ears, and a new face of things to reveal itself. Yet neither is anything so easy, but that at first it is more difficult to believe, and likewise nothing is so great or so marvelous but that little by little all decrease their wonder at it. First of all the bright clear color of the sky, and all it holds within it, the stars that wander here and there, and the moon and the sheen of the sun with its brilliant light; all these, if now they had come to being for the first time for mortals, if all unforeseen they were in a moment placed before their eyes, what story could be told more marvelous than these things, or what that the nations would less dare to believe beforehand? Nothing, I trow: so worthy of wonder would this sight have been. Yet think how no one now, wearied with satiety of seeing, deigns to gaze up at the shining quarters of the sky! Wherefore cease to spew out reason from your mind, struck with terror at mere newness, but rather with eager judgement weigh things, and, if you see them true, lift your hands and yield, or, if it is false, gird yourself to battle."

Interesting to compare VS27 (Bailey):

"In all other occupations the fruit comes painfully after completion, but, in philosophy, pleasure goes hand in hand with knowledge; for enjoyment does not follow comprehension, but comprehension and enjoyment are simultaneous."

I wouldn't necessarily say that all "occupations" are painful, but here the statement links pain explicitly with the occupation.

Philosophy as an occupation could be considered like baseball as an occupation, it is often if not always pleasurable while you are doing it.

I think that Epicurean theory would say that you could (and should) argue that in any "occupation" which is not painful, then whatever you are doing should be considered pleasurable for the same reason we are discussing.

As for my comment about whether virtuous action is pleasurable itself or instead "productive of pleasure," I am asking that because I think the general rule is that ALL action which is not painful is pleasurable. So I would say that virtuous action which is not immediately painful -- like contemplating art or literature or history is virtuous because it involves wisdom) --- those virtues ARE pleasurable immediately, and like with philosophy, you don't have to wait on some future time for pleasure to arrive.

I am convinced that it is key to the entire Epicurean position to take the position that whatever you are doing (and if you are doing it you are feeling it) in life, unless it is immediately painful, must be and should be considered pleasurable in itself. This is essential in establishing that pleasure is not limited to "sex drugs rock and roll" and that when you are not feeling pain you are feeling pleasure, and indeed that the highest quantity of pleasure is when there is no pain at all.

So I would expect the Latin might say that the virtuous action being referred to IS pleasurable rather than implying that pleasure is a later product, as the "productive of pleasure" translation might imply.

Yes I think he is right there in what is stated on the face of it, but Cicero is ridiculing the concept as if no Epicurean (or anyone else) should believe it.

As I see it Cicero is continuing his argument stated nearby that it is ridiculous to argue that reading history and literature and poetry is pleasurable -- he is building up his argument on the premise that pleasure means only "sex, drugs, and rock and roll."

That's why I think this is revealing. Cicero is basing a LOT of his argument all the way through the whole book on making people believe that pleasure means only bodily and immediate sensory stimulation.

And that's why I think this is a great sentence to contemplate -- an Epicurean needs to understand that ALL action which isn't painful is pleasurable, including what Cicero likes to think of as worthy and virtuous action that Cicero likes to reserve as a "higher" way of life.

As for the worthy and virtuous actions that are immediately painful, like in the wartime examples, an Epicurean would perform those, just as Torquatus eventually answers, because sometimes we choose painful actions when they lead to more less pain or more pleasure later.

This is from our podcast discussion of 9/03/23, taken from On Ends, Book 1:VII:25. It seems to me that this is a very important sentence and that the Latin should be scrutinized to confirm that the translations are correct, especially as to whether Cicero is saying that virtue is "productive of pleasure" or is itself "pleasurable."

Here is Reid:

"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."

Here is Rackham from the Loeb edition:

Again as to the question often asked, why so many men are Epicureans, though it is not the only reason, the thing that most attracts the crowd is the belief that Epicurus declares right conduct and moral worth to be intrinsically and of themselves delightful, which means productive of pleasure.

Here is the Latin:

Et quod quaeritur saepe cur tam multi sint Epicurei, sunt aliae quoque causae, sed multitudinem haec maxime allicit quod ita putant dici ab illo, recta et honesta quae sint, ea facere ipsa per se laetitiam, id est voluptatem.

The arguments we introduced in this episode are:

1. As To Physics:
   1. Epicurus Borrowed from Democritus while at the same time reviling him;
   2. I:VI:20 As to the swerve and downward movement of atoms (which leads to Democritus' determinism);
   3. I:VI:20 As to Epicurus' rejection of infinite divisibility;
   4. I:VI:20 As to Democritus' view of the size of the sun (which leads to Democritus' skepticism) [Note: Cicero notes that the issue of images by which we see but also think comes from Democritus];
2. As To Canonics / Epistemology / Logic:
   1. Epicurus does away with the process of division;
   2. Epicurus says nothing about subdivision and partition;
   3. Epicurus gives no method for constructing an argument;
   4. Epicurus does not show how to unriddle fallacies or clarify ambiguities;
   5. Epicurus places his criteria of objective truth in the senses and thinks that it destroys the senses to admit for a moment that they might err in any way;
3. As to Ethics:
   1. The pursuit of pleasure as the goal belongs to Aristippus and was better and more frankly advocated by the Cyreniacs
   2. The Epicurean system is of such a character that no system is more unworthy of the human race, as “Nature has created and shaped us for higher aims.”
   3. The Torquatii did not look for bodily enjoyment or any pleasure when the ancestor wrenched the necklet from his foe, or punished his son.
   4. Cicero alleges that Epicureans do not value mental pleasure. [“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. 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 honourable actions are in themselves productive of delight, or rather pleasure.”]

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.