Posts by Cassius

Welcome to Episode 321 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 we discuss this and all of our podcast episodes.
   
This week we start are continuing our series reviewing Cicero's "Academic Questions" from an Epicurean perspective. We are focusing first on what is referred to as Book One, which provides an overview of the issues that split Plato's Academy and gives us an overview of the philosophical issues being dealt with at the time of Epicurus. This week will will continue in Section 2 and our focus will include a statement by Varro in praise of Socrates, and possible Epicurean responses to it.

Our text will come from
Cicero - Academic Questions - Yonge We'll likely stick with Yonge primarily, but we'll also refer to the Rackam translation here:

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  Cicero On Nature Of Gods Academica Loeb Rackham : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

  
  

Quote from Matteng

to pursue philia and pleasure

In the end Epicurus is defining pleasure so broadly that in the end it's not really logically consistent to say "friendship and pleasure" given that. Friendship or anything else is either pleasurable (or leading to more pleasure than pain, even if some pain is required to obtain it) or there is no reason to pursue it.

The point I think needs to be made is that you can't just say that your whole goal is to avoid pain. If so, then you can just kill yourself. Your goal is to live pleasurably, which requires that you live, being alive being a good/pleasurable thing unless you are in a situation where you are guaranteed more pain than pleasure). Treasuring life in such a way is a positive activity.

I would say that yes there are ways of looking at life as "avoiding pain," especially if you want to emphasize that there are limitless ways to live pleasurably, and you want to emphasize the limitless aspect of it. But at some point you have to acknowledge the way words are used in your society, and if you just say "My highest goal is to avoid pain" in 2026 English, then the majority of people are rightly going to say that the only way to guarantee success in that is to kill yourself. Of course that's not what we mean, but if you're going to communicate clearly you have to make yourself understood.

Quote from DaveT

I tend to think the "eternal" Virtues of the

In my view, I would expect Epicurus to have been suspicious of anything claiming to be "eternal" by nature, since it's core physics that only the atoms have that attribute, and it appears that the gods only have it "by virtue" of their being able to replace their atoms over time without a time limit. So calling something "imperishable" would fit for the gods and be an allusion to god-like status, but would be allegorical in every other case, especially in terms of "values" or attitudes generated by humans.

And in those definitions Kalosyni cited my understanding of the latin is that "virtus" has a strong implication of "strength" as its core meaning, thus being associated with "men," and so "strength" can refer to any number of things that are effective toward a goal and wouldn't carry any unchanging moral meaning.

Given his view of the nature of the universe I would expect Epicurus' to have rejected the whole idea of morality being unchanging or eternal (meaning virtue with a definition that doesn't change over time, place, or person). The only thing given us by nature is the faculty of pleasure and pain and that seems to me to be almost completely dependent on context. Yes the human body reacts in certain ways to fire, for instance, so at some point fire applied directly to the skin is always going to be painful, but human interactions don't have that same kind of physical inevitability. Humans have "free will" and don't always react the same way.

This Sunday we will continue at line 146 of Book One of Lucretius and continue into 159 to the extent we have time.

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This terror then, this darkness of the mind, must needs be scattered not by the rays of the sun and the gleaming shafts of day, but by the outer view and the inner law of nature; whose first rule shall take its start for us from this, that nothing is ever begotten of nothing by divine will.

Fear forsooth so constrains all mortal men, because they behold many things come to pass on earth and in the sky, the cause of whose working they can by no means see, and think that a divine power brings them about. Therefore, when we have seen that nothing can be created out of nothing, then more rightly after that shall we discern that for which we search, both whence each thing can be created, and in what way all things come to be without the aid of gods.

1-159

For if things came to being from nothing, every kind might be born from all things, nought would need a seed. First men might arise from the sea, and from the land the race of scaly creatures, and birds burst forth from the sky; cattle and other herds, and all the tribe of wild beasts, with no fixed law of birth, would haunt tilth and desert. Nor would the same fruits stay constant to the trees, but all would change: all trees might avail to bear all fruits. Why, were there not bodies to bring each thing to birth, how could things have a fixed unchanging mother? But as it is, since all things are produced from fixed seeds, each thing is born and comes forth into the coasts of light, out of that which has in it the substance and first-bodies of each; and ’tis for this cause that all things cannot be begotten of all, because in fixed things there dwells a power set apart.

Quote from DaveT

I googled ancient Greek Virtues and came away with those four.

Quote from DaveT

Each of us undoubtedly can add virtues we can aspire to. For instance, I would add Kindness, and Empathy.

I think those two observations are key. There's nothing magic about "virtue" or its classifications. But Epicurus was developing his philosophy in a cultural context in which certain words were used to refer to certain things, so he chose to work within the paradigm so as to be understandable. But the whole concept of virtue is meaningless except in reference to a goal, and the goal is not virtue itself unless you presume some god or other authority made it so. In our case the guidance of nature is to pursue pleasure and avoid pain, so whatever choices in reality and in total effect achieve that goal should be considered virtuous.

Quote from Kalosyni

Ultimately they can be summed up as "do no harm" both to others and to oneself. Non-harming brings about a good life free from troubles.

What? Define the goal purely negatively? If that were the case Epicurus could have stopped at "freedom from pain" without ever referring to pleasure (?)

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Welcome to Episode 320 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 we discuss this and all of our podcast episodes.
   
This week we start are continuing our series reviewing Cicero's "Academic Questions" from an Epicurean perspective. We are focusing first on what is referred to as Book One, which provides an overview of the issues that split Plato's Academy and gives us an overview of the philosophical issues being dealt with at the time of Epicurus.

This week will will continue in Section 2.

Our text will come from
Cicero - Academic Questions - Yonge We'll likely stick with Yonge primarily, but we'll also refer to the Rackam translation here:

Cicero On Nature Of Gods Academica Loeb Rackham : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Wbernys I haven't had the opportunity to read this in full but thank you. In the meantime however i am not quite sure what you mean by the title "[Effort Post]"? Do you mean prototype, or "Work-in-Progress," or something else?

Episode 319 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. This week our episode is entitled: "Is the Key To Happiness Found In Supernatural Causes and Geometry?"

I presume we can find on Academia but could you possibly a link?

Quote from mlinssen

Thomas rejects any and all reincarnation and afterlife.

Ok so that's a big one. So there is no eternal soul?

Quote from mlinssen

Anti-Judaism is a great distraction in Thomas.

Without being graphic, what's the general basis of this criticism. We know that Diogenes of Oinoanda is critical as well based on what appears to be general ethics, but what's the general basis of this criticism?

Quote from mlinssen

The Rock points to Yahweh and is described as dry and shallow, whereas the Acacias nilotica (one of 10 possible choices for the word 'thorn'!) points to the multi-deities of Egypt, and the singular worm to Apophis who indeed eats them every night when Ra travels through the sky with all other deities

So are the deities of Thomas the creators of the universe? Are they active in human affairs at all?

Quote from mlinssen

1. Rejection of religion
2. Rejection of the proverbial pot of gold
3. Indifference to gods
4. A stress on (autonomous!) movement and action
5. Rejection of everything outside, and sole focus on the inside
6. Rejection of reincarnation (e.g. 27, 89, 112)
7. Rejection of leaders, status

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Most of that sounds parallel but the references to "outside" and "inside" seem a little unclear (?)

Quote from mlinssen

I find the Epictetus idea of only caring for that which is in your control particularly strong in Thomas. Let's be honest, all ideas about any cosmogony are mere opinions.

As for that last part I would say that Epicurus would strongly disagree, so this would be a major point of difference.

Quote from mlinssen

Now about friendship. Thomas' Quest is a lonely, utterly solitary one where it is even strongly recommended to avoid everyone (64, 65).

Yes that sounds highly incompatible, and indicates something much more "dark" than I would say Epicurus would approve of. But to understand that would require more definition of whatever positive side Thomas was promoting, and I am not clear on his positive teaching at this point.

Quote from mlinssen

A last one: Thomas shows us how to become Son of Man, Child of the Human (106) - it is the closest to the father that we will ever come. Free of our 'garments', free from the yoke of Ego and Self, free from that hobble that limited our movement (23). Free from shame and fear. Free from our slaveowner the Ego. No rules, no plans, no paths. No worries, no virtues, no higher goals

This sounds like it's going in an eastern "nihilist" / ascetic direction that I'd say Epicurus would strongly disapprove of, because Epicurus is clearly promoting something that he believes qualifies as "happiness." What did Thomas promote?

(ADMIN NOTE) -- I moved two new posts over into this thread. For the time being let's keep the discussion of the Gospel of Thomas here in one place where people can best follow it. There is clearly some interest in this topic, but it's hard to assess the direction it will go, and we don't want a deep dive into this to disrupt the rest of the forum. This way, if some people want to simply "ignore" this thread, they can use the forium settings to do so.

As we introduce Academic Questions in this episode, of particular note is Joshua's extended discussion of a "house of mirrors" analogy in characterizing the meaning of Plato's cave and associated non-Epicurean philosophies. The episode will be out by tomorrow at the latest.

Again Hania welcome aboard and let us know how we can be of help. There's literally lifetimes worth of material that are relevant and worth reading, and most of us take many years before things start to come together into a coherent whole. We're happy to have you with us and so don't hesitate to make comments and ask questions.

I agree with your concern Wbernys. I strongly object to Cicero's analysis and my objection applies to Warren too. Getting rid of the fear of our own state in "being dead" is the issue I think Epicurus is addressing. There are many other aspects of issues that arise from the fact that we die that are entirely appropriate to think about and plan for. Clearly as you say thinking about things that will happen in he future can bring us pleasure or pain, and therefore steps should be taken to manage the future to the extent that we can. That's just common sense.

What you're citing here is probably a reason I have found in the past that Warren is not at all my favorite writer on Epicurus. He certainly can bring together good citations and I don't mean to be overly critical. But I've found that there are writers I almost always find to be insightful, such as David Sedley, and then here are others who aren't. And the full spectrum from good to bad (in my view) can be found in the British writers on Epicurus.

So this analysis by Warren I would just reject. Of course Epicurus says we can derive pleasure now from thinking about the future, and of course it's reasonable to realize that something bad may happen in the future and therefore plan to avert it if possible.

Quote from wbernys

In particular Warren objects to the notion that we can derive pleasure from thinking that our loved ones will be okay after we die since this would arguably also admit that we can anticipate pain about things after we die which Epicurus seems to call groundless saying in letter to Menoeceus saying "For something that causes no trouble when present causes only a groundless pain when merely expected."

The idea that you would knowingly fail to take an action, and as a result you would know that things you know to be undesirable will happen to someone close to you, just because you yourself will not be there to see it, strikes me as the height of irresponsibility and the mark of a truly small person. I see nothing in Epicurus that would endorse such thinking, and I have to wonder what is going on with Warren that he would even entertain such an idea.

Thanks to Nate for reminding me of that previous thread which I had totally forgotten. Glad to have you on the case, Nate, and I guess we should tag Titus here too!

Quote from DaveT

Because I was taking the thrust of his position as you stated to be applicable to Epicurus' school as well as other ones.

The thrust of Lucian / Lycinus' position is applicable to all schools. including Epicurus' school, because it's not a denunciation of all knowledge. It's a test of knowledge that applies to any school. I would say and I would argue Lucian saw too that Epicurus' is the only school that passes the test as given in Hermotimus.

The entire point of Hermotimus is to demolish ideas such as (1) that the you should devote your life to doggedly pursue virtue, in essence climbing and fighting your way to the top of a mountain on the idea that being at the top for only a moment is worth a lifetime's struggle, or (2) the goal of life is some mysterious abstraction that you need a guru of logic to haul you up as with a rope because you can't do it yourself.

Both of those points being attacked are not just inherent in Stoicism, they are inherent in Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle as well. But they are not inherent in Epicurus, who holds that both are ridiculous.

So Hermotimus is by no means limited to attacking Stoicism. Epicurean philosophy is by its very nature an attack on Stoicism / Platonism / Aristotelianism and all "otherworldy" claims.

Of course we presume that you're here to discuss Epicurus, so of course focus on that, but why don't you point us to a place you consider to be a good summary of Thomas and that will probably help us understand your background better.