Posts by Cassius

D Campell tells me that he is "relatively new to Epicurean philosophy but am very eager to learn more and your site appears to have an amazing wealth of materials. Thanks very much"

Welcome D Campbell !

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All of us who are here have arrived at our respect for Epicurus after long journeys through other philosophies, and we do not demand of others what we were not able to do ourselves. Epicurean philosophy is very different from most other philosophies, and it takes time to understand how deep those differences really are. That's why we have membership levels here at the forum which allow for new participants to discuss and develop their own learning, but it's also why we have standards that will lead in some cases to arguments being limited, and even participants being removed, when the purposes of the community require it. Epicurean philosophy is not inherently democratic, or committed to unlimited free speech, or devoted to any other form of organization other than the pursuit of truth and happy living through pleasure as explained in the principles of Epicurean philosophy.

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We have found over the years that there are a number of key texts and references which most all serious students of Epicurus will want to read and evaluate for themselves. Those include the following.

"Epicurus and His Philosophy" by Norman DeWitt

The Biography of Epicurus by Diogenes Laertius. This includes the surviving letters of Epicurus, including those to Herodotus, Pythocles, and Menoeceus.

"On The Nature of Things" - by Lucretius (a poetic abridgement of Epicurus' "On Nature"

"Epicurus on Pleasure" - By Boris Nikolsky

The chapters on Epicurus in Gosling and Taylor's "The Greeks On Pleasure."

Cicero's "On Ends" - Torquatus Section

Cicero's "On The Nature of the Gods" - Velleius Section

The Inscription of Diogenes of Oinoanda - Martin Ferguson Smith translation

A Few Days In Athens" - Frances Wright

Lucian Core Texts on Epicurus: (1) Alexander the Oracle-Monger, (2) Hermotimus

Philodemus "On Methods of Inference" (De Lacy version, including his appendix on relationship of Epicurean canon to Aristotle and other Greeks)

"The Greeks on Pleasure" -Gosling & Taylor Sections on Epicurus, especially the section on katastematic and kinetic pleasure which explains why ultimately this distinction was not of great significance to Epicurus.

It is by no means essential or required that you have read these texts before participating in the forum, but your understanding of Epicurus will be much enhanced the more of these you have read. Feel free to join in on one or more of our conversation threads under various topics found throughout the forum, where you can to ask questions or to add in any of your insights as you study the Epicurean philosophy.

And time has also indicated to us that if you can find the time to read one book which will best explain classical Epicurean philosophy, as opposed to most modern "eclectic" interpretations of Epicurus, that book is Norman DeWitt's Epicurus And His Philosophy.

(If you have any questions regarding the usage of the forum or finding info, please post any questions in this thread).

Welcome to the forum!

Don The following is from Long and Sedley Hellenistic Philosophers. I emphasized the last part with italics. I don't know that Sextus is correct that the entire issue is circular, but it's interesting that he is connecting these two issues (the meaning of happiness and the meaning of blessedness) and maybe the fact that he is doing so means that Epicurus did as well. The view might be unthinkable for skeptics like Sextus, but Epicurus was taking the view that there is apparently an innate aspect to knowledge of the gods.

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#### Sextus Empiricus, Against the Professors 9.43—7

The same reply can be made to Epicurus' belief that the idea of gods arose from dream impressions of human-shaped images. For why should these have given rise to the idea of gods, rather than of outsized men? And in general it will be possible to reply to all the doctrines we have listed that men's idea of god is not based on mere largeness in a human-shaped animal, but includes his being blessed and imperishable and wielding the greatest power in the world. But from what origin, or how, these thoughts occurred among the first men to draw a conception of god, is not explained by those who attribute the cause to dream impressions and to the orderly motion of the heavenly bodies. To this they reply that the idea of god's existence originated from appearances in dreams, or from the world's phenomena, but that the idea of god's being everlasting and imperishable and perfect in happiness arose through a process of transition from men. For just as we acquired the idea of a Cyclops by enlarging the common man in our impression of him, so too we have started with the idea of a happy man, blessed with his full complement of goods, then intensified these features into the idea of god, their supreme fulfillment. And again, having formed an impression of a long-lived man, the men of old increased the time-span to infinity by combining the past and future with the present; and then, having thus arrived at the conception of the everlasting, they said that god was everlasting too. Those who say this are championing a plausible doctrine. But they easily slip into that most puzzling trap, circularity.

For in order first to get the idea of a happy man, and then that of god by transition, we must have an idea of what happiness is, since the idea of the happy man is of one who shares in happiness. But according to them happiness (eudaimonia) was a divine (daimonia) and godly nature, and the word 'happy' (eudaimon) was applied to someone who had his deity (daimon) disposed well (eu). Hence in order to grasp human happiness we must first have the idea of god and deity, but in order to have the idea of god we must first have a conception of a happy man. Therefore each, by presupposing the idea of the other, is unthinkable for us.

We have not as yet in our podcast gone through Cicero's On Fate. If we do, here is one passage we will want to focus on. Here, Cicero criticizes Epicurus' view of the swerve as unnecessary. But Cicero also explains the importance of the question, and in contrast to what we might expect, Cicero takes the side of Carneades. Carneades (an Academic Skeptic) joins with Epicurus in result (but not in reasoning). He attacks the Stoic view of hard determinism/fate based on non-swerve grounds.

This is the Long & Sedley translation from The Hellenistic Philosophers:

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Cicero, On Fate 21-25

At this initial stage, if I were disposed to agree with Epicurus and to deny that every proposition is either true or false, I would rather accept that blow than allow that all things happen through fate. For the former view is at least arguable, whereas the latter is truly intolerable. Chrysippus, then, strains every nerve to persuade us that every axioma (proposition) is either true or false. For just as Epicurus is afraid that if he admits this he will have to admit that all events happen through fate — for if one of the two has been true from all eternity it is certain, and if certain then necessary too, which he considers enough to prove both necessity and fate - so too Chrysippus fears that if he fails to secure the result that every proposition is either true or false he cannot maintain that everything happens through fate and from eternal causes of future events. But Epicurus thinks that the necessity of fate is avoided by the swerve of atoms. Thus a third type of motion arises in addition to weight and impact, when the atom swerves by a minimal interval, or elachiston as he terms it.

That this swerve occurs without a cause he is forced to admit in practice, even if not in so many words. For it is not through the impact of another atom that an atom swerves. How, after all, can one be struck by another if atomic bodies travel perpendicularly in straight lines through their own weight, as Epicurus holds? For it follows that one is never driven from its course by another, if one is not even touched by another. The consequence is that, even supposing that the atom does exist and that it swerves, it swerves without a cause. Epicurus' reason for introducing this theory was his fear that, if the atom's motion was always the result of natural and necessary weight, we would have no freedom, since the mind would be moved in whatever way it was compelled by the motion of atoms. Democritus, the originator of atoms, preferred to accept this consequence that everything happens through necessity than to rob the atomic bodies of their natural motions. A more penetrating line was taken by Carneades, who showed that the Epicureans could defend their case without this fictitious swerve. For since they taught that a certain voluntary motion of the mind was possible, a defence of that doctrine was preferable to introducing the swerve, especially as they could not discover its cause.

And by defending it they could easily stand up to Chrysippus, for by conceding that there is no motion without cause they would not be conceding that all events were the result of antecedent causes. For our volition has no external antecedent causes. Hence when we say that someone wants or does not want something without a cause, we are taking advantage of a common linguistic convention: by 'without a cause' we mean without an external antecedent cause, not without some kind of cause, just as, when we call a jar 'empty', we are not speaking like natural philosophers who hold the empty (void) to be absolute nothing, but in such a way as to say that the jar is, for example, without water, without wine or without oil, so too when we say that the mind moves 'without a cause' we mean without an external antecedent cause, not entirely without a cause. Of the atom itself it can be said that, when it moves through the void as a result of its heaviness and weight, it moves without a cause, in as much as there is no additional cause from outside. But here too, if we don't all want to incur the scorn of the natural philosophers for saying that something happens without a cause, we must make a distinction and say as follows: that it is the atom's own nature to move as a result of weight and heaviness, and that that nature is itself the cause of its moving in that way. Similarly for voluntary motions of the mind there is no need to seek an external cause. For a voluntary motion itself has it as its own intrinsic nature that it should be in our power to obey us. And this fact is not without a cause: for the cause is that thing's own nature.

I came across the statement quoted above in Book 4 of Lucretius which is relevant to the way we discuss the role of reason in relation to the senses. At least in my own case I need to emphasize this point more during our discussions:

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Lucretius 4.379—86

Nor in this [shadow illusions] do we admit that the eyes are in any way deceived. For their function is to see where light and shade are. But whether or not it is the same light, and whether the shadow that was here is the same one as is passing over there, or whether rather it happens in the way we said a moment ago, this falls to the mind's reason to discern. The eyes cannot discover the nature of things. So do not trump up this charge against the eyes for a fault which belongs to the mind.

(Long and Sedley The Hellenistic Philosophers)

I frequently comment on Lucretius' repeated use of the statement made first in 1:146 that: "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."

I would presume that the point being made in both locations is approximately the same. it's not by observation alone, but by proper processing of observations through the mind, that we learn the true nature of things.

Quote from Kalosyni

Perhaps one way to deal with this could be similar to how in our time we have legal documents which often have a long list of word definitions given before the main part of the legal explanation.

So what you are exploring are 'formats" such as timeline vs spreadsheet vs venn diagram -- methods of presenting or visualizing data?

Just working on some other material today and came across this line in book five of Lucretius. I think the underlined part is something I would add to any list of quotations to support the view that life is desirable and that it is pleasure that makes it so:

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Lucretius 5:170

Did our life lie in darkness and misery until the world's beginning dawned? Although anyone who has been born must wish to remain in life so long as the caresses of pleasure hold him there, if someone has really never tasted the passion for life and has never been an individual, what harm does it do him not to have been created? (L&S-THP)

Admin note: Comments made in the Blog, Gallery, and Calendar don't always get picked up in notifications or web searches, so we sometimes cross-post significant comments like this one into appropriate the forum section.

Quote from Eikadistes in the Files Section

These are great finds! Thank you, in particular for including the texts from Maimonides, which provides important, critical commentary. The Epicurean hagiographies (so to speak) really color-in the lines of ancient history, especially when it comes to critical observations with regards to culture and belief. Given the continued conflicts we observe today, which intersect with some of the propositions made herein, I appreciate that you present the topic with a variety of sources.

In attempting to re-create a general biography of Philódēmos' life, I tried to fill-in the gaps of his early life by cross-referencing his timeline against political conflict in his home. I found that the opinions of Gadarans must have been heavily colored by the fact that the Hasmonean dynasty kept trying to conquer them ... for decades. From my understanding, this activity became so threatening that the Nabateans, a nomadic, ancient Arab group helped repel the dynasty out of the area that corresponds with modern-day Jordan. Anyway, in this case, latter Epicureans (as so against neo-Platonists, and others) were already highly critical of the propositions made in ancient Hebrew texts. The organized violence waged by the Hasmonean dynasty against Greek-speaking towns in ancient Syria (as I imagine) must have reinforced that criticism, perhaps to the extent of reinforcing prejudice. (I mean to make no moral evaluation here. It's sensitive enough as it is).

I am particularly fascinated by the excerpt that describes Epiphanes entering the Holy of Holies. Most other mentions of it occur within sympathetic texts that glorify it as something other than a simple "stone statue of a long-bearded man, seated on a donkey, holding a document in his hand". Shit ... courthouses in Florida had similar statues in them a few years back. We're still depicting statues reflecting that original one in municipal buildings (as of this year).

This past weekend in our Sunday zoom we were discussing the implications of the discoveries of the "limits and boundaries" of things for which Lucretius praises Epicurus near the beginning of the poem. At that time Raphael Raul brought up the excellent question of whether limits and boundaries are invalidated by the swerve. If so, and if "anything is possible" then the entire physics of Epicurus would be totally undercut and it would be nonsense to maintain that there are limitations on what can be and what cannot be, which is one of the key foundations established by atomism.

In response to this question I referenced several of the arguments contained in AA Long's "Chance And Natural Law In Epicureanism" which refute the idea that there is any contradiction. One argument I did remember was the Long argues that if Epicurus had really argued that the swerve makes everything indeterminate, then Cicero and Plutarch and other strong enemies of Epicurus would certainly have pointed out that obvious problem. The fact that extensive criticism from them survives, but that this criticism was not made by then, is a strong indicator that Epicurus was not interpreted in the ancient world as teaching that the swerve makes "anything" possible.

I can now add a cite to a passage from Lucretius that I think is directly on point. At this point in the poem Lucretius has not yet discussed the swerve, at which he makes the point that humans (and probably other higher animals) have some degree of freedom of action. But here the underlined section makes clear that no matter what might be said later, the limits and boundaries we observe in life produce predominantly regularity rather than indeterminacy.

The key sentence is: "For if the principles of things could in any way succumb and be altered, it would now also be uncertain what can and what cannot arise, and how each thing has its power limited and its deep-set boundary stone, nor could such a long succession of generations in each species replicate the nature, habits, lifestyle and movements of their parents."

I highly recommend the AA Long article to anyone interested in this issue.

Quote from Lucretius 1: 503-598

Lucretius 1:503-98

First, since we have found a vast difference between the twin natures of the two things - body, and the place in which everything happens - each must in itself be absolute and unmixed. For wherever there is the empty space which we call void, there no body exists, while wherever body is in occupation, there the emptiness of void is totally absent. Therefore the first bodies are solid and without void... These can neither be dissolved when struck by external blows, nor be dismantled through internal penetration, nor succumb to any other kind of attack, as I proved to you a little earlier. For we see that without void nothing can either be crushed, broken or cut in two, or admit moisture, permeating cold or penetrating fire. These cause the destruction of all things, and the more void each thing contains the more it succumbs to internal attack from them. So if the first bodies are solid and without void, as I have taught, they must necessarily be everlasting. Besides, if matter had not been everlasting, everything would before now have been totally annihilated, and all the things which we see would have been regenerated from nothing. But since I have taught earlier that nothing can be created from nothing and that what has been generated cannot be reduced to nothing, there must be principles with imperishable body, into which everything can be dissolved when its final hour comes, so as to ensure a supply of matter for the renewal of things. The principles, then, are solid and uncompounded, and in no other way could they have survived the ages from infinite time past to keep things renewed... Furthermore, since things have a limit placed on their growth and lifespan according to their species, and since what each can and cannot do is decreed through the laws of nature, and nothing changes but everything is so constant that all the varieties of bird display from generation to generation on their bodies the markings of their own species, they naturally must also have a body of unalterable matter. For if the principles of things could in any way succumb and be altered, it would now also be uncertain what can and what cannot arise, and how each thing has its power limited and its deep-set boundary stone, nor could such a long succession of generations in each species replicate the nature, habits, lifestyle and movements of their parents. (L&S-THP)

Thanks for posting that Bryan. I don't think we've previously added that to the forum so I've uploaded it to the files section and created a separate thread entry here:

Thread

The Intersection Between The Epicurean Movement And Hanukkah

For those who are not aware of the relationship between Epicurean History and Hanukkah, we have a number of materials here on the forum, including a thread on Antiochus Epiphanes, who was the major player on the Greek/Epicurean side of the events leading up to the Maccabean revolt.

Our thread on Antiochus Epiphanes is here.

The page at the former Epicurus.net website which describes this relationship is available by Wayback machine here.

The collection of materials prepared by our forum…

Cassius

December 17, 2025 at 7:32 AM

For those who are not aware of the relationship between Epicurean History and Hanukkah, we have a number of materials here on the forum, including a thread on Antiochus Epiphanes, who was the major player on the Greek/Epicurean side of the events leading up to the Maccabean revolt.

Our thread on Antiochus Epiphanes is here.

The page at the former Epicurus.net website which describes this relationship is available by Wayback machine here.

The collection of materials prepared by our forum participant Bryan is here in our files section:

File

Antiochus IV Epiphanes And Jerusalem

A collection of information about what is known of the Epicurean background of Antiochus IV Epiphanes.

Cassius

December 17, 2025 at 7:30 AM

Quote from Don

It's clunky, but I much prefer something like "subjective well-being."

As per the thoughts I've already written, would Epicurus describe his condition on his last day as one of "subjective well-being?" In a way definitely yes, but we're not in a place in the world of 2025 where those two words are adequate, standing alone, to explain all of what needs to be said.

And after responding to Don's very good comment I also want to repeat that I think one of the things Emily Austin points out is the importance of being able to articulate why don't want to die until "our time" arrives. Yes it's because we want "pleasure," but we have to convey he seriousness of what that means.

I'll cite again the understated line in the article I like so much:

Occupying an argumentative space in which one lacks reason to avoid easily and ethically avoidable deaths should, I think, be a last resort.

I think what we'e talking about is sort of the same thing in reverse. What we want to identify is an argumentative space in which we clearly identify the positive reasons why we want to live, for motives other than that we are "afraid" of dying. "Fear" is not the primary focus of Epicurean philosophy. it's demoralizing and terrible "optics" to talk as if that were so. i read Lucretius and the other Epicurean texts as upbeat and positive, not as depressed in any way.

We've been robbed of the experience of talking about these things in both a serious and upbeat way, and that's what we have to get back. I doubt there's any way to do that other than to re-establish our own pattern of communicating about these things over and over ourselves.

Whatever the name we give to it, the phrasing has to convey how we can be so even while dying from kidney disease, or even while "on the rack." That's the level of seriousness we're talking about, as Don is correctly saying, its not "giddiness" at all.

Yep, it's a Herculean task to communicate all the subtleties. i'm fairly comfortable with "happy" in the sense of the Declaration of Independence referring to the "pursuit of happiness" as if that word somehow embodies all the attributes of the best life. But you're right that the way it's interpreted today is much more fleeting.

I do think that a large part of the problem is that it probably also implies more than any single feeling, even "subjective well being." When I see how the translators are using that word to express what you're talking about in terms of blessedness, I don't know that any word or term that focuses primarily on any sort of limited experiences is good enough. I'm thinking more in terms of that Sedley article which compares Cyreniac to Epicurean happiness and talks about how the Epicurean view was more of a total evaluation than a temporary feeling. It also implies something that we'd likely consider to be "objective" in the sense that we can all understand and communicate that this is fundamentally the #1 goal of life. Calling it "subjective" is certainly true in a sense, but it probably implies in English that we are very narrowly saying that we ourselves completely define what it is. Yes we do in a way, but the 'feeling of pleasure' that plays such a large role is given to all of us by nature, and there are "limits and boundaries" within which it operates. If there weren't, we'd never even be able to explain to each other what pleasure means.

In the end maybe I'd equate this to Torquatus saying that Epicurus held "pleasure" to be the highest good. We're talking about an evaluation of a full life, and I suppose that's necessarily an abstraction.

Unless and until we can communicate the seriousness and importance of the ultimate goal, how can we hope to begin to connect with the seriousness that comes through in Lucretius' poem and Epicurus' own work.

I think your comment hits hard on one of the big tasks facing us. We speak English and we have to convey accurately in English what the pursuit of Epicurean philosophy -- and of life -- is all about.

Episode 311 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. This week our episode is entitled: "Is Pain The Only Reason To Be Concerned About Any Aspect Of Death And Dying?"

In the absence of Joshua and Kalosyni this week, this episode is my brief review of Dr. Emily Austin's "Epicurus and The Politics Of The Fear of Death," which we have discussed in a recent thread thanks to Pacatus bringing the article to our attention.

JC this is going to over my own head and I suspect many of our readers, but I absolutely do hope you will add your simplified version and keep posting about it even if responses are slow.

We very much need to step up our game on physics and any posts you have on anything that relates to Epicurean theory will be appreciated.

And not only your current thoughts but also how you got interested and your development of thoughts along the way.

Welcome to Episode 312 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.
   
We'll pick up this week at Section 15 of Part 5 of Tusculan Disputations, continuing to look at how the Stoic/Platonic philosophers use logic to deduce that since only virtue is within our control, happiness comes from exclusively relying on virtue, excluding all else from being considered to be truly good.

Admin note: The biggest frustration I have with our forum software is that we don't have the site set up to give prominence to "articles" such as this new one by Elli. The current "blog" and "articles" section do not appear to be well integrated with the "Forum" software. Those of us who rely on the "red dot' notifications to point us to new content are not being directed to new blog and article entries or to the comments being made on them. The situation appears to be somewhat better with "Gallery" postings, but that's not ideal either.

It therefore seems that these new postings are frequently being missed, and we need to do better.

Right now the best way to be sure you see all new content here at the stite is probably to bookmark the "Recent Activity" page, and scan through the latest entries there when you come to the forum to check for new "red dot" notifications.

We're working on a solution to this and hope to have that rolled out soon!

Elli has a new article and interesting graphic here:

Epicurean Philosophy | **"The Epic of Epicurus - Ithaca and the Garden: Dialectic and the Canon"** | Facebook

**"The Epic of Epicurus - Ithaca and the Garden: Dialectic and the Canon"** ** ** **E.S. XXXVI (36)** *The life of Epicurus, when compared with that of other…

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For someone debating whether to comment on this article, here again is one of the key paragraphs:

Quote

However, note that if Warren is right, the Epicurean seems to lack a clear reason to avoid a painless death. Why should she skip town when she hears that the local tyrant has a penchant for killing aspiring Epicureans painlessly in their sleep? If painless deaths are not bad, then why should she carefully label and store the fast-acting, tasty poison, rather than leave it in the open and accessible to young children? One must wonder what protects the Epicurean from happily courting a painless death. If she does not bother to protect herself against such deaths, then the objection that the fear of death is good if it helps us avoid deaths worth avoiding reasserts itself.

The question comes down to: It's *not* the fear of pain, alone that should cause us to not want to diie. But if our only distinction in discussion fear of death is whether the means of death is painful or not, then we're left in the position of not having a good reason (if fear of pain is our only motivation) to avoid a painless death.

Austin is pointing out that this is a problem for those who think that Epicurean philosophy is about nothing more than "fleeing from pain," and she suggests - I think properly - that this could not have been Epicurus himself would not have reasoned in that way and left his followers with no reason not to avoid a painless death.

As I see it this is related to similar issues in the regard to how to articulate "satisfaction." Yes I want to be satisfied at all times which my life in the past and present. but that doesn't mean that I don't want to live another day and experience more pleasure tomorrow.

Neither "deah is nothing to us" nor the various statements about satisfaction should be interpreted in a way that implies that the Epicurean should be indifferent to whether he is alive or dead tomorrow.