Posts by Cassius

Adding this one to the list:

• Possibility that if the focus of Epicurean philosophy becomes "having a good time" or even "helping people" then the proponents of the school lose the intensity of Epicurus or Lucretius in wanting to live according to the "truth" - the "way things are" -- as they believed the Physics and Canonics establish to be true. When you lose the zeal to pursue this "truth" for yourself and then to communicate this "truth" to others, then it becomes very tempting to compromise and go along with the submergence of the key doctrines for the sake of "getting along" and living for the pleasure of the moment, and slighting the mental pleasure involved in wishing to know and follow "the truth."

From Diogenes Laertius: "When once a man has attained wisdom, he no longer has any tendency contrary to it or willingly pretends that he has. ... He will give lectures in public, but never unless asked; he will give definite teaching and not profess doubt."

Quote from waterholic

From Epicurus' point of view, I see two reasons: 1. to help people (as that's the ultimate goal of the philosophy), 2. build a community of friends - safety in numbers. My impression is that the intensity of this effort in DeWitt's book comes across a little greater than would be warranted by the nature of the school.

I think there is a third reason that was actually more important to Epicurus than these two, and comes through especially through the intensity of Lucretius, which does come through in DeWitt. That reason is the earnest desire to be confident in knowing the "Truth" about the way things are, so as to then live according to those conclusions. Epicurus doesn't start out simply deciding he wants to be happy -- he starts out - from his first questioning of "Chaos" - wanting to know what "the truth" is about the universe, so as to then live accordingly. Had Epicurus determined from his search for truth that theism could be confidently established, I would argue that Epicurus would then have turned his energetic and determined mind -- see the opening of Lucretius Book I - to being "more catholic than the pope." He would have engaged his powers of persuasion to whatever course he deemed to be correct, and if living per the instructions of supernatural gods could be proven to be the correct course, then Epicurus would have led the way.

Of course that theistic conclusion cannot be proved to be correct, and in fact the non-theistic conclusion is established by such weight that we can have great confidence in it, and thus we have the confident Epicurus (and Lucretius and Diogenes of Oinoanda) that comes through in the texts. These are personalities that will be mocked by such as Cicero, alleging that they talk as if they just came down from the intermundia, and that they want to avoid nothing so much as seeming to be in doubt, but we all have to make our own decisions about how to evaluate the evidence and then act accordingly.

So accordingly I would definitely not agree that "to help people" is the ultimate goal of Epicurean philosophy. It is a very important aspect of the conclusion, but it is not the starting point or the end point.

Quote from Joshua

I presume his endless perceived connections between Christianity and Epicureanism were an attempt to get his Christian contemporaries to take another look at Epicurus.

I think that is definitely the central motivation. Again, DeWitt never (to my recollection) comes out and says that he is a Christian, or that we should accept Christian dogmas. In fact the more I think about it the more I see him doing what Gibbon did -- talking about the history of Christianity as a means of luring in the conventional Christian thinkers before setting the bait that catches them onto the truth.

Don't forget that DeWitt mentions more than once (and seems to enjoy repeating it) how Augustine would have "given the palm" to Epicurus were it not for (apparently) the immortality / life after death issue. In my mind DeWitt does much the same thing that Gibbon does -- he rims the cup with honey for the Christian with all the historical parallels, while he dispenses the medicine of true philosophy to the patient.

DeWitt wasn't in a position himself (and we don't really know whether he wanted to be or not) of writing an anti-Christian philosophy book. We don't know his motives, but I would say that what he in fact did was to provide the most sweeping and sympathetic overview available of a philosophy that makes holding the Christian viewpoint impossible. I doubt very much that he was blind to the natural result of what he had written.

Quote from burninglights

Something tells me that if Epicurus was alive today, and he posited a belief that was contradicted by good science tomorrow, he would consider the results and modify his view the make way for the new information.

I think it's certain he would do that. However, there is a deeper issue at work too that is addressed by Philodemus and goes to the heart of Epicurean canonics regarding "when" it is appropriate to take a position and when it is not, and that question can't be settled by counting numbers of "scientists" or taking the position that a consensus of some number of people at any moment proves a point. The issue of when skepticism is appropriate and when it is not is very subtle, and Epicurus clearly thought that "radical skepticism" of the "nothing is knowable" type is clearly wrong.

If you agree with Epicurus that radical skepticism is clearly wrong, then the issue always comes back to that of "how much evidence is needed and how do you process it." You don't flatly throw up your hands - as many people do - and decide to simply stop thinking about super-important issues like whether there are supernatural gods or life after death.

Quote from Kalosyni

The origin of this is from Martha Nussbaum?

No I would not at all say that she originates the attack, she's just a well-known repeater of it.

It appears that I can't find a video of Elena Nicoli's presentation re Nussbaum. Here is another video that is also good, but if anyone knows of a video that goes with the Nussbaum material please post:

Post

Elena Nicoli - An Excellent Presentation On Epicurean Pleasure

I urge everyone in this group to watch Elena Nicoli's excellent presentation on Epicurean pleasure, which the Dutch Research School of Philosophy has humorously mis-titled as "Atoms in the Rennaisance." As quickly as I can I am going to prepare an outline of the major points of her talk and attach that to this thread for discussion and reference in the future. I think you will find that this talk is easy to follow, very clearly presented, and does a very good job of presenting the "standard"…

Cassius

April 16, 2018 at 4:18 PM

I had not visited this issue in a while and now I see Elena Nicoli collected some of the best/worst Nussbaum quotes:

This is one place in Nussbaum's "Therapy of Desire" where she makes similar assertions about Epicurus being authoritarian, which I think are simply not a fair reading of the texts, and far too pro-Stoic. Comments like these (and for many other reasons where I think she gets Epicurus wrong) are why I don't recommend her book, no matter how well regarded it is in other quarters.

:

Elena Nicoli has written against Nussbaum's interpretation as per here:

Thread

Responses to Nussbaum's Criticism That Epicureanism Is Not A Real Philosophy; That Epicureanism Numbs Intellect And Critical Thinking

This is a thread to discuss the presentation material posted by Jason Baker entitled "The Pleasure of Knowledge: Reassessing Nussbaum’s Interpretation of Epicurean Therapy" by Dr. Elena Nicoli, Radboud University, subtitled "A Contested Influence. Hellenistic Philosophy and Modern Thought from Nietzsche to Nussbaum." This is not the full lecture, but summarizes the main points with some excellent citations to Epicurean literature.

The original post is here:

…

Cassius

April 12, 2018 at 6:18 AM

More criticism of Nussbaum's interpretations here:

Thread

Nussbaum (Martha) - "Therapy of Desire"

Martha Nussbaum's "Therapy of Desire" is a widely known book with much commentary on the implications of Epicurean philosophy for psychology. These comments are not a review of the book and I do not intend them too be taken too negatively. However I think that a reader can more fairly assess the claims Nussbaum makes about Epicurean philosophy earlier in the book if the reader is aware of the ultimate negative conclusions she draws at the end. Here are several excerpts, mostly from the final…

Cassius

February 1, 2018 at 9:13 PM

Thanks for the post Waterholic because it raises important points. Just a few comments on point 1, because I think point 2 first is likely the much more significant one.

DeWitt's comparisons of Epicureanism to Christianity are pretty much neutral in terms of what they say about Epicurus, and I see them as much more reflective of DeWitt's own speculations about how they compare. In fact I was thinking about this point the other day and I believe it deserves to be emphasized when we discuss this topic: As frequent as DeWitt's comparisons are in the book, ask yourself: "Do those comparisons really state that Christianity is correct or did anything other than borrow procedures from Epicurus?" Yes he goes overboard in his parallels, but to what result? It's not like he is saying that Christianity is right, just that they were perceptive enough to borrow certain perspectives from Epicurus. If he goes overboard, and I think he does, it's on a topic that really doesn't touch Epicurus himself, and just shows that DeWitt's parallels are stretched too thin, because what he's saying they picked up from Epicurus they could have picked up anywhere, because the friendliness and charity and honesty etc are just largely common sense.

Compare DeWitt's comments to Gibbon's in his "Fall of the Roman Empire." Gibbon uses sarcasm and false-sounding praise of Christianity to make his derogatory points about the influence of Christianity. DeWitt's comments seem sincere, but thenever to my memory rise to a level of saying "the Christians were right!" He's basically just drawing attention to parellels that some will find - and do find - extremely interesting, while others won't.

On point 2 I think the issue is much more important. When you say " Is this a problematic tangent of NDW or am I missing something?" I don't think this is something specific with DeWitt.

The characterization you use does remind me of what Martha Nussbaum says in her "Therapy of Desire," but I don't recall DeWitt being nearly so negative about it. Epicurus clearly thought it was important to combat skepticism, and he thought it important to state firmly what he thought was correct, and there is plenty of evidence in the texts to support that being an accurate characterization. But as far as being "a despotic figure with a strong will to dominate feeble minded and expand his influence by any means necessary, including missionary work," I would say yes he had strong will but never tried to "dominate feeble minded" people or expand his influence by "any means necessary." I do think that the term "missionary work" is probably a fair characterization, though it's hard to say how organized it really was.

I see I've already written a lot and only really set the stage for this, with my main points being (1) that the Christianity parallels are a tangent of Dewitt that some find interesting and some don't, but no reason for worry, and (2) the issue of "dogmatism" vs "skepticism" in Epicurus is definitely there, and dedicated skeptics are definitely going to have a problem with Epicurus. Given that I believe Epicurus' position on skepticism is a correct one, that doesn't personally cause me any problem at all, and makes him more valuable to me. But that's the issue that we will want to discuss in much more detail and I feel sure others will weigh in on as well.

On the parallels with Christianity you're indeed struggling with DeWitt. On the issue with "dogmatism," you're struggling directly with Epicurus, though I think you'll eventually decide that your wording of Epicurus' position is significantly too strong.

As soon as we wrap up the series on DeWitt's "Epicurus and His Philosophy," the next project the podcast will tackle will be the full sections of Cicero's "On Ends" devoted to discussing (attacking) Epicurean philosophy - Books One and Two. In this work Cicero has summarized and preserved what are probably the most important objections to Epicurus collected from across the ancient world in the prior two hundred years, so this work gives us both a wealth of knowledge about Epicurus combined with extremely intelligent criticisms. Cicero skimps on the time he gives the Epicurean Torquatus to respond, so we can formulate for ourselves what we think are the best full responses.

We have previously discussed the Torquatus Narrative in Episodes 93-111 (Torquatus narrative of Epicurean Philosophy). As a result we will review that section only briefly, and in only enough detail to keep the flow of the full discussion of Book One.

The text we are covering can be found in three editions at Archive.org:

• Cicero - On Ends - Reid - 1883 Link At Archive.org
• Cicero - On Ends - Rackham - Link At Archive.org
• Cicero - On Ends - Parker - Link At Archive.org

As before when we went through Torquatus in detail, we will use the Reid version as our main text, but compare frequently with Rackham. We favor Reid because he seems to be both more readable and more literal than Rackham. However many of us are more familiar with the more recent wording of Rackham, so we will often use both on important passages.

We will therefore suggest that those who are following along grab a copy of the Reid version at the link above, and then you will be able to follow any references we make to page or line numbers.

We expect to start this series as soon as September 3, 2023, so if you have comments, suggestions, or questions, please let us know!

It is interesting to me to see that Julian was also happy to see the works of Pyrrho to be hard to find. I would almost agree with him on that point, as it seems that Julian was aware of the problems with skepticism. I'd definitely like to spend some time reading what's left of Julian's work.

Episode 188 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available!

In my unreletenting quest to be positive and upbeat I always encourage everyone to read everything they can. It's been a long while since I first read "Marius the Epicurean" but I think I recall being profoundly disappointed in it. I hope the experience of others is more positive, but I better throw this into the mix - I will see if I can find my prior posting and perhaps link it here. But by all means I do encourage everyone to read whatever strikes their attention, because it will add to the fullness of your perspective whatever conclusion you reach about it!

Here's the earlier thread with some of my comments. It seems I remember being much more negative, either on Facebook or in private discussions.

Thread

Pater (Walter) - "Marius the Epicurean"

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4057?fb…0VaOv6GVZTgDNQk

I believe I looked into this some years ago but came away very disappointed. Hopefully my memory is faulty. If you get a chance to post any kind of commentary on it that would be much appreciated.

However I just did a word search in the Gutenberg edition for "Epicurus" and came up with exactly ONE results. On the other hand, a search for AURELIUS comes up with FIFTY-SIX results. Maybe my memory is not so bad after all.

If it is just a rehash…

Cassius

May 13, 2019 at 9:10 AM

What I seem to remember most today is that I believe I came across this about the time that I came across Francis Wright's "A Few Days In Athens." I read Frances Wright first and was blown away by the depth of her presentation of Epicurus. Then I read Marius, and the contrast was - to say the least - striking. And in the balance of the two, "A Few Days In Athens" is by far the better quality work for understanding Epicurus. But that's just the balance of the two, and reading Marius produced very beneficial results for me -- in making me realize how disappointing something can be even though it has "Epicurean" in the title.

Your mileage may vary!!!

Looks like we need a place to discuss basics of NeoPlatonism:

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NeoPlatonism Basics Relevant to the Study of Epicurus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoplatonism

Neoplatonism is a version of Platonic philosophy that emerged in the 3rd century AD against the background of Hellenistic philosophy and religion.^{[1][note 1][note 2]} The term does not encapsulate a set of ideas as much as a series of thinkers. Among the common ideas it maintains is monism, the doctrine that all of reality can be derived from a single principle, "the One".^[2]

Neoplatonism began with Ammonius Saccas and his student Plotinus…

Cassius

August 24, 2023 at 8:57 AM

Neoplatonism - Wikipedia

Neoplatonism is a version of Platonic philosophy that emerged in the 3rd century AD against the background of Hellenistic philosophy and religion.^{[1][note 1][note 2]} The term does not encapsulate a set of ideas as much as a series of thinkers. Among the common ideas it maintains is monism, the doctrine that all of reality can be derived from a single principle, "the One".^[2]

Neoplatonism began with Ammonius Saccas and his student Plotinus (c. 204/5–271 AD) and stretched to the 6th century AD.^[3] After Plotinus there were three distinct periods in the history of neoplatonism: the work of his student Porphyry (3rd to early 4th century); that of Iamblichus (3rd to 4th century); and the period in the 5th and 6th centuries, when the Academies in Alexandria and Athens flourished.^[4]

Neoplatonism had an enduring influence on the subsequent history of Western philosophy and religion. In the Middle Ages, neoplatonic ideas were studied and discussed by Christian, Jewish, and Muslim thinkers.^[5] In the Islamic cultural sphere, neoplatonic texts were available in Arabic and Persian translations, and notable philosophers such as al-Farabi, Solomon ibn Gabirol (Avicebron), Avicenna (Ibn Sina), and Moses Maimonides incorporated neoplatonic elements into their own thinking.^[6]

Christian philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) had direct access to the works of Proclus, Simplicius of Cilicia, and Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, and he knew about other Neoplatonists, such as Plotinus and Porphyry, through second hand sources.^[7] The German mystic Meister Eckhart (c. 1260 – c. 1328) was also influenced by neoplatonism, propagating a contemplative way of life which points to the Godhead beyond the nameable God. Neoplatonism also had a strong influence on the perennial philosophy of the Italian Renaissance thinkers Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola, and continues through 19th-century Universalism and modern-day spirituality and nondualism.

ALSO:

Neoplatonism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

The term “Neoplatonism” refers to a philosophical school of thought that first emerged and flourished in the Greco-Roman world of late antiquity, roughly from the time of the Roman Imperial Crisis to the Arab conquest, i.e., the middle of the 3^rd to the middle of the 7^th century. In consequence of the demise of ancient materialist or corporealist thought such as Epicureanism and Stoicism, Neoplatonism became the dominant philosophical ideology of the period, offering a comprehensive understanding of the universe and the individual human being’s place in it. However, in contrast to labels such as “Stoic”, “Peripatetic” or “Platonic”, the designation “Neoplatonic” is of modern coinage and to some extent a misnomer. Late antique philosophers now counted among “the Neoplatonists” did not think of themselves as engaged in some sort of effort specifically to revive the spirit and the letter of Plato’s dialogues. To be sure, they did call themselves “Platonists” and held Plato’s views, which they understood as a positive system of philosophical doctrine, in higher esteem than the tenets of the pre-Socratics, Aristotle, or any other subsequent thinker. However, and more importantly, their signature project is more accurately described as a grand synthesis of an intellectual heritage that was by then exceedingly rich and profound. In effect, they absorbed, appropriated, and creatively harmonized almost the entire Hellenic tradition of philosophy, religion, and even literature—with the exceptions of Epicureanism, which they roundly rejected, and the thoroughgoing corporealism of the Stoics. The result of this effort was a grandiose and powerfully persuasive system of thought that reflected upon a millennium of intellectual culture and brought the scientific and moral theories of Plato, Aristotle, and the ethics of the Stoics into fruitful dialogue with literature, myth, and religious practice. In virtue of their inherent respect for the writings of many of their predecessors, the Neoplatonists together offered a kind of meta-discourse and reflection on the sum-total of ideas produced over centuries of sustained inquiry into the human condition.

As a natural consequence of their insistence on the undiminished relevance of the past, the Neoplatonists developed their characteristically speculative brand of philosophical enquiry in which empirical facts tended to serve as illustrations rather than heuristic starting points or test cases. Today, the Neoplatonic system may strike one as lofty, counterintuitive, and implausible, but to dismiss it out of hand is difficult, especially if one is prepared to take seriously a few fundamental assumptions that are at least not obviously wrong and may possibly be right.

The most fundamental of these assumptions, which the Neoplatonists shared with the majority of intellectuals of the ancient world, including most pre-Socratic thinkers as well as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and their followers, is that mindful consciousness (nous, often translated as thought, intelligence, or intellect) is in an important sense ontologically prior to the physical realm typically taken for ultimate reality (Mind over Matter). There existed a dispute between Plato and Aristotle over whether or not the objects of mindful consciousness (abstract concepts, Platonic or otherwise, numbers, geometrical properties, and so forth) are also ontologically prior, but the Neoplatonists regarded this fact as a matter of inconsequential detail. And so, following a venerable and abiding tradition of Mind over Matter, Neoplatonism inevitably turned out to be an idealist type of philosophy.

The second assumption, which the Neoplatonists shared with the Stoics and the Hermetists (an influential group of Egyptian religious thinkers that predate the rise of Neoplatonism), was that reality, in all its cognitive and physical manifestations, depended on a highest principle which is unitary and singular. Neoplatonic philosophy is a strict form of principle-monism that strives to understand everything on the basis of a single cause that they considered divine, and indiscriminately referred to as “the First”, “the One”, or “the Good”. Since it is reasonable to assume, as the Neoplatonists did, that any efficient cause is ontologically prior to, and hence more real, than its effect, then, in the hierarchy of being, the first principle, whatever it is, cannot be less “real” than the phenomena it is supposed to explain. Given the veracity of the first assumption (the ontological priority of intelligence and consciousness), it follows at once that the first principle must be a principle of consciousness. In consequence, the fundamental challenge all Neoplatonists struggled to meet was essentially the following: How are we to understand and describe the emergence of the universe, with all its diverse phenomena, as the effect of a singular principle of consciousness? In particular—and in this regard Neoplatonism shares certain concerns with modern cosmology—how is it possible to understand the emergence of the physical, material universe from a singularity that is in every sense unlike this universe? Their answer to this question was entirely new, and went far beyond any prior cosmic aetiology, including that of Plato’s Timaeus, in elegance and sophistication.

What is the Best Translation of PD08 To Feature At EpicureanFriends.com?

The following post is one of a series so that we can get our collection of the main list of Principal Doctrines under the "Texts" section in better shape. Although this thread will include a "poll" in the next post, what we are really looking for is the "best" combination of faithfulness to the original combined with clarity in modern English. I will get with a collection of the Level 3 participants here to work on editing the final list, but the full discussion should be open to everyone to consider, so that's what we will do here. The results of the poll won't control what is featured on the text page but will definitely influence in and probably at least result in a footnote to this thread.

The English translation of PD08 currently featured here in our Texts section is our normal Cyril Bailey from his Extant Remains:

PD08. No pleasure is a bad thing in itself; but the means which produce some pleasures bring with them disturbances many times greater than the pleasures.

We have access (thanks to Nate's full collection) to many different variations including:

“No pleasure is intrinsically bad: but the effective causes of some pleasures bring with them a great many perturbations of pleasure.” Yonge (1853)

“No pleasure is evil in itself, but the objects productive of certain pleasures may lead to annoyances many times greater than the pleasure.” Wallace, Epicureanism 150 (1880)

“No pleasure is in itself evil, but the things which produce certain pleasures entail annoyances many times greater than the pleasures themselves.” Hicks (1910)

“No pleasure is in itself evil, but the things which produce certain pleasures entail annoyances many times greater than the pleasures themselves.” Hicks (1925)

“No pleasure is a bad thing in itself: but the means which produce some pleasures bring with them disturbances many times greater than the pleasures.” Bailey (1926)

”No pleasure is evil in itself but the practices productive of certain pleasures bring troubles in their train that by many times outweigh the pleasures themselves.” De Witt, Epicurus and His Philosophy 235 (1954)

“No pleasure is evil it itself; but the means by which certain pleasures are gained bring pains many times greater than the pleasures.” Geer (1964)

“No pleasure is something bad per se: but the causes of some pleasures produce stresses many times greater than the pleasures” Long, The Hellenistic Philosophers 115 (1987)

“No pleasure is evil in itself; but the means of obtaining some pleasures bring in their wake troubles many times greater than the pleasures.” O'Connor (1993)

“No pleasure is a bad thing in itself. But the things which produce certain pleasures bring troubles many times greater than the pleasures.” Inwood & Gerson (1994)

“No pleasure is a bad thing in itself, but some pleasures are only obtainable at the cost of excessive troubles.” Anderson (2004)

“No pleasure is a morally bad thing in itself. But the agents that produce certain pleasures bring about vexations that outnumber the pleasures themselves.” Makridis (2005)

“No pleasure is bad in itself; but the means of paying for some pleasures bring with them disturbances many times greater than the pleasures themselves.” Saint-Andre (2008)

“No pleasure is bad in itself. But the things that make for pleasure in certain cases entail disturbances many times greater than the pleasures themselves.” Strodach (2012)

“No pleasure is intrinsically bad; but the means of producing certain pleasures may entail annoyances many times greater than the pleasures themselves.” Mensch (2018)

“No pleasure is in itself anything bad; but some pleasures are produced by things that bring along troubles many times greater than those pleasures.” White (2021)

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Which of the above, or which with changes you would suggest, should be featured here in the main list? In the interest of space the poll will not include every option, so please add a comment in the thread if you would suggest a variation not listed.

NOTE: If you are a new member who has not previously attended a meeting, click here for background information on how to attend and obtain the Zoom link.

Here are our topics for this week:

1 - The Vatican Sayings:

VS24. Dreams have no divine character nor any prophetic force, but they originate from the influx of images.

Prior Discussions: VS 24 - Dreams have no divine character nor any prophetic force...

VS25. Poverty, when measured by the natural purpose of life, is great wealth, but unlimited wealth is great poverty.

Prior Discussions: VS 25 - Poverty, when measured by the natural purpose of life...

2 - Our Special Topic - If We Have Time

Open Night.

Attendees should also plan to be sure they are on Kalosyni's conversation list. If you are not already on that and want the Zoom link so you can attend, please message Kalosyni or any other moderator.

Just a quick note here to memorialize that Onenski points out that Aristitle discusses friendship in Books 8 and 9 of Nichomachean Ethics and that Epicurus is quite likely making comments that are relevant to Aristotle's views.

So we are supposed to be saying KIKERO?