Posts by Cassius

Looks great!

In case the topic isn't clear from the link -

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Wow–“the motorized trundle through the crematorium’s curtains.” What really wrenched my attention was the thought that one sometimes has: that’s really going to happen. There will be a time when my body will be sent to the incinerator, and I am no more. My body will be burned (or if you prefer the long-term approach, it will eventually decay; and if it doesn’t decay, it’ll be incinerated anyway when the sun blows up). And life will go on anyway (well, until the sun blows up). People will mourn. People will get on with their lives. The sun will still rise. Sports will still be played. The storms will still come. Nations will rise and fall. Our children will grow old and die. And then their children. And then their grandchildren. And soon, no matter how important or unimportant we seem to be to the world, we will be completely forgotten. And then *that* generation will come and go. And so it will happen. It happened to our parents; to our grandparents; to our great-grandparents; to …. all the way back. And it will happen to us, each of us, individually, one at a time. It will happen to me, with the motorized trundle through the crematorium’s curtains.

This thread was prompted by a comment of Randall Moose posed here.

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Speaking for myself as a 26 year old American, my peers rely on social media for their social lives. I have made an effort to find friends through hobbies such as D&D. The house I share with my roommates is the primary meet up spot for D&D, board games, MtG, CoD, movies, dinners, and nights around the fire pit.

That thread will contain some responses but this is such a big subject that we need a thread for the single topic: What practical advice can we give from an Epicurean perspective for managing social media engagement? I know some of us have almost completely given up (or never started) with such things as Facebook and Twitter, but on the other hand social media is almost a necessity for gathering information in modern life.

What Epicurean-focused advice can we give for making sure use of social media works for a happy life rather than against it?

This is prompted by a question posed by Randall Moose in the thread started by Kalosyni here. We have lots of threads and commentary on friendship but we eventually need to bring together a practical tips greatest hits list so we can organize them into more findable form. Please add your tips either in Kalosyni's thread (which we will move to this same subforum and probably consolidate with this one) or here.

(Just updated my post 31 above with more detail. I see Randall is a night owl too.)

Thank you for all that work Don! Seems clear that the numbering needs major revaluation.

I agree with the above answers which in most general form comes down to "Do the games being you more pleasure than pain, all things considered?"

Maybe the greater concern than the games is over-reliance on social media for social interaction.

We definitely need to develop some material on:

1 - Practical tips on cultivation of real-life friendships.

2 - Practical tips on management of social media engagement.

At the very least we need to find ways to focus social media interactions to be mainly with real world friends rather than people so extended away from us that interaction with them is little more than as with AI or bots or caricatures of real people.

Quote from Nate

This is a great observation. I think I might be making a semantic mistake if "peacefully" implies pure pacifism, because part of the agreement to not harm also includes a prevention against "being harmed", and that might imply force. I think I'll take your suggestion of "peaceably" because it lessens the risk of being interpreted as pacifism.

Probably neither peacefully nor peaceably should really out of limits -- most of our "officers of the peace" and similar terms still carry guns - but the issue of if / when / under what circumstances it is proper to initiate force is so divisive that it makes sense to avoid ambiguity on this point if at all possible.

Seems to me one of the most clear statements (though like them all it would be prudent to parse the original latin to check the word "restraint."

On Ends 2 / XVI --

Yet nevertheless some men indulge without limit their avarice, ambition and love of power, lust, gluttony and those other desires, which ill-gotten gains can never diminish but rather must inflame the more; inasmuch that they appear proper subjects for restraint rather than for reformation. Men of sound natures, therefore, are summoned by the voice of true reason to justice, equity, and honesty. For one without eloquence or resources dishonesty is not good policy, since it is difficult for such a man to succeed in his designs, or to make good his success when once achieved.

Don summarizes the situation very well.

One aspect I would emphasize is that working together on joint projects here has been a great friendship-builder, and it is those people who have done that who I think get the most out of the forum.

If you have ideas Randall please be sure to share them.

Very interesting. That somewhat predates the King James version.

Added in English? Or as we might suspect was this a German organization innovation?

Since this is a biographical thread and perhaps more likely that someone in the future will come across this, I should note here that personally I don't find DeWitt's style either antiquated or opaque. I know some people do, however, so that's a warning that everyone should have, just like I warn people that the first chapter of "A Few Days In Athens" had a tendency to put me off from wanting to read more. DeWitt is definitely not breezy, but I don't find him any harder to follow than any number of other academic writers. He is certainly a lot easier to read than someone like Nietzsche, who also throws in lots of allusions that can make him extremely difficult to follow. So I think part of the issue is that DeWitt throws in so many references to other classical writers like Horace and others that it's hard for someone who is not already familiar with those sources to assess whether what he says is correct until you pursue the footnotes yourself.

But we aren't all going to agree on this and I just wanted to note mainly that different people have different responses to his writing style.

I don't expect to have the time or energy for it myself, but a book-by-book response to the New Testament from an Epicurean perspective would make for a great addition to modern Epicurean scholarship.

Quote from Titus

While his assumptions are often experimential and lacking obvious evidence, this is exactely the reason why his work is so valueable.

I very much agree with this and the rest of the paragraph / post. You can't accept at face value anyone's speculations, and you shouldn't accept Dewitt's. But a classical scholar can bring together a huge array of information and draw parallels that others simply can't, and those provide food for thought whether they pan out to be "provable" by other facts or not. The material in St Paul and Epicurus where DeWitt discusses that the early Christians considered Epicurus to be an "antichrist" figure is particularly stimulating and useful. I think probably some significant number of them did consider Epicurus that way, and thinking through the ramifications of that would be very stimulating for any number of modern Christians in re-examining their own views. I'd personally be very interested to read much more writing about the new testament from that very same perspective. Presumably there's a lot buried in the "church father" material and other records of the "early church" (to the extent they exist) that involve confrontation with Epicurean arguments. DeWitt had the scope of study to start the process but I would think there's a lot more to be done.

One of the points DeWitt brings out in the final chapter of Epicurus and His Philosophy was that the dying down of the controversies in which the Epicureans were involved with Judeo-Christianity marked the parallel dying down of the Epicurean school as a whole. It might well be that any resurgence of interest in Epicurus will end up being accompanied by the re-lighting of those same flames of controversy.

Here are links to two sources cited by DeWitt in the material covered this week for the proposition that philosophy misused can turn into a warped fixation on death as desirable and a complacency as to retaining life. The point DeWitt cites for Epicurus is not that we should be unhappy about the thought of being dead, but that we should be happy to be alive and not look forward to death except in extremely bad circumstances. These are examples as to the opposite orientation, particularly clear in Phaedo, where Socrates argues that death is not oblivion but ultimate wisdom when we are freed from the body.:

Plato's Phaedo:

Plato, Phaedo, section 67c

[67d] and hereafter, alone by itself, freed from the body as from fetters?”

“Certainly,” said he.

“Well, then, this is what we call death, is it not, a release and separation from the body?”

“Exactly so,” said he.

“But, as we hold, the true philosophers and they alone are always most eager to release the soul, and just this—the release and separation of the soul from the body—is their study, is it not?”

“Obviously.”

“Then, as I said in the beginning, it would be absurd if a man who had been all his life fitting himself to live as nearly in a state of death as he could, should then be disturbed when death came to him. Would it not be absurd?”

“Of course.”

“In fact, then, Simmias,” said he, “the true philosophers practice dying, and death is less terrible to them than to any other men. Consider it in this way. They are in every way hostile to the body and they desire to have the soul apart by itself alone. Would it not be very foolish if they should be frightened and troubled when this very thing happens, and if they should not be glad to go to the place where there is hope of attaining [68a] what they longed for all through life—and they longed for wisdom—and of escaping from the companionship of that which they hated? When human loves or wives or sons have died, many men have willingly gone to the other world led by the hope of seeing there those whom they longed for, and of being with them; and shall he who is really in love with wisdom and has a firm belief that he can find it nowhere else [68b] than in the other world grieve when he dies and not be glad to go there? We cannot think that, my friend, if he is really a philosopher; for he will confidently believe that he will find pure wisdom nowhere else than in the other world. And if this is so, would it not be very foolish for such a man to fear death?”

“Very foolish, certainly,” said he.

“Then is it not,” said Socrates, “a sufficient indication, when you see a man troubled because he is going to die, that he was not a lover of wisdom but a lover of the body?

Cicero - Tusculun DIsputations:http://www.attalus.org/cicero/tusc1B.html

[30.] [73] L Therefore he argues, that all good and wise men should take example from the swans, who are considered sacred to Apollo, not without reason, but particularly because they seem to have received the gift of divination from him, by which, foreseeing how happy it is to die, they leave this world with singing and joy. Nor can anyone doubt of this, unless it happens to us who think with care and anxiety about the soul, (as is often the case with those who look earnestly at the setting sun,) to lose the sight of it entirely: and so the mind's eye viewing itself, sometimes grows dull, and for that reason we become remiss in our contemplation. Thus our reasoning is borne about, harassed with doubts and anxieties, not knowing how to proceed, but measuring back again those dangerous tracts which it has passed, like a boat tossed about on the boundless ocean. [74] But these reflections are of long standing, and borrowed from the Greeks. But Cato left this world in such a manner, as if he were delighted that he had found an opportunity of dying; for that God who presides in us, forbids our departure hence without his leave. But when God himself has given us a just cause, as formerly he did to Socrates, and lately to Cato, and often to many others - in such a case, certainly every man of sense would gladly exchange this darkness, for that light: not that he would forcibly break from the chains that held him, for that would be against the law; but like a man released from prison by a magistrate, or some lawful authority, so he too would walk away, being released and discharged by God. For the whole life of a philosopher is, as the same philosopher says, a meditation on death.

There is considerable variation in style and meaning among these options so this will be good one to try to clarify which is most literally correct.

Which is the best translation 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 PD05 currently featured here in our Texts section is that of Cyril Bailey from his Extant Remains:

It is not possible to live pleasantly without living prudently, honorably, and justly, [nor again to live a life of prudence, honor, and justice] without living pleasantly. And the man who does not possess the pleasant life is not living prudently, honorably, and justly, [and the man who does not possess the virtuous life] cannot possibly live pleasantly." Epicurus PD05 (Bailey)

**ΟΥΚ EΣTΙΝ ΗΔEΩΣ ΖΗΝ ****AΝEΥ TΟΥ ΦΡΟΝΙΜΩΣ ****ΚAΙ ΚAΛΩΣ**

**ΚAΙ ΔΙΚAΙΩΣ ****[ΟΥΔE ΦΡΟΝΙΜΩΣ ****ΚAΙ ΚAΛΩΣ ****ΚAΙ ΔΙΚAΙΩΣ] **

**AΝEΥ TΟΥ ΗΔEΩΣ·**** ΟTῼ Δ' EN TΟΥTΩN ΜΗ ΥΠAΡΧEΙ ****ΟION**

**ΖΗΝ ΦΡΟΝΙΜΩΣ ****KAI ΚAΛΩΣ ****KAI ΔΙΚAΙΩΣ ΥΠAΡΧEΙ ****OΥΧ**

**EΣTΙ TΟΥTΟΝ ΗΔEΩΣ ΖΗΝ. **

“It is not possible to live pleasantly without living prudently, and honourably, and justly; nor to live prudently, and honourably, and justly, without living pleasantly. But to whom it does not happen to live prudently, honourably, and justly cannot possibly live pleasantly.” Yonge (1853)

“It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and well and justly, and it is impossible to live wisely and well and justly without living pleasantly. Whenever any one of these is lacking, when, for instance, the man does not live wisely, though he lives well and justly, it is impossible for him to live a pleasant life.” Hicks (1910)

“It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and well and justly, and it is impossible to live wisely and well and justly without living pleasantly. Whenever any one of these is lacking, when, for instance, the man is not able to live wisely, though he lives well and justly, it is impossible for him to live a pleasant life.” Hicks (1925)

“It is not possible to live pleasantly without living prudently and honourably and justly, [nor again to live a life of prudence, honour, and justice] without living pleasantly. And the man who does not possess the pleasant life, is not living prudently and honourably and justly, [and the man who does not possess the virtuous life], cannot possibly live pleasantly.” Bailey (1926)

“It is impossible to live pleasurably without living according to reason, honor and justice, nor to live according to reason, honor, and justice without living pleasurably….” DeWitt, Epicurus and His Philosophy 184, 246 (1954)

“It is impossible to live pleasantly without living prudently, well, and justly, (and to live prudently, well, and justly) without living pleasantly. Even though a man live well and justly, it is not possible for him to live pleasantly if he lacks that from which stems the prudent life.” Geer (1964)

“It is impossible to live a pleasantly without living prudently, well, and justly, nor is it possible to live prudently, well, and justly without living pleasantly. The man for whom this latter condition is impossible cannot live prudently, well, or justly; he for whom the former is impossible, cannot live pleasantly.” O'Connor (1993)

“It is impossible to live pleasantly without living prudently, honourably, and justly and impossible to live prudently, honourably, and justly without living pleasantly. And whoever lacks this cannot live pleasantly.” Inwood & Gerson (1994)

“It is impossible to live pleasantly without living wisely and honorably and justly, and it is impossible to live wisely and honorably and justly without living pleasantly. Whenever any one of these is lacking (when, for instance, one is not able to live wisely, though he lives honorably and justly) it is impossible for him to live a pleasant life.” Anderson (2004)

“It is impossible to lead a pleasant life without leading a life that is prudent, proper, and just. Nor is it possible to live a life that is prudent, proper, and just without living a life that is pleasant. Whoever lacks [any one of] the above [elements of a good and pleasant life] cannot have a good life.” Makridis (2005)

“It is not possible to live joyously without also living wisely and beautifully and rightly, nor to live wisely and beautifully and rightly without living joyously; and whoever lacks this cannot live joyously.” Saint-Andre (2008)

“It is impossible to live the pleasant life without also living sensibly, nobly, and justly, and conversely it is impossible to live sensibly, nobly, and justly without living pleasantly. A person who does not have a pleasant life is not living sensibly, nobly, and justly, and conversely the person who does not have these virtues cannot live pleasantly.” Strodach (2012)

“It is not possible to live pleasantly without living prudently, honorably, and justly; nor can one live prudently, honorably, and justly without living pleasantly. Nor is it possible for the man who does not live prudently, though he may live honorably and justly, to live pleasantly.” Mensch (2018)

“It is not possible to live pleasantly without living wisely, honorably, and justly, [nor wisely, honorably, and justly] without living pleasantly; and for anyone who does not have that, {does not live wisely, honorably, and justly, does not have,} it is not possible for him to live pleasantly.” 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.

Quote from Joshua

That's a good question that I don't have an answer to.

Yes after the first person translated Diogenes Laertius from Greek to Latin (for example) I would not necessarily expect a bunch of new writers to launch off into their own totally original versions, even though that is certainly possible if they did not have access to each others' work. It's not like they had the internet to circulate them.

It's probably worth speculating that the oldest Latin copies of Diogenes Laertius would be potential sources for "correction" to some of the difficult Greek passages. I would expect that the further you go back into the distant past that the Greek to Latin translation was made, the more it might be possible that the translators had access to other texts , or other sources of tradition about Epicurus, which now do not exist. Certainly that's a lot of speculation but it would be interesting to do such a comparison on difficult passages.

Are the Latin translations varying dramatically such as modern translations of Lucretius into English do, or do they tend to be largely latin word for latin word consistent?

Yes I hope you will point out Latin lines like that. For many of us the Latin words will always ring in a way that the Greek equivalents never will. Not saying that's good, just the way that it is.

And with the Latin too we have the possibility or probability that these translations date back to a period when the people who made them were fluent in both languages *and* had access to people who really understood the philosophy due to training from real Epicurean experts.

So there's lots of reasons in my mind to pay special attention to the Latin translations. I wish we had a good digital (text) version of DIogenes Laertius in Latin. (Do we?)