Posts by Cassius

I had time to come back and make another comment:

When I refer to the conflation of tranquility and pleasure as "one of the most dangerous" ideas I don't mean "dangerous" in the sense of evil or something malicious in and of itself. I mean dangerous in the hands of those who aren't thinking through the implications.

What I think I observe is that there is a great tendency in the non-Epicurean intellectual world to do everything possible to take the focus off of "pleasure." I don't think that is because such people dislike the experience of pleasure themselves, because of course they do. What they see - and what I think Epicurus saw - is that this question is a subtext for the deeper and more volatile question of "their" (again referring to non-Epicurean intellectuals) desire to maintain control of the narrative over others. If "they" can keep the focus on ideal forms, or essences, or virtue, or tranquility, or frankly *anything* other than pleasure itself, then "they" can define the narrative of how to life, and "they" can keep control over others who disagree with them.

I think Epicurus saw that, but I think it's always been a problem that people of good will are often slow to recognize that this tension exists. Some of them want to maintain the same power to define "the good" that Plato and similar wanted to keep for themselves, but some of them (especially in relatively good times) just don't find it in themselves to understand how important these questions are, and how "others" can use this issue to manipulate them. If someone doesn't have a manipulative personality then the desire to manipulate can be hard to understand. "I just want to be left alone to live my own life - doesn't everyone?" Unfortunately the answer to that is "No, everyone doesn't just want to be left alone."

We've noticed before that many of "us" tend to be introverts, and it's just not in our nature to want to spend our time scheming about ways to manipulate other people. That's very consistent with Epicurus' advise not to make a career in politics / control over others. But that is pretty much what "organized religion" is, whether it's in the form of the most super-primitive Christianity of the "west" or the most ultra-"enlightened" eastern viewpoints. I think that's one reason why those of us who only want to live our own lives find it appealing to pick and choose elements in other viewpoints that we think are desirable, while charitably glossing over or ignoring the negative elements in those viewpoints.

So of course that is not what I am thinking you are doing at all, but I do think that the overall massive tendency of the great majority of intellectuals in the last 2000 years has pushed in that direction. They think that if they can define the goal for other people as something other than the sense of pleasure and pain that Nature implanted in everyone then they have a leg up on controlling the narrative and controlling society. And I think that technique does work, and it has been very successful for them, which is why they identify pleasure in general and Epicurus in particular as such an enemy.

Don, for an Epicurean god, perhaps, but for a human being?

I can see why you would be tempted to take that position due to the passages which focus on how particular fears can be reduced or eliminated through particular means, but I see "anxiety" as a subset of the overall pleasure-pain doctrine and not as something unique in itself.

And in fact I would see the temptation to consider it to be unique is one of the most dangerous aspects of the way some people elevate tranquility to be the goal rather than pleasure.

It seems to me that this is one of the ways in which we should see Epicurus as building on the Cyreniacs rather than refuting them. If the Cyeniacs really wanted to deprecate the wide variety of mental pleasures that exist, then they were wrong, but I have a very difficult time thinking that they were so narrow in focus. Epicurus, as Diogenes Laertius says, recognized *both* active and non-active pleasures, and in so doing he tightened up the logic of the prior advocates of pleasure and made the theory stronger as against the Platonists and the others who advocated other versions of "the good." If the good is pleasure, then that includes all kinds, and Nature doesn't tell us "pursue pleasure, but of all the pleasures, pursue tranquility the most" -- At least I don't personally understand Nature as doing so, nor do I observe that in the young of all species, which I gather is the ultimate observational test.

Quote from Don

Pain, yes. Anxiety, no.

Is not anxiety just a subset of pain?

Happy Twentieth of February 2023 to everyone. This post is kind of disorganized but some random thoughts:

• Remember our open-to-all meet and greet Zoom targeted to the European time zone for those who have difficulty with our regular US Eastern time meetings- this coming Saturday at 2:00 PM
• Let us know in this thought any general thoughts you'd like to share to everyone on the forum.
• We've had a lot of good discussions on many topics lately and just wanted to say "thank you" to all who participate here!

Quote from waterholic

But to get back to my first post: a stoic take on it would be that there should be no anxiety, since by remaining true to virtue, one has nothing to fear irrespective of the environment (loss of job, shelter etc. - so all is good in the community).

Yes I think this is an important point, and we keep circling around the same issue: If we are going to indulge in the game of attempting to articulate clearly intermediate and ultimate goals, and if we are going to reduce that goal to one word, then the word is "Pleasure" and the reason that is the one word is that that is the single faculty that Nature has given us to decide what to choose.

We are essentially taking the position that we are good with Nature's choice, and we are going to follow Nature's choice, and individual speculations about other choices be damned -- damn the torpedos, we are on Nature's side, and we're not going to stray off onto another course.

"Tranquility" or any other specific type of pleasure is an individual matter of choice. Nature hasn't written "Tranqulity" or "Fame" or "Riches" or "sex" or anything else as a single absolute goal for every person at every time.

This is where I think we have to parse Epicurean texts and look for the big picture, because there are specific texts that when read separately point in separate directions, and at times focus on certain aspects like tranquility, and at some times focus on concepts like "happiness" and all sorts of tools that are or can be pleasures themselves (friendship, philosophy, to name just two.)

As I see it the answer to most of the confusion is to realize that individuals like atoms have changing contexts and at times some types of pleasures are more important than others. The only thing that connects the pleasure of tranquility with the pleasure of skydiving is that our faculty of pleasure identifies both of them as pleasurable in some circumstances. Sometimes it's appropriate to seek safety with a few friends in a cave, and sometimes it's appropriate to jump out of an airplane and hope anxiously that the parachute is going to open.

The only rational way I can see to explain all this is to always go back to (1) "Pleasure" --the faculty given us by nature and then (2) the Epicurean worldview (no supernatural, no life after death, no eternals except the properties of atoms, etc). That's the tribunal to face in every situation, and then from those each individual has to evaluate their situation and follow the guide of nature, which cannot be more abstractly defined than to "pursue pleasure."

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I wasn't able to reply earlier but here is another angle on the question that goes along with what Kalosyni wrote:

As I see it, the core of Epicurean philosophy that gives life to all the rest of it is the "worldview" of how the world operates without supernatural forces, how there is no life after death, and so on. Those are things that don't change no matter what circumstances you may be in.

The ethics, while it is what we use to make day to day decisions, is much more -- totally in fact -- contextual, and how to apply it is based on the circumstances you are in.

What I think waterholic is correctly noting is that social relationships have changed dramatically in 2000 years. The people we live right next door, even in the same building, are often not our closest friends or even known to us in many cases.

So when we talk about "the importance of friendship" it is natural that how we interact with the people who we consider to be our closest friends is going to be a lot different than the way people related in the past. The benefits we get from friendship may be the same, but the way we interact has changed dramatically.

My point in this short post is that this should not be seen as a limitation of Epicurean philosophy as it is part of its flexibility -- the goal is PLEASURE - of which tranquility is hopefully a large part, but which we may have to dispense with for long periods if our circumstances require change.

So to echo Waterholic, how I choose and interact with my friends may be entirely different than the way it was done 20 years or 200 years or 2000 years ago. But the insight is Epicurus is that the goal is pleasure in a life that is all too short, and in which there are no divine gods or fate or ideal absolute virtues. If we start with that - which is the heart - then we can adapt Epicurus' suggestions as to how to live prudently to fit our own circumstances.

Thank you Kasolsyni!

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In that regard 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.

1. "Epicurus and His Philosophy" by Norman DeWitt
2. The Biography of Epicurus by Diogenes Laertius. This includes the surviving letters of Epicurus, including those to Herodotus, Pythocles, and Menoeceus.
3. "On The Nature of Things" - by Lucretius (a poetic abridgement of Epicurus' "On Nature"
4. "Epicurus on Pleasure" - By Boris Nikolsky
5. The chapters on Epicurus in Gosling and Taylor's "The Greeks On Pleasure."
6. Cicero's "On Ends" - Torquatus Section
7. Cicero's "On The Nature of the Gods" - Velleius Section
8. The Inscription of Diogenes of Oinoanda - Martin Ferguson Smith translation
9. A Few Days In Athens" - Frances Wright
10. Lucian Core Texts on Epicurus: (1) Alexander the Oracle-Monger, (2) Hermotimus
11. Philodemus "On Methods of Inference" (De Lacy version, including his appendix on relationship of Epicurean canon to Aristotle and other Greeks)
12. "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.

Welcome to the forum!

Waterholic thanks for the very interesting post. (Just FYI I edited it only to remove the color attribute from the Russell quote so it would be readable on a dark theme.)

It's 2am for me as I type this so I will respond further later when I think more!

Given the references at wikipedia include Aldous Huxley and other pretty recognizable names which makes it sound like this is a term in more common use than those of us here (me anyway!) seem to realize, sounds like Kalosyni wins the educational post prize for the day!

As to "perennial philosophy" - a term new to me - Yikes!!!

I just woke up and had to insert my normal sourness for Buddhism. :-). I knew you were fine yourself. Carry on! (But not necessarily calmly)

I think I recently quipped that just because the Stoics say it doesn't make it necessarily wrong. And the same would go for the Buddhists. But:

Quote from Don

The last 4 paragraphs are great! I think Buddhists would say "to want less, to control and tamp down our desires" is the right track

The right track to what?

It begins to become more apparent how phrasing things in terms of "frugal hedonism" and "abundance" - rather than unmodified "pleasure" or the absence of reference to supernatural forces or life after death can end up leading to both very divergent goals and paths. It's very easy to place modifier words on pleasure that change the focus entirely. I could easily imagine "responsible pleasure" or "noble pleasure" would suit the Stoics.

I think Diogenes of Oinoanda would have shouted at least as much at the Buddhists as he would at the Stoics, and very possibly more loudly.

Sounds like the book has food for thought for living more self-sufficiently but contains much peril for those who are not clear about why they might want to do so.

And as used by Thomas Jefferson -

The Earth Belongs in Usufruct to the Living | The Papers of Thomas Jefferson

Prudent YOLO I guess! It's strictly true that we only live once, so that isn't the issue.

And I think it's just clearly wrong to say the "longest life" per the letter to Menoeceus.

So we're left with "the most pleasant in subjective terms" i guess!

So maybe even prudent YOLO does not get to the heart of it quickly - I best we can get more suggestions on the right modifier if we get creative - but it needs to be something about the "most pleasant"

Strictly speaking I don't have any problem with "you only live once" but I gather the connotations of recklessness are top in everyone's minds.

"Epicurus taught YOLO but not the YOLO That You Are Familiar With." -- added per suggestion from Don - thanks

This list probably deserves a thread of its own so it can be extended and potentially reused on occasion in the future, rather than to buried in the middle of, and hijacking, the "Frugal Hedonism" thread. I wrote it as part of arguing the point that this method does *not* seem to me to be the best approach to explaining Epicurus, but it certainly has its uses. I bet others can think of corrections and even better examples:

1. Epicurus was a hedonist in that he believed pleasure to be the greatest good BUT he did not always pursue every choice that might produce pleasure.
2. Epicurus held that tranquility is a great pleasure BUT not that tranquility is the goal toward which all else aims.
3. Epicurus taught that pain was "evil" BUT he did not teach that pain should always be avoided.
4. Epicurus was an atheist BUT not the kind you think - he believed that gods do exist.
5. Epicurus believed that gods exist BUT not the kind of gods you think.
6. Epicurus was an empiricist of a sort BUT many of his most important conclusions were based on deductive reasoning about things he never personally experienced himself.
7. Epicurus held many positions that will strike you as Utilitarian BUT he did not believe in "the greatest good for the greatest number."
8. Epicurus was highly skeptical of claims of authority BUT he took strong positions himself about things that he believed to be provably true.
9. Epicurus was in many ways a frugalist BUT not always and it's important to know the exceptions.
10. Epicurus believed in virtue BUT not that it is an end in itself.
11. Epicurus held that "all sensations are true" BUT not that every sensation is accurate to all the facts.
12. Epicurus held that death is nothing to us BUT not that the manner and time of death is not significant.
13. Epicurus held that friendship is tremendously important for our happiness BUT Epicurus was not an "altruist" as that word is generally understood.
14. Epicurus taught YOLO BUT the YOLO That You Are Familiar With. (Don)

The "but" in many cases totally overrides the initial point, BUT this format can be a good way of starting off in some circumstances.

Thank you Plantpierogi and yes please extend the existing conversation on the book anytime you are ready!