Posts by Cassius

kochiekoch so we can keep things organized but still capture the widest list, what do you consider to be the key aspects of "Platonism" that Epicurus was against?

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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 other viewpoints, 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 by our community of happy living through the principles of Epicurean philosophy.

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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.

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

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Another observation in unraveling this, spurred by our recent discussion of Cyreniacs:

Chrysippus came after Epicurus, but that does not mean that he was responding specifically to Epicurus. Presumably he could have been responding to the earlier Aristippus/Cyreniacs, against whom his argument is valid, and ignoring Epicurus.

So from Chrysippus' point of view, If the guiding principle of life is the stimulative pleasure the Cyreniacs advocated, and if there are large segments of time when stimulative pleasure is not present at all, then to what are we to look during those times? Who needs or can depend on a guide which is not present?

Not that this really adds anything to the conversation but depending on who is talking to whom Chysippus could have been entirely pleased and convinced of his own argument if he was for some reason not intending to deal with Epicurus.

And to that extent Chrysippus and Epicurus would have been in agreement: both saw the flaw in the Cyreniac logic, but only Epicurus was motivated to correct it by expanding the definition of pleasure.

I like to regularly make lists to prioritize my thinking, and here is one of interest today: What are the major categories of errors that Epicurus held to be particularly worthy of campaigning against? Often it is easier to categorize negatively rather than to set things out positively and so the following is a list of obvious candidates - without concern as to order.

What else would you add to complete the sentence: Epicurus campaigned primarily against _______________:

• Supernatural Religion
• Life After Death
• Skepticism
• Determinism
• Rationalism (Misrepresentation of the Proper Perspective Toward "Logic")
• Misinterpretation of How To Treat Pleasure and Pain
• Misrepresentation of "Virtue" / "Being a Good Person" as the goal of life, rather than the means

Some of these that I have listed are related (Skepticism / Rationalism and Supernatural Religion/Life After Death are obviously tied together), but I think they are separate enough to address individually.

It would be helpful to get suggestions and see what people think as a way of fine-tuning the list. For example when first writing the list I left out "life after death." Any other major targets missing?

As another aspect, It seems to me that all of the practical advice about pleasure and pain and desires and choices and avoidances really falls under the single category of dealing properly with pleasure and pain. That category title might need rewording, but it seems to me that all the natural and necessary and other analysis issues like that are really subsets of how to apply pleasure and pain in decisionmaking, which seems to me to be how the Torquatus material presents them - as a single unit of how people make mistakes with pleasure and pain.

Thanks for those comments.

So it appears that the Cyreniacs like Democritus were stuck in skepticism.

It would also be interesting to know if the Cyreniacs were stuck in determinism, and if so that would make them twins with Democritus in having both of those major flaws which Epicurus rejected.

Every time we go back into the Cyreniacs it impresses me that we can learn from them to fill in likely gaps in our knowledge of Epicurus, after we adjust for Epicurean reasoning. I see no reason, for example, that Epicurus would not have embraced the "smooth motion" perspective as the ultimate basis of pleasure, even though I don't think that is explicitly stated in the texts we have today. (Or is it - is something like that in Lucretius?)

It is as if Epicurus studied both the Cyreniacs and Democritus and explicitly went about purging them of skepticism and determinism, placing the final result on a much more sound logical footing. The glue that sticks it all together seems to be the epistemology of placing priority on what our faculties reveal to us, as just as real (more real) than speculation without evidence. Epicurus always traces out logical conclusions tied to observations, and never letts rationalism (speculation without real-world evidence) contradict and spoil the result.

Does not look like there is an awful lot in Diogenes Laertius but i extracted this:

Lives of the Eminent Philosophers/Book II - Wikisource, the free online library

- They affirm that mental affections can be known, but not the objects from which they come; and they abandoned the study of nature because of its apparent uncertainty, but fastened on logical inquiries because of their utility. But Meleager in his second book On Philosophical Opinions, and Clitomachus in his first book On the Sects, affirm that they maintain Dialectic as well as Physics to be useless, since, when one has learnt the theory of good and evil, it is possible to speak with propriety, to be free from superstition, and to escape the fear of death. 93. They also held that nothing is just or honourable or base by nature, but only by convention and custom. Nevertheless the good man will be deterred from wrong-doing by the penalties imposed and the prejudices that it would arouse. Further that the wise man really exists. They allow progress to be attainable in philosophy as well as in other matters. They maintain that the pain of one man exceeds that of another, and that the senses are not always true and trustworthy.

- [ Hegesians] They also disallow the claims of the senses, because they do not lead to accurate knowledge. Whatever appears rational should be done. They affirmed that allowance should be made for errors, for no man errs voluntarily, but under constraint of some suffering;

Sounds like Voula Tsouna is the place to go on this.

A reader at the Facebook group has asked:

I'd be interested in a comparison between the Epicurean and the Cyrenaic epistemology (not ethics):

What would be the similarities and differences?

Probably a topic worth tracking here, with Diogenes Laertius the place to start.

Just watched the video -- very good - thanks for posting.

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I didn't listen to the voiceover but I recall watching that in the past and coming away thinking that the size of the junkyard was intended to correlate with the size of the garden. If Don is correct as I suspect he is then that's part of the impression that needs to change. Better to get a drone up in the air to show the full area.

I think this is a really good example of what we'd like to do here. This isn't scholarship for the sake of scholarship, it's scholarship so we an make practical advances in our application of the philosophy of Epicurus. And dispelling the idea that the Epicureans were living like secluded hermits far away from the life of Athens is something that needs to change.

Thanks to Don for all the hard work on the article and for presenting a condensed version by video. The article can be downloaded here:

File

Where was the Garden of Epicurus? The Evidence from the Ancient Sources and Archaeology

While we will probably never know the exact location of Epicurus’s Garden in ancient Athens, we can take a number of educated guesses.

Don

April 19, 2023 at 11:10 PM

Welcome to Episode 171 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who wrote "On The Nature of Things," the only 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 you will find a discussion thread for each of our podcast episodes and many other topics.

We are now in the process of a series of podcasts intended to provide a general overview of Epicurean philosophy based on the organizational structure employed by Norman DeWitt in his book "Epicurus and His Philosophy."

This week we begin our discussion of Chapter 11, entitled "Soul, Sensation, and Mind."

• The Body A Vessel
• Cosensitivity Of Soul And Body
• Rational And Irrational Soul
• The Workings Of Sensation
• Vision
• Hearing
• Mind As A Supersense
• Emotional Impulses
• Motor Impulses
• Mind

Don has agreed that if he is able to attend that he will give us a presentation on his new "Location of the Garden" article so that is additional incentive to attend!

That's a good reminder of the need to pay attention to words and how they are understood:

To the extent the "truth" being opposed is held to be truth solely because it is "accepted" - Epicurus clearly would come under that heading, but on the other hand to the extent "truth" is denied because there is nothing fundamental, or that knowledge or morality or value or meaning are impossible, he clearly would not.

We always have to be careful to be sure that we are being understood clearly.

Reference to Chrysippus vs Epicurus in writing, and to the statue in the Ceramicus - plus the meaning of Chrysippus' name! (as Don points out below - a pun!)

The issue could also be a ridiculous play on words and logic like Chrysippus was known for, but if so that's exactly the kind of explanation we ought to try to understand. What is the logic of the question?

I am surprised to find that there don't seem to be any academic articles devoted to this hand question.

But maybe we need to be prepared to find a number of surprising things - such as that Chrysippus is alleged to have died of laughter, and that he was extremely arrogant (the latter is not surprising). This below from Diogenes Laertius (Yonge

Quote from Don

btw I applaud Cassius 's optimism in calling this the definitive thread

Definitive because this time we will pursue this as long as it takes!