Posts by Cassius

Not to go too far on a tangent, but I am aware of two new free competitors in this space that seem very useful. At the moment I am preferring Obsidian, but LOGSEQ is very similar and does many of the same things.

Obsidian is more suitable for narrative compositions of several paragraphs as the basic unit of work, while Logseq is oriented toward outlining in which each point of the outline is the basic unit of work. If you're manipulating paragraphs then maybe obsidian works best; if you're manipulating bulleted outlines logseq has more features.

But both have the ability to produce formatted slides from the data.

Episode 168 Is Now Available! Don joins us again as we begin our discussion of Chapter 10

No - Obsidian is an electron app which is cross-platform and therefore runs on windows, linux, and apple. There are even smartphone versions.

While editing this episode I want to highlight Don's comment to the effect that the words "choosing and avoiding" probably do not adequately convey the "action" quality of what is being discussed. In English, both words (and maybe particularly "avoiding") carry a subtle implication of a sort of detached or hesitant quality. Don used the example that avoiding sounds mundane, as in avoiding a mud puddle. Another example that comes to my mind is that it sounds like someone walking slowly past a buffet of food daintily picking an olive here or avoiding a cheese there.

Don makes the point that these words probably carry in the Greek a more intense quality - like "fleeing' or even "rejecting" and that he prefers "choose and reject" to 'choose and avoid."

I am not sure I really picked up this point in the times that Don has brought it up in the past but hearing the point spoken was more effective in causing me to appreciate it, and it definitely sounds right to me. There's an intensity to Epicurus that can be easy to miss given the associations of the word "pleasure" and I think Don is clearly right.

Wecome DonnieFowler !

Note: In order to minimize spam registrations, all new registrants must respond in this thread to this welcome message within 72 hours of its posting, or their account is subject to deletion. All that is required is a "Hello!" but of course we hope you will introduce yourself -- tell us a little about yourself and what prompted your interest in Epicureanism -- and/or post a question.

This forum is the place for students of Epicurus to coordinate their studies and work together to promote the philosophy of Epicurus. Please remember that all posting here is subject to our Community Standards / Rules of the Forum our Not Neo-Epicurean, But Epicurean and our Posting Policy statements and associated posts.

Please understand that the leaders of this forum are well aware that many fans of Epicurus may have sincerely-held views of what Epicurus taught that are incompatible with the purposes and standards of this forum. This forum is dedicated exclusively to the study and support of people who are committed to classical Epicurean views. As a result, this forum is not for people who seek to mix and match some Epicurean views with positions that are inherently inconsistent with the core teachings of Epicurus.

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.

One way you can be most assured of your time here being productive is to tell us a little about yourself and personal your background in reading Epicurean texts. It would also be helpful if you could tell us how you found this forum, and any particular areas of interest that you have which would help us make sure that your questions and thoughts are addressed.

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).

Welcome to the forum!

•  Edit

Thanks again for the comments.

The lengthier comments may end up being best with a hyperlink to another location, but I should have mentioned earlier that this format has another feature:

When you are in the web window for the slideshow, you can press "S" on your keyboard and up will pop a "Presenter" page which features several extra things -

- a clock

- a timer (so you will know how long you are talking

- a panel for the "next slide" so you will know what you are about to talk about when you finish the current slide

- a panel for the current slide

- a NOTES section, where speaker notes can be included and used for the talk.

I think the intended use is perhaps to have two monitors, or if you are using a screen capture program, to capture the main panel only while you use the others to help your talk.

So for the moment I have add longer suggestions such as what Don wrote on Philodemus to the "speaker notes" section, which can be used as a reminder when giving the presentation.

I planned to record an audio track and then post the resulting video to youtube, but I haven't had time to get that done yet.

In the meantime and on into the future, i think that things like this could be helpful to those who might want to make their own videos or just get some practice in explaining things to others.

I should mention that this was prepared using the free Obsidian.md program, which not only makes it easy to produce an outline but also generates the slides.

Thanks for the suggestions so far! That's what we are doing, always looking to fine tune.

The slide feature is rather neat and has a feature for adding "notes' for each slide to assist in a presenter using the slides to give a talk. We can work on those too over time to allow for points that don't make it into the main outline.

And it's also easy to add hyperlinks .

So think of this one as more of a presentation aid in giving a talk, and an aid in thinking about what are the most important points to build out into longer presentations.

As part of our collaborative work toward an "Epicurean Week" we have come up with a series of "power-point" slides which introduce the philosophy in seven simple steps. The formulation here may change over time as we fine tune this as part of our course materials. This will eventually be expanded into a "7 Weeks with Epicurus". Questions and comments are welcome. Click here for the presentation or you can just click on the graphic above to begin the presentation.

There is a great deal of good information, which leads to explanation of why Epicurus disagreed with Democritus on a number of key things, in this article:

Democritus (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

The article points out that there is a lot of controversy about what Democrtus was really saying, but to the extent that he was interpreted to be saying that things which we perceive at the macroscopic level are "unreal," it is easy to see why Epicurus would object to that. Sedley's summary that Epicurus was holding that that there are two levels - microscopic and macroscopic for shorthand - and that neither level has a monopoly on truth seems to me to be pretty good phrasing of Epicurus's position.

Quotes from the article:

He famously denies that perceptible qualities other than shape and size (and, perhaps, weight) really exist in the atoms themselves: one direct quotation surviving from Democritus claims that ‘by convention sweet and by convention bitter, by convention hot, by convention cold, by convention color; but in reality atoms and void’ (DK 68B9, trans. Taylor 1999a).

While several reports of Democritus’ view, apparently direct quotations, mention exclusively sensible qualities as being unreal, a report of Plutarch includes in the list of things that exist only by convention the notion of ‘combination’ or sunkrisis. If this report is genuinely Democritean, it would broaden the scope of the claim considerably: the idea that any combination—by which he presumably means any cluster of atoms—is ‘unreal’ or merely ‘conventional’ suggests that Democritus is drawing a more radical distinction than that between sensible and nonsensible qualities. The implication would be that anything perceived, because it is a perception of combinations of atoms and not atoms themselves, would be suspect, not merely the qualia experienced by means of individual sense organs. One report indeed attributes to Democritus a denial that two things could become one, or vice versa (DK 68A42), thus suggesting that combinations are regarded as conventional.

However, Furley concedes that Plutarch at least understands the earliest atomists to be committed to the view that all combinations of atoms, as much as sensible qualities, should be understood as conventional rather than real (Furley 1993 pp. 76–7n7). This would suggest that everything at the macroscopic level—or, strictly, everything available to perception—is regarded as unreal.

Welcome @Steven1300 !

Note: In order to minimize spam registrations, all new registrants must respond in this thread to this welcome message within 72 hours of its posting, or their account is subject to deletion. All that is required is a "Hello!" but of course we hope you will introduce yourself -- tell us a little about yourself and what prompted your interest in Epicureanism -- and/or post a question.

• This forum is the place for students of Epicurus to coordinate their studies and work together to promote the philosophy of Epicurus. Please remember that all posting here is subject to our Community Standards / Rules of the Forum our Not Neo-Epicurean, But Epicurean and our Posting Policy statements and associated posts.

  Please understand that the leaders of this forum are well aware that many fans of Epicurus may have sincerely-held views of what Epicurus taught that are incompatible with the purposes and standards of this forum. This forum is dedicated exclusively to the study and support of people who are committed to classical Epicurean views. As a result, this forum is not for people who seek to mix and match some Epicurean views with positions that are inherently inconsistent with the core teachings of Epicurus.

  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.

  One way you can be most assured of your time here being productive is to tell us a little about yourself and personal your background in reading Epicurean texts. It would also be helpful if you could tell us how you found this forum, and any particular areas of interest that you have which would help us make sure that your questions and thoughts are addressed.

  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).

  
  

  Welcome to the forum!

  
  

  

  

  

  • 
    

Welcome to Episode 169 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 continue our discussion of Chapter 10, entitled "The New Freedom."

• Necessity And Fortune
• Freedom And Fortune

VS09. Necessity is an evil, but there is no necessity to live under the control of necessity.

VS40. The man who says that all things come to pass by necessity cannot criticize one who denies that all things come to pass by necessity: for he admits that this too happens of necessity

An important cite to Lucretius to include in this discussion:

This is an important topic that bleeds over into epistemology / canonics, but given how closely it is related to atomism it needs a thread here. I will try to go through the forum and crossreference threads to Democritus' statement about "....in reality, only atoms and void..." and why Epicurus would not have accepted this viewpoint. At the moment, one of the best discussions of this is in David Sedley's "Epicurus's Refutation of Determinism.

Hard to overstate how critical this paragraph is:

As Sedley says, Epicurus rejects "reductionist atomism," in favor of the common sense perspective: "that there are truths at the microscopic level of elementary particles, and further very different truths at the phenomenal level; that the former must be capable of explaining the latter, but that neither level of description has a monopoly of truth.'

Hard to overstate how critical this paragraph is:

As Sedley says, Epicurus rejects "reductionist atomism," in favor of the common sense perspective: "that there are truths at the microscopic level of elementary particles, and further very different truths at the phenomenal level; that the former must be capable of explaining the latter, but that neither level of description has a monopoly of truth.'

This is a particularly clear statement by Sedley of Epicurus' core argument:

Underlying this chapter is an issue that David Sedley covers extremely well in "Epicurus' Refutation of Determinism:

Thread

Sedley: "Epicurus' Refutation of Determinism"

This is the thread for discussion of the Sedley article on Epicurus' Refutation of Determinism. This is BY FAR the best treatment of this subject I have ever read, and I highly recommend it to everyone who participates in this forum.

David Sedley is an outstanding scholar who is generally very sympathetic to Epicurus, and this article brings together the familiar passages from Lucretius with Sedley's interpretations of Herculaneum fragments from Epicurus' "On Nature." The result is a persuasive…

Cassius

June 3, 2020 at 8:43 AM

It is in this article that Sedley says that the swerve of the atom was likely not deduced from its necessity in cosmos-building but from its use in combating determinism:

A famous text we will likely include tomorrow: Cassius to Brutus:

Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world

Like a Colossus, and we petty men

Walk under his huge legs and peep about

To find ourselves dishonorable graves.

Men at some time are masters of their fates.

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,

But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene II [Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world] by William Shakespeare - Poems | poets.org

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