Posts by Cassius

Episode 181 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available!

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:

VS12. The just man is most free from disturbance, while the unjust is full of the utmost disturbance. ^[5]

VS13. Of all the things which wisdom acquires to produce the blessedness of the complete life, far the greatest is the possession of friendship.

2 - Our Special Topic

Aside from general guidance to follow pleasure and avoid pain, is there anything in Epicurean philosophy that tells a particular person what particular pleasure to choose or pain to avoid at any particular time. In other words, this is a variation of the old question: "Is one pleasure or activity in itself 'better' than another?" Is it possible to come up with a coherent analysis of how we would recommend a particular person at a particular time to proceed? Is all we can say is "It's contextual and up to you!" Or is there more for which we can find justification in the Epicurean texts?

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.

Quote from Don

Are you calling me a fundamentalist??

If the ancient Epicureans can praisingly and productively call entities who are neither supernatural nor omniscient nor omnipotent (and probably not inherently deathless either) "gods" -

and if the ancient Epicureans can call the normal and natural and pain-free [state of] functioning of the mind and body "pleasure" -

and if the ancient Epicureans can call "virtue" whatever tools lead us to happy living -

then I can easily productively and praisingly call you a "fundamentalist," in the best sense of the word!

Quote from Don

The translations should really be something like: One must laugh and - at the same time - pursue the love wisdom, administer the rest of one's household affairs,...

If you start detecting patterns on who seems to follow your literalist interpretations most regularly, please be sure to say so.

Thanks for your thoughts, Blank_emu!

To some extent the issue is privacy, but maybe to an equal extent the issue is avoiding be "deplatformed" or having your existing message base deleted at the whim of someone or some entity that decides it doesn't like you.

I don't see us as a target of that kind of problem anytime soon, but that doesn't mean that having things as best as possible under one's own control isn't desirable.

This is definitely a changing field and it looks like you stay on top of it so please update as you think helpful.

As a note while editing this week's podcast, in the first ten minutes Don gives and excellent quote from Aristotle about how one becomes just by doing such things. My attention was distracted until the middle and by the time I realized what a good quote it was I was no longer sure where it came from, and I didn't follow up on it like I should have - it's an excellent example of how circular the standard non-Epicurean view of virtue really is.

Don said it was from Nichomachean ethics so I hope we can get a direct cite for the show notes.

The individual subforums for the Vatican Sayings have been sitting mostly unused for eight years, and they have come close to be deleted several times since it takes time to scroll through 70+ forums. But that was before we met Don and his badger-like investigations into the Greek texts, so I am happy to say that I am in the process of making sure every one is "unlocked" so the task of Norman DeWitt - and his protege Don Boozer, who both seek "less emended" texts - can continue!

All kidding aside thank you Don for all your work!

The "Vatican List" of Sayings

Unlocking and moving this now!!!

(Just set up this thread for Don's latest post)

Quote from Don

I would take that that friendship is so important, one can barely conceive of its importance.

A good caution for those who:

1 - Tend to be overly introverted (a common trait here including me!)

2 - Think that Epicurus had nothing to say about social organization ("politics").

Admin Note:

Because I am a fast learner (sarcasm) it has taken me only eight years to discover that the forum software allows footnoting in "Lexicon" entries, but not in normal pages or posts. I am therefore converting the master copies of our Principal Doctrines and Vatican Sayings to Lexicon entries, and the top menu (under texts) now takes you to those locations. No doubt there are other links here on the forum to the existing pages, so I will leave the old ones in place (at least for a while) while we convert links.

I will substitute this version of VS78 for the ones we are discussing in the master list, and also in our separate forum for VS78, and I will move this thread to that location if it is not already there. [Oops it is there - good planning by Onenski!]

Thanks to Onenski again for this observation - had we had it last night we might have further extended the discussion on how this fits with "Are we living like the gods yet?"

For example as to the difference between wisdom and friendship, I can see how wisdom is "understandable" (goes with the territory) but I don't always understand my friends!

Said another way, with friends I consider the pleasure that comes from having friends to be "godlike" even though I don't always understand them!

Quote from Don

Well, would you look at that! It was hiding in DeWitt (p. 226) all along!

Looks like Don and DeWitt share some similar goals!

What do you think Don?

If anyone tracks this reference to Hartel down please let us know. Thanks Onenski! To me that actually would make more sense. Seeing a contrast between moral and immortal is natural, but calling wisdom "mortal" does seem a little hard to follow the meaning.

The reference in the "Temperance" section of Cicero's Pro Caelio apparently refers to this (from Perseus). I gather DeWitt starts out at 18 to provide more context but 40 seems to be the precise reference:

Quote from Cicero - Pro Caelio

[40] The very records which used to contain accounts of that old fashioned strictness of morals, are worn out and that not only among us, who have adopted this school and system of life in reality more than in words, but also among the Greeks most learned men, who, though they could not act in such a manner were nevertheless at liberty to speak and write honourably and magnificently; when the habits of Greece became changed other precepts arose and prevailed. Therefore some of their wise men said that they did everything for the sake of pleasure; and even learned men were not ashamed of the degradation of uttering such a sentiment.

Quote from Don responding to Godfrey

If I understand you correctly, you're saying katastematic pleasure has a longer "shelf life" whereas kinetic pleasures are of (relatively) shorter duration?

Someone will ask: If duration is the difference between katastematic and kinetic, what is the exact dividing line between the two and how is that line philosophically established? Would the time frame be a second, minute, hour, day, or what?

A series of post originall in this thread have been split into a new thread entitled:

Thread

Modern Neuroscience And The Katastematic / Kinetic Debate

[…]



[…]

I address that elsewhere in my translation commentary, but, briefly, even if that's the course taken, I would still stand by something like "those (pleasures) stuck in the enjoyment of (only) those things from outside ourselves."

My take is that this is a direct swipe at the Cyrenaics.

Don

June 29, 2023 at 2:14 PM

Welcome to Episode 181 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 14, entitled "The New Virtues."

Chapter XIV - The New Virtues

• Wisdom
• Temperance
• Courage
• Justice
• Honesty
• Faith
• Love of Mankind
• Friendship
• Suavity
• Considerateness
• Hope
• Attitude Toward the Present
• Gratitude
• Gratitude to Teachers
• Gratitude to Nature
• Gratitude To Friends
• Fruits Of Gratitude

Quote from Don

(I realize this thread has strayed waaaaay off the original topic but this is a good conversation, so I'll let Cassius decide if it needs to be branched off or not)

Do you have a suggestion on where it started branching and how to describe the topic? Are you thinking it's a modern psychology heading?