This episode will be recorded on 2/19 and it is going to be one of our most challenging, so all readers please feel free to make comments or suggestions on your latest thoughts on "anticipations." We'll obviously steer our discussion but the DeWitt text, but we'll also try to include at the very least the article by Voula Tsouna focusing on her and David Sedley's views on the topic. Link:
Welcome to Episode 162 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're 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."
Sensations
Epicurus Not An Empiricist
Anticipations
The Account of Laertius
The Element of Anticipation
Evidences From Specific Context
Later Evidences
Feelings
This week we continue in Chapter 8 and move to the subsection "Anticipations."
Obviously not a super priority but it would be very interesting over time to trace down these medial documents, in all the different languages, to see what they were saying.
Especially when the author of the book has a career in Academia and the balancing act that entails.
Probably appropriate to remember Lucian's comment about the Epicurean who challenged Aristotle the Oracle Monger - what business did he have being the only sane man in a roomful of dangerous folks - or something to that effect 
That's the kind of line Joshua can quote off the top of his head at the spur of the moment but I can only paraphrase!
"...In the end, though, Epicurus might oversell" (emphasis added)
Like Nate, I haven't read back to the full context, so take this extra comment with a grain of salt too: But I recall when reading the book thinking that the author was trying to both provide the most aggressive defense of "pleasure" that I have seen from an academic since Norman DeWitt, while still trying to avoid being "lynched."
And so in this case I read that wording as an attempt to be compassionate to those who are (in my view) so out of touch with reality that they think that magic bullets are possible. Probably there are better ways to state my last sentence but I read the "might" as an attempt to soften the blow for those who are in really bad circumstances, rather than a charge against Epicurus.
Interesting that Burley says "he said that pleasure is the highest good." Does Diogenes Laertius' commentary state it that way aside from including the letter to Menoeceus? almost sounds like there his quoting Torquatus' formulation.
One aspect of that which I think is important Waterholic is that Epicurean philosophy isn't magic, and you can't just repeat an incantation and automatically be healed or changed in the blink of an eye. Successful results in any procedure can't be guaranteed because the universe is not deterministic or fated, and there are no gods or mechanisms that prevent unexpected events from happening or which can necessarily overturn motions already in place. Many of the people who are shown the benefits of an approach are simply not willing, or sometimes not capable, of following it.
So when discussing whether something is "oversold" it seems to me that a lot of the issue is in the expectations of the person hearing the advice, in that they are looking for things which are not possible to deliver.
Do we also think that the Vatican sayings numberings were added later?
My reservation on that would be the latter part of PD01 where neither anger not favor/gratitude affects the one who is blessed and incorruptible. Epicurus is clear that gratitude is important for humans to live a pleasurable life.
That's a very good point, Don. That would mean that the subtlety would have to extend to the observation that because men are not gods, they are subject to anger and favor, both of which are necessary to sustain their lives at times given that we do not live in the intermundia.
Perhaps related to this is that I have always found it interesting that Diskin Clay, in his article on Epicurus' last will and testament, suggested that this PDO1 was really one of the Twelve Fundamentals (in which he agreed with many of DeWitt's suggestions but not all). I can definitely see an analogy to atoms in that an atom has no possibility of being "weak" and breaking apart, and there therefore selfsufficient, but on the other hand atoms are not gods - there's just that analogy that they are not weak.
So in pointing out correctly that gratitude (and I would say anger/ability to use force against at least some types of enemies too as per PD06) is in fact a necessary part of human life, this is perhaps the offsetting balance against the first assertion that a perfect being knows no trouble and give no trouble (why "trouble" and not "pain"?), like many of the other doctrines seem to start with an assertion and then finish with a second "offsetting" assertion.
PD08. No pleasure is a bad thing in itself; but the means which produce some pleasures bring with them disturbances many times greater than the pleasures.
PD09. If every pleasure could be intensified so that it lasted, and influenced the whole organism or the most essential parts of our nature, pleasures would never differ from one another.
And as Kalosyni mentioned in terms of "getting back to the original question" there is something odd about the way the list is written. Epicurus obviously could string together a narrative such as in his letters. How did this document end up being so disjointed? And as per the original question too, it would have been so easy to lift from the letter the Meneouceus or presumably many other places as statement like: "We recognize pleasure as the first good innate in us, and from pleasure we begin every act of choice and avoidance, and to pleasure we return again, using the feeling as the standard by which we judge every good."
Even if PD01 is dual purpose as per this recent exchange, why is that ethical point not stated more explicitly? Would Epicurus himself likely have left it out?
It's almost like Kalosyni said that the document has been lifted from some other context without an introduction (such as Torquatus gave when he started talking about the best life) .
Surely there are articles out there that make this comparison so I will see what I can find.
I would certainly not suggest that PDO1 is not of relevance to the gods, but if it in fact has wider application, then the aspect that relates to the gods would be only a part of the intended meaning, and maybe not the most important part.
Do not in fact every one of the other principal doctrines refer to human affairs? Maybe the primary Epicurean contentions about the gods are as stated in Herodotus and Pythocles as a matter of physics, the important aspect of which is that the gods are not supernatural and did not create the universe. If one sees PDO1 as only a statement about the nature of the gods alone, that would make it an exception to the subject of all the rest. Epicurus shows in the letter to Menoeceus that he very capable of being clear about the nature of the gods being different from what we think of them.
And I would relate this to another opinion that I think a lot of people here would share, especially when we consider Lucian's "True Story."
Can anyone here see Epicurus as being the kind of person who would say: "Humans do not have wings so they will never fly?" Lucian thought of humans going to the moon, so why would Epicurus lock himself into a position of declaring that it is "impossible" for beings elsewhere in the universe, even in other "worlds" to travel between them? We know that he accepting the idea that we receive images of the gods, apparently from the intermundia. I would say that the central important theme of Epicurean philosophy is that the gods are not supernatural and did not create the universe, and that Epicurus would not lock himself into stating flatly that beings on other planets/worlds, like Lucian envisioned as to the moon, might not be capable of traveling around between them.
So there are numerous ways of coming at this, but the bottom line is I see no reason not to interpret PD01 as applicable to all life everywhere, of which both we and the gods are but natural parts, and not just a reference for not "fearing" the gods -- especially since the reverse - benefiting from their images - seems to be an important part of Epicurean philosophy but is not mentioned in PD01.
And from the letter to Menoeceus passage translated as Please is the alpha and Omega of the blessed life...". Same word?
And if so that would mean that each of the descriptors if the beings referenced in PD01, which commentators seem to consider as referencing only gods, are also terms that Epicurus uses when discussing humans?
Combine these comments with those we have repeatedly made that the numbering is later addition and induces an artificial sense of separation between the lines and the possibilities for deeper interpretation of PD01 are intriguing.
We don't talk about it often, maybe in part because it seems "over the top," but that "live as a god among men" reference surely could be related to this too.
So what about the word translated as "blessed?". Does it have connotations so strong that it cannot be applied to humans? If "immortal" can be applied to human activities, then can "blessed" be less flexible?
121] Two sorts of happiness (eudaimonia) can be conceived, the one the highest possible, such as the gods enjoy, which cannot be augmented, the other admitting addition and subtraction of pleasures.
I wonder if that means that the happiness that the gods enjoy is necessarily greater that the top level that can be enjoyed by non-gods. Meaning, just because the happiness of the gods never increases or decreases, does that mean that the top level enjoyable by non gods is less than that when it is at its top level?
Further and rephrased: I wonder if that passage about competing with the gods for happiness indicates that the changing level available to non-gods, when it is at its highest level, can be equal the unchanging level of the gods, with the only difference being the limitation in time available to the non-gods?
Don, as our resident Greek expert, what is your assessment of the possibility that PD01 is not a reference to the gods alone, but is intended to be a reference to the best life for humans as well as gods, and thus serves as a reference to pleasure (the opposite of pain as stated in PDO3) being the goal?
Also as to the possibility that PDO1 is intended to refer to more than just the Epicurean gods even though the term "immortal" is used, there is this:
VS78. The noble soul occupies itself with wisdom and friendship; of these, the one is a mortal good, the other immortal.
It is observed too that in his treatise On the Ethical End he writes in these
terms11 : "I know not how to conceive the good, apart from the pleasures of taste, sexual pleasures, the pleasures of sound and the pleasures of beautiful form."
Very good observation!
I don't know that we have discussed this before, but I think the long title of the thread states an interesting question worthy of exploration:
"What Are The Possible Reasons (And Of These, The Most Likely) Why The List of 40 Principal Doctrines Does Not Feature A Statement Explicitly Stating Pleasure To Be The Goal of Life?"
Before we settle on one or more as the most likely, it would be very helpful to see if we can come up with a list of reasonable possibilities. I doubt it makes sense to try to separate "goal" from "greatest good" in this discussion, in part because it's also interesting to note that neither "ataraxia" or "katastematic pleasure" or any other term which some might promote are explicitly stated to be the goal or greatest good either.
Of these, I have traditionally considered (5) to be among the most likely, but I am not at all sure that I don't favor many of the others in this preliminary list as equally or more possible, and I am sure I have not exhausted the good possibilities.
This is only a very preliminary list intended to spur discussion. We may not have talked about this all that much, but it is certainly a question that a newcomer to Epicurus would ask, and it deserves the best answer we can give to it.
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Two more notes on this;
1 - From the same Wikipedia article, we see that empiricism is closely related to Pyrhhonic skepticism, which was something Epicurus was firmly against (or at least modified considerably):
The earliest Western proto-empiricists were the empiric school of ancient Greek medical practitioners, founded in 330 BCE.[15] Its members rejected the doctrines of the dogmatic school, preferring to rely on the observation of phantasiai (i.e., phenomena, the appearances).[16] The Empiric school was closely allied with the Pyrrhonist school of philosophy, which made the philosophical case for their proto-empiricism.
2 - It is interesting to note that the Wikipedia article discusses Aristotle at length, as well as the Stoics, but makes no mention of Epicurus.
