Posts by Cassius

Torquatus:

XV. The same account will be found to hold good of Courage. The performance of labors, the undergoing of pains, are not in themselves attractive, nor are endurance, industry, watchfulness, nor yet that much lauded virtue, perseverance, nor even courage; but we aim at these virtues in order to live without anxiety and fear and so far as possible to be free from pain of mind and body. The fear of death plays havoc with the calm and even tenor of life, and to bow the head to pain and bear it abjectly and feebly is a pitiable thing; such weakness has caused many men to betray their parents or their friends, some their country, and very many utterly to ruin themselves. So on the other hand a strong and lofty spirit is entirely free from anxiety and sorrow.

It makes light of death, for the dead are only as they were before they were born. It is schooled to encounter pain by recollecting that pains of great severity are ended by death, and slight ones have frequent intervals of respite; while those of medium intensity lie within our own control: we can bear them if they are endurable, or if they are not, we may serenely quit life's theater, when the play has ceased to please us. These considerations prove that timidity and cowardice are not blamed, nor courage and endurance praised, on their own account; the former are rejected because they beget pain, the latter coveted because they beget pleasure.

Good answer Don. As a further extension I also feel compelled (sort of a pun there) to add that there is also the slightly less agreeable (but still true) implication that we are "able to leave when the play has ceased to please us" -- meaning that under truly horrible circumstances there is always the possibility of taking our "final exit."

And yes as I was reading the question I was also thinking that the question was probably aimed at the social implications, but i think it is pretty clear that there is no divine or other conscious intention behind what is. As ccaruth said, these differences just "are." Probably in this context there are other Lucretian passages worth consideration, in that he discusses the personalities / characteristics of different types of animals as arising from the different types of atoms and ways they are combined. That would no doubt apply to humans as well, even though we have more discretion over what to do with our atoms than lower animals do with theirs.

Here's a question I was asked earlier today, along with my first response, which I will post publicly as I am sure others can offer more complete thoughts than these:

Question:

"Do you know of any material on how Epicurus viewed differences from the start of life that are out of our control? For example, a baby being born into a rich family vs. a poor family and having more opportunities, or being born in adverse racial or ethnic or religious or other circumstances? Are these initial differences determined by Nature? I think not because that would imply some divine intervention?"

Response:

That's a good question and at first glance I am not aware of anything "completely" on point but I would point to several things that I think would lead to the answer pretty clearly.

As stated in the letter to Menoeceus and in other fragments Epicurus was against the idea that there is any "necessity" in human affairs, or that the gods intervene to produce their desired results. Therefore I think he would say that yes, there are natural inequalities of circumstances as a result of "accidents" of birth, but no, as you indicate, these circumstances are not determined by any predefined order by the gods or any kind of intentional fate, not directly nor by using "nature" as their tool.

Plus, we know from Lucretius that souls do not wait in line or choosing lots waiting to be born into particular bodies.

Another important thing is that we also know from Lucretius that through the use of human reason we can overcome many prejudices and circumstances. Lucretius indicates that there are natural limits to what can be accomplished through our own actions, and certainly people are born all the time with illnesses or disabilities which have no cure and hobble them for life or lead to early death.

But I think Epicurus would also say that even though many things are fully "accidental" as a result of the swerve of the atoms, there are also many things (and probably even true to say "most" things) that are not fully "accidental." "Most" things in the universe at large are in fact the purely mechanistic result of the atoms moving through the void and bouncing off each other or combining in completely natural ways. In most of those atomic combinations the swerve is not sufficient to break the deterministic "billiard-ball" chain of action and reaction. In support of that I have seen this reference to "law of regular succession" cited from the letter to Herodotus:

"[77] Furthermore, the motions of the heavenly bodies and their turnings and eclipses and risings and settings, and kindred phenomena to these, must not be thought to be due to any being who controls and ordains or has ordained them and at the same time enjoys perfect bliss together with immortality (for trouble and care and anger and kindness are not consistent with a life of blessedness, but these things come to pass where there is weakness and fear and dependence on neighbors). Nor again must we believe that they, which are but fire agglomerated in a mass, possess blessedness, and voluntarily take upon themselves these movements. But we must preserve their full majestic significance in all expressions which we apply to such conceptions, in order that there may not arise out of them opinions contrary to this notion of majesty. Otherwise this very contradiction will cause the greatest disturbance in men’s souls. Therefore we must believe that it is due to the original inclusion of matter in such agglomerations during the birth-process of the world that this law of regular succession is also brought about."

That's the Bailey translation but there are others that I think make that underlined sentence even more clearly indicate that certain things that we might thing of as "inert" matter do in fact conduct their functions in billiard ball fashion, straight from as far back in time as when that particular part of the universe was originally formed.

I should add I think there's also a possible reference (Lucretius?) that the swerve might have been involved in the original formation of worlds in promoting the atoms becoming intertwined in the first place. But I am pretty sure I have also seen it argued persuasively that it isn't logically necessary that the swerve keep happening all the time in order for what we observe to be taking place to occur, so the main observation that leads to the deduction that the swerve exists is the free agency of higher animals.

This is a fascinating topic to me because it involves the issue of "how far does the swerve go in creating indeterminacy?" I think some people take the swerve way too far, and think it means that because atoms can swerve, anything can happen at any time. My view is that that would be an extreme position which cannot possibly be what Epicurus meant. My view comes from one of my favorite Epicurean articles of all time, which is called "Chance and Natural Law in Epicureanism" by A.A. Long. It can be found here: Article Added: A A Long's "Chance and Natural Law in Epicureanism"

I highly recommend that article to anyone who is interested in issues involving determinism or the swerve. The article covers a lot of ground, but the main takeaway I remember from it is that Long concludes from the texts that Epicurus held that the effect of the swerve is very limited: the swerve only "breaks through" to create visible results in our world only in a limited number of circumstances, primarily circumstances involving indeterminacy which we can see for ourselves, like the "free will" of higher animals to make their own decisions. Long argues that if the swerve was so pervasive that we could observe anything happening at any time, that observation (of all events being totally unpredictable) would undermine the entire foundation of atomism. If anything can happen at any time then atomism would be a totally untenable position and totally incapable of explaining the very many instances of the regular mechanistic workings of nature.

There's also an article by David Sedley which comes from another angle. Sedley suggests that the swerve really was not a physics position in the first place, but a deduction from human free will that was grafted back into the physics later, rather than emerging from as starting point in the physics. If I recall correctly, the Sedley article would be consistent with the Long article in limiting the indeterminacy caused by the swerve. In both arguments, even though the majority of things that happen in the universe are not "intended" by anyone or anything -- they do happen in a mechanistic and predictable fashion.

To summarize looking back at the original question: "Yes - determined by Nature" but "No - not as the result of any intentional or conscious plans by gods or nature."

If anyone else has any comments on this question please add them!

Welcome to Episode One Hundred Fifty-Two 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'll walk you through the ancient Epicurean texts, and we'll 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."

This week we are going to speed through the early development of the school before we turn to detailed treatment of individual philosophical topics:

Chapter VI - The New Education

• Intro -
  • Contrasts with Platonic education
  • New emphasis in rhetoric
  • Rejection of dialectic and mathematics
• The Heavenly Apocalypse
  • Flight of the mind through the universe
• The Tour of the Universe
  • the "journey" or "tour"
• The Use of The Epitome
• The New Textbooks

Quote from Norman DeWitt:

THE new school in Athens began to offer to the Greek world an integrated program of education consisting of the Canon, Physics, and Ethics. This was supported by specially prepared textbooks and eventually by graded texts. It was designed to rival the Platonic program, which was then suffering a recession from the high peak of popularity to which it had risen spectacularly during the lifetime of its founder.

This Platonic program consisted of music and gymnastic, inherited from the Athenian past; of rhetoric, which had been introduced by the sophists; and of dialectic and mathematics, especially geometry, which were the addition of Plato himself.

Toward every component of this prevailing education the attitude of Epicurus was determined by the nature of the objective adopted for his own program. This objective was not the production of a good citizen but a happy and contented man. For practical purposes this happiness was defined as health of mind and health of body. The famous prayer for mens Sana in corpore sano, "a sound mind in a sound body," recommended by Juvenal, is genuine Epicureanism.

Just in case we go through these Welcome threads looking for spam and decide to delete those who never responded to the welcome message, this is to note that @TaasEart has now participated in another thread - RE: Social Media - Instant Messaging (Telegram, Matrix, Threema)

TaasEart good to hear from you. Sounds like you are tech-oriented. If you have any thoughts about the relative benefits and detriments of communication platforms I would be glad to hear them. Although we have a messaging system here on the forum software, it seems likely that at some point more of us will want to remain in closer contact, and the technology in this field is constantly changing, which also has to be balanced against how many people are willing to use a particular platform and many other factors.

Quote from Cassius

as soon as Don gets finished with the other five articles he is working on.

I see I forgot to put a smiley face on that. I decided to come back and do that! :-). We were talking in the podcast recording today about how some of the texts indicated that some members of the garden needed more motivation than others and I would not want to imply that Don needs more motivation! He's already tackled learning Greek and poring into the birthday issue and otherwise leaving most all of us in the dust.

Quote from Don

hear you, but, honestly, I'm getting pretty confident and satisfied with what we've come up with on this thread. Besides there are *plenty* of other obscure details that I want to sink my research teeth into

Possibly the key to avoiding the necessity of going through this year after year is being sure that we have an indepth article well linked and very findable to short-circuit the question next time it is asked. I will make sure this thread is findable and we'll highlight it as an article at some point as soon as Don gets finished with the other five articles he is working on. I do think we want a nice colored chart along the lines of what Nate has started for (a few) past and future years and we'll highlight that too.

Course correction: I think we have plenty to discuss in Chapter 5 for this episode, so we will stick with 5 for this one and we'll move Joshua's comment (and any others) as to chapter 6 when we set that one up.

Welcome to Episode One Hundred Fifty-One 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'll walk you through the ancient Epicurean texts, and we'll 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."

This week we are going to speed through the early development of the school before we turn to detailed treatment of individual philosophical topics:

Chapter V - The New School In Athens

• The School Property
• Ranks And Titles
• Personnel And Students
• Reverence
• Images
• Friendship

Episode 150 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. This week we discuss early development of the Epicurean school in Mytilene and Lampsacus.

Welcome @TaasEart !

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 and let us know if you have had previous studies or background in philosophy, what prompted your interest in Epicureanism, and if you have any questions. And feel free to join in on one or more of our conversation threads under various topics found throughout the forum.

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.

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!

The subject of Dimitri Liantinis came to mind today and it looks like some time ago I set up this sub-forum, but never really collected any material in it.

I have mentioned his work "Rome and The Stoa" a number of times, but we don't have any of it translated other than what Elli prepared in the two graphics attached to this message.

We also have this "Article" I prepared some years ago as review of "Gemma" - the only one of Liantinis' books which has been translated into English: A Link From Ancient to Modern Greece – Liantinis' “Gemma”

At some point in the future Liantinis' writings would be a good subject of discussion, but it probably will have to wait until we have more translated into English.

Bumping this thread as a reminder that the first session Kalosyni is putting together is tonight (Friday December 2nd). If you're interested in attending please let us know. Kalosyni has put a lot of preparation time into this but it's the first we've done and like most things here it is still experimental so we will appreciate your participation and ideas for further such events in the future.

One thing I personally would like to see too would be an expansion of the chart in post 13 above with so we could add sample "therapies" that fit under each category.

In other words I see the basic organization of a chart as divided up into sort of "areas of life" where the columns list (1) the area of life, then (2) a description of healthy functioning in that area, then (3) a description of misfires or less healthy functioning / pitfalls, then (4) references to texts cites that deal with the issue, and then (5) a final column for suggested "techniques" or "therapies" that apply to that area of functioning.

If discussion during the happy hour lags I could see it being productive to throw out for discussion ideas on how such a chart could be developed further.

Here's the Perseus.tufts.edu link for the full context: https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?do…Asection%3D558d

[558c] if only he says that he loves the people!1” “It is a noble2 polity, indeed!” he said. “These and qualities akin to these democracy would exhibit, and it would, it seems, be a delightful3 form of government, anarchic and motley, assigning a kind of equality indiscriminately to equals and unequals alike!4” “Yes,” he said, “everybody knows that.”

“Observe, then, the corresponding private character. Or must we first, as in the case of the polity, consider the origin of the type?” “Yes,” he said. “Is not this, then, the way of it? Our thrifty5 oligarchical man

[558d] would have a son bred in his father's ways.” “Why not?” “And he, too, would control by force all his appetites for pleasure that are wasters and not winners of wealth, those which are denominated unnecessary.” “Obviously.” “And in order not to argue in the dark, shall we first define1 our distinction between necessary and unnecessary appetites2?” “Let us do so.” “Well, then, desires that we cannot divert or suppress may be properly called necessary,

[558e] and likewise those whose satisfaction is beneficial to us, may they not? For our nature compels us to seek their satisfaction.

[559a] Is not that so ?” “Most assuredly.” “Then we shall rightly use the word ‘necessary’ of them?” “Rightly.” “And what of the desires from which a man could free himself by discipline from youth up, and whose presence in the soul does no good and in some cases harm? Should we not fairly call all such unnecessary?” “Fairly indeed.” “Let us select an example of either kind, so that we may apprehend the type.1” “Let us do so.” “Would not the desire of eating to keep in health and condition and the appetite

[559b] for mere bread and relishes1 be necessary?” “I think so.” “The appetite for bread is necessary in both respects, in that it is beneficial and in that if it fails we die.” “Yes.” “And the desire for relishes, so far as it conduces to fitness?” “By all means.” “And should we not rightly pronounce unnecessary the appetite that exceeds these and seeks other varieties of food, and that by correction2 and training from youth up can be got rid of in most cases and is harmful to the body and a hindrance to the soul's attainment of

[559c] intelligence and sobriety?” “Nay, most rightly.” “And may we not call the one group the spendthrift desires and the other the profitable,1 because they help production?” “Surely.” “And we shall say the same of sexual and other appetites?” “The same.” “And were we not saying that the man whom we nicknamed the drone is the man who teems2 with such pleasures and appetites, and who is governed by his unnecessary desires, while the one who is ruled

[559d] by his necessary appetites is the thrifty oligarchical man?” “Why, surely.”

“To return, then,” said I, “we have to tell how the democratic man develops from the oligarchical type. I think it is usually in this way.” “How?” “When a youth, bred in the illiberal and niggardly fashion that we were describing, gets a taste of the honey of the drones and associates with fierce1 and cunning creatures who know how to purvey pleasures of every kind and variety2 and condition, there you must doubtless conceive is the beginning

[559e] of the transformation of the oligarchy in his soul into democracy.” “Quite inevitably,” he said. “May we not say that just as the revolution in the city was brought about by the aid of an alliance from outside, coming to the support of the similar and corresponding party in the state, so the youth is revolutionized when a like and kindred1 group of appetites from outside comes to the aid of one of the parties in his soul?” “By all means,” he said. “And if, I take it, a counter-alliance2 comes to the rescue of the oligarchical part of his soul, either it may be from his father

I may be posting this in the wrong place but I remember that at the very least Don and/or Godfrey and I were asking what precedent might have existed for the natural and necessary distinctions before Epicurus. A friend has today pointed us toward the following excerpts from Plato, for which I am very appreciative!

Republic 8: 558d-559d

Quote from Charles

It is safe to say that a good chunk of us on the forums are introverts.

I should also have commented that I bet this is surely correct, and it certainly includes me!

Great article Charles. I see you consider it a rough draft but it is so lengthy and detailed that when you get it to the point where you approve I'd like to move it into an "article" so that it appears in rotation on the front page. Let me know when you are ready to do that, and if you have a graphic that you'd like to see attached to it (otherwise we can make a generic one).

I think we need to make more use of these "longer-form" posts on general issues by listing them as articles so that the rotate on that section of the front page, where lurkers are more likely to see them.

Glad to have you Little Rocker. Thanks for responding to the welcome email and I feel sure I speak for many others here in saying that we look forward to hearing more from you.

I want to be sure these two comments (especially Elli's) get saved: