Posts by Cassius

Yes I see the pugilist demeanor as well. I don't see it matching the other Hermarchus busts, but I could see the possibility that it is neither one of them.

Those wide eyes on the one we are discussing reminds of me this one, which the clip says is Theophrastus --

However when you click over to the page that apparently comes from, the head/hair shape is very different:

Theophrastus | Art UK

artuk.org

Quote from Godfrey

As for #12, the shape of the head seems wrong and he's way too stern to accord with the images of Epicurus that I'm used to seeing.

I agree that this is more stern than most, but I see this as consistent with his dominant presentation in the remaining busts. I would probably call it more "piercing" or "serious" than stern, but I think that's likely the way he was perceived -- as very SERIOUSLY pursing his philosophy.

For example this one, which is not one of the small ones from herculaneum but which makes him also look serious:

And look at the focused / concerned eyebrows here:

As for the deviant version - let me get this out of the way - I see the deviant version as THIS one which many commentators today like to use because the damage to the eyes and angle of head can be lighted in a way that makes him look like a stupified pot-head This is the one I see as - in its present form - out of character. If it were an attempt to make him smiling, I would say it's acceptable, but even before the eyebrow was damaged it appears to me to be more of a "blank" expression, which again would not be a good look for someone as acute as Epicurus.

Here is the book cover we are talking about (which appears to me to be Hermarchus based largely on the eyes)

Ha! My confusion increases

Is *that* the one on the book cover?

I would have said the book cover is clearly the one we all agree to be Hermarchus, which is not shown currently in this thread.

This one doesn't add anything except the page number from that old sketchbook --If I had to speculate I would say that this is a poor representation of the bust I just posted in post 12 above. Doesn't the posture seem more erect than in the ones we typically see, but still the face of Epicurus? And look at the furrows in the forehead which the sketcher tried to capture.

I am thinking that there exist several distinctively different busts of Epicurus that we have to be aware of to take into account, with this one being the least well used (but not at all the worst in the picture that is posted above in 12).

Referring back again to the clip in post 5 above --

I found another reference I came across long ago. Not sure I can find the URL for this, but take a look. This looks to me to be the one we are discussing, and it's identified here as a Epicurus (which seems to me what I would think too). I will see if I can find a URL or another reference.

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You must post your response within 72 hours, or your account will be 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!

Quote from TauPhi

A lot of these programs are terminal based but I prefer them to GUI programs because of their extensibility and speed.

Well that list shows how hard core you really are, and far advanced ahead of me.

I have heard of most of those and occasionally tried them, but I still use mostly GUI - based programs on an XFCE desktop.

I don't have the occasion to do so much anymore, but I used to like to show my friends how they could better use Linux than windows, so I still mostly use the GUIs and options that look mostly like Windows so I could work with my friends who will never go full terminal-based.

The one thing that I have not found in native linux is outlining programs, and I am a big outliner. The two I mentioned (logseq and obsidian) are electron apps - which I don't care for - but they work well. In addition to those I still daily use "Ecco Pro" which was abandoned in 1997 but still runs fine in linux/wine.

But I'll repeat here again: I think we have a significant use case in Epicurean philosophy for the use of outlines (which Epicurus pretty much recommends verbatim). I am trying to organize my public domain Epicurean materials into markdown files for use in either an obsidian or logseq database which we could let people download for free so as to get a head start on collecting the sources.

In the meantime, that's how I have made this website: https://epicuruscollege.com/coursematerial/

That's a series of markdown files organized through obsidian and then turned into a website with Mkdocs-Material, which is also a FOSS program for assembling documentation. I am also experimenting with Docusaurus, but I think the Mkdocs-Material system works a little better for turning the markdown files into a website.

Quote from Godfrey

do you use LibreOffice Draw for your highlighted and underlined text clips that you post? For your other posted graphics? I use other aspects of LibreOffice but haven't tried Draw.

Godfrey:

I have never really been able to settle on a paint/draw program or really get comfortable with a graphics editor. I occasionally try GIMP and Inkscape but never take the time to learn it properly. I have found Libreoffice draw to be an easy to use compromise on putting together graphics, but I keep looking for a major graphics program to really take the time to learn.

So as to Libreoffice I don't really use the text and spreadsheet much (I use the Softmaker Office linux programs instead for maximum Microsoft compatibility) but I do use the Libreoffice Draw regularly.

My screen shots with underlined text are done with Ksnip https://github.com/ksnip/ksnip

When I want to combine several screenshots or pictures into a larger picture, I take the screenshot with Ksnip and then I paste into Libreoffice draw where I move things around and then add annotations.

Thank you Martin!

Do we know who is referred to here as challenging the authorship?

pasted-from-clipboard.png

They can never resist accentuating the negative. I would say more like pigs as symbols of the uninhibited pursuit of pleasure and the unwllingness to bow to authority.

Yes the image Don is pointing to in post 8 just doesn't seem to me to look like the image in post 5. The image in post 5 at first glance looks to me more like a variation of Epicurus himself.

I don't doubt that you guys are right but that image in post 5 (which I do think I have seen before) confuses me.

Good idea for a list of the open source software we use. The major ones that come to mind that I am currently using:

• Linux (Arch / Garuda)
• Obsidian.md
• Logseq
• Libreoffice (especially Draw)
• Audacity
• Openshot and KDEnlive
• Nextcloud
• Thunderbird (email/calendar)
• and too many other smaller utilities to recall at the moment.

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This is Hermarchus?

This thread might be of limited interest but I discovered tonight that TauPhi and Cleveland Okie share an interest with me in Linux and Free Open Source software. We've previously discussed this topic at least in passing in a couple of places, and I may be posting this in the wrong forum (if so we'll move it).

But in the meantime while the iron is hot I wanted to invite Clevelan and Tau and anyone else with an interest in this to add to this thread. For the moment I will just say that all my computers have been Linux for at least ten years, and I find the whole "Free and Open Source" software movement to be something that fits neatly into my ideas that Epicurean philosophy should be spread as freely and openly as possible. The methods used t coordinate volunteer projects in building software (using GIT and similar methods) seems to me to fit hand in glove with methods we can use to coordinate volunteers in propagating Epicurean philosophy. The Epicurean viewpoint is inherently personal and doesn't lend itself to tight central control, and it seems to me that the same methods people have found successful for working together freely on software are a good model to follow in our philosophic work.

Maybe one more example -- I find that two current FOSS software projects -- Obsidian.md and Logseq - lend themselves directly to outlining and organizing the Epicurean material, and I use them most every day.

Ok that's a general intro to the topic but people can get as specific as they want. Apologies to those who are not interested, but this is a good example of a topic that is at least tangentially related to philosophic work, and we invite others with similar specialized interests to do the same in this "Lifestyle and Self-Improvement" section.

Thanks for that question and that helps let us know where you are in your reading.

We have some initial introductory material on pages like this -- https://www.epicureanfriends.com/wcf/new-user-page/

- but we really need better summaries of the core material.

All of the books and material we have listed in your "Welcome" message are good, and where you start depends mainly on your particular interests. The videos and other intro material on Youtube and elsewhere generally focus on the "ethics" questions and they can leave people bewildered if they don't understand some of the basic worldview issues first.

It would be of great help to us if you would give us feedback on what you find to be clear and what you find to be confusing as you read further into Epicurus. We use information like that to make the website better and to decide what kind of new materials to produce.

Quote from ThinkingCat

I do know that Epicureans believed in gods who had put things in motion but then removed themselves from our affairs and sat completely detached from humans

I am sure others will chime in but if by "things" you mean the entire universe, then this is not correct -- that is the "deist" view but not the Epicurean view. In the Epicurean view the universe is eternal and was never created by any gods or other supernatural forces. In whole and in total (not particular planets or solar systems or galaxies, but truly 'in whole') the universe has always existed and always will exist. That is why the phrases "nothing from nothing" and "nothing to nothing" are so foundational.

As far as the rest of your paragraph yes that would be correct. There is absolutely no "supernatural" dimension -- no heaven, no hell, no afterlife of any kind.

I want to add a comment/question that occurs to me because of the podcast that we recorded today:

I think most of us would agree that it is healthy functioning for the human body to feel pain when it is exposed to something painful.

So the question is: Should we view the Epicurean gods (real OR ideal, either way), as being painless because they are *incapable* of feeling pain, or because they have so arranged their affairs and circumstances that they are never exposed to anything that is painful?

I ask because this might have a relationship to the original question of the gods feeling gratitude. Are they capable of feeling gratitude but do not because they have nothing outside themselves to be grateful for? Are they not grateful for their companionship with their companion gods?

I am thinking the answer would be that the gods are capable of feeling pain, but do not because they have so arranged their affairs so as never to be exposed to it, and in that way of looking at things they would serve as a model for we as humans to also in our own ways arrange our affairs.

But again the usefulness of this at the extreme may be more of a logic game than anything else. It seems obvious that we all, at whatever stage of development, wish to arrange our affairs so as to have no need to experience unnecessary or "un-worthwhile" pain.