Posts by Cassius

Episode 152 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. This week we turn to Chapter 6 and begin discussion of "The New Education."

I can't remember anything specific from my own memory at this point, but perhaps similar to the direction you are going is the issue of dreams:

Oh gosh - four years ago - no telling what I said back then but if you think it's helpful then maybe so.

I'm much more fond of this presentation, which may also come through a "Cassius" filter, but which is more insulated from error by sticking more strictly with the texts:

Emanating -- yes -- the theory seems to be a constant flow of atoms from every body that is always going on outward, in every direction, without any action or intent on the part of the body giving off the images.

Quote from Kalosyni

And also thinking that I actually do like the "myth of arrival" in this very life (that there could be some benefit to it) -- and so thinking about the Epicurean idea of "living like the gods" in this very life -- do we have a thread on that?

I have another comment on this as to "arrival." I see the concept of "arrival" in general as perfectly valid. "XXXXX has arrived at a better understanding of Epicurus" makes perfect sense.

But in the connection we are talking about here, the issue Nietzsche raises reminds me of one of what I think is the prime dangers of loose discussion of "absence of pain." Maybe I am the only one who ever interpreted the modern discussions that way, but I have the strong impression that some people are talking as if -- if they squeeze every drop of pain out of their lives through ascetic living - they somehow pass through a doorway into another world - a nirvana - into the "true world" - in which they experience something entirely different and higher than what we mortals understand to be mental and physical pleasure.

To the extent that people are using "ataraxia" and "absence of pain" as "destinations" at which they can "arrive" and thereby achieve some kind of salvation-like higher state that frees them from the body and lets them commune with something higher ("pure reason contemplating absolute truth" as Joshua has mentioned), I think that view is a huge mistake and misapplication of what Epicurus was teaching.

Just to avoid any confusion or fear that this will amount to a "Cassius lecture session" ---

We need to talk about this but I think we expect to welcome other long-time regulars on the forum to participate and contribute as well. At the very least as Kalosyni says one of the two of us will be present to host the session, but we've yet to formulate exactly the format so other long-time regulars are encouraged to be part of the welcome team. "Open to all level one members" means primarily that the session is aimed at helping new people, not "we don't want level three and above members to participate."

Quote from Don

Both of these, while conveying Cicero's consternation at the idea, point to the Epicureans teaching that the mind was "struck" by images directly, especially in recollection of memories or thinking about something.

I agree, almost like there is a radio/tv-like "tuning" mechanism where we receive the outside "images" that we are "tuning our minds" to receive. A combination of an on-board faculty with a "transmission" of some kind coming from outside. Or an analogy to our eyes perceiving "waves" in what we discuss as a light wave spectrum while the ears receive "waves" of another sort. (And the other senses are likewise "tuned" for their function.)

I started to look for another word than "transmission" as that implies a signal being intentionally sent to an object. But maybe there still is a parallel -- TV and radio stations send out signals "to the world" without any knowledge of who might receive them.

Yes we can take this thread back into the direction of the general issue of Epicurean gods as far as anyone would like. We probably need to be revisiting this issue at least once a year anyway lest it get drowned out and forgotten. And what better time of the year than the Christmas season!

It ties back into Anticipations, Images, and many other fascinating aspects of the texts that often get left behind.

Or should we just conclude that images of the gods impacted us and led us back to the topic?

[15.16] Cicero to Cassius[Rome, January, 45 B.C.]

L I expect you must be just a little ashamed of yourself now that this is the third letter that has caught you before you have sent me a single leaf or even a line. But I am not pressing you, for I shall look forward to, or rather insist upon, a longer letter. As for myself, if I always had somebody to trust with them, I should send you as many as three an hour. For it somehow happens, that whenever I write anything to you, you seem to be at my very elbow; and that, not by way of visions of images, as your new friends term them, who believe that even mental visions are conjured up by what Catius calls spectres (for let me remind you that Catius the Insubrian, an Epicurean, who died lately, gives the name of spectres to what the famous Gargettian [Epicurus], and long before that Democritus, called images).

2 But, even supposing that the eye can be struck by these spectres because they run up against it quite of their own accord, how the mind can be so struck is more than I can see. It will be your duty to explain to me, when you arrive here safe and sound, whether the spectre of you is at my command to come up as soon as the whim has taken me to think about you - and not only about you, who always occupy my inmost heart, but suppose I begin thinking about the Isle of Britain, will the image of that wing its way to my consciousness?

3 But of this later on. I am only sounding you now to see in what spirit you take it.

As you know I personally favor the other position but for current purposes the main comment I would make is that whether we believe the theory or not, I presume you would agree that the long discussion of images in Lucretius book 4 and other places in the texts does confirm that the Epicureans did consider "images" to be a physical phenomena of atoms moving through space, and not a matter of simple "thought." Right(?).

And how do you view the Velleius material in "On the Nature of the Gods"?

I mean this humorously and I am in no way turned off by the discussion as I find it fascinating but what's the sentence in the raw material that stands out?

"Discussion of the details of the Athenian calendar became in their hands so abstruse that for decades few other scholars have ventured into the jungle."

I have no opinions on this but reading about these details is fascinating.

Quote from Don

We don't - can't! - see the Epicurean gods with our physical eyes. The "truth" of their existence takes place entirely in our minds by reasoning through their existence through contemplation. But through that contemplation, Epicurus asserts that their existence is εναργής "clearly discernable to us / manifest to us in our minds."

Right - I understand what you are saying, but just for purposes of this conversation the second sentence there is the conclusion you are drawing. It may make senses, but it doesn't seem to entirely jibe with the references about receiving "images" of the gods, whether with the mind as a "suprasensory" faculty as Dewitt describes it as otherwise. And it may not also account for "anticipations" depending on what we believe those to be.

And of course the next step in that positioning is to take a position whether the "gods" exist ONLY as constructs of the mind or whether they also have independent physical existence in the manner described by Velleius. At the moment I can't remember your position on that (?) I presume you are siding with what we've often described as he "idealist" position vs the "realist" position (though I am not sure i really like those labels).

This forum entry is being replaced with THIS page from the lexicon:

Table of Difficult Translations of Important Passages - Epicureanfriends.com

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Please make all future posts and edits there.

Ok I see. Bailey says "clear vision" rather than just manifest.

You have done tremendous work on this so I am the furthest away from wanting to be critical. And I don't like things that are so footnoted that the text is hard to read.

I tend to think that the best way to keep these controversies in mind is with a "list of controversies" that applies everywhere and spells out the text issues so that we don't have to rely on every edition to make the same caveats.

I dunno. Any ideas on generally keeping these issues front and center? I am glad Elli made the comment - that's the power of teamwork as I probably never would have raised this

Don you have probably answered this elsewhere but what is the source of this?

Quote from Don

It has two primary definitions:

visible, palpable, in bodily shape, properly of gods appearing in their own forms (in Homer); so of a dream or vision; ex., ἐναργὴς ταῦρος "in visible form a bull, a very bull"
manifest to the mind's eye, distinct

I was recalling that Bailey simply said "manifest" (I need to check) so that by including the longer phrase you essentially take sides as translator with one side of the argument as to how the gods are perceived. Likewise if you used only the word "distinct" there would be similar ambiguities.

No doubt this kind of "taking sides" happens all the time. I need to read back at your text - are you footnoting to highlight this ambiguity.

This is such a recurring issue - how to thread the needle between taking sides , footnotes, etc. That in itself needs to be a regular topic of conversation.

No doubt many of the finer points that we regularly debate are colored by these issues. One of many questions is how to keep in our minds which things are clear and which are not.

Elli has made two posts in another location that are relevant to this thread. Unfortunately I can't "move" them here so that the show up under Elli's name, but I can paste them so they will be preserved in this conversation. Elli, if you decide to adjust anything I am pretty sure that as an admin you can edit this post, so please feel free to do that!

Here is the text of each:

I read in the translation that was made by Don on Epicurus letter to Menoeceus, a phrase that makes me to feel surprised:

"Gods exist, and the knowledge of them is manifest to the mind's eye".

Sorry, but I have an objection. This phrase "to the mind's eye" as it is said, it leads to that famous NΟΥΣ/ΝOUS/MIND by Plato, and in extention it leads to the stoicicm, as this was their opinion about gods.

No, the greek gods were not be manifest with any mind's eye, BUT they were be manifest WITH SENSES and FEELINGS, as they were totally materialistic! And this is the clear big picture that Epicurus means with his phrase in the letter to Meneoceus.

Beauty and virtue and such are worthy of honor, if they bring pleasure; but if not then bid them farewell!

These were the gods as mentioned by Epicurus in his letter to Meneoceus, and in our days, as excellent are described, by Dimitris Liantinis!

What defines the difference between Greeks and Christians? A difference that from a certain point and beyond is being opposed, opposition, rift, a fight fire with water.

This which is defines the difference is something else and clear, as the olive leaf. But for this reason, exactly is ultimate and extreme.

The difference between the two is that the Greeks built a world based on observation and understanding, while the Christians built a world based on the assumption and imagination.

The observation of the Greeks is of such of a quality that always is to be ensure in practice of what is happening in Nature, and always demonstrated in tangible from the experiment in the laboratory.

BECAUSE…

The Religion of the Greeks

Ιf we count the strong position that the gods and the religions gave birth in primarily level from the fear of human towards life, and in advanced and to a second level of this matter from the fear of human towards death, then we will find that the religion of the Greeks is an exception as occurred that differently constitutes a unique mission.

The religion of the Greeks, i.e did not come from their fear, but it came from their sorrow to overcome the pain caused by their rational view for Nature and life.

In other words, the religion of the Greeks created by their honest and brave attitude to overcome their pessimism and melancholy.

But between the fear of life and death, and the need of the Greeks to capitulate with their pain from what gave birth to their knowledge that the world is heavy, there is a little difference which gives the maximum effect.

The religion of the Greeks, i.e. is not the case and offspring of the imagination, like all other religions, but it is the aesthetic representation of the phenomena of Nature.

Thus, the gods of the Greeks are not neither secret and invisible presences. They are not ghosts of the mind, and wind’s constructions, hypothetical words and inventions of the mind, and beings of a waking sleep.

Instead, the gods of the Greeks are the images made up from the natural phenomena with slender intelligence and dexterity. They made by fluttering of a rational imagination, the whole, the simple, the non trembling, and the prosperous.

And above all this: the gods of Greeks they were attested by sensory, touching them with the hands, facing them with the eyes, there are factual and materialistic.

Apollo suddenly, is the sun and the music regularity of the Nature.

Artemis is the Moon. Both of those two sisters symbolize the light of the day and night and were born on the island of Delos, word which means the clarity and the light.

Neptune is the sea.

Hephaestus is the fire and the metals.

Athena is the intelligence of the human, for this she is the protector of the ingenious Odysseus.

Aeolus is the sixteen airs to the seas.

Demeter is the joy of the fruits, the wheat, the rhubarb, the apple trees and vines, as the verse of Artsivald Maklis says.

And Jupiter is the thunder and the rain, which is falling like sperm to fertilize bravely the thirsty land. That's why the Greeks near other things, they create him as the lover of the more magnificent mortal women. Leda, Europe, Ious, Leto, Alcmene, Semele, Olympiad of Philip.

Thus, the story goes and with the thirty thousand gods of the Greeks. Everyone is also a real, functional, indestructible, the beneficial and harmful true and a beautiful natural phenomenon.

In other words, the religion of the Greeks is an aesthetic status of Nature’s elements, and in this way it is a variant of the Greek’s art.

The Geometric evidence of this proposal is given by the fact that the religion of the Greeks is all in their art.

Beauty and virtue and such are worthy of honor, if they bring pleasure; but if not then bid them farewell!

Don, I hit the "thanks" on Elli's post but even after reading your very detailed article I don't have the Greek ability (or maybe the brainpower) to assess any of this on my own. Are the two of you together?

Laconic to the max, but welcome!

In this episode near the end Kalosyni asks a question about "wonder" - and here is the excerpt from Lucretius Book 2 that I quoted (this is Humphries translation, and I need to get the line number):

Direct your mind

To a true system. Here is something new

For ear and eye. Nothing is ever so easy

But what, at first, it is difficult to trust.

Nothing is great and marvelous, but what

All men, a little at a time, begin

To mitigate their sense of awe. Look up,

Look up at the pure bright color of the sky,

The wheeling stars, the moon, the shining sun!

If all these, all of a sudden, should arise

For the first time before our mortal sight,

What could be called more wonderful, more beyond

The heights to which aspiring mind might dare?

Nothing, I think. And yet, a sight like this,

Marvelous as it is, now draws no man

To lift his gaze to heaven's bright areas.

We are a jaded lot. But even so

Don't be too shocked by something new, too scared

To use your reasoning sense, to weigh and balance,

So that if in the end a thing seems true,

You welcome it with open arms; if false,

You do your very best to strike it down.

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3. "On The Nature of Things" - by Lucretius (a poetic abridgement of Epicurus' "On Nature"
4. "Epicurus on Pleasure" - By Boris Nikolsky
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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.

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Do we know that Sophron was not an Epicurean, even though he was governor?

I guess we have never discussed what that phrasing "member of the school" really means. Somehow officially enrolled, or just loosely Epicurean which might have included someone in agreement but not physically present - especially if we don't lock ourselves into thinking that everyone was living essentially in a commune.

You have to think that Danae would not fall in love with someone who didn't share her general views - although strange things happen in love, and it's hard to say what mistress or courtesan entails.

Edit: Actually I find that story confusing on first read as to the relationships so I am not sure who Danae was enamoured with!

Also I thought Sophron was a name for a character in AFDIA but now I don't see it. I was wondering if the name of the Hedonae character in AFDIA might have come from Danae cause they sound like similar personalities. If I recall in AFDIA it's not clear whose daughter Hedonae really is.