Posts by Cassius

Quote from Kalosyni

These are all nuances, and interesting to talk about.

Yes, right, because we sometimes choose not to survive if the cost in pain in our view would be too great.

Survival itself is valuable only to the extent that it would lead to more pleasure than pain.

So I think we're agreeing that any goal to "survive" is a valuable goal only to the extent that we think it will lead to more pleasure than pain.

I wonder if it was for reasons like this that Nietzsche went for a "will to power" rather than "will to survive." Of course I think there's lots of other opinion out there on how "survival" may be the automatic goal that kicks in instinctively, but that "survival for the sake of survival" isn't on many philosophers' list of good ideas, unless the survival lead to something else (in Epicurus' case pleasure).

Kalosyni's post causes me to continue beating the poor dead horse by an image that Joshua's post evokes:

Quote from Joshua

First Snow in Alsace

by Richard Wilbur

The snow came down last night like moths

Burned on the moon; it fell till dawn,

Covered the town with simple cloths.

Absolute snow lies rumpled on

What shellbursts scattered and deranged,

Entangled railings, crevassed lawn.

Display More

The picture I now have in my mind to double down on the point is thinking of those poor devils in the trenches fighting WW1 (I'm not sure where Alsace is but I'll take it as close enough to the trench warfare area).

Even if I were huddled down in a trench in miserable cold and wet conditions keeping my head down and listening to shellbursts exploding overhead, I submit an Epicurean in that position should still look at every moment by moment decision using the same criteria I would if I were at a banquet in Paris:

Every decision every moment comes down to the same issue: By what standards do we make our decisions. Even in the trench an inch or a second away from possible death, the answer is the same: Every decision is weighed by the same question: "What will happen to me if I make this choice? Will this choice bring me greater pleasure or greater pain?"

Or as stated in the Vatican Sayings:

VS71. Every desire must be confronted by this question: What will happen to me if the object of my desire is accomplished, and what if it is not?

I don't think that's limited to "every desire" in the sense of choosing from vanilla vs chocolate ice cream. It's the ultimate question that has to be automatized and used as rigorously as you can to optimize every second of your life.

EDIT: .... the ultimate question.... as opposed to:

"What would God want me to do?"

"What would I do if I were a virtuous person?"

"What would logic and reason alone (if I were a Vulcan like Mr Spock) tell me to do?"

Ok so our agenda for tonight will be a different order from last week. Tonight will be:

(1) Welcomes
(2) Special Presentaiton by Kalosyni

(3) PD2

(4) Goodbyes

1 - yes credit for this topic goes to Marco, not to me... I just added the pedantic word playing

2 - Kalosynis view of the definition is the common one, yet to understand the philosophy we have to use the broader one that Epicurus was using. That makes it necessary to speak to both types of people and practice being understood to both.

Quote from Don

"I want to feel pleasure so I'll go to war." or "War gives me pleasure."

I think we're pretty much on the same page after reading the recent posts.

I think the issues that arise in discussing things like this is mainly a matter of keeping multiple contexts in mind.

Those two statements of course as written without additional context would be highly unlikely to make sense in most cases.

But since everything is a "case" more than a "rule" even those two could be tied to a context and make sense:

"I want to continue to feel pleasure at living under the Roman Republic so I will participate in assassinating Julius Caesar and go to war against Anthony and Octavian." (That would be something I could easily hear Cassius Longinus saying, given his letters to Cicero justifying his Epicurean beliefs, but as always when discussing the Roman Civil War there seem to be a lot of things going on beneath the surface so I am not really sure whose side I would take if i had been there)

"War against the Persians will lead to great pleasure if am able able to save Sparta and Greece." (I could hear Leonidas saying something like that prior to Themopalyae.)

But really at this point there's probably nothing further to be accomplished in illustrating the point. As usual I think we're basically at the same position. The interesting point that we can file away for the future is the extent to which illustrations like this are helpful in the "teaching" aspect of Epicurean philosophy. For the same reason that we discussed it we probably do need good examples of the point that only "pleasure" itself is ALWAYS a desirable feeling (because our nature presents itself to us that way.

That means everything else (even the **choice** to pursue a particular pleasure at a particular moment) has to be evaluated contextually.

And I don't think we are just playing with words. I think the clear articulation of these issues has to come before we can clearly understand it or express the point to others.

"but I wouldn't phrase it as happiness and joy are the "product of war."

My main clarification in this point is that I would not say (and don't think I did) that they are ALWAYS the product of war but pleasure CAN BE the product of war and of many other things that we find generally disreputable.

The test is always in the consequences, because if a thing in fact generates any degree of pleasure, it is pleasurable at least for that moment. Maybe not a wise idea at all, but the proof of whether any pleasure is generated is in the actual result for the time that pleasure is generated, rather than all the ultimate consequences of pain which may or may not occur later.

Plus there is great pleasure in defeating your enemy - not something we would immediately look kindly on in polite company, but there nevertheless.

I think we once again have to separate pleasure as an ultimate goal, which we wouldn't generally pursue through a life of war, with the pleasures that can come through most any activity that is not always and every moment painful. And as much as we might want to call it that, many people do get great pleasure in war - at least when they are winning - just like boxers and others who fight for a living (all competitive sports?) Find it very exhilarating - again at least in some moments.

Just posted this on facebook as a reminder:

Last week we had eight people at our first Wednesday Open Invitation Zoom, and we invite both those from last week and new visitors this week to attend. The link is the same as last week (if you saved it) - otherwise follow the Eventbrite link below:

Several of us who are a part of either this Epicurean Philosophy Facebook group or of the EpicureanFriends.com forum are working on a new friendship-building project: a weekly hour-long Zoom meeting of those who are interested in casual "live" conversation about Epicurean philosophy. We intend to promote this beyond Facebook, so we are setting up an Eventbrite page to coordinate the Zoom link across other social media sites. Our second session will be this coming Wednesday May 18 at 8:30 PM Eastern USA time, and you can find a link and further description at the Eventbrite page below. The page references "tickets" but of course admission is free. No doubt we'll go through a shakedown period as we get off the ground, but we hope to develop something that will be a positive addition to the existing Epicurean internet communities. Let us know in the thread below if you have any questions. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/epicurean-op…ts-335486799047

Yes a very poor mental image :-). We need one better for lancing the boil, and a better term than "hedonist". At the very least a modifier for it, but since hedone isn't even an original English world we need to do better.

This far we are at "Epicurean" but that doesn't advance the goal toward being self-explanatory.

Call it a definitional issue or philosophical issue or just call it a word game it you must, but this has got to be one of our key challenges. How do we make this so clear that the terminology becomes second nature?

There is NEVER any goal that is a goal in itself other than pleasure, and there is no contradiction in at the same time saying that we sometimes choose pain in order to achieve pleasure.

This confusion is at the root of so much confusion.

As weve just seen in going through AFDIA, people get attracted to "pleasure" but they often never shake the premise that they came in with - they think there is something higher than pleasure which has to steer the ship toward some other goal to save us from ourselves and from overindulgence.

The philosophical boil has to be popped:. We sometimes choose pain in our daily activities due to circumstances, but our goal in making every choice and avoidance decision is always pleasure.

Maybe it helps to reduce pleasure and pain to "feeling" and simply say that it is feeling that makes life worthwhile. Yes we sometimes make choices that cause temporary annoyances to our feelings, but we can't ever lose sight that it is for the sake of our best "feeling" that we do everything.

What we don't feel is, like death, nothing to us.

Quote from Godfrey

I ask this because my reaction to this specific quote is that it’s even more necessary to seek pleasure and avoid pain in an unsafe environment.

Yes I think you've pointed out the issue in Kalosyni's original wording.

From the highest-level point of view, our orientation is that we are ALWAYS seek to obtain pleasure and avoid pain.

The issue is that from the moment-to-moment point of view we can and often do choose pain so as to obtain a greater pleasure, or to avoid a worse pain.

This is the continuing problem of labels like "hedonism" and accepting the negative stereotype that the Epicurean is going to be a slacker and pursue momentary or lesser pleasures rather than to undergo the pain and effort that are often required to obtain more important goals. Epicurus makes very clear that that is not true, but calling him a "hedonist" or a "pleasure-seeker" obscures the big picture given the corruption of the language.

I agree with what Kalosyni wrote.

Also:

Quote from Kalosyni

So in some sense happiness and joy are a product of peace. It would not be safe to spend too much time "seeking happiness" in an unsafe environment.

And in other cases happiness and joy can be the product of war, if under the circumstances war is necessary to obtain or preserve the peace.

My point to emphasize would be that in the end there is nothing - not even "peace" which is desirable in and of itself other than pleasure, and everything else has to be considered a contextual tool that may or may not be appropriate to choose at a particular moment.

"Ultimately" the goal is pleasure, but at any particular moment our context may demand that we choose actions that are for the moment painful.

Yes that is what I was thinking Don. I am thinking the general thread underlying all of this is that we must keep alert to a dual level of "existence" - (1) the level on which we exist, which is very real to us, and in which we experience an "up or down" and at the same time (2) our understanding of the "global" picture in which our reality is not absolutely the same to everyone, but others have different ups and downs relative to their location.

To me at least one of the main parts of the significance of the line of reasoning is that it acclimates us to realize our own reality is important and yet that ours is not the only reality and we have to be aware of both.

As I am on the alert to campaign against nihilism what this signifies to me personally is that while we can agree with Democritus that if you drill deep enough you find nothing but atoms and void, that does not mean that the level at which we experience our world is less "real" or "important" or "meaningful" than the level of the atoms.

I don't think it's possible to keep an even perspective on both realities unless you're aware of this relationship so I see this as directly practical from that point of view.

So we keep aware that only the atoms have eternal and unchanging properties, but that from that basis we derive the changing qualities which we experience at our level of existence.

Joshua hit on this in the episode that we recorded two days ago, that that relationship between the properties and qualities would explain how some things are possible and some are not, the deepset boundary mark set forever between what can be and what can not.

A good extra quote from that source - thanks Don!

For not only does "he who has least need of the morrow," as Epicurus107 says...

Plutarch • On Tranquillity of Mind

Here's the article / commentary I would like us to consider as part of our final session and recap of our Book Review of A Few Days In Athens. Let's also use this thread to record comments and reactions after completing the chapter-by-chapter review. In the case of our Zoom review from the spring of 2022, let's specifically try to include this in our discussion for Sunday May 22.

As we've done throughout the book review, let's be sure to include comments from both of these perspectives (1) How faithful is the book to Epicurus - meaning how useful is it as a method of discussing Epicurean Philosophy? and (2) What do we think about Wright's message itself?

Thread

Problems in Frances Wright's "A Few Days in Athens"

I have dragged my feet on reading Frances Wright’s fictionalized account of a student in Epicurus’ Garden, partly because the language is so flowery that the passages I’ve seen quoted put me off. I’ve finally tackled it, and I have some thoughts to share. My main conclusion is that there are too many serious flaws to recommend it as a representation of Epicurean Philosophy without any accompanying commentary.

Misleading Implications about Pleasure as Restraint

Frances Wright has Epicurus say…

Elayne

October 22, 2020 at 3:08 PM

For some reason I had this fragment on my mind this afternoon. I was thinking that I had read some commentary on it somewhere (I think by Sedley) but I couldn't find it before posting this -- and I had a hard time finding even this following text. At the very least I'll highlight the passage to start a thread on it, because I think it makes a point that we don't discuss often:

U555

Plutarch, _On Peace of Mind,_ 2 p. 465F (Johannes Stobaeus, _Anthology,_ 29.79):

For this reason not even Epicurus believes that men who are eager for honor and glory should lead an inactive life, but that they should fulfill their natures by engaging in politics and entering public life, on the ground that, because of their natural dispositions, they are more likely to be disturbed and harmed by inactivity if they do not obtain what they desire.

I hate it when I look for a section during a recording and can't find it. Here is what I was looking for in regard to Frances Wright suggesting that Epicurus' views would allow even for alien visitation to Earth, which - even if true - would still not be relevant to supernatural creation of the universe.

Quote

Of the sentient beings comprised in the infinity of matter I know but those which I behold. I set no limits to the number of those which I behold not; no bounds to their power. One or many may have given directions to the elementary atoms, and may have fashioned this earth as the potter fashions its clay. Beings possessing such power may exist, and may have exercised it. All-powerful still they are not, or being so they are wicked: evil exists. I know not what may be — but this my moral sense tells me cannot be — a fashioner of the world I inhabit, in his nature all-good and all-powerful. I see yet another impossibility; a fashioner of this world in his nature all-good and fore-knowing. Granting the possibility of the attributes, their united existence were an impossible supposition in the architect of our earth.”

Our discussion of Chapter Fifteen of A Few Days In Athens is now available:

Cites relevant to today's topic:

U244

**Sextus Empiricus, _Against the Logicians_ II (_Against the Dogmatists,_ II).9:** Epicurus said that all sensibles were true and real. For there is no difference between saying that something is true and that it is _real._ And that is why, in giving a formalization of the _true_ and the _false_, he says, “that which is such as it is said to be, is true” and “that which is not such as it is said to be, is false.”

Letter to Herodotus

[51] For the similarity between the things which exist, which we call real and the images received as a likeness of things and produced either in sleep or through some other acts of apprehension on the part of the mind or the other instruments of judgment, could never be, unless there were some effluences of this nature actually brought into contact with our senses. And error would not exist unless another kind of movement too were produced inside ourselves, closely linked to the apprehension of images, but differing from it; and it is owing to this, supposing it is not confirmed, or is contradicted, that falsehood arises; but if it is confirmed or not contradicted, it is true.