Perhaps one way to deal with this could be similar to how in our time we have legal documents which often have a long list of word definitions given before the main part of the legal explanation.
So what you are exploring are 'formats" such as timeline vs spreadsheet vs venn diagram -- methods of presenting or visualizing data?
Just working on some other material today and came across this line in book five of Lucretius. I think the underlined part is something I would add to any list of quotations to support the view that life is desirable and that it is pleasure that makes it so:
Did our life lie in darkness and misery until the world's beginning dawned? Although anyone who has been born must wish to remain in life so long as the caresses of pleasure hold him there, if someone has really never tasted the passion for life and has never been an individual, what harm does it do him not to have been created? (L&S-THP)
Admin note: Comments made in the Blog, Gallery, and Calendar don't always get picked up in notifications or web searches, so we sometimes cross-post significant comments like this one into appropriate the forum section.
These are great finds! Thank you, in particular for including the texts from Maimonides, which provides important, critical commentary. The Epicurean hagiographies (so to speak) really color-in the lines of ancient history, especially when it comes to critical observations with regards to culture and belief. Given the continued conflicts we observe today, which intersect with some of the propositions made herein, I appreciate that you present the topic with a variety of sources.
In attempting to re-create a general biography of Philódēmos' life, I tried to fill-in the gaps of his early life by cross-referencing his timeline against political conflict in his home. I found that the opinions of Gadarans must have been heavily colored by the fact that the Hasmonean dynasty kept trying to conquer them ... for decades. From my understanding, this activity became so threatening that the Nabateans, a nomadic, ancient Arab group helped repel the dynasty out of the area that corresponds with modern-day Jordan. Anyway, in this case, latter Epicureans (as so against neo-Platonists, and others) were already highly critical of the propositions made in ancient Hebrew texts. The organized violence waged by the Hasmonean dynasty against Greek-speaking towns in ancient Syria (as I imagine) must have reinforced that criticism, perhaps to the extent of reinforcing prejudice. (I mean to make no moral evaluation here. It's sensitive enough as it is).
I am particularly fascinated by the excerpt that describes Epiphanes entering the Holy of Holies. Most other mentions of it occur within sympathetic texts that glorify it as something other than a simple "stone statue of a long-bearded man, seated on a donkey, holding a document in his hand". Shit ... courthouses in Florida had similar statues in them a few years back. We're still depicting statues reflecting that original one in municipal buildings (as of this year).
This past weekend in our Sunday zoom we were discussing the implications of the discoveries of the "limits and boundaries" of things for which Lucretius praises Epicurus near the beginning of the poem. At that time Raphael Raul brought up the excellent question of whether limits and boundaries are invalidated by the swerve. If so, and if "anything is possible" then the entire physics of Epicurus would be totally undercut and it would be nonsense to maintain that there are limitations on what can be and what cannot be, which is one of the key foundations established by atomism.
In response to this question I referenced several of the arguments contained in AA Long's "Chance And Natural Law In Epicureanism" which refute the idea that there is any contradiction. One argument I did remember was the Long argues that if Epicurus had really argued that the swerve makes everything indeterminate, then Cicero and Plutarch and other strong enemies of Epicurus would certainly have pointed out that obvious problem. The fact that extensive criticism from them survives, but that this criticism was not made by then, is a strong indicator that Epicurus was not interpreted in the ancient world as teaching that the swerve makes "anything" possible.
I can now add a cite to a passage from Lucretius that I think is directly on point. At this point in the poem Lucretius has not yet discussed the swerve, at which he makes the point that humans (and probably other higher animals) have some degree of freedom of action. But here the underlined section makes clear that no matter what might be said later, the limits and boundaries we observe in life produce predominantly regularity rather than indeterminacy.
The key sentence is: "For if the principles of things could in any way succumb and be altered, it would now also be uncertain what can and what cannot arise, and how each thing has its power limited and its deep-set boundary stone, nor could such a long succession of generations in each species replicate the nature, habits, lifestyle and movements of their parents."
I highly recommend the AA Long article to anyone interested in this issue.
First, since we have found a vast difference between the twin natures of the two things - body, and the place in which everything happens - each must in itself be absolute and unmixed. For wherever there is the empty space which we call void, there no body exists, while wherever body is in occupation, there the emptiness of void is totally absent. Therefore the first bodies are solid and without void... These can neither be dissolved when struck by external blows, nor be dismantled through internal penetration, nor succumb to any other kind of attack, as I proved to you a little earlier. For we see that without void nothing can either be crushed, broken or cut in two, or admit moisture, permeating cold or penetrating fire. These cause the destruction of all things, and the more void each thing contains the more it succumbs to internal attack from them. So if the first bodies are solid and without void, as I have taught, they must necessarily be everlasting. Besides, if matter had not been everlasting, everything would before now have been totally annihilated, and all the things which we see would have been regenerated from nothing. But since I have taught earlier that nothing can be created from nothing and that what has been generated cannot be reduced to nothing, there must be principles with imperishable body, into which everything can be dissolved when its final hour comes, so as to ensure a supply of matter for the renewal of things. The principles, then, are solid and uncompounded, and in no other way could they have survived the ages from infinite time past to keep things renewed... Furthermore, since things have a limit placed on their growth and lifespan according to their species, and since what each can and cannot do is decreed through the laws of nature, and nothing changes but everything is so constant that all the varieties of bird display from generation to generation on their bodies the markings of their own species, they naturally must also have a body of unalterable matter. For if the principles of things could in any way succumb and be altered, it would now also be uncertain what can and what cannot arise, and how each thing has its power limited and its deep-set boundary stone, nor could such a long succession of generations in each species replicate the nature, habits, lifestyle and movements of their parents. (L&S-THP)
Thanks for posting that Bryan. I don't think we've previously added that to the forum so I've uploaded it to the files section and created a separate thread entry here:
For those who are not aware of the relationship between Epicurean History and Hanukkah, we have a number of materials here on the forum, including a thread on Antiochus Epiphanes, who was the major player on the Greek/Epicurean side of the events leading up to the Maccabean revolt.
Our thread on Antiochus Epiphanes is here.
The page at the former Epicurus.net website which describes this relationship is available by Wayback machine here.
The collection of materials prepared by our forum participant Bryan is here in our files section:
It's clunky, but I much prefer something like "subjective well-being."
As per the thoughts I've already written, would Epicurus describe his condition on his last day as one of "subjective well-being?" In a way definitely yes, but we're not in a place in the world of 2025 where those two words are adequate, standing alone, to explain all of what needs to be said.
And after responding to Don's very good comment I also want to repeat that I think one of the things Emily Austin points out is the importance of being able to articulate why don't want to die until "our time" arrives. Yes it's because we want "pleasure," but we have to convey he seriousness of what that means.
I'll cite again the understated line in the article I like so much:
Occupying an argumentative space in which one lacks reason to avoid easily and ethically avoidable deaths should, I think, be a last resort.
I think what we'e talking about is sort of the same thing in reverse. What we want to identify is an argumentative space in which we clearly identify the positive reasons why we want to live, for motives other than that we are "afraid" of dying. "Fear" is not the primary focus of Epicurean philosophy. it's demoralizing and terrible "optics" to talk as if that were so. i read Lucretius and the other Epicurean texts as upbeat and positive, not as depressed in any way.
We've been robbed of the experience of talking about these things in both a serious and upbeat way, and that's what we have to get back. I doubt there's any way to do that other than to re-establish our own pattern of communicating about these things over and over ourselves.
Whatever the name we give to it, the phrasing has to convey how we can be so even while dying from kidney disease, or even while "on the rack." That's the level of seriousness we're talking about, as Don is correctly saying, its not "giddiness" at all.
Yep, it's a Herculean task to communicate all the subtleties. i'm fairly comfortable with "happy" in the sense of the Declaration of Independence referring to the "pursuit of happiness" as if that word somehow embodies all the attributes of the best life. But you're right that the way it's interpreted today is much more fleeting.
I do think that a large part of the problem is that it probably also implies more than any single feeling, even "subjective well being." When I see how the translators are using that word to express what you're talking about in terms of blessedness, I don't know that any word or term that focuses primarily on any sort of limited experiences is good enough. I'm thinking more in terms of that Sedley article which compares Cyreniac to Epicurean happiness and talks about how the Epicurean view was more of a total evaluation than a temporary feeling. It also implies something that we'd likely consider to be "objective" in the sense that we can all understand and communicate that this is fundamentally the #1 goal of life. Calling it "subjective" is certainly true in a sense, but it probably implies in English that we are very narrowly saying that we ourselves completely define what it is. Yes we do in a way, but the 'feeling of pleasure' that plays such a large role is given to all of us by nature, and there are "limits and boundaries" within which it operates. If there weren't, we'd never even be able to explain to each other what pleasure means.
In the end maybe I'd equate this to Torquatus saying that Epicurus held "pleasure" to be the highest good. We're talking about an evaluation of a full life, and I suppose that's necessarily an abstraction.
Unless and until we can communicate the seriousness and importance of the ultimate goal, how can we hope to begin to connect with the seriousness that comes through in Lucretius' poem and Epicurus' own work.
I think your comment hits hard on one of the big tasks facing us. We speak English and we have to convey accurately in English what the pursuit of Epicurean philosophy -- and of life -- is all about.
Episode 311 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. This week our episode is entitled: "Is Pain The Only Reason To Be Concerned About Any Aspect Of Death And Dying?"
In the absence of Joshua and Kalosyni this week, this episode is my brief review of Dr. Emily Austin's "Epicurus and The Politics Of The Fear of Death," which we have discussed in a recent thread thanks to Pacatus bringing the article to our attention.
JC this is going to over my own head and I suspect many of our readers, but I absolutely do hope you will add your simplified version and keep posting about it even if responses are slow.
We very much need to step up our game on physics and any posts you have on anything that relates to Epicurean theory will be appreciated.
And not only your current thoughts but also how you got interested and your development of thoughts along the way.
Welcome to Episode 312 of Lucretius Today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius, who wrote "On The Nature of Things," the most 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 we discuss this and all of our podcast episodes.
We'll pick up this week at Section 15 of Part 5 of Tusculan Disputations, continuing to look at how the Stoic/Platonic philosophers use logic to deduce that since only virtue is within our control, happiness comes from exclusively relying on virtue, excluding all else from being considered to be truly good.
Admin note: The biggest frustration I have with our forum software is that we don't have the site set up to give prominence to "articles" such as this new one by Elli. The current "blog" and "articles" section do not appear to be well integrated with the "Forum" software. Those of us who rely on the "red dot' notifications to point us to new content are not being directed to new blog and article entries or to the comments being made on them. The situation appears to be somewhat better with "Gallery" postings, but that's not ideal either.
It therefore seems that these new postings are frequently being missed, and we need to do better.
Right now the best way to be sure you see all new content here at the stite is probably to bookmark the "Recent Activity" page, and scan through the latest entries there when you come to the forum to check for new "red dot" notifications.
We're working on a solution to this and hope to have that rolled out soon!
Elli has a new article and interesting graphic here:
For someone debating whether to comment on this article, here again is one of the key paragraphs:
However, note that if Warren is right, the Epicurean seems to lack a clear reason to avoid a painless death. Why should she skip town when she hears that the local tyrant has a penchant for killing aspiring Epicureans painlessly in their sleep? If painless deaths are not bad, then why should she carefully label and store the fast-acting, tasty poison, rather than leave it in the open and accessible to young children? One must wonder what protects the Epicurean from happily courting a painless death. If she does not bother to protect herself against such deaths, then the objection that the fear of death is good if it helps us avoid deaths worth avoiding reasserts itself.
The question comes down to: It's *not* the fear of pain, alone that should cause us to not want to diie. But if our only distinction in discussion fear of death is whether the means of death is painful or not, then we're left in the position of not having a good reason (if fear of pain is our only motivation) to avoid a painless death.
Austin is pointing out that this is a problem for those who think that Epicurean philosophy is about nothing more than "fleeing from pain," and she suggests - I think properly - that this could not have been Epicurus himself would not have reasoned in that way and left his followers with no reason not to avoid a painless death.
As I see it this is related to similar issues in the regard to how to articulate "satisfaction." Yes I want to be satisfied at all times which my life in the past and present. but that doesn't mean that I don't want to live another day and experience more pleasure tomorrow.
Neither "deah is nothing to us" nor the various statements about satisfaction should be interpreted in a way that implies that the Epicurean should be indifferent to whether he is alive or dead tomorrow.
Here is an excerpt from the article, which comes after she states that in theory, of course, it would be preferable to live in an actual Epicurean garden:
However, most people do not happen to chance upon a Garden. The paucity of safe refuges, then, explains the standard Epicurean advice to abstain from political involvement in non-ideal circumstances, unless failure to be involved is a greater threat to one ’ s safety than participation (cf. fr. 133 Us.).
This underlined statmeent is consistent with the position taken by Aioz and Baori in their "Theory and Practice In Epicurean Political Philosophy," and they provide many more citations to establish it firmly.
As a reminder, the reason policy against the discussion of contemporary partisan political issues. The reason for that policy is that individual circumstances vary greatly. It's not Epicurus but Cicero who held that there is a law of god which is the same for all people at all times and all places. It simply not possible here to take sides in immediate political issues without causing harm to our ultimate mission. But we can certainly bring people together who share core Epicurean values that there are no gods or ideal forms, that life ends at death, and similar core issues. Once people are on basically the same page they are free to, and in my strong opinion should, form local bonds with like-minded and like-situate people to preserve their own security and pursue their own interests.
Certainly there are no supernatural gods or forces that are going to do that for you, and I think it's an important part of Austin's article to note that if we take Epicurean philosophy seriously then we're as individuals going to act to maintain our security and happiness.
Also Eikadistes you have raised one of the subtleties of the article that is not apparent til you read it thoroughly.
The issue is not simply limited to "we are afraid of dying a painful death because we don't want pain."
As Austin points out, if that were the only issue, there would no reason for us ever to be concerned about a painless death, even if we are 20 years old or even if we are good health and something happens to cause our death tomorrow.
We're not "afraid" of death, we act to postone and avert death not just in those cases where the process of dying is painful. We want to live because Nature has programmed us to "live for pleasure" (the subtitle of her book).
This should not have to be debated or discussed, but it does, and I think it's fair to say that appears to be the ultimate motivation of her article.
Hello jcblackmon in case you tried and were not able to post you should be able to do so now!
Superficially, I'm not sure I like the idea of identifying"fear" as the motivating factor behind preventing preventable death, versus, perhaps, rational avoidance.
Great post, Eikadistes, and I want to emphasize how much I share this view. I am not "afraid" of pain because I know it can be overcome or escaped. But even though I am not "afraid" I am sure as heck motivated to act against it and make sure that I don't have to suffer any more than is necessary. This is simply rational, and it's not the attitude of a ostrich or a cat constantly running from pain as if in a panic. Once we learn the facts of nature we don't have to be "afraid," but we sure as heck ought to be motivated to take our wisdom and act, not just "think" about our problems will eventually go away on their on or at death.
JCBlackmon tells us in part:
I am interested in Epicurus for two main reasons. First, I very much admire stoicism; second, I think it can be shown how an empirical and mathematical equivalent of Einsteinian relativity can be derived from his atomism, particularly his isotacheian postulate--all atoms have the same speed. I realize this can sound like something a crank says, but it's easy to show, and I've recently done so in (peer-reviewed) publication. I'd like to share the idea under Physics here and see if others are interested. What I show is that the Epicureans were just a few algebraic steps away from the Lorentz transformation, the equation by which we calculate time dilation.
Looking forward to being a contributing member here.
