Posts by Cassius

I think this is not one of DeWitts best explained positions, and I would agree with it only after caveats that "good" like a lot of other words has multiple meanings.

In this sense, I think his best line is to the effect that pleasure and pain have meaning only to the living, and that therefore being alive is a prerequisite to experiencing pleasure. That's in his explanation somewhere in a place you did not quote.

As he states in the part that you did quote, pleasure is the telos and DeWitt is distinguishing between that and "greatest good.". It seems to me he is stressing the proper differences between the words goal and guide as well.

Ultimately you should also read DeWitts article he entitled the summum bonum fallacy. He is to some extent calling into question, as does Epicurus in his criticism that DeWitt quotes about unsurpassable joy, of the issue of thinking that you are doing something worthwhile by focusing conceptually on defining "the greatest good.". Nature gives pleasure and pain as the feeling / basis for deciding what to choose and what to avoid. Nature does not implant in us a detailed reasoned definition of a "greatest good" nor do we create anything real - anything outside our own minds - by developing elaborate definitions of it.

There is an article called "The Epicurean Criticism of Socrates" by Riley in our files section here that you will want to read Smoothiekiwi. Let me know if you look and don't find it.

Thanks Don - I corrected - i don't think they were acting in good faith (at least the Platonists - don't know so much about Pyrrho)

Quote from smoothiekiwi

. I honestly dont know why you do that- it seems extremely boring to me to talk about stuff you already know-, but I'm glad that you do it.

It depends to a very great degree on who one is talking too, and whether they seem interested and in good faith and appreciative, and whether something is being accomplished by it. Those things (and probably similar that I forget) make all the difference!

"In Pyrrhonism aporia is intentionally induced as a means of producing ataraxia."

So they may allege (i don't know) but from what I am reading in the word what it induces is fear, uncertainty, doubt, and ultimately nihilism, and I gather that much the same was behind Epicurus' criticism of Socrates.

Especially since in the end the Platonists don't replace the doubt with answers, but with apocryphal methods of syllogistic logic to which they lay claim to be the experts and which is beyond the understanding of all except their initiates.

Initiating questioning is usually good, but I do not sense that the Platonists and Pyrrhonistz et al were acting in good faith.

And here's the major point on which I would like to see this discussion continue. I think we are always going to see a lot of "rotation" among active posters at a forum like this. People will come and go as their curiosity is struck and then satisfied.

I think the key to longer-term involvement, and what I want to encourage, is that basically everyone who comes here and decides that they agree with most of the basics should understand that it would be desirable (if they conclude Epicurus is right) to cultivate their own circles of friends with similar viewpoints in their local lives. That means that basically everyone should see that they aren't here just to absorb facts, or even to cultivate wisdom, but to then see that they need to apply the principles to improve their lives, and that means by cultivating their own local circles of Epicurean-friendly people. That can mean here on this forum, or on other online places, but also in their local nations, states, or communities. I think most of us would agree that we aren't really doing justice to Epicurus' ideas unless we see that it's important to implement them. And while we can be and hopefully will remain "online friends" we also need to look for similar relationships in the real world.

And so back to the original question in the post, I think it's important for us to be practical about where the boundaries really are on what we should expect to be able to discuss with people who aren't disposed to do a lot of technical research, and that probably includes most of us.

I put this graphic on the home page as a way of emphasizing a few key ideas that I think are at the every least among the "minimum":

But where the list is beyond that even I personally think is an open question.

At any rate I think this sets up the thread, in case any are interested in commenting on it.

I originally posted about this thread in a private discussion, but I'd like to move it here for discussion under "Community Standards." The topic is essentially something like this:

"To what extent should open Epicurean discussions devote themselves to extremely technical issues that only those most deeply interested in technical philosophy or psychology would likely be interested?"

This past week over at the Epicurean Friends facebook group - where most of the participants are much more generalist and less "advanced" in Epicurean studies than our group here - I approved for discussion the post from which I will quote here for discussion. I should also note that over there we have such a wide variety of readers that we "approve" posts before they go live. Here at EpicureanFriends, in contrast, we "vet" participants much more rigorously at the beginning, so once you get approved as a member and post a little about yourself we don't attempt to moderate posts before the go live.

I approved this post asking about "Direct Realism" even though I realized it was technical and even though I didn't recognize the poster. Unexpectedly, a number of people who also had never or rarely posted before got into a heated discussion about details of epistemology that I feel sure were lost on the great majority of readers. The discussion quickly turned into the type of philosophical debate I personally find distasteful, unuseful, and off-putting: a detailed comparison of how to fit Epicurus into categories set by competing modern theories with all sorts of technical jargon. I will quote a little below, but I want to stress that my post here is not a criticism of the participants (I intend to edit our their names here) but an occasion to discuss the larger issue of how to relate to people at Epicureanfriends and public forums:

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I suspect that the question is quite legit but it's far deeper into modern comparisons than i find productive to go. I am not encouraging anyone to go read it but maybe the next time someone asks about "Direct Realism" we'll want this link available.

"Is Epicurus a Direct Realist?

Author: Bridger Ehli Abstract

In his Letter to Herodotus, Epicurus presents a controversial theory of perception according to which "all perceptions are true." In this paper, I argue that Epicurus' theory of perception should be interpreted as a version of direct realism. If this interpretation is correct, then Epicurus holds that typical human perceivers have direct perceptual awareness of mind-independent objects. In the first section, I present an interpretation of Epicurus' theory of perception. I interpret Epicurus as subscribing to the view according to which our perceptions always provide us with entirely accurate information about the world. In the second section, I provide an outline of a version of direct realism. The version of direct realism I present here is strongly indebted to the work of Michael Huemer. In the third section, using the framework developed in the second section, I argue that Epicurus should be interpreted as a direct realist."

"The question of direct or naïve realism, as opposed to indirect or representational realism, arises in the philosophy of perception and of mind and the debate over the nature of conscious experience; out of the metaphysical question of whether the world we see around us is the real world itself or merely an internal perceptual copy of that world generated by our conscious experience.

Naïve realism is known as direct realism when developed to counter indirect or representative realism, also known as epistemological dualism, the philosophical position that our conscious experience is not of the real world itself but of an internal representation,"

-Wikipedia

Cassius Response:

This seems like a very interesting question, but probably over the head of most of our "generalist" readers in this group. Chaz it would be very helpful if you would provide a layman's explanation of the question. It's also probably worth commenting on whether and why this represents the position held by Epicurus, because that's not obvious to me or I suspect to most of our readers here in this group who aren't professional philosophers. In the meantime, here is a reference to "Direct Realism" from the Stanford Philosophy encyclopaedia. I can't recommend that many group members will want to spend much time researching the issue, but if certain people have an opinion on it and want to post about it and explain the topic, that would be great.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-problem/#Dir

Response One

I have to say -as a new member - (and not being a professional philosopher) this at least to me is almost the most exiting philosophical question raised in the group lately . Chaz Ajy I am not all covinced that Epicureus was a direct realist? Realist yes, but to my knowledge the only textual reference clearifying his position on illusions is the round/square tower. And that does allign him with direct realism, but more importantly it doesnt negate an indirect realism as it is a very specific example. Concerning hallusinations I guess a comment from him on visions of the Gods would have been clarifying.

Its an important question, the seperation between direct and indirect, as it positions epicurius against the idea of the hinterwelt that Friedrich Nietzsche so much was against. I have though a problem of seeing how anyone can argue for direct realism in an absolute sense as it seems to always reasonably be a question of degree. A direct realist wouød presumably also say that you have to be conscious to experience. As such I find Heideggers critique of the lack of acknowledgement of the immediacy of experience in western philosophy to be relevant. So even a direct realist seems to me to acknowledge that it is the consciousness that experiences and that thus the representation we experience is happening in the mind. Of course there is a difference in the level of immediacy between direct and indirect realism but it seems tonme due to the epistomological aspects that it is not such an absolute dichotomy as it is presented as. To my knowledge a definite seperation between these positions where not yet developed by the time of Epicurus, and thus if the dichotomy is false and a result of modern discussion (I mean that in absolute sense there is no definitive line between the positions due to the necessaty of consciousness, not that the ositiona of direct or indirect are false or irrelevant). My point being that if it impicitly is a point of degree it is not clear that it is even possible or constructive to be sure where Epicur stood. I myself would have to qualify my position of wether Im a direct or indirect realist based on the more exact definition of how involved "the mind" ( which diffuseness of term I find the main problem in positioning) have to be to be indirect. If the nervoussystem would be part of the physical structure of the mind then surely no direct realist would claim visual experiences that are not hallusinatuons are not produced by/in the mind. But to not digress, i simply wonder if there is a good reference tjat would further indicate what Epicureus thought about it, and wether it is actually possible to fit him into a definate group of thought on this matter?

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ANOTHER RESPONSE THREAD:

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I actually don’t see how such a thing is possible post-Kant.

Original Poster:

Kant? I must respectfully ask, are you aware that many very smart and respected philosophers have defended realism continuously since Kant? See G. E. Moore's in Defense of Common Sense, Wittgenstein's On Certainty, Colin McGinn's A Priori Argument for Realism, R. Hickerson an Indirect Defense of Direct Realism, the compilation work that shows many modern philosophers defend both types of realism: Recent Work on Naive Realism by James Genone, Michael Huemer's Skepticism and the Veil of Perception, and on and on.

In fact the most common view of philosophers in general is realism. "The PhilPapers Survey was a survey of professional philosophers and others on their philosophical views, carried out in November 2009. The Survey was taken by 3226 respondents, including 1803 philosophy faculty members and/or PhDs and 829 philosophy graduate students. External world: idealism, skepticism, or non-skeptical realism? Accept or lean toward: non-skeptical realism 2305 / 3226 (71.5%) Other 356 / 3226 (11.0%) Accept or lean toward: skepticism 310 / 3226 (9.6%) Accept or lean toward: idealism 255 / 3226 (7.9%)"

So, Kant did not sway the world forever to embrace idealism and reject realism, or make it, as you imply, impossible to defend realism, nothing of the sort.

It's also worth mentioning that Kant's idealism is nothing new. See Yogacara philosophy, Adi Shankar, and many, many others from the past two thousand years. You'll also find that they all had their fierce critics, and none successfully made realism untenable. See Chandrakirti's savage critique of Yogacara idealism for example, or Ramanuja on Shankara's idealism and so on. In fact, Kant himself was successfully refuted a mere four years after he wrote his Critique of Pure Reason some 300 years ago, so the very idea that he hasn't been refuted countless times since then, or that he somehow made realism impossible is quite remarkable. See Mendelssohn’s Refutation of Kant’s Critique of the Ontological Proof, Rogelio Rovira.

Original Poster:

Indeed, and if you read my response you will see that many of the referenced works are on direct (aka naive) realism (Huemer's book is on direct realism, though that's not clear from the title). Further, Kant was an idealist (though a minority dispute this, but this leads only to him being incoherent), and hence the line being between idealism and realism, generally, is reasonable.

EDIT: It is hard to include every post so I am leaving out some intermediate steps.

ORIGINAL POSTER:

I clearly entirely misjudged this group. I thought this was an Epicurean group, but it seems that no one actually supports the teachings of Epicurus at all, but rather are out to refute them. I didn't come here to argue for Epicurean philosophy against people on an Epicurean philosophy page. That just makes no sense at all. I wish you all good luck in finding the good life, and I caution against rejecting the very teachings meant to guide you there, on a forum dedicated to those exact teachings. Epicurus epistemology is very relevant to his goals and teachings and are not to be cast aside. So much is this position considered correct that E. E. Hughes penned a work in which she called the epistemology of Epicurus the very foundation of Epicurean thought. With that said, I'm going to walk away from this, and thank you all.

ANOTHER POSTER:

I consider myself a member of extended 'layman' group - on this forum.

Direct Realism, being a concept directly related to the perception, has been the subject I had been dwelling in since I got my conciousness developed...

The perception of the world, the world in which we live in, is the most important concept which the human beings experience. It's a base of our behavior.

The perception of the world is directly responsible for all our reactions. However, the perception, in a given point is a combination of information received by our senses, and their knowledge acquired about the subject - what affects how it is processed.

I we can imagine a situation in wwhich individuals see the same facts, and items in the world surrounding them, in acompletely different way. Everything depends on the information fed to them previously and their ability to process this information. So, the perception is the function of information received and information processed combined with the information which has been provided beforehand. There was a very interesting experiment involving newborn kittens. They were divided into two groups. One of them was placed in an environment where any visual elements were horizontal and the other was placed in the environment where all the visual elements were vertical. They were functioning in these separate environments for a while getting used to it, growing to know only this environment. At a certain point, all of them were placed in in the opposite environments. The ones which grew in the vertical world were placed in horizontal environment and vice versa. The resulting observation showed, that all the kittens appeared completely blind to the elements which were contrary to the ones which they grew up with. The 'horizontals' didn't see the vertical elements, and vice versa, the 'verticals' didn't see the horisontal elements. One may say that kittens are slightly different than humans, but are we, as mamals so different?. We have the same apparatus for reception and a similar one for compiling information - maybe a little bit more advanced. We can of course draw the analogy about peoples behavior - people who are associated with different political groups - but I'm not going to get into that subject at this point. So, let's get back to them basic examples. At he time of conquistadors when the indigenous people were presented with the mirrors, they had difficulty recognizing anything in the reflection. My point is: that the image World we treat as 'real' is the direct result of our 'perception'. But even in the most 'clinical' trial, the perception of one individual will differ (and may differ substantially) from the perception of another.

I hope I stayed on the subject.

END OF QUOTE

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There is more to the exchange but at present I won't take the time to post it.

The reason I am posting this now is, as stated above, to test my reaction to the question and to at least part of the debate against the reaction of others here on this forum.

It strikes me that this question was probably far too detailed for a general audience, and my initial attempt to bring it down to layman level was not at all successful.

My general reaction was that the entire thread was probably only marginally productive for those who posted in it, plus a complete turnoff for the majority of general readers.

Do you agree, or disagree? I this post had come into this forum, I would have moved it immediately to the epistemology forum, and I doubt it would have created much of a stir in our current user group. I think one of the benefits of this forum is that people can come here and search for information on obscure topics, and now they will find that we have something on "Direct Realism."

But on the other hand I can't imagine that a discussion like this is something that we should ever seek to have in a forum were we are talking to newer people, or to generalists, who are looking to apply Epicurus in a practical manner to their own lives.

Nor do I expect that anytime soon people in this group would be involved in going on an offensive in the academic world about who or who does not deserve to be descried as a "Direct Realist."

Well I am not sure we need to pursue it, but what I was trying to focus in on is why what you stated led you to doubt Epicureanism.....

Quote from smoothiekiwi

stuff, and tried only to active my dopamine reserve (which obviously failed). And that, in turn, led me to doubt Epicureanism.

I guess what you mean here is that you simply pursued whatever you found pleasing, without regard to ultimate consequences, so you were ignoring Epicurus' clear statement to look to the ultimate result?

If that's what you mean, then ultimately concluding Epicurus was right did not need to be tied to an understanding of dopamine or any other detailed science that was not available to him.

Do I misunderstand your reasoning and how you reached your conclusion?

Major Philosophical Questions Include:

1. Is the life of virtue steep and difficult or steady and smooth?
   1. See to that luminary! lovely and glorious in the dawn, he gathers strength and beauty to his meridian, and passes in peace and grandeur to his rest. So do thou, my son. Open your ears and your eyes; know, and choose what is good; enter the path of virtue, and thou shalt follow it, for you shall find it sweet. Thorns are not in it, nor is it difficult or steep: like the garden you have now entered, all there is pleasure and repose.”
2. Are the Stoic and Epicurean paths open equally to everyone?
   1. “The doctrine of Zeno,” replied the sage, “is sublime: many great men shall come from his school; an amiable world, from mine. Zeno has his eye on man — I, mine on men: none but philosophers can be stoics; Epicureans all may be.”
3. Is there more than one virtue? Are the goals of the schools the same?
   1. “No, but men clothe her differently; some in clouds and thunders; some in smiles and pleasures. Doctors, my son, quarrel more about words than things, and more about the means than the end. In the Portico, in the Lyceum, in the Academy, in the school of Pythagoras, in the Tub of Diogenes, the teacher points you to virtue; in the garden he points you to happiness. Now open your eyes, my son, and examine the two Deities. Say, are they not the same? virtue is it not happiness? and is not happiness, virtue?”
4. What is the relationship between virtue, good, and evil vs pleasure and pain?
   1. I shall say, that I feel myself virtuous, because my soul is at rest.”
      “If this be your criterion, you should with the stoics deny that pain is an evil.” “By no means: so much the contrary, I hold it the greatest of all evils, and the whole aim of my life, and of my philosophy, is to escape from it. To deny that pain is an evil is such another quibble as the Elean’s denial of motion: that must exist to man which exists to his senses; and as to existence or non existence abstracted from them, though it may afford an idle argument for an idle hour, it can never enter as a truth, from which to draw conclusions, in the practical lessons of a master. To deny that pain is an evil seems more absurd than to deny its existence, which has also been done, for its existence is only apparent from its effect upon our senses; how then shall we admit the existence, and deny the effect, which alone forces that admittance? But we will leave these matters to the dialecticians of the Portico. I feel myself virtuous because my soul is at rest. With evil passions I should be disturbed and uneasy; with uncontrolled appetites I should be disordered in body as well as mind — for this reason, and for this reason only, I avoid both.” “Only!” “Only: virtue is pleasure; were it not so, I should not follow it.”
   2. “The masters who would have us to follow virtue for her own sake, independent of any pleasure or advantage that we may find in the pursuit, are sublime visionaries, who build a theory without examining the ground on which they build it, who advance doctrines without examining principles. Why do I gaze on the Cupid of Praxiteles? because it is beautiful; because it gives me pleasurable sensations. If it gave me no pleasurable sensations, should I find it beautiful? should I gaze upon it? or would you call me wise if then I gave a drachma for its possession? What other means have we of judging of things than by the effect they produce upon our senses? Our senses then being the judges of all things, the aim of all men is to gratify their senses; in other words, their aim is pleasure or happiness: and if virtue were not found to conduce to this, men would do well to shun her, as they now do well to shun vice.” “You own then no pleasure but virtue, and no misery but vice?” “Not at all: I think virtue only the highest pleasure, and vice, or ungoverned passions and appetites, the worst misery. Other pleasures are requisite to form a state of perfect ease, which is happiness; and other miseries are capable of troubling, perhaps destroying, the peace of the most virtuous and the wisest man.”
5. What is the point of the extended discussion about Metrodorus' painting of Leontium?
   1. “Pray, young man, if you want to be a philosopher, never find an eye for painting, a finger for music, or a brain for poetry. Any one of these will keep a man from wisdom.”
   2. “Much more than common: — It is your Master’s self. The dignity of his figure, the grace of his attitude, the nobility of his features, the divine benignity of his expression. Had we not the original to worship, we might worship your copy.”

In addition to the question of lying, what you're talking about now is probably under the category of what "opinion" is - and how truth and error is a matter that we talk about under the topic of "opinion" rather than in terms of truth or error being what the senses provide to us.

There's a lot to unpack in that word "opinion" -- and in associated words like "knowledge" and "true" and "false."

Quote from Martin

Cecilia Payne proved already around 1925.

A lot of what we're talking about in this topic is "what does it mean to 'prove' something." We could say that we're coming to the conclusion that it means something like "establishes to the satisfaction of every reasonable scientist" but obviously that definition has lots of problems too.'

I see this, which also seems rather circular and to avoid a clear statement of a standard of proof:

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prove

[ proov ]

See synonyms for: prove / proved / proven / proves on Thesaurus.com

verb (used with object), proved, proved or prov·en, prov·ing. to establish the truth or genuineness of, as by evidence or argument: to prove one's claim. Law. to establish the authenticity or validity of (a will); probate. to give demonstration of by action. to subject to a test, experiment, comparison, analysis, or the like, to determine quality, amount, acceptability, characteristics, etc.: to prove ore.

to show (oneself) to have the character or ability expected of one, especially through one's actions. Mathematics. to verify the correctness or validity of by mathematical demonstration or arithmetical proof. Also proof. Printing. to take a trial impression of (type, a cut, etc.). to cause (dough) to rise to the necessary lightness. Archaic. to experience.

Very possibly it would be good to create a special recording session, like we did on Martin's "logic" presentation, on PD23 and PD24 - possibly focusing on PD24 and references to the evaluation of multiple possibilities, and when to choose between them, rather than strictly on the issue of the reliability of sensations.

PD23. If you fight against all sensations, you will have no standard by which to judge even those of them which you say are false.

PD24. If you reject any single sensation, and fail to distinguish between the conclusion of opinion, as to the appearance awaiting confirmation, and that which is actually given by the sensation or feeling, or each intuitive apprehension of the mind, you will confound all other sensations, as well, with the same groundless opinion, so that you will reject every standard of judgment. And if among the mental images created by your opinion you affirm both that which awaits confirmation, and that which does not, you will not escape error, since you will have preserved the whole cause of doubt in every judgment between what is right and what is wrong.

Gosh I apologize for my poor spelling (dress instead of stress). It's easy to lower ones standards when using telephones to type.

Cassius started a new event:

Event

"A Few Days In Athens" Zoom Book Club Meeting #4: Continue Chapter Three And Commenorate 20th (Feb 20 - 8:00 PM EST)

"A Few Days In Athens" Zoom Book Club Meeting #4: Complete Chapter Three and Commemorate 20th (Feb 20 - 8:00 PM EST)

This will be the fourth session on "A Few Days In Athens."

The rough agenda for our one hour session is:

1 - Twenty Minute or so overview of Frances Wright, the Introduction, and Chapter Two by led Cassius and any other volunteer regular forum participants who have read the whole book.

2 - Brief introduction of everyone on the call. (We will go around the zoom list and ask everyone…

Sun, Feb 20th 2022, 8:00 pm – 9:00 pm

Cassius

February 11, 2022 at 7:53 PM

Quote

"A Few Days In Athens" Zoom Book Club Meeting #4: Complete Chapter Three and Commemorate 20th (Feb 20 - 8:00 PM EST)

This will be the fourth session on "A Few Days In Athens."

The rough agenda for our one hour session is:

1 - Twenty Minute or so overview of Frances Wright, the Introduction, and Chapter Two by led Cassius and any other volunteer regular forum participants who have read the whole book.

2 - Brief introduction of everyone on the call. (We will go around the zoom list and ask everyone to say their first names (real or otherwise) and tell us about their background and interest in Epicurus. For example: "My name is Joshua, I am from (country), and I have been interested in Epicurus ever since _______________. I have read (describe how many books on Epicurus you have read) and I have / have not read the entire "A Few Days In Athens."

3 - After we do the introductions, we will then open the floor for open discussion of Chapter Three from all participants. Depending on how many people we have we will probably use the "raise your hand" method of going around the table with Cassius or other moderator calling on people to keep the conversation organized. We will monitor the text chat also and people can use that to indicate that they want to speak, and what about.

Note: The use of video is strictly optional. We anticipate many of our friends will choose to use audio only.

Important Links:

Link to PDF of the original book at Archive.org.

AFDIA Website with the entire book: http://www.afewdaysinathens.com

Link to previous and ongoing discussion of chapter three here at EpicureanFriends - Please post new substantive comments about the topic of the chapter here, where the text is also located: AFDIA - Chapter Three - Text and Discussion

Discussion thread for 2022 meeting logistics - please post comments about your attendance or other non-substantive comments here: "A Few Days In Athens" Zoom Book Club Meeting #4: Continue Chapter Three And Commenorate 20th (Feb 20 - 8:00 PM EST) (Sun, Feb 20th 2022, 8:00 pm-9:00 pm)

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Welcome to Episode One Hundred Nine 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.

I am your host Cassius, and together with our panelists from the EpicureanFriends.com forum, we'll walk you through the six books of Lucretius' poem, and we'll discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. We encourage you to study Epicurus for yourself, and we suggest the best place to start is the book "Epicurus and His Philosophy" by Canadian professor Norman DeWitt.

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.

At this point in our podcast we have completed our first line-by-line review of the poem, and we have turned to the presentation of Epicurean ethics found in Cicero's On Ends. We have now completed a long but important section stressing the importance of the Epicurean emphasis on Epistemology and Natural Science, and today we turn to section 65 on Friendship, which will probably take us several sessions to complete.

Now let's join Martin reading today's text:

[65] XX. One topic remains, which is of prime importance for this discussion, that relating to friendship, which you declare will cease to exist, if pleasure be the supreme good, yet Epicurus makes this declaration concerning it, that of all the aids to happiness procured for us by wisdom, none is greater than friendship, none more fruitful, none more delightful. Nor in fact did he sanction this view by his language alone, but much more by his life and actions and character. And the greatness of friendship is made evident by the imaginary stories of the ancients, in which, numerous and diversified as they are, and reaching back to extreme antiquity, scarce three pairs of friends are mentioned, so that beginning with Theseus you end with Orestes. But in truth within the limits of a single school, and that restricted in numbers, what great flocks of friends did Epicurus secure, and how great was that harmony of affection wherein they all agreed! And his example is followed by the Epicureans in our day also. But let us return to our theme; there is no need to speak of persons.

[66] I see then that friendship has been discussed by our school in three ways. Some, denying that the pleasures which affect our friends are in themselves as desirable to us as those we desire for ourselves, a view which certain persons think shakes the foundation of friendship, still defend their position, and in my opinion easily escape from their difficulties. For they affirm that friendship, like the virtues of which we spoke already, cannot be dissociated from pleasure. Now since isolation and a life without friends abound in treacheries and alarms, reason herself advises us to procure friendships, by the acquisition of which the spirit is strengthened, and cannot then be severed from the hope of achieving pleasures.

[67] And as enmity, spitefulness, scorn, are opposed to pleasures, so friendships are not only the truest promoters, but are actually efficient causes of pleasures, as well to a man's friends as to himself; and friends not only have the immediate enjoyment of these pleasures but are elate with hope as regards future and later times. Now because we can by no means apart from friendship preserve the agreeableness of life strong and unbroken, nor further can we maintain friendship itself unless we esteem our friends in the same degree as ourselves; on that account this principle is acted on in friendship, and so friendship is linked with pleasure. Truly we both rejoice at the joy of our friends as much as at our own joy, and we are equally pained by their vexations.

Thank you! I think producing a table like that is very helpful for illustrating that all these are "labels" for which would have to have some way of measuring and identifying them precisely in order to use them.

Lacking that, they all reduce - to me - to nothing more than "too much" "just right" and "too little" - isn't that a nursery story of some kind about some bears? https://americanliterature.com/childrens-stor…the-three-bears

"And then she went to the porridge of the Little Wee Bear, and tasted it, and that was neither too hot nor too cold, but just right, and she liked it so well that she ate it all up, every bit!"

Quote from smoothiekiwi

But, as far as I can judge, the Epicurean is simply an empirical sceptic, right

In the way you mean it, probably yes, but in the way the standard dictionaries would apply that term, probably not. I am beginning to think there is never a safe way to use modern words to describe Epicurus other than just as "Epicurean" - or else use lots and lots of caveats every time.

The particular danger here lies in going too far with observation - as it appears to me Frances Wright did - and concluding that no matter how much evidence you have you can never come to a "conclusion" that you can regard as confidently proven. We will be discussing that in detail in Wrights case later in the AFDIA book review and we might find occasion to discuss it in the Lucretius podcast again too.

Wright's position on observationwhich I think deviates from Epicurus is set out in Chapter 15 of AFDIA.

"Even so, I don't find any fault in the idea that the virtue is the balance between two excesses; probably Epicurus would've agreed to that. So why not pleasure as well?"

I would say that this points out the problem and that Epicurus would not agree. Pleasure is a feeling that nature gives us as a canonical perception. We don't feel pain according to a set formula, and Aristotle is suggesting that there are extremes which can be identified prior to circumstances and experience, and these extremes give rise to the mean and therefore the optimum results. The problem is that these extremes are like Platonic ideals - they have no independent existence and to the extent we can estimate some kind of approximation, we do so based on the nature of the operation of the atoms and void involved, not on the basis of logical reasoning based on absolutes.

Someone can probably do better than that in piercing the issue but I am very appreciative of Nate finding that reference.

In all, I do think what we have here the difference between seeing virtue as something relative to the circumstances (the Epicurean perspective of identifying virtue by results that occur afterward), vs doing the reverse and trying to evaluate circumstances based on their adherence to some preset arbitrary standard of virtue that exists only in the human mind as a tool for prediction (the Atostotelian/Platonic perspective). Plato and Aristotle may look for their absolutes in different places, but in reality they are doing the same thing and Epicurus is in total opposition to both.

I think that you two are probably not so far from each other. It's probably true that in some significant number of cases an unhappy marriage can be hidden from the children so that they are not as affected as they would be by divorce. I would stress "sometimes" and that we have another situation where it depends on details and "always" isn't going to apply.