Posts by Cassius

We will have another audio/video summary posted soon. As Joshua points out during the episode, we need to avoid the mistake of thinking that Frances Wright has Leontium disagreeing with Epicurus as to how best to treat those who are vicious. It appears that this debate was between SOFRON and METRODORUS, so I will correct the slides which hint otherwise next week.

https://aporia.byu.edu/pdfs/obdrzalek-on_the_contrast_between_pity_and_compassion.pdf

As to Pity. I suspect that what is going on here is that there are significant differences between "pity" and "compassion" even though we tend to use them interchangeably - or at least I do myself. After googling I see there are a lot of articles that allege a difference between the two, for example: https://www.chopra.com/articles/the-d…assion-and-pity

Again, this is all Nietzsche, but I seem to recall (or else this is my memory failing again) there are at least reflections of this in Aristotle:

“Pity preserves things that are ripe for decline, it defends things that have been disowned and condemned by life, and it gives a depressive and questionable character to life itself by keeping alive an abundance of failures of every type. People have dared to call pity a virtue… people have gone even further, making it into the virtue, the foundation and source of all virtues, - but of course you always have to keep in mind that this was the perspective of a nihilistic philosophy that inscribed the negation of life on its shield. Schopenhauer was right here: pity negates life, it makes life worthy of negation, - pity is the practice of nihilism. Once more: this depressive and contagious instinct runs counter to the instincts that preserve and enhance the value of life: by multiplying misery just as much as by conserving everything miserable, pity is one of the main tools used to increase decadence - pity wins people over to nothingness! … You do not say ‘nothingness’ : instead you say ‘the beyond’; or ‘God’; or ‘the true life’; or nirvana, salvation, blessedness … This innocent rhetoric from the realm of religious-moral idiosyncrasy suddenly appears much less innocent when you see precisely which tendencies are wrapped up inside these sublime words: tendencies hostile to life.”

― Friedrich Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ

Nietzsche on Pity

Pity…is a depressant. A man loses power when he pities [and when he’s pitied]. Through pity that drain upon strength which suffering works…

medium.com

Nietzsche on Pity

Where are your greatest dangers? ln pity.

medium.com

Nietzsche on pity and the death of God

Christopher asked: Nietzsche is famous for stating that ‘God is dead.’ After reading Zarathustra I felt that what he meant by this statement is that because of…

askaphilosopher.org

I see that Elli commented earlier on Pandora and Hope here: RE: Reverence and Awe In Epicurean Philosophy but it was only a passing comment:

Quote

When you would be able to live among gods, then we will talk about this again. Maybe there is a definite conclusion for living like gods among gods is an utopia. Utopia means that there is not any place in this planet Earth that you can live like gods among gods. Not still now. Hope so, but the Hope, as that myth says, it was the LAST THING in the Pandoras box.

Other references to hope:

Why Did Zeus Put Hope In Pandora's Box?

Hope and Pandora's Box:

Nietzsche - Human, All Too Human:

71

HOPE.—Pandora brought the box of ills and opened it. It was the gift of the gods to men, outwardly a beautiful and seductive gift, and called the Casket of Happiness. Out of it flew all the evils, living winged creatures, thence they now circulate and do men injury day and night. One single evil had not yet escaped from the box, and by the will of Zeus Pandora closed the lid and it remained within. Now for ever man has the casket of happiness in his house and thinks he holds a great treasure ; it is at his disposal, he stretches out his hand for it whenever he desires ; for he does not know the box which Pandora brought was the casket of evil, and he believes the ill which remains within to be the greatest blessing, —it is hope. Zeus did not wish man, however much he might be tormented by the other evils, to fling away his life, but to go on letting himself be tormented again and again. Therefore he gives man hope,—in reality it is the worst of all evils, because it prolongs the torments of man.

Can you summarize the situation on "hope" and/or "pity" Don, as you understand it?

Those are great issues to discuss Smoothiekiwi. One of them is the question of "divorce" vs "til death to us part." I don't know if anyone here would advocate in favor of abolition of divorce, so we're probably talking in the context that "divorce" is at least a partial answer to your concerns.

Then there are the issues of

(1) children, which I think most people (apparently not including Plato!) would agree are best raised in a stable family.

(2) and protection and financial stability of women, who are apt to be put in extremely poor financial positions if the commitment that is made in raising a family or being married in general is not long term.

Quote from smoothiekiwi

But by marrying, the person essentially gives up their ataraxia for an unknown future.

But that last is the formulation I would most push back against. As in some other current threads where we are discussing pain and pleasure, I don't think that Epicurus was unrealistic about pain: pain is required in order to live to any degree, and more pain is often required for more pleasure. So while "Absence of disturbance" and "absence of pain" are goals in the Epicurean system, they are not in themselves the ultimate goal or the highest goal. PLEASURE trumps both of those, and we can and do accept some degree of both disturbance and pain in order to achieve the pleasures we want in life.

Posing the question in this way really exhibits - in my view - how terrible a mistake it is to postulate ataraxia and aponia as the highest goods rather than pleasure. (And I will add that it makes it worse to leave them untranslated, because that makes it harder for newer people to understand what really is being discussed.) When you make it clear what is involved, it seems to me that it's easy to see that OF COURSE the avoidance of disturbance and the avoidance of pain do not trump all other considerations. Over and over Epicurus makes that clear, and in those situations where it can be argued that he seems to be saying something else, you override that interpretation by looking to the foundations and the full context of the philosophy, and adopt a construction that is consistent with both - not a construction that would blow the philosophy to smithereens if adopted (as some, regretfully, do).

Quote from Scott

So then I thought... Buddhism, which has been a long time influence in my life, has "suffering" as a seminal concept, as we all know. And would it be any surprise then that compassion is likewise a Buddhist primary motif, which it is, especially from the Dalai Lama and other Mahayana versions, but to greater or lesser extent it pops up in most of the strands of Buddhism. Suffering is also a big deal in Christianity. The passion of Christ, etc. Perhaps Epicureanism just didn't and doesn't have suffering as such a center piece. Although certainly aware of it and concerned to address what we generally find translated as "pain" in EP materials, is it not simply the case that Epicurus put the positive in front, not the negative? His focus was more on pleasure, not on escaping pain, right?

I agree with Don's "yes." I will also say that it is important to keep in mind that given the logical foundation of Epicurus, which characterizes the ONLY two guides given by Nature as pain and pleasure, the two terms at that "logical" level are largely interchangeable: Pursuing Pleasure IS Avoiding Pain, and vice versa. Those are the only two guides given by Nature, so if you are motivated by feeling, you are doing one or the other.

But having made that observation, I agree that it is critical to analyze which motivation is to be followed (1) at any particular moment, or for the long term, or for any span of time or (2) in terms of significance to the individual who is feeling the pleasure or pain.

Each person has the free will to decide which he is going to pursue, or whether to end his life and pursue neither.

I think it is clear from the shortness of life and many sayings that focus on pleasure and point away from suicide except in extreme circumstances that Epicurus held that Nature gave us Pleasure as the thing to pursue, and so while we are alive (and if we want to look at Nature as a mother) while we can follow Nature's guide and stay alive) our prime directive is to pursue pleasure, even at the cost of some amount of pain which we find to be worthwhile. If ANY amount of pain was deemed to be intolerable, the only way to implement that kind of philosophy would be suicide.

So whenever you're confronted with some basic unchallengeable observation like "some amount of pain is required to stay alive" then I think we have to assume that Epicurus understood that too and embraced it and worked with it, or else he would have explained why not. Instead, Epicurus was very clear that we sometimes in fact choose pain, so in my view that eliminates the possibility that Epicurus was saying to avoid all pain at all cost.

I don't see that I clipped another quote to comment on, but I also agree with the implication of some of the above posts that worldviews that focus on suffering and the elimination of suffering are in fact depending on the continuation of suffering for their existence, and they have extremely severe foundational problems. Yes Epicurus focuses a lot on alleviation of suffering, but he does so in the context that the purpose of life is pleasure, and the two go hand in hand toward the goal of living a completely pleasurable life, which is in fact largely achievable by most people in most circumstances, and by all people to at least some degree,.

Quote from Don

I seem to remember reading somewhere (a while ago!) that the predominant ethos in ancient Greece was to do everything you could for your friends and associates and do everything you could to crush your enemies. The world was divided into friends/enemies.

"No better friend, no worse enemy" is the phrase that comes to my mind in this. I actually believe that Epicurus would and did endorse that, BUT with the caveat stated in PD39 and implied in other places (the reason for this thread) that we do all we can to treat people as friends, or at least not as aliens, before we regretfully conclude that they are in the category of those who we exclude from our lives, or who are "enemies of Hellas," or who we decide are only fit for restraint rather than reformation, or we decide pursuant to PD06 that there is essentially no limit to what we can and should do to protect ourselves from such people, or who according to Diogenes Laertius are "vile."

But to repeat for emphasis, I do think Epicurus held that there are essentially no "good" or "evil" people who are intrinsically evil, and that we can and should work to make everyone whom we can into a friend. All the while keeping a clear head that we are not always going to be successful, and that the safety and happiness of ourselves and our friends is sometimes going to require treating some people as enemies.

Quote from SimonC

You put your finger exactly on something that felt fishy about this subject. Compassion seems to be self-defeating as a virtue since it requires that others are in and remain in pain, which is not a state of affairs I prefer.

Perhaps love or benevolence is a better word to capture the proselytising spirit in the above quoted?

It seems more Epicurean in spirit to state the goal positively: there are many reasons to prefer people even outside my circle of friends to live according to nature and be free of unnecessary suffering. Therefore adopting an attitude that helps bring this about is appropriate. This attitude is love (or benevolence).

Yes absolutely. The way this is worded reminds me of a topic I have always found interesting but not fully understood nearly as much as I would like. In my reading of Nietzsche I see that he took a strong position that "pity" (another word that we possibly ought to include in this analysis) is a very negative thing (it in fact "killed God" in his view). Further, Nietzsche or or others (I can't recall) took the position that Aristotle held much the same view. If Aristotle held it, this attitude toward pity may well have deep roots in the Greek viewpoint. I don't think we should dismiss this out of hand as inconsistent with compassion, I frankly don't have a good grip on exactly what the reasoning is, and I think we ought to understand it explicitly before we dismiss it.

And to add to the complexity, I have a feeling this view of pity is related to the Greek view of "hope," which we know was among the "evils" (or sins or whatever) that had been confined into Pandora's box before she opened it and let the rest of the sins escape. Why was "hope" classified as a bad thing and in the box? Presumably that was due to a close parsing of the issues involved in "hope" and we probably ought to perform the same exercise as to "pity."

I think we already have discussed and probably established to the satisfaction of most that even compassion has a limit, in that if we allow ourselves to be immobilized by sorrow over the condition of those who are suffering, we would never take any steps toward the alleviation of those problems. So probably there is something related to that in the analysis of pity and hope.

A good summary article on Philodemus from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Here is a video summary of our first A Few Days In Athens Book Review Session covering Frances Wright, the introduction, and chapter one.

Thanks to Alan Reyes for sending this - I have not watched it myself.

Quote from Scott

If the above points are made, EP and ATVs end up on level ground with respect to their final goals - EVERYONE is going after a good feeling, in the final analysis

Another initial comment:

I was reading / listening to some of the forthcoming chapters of "A Few Days In Athens" today, and I think Wright does a good job of setting out with emphasis how certain groups of people will never agree with this analysis, no matter how sweetly or clearly we state it. But I agree that this approach does and will appeal to a lot of people.

There's a lot of interesting analysis in that post and I will comment on it as soon as I can stop thinking about Four-Wheelers and other All Terrain Vehicles!

I await with great anticipation the comments of others here and I particularly want to see comments on this:

Quote from Kalosyni

Everything he writes is based on the context of the courtesan, and so it is absolutely not applicable to modern life.

Great post! My only fine tuning on what is posted so far is this:

Quote from Joshua

There is friendship, then; the greatest pleasure, and surest path to happiness

I think the second clause is almost exactly correct, but I would say that what Epicurus saying is that the whole the pleasure of having a friend is great, and such relationships are actually or at least virtually essential, I do not think that there is an absolute ranking of pleasures that would allow us to call friendship "the greatest pleasure."

A fine point I easily grant, but given our focus on explaining the nature of pleasure as accurately as possible. I think an important one.

Am I forgetting any passage that would justify exactly calling friendship "the greatest pleasure"?

We definitely need to expand the thread and be sure we touch on the explanation for the opening of Lucretius Book Two.

And I think we will also find more apt material on friendship in the Torquatus material in Book One of On Ends that we will tackle next week (section 65 et seq. If I recall correctly)

And yes there is much in Diogenes of Oinoanda to incorporate, in addition to "circumstantial evidence" and "logical implications" that may not be explicit

First and foremost in case a glitch in the site causes it to go down for more than a few minutes. We've been very lucky so far that the software has been very stable and your humble administrator has avoided some of his more hamfisted acts of technical stupidity.

Secondly, while you are right that we have no state secrets, it's less clear that we have no reason for anyone to dislike us. A large part of our safety has come through obscurity. Hopefully we won't always be so secure, at which point a number of Epicurean beliefs would make it less than popular everywhere and this subject of a malicious meddling.

Third (and this is not emergency backup) I do think some people like instant messangers for the notification abilities the website doesn't have, and the reason for threema is that I think we want to provide users with the ability to contact each other directly but also anonymously (if both agree) and Threema's no personal id architecture seems to suit that best.

Today at the suggestion of another user here I have started exploring THREEMA as an alternative messenger. The great advantage that Threema has over Signal, Telegram, Whatsapp, and similar is that it does not require any identifying information like Telephone numbers (which Signal and Telegram require). The "disadvantage" is that there is a four dollar one time (lifetime) fee to join the network. I put "disadvantage" in quotes because I agree with Threema's argument -- that if you aren't paying something for the product, then "YOU are the product" because the only way such companies can stay in business is data mine your information. I also don't consider it a major disadvantage because the cost is minimal, and probably serves the good purpose of making sure that those who join are serious (to the extent that four dollars is "serious"). Threema is based in Switzerland where the European privacy laws seem to be considerably stronger than they currently are in the USA.

I have set up an EpicureanFriends group on Threema, but consistent with its privacy focus it's no possible to find it on a public directory. Someone who is currently a member has to add you to the group.

I will probably make a post about this on the front page, and if things continue to look good Threema will probably become my main backup alternative to the forum itself. I've been tempted to launch a Telegram channel, but I think in the end that this forum software does most of the communication we need, and if we want a second / backup solution to communicate when the forum is down or in an emergency, Threema makes the most sense.

If you use Threema and would like to be a part of the EpicureanFriends group there, and thereby be part of our emergency backup / instant messenger system, just send me a message and we will get you added. That way if anything ever happens to your account of the forum goes down for a period of time you'll have a way to stay in touch until we are back up.

A comparison of the major messengers from Threema's point of view is here.

I think we had another good session tonight. We'll eventually get these posted for future use but I am pleased with how things are going so thanks to everyone who participated.

Quote from Kalosyni

The words and phrasing are so different from modern english that it takes a lot of effort to unravel.

And that's a large part of the reason that we have the book review, to help unravel it!

Cassius Amicus is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

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