Posts by Cassius

Today's episode was one rant after another and Joshua's notes pasted above were critical to stoking the fires! I will get this edited and posted as soon as I can.

Quote from Kalosyni

So for modern Epicureans, we must look instead to modern psychology for help with our understanding of marriage and long-term relationships

I presume that's a reference to courtesans who are not usually available to day. But as for the rest of what Lucretius is saying I think that what he is saying is foundational and takes precedence even before modern psychology, all of which has to be conformed to correct philosophy , rather than the other way around.

That's because In my humble view modern psychology is as frequently or more a mess (with camps saying very opposite things) than modern philosophy.

Ok very good!

So it seems that with only a few exceptions that sort of prove the rule, the arch really is distinctly associable with Rome?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arch#Classical_Persia_and_Greece

Don do you not find that "Les Epicureans" has less information in it that would help you determine how much confidence to put in the translation? I am thinking i remember that it's not heavily footnoted or referenced, so it's hard to know how much is reconstruction and how firm it is. Am I misremembering that?

Chapter Two Philosophical Highlights:

- Epicurus jokes with his friends that he himself likes Theon, but when the immediately say that Epicurus' opinion is enough for them, he rebukes them and says they are fools if they don't use their own eyes ears and understandings rather than trusting his. All this is said in good humor.

- Introduction of Leontium as a mature woman rather than paragon of youthful beauty. She is reading a treatise of Theophrastus, leader of the Arisotelian school, and she is not happy with it and wants to answer it. She remarks that she resists it because she finds it overbearing.

"For, indeed, the mode of delivering a truth makes, for the most part, as much impression on the mind of the listener, as the truth itself. It is as hard to receive the words of wisdom from the ungentle, as it is to love, or even to recognize virtue in the austere."

"“Whether the vicious were more justly objects of indignation or of contempt: Metrodorus argued for the first, and I for the latter. Let the master decide.” Epicurus responds: "Neither" ... "“It has yet a third; and I hardly ever heard a question that had not. Had I regarded the vicious with indignation, I had never gained one to virtue. Had I viewed them with contempt, I had never sought to gain one.”"

- On the right to free opinion: "“Talk not of presumption, my son. Who has not a right to think for himself? Or, who is he whose voice is infallible, and worthy to silence those of his fellow men? "

- [Time] "as he leads us gently onwards in the path of life, demonstrates to us many truths that we never heard in the schools, and some that, hearing there, we found hard to receive. Our knowledge of human life must be acquired by our passage through it; the lessons of the sage are not sufficient to impart it. Our knowledge of men must be acquired by our own study of them; the report of others will never convince us. When you, my son, have seen more of life, and studied more men, you will find, or, at least, I think you will find, that the judgment is not false which makes us lenient to the failings — yea! even to the crimes of our fellows. In youth, we act on the impulse of feeling, and we feel without pausing to judge. An action, vicious in itself, or that is so merely in our estimation, fills us with horror, and we turn from its agent without waiting to listen to the plea which his ignorance could make to our mercy. In our ripened years, supposing our judgment to have ripened also, when all the insidious temptations that misguided him, and all the disadvantages that he has labored under, perhaps-from his birth, are apparent to us — it is then, and not till then, that our indignation at the crime is lost in our pity of the man.”

- An Epicurean view of compassion? "But you will say, that there are qualities of so mean or so horrible a nature, as to place the man that is governed by them out of the pale of communion with the virtuous. Malice, cruelty, deceit, ingratitude — crimes such as these, should, you think, draw down upon those convicted of them, no feelings more mild than abhorrence, execration, and scorn. And yet, perhaps, these were not always natural to the heart they now sway. Fatal impressions, vicious example, operating on the plastic frame of childhood, may have perverted all the fair gifts of nature, may have distorted the tender plant from the seedling, and crushed all the blossoms of virtue in the germ. Say, shall we not compassionate the moral disease of our brother, and try our skill to restore him to health? But is the evil beyond cure? Is the mind strained into changeless deformity, and the heart corrupted in the core? Greater, then, much greater will be our compassion. For is not his wretchedness complete, when his errors are without hope of correction? Oh, my sons! the wicked may work mischief to others, but they never can inflict a pang such as they endure themselves. I am satisfied, that of all the miseries that tear the heart of man, none may compare with those it feels beneath the sway of baleful passions.”"

- On the lure of Stoicism: "“Oh,” cried Theon, turning with a timid blush towards Epicurus, “I have long owned the power of virtue, but surely till this night I never felt its persuasion.”

“I see you were not born for a stoic,” said the master, smiling, “Why, my son, what made you fall in love with Zeno?”

“His virtues,” said the youth, proudly.

“His fine face and fine talking,” returned the philosopher, with a tone of playful irony.

- On the irreconcilable war between Stoicism and Epicurus:

“Oh, that Zeno knew you!”

“And then he would certainly hate me.”

“You joke.”

“Quite serious. Don’t you know that who quarrels with your doctrine, must always quarrel with your practice? Nothing is so provoking as that a man should preach viciously and act virtuously.”

“But you do not preach viciously.”

“I hope not. But those will call it so, aye! and in honest heart think it so, who preach a different, it need not be a better, doctrine.”

“But Zeno mistakes your doctrine.”

“I have no doubt he expounds it wrong.”

“He mistakes it altogether. He believes that you own no other law — no other principle of action — than pleasure.”

“He believes right.”

Chapter Two Event Summary:

I see we're going to end up with two threads for each episode; (1) The thread associated with the calendar event, and (2) the thread associated with the chapter in the section on the book.

Until i figure out a way to deal with that, here's a crosslink where it's likely a majority of the discussion over time will take place: AFDIA - Chapter One

Great analogy! Thanks Joshua!

And without the ethics (a position on how to live) we would have no interest whatsoever in the physics or canonics and they would be as irrelevant to us as they are to many people who drift aimlessly through life.

Welcome to Episode One Hundred Eight 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. Today we turn to section 64 of Book One, and we discuss the Epicurean reliance on the senses and the benefits of natural science.

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

[64] Moreover, unless the constitution of the world is thoroughly understood, we shall by no means be able to justify the verdicts of our senses. Further, our mental perceptions all arise from our sensations; and if these are all to be true, as the system of Epicurus proves to us, then only will cognition and perception become possible. Now those who invalidate sensations and say that perception is altogether impossible, cannot even clear the way for this very argument of theirs when they have thrust the senses aside. Moreover, when cognition and knowledge have been invalidated, every principle concerning the conduct of life and the performance of its business becomes invalidated. So from natural science we borrow courage to withstand the fear of death, and firmness to face superstitious dread, and tranquillity of mind, through the removal of ignorance concerning the mysteries of the world, and self-control, arising from the elucidation of the nature of the passions and their different classes, and as I shewed just now, our leader again has established the canon and criterion of knowledge and thus has imparted to us a method for marking off falsehood from truth.

You know it's also pretty easy to connect keeping things in our minds and "on our radar screens" by having images of Epicurus on rings and portraits and busts around us

Quote from Don

He must have either seen it as important (like the gods being first in Menoikeus and the PDs) or fundamental to his physics.

I strongly think that Epicurus saw it as BOTH of those which you reference. It's a shame that his ideas on this have been dismissed they way they have. Once again, DeWitt is pretty good in taking Epicurus seriously, which apparently means considering the mind as a "suprasensory mechanism" able to receive and perceive these images directly without going through the eyes.

When we discussed this section of the podcast we really didn't dig into it too far, but even for those who reject the idea out of hand today, we need to keep in mind that this was important to Epicurus. It's even possible (and I am not advocating this at least at present) that this was tightly involved in the mechanism of "anticipations. "

Now that I write that, I do remember that when we were going over book 4 in the podcast that some of the panel thought that potentially the issue involved was that the receipt of images over time would imprint patterns that would be relevant to later thoughts, sort of like the citation in Diogenes Laertius, but instead of involving things we see, things that the "images" would imprint in the mind directly. It's very clear that Epicurus thought that these images were involved in our dream processes.

So at this point I would speculate that to the extent you are onto a good trail in regard to a teaching or therapy mechanism, the basis for it would be that Epicurus held that repeated exposure to images over time would imprint on the mind and affect later tendencies in thought processes.

It's a related point, but not the same point, to speculate that the receipt of these images is involved in anticipations, and that this is highly relevant (and may even "be") the third leg of the canon - the explanation for "intuition." I think we discussed in the podcast that the imprint of these images in the structure of the brain might be relevant to genetic transmission of dispositions across generations, since "something" is involved there, given that it strongly appears that Epicurus was not a fan of "blank slate" theory.

Regardless of whether either of these are fruitful to discuss or any particular users here think that they can be reconciled with modern science, it appears to me to be well founded that Epicurus himself thought something like this was true, so we should expect that he and his later school members attempted to follow these lines of thought to their logical conclusions.

(I should have known Don was going to to straight for the "images" material!)

The question has been raised about whether it is a good idea to make this into a continuing podcast, or to flatly state that it is not being recorded, which might be conducive to more frank conversation. When we started this I got several questions from people who wanted to hear it even if they could not attend live, so I do think there is an audience for this.

On the other hand, recording and posting is going to cause some degree of reluctance on the part of some people to speak freely.

There's a significant tradeoff of benefits and I am not sure which is best so I would like opinions.

Check out how I have edited this first one as a prototype. I definitely think that (as here) we will not post any of the cameras that were live, and we can make the video just slides (as we did here).

What do you think? Let's try to decide before this Sunday night. We'll definitely tell everyone who signs on our intention, one way or the other.

Right now this is posted on my page but it is not announced anywhere but here. If anyone whose voice is recorded would like it removed just let me know and I can edit them out.

Take a look at the "disclaimer" that I put at the front of the video as well. I am thinking that people will come and go and won't be in every episode, so we need to be clear that this is more free-wheeling discussion and less and official statement of Epicurean viewpoints --- we have the Lucretius Today podcast to serve more that function.

Thank you again, but as far as "conclusion" goes I expect this topic to remain as active over time as the eternal questions like "Aren't stoicism and Epicureanism pretty much exactly the same?" And as a result this will be an "evergreen" topic that will be revisited enough times to make anyone believe in Nietzsche's "eternal return!"

I would say it means your own future and the future of those who are relevant to you.

If that's your friends and family through which you derive the most pleasure, then that's the focus.

If for some reason you are wired that you most intense pain and pleasure comes from being concerned about humanity at large, then that's your focus.

The really essential insight I think through Epicurus is that you must understand yourself and what is important to you, and go with that, because there is no supernatural god, or idealist structure of the universe, that establishes which focus is "right" for everyone to follow. Whichever focus we choose is our own choice, and we're responsible for the consequences of that decision.

Quote from Don

I think "responsibility" isn't the right word.

I agree that this word is a problem, though it can be defined so that it is not. And "responsibility" is pretty close to "duty" which is a word the Stoics like even better. Cicero's "On Duties" impressed me at the time before I started reading Epicurus. There may still be good parts of it, and I do recall good hypothetical questions (such as what should the ship captain bearing corn to a starving town due when he knows that there are more ships right behind him on the way to the town. Tell them that more ships are on the way and the price will fall, or charge all he can get?)

But all of these questions have Epicurean answers based on calculations of pleasure and pain widely understood to include all types and considerations of what we will experience as a result of our actions, so "duty" and "responsibility" have to be carefully defined not to imply "duty to god" or "duty to ideals" of any kind.

I agree with you completely Smoothkiwi. As for myself, I may not have had any control over the way I came into the world, but unless I die unexpectedly I have complete control over when and how I exit it, and I expect to exercise that authority without interference from any government, preacher, or anyone else.

We want to be very careful and not be too casual about this topic, but the very idea that anyone would seek to restrict my right to exit on my own terms at the time I decide is one of the most offensive suggestions that I can think of the religious and other establishment authorities making.

Episode 107 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. This week we continue with Torquatus' summary of some of the Key Doctrines of Epicurus, with a discussion of the Epicurean emphasis on natural science.

Quote from Don

I originally thought Hiram may have been making more of it than was warranted. Now, Cassius might be imbuing it with more depth than is warranted. Maybe.

We'll all soon be having whiplash!

But I do think that the "images" aspect is one of the least appreciated aspects of Epicurean philosophy. It's almost totally neglected and most of us (including me) treat it as an amusing sidebar not worthy of much consideration.

But given how it appears to tie into many aspects of the philosophy, I bet if we had more materials we would find it popping up in unexpected places, and this may be one.

So I'm not really advocating any position yet except for let's dig into the material.

And I need to verify near the beginning of the dig is to verify how many (if any) of those "clear to see" references are indeed "ante oculos."

I need a good text version of Lucretius in latin somewhere -- I think there is or was a latinlibrary.com ?