Posts by Cassius

The Torquatus material is a gold mine and we have not finished it yet. The. We can turn to the letter to Herodotus (I think) which is also widely ignored but also very deep.

Joshua I very much appreciate both you and Martin and I agree this is very good stuff that needs wider circulation. The projects we could undertake are literally neverending but materials like this give us a base with which to work!

I am beginning to focus in on "always wants to go to new restaurants" as really good litmus test of something. Not sure exactly what, but a really good test

Quote from Kalosyni

It's important to see that if one just launches into pursuing pleasure then there is a chance that is it just a temporary "band-aid"...although there could be a place for this in some situations.

Yes I agree with this. Another reason is that of course we often choose pain for the larger-scale results, so even when we are in pain we might need to choose MORE pain (temporarily) to get out of the particular situation we are in.

This thread will contain system-generated Happy Birthday messages.

I think it probably makes sense to encourage users to use their Timelines to post just a little info about themselves, so rather than set up separate threads for each user, or post those greetings in this thread, let's allow the system to notify us of new birthdays in this thread, and then place greetings on the user timeline.

Episode 108 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. In this week's episode we discuss the benefits of the study of natural science, and how that study supports our reliance on the senses and our ability to live successfully.

For me the subject of empathy always comes down to: The "empath" episode of Stat trek the original series is virtually unwatchable and the very worst of the episodes as far as I am concerned. It is also the only episode that, as soon as the episode selection becomes clear, requires changing the channel to something else.

I've neve liked that weird French style of white face painting either. Pantomime - is that related to this topic?

Sorry for the tangents there.....

It is interesting how this subject is a lot trickier than first meets the eye.

Yikes. The main thing I get from that is that is going to pay to be cautious in taking positions on this topic.

This calls to mind how DeWitt comments that Lucretius seems to contain very little information on this subject, but that may be because Diogenes Laertius is the muddy one.

Maybe DeWitt is correct in pointing to the Velleius material as the best way to unwind the issues.

Very complicated and unclear subject.

In regard to what Kalosyni's comment on always looking for new restaurants being an indicator of marriage failure (kind of funny even to say that) here is what I remembered from Jefferson (Letter to Peter Carr - August 10 1787) Not the same thing, but probably related:

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Traveling. This makes men wiser, but less happy. When men of sober age travel, they gather knowledge, which they may apply usefully for their country; but they are subject ever after to recollections mixed with regret; their affections are weakened by being extended over more objects; & they learn new habits which cannot be gratified when they return home. Young men, who travel, are exposed to all these inconveniences in a higher degree, to others still more serious, and do not acquire that wisdom for which a previous foundation is requisite, by repeated and just observations at home. The glare of pomp and pleasure is analogous to the motion of the blood; it absorbs all their affection and attention, they are torn from it as from the only good in this world, and return to their home as to a place of exile & condemnation. Their eyes are forever turned back to the object they have lost, & its recollection poisons the residue of their lives. Their first & most delicate passions are hackneyed on unworthy objects here, & they carry home the dregs, insufficient to make themselves or anybody else happy. Add to this, that a habit of idleness, an inability to apply themselves to business is acquired, & renders them useless to themselves & their country. These observations are founded in experience. There is no place where your pursuit of knowledge will be so little obstructed by foreign objects, as in your own country, nor any, wherein the virtues of the heart will be less exposed to be weakened. Be good, be learned, & be industrious, & you will not want the aid of traveling, to render you precious to your country, dear to your friends, happy within yourself. I repeat my advice, to take a great deal of exercise, & on foot. Health is the first requisite after morality. Write to me often, & be assured of the interest I take in your success, as well as the warmth of those sentiments of attachment with which I am, dear Peter, your affectionate friend.

"Well, thats exactly the point Aristotle makes- that there's no absolute virtue, because everything is dependent on..."

Did you mean Aristotle there, or Epicurus?

Quote from Kalosyni

You'll be able to judge this trait in the way that people enjoy eating because they will be the ones who are continually seeking out new restuarants to try...so eventually they will lose interest in the "comfort sex" of marriage.

That sounds right to me, and it reminds me of something Thomas Jefferson is quoted to have said too (if I can remember it I will post it!)

I agree with Nate's application of the mean issue to pleasure.

However in addition to that I think there is something more, maybe though just because I have a superficial knowledge of how people talk about a "golden mean."

Superficially, I gather the golden mean is used as a rule of thumb (or logic) postulating that there are always two extremes, and that there is always a "best" that lies in an exact middle ground between the two.

I am sure that is oversimplifying the issue but I do gather that that is what a lot of people take the meaning to be.

And taken on that broad level, I don't think there is a way under the Epicuran view of nature that such a mechanism could function. As "golden mean" is frequently used, the result is a word game implying that it is generally possible to solve problems by looking for extremes, and (so to speak) adding them together and dividing by two. I don't think Epicurus would say that the world works that way in regard to pleasure or anything else either.

So I generally react negatively to "golden mean" analysis.

Quote from smoothiekiwi

I've thought for some time about this topic. Aristotles argument, that virtue lies in the middle of two extremes, seems irrefutable to me... and actually applicable to almost every aspect in life.

Great question SmoothieKiwi and something we ought to discuss at length.

I has been my view in trying to compare Epicurus to Aristotle that Aristotle's "golden mean" argument is not helpful in the least, and is an extension of his belief in categories that are artificial and built on abstact logic not tied to reality.

How does one know where the 'Extremes" are in order to interpolate a middle? To me what is too much, too little, and just right seems to me to be totally dependent on circumstances, and to imply that there is a "middle" that is always "just right" is probably something that muddies rather than clarifies.

I think this is a good topic to develop because we do come across it a lot so I am very interested in hearing opinions. But my preliminary view has been and is so far that just like there are no "Absolutes" in a atomistic eternal infinite universe, there is also nothing particularly reliable about picking out arbitrary "extremes" or "middle."

We can all understand what is meant in general by too much, too little, and just right, but as far as being able to pin down extremes and a middle, it seems to me that those are also both matters that are totally dependent on circumstances and details, and not something that can be determined "as a rule" or "in general" or through any purely "logical" analysis.

Is it fair to say that compassion derives from something more closely akin to "with feeling"? That would be easier for me to understand as a word that is more uniformly to be endorsed than "piety"

so ok pity is related to PIETY - and that probably helps explain its mixed implications.

I think Don is coming from the perspective I assumed to be true, that pity and compassion mean pretty much exactly the same thing.

I need to read the etymology of pity

But after reading some of the Nietzsche material and hearing Scott and Kalosyni say that they consider them to be different as informed by their Buddhist reading, there seems to be more going on than I understood.

We're probably going to have a situation where our goal of articulating the proper view of compassion, or the role of compassion in Epicurus, requires some careful explanation.

Lest it sound like a word game, the reason for the discussion is making sure that suffering is understood as something to work to eliminate, not something to nurse along as a pet doe improper motives, such as excusing us from taking action to seek pleasure or eliminate the pain that can be eliminated.

I get the sense that in that direction is where the criticism of pity lies, and it is justified, but that there is an entirely different and proper role for compassion.

And on this score, as in several others we will definitely run into, we may need to be careful against reading too much into Frances Wrights interpretation.

Last comment would be that it seems to me that in modern usage pretty much everyone sees "compassion" as a virtue. However that does not seem to be the case with "pity" which seems to carry other and varying meaning.

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:

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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.