Posts by Cassius

As a comparison for testing a "generic" response, I posed the exact same question to Grok. At this point I am just thinking out loud and not saying that Grok has it right by any means:

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The Greek terms "kinetic" (κινετικός, kinetikos) and "katastematic" (καταστηματικός, katastematikos) can be understood through their etymological roots and usage in broader Greek contexts, drawing on general Greek authorities such as lexicographers (e.g., Liddell-Scott-Jones) and philosophical or scientific texts (e.g., Aristotle, Plato, or Hellenistic sources). Below, I provide the primary, generic meanings of these terms and how I would explain them to students new to Greek, focusing on their essential linguistic and conceptual significance.Primary Generic Meanings

1. Kinetic (κινετικός):
   • Etymology: Derived from κίνηση (kinesis), meaning "motion," "movement," or "change."
   • Primary Meaning: Pertaining to motion, activity, or change. In Greek texts, it often describes anything that involves physical or metaphorical movement, such as the motion of bodies (e.g., in Aristotle’s physics) or active processes.
   • Context: Used in natural philosophy (e.g., Aristotle’s Physics) to describe things that are in motion or capable of causing motion. For example, kinetic energy or force is associated with change or activity, as opposed to stasis.
   • Essence: Something that is dynamic, active, or in a state of change.
2. Katastematic (καταστηματικός):
   • Etymology: Derived from κατάστημα (katastema), meaning "state," "condition," or "establishment," which itself comes from καθίστημι (kathistemi), meaning "to set in place," "to establish," or "to bring into a certain state."
   • Primary Meaning: Pertaining to a settled, stable, or fixed state or condition. It implies something that is steady, enduring, or in a state of rest or equilibrium.
   • Context: Found in contexts like Hellenistic philosophy or technical writings to denote a stable condition or structure, often contrasted with change or flux. For example, in Stoic or Aristotelian discussions, it might refer to a state of being or a fixed disposition.
   • Essence: Something that is stable, settled, or enduring.

Addressing Your Proposed Metaphors - Your suggested metaphors ("foreground vs. background," "less available vs. more available," and "calm vs. wavy") do not fully align with the generic Greek meanings:

• Foreground vs. Background: This implies a perceptual or attentional distinction, which isn’t central to the Greek terms. Kinetic refers to motion, not necessarily something that "stands out," and katastematic refers to a stable state, not a "background" condition.
• Less Available vs. More Available: This suggests accessibility or availability, which isn’t relevant to the core meanings. Both terms describe qualities of phenomena (motion vs. stability), not their availability.
• Calm vs. Wavy: This is closer but imprecise. "Wavy" implies fluctuation, which is only one aspect of kinetic (motion can be steady or purposeful, not just wavy). "Calm" fits katastematic better, as it suggests stability, but it’s not the full picture, as katastematic can apply to any fixed state, not just calmness.

A Better Metaphor for Students - To convey the essence to beginners, I’d use the metaphor of a moving car vs. a parked car:

• Kinetic: Like a car driving down the road—active, moving, changing position.
• Katastematic: Like a car parked in a garage—still, stable, in a fixed state.

This metaphor captures the contrast between motion (kinetic) and rest/stability (katastematic) in a clear, relatable way, grounded in the terms’ etymological and generic Greek usage.

Quote from Don

Epicurus is on record for including both kinetic and katastematic pleasures within his definition of "pleasure." I have now come to understand kinetic pleasures as those arising from factors and circumstances and that “stand out” from our “background” state of katastematic pleasures within ourselves. A metaphor discussed at the EpicureanFriends forum for this was that katastematic pleasures are the calm ocean while kinetic pleasures are the waves which we can surf. We can enjoy both floating on the calm water as well as the catching of the waves and “shooting the curl.” While Epicurus conveys (along with Metrodorus and Philodemus) that we can be more confident in katastematic pleasures, we continue to "delight" in kinetic pleasures when they are available. It is the exclusivity of "getting stuck in" only seeing kinetic pleasures as pleasure that Epicurus is objecting to here with τὰς ἐν ἀπολαύσει κειμένας.

Don:

Would you say that the first and primary meaning that should be associated with the term "kinetic " is "something that arises from factors and circumstances that 'stand out,'" and that the term "katastematic" should be associated with "a background state within ourselves about which we can be more confident?"

If not, what would you say is the first and primary meaning that should be associated with the terms "kinetic" and "katastematic"?

Asked another way, if you are lecturing to a group of students who are new to Greek, what is the first and most important thing you would tell them that makes up the essence of the terms "kinetic" and "katastematic? Would you say that "foreground vs. background" and "less available vs. more available" and "calm vs wavey" would convey the essential meaning of kinetic vs katastematic?

As i am editing I can point out that this week we focus on the second of three challenges Cicero raised in Section XX of part 3 of Tusculan disputations. - that Epicurus is wrong that there are only two feelings, pleasure and pain.

This challenge is common to both Cicero and Plutarch, and it's important for us to think about all possible responses because a lot rides on it.

We phrased the question in terms of "What was Epicurus's justification for dividing feeling into only two categories- pleasure and pain? Why not three, or thirty, or three hundred, giving names to many more types or categories of experiences? Where do we find the basis for this classification?

Here's on of the places Cicero states his complaint, in section III-XX.¶

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It may be said, What! do you imagine Epicurus really meant this, and that he maintained anything so sensual? Indeed I do not imagine so, for I am sensible that he has uttered many excellent things and sentiments, and delivered maxims of great weight. Therefore, as I said before, I am speaking of his acuteness, not of his morals. Though he should hold those pleasures in contempt, which he just now commended, yet I must remember wherein he places the chief good. For he was not contented with barely saying this, but he has explained what he meant: he says, that taste, and embraces, and sports, and music, and those forms which affect the eyes with pleasure, are the chief good. Have I invented this? have I misrepresented him? I should be glad to be confuted; for what am I endeavouring at, but to clear up truth in every question? Well, but the same man says, that pleasure is at its height where pain ceases, and that to be free from all pain is the very greatest pleasure. Here are three very great mistakes in a very few words. One is, that he contradicts himself; for, but just now, he could not imagine anything good, unless the senses were in a manner tickled with some pleasure; but now he says that to be free from pain is the highest pleasure. Can any one contradict himself more? The next mistake is, that where there is naturally a threefold division, the first, to be pleased; next, to be in pain; the last, to be affected neither by pleasure nor pain: he imagines the first and the last to be the same, and makes no difference betwixt pleasure and a cessation of pain. The last mistake he falls into in common with some others; which is this: that as virtue is the most desirable thing, and as philosophy has been investigated with a view to the attainment of it, he has separated the chief good from virtue. But he commends virtue, and that frequently; and indeed C. Gracchus, when he had made the largest distributions of the public money, and had exhausted the treasury, nevertheless spoke much of defending the treasury. What signifies what men say, when we see what they do? That Piso, who was surnamed Frugal, had always harangued against the law that was proposed for distributing the corn, but when it had passed, though a man of consular dignity, he came to receive the corn. Gracchus observed Piso standing in the court, and asked him, in the hearing of the people, how it was consistent for him to take corn by a law he had himself opposed? “It was,” said he, “against your distributing my goods to every man as you thought proper; but, as you do so, I claim my share.” Did not this grave and wise man sufficiently show that the public revenue was dissipated by the Sempronian law? Read Gracchus's speeches, and you will pronounce him the advocate of the treasury. Epicurus denies that any one can live pleasantly who does not lead a life of virtue; he denies that fortune has any power over a wise man: he prefers a spare diet to great plenty, and maintains that a wise man is always happy. All these things become a philosopher to say, but they are not consistent with pleasure. But the reply is, that he doth not mean that pleasure: let him mean any pleasure, it must be such a one as makes no part of virtue. But suppose we are mistaken as to his pleasure, are we so too as to his pain? I maintain therefore the impropriety of language which that man uses when talking of virtue, who would measure every great evil by pain?

Quote from Raphael Raul

I hold that reason is the tool that guides the Pleasure that we are experiencing, not the other way around. For example, pleasures come, while eating or drinking, let's say, and while one eats and drinks, one may desire to eat and drink past a reasonable limit. Thus, a reasonable person employs "reason" to decide, "No, I will stop eating and drinking now, because if I continue, I will get drunk and have indigestion later. So yes, we feel Pleasure, and those pleasures can be good or bad if we do not use reason to decide how far or how much Pleasure we should have.

The question of the proper order of priority is why according to Diogenes Laertius Epicurus held that:

"Logic they reject as misleading. For they say it is sufficient for physicists to be guided by what things say of themselves. Thus in The Canon Epicurus says that the tests of truth are the sensations and concepts and the feelings.... Nor is there anything which can refute the sensations. For a similar sensation cannot refute a similar because it is equivalent in validity, nor a dissimilar a dissimilar, for the objects of which they are the criteria are not the same; nor again can reason, for all reason is dependent upon sensations; .... And seeing and hearing are as much facts as feeling pain.

In your examples, the only factor that makes reason useful is that the feeling of pleasure and pain consistently report certain conditions as desirable and others as undesirable. It is not possible through formula and logical assertions alone to conclude that apple pie is good or bad. One piece is frequently good; ten pieces in a row are frequently bad. It is the fact of the result producing pain that we store in memory and retrieve to conclude through reasoning that we should stop after eating one piece. Reasoning is the mechanism through which we predict the future, but it was the original feelings that were gathered by memory and reason that led us to assert the rule of thumb as to how much to eat. And even that rule of thumb remains dependent on circumstances. Five pieces of apple pie in a row would ordinarily create pain, but if you have been starving in a desert for weeks. even more than five pieces may still be enjoyable. Reason is certainly a valuable tool, but circumstances change, and in order of priority pleasure and pain of actual people in actual life take precedence. In Jefferson's phrase, "the earth belongs to the living."

Quote from Raphael Raul

However, the main argument concerns the almost total subject view that all members held at last Sunday's discussion. The idea that all is subjective and that there is no objectivity possible in making societal valuations.

The goal of establishing the validity and necessity of "objectivity" is exactly what Epicurean canonics is all about, and no one establishes and defends objectivity better than Epicurus. The question is finding a true and real basis for objectivity, one which does not require made-up gods or standards of certainty that are logically impossible to achieve. What you are looking for in rejecting total subjectivism is exactly what Epicurus is doing.

It is Plato and the Stoics (including Cicero in our current discussions) who are the relativists and subjectivists. They assert groundless speculation about eternal virtues and forms as the real truth, but in fact their standards of truth do not exist. There are no eternal standards of right and wrong or laws that apply to all people at all places at all times.

This is where Epicurus saw that it is impossible to live successfully without a proper standard of what is true and real. Although there are no eternal forms or virtues, nature does exist with regularity that is predictable, and that regularity is how we deduce that there are some things that are regularly and even eternally the same in the nature of the atoms and the void. It is Epicurus who properly establishes that some things that are eternal and reliable do exist, and from that eternal nature we observe that nature has given us the feelings of pleasure and pain. We can use reasoning to help us understand the validity of following pleasure and avoiding pain, but in reality nature tells us directly through feeling, and we cannot override what nature gives us. Pleasure and pain are just as real to us as seeing of hearing or touching, no matter how we may try to reason ourselves into believing otherwise.

So Epicurus is not being inconsistent in (1) placing the guidance of nature through pleasure and pain above reason, while at the same time (2) saying that the wise man is going to conduct all his affairs throughout his life using reason. The two go hand in hand, but it is not reason that allows us to experience pleasure and avoid pain, but pleasure and pain which instruct reason on how to employ itself.

Thank you for that post Raphael! You're covering several things and I expect there will be lots of reactions to different parts.

I am inclined to want to focus on what I think is a position we share, which is that Epicurean philosophy does not in fact mean that a life of push-pin is as well spent as a life of enthusiastic pursuit of nuclear research and invention. It's because I believe that as well that I campaign against empty use terms such as "absence of pain" which can either be very profound and essential, or a straight road to decadence and disaster, depending on how (and if) one defines them.

But I think I will start with this one:

Quote from Raphael Raul

However, Epicureans maintain that all is subjective, as I was made aware of during our discussion, and objective valuations cannot be made. What Epicureans hold is in contradiction to what Epicurus actually did, which was to attempt to arrive at ideas that he developed through objective reasoning.

.. because I think you are exactly right to judge Epicureans and the Epicureans according to the active and engaged lives that they lived, and not according to the head-in-the-sand isolationism which is held up today as the Epicurean ideal.

But the real heart of the question is the role of pleasure vs reason as the guide. I gather you're concerned that it is a problem to hold reason to be a "tool" for happiness, rather than a guide toward happiness. I think the answer to that concern is found in pursuing the same line of thinking that leads you to conclude that a life of pushpins is unacceptable to you.

The ultimate issue is that "reason" alone cannot give you the answer to the question of what you "should" do without first calculating the reasonable course in relation to a goal. And only pleasure and pain can ultimately determine whether a goal is worth pursuing. No amount of reasoning can deliver the positive emotional response that you are looking for in what you are considering to be worthy goals. Only the feeling of pleasure and pain can sort out those questions in the ultimate sense. Yes we must employ reason so we can project the results of our actions based on experience, but no amount of calculation can tell us whether our goals are worth pursuing or not.

That's what I think you are hearing in those who, like Lucretius, are calling "divine pleasure the guide of life." As a guide pleasure does not reject the use of reason or friendship or virtue or any other tool toward reaching the goal, but a perspective that places "nature" firmly in the driver's seat as to what to pursue and what to avoid has to acknowledge that by nature there is only pleasure and pain as feelings of guidance.

There's of course a lot more to say and I am sure others will say it better, but I think your reaction that you see a problem is much more to be appreciated than a reaction that some might have to the effect that "i'm ok with pushpins as long as I never suffer a moment of pain!" That attitude is NOT Epicurean.

for now one more example:

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Epicurus makes an important distinction between necessary and unnecessary desires. Necessary desires are those which are necessary to produce happiness, such as desiring to get rid of bodily pain, or desiring a state of inner tranquility. He writes that “the end of all our actions is to be free from pain and fear, and once this is obtained the tempest of the soul is quelled.” Only when we are in pain do we feel the need to seek pleasure, a need which inevitably only produces greater pain. In order to get rid of this pain-pleasure-pain cycle, we need to cultivate a mindset in which there is no pain. Thus the aim is not the positive pursuit of pleasure, as it was for Aristippus. The aim is rather the attaining of a neutral state which is best described as “peace of mind” or even “emptiness,” to use a Buddhist expression. The Greek word Epicurus uses for this state is ataraxia, which literally means “freedom from worry.”

Quote from DaveT

I think even poorly educated people who hear (rather than read) as well as anyone educated can understand that putting your feet up at the end of a rough day can diminish pain. It simply feels good, to chill. So, whether they think the good thoughts or just go blank, it doesn't seem ridiculous to me.

And of course I agree with that, and I would call that the activity of resting, or of relaxing. That is something that you do consciously to take a break from something else, like eating when you are hungry or drinking when you are thirsty. You aren't literally "closing your eyes and clearing your mind from any conscious thought" except in the case of sleep where you intend to do exactly that. The bottom line of my position is referring back to the common situation today where viewpoints and attitudes toward the world are corrupted and perverted, as Torquatus references when he explains that Epicurus looks to the young of all species before they are corrupted as his standard for proving nature's guidance. If your default manner of thinking is that gods control your life and that you are going to be punished or rewarded for your actions after death, then clearing your mind from conscious attention to other things is simply going to allow those erroneous thoughts to take over whatever attention is left.

As Lucretius says repeatedly in his poem, you can't just look at the rays of light and understand from just looking the implications of what you are seeing. You need a scheme of systematic understanding - Epicurean philosophy - to see that what the senses are bringing to you are not things to worry about but instead can be dealt with successfully to live a happy life. The most basic example after gods and death is pain, and that's why the attitude required in PD03 that pain is short if intense and manageable if long is important. Every aspect of epicurean philosophy requires action of the mind to attain it, not just "breathing" or "getting out of the way" or "clearing your mind" in order to appreciate it.

Quote from DaveT

Can you discuss specifics here? And individuals?

What negative impact do you think those “friends” have on any understanding of the Epicurean pursuit of happiness?

I'd like to organize examples further but many of them already exist in the subforum on absence of pain. Here's one example:

Thread

An Unfortunate Article Suggesting That Katastematic Pleasure is "Necessary" and Kinetic Pleasure is "Unnecessary"

I haven't had time to read this article by Yosef Liebersohn, and I am not sure if or when I will, but this abstract that came across my email just reminded me for the 500th time of this issue. I'll skip over the fact that the author suggests that kinetic and katastematic are "the most dominant terms in Epicurus' theory of the pleasures (despite the fact that this comes from Cicero and Diogenes Laertius and isn't a significant factor at all in Epicurus' or Lucretius' work, as explained by Boris…

Cassius

April 14, 2021 at 11:23 AM

https://www.epicureanfriends.com/wcf/attachment/1785-pasted-from-clipboard-png/

And then there's wikipedia:

While Wikipedia is not a "friend" of Epicurus, the problem is all over the main entry on Epicurus, which I freely admit is amply justified by most modern writing:

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Epicurus was a hedonist, meaning he taught that what is pleasurable is morally good and what is painful is morally evil. For his ethical system he redefined "pleasure" as the absence of suffering and taught that all humans should seek to attain the state of ataraxia, meaning "untroubledness", a state in which the person is completely free from all pain or suffering.^[1]

Epicureans had a very specific understanding of what the greatest pleasure was, and the focus of their ethics was on the avoidance of pain rather than seeking out pleasure.^[27] As evidence for this, Epicureans say that nature seems to command us to avoid pain, and they point out that all animals try to avoid pain as much as possible.^[28]

And this is just atrocious:

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In order to do this an Epicurean had to control their desires, because desire itself was seen as painful. Not only will controlling one's desires bring about aponia, as one will rarely suffer from not being physically satisfied, but controlling one's desires will also help to bring about ataraxia because one will not be anxious about becoming discomforted since one would have so few desires anyway. The Epicureans divide desires into three classes: natural and necessary, natural but not necessary, and vain and empty:^[30]

Quote from Cassius

It is deadly to Epicurean philosophy to interpret "absence of pain" as inactivity.

Which in my mind means that if you're standing on a stage and you say "absence of pain is pleasure" or "absence of pain is the highest pleasure," then you're saying the equivalent of the sun is the size it appears to be, or "for gods there are, since the knowledge of them is by clear vision."

To a person of ordinary education and intelligence, none of those statements make sense on their face without explanation. Ordinary people will think you are being absurd. And if you aren't willing and don't proceed to immediately provide that explanation in very clear terms, then those ordinary people will conclude that you are a provocateur and laugh or pull you off the stage. And in general you'll deserve that treatment.

Of course if you intend to insult your audience, then saying those underlined statements without explanation will certainly do the trick. But in that case one day you're likely to find yourself drinking Hemlock with Socrates. And most people will think that you won't deserve a lot of sympathy.

So taking the modern position that the term "absence of pain" speaks for itself is absurd. Cicero saw that it doesn't speak for itself. Plutarch saw that it doesn't speak for itself. And the educated Greeks of Epicurus' time weren't stupid either, and they would have demanded and gotten an explanation from Epicurus. But I don't think they would have had to demand anything, because what they had, and what we don't have, was all of Epicurus' other works beyond the letter to Menoeceus, and from which Cicero and Plutarch are quoting. And these quotations combined with common sense point to the conclusion that when Epicurus was referring to "absence of pain," what he meant was that the reason you're not in pain is that you're completely engaged in mental and physical activities that are pleasurable.

Quote from Cicero - In Defense of Publius Sestius 10:23 (Perseus Link)

He added that these same men were quite right in saying that the wise do everything for their own interests; that no sane man should engage in public affairs; that nothing was preferable to a life of tranquility crammed full of pleasures.

(nihil esse praestabilius otiosa vita, plena et conferta voluptatibus.)

Welcome to Episode 299 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.

This week we return to our series covering Cicero's "Tusculan Disputations" from an Epicurean viewpoint, and today we will be following up on last week's discussion as we continue in Section XX, where Cicero hammers against the inconsistencies he sees in holding "absence of pain" to be pleasure.

Dave that's a great question and I'm not the best to answer it, but there's a lot written about this period in Cicero's life, when he was essentially in forced political retirement (due to opposing Julius Caesar) and in bad personal circumstances (his daughter dying in childbirth). He explains a lot of this himself in his various works as his motivation for wanting to engage in something to help get his mind off his problems, and I've seen it observed that this seems to make sense in that while he was certainly interested in philosophy previously, he hadn't written extensively before that period.

So, who was Cicero trying to convert to his Platonic belief that eternal virtues are the highest good? Was he succeeding in his goal? And is that the reason he kept at it, sensing that he was winning the game?

Remember that the form of Platonism Cicero saw himself a part of was arguably more skeptical than Plato's own form, so he may have seen himself not as arguing exactly what the highest good "is" as much as he was opposing the Epicurean (and Stoic) confidence that they themselves held the correct position. But yes he clearly sided more with the Stoics that virtue is the highest good. As for me I am not sure that he thought he was succeeding. He seems to have been very negative about the situation "Oh the times! Oh the morals!"  and he'd already seen many of his friends dead in the loss of Pompeii and the battle of Pharsalia. I'd say at this point he was trying to (1) console himself that he was right despite the bad turn of events, and (2) rally whoever among the Senatorial class was still around to listen to him.

And I'd say his effectiveness is the reason that his works were preserved by the Judeo-Christians, who saw in them justification for their political suppression of dissent.

Quote from DaveT

One foundation of good writing that I learned over time is that as a writer, you must know your audience. You shape your premise and your theme based on the audience who will read the work.

As Dewitt wrote, Cicero could not have misrepresented Epicurus so well if he had not understood Epicurus so thoroughly.

In my view, Cicero -- correctly -- identified that to describe "absence of pain" as pleasure is totally unsatisfactory and will never be acceptable to ordinary people who are not aware of the philosophical explanation that the person in "absence of pain" is not engaged in inactive nothingness, but is actually engaging in normal and pleasurable mental and physical activities unaccompanied by any pains.

I would equate this difficulty to the "the sun is the size it appears to be." That phrase appears laughably ridiculous unless attended with the explanation that the point is not to assert a particular size, but to assert that the size is in fact determined by the senses, rather than by abstract calculations which have not been grounded in reality.

To any audience of normally educated people, all you have to do is strip "absence of pain" of its explanation, and Epicurean philosophy becomes ridiculous. Cicero and Plutarch and Seneca and others did exactly that. They gave the Epicurean slogans detached from the Epicurean explanations in physics and canonics, and thereby they wrote the narrative that has prevailed ever since. And the worst part is that many of today's friends of Epicurus continue to do exactly the same thing, burying the philosophy deeper rather than doing anything to recover the explanation.

It is deadly to Epicurean philosophy to interpret "absence of pain" as inactivity.

The latest podcast is now posted:

Post

RE: Episode 298 - TD26 - Facts And Feelings In Epicurean Philosophy - Part 1"

Episode 298 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. Today our episode is entitled: "Facts and Feelings In Epicurean Philosophy - Part 1"

[media]https://www.spreaker.com/episode/67739526/media

Cassius

September 12, 2025 at 4:53 PM

Episode 298 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. Today our episode is entitled: "Facts and Feelings In Epicurean Philosophy - Part 1"

Next week we will incorporate this statement from Diogenes Laertius 32 as to the relationship between the feelings of pleasure and pain and Epicurus' view of what is true and real:

EpicureanFriends Side-By-Side Diogenes Laertius Ten

32

Moreover, they are out of the reach of any control; for one sensation cannot judge of another which resembles itself; for they have all an equal value. Nor can one judge of another which is different from itself; since their objects are not identical. In a word, one sensation cannot control another, since the effects of all of them influence us equally. Again, the reason cannot pronounce on the senses; for we have already said that all reasoning has the senses for its foundation. Reality and the evidence of sensation establish the certainty of the senses; for the impressions of sight and hearing are just as real, just as evident, as pain.

Continuing on with our recent focus on pleasure, the topic for this week will be: "Life Is Desirable, But Unlimited Time Contains No Greater Pleasure Than Limited Time"

Life Is Desirable, But Unlimited Time Contains No Greater Pleasure Than Limited Time

In last night's zoom it became clear to me that it would be good to have an additional timeline beyond what we have now (TIMELINES: Joshua's Timeline of Epicureanism From Classical Athens to Late Antiquity and Nate's Timeline of Ancient Epicurean History)

I focus on this because of the recent reading I've been doing that indicates how the development of skepticism was in the process of blowing up the Academy and how there were many reactions to it - with Stoics and Epicureans to some degree in alignment in response to this negative development. And there are key names in this war over skepticism that are not familiar parts of our discussions at all, including Arcesilaus, Carneades, Panaetus and others cited by Cicero as important, etc.

What's missing it seems to me is a parallel presentation of (1) the leaders of the Academy, Lyceum, and Stoa over the next hundred or so years from Epicurus' time up to the Roman period, and (2) the political leaders of Athens and Rome over the same period. We know that Epicurus was corresponding with the court of Lysemachus during his own time, and the other leaders thereafter would have also had significant impact on what was going on within the schools.

At the moment I'm just putting this out there for us to consider as we go forward, but I think we'd get important context from such a chart showing both the political context AND the leaders of the major schools, probably starting at the time of Plato and going up all the way through Julius Caesar.

All these names and dates can get overwhelming, but rather then try to incorporate everyone from the dawn of history to the present, we'd get a lot out of focusing on the period from Plato to Cicero to see how the Epicurean debates were affected by current leaders and events.

This passage came up in discussion last night and I want to ask a question about it:

Quote from Fragment 32 - MFS Translation

Fr. 32

... [the latter] being as malicious as the former.

I shall discuss folly shortly, the virtues and pleasure now.

If, gentlemen, the point at issue between these people and us involved inquiry into «what is the means of happiness?» and they wanted to say «the virtues» (which would actually be true), it would be unnecessary to take any other step than to agree with them about this, without more ado. But since, as I say, the issue is not «what is the means of happiness?» but «what is happiness and what is the ultimate goal of our nature?», I say both now and always, shouting out loudly to all Greeks and non-Greeks, that pleasure is the end of the best mode of life, while the virtues, which are inopportunely messed about by these people (being transferred from the place of the means to that of the end), are in no way an end, but the means to the end.

Let us therefore now state that this is true, making it our starting-point.

Suppose, then, someone were to ask someone, though it is a naive question, «who is it whom these virtues benefit?», obviously the answer will be «man.» The virtues certainly do not make provision for these birds flying past, enabling them to fly well, or for each of the other animals: they do not desert the nature with which they live and by which they have been engendered; rather it is for the sake of this nature that the virtues do everything and exist.

Each (virtue?) therefore ............... means of (?) ... just as if a mother for whatever reasons sees that the possessing nature has been summoned there, it then being necessary to allow the court to asked what each (virtue?) is doing and for whom .................................... [We must show] both which of the desires are natural and which are not; and in general all things that [are included] in the [former category are easily attained] .....

Fr. 32 lower margin (Epic. Sent. 6,

[For the purpose of gaining security from men government and kingship are a natural good, so long as] this end can be procured [from them].

No pleasure is intrinsically bad; but the] means for achieving some pleasures [involve disturbances] that are far, [outweigh the pleasures.]

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A question has been raised about the meaning of the underline section. I've always thought this was worded in a difficult way, and it is not entirely clear whether the point is to state that virtue exists only in humans, or that every animal has its own set of virtues that do not desert that animal or act other than for the benefit of that animal (they do not desert the nature with which they live and by which they have been engendered; rather it is for the sake of this nature that the virtues do everything and exist)

My interpretation is that the Epicurean position is that "virtue" is a generic term that applies to the "strengths" or "excellences" or the particular activities of a thing that keep it alive and allow it to flourish. As such, not only humans but also any other animal can be thought of as having its own virtues. I see that as a subset of the larger point that virtues do not exist in the air or as ends in themselves or as created by gods, but are simply a word we use to describe the methods and tools by which a thing thrives.

But that's not the only way to read this, and it really doesn't flow as I would expect it to from the paragraphs before it -- especially the question about asking what or who the virtues benefit, which is apparently being held up as an obviously stupid question to ask. Why is it obviously stupid? Because there is no god or other purpose for pursuing virtue? I can see an Epicurean saying that, very definitely, but I am not sure i would have called it a naive question given the way most of the world thinks.

Any thoughts on the best translation of this? Could MFS have translated it differently?

Dave:

Definitely in the end for each of us what matters is knowing the right answer. But there's a lot of trash to cut through for most of us before getting to that, and to a significant extent - going all the way back to Lucretius and go Epicurus himself, the task of gaining new like-minded friends means "creating" them by lifting the trash away that accumulates around all of us.

I was relistening to our Emily Austin interview yesterday and she made the point: there is no better way to understand something than to teach it.

And teaching it requires us to cut through the fog that surrounded it in common culture.

Referenced from Sedley - Epicurean Theories of Knowledge from Hermarchus to Lucretius And Philodemus - regarding Cicero's Lucullus 80)

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A further attempted innovation likely to have been motivated by the challenge of Academic scepticism is attributable to the Rhodian Epicurean Timasagoras. We have already encountered one of his two recorded innovations to the school’s doctrine of vision. The other, noted by Cicero (Lucullus, 80) in his defence of the New Academy’s scepticism, concerns the case of seeing double. To judge from the Ciceronian context, the debate ran more or less as follows.

1) Epicurus insists on the truth of all sense-perceptions. If a single case of a false sense-perception were found, trust in the senses would collapse. But in fact the eye simply registers with unfailing accuracy the visual data reaching it. In all alleged cases of optical illusion the errorlies in the mind’s misinterpretation or over-interpretation of those visual data.

2) Critics from the New Academy respond with the counterexample of an eye squeezed out of shape and as a result falsely seeing the single flame in a lamp as two flames. Here what appear to the eye are the visual data, but not in the form in which they first reached it.How can the Epicureans say that the appearance is ‘true’, when it is not even true to those visual data?

3) Timasagoras replies on behalf of the Epicureans that never, when he has squeezed his eye while looking at a lamp, have there appeared to him to be twoflames. This supports the Epicurean thesis that falsehood is always located in the added opinion, not in the eyes themselves.

In stage (3), does Timasagoras mean (a) that in the situation described the bare visual appearance has never even momentarily lookedto him like two flames? Or (b) that he has never been misled into thinkingthat there actually were two flames? Cicero seems to understand the latter. But on either understanding Timasagoras’ reply would be meant to disqualify the Academic example fromcounting as a genuine optical illusion at all, and thereby to block it from being used as the single counterexample that Epicurus in stage (1) conceded would suffice to destroy his most fundamental epistemological doctrine.

This is very useful for explaining the Epicurean position (in opposition to the Skeptics) that concepts such as "fair" and "foul" and "larger" and "smaller" are no less real than gold or silver, even though (the Skeptics argue) that the former are unreal because they are perceived and interpreted differently by everyone, while the latter are real because they are perceived the same everywhere.

Quote from Sedley Translation of Philodemus' "On Irrational Contempt" - From Epicurean Theories of Knowledge from Hermarchus to Lucretius And Philodemus

Or do you think, on the basis of the foregoing argument, that someone would not suffer the troubles which I mention but rather would make it convincing that fair, foul and all other matters of belief are falsely believed in, just because unlike gold and similar things they are not the same everywhere? After all, it must stare everybody in the face that bigger and smaller are also not perceived the same everywhere and in relation to all magnitudes […] So too with heavier and lighter. And the same applies also to other powers, without exception. For neither are the same things healthy for everybody, nor nourishing or fatal, nor the opposites of these, but the very same things are healthy and nourishing for some yet have the opposite effect on others. Therefore either they must say that these too are false –things whose effects are plain for everyone to see –or else they must refuse to brazen it out and to battle against what is evident, and not abolish fair and foul as falsely believed in either, just because unlike stone and gold they are not the same for everybody […] Relative predicates do not have the same status as things said not relatively but in accordance with something’s own nature. Nor does the one kind truly exist but the other not. So to expect them to have the same attributes, or the one kind to exist but the other not, is naive. And there is no difference between starting from these and eliminating those and starting from those and eliminating these: it would be similarly naive to think that since the bigger and heavier and whiter and sweeter are bigger than one thing but smaller than another, and heavier, and likewise with the other attributes, and since nothing has the same one of these attributes per se as it has in relation to something else, in the same way stone, gold and the like ought also, if they truly existed, likewise to be gold in relation to one person while having the opposite nature in relation to another; and to say that, since that is not the case, these things are falsely believed in and do not really exist (On irrational contempt,XXIII, 26-XXVI, 23). (Quoted from Sedley - Epicurean Theories of Knowledge from Hermarchus to Lucretius And Philodemus)

Sedley comments about this:

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The opponents can be seen to draw heavily on Platonic dialectical materials in order to launch their attack on the reality of values, in particular in their contrast between the universally agreed determinate nature exhibited by minerals and the cultural relativity of values. As one might expect of the New Academy, this sceptical argument borrows its materials freely from the text of Plato (Phaedrus, 263a, cf. also Euthyphro, 7b-d, Theaetetus, 172b). More remarkable is how Polystratus, in his reply,appears himself to draw inspiration from Plato –a strategy with all the more ad hominem force when directed against Plato’s own self-declared successors. Plato had indeed never intended by this contrast between minerals and values to impugn the reality of the latter, any more than he had meant to infer from the relativity of large(r) and small(er) to their unreality. On the contrary, at Sophist 255c he had presented an exhaustive division of beings(ὄντα) into absolute and relative, a bicategorial scheme which became formal Academic doctrine under his second successor Xenocrates (F15 Isnardi Parente2).

...

... He resourcefully points out that the mere existence of an ontological difference between the two categories does not entail that one or other of them will fall short of reality. Anyone who thinks otherwise, he ingeniously adds, could as easily arguethat, since such relative predicates as beneficial and harmful manifestly arepart of the structure of reality, it must be the non-relative items such as minerals that are unreal!

Thank you Don! Here's a direct link to the full issue - "Hellenistic Theories of Knowledge" which has both articles:

View of 2018: Special Issue - Hellenistic Theories of Knowledge

Unfortunately for us the Verde article is in Italian, but it has this English abstract:

ABSTRACT:The main goals of this article are, on the one hand, to show the peculiar features of the Epicurean view of sense-perception (aisthesis), the first criterion of truth of Epicurus’ canonic; and, on the other hand, to critically discuss a recent contribution by Alexander Bown (“Epicurus on Truth and Falsehood”, Phronesis, 61 (4), 2016, p. 463-503), which deals with Epicurus’ double notion of truth (i.e. the truth of sense-perceptions/aistheseisand the truth of opinions/hypolepseis). Besides Book 10 of Diogenes Laertius’ Lives of Eminent Philosophersand Epicurus’ Letter to Herodotus, columns LXXII-LXXIII of PHerc. 1012 (including a work by the Epicurean philosopher Demetrius Lacon) and a passage from Sextus Empiricus’ Against the Logicians(M, VIII,9) will be examined in order to explain the meaning of truth linked by Epicurus to perceptible objects (aistheta)