Posts by Cassius

Yes I agree with all your points Kalosyni. I probably am remembering that clip from Jefferson, but I am also thinking that he himself probably picked it up somewhere, perhaps in Cicero or Diogenes Laertius. It's pretty clear that the term appears in a Cyreniac context, and probably the main question is whether there is any evidence that Epicurus or the Epicureans wrote that they agreed with it. I haven't had time to search in Lucretius - let me make a quick check....

Nothing direct so far, but:

Book 2

[408] Lastly, all things good or bad to the senses in their touch fight thus with one another, because they are built up of bodies of different shape; lest by chance you may think that the harsh shuddering sound of the squeaking saw is made of particles as smooth as are the melodies of music which players awake, shaping the notes as their fingers move nimbly over the strings; nor again, must you think that first-beginnings of like shape pierce into men’s nostrils, when noisome carcasses are roasting, and when the stage is freshly sprinkled with Cilician saffron, and the altar hard by is breathing the scent of Arabian incense; nor must you suppose that the pleasant colours of things, which can feed our eyes, are made of seeds like those which prick the pupil and constrain us to tears, or look dreadful and loathly in their hideous aspect.

Book 5

[1379] But imitating with the mouth the liquid notes of birds came long before men were able to sing in melody right through smooth songs and please the ear. And the whistling of the zephyr through the hollows of reeds first taught the men of the countryside to breathe into hollowed hemlock-stalks. Then little by little they learned the sweet lament, which the pipe pours forth, stopped by the players’ fingers, the pipe invented amid the pathless woods and forests and glades, among the desolate haunts of shepherds, and the divine places of their rest.

Quote from smoothiekiwi

These are words of a Sceptic, aren’t they?

Actually no, I would not admit that. I would think a skeptic would ultimately say about everything "We just don't know and there is no right or wrong answer to anything."

I think Epicurus is taking exactly the opposite position, but he is being clear that there are some things we do know with certainty apply to everyone everywhere all the time (no supernatural gods; nothing eternal but matter and void; the soul does not survive the death of the body) but that that there are some things that apply only on a local basis (I like chocolate; you like vanilla).

So I think it's pretty clear that Epicurus would encourage everyone to indeed feel their emotions as deeply as possible when they find something repulsive, and to act on those emotions, but that he would also so "Be sure that you realize what you're acting on is "local" to you, and don't make the mistake of thinking you're fighting for some kind of eternal truth established by supernatural gods or "eternal ideas" or intentional-acting Nature, because those things just don't exist.

I probably didn't need to type that though because I am confident you see where this is all going. NOT in an endorsement of any particular political position, but in the acknowledgement that we as beings of nature operate most successfully, even in political affairs, when we acknowledge the reality of nature and work within Nature and not against it.

Quote from smoothiekiwi

E.g., I believe that every person has basic human right- if I stopped believing in that, that would mean that I can’t judge Nazism as a terrible political ideal. And that would lead to some terrible conclusions.

Of course i am going to challenge you (EPICURUS is going to challenge you) on exactly that point. Not that you should not judge Nazism (or Communism or Maoism or any other ism that you judge awful) to be awful, but that you must judge it with absolute clarity that it is YOU, and people like you, who find it awful -- not that there is a supernatural god, or a Platonic realm of ideas or even a "basic human right' -- because those things, even "basic human right" are not established by Nature and are not vindicated by Nature. Unless YOU and people like you take action to express your reaction against the views that you find repulsive, then those views can and will triumph. And THAT is what leads to terrible results -- when people start thinking that supernatural gods, or supernatural realms of ideas, will do their own work for them.

I realize how challenging this is -- Don in particular will agree with us how challenging this is, but I think it is the only logical conclusion to reach when you apply Epicurus consistently. That's where Godfrey's statement comes in:

Quote from Godfrey

t IS scary! Especially when you start with the Physics and understand Epicurus' atomism and cosmology and their implications. But then studying and understanding the Canon provides a solid grounding in the here and now. And, at least for me, it's only at this point that the Ethics really makes sense.

I think one of the best ways to deal with your concern SmoothieKiwi is to focus on the issue that Epicurus is not telling you to ignore your feelings of abhorrence toward particular things, as the Stoics might. He is telling you to implement your feeling of abhorrence, and fight against those things as strongly as you can, because if you don't, then your worse fears may well materialize.

And one other thing that i like to state in this context is as to your choice of opponents to reference with the implication that they are uniquely evil, or a good example of the worst kind of evil. I think it is important to recognize in the Epicurean worldview that there is only pleasure and pain, and that just like the word "pleasure" is a placeholder for all kinds of things that produce a feeling of pleasure in us, the word "pain' is also a placeholder. It is another discussion to go into this (which we need to explore) but it's pretty clear in Epicurus that there is no absolute ranking of things that bring 'the best pleasure" or "the worst pain" except in very abstract and general terms. Pleasure and pain are very individual and contextual, and what one of us today considers the supreme evil because it stirs in us the worse pains, is going to be held as only an academic curiosity at another place and time.

I have a friend who somewhere picked up the example of saying to himself "dead babies, dead babies, dead babies' when he felt the need to immediately sober up in a very serious situation. All of us can summon up such images that strike the worst feelings of abhorrence in our minds. So i make this point not because I want to make a political point about Nazism vs Communism vs Capitalism or vs Islam or Christianity or Judaism or whatever, but because I think it is an important point of theory to recognize that what we consider to be "evil" comes in many forms, and that it is important to always apply the ultimate theoretical point: there is nothing intrinsically good but pleasure, and nothing intrinsically bad but pain. No matter who our worst enemy and symbol of evil might be, they too were / are people, and from their point of view there is nothing inherently "evil" about them. It is up to us (and to them) to pursue and to bear the fruits of their actions in terms of supporting our view of the pleasurable life and opposing our view of the painful life. The universe does not do it for us. As stated by Torquatus in explaining Epicurus' position:

Quote

Moreover, seeing that if you deprive a man of his senses there is nothing left to him, it is inevitable that nature herself should be the arbiter of what is in accord with or opposed to nature. Now what facts does she grasp or with what facts is her decision to seek or avoid any particular thing concerned, unless the facts of pleasure and pain?

Quote from smoothiekiwi

Ah, thanks! Should I copy my thread over to there and then delete it here?

Whatever you think is fine with me. Sometimes the best thing to do is leave a post or series of posts in place. but then make another post in the other thread with a "Cross-reference" link so people can jump over to this one and find it. Feel free to copy this over there, or just place a link to this location in the other thread (As you probably know, each post is numbered so you can link to a particular post.)

i see that googling brings up a lot of references to Aristippus and the Cyreniacs, such as this one:

https://epicureanism.wordpress.com/category/pleasure/

It is possible i may be confusing the two, but I really thought that I had read commentators say that Epicurus had endorsed this notion, and that either in Herodotus and/or Lucretius there was evidence of pleasure being referenced as atoms moving with smoothness vs roughness.

I better back off for the moment as I cannot confirm, but I suspect we'll eventually find something.

Ha no problem! Lucretius does not much confront the Stoics directly except by implication.

I think you might find helpful the appendix on logic in the DeLacy book on Philodemus' On Signs. - at the back of the book. He has a very good section on the development of Epicurean empiricism that might address what you are looking for to compare to the Stoics.

But you may be asking about a certain part of the debate rather than just the whole Stoic v Epicurean debate. If you are looking at the higher level, have you read DeWitt?

I know I have seen something specific about "smooth motion" - I will look further.

"Smooth motion" is something affirmatively associated with Epicurus somewhere in the texts, right Don ? (And others)

I absolutely agree. And it isn't really a function of "skepticism" -- because I think the evidence is clear that Epicurus was against radical skepticism, and DeWitt will speak to you on that.

The question really comes down to, in a real sense, "What evidence or argument am I willing to consider to be true?"

And although we don't have nearly as much text left on that issue as we would like, I think what we do have is pretty clear and helpful about the direction Epicurus was going in his work on "canonics."

Reading what you are saying I think these are examples of how important it is to really wrestle with that question "why.". It seems hard for many people to even ask that question about their most basic motivations. They presume for some reason that it is self evident that "being a good person" is a right answer, or if they ask (as we discuss in this week's podcast) about how to be " the best they can be" they really have no framework for analyzing what that " best" means.

That is why I think religion and even the humanist philosophies are more obstacle than help - they don't have a framework for considering and challenging questions about "why".

IF you're talking about that last post I don't see any issues. The problem generally happens when a dark or light color gets inserted and doesn't show up against a dark or light background

I find it impossible to keep Hadrian and Trajan straight in my mind,especially since I gather they both had a wall in England!

You know, we now have a copy of Joshua reading this entire section, so we'll always be able to refer to that for inspiration.

I know, however, that we have some other really good "readers" here too with radio-style voices. Matt and EricR immediately come to mind, as well as Don. And although I have not heard Kalosyni read anything, I bet she could read well too, and a female voice tends to both appeal to the men and to be relatable to other women.

If any of these people ever feel inspired I would hope they would consider taking a stab at an audio reading of this particular text. All of it of course that we've pasted here  is very good, but if that's too much to tackle, I would recommend starting at this paragraph XVIII and going as far as possible to the end.    (Don't want to miss the part about how we should be ashamed not to have learned these things as children!)

"XVIII. What a noble and open and plain and straight avenue to a happy life! It being certain that nothing can be better for man than to be relieved of all pain and annoyance, and to have full enjoyment of the greatest pleasures both of
mind and of body, do you not see how nothing is neglected which assists our life more easily to attain that which is its aim, the supreme good? Epicurus, the man whom you charge with being an extravagant devotee of pleasures, cries aloud that no one can live agreeably unless he lives a wise, moral and righteous life, and that no one can live a wise, moral and righteous life without living agreeably."

On the page linked above we also have the Rackham version, and it is possible that some of us might prefer that version. It's actually a little smoother, and in some ways superior, but occasionally it seems less literal and that's why we went with Reid for the podcast.

If anyone decides to take up this challenge please post and we'll promote the results. I am sure a lot of us would get endless enjoyment by listening to this selection over and over in different voices.

THANK YOU! It is fascinating to think that the echo indeed goes the other way. I understand Diogenes Laertius dates to maybe 200 AD(?) This from Cicero dates to approximately 50 BC so quite a bit earlier. And of course the Epicureans were notably faithful to the original writings of Epicurus, so the soundness and traceability of these points to Epicurus himself would seem to be very reliable.

LOTS we can do with this material so we will be sure to go through it carefully in the podcast.

I just set up Episode 104. I included only two "paragraphs" because once again (and maybe even more) they appear to me almost like outlines or bullet points - rapid fire listings of main points of the philosophy. So probably no need to bite off more than two at most.

In fact I wrote this as a private message to the podcast team but I think it's better to post it publicly. These paragraphs of Torquatus, starting with 55 and probably going all the way to the end of what we're covering, at 72, might be the greatest and most clear summary of Epicurean philosophy available anywhere.

It almost cries out to be separated into bullet points as an outline of its own as a "map" of the entire philosophy.

I picked up the word "Corollaries" because I see that used as the word that is translated from the text, but I am not sure that word conveys the right meaning. "Corollaries" to me implies some kind of subsidiary status. Maybe in fact all of these are subsidiary to "pleasure is the goal and virtue isn't" in this letter, but I think it's more accurate to separate these out and consider the importance of each of them, especially since they touch on physics and epistemology with which people often don't concern themselves today.

Another analogy comes to mind: I used to have more than a few friends (I still have a few) who are really into fundamentalist Christianity. One analogy I observed them making is that they liked to talk about the "Romans Road to Salvation." (I picked the first link that came up on google so not sure how good it is.)

The analogy of course is obvious: This section of Cicero's "On Ends" is almost like a "Torquatus Road To Understanding Epicurus."

And since the commentators seem to agree that Cicero was largely quoting from one of more Epicurean handbooks as he was writing this, it's altogether possible that this presentation didn't originate in Cicero's mind but was an approved Epicurean community text laying out an outline of the points the Epicureans of that age felt it most important to be understood. And if that is indeed the case, this is a summary that predates Diogenes Laertius by as much as a hundred years or more.

Welcome to Episode One Hundred Four 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 continue examine a number of important corollaries of Epicurean doctrine.

Now let's join (Charles or Joshua) reading today's text:

[62] XIX. But these doctrines may be stated in a certain manner so as not merely to disarm our criticism, but actually to secure our sanction. For this is the way in which Epicurus represents the wise man as continually happy; he keeps his passions within bounds; about death he is indifferent; he holds true views concerning the eternal gods apart from all dread; he has no hesitation in crossing the boundary of life, if that be the better course. Furnished with these advantages he is continually in a state of pleasure, and there is in truth no moment at which he does not experience more pleasures than pains. For he remembers the past with thankfulness, and the present is so much his own that he is aware of its importance and its agreeableness, nor is he in dependence on the future, but awaits it while enjoying the present; he is also very far removed from those defects of character which I quoted a little time ago, and when he compares the fool’s life with his own, he feels great pleasure. And pains, if any befall him, have never power enough to prevent the wise man from finding more reasons for joy than for vexation.

[63] It was indeed excellently said by Epicurus that fortune only in a small degree crosses the wise man’s path, and that his greatest and most important undertakings are executed in accordance with his own design and his own principles, and that no greater pleasure can be reaped from a life which is without end in time, than is reaped from this which we know to have its allotted end. He judged that the logic of your school possesses no efficacy either for the amelioration of life or for the facilitation of debate. He laid the greatest stress on natural science. That branch of knowledge enables us to realize clearly the force of words and the natural conditions of speech and the theory of consistent and contradictory expressions; and when we have learned the constitution of the universe we are relieved of superstition, are emancipated from the dread of death, are not agitated through ignorance of phenomena, from which ignorance, more than any thing else, terrible panics often arise; finally, our characters will also be improved when we have learned what it is that nature craves. Then again if we grasp a firm knowledge of phenomena, and uphold that canon, which almost fell from heaven into human ken, that test to which we are to bring all our judgments concerning things, we shall never succumb to any man’s eloquence and abandon our opinions.

Good dramatization. It is so hard to determine what was really going one. One uniform observation though is that regardless of how we assess any of the others, Mark Antony always seems to come out looking like a jerk

For some reason the name "SmmothieKiwi" sounds like you live in Australia or New Zealand. Either way, I see you are in time sync with Don, for whom I have identified from about 5AM to 630AM as "the Don hour" for his most frequent posting. You can set your clock by it.

I think some people infer that mixing all caps with normal case selection is a sign of insanity. Who knows maybe I am an example of that! But I know myself pretty well -- laziness is my middle name, though I tend to embellish it as a form of "hedonic calculus."

Quote from Don

I can take a hint

Ha -- no hint intended. You're not being too harsh and i agree with your criticism of DeWitt in that department. Perhaps not all the way to "absurdity" but even for me I think DeWitt's tendency went overboard. But that maybe because I am so committed at this point in life against making too many compromises with Christianity (or Stoicism).