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  • Reactions To "Hedeia" - Chapter Twelve of AFDIA

    I wanted to start a special thread in anticipation of our Book Review Discussion of Chapter 12 of AFDIA to focus on the character and personality of "Hedeia."

    I don't think we have talked too much previously about this character here on the forum, and I am not sure that she exists outside of this fictional world of Frances Wright.

    However I have always found the portrayal of her character to be difficult to size up, and I would be interested in impressions of what she represents, and what Frances Wright is portraying in presenting her in this way.

    Some of the basic attributes she is displaying is disdain for philosophic intellectualizing in general, and she is very headstrong and aggressive and willing to trade on her wittiness and physical beauty in a way that I think many would describe as off-putting.

    Yet while Wright has several of the characters express warnings about her, I don't believe she has Epicurus or anyone else condemn her outright, and it is almost as if she represents an assertion of "If you're lucky enough to have the world on a string, don't be ashamed to spin it around for fun."

    In typing this I wonder (probably for the first time) if this aspect of her character is intended to display a version of the position taken by Epicurus in PD10.

    At any rate I think there are many interesting aspects of this character that we don't often find reason to talk about, so I wanted to point this out to memorialize it.


    Chapter Twelve - A Few Days In Athens

  • AFDIA Zoom Book Club Meeting. Final Session - Recap and Discussion of Article "Problems In Frances Wright's AFDIA" (Sun, May 22nd 2022, 8:00 am-8:00 pm)

    Cassius started a new event:

    Event

    AFDIA Zoom Book Club Meeting. Final Session - Recap and Discussion of Article "Problems In Frances Wright's AFDIA"

    "A Few Days In Athens" Zoom Book Club Meeting. Final Session

    This week we will go through final reactions to the book in general and to Frances Wright.

    We will also discuss the article at EpicureanFriends entitled: Problems in Frances Wright's "A Few Days in Athens"


    Important Links:

    Link to PDF of the original book at Archive.org.

    AFDIA Website with the entire book: http://www.afewdaysinathens.com

    RECURRING ZOOM LINK - USE THIS EACH SESSION:



    Topic: A Few Days In Athens - Zoom Book Review 2022

    Time:…
    Sun, May 22nd 2022, 8:00 am – 8:00 pm
    Cassius
    April 23, 2022 at 1:20 PM

  • "A Few Days In Athens" Zoom Book Club Meeting. This week - Chapter Sixteen! (Sun, May 15th 2022, 8:00 pm-9:00 pm)

    Cassius started a new event:

    Event

    "A Few Days In Athens" Zoom Book Club Meeting. This week - Chapter Sixteen!

    "A Few Days In Athens" Zoom Book Club Meeting. This week - Chapter Sixteen!

    This is the last chapter and contains the full-frontal attack on religion. Topics include:

    Chapter 16 – Epicurus Addresses an Assembly on the Evils of Religion

    1. Epicurus tells the crowd he will address the place of man in the universe.
    2. In this inquiry we must dismiss presumption and fear.
    3. The elements of the universe are evidently eternal and unchangeable, and that these elements make up all things and give them their
    …
    Sun, May 15th 2022, 8:00 pm – 9:00 pm
    Cassius
    April 23, 2022 at 1:18 PM

  • AFDIA Zoom Book Club Meeting. This week - Chapter Fifteen! (Sun, May 8th 2022, 8:00 pm-9:00 pm)

    Cassius started a new event:

    Event

    AFDIA Zoom Book Club Meeting. This week - Chapter Fifteen!

    "A Few Days In Athens" Zoom Book Club Meeting. This week - Chapter Fifteen!

    This is a deep one! Topics include:

    Chapter 15 Summary – Theon Discusses Materialism With Metrodorus and Leontium

    1. Metrodorus accuses Aristotle of pedantry.
    2. Metrodorus says that it is error to mistake mystery for wisdom, pedantry for knowledge, and prejudice for virtue.
    3. Metrodorus discusses cause and effect and that there is a limit to how far back we can go.
    4. Leontium explains how rationalism is error, and that we must
    …
    Sun, May 8th 2022, 8:00 pm – 9:00 pm
    Cassius
    April 23, 2022 at 1:16 PM

  • AFDIA Zoom Book Club Meeting. This week - Chapters Thirteen and Fourteen! (Sun, May 1st 2022, 8:00 pm-9:00 pm)

    Cassius started a new event:

    Event

    AFDIA Zoom Book Club Meeting. This week - Chapters Thirteen and Fourteen!

    "A Few Days In Athens" Zoom Book Club Meeting. This week - Chapters Thirteen and Fourteen!

    (Thirteen is a very short chapter so we will combine it with Fourteen)

    The main issue for discussion is that of the Epicurean Gods , and we also need to discuss how Frances Wright has Epicurus state a position that is probably at deviance from the texts.

    Note: The use of video is strictly optional. We welcome any of our friends who choose to use audio only.



    Important Links:

    Link to PDF of the original book at…
    Sun, May 1st 2022, 8:00 pm – 9:00 pm
    Cassius
    April 23, 2022 at 1:14 PM

  • AFDIA Zoom Book Club Meeting. This week - Chapter Twelve! (Sun, Apr 24th 2022, 8:00 pm-9:00 pm)

    Cassius started a new event:

    Event

    AFDIA Zoom Book Club Meeting. This week - Chapter Twelve!

    "A Few Days In Athens" Zoom Book Club Meeting. This week - Chapter Twelve!



    The rough agenda for our one hour session ( subject to change if we have visitors to introduce) is:

    1 - Brief introduction of everyone on the call. (We will go around the zoom list and ask everyone to say their first names (real or otherwise) and tell us about their background and interest in Epicurus. For example: "My name is Joshua, I am from (country), and I have been interested in Epicurus ever since _______________. I…
    Sun, Apr 24th 2022, 8:00 pm – 9:00 pm
    Cassius
    April 23, 2022 at 1:11 PM

  • Episode One Hundred Eighteen - Letter to Herodotus 07 - "Images" - There's More To Them Than Meets The Eye

    Quote from Don

    If I remember correctly, somewhere else I remember something about if we think about something repeatedly, that makes our minds receptive to those images.

    I also have to think that the Epicureans considered this when employing busts and rings and other images of Epicurus.

    In fact it probably makes sense when we think about comparing "techniques" with Stoics and others that an Epicurean would pursue what is effectively "tuning the mind" by surrounding ourselves with images (artwork) of things that we find pleasing and/or motivational to us.

    It's probably no coincidence that Epicurus said he found his greatest happiness in studying nature - he we surrounding himself with thoughts and observations about the way nature works.

    That might be something to think about when considering the impact of modern television over the last 75 years broadcasting images into almost every home of a very different kind.

  • Episode One Hundred Eighteen - Letter to Herodotus 07 - "Images" - There's More To Them Than Meets The Eye

    It also seems pretty clear that Epicurus is saying that, as to the gods that exist, they are not such as the majority thinks of them. I interpret that as asserting his own definition of the word "god" and that's where we have to infer his definition from the rest of his work, primarily (I would say) by eliminating assertions that would contradict the rest of his premises. So in other words gods can't be supernatural and those other "mystical" qualities that some ascribe to them.

    I haven't read Sedley's views closely enough to comment on them, but I would not expect Epicurus to be willing to accept a lot of "subjectivity" on the existence of national or personal gods. I would expect him to assert general high-level conclusions dictated by strict logic from his premises, but as to personal assertions of subjectivity I would expect him to take a strong "I'll entertain it if and when you can prove it by showing it to me" approach.

    In other words, a strong Missouri "Show Me" approach!

  • Episode One Hundred Eighteen - Letter to Herodotus 07 - "Images" - There's More To Them Than Meets The Eye

    Taking the approach that "Epicurus was talking possibilities about the gods just like he was talking possibilities about the stars" would probably be the best way to support Frances Wright's having Epicurus say that it would be equally improper to assert that the gods do or don't exist. The continuing problem with that, howevrer, is that Epicurus and the other texts seem much more firm about the gods than just "possibilities."

    That's where I think the best reconciliation comes neither in a radical idealist or radical realist formula, but in trying to incorporate all the various premises (at least including: anticipations, isonomia, no single thing of a kind, multiplicity of worlds with living beings, eternal and infinite universe) into the things that Epicurus would have wanted his theory of "gods" to embrace.

    I doubt he would allow any of those premises to be contradicted by asserting any characteristic of a "god" that would be in opposition to any of those in that list. If an "image" appeared to convey something contrary to things that are logically compelled by those starting points, then I would expect him to say that such image would be presumed to be unreliable and should be rejected. The only caveat there would be that if the image recurred over and over and to many different people over time under repeatable circumstances, then such an image would have to be given more credibility, even to the ultimate point of being "conversion-worthy" if it could be repeatedly observed and tested to repeat itself in the same way under "objective" conditions! ;)

  • Episode One Hundred Eighteen - Letter to Herodotus 07 - "Images" - There's More To Them Than Meets The Eye

    Oh one one thing I wish I had said differently in the podcast: When Lucretius talks in Book Four about whether Nature has created or lined up these images to be provided for us to think about things, I think at least a significant part of that has to be interpreted as suggesting something that Lucretius was setting up as absurd and not to be believed, just like the idea of nature lining up souls to inhabit the bodies of new-born things. It seems to me he intended us to answer that as "no" and that the real issues is more along the lines of what we tune our minds to receive via past experiences and choices, although with perhaps a dash of "nature" being added in somewhere in addition to the "nurture."

    Here is that question which should be answered "no, or course not, the idols don't keep watch on our wills:"

    Quote

    [779] First of all it is asked why, whatever the whim may come to each of us to think of, straightway his mind thinks of that very thing. Do the idols keep watch on our will, and does the image rise up before us, as soon as we desire, whether it pleases us to think of sea or land or sky either? Gatherings of men, a procession, banquets, battles, does nature create all things at a word, and make them ready for us? And that when in the same place and spot the mind of others is thinking of things all far different.


    And Here is the basis for suggesting that the images of things can be real and yet not reflect actually-existing things:

    Quote

    [732] And so we see Centaurs and the limbs of Scyllas, and the dog-faces of Cerberus and idols of those who have met death, and whose bones are held in the embrace of earth; since idols of every kind are borne everywhere, some which are created of their own accord even in the air, some which depart in each case from diverse things, and those again which are made and put together from the shapes of these. For in truth the image of the Centaur comes not from a living thing, since there never was the nature of such a living creature, but when by chance the images of man and horse have met, they cling together readily at once, as we have said ere now, because of their subtle nature and fine fabric. All other things of this kind are fashioned in the same way. And when they move nimbly with exceeding lightness, as I have shown ere now, any one such subtle image stirs their mind; for the mind is fine and of itself wondrous nimble.


    And that's the basis for my suggestion above that this is probably the prime contender for reconciling how the gods can be "real" (the images are real) and yet the truth about the gods (what we more accurately gather about their true natures) does not come entirely or even primarily from what the images convey. They are neither totally idealistic nor totally "real" in the way that we are observing them, and that leads back to incorporating such issues as isonomia and "nature never makes only one thing of a kind."

  • Episode One Hundred Eighteen - Letter to Herodotus 07 - "Images" - There's More To Them Than Meets The Eye

    Here's a related question: Given the way that the images discussion is presented ("It is not impossible that..." "Nothing contradicts...") is it possible that the "images" were being presented as a hypothetical "one among the possibilities" theory, rather than as a core part of the doctrine? That would be directly related then to the issue of the "gods" as well, since observing them through "images" seems to be a part of the way Epicurus was suggested that they are known.

    Further the teminology of the discussion of Centaurs (which do not exist, yet can apparently be observed randomly when images mix) might be another example of how images of the gods are formed and received "clearly" and yet not originating from a "real" object (at least not "real" in the form that the images appear to make them).

    I am pretty sure I have seen such a suggestion made in one of more of the commentaries.

    And I think that's probably the prime contender for reconciling how the gods can be "real" (the images are real) and yet the truth about the gods is different from what the images convey. They are neither totally idealistic nor totally "real" in the way that we are observing them, and that leads back to incorporating such issues as isonomia and "nature never makes only one thing of a kind."

    At the very very least, I do think that the "not impossible" phrasing indicates something important to be considered in the way Epicurus is discussing the whole issue of images.

  • Episode One Hundred Eighteen - Letter to Herodotus 07 - "Images" - There's More To Them Than Meets The Eye

    Agreed. Analogies and comparisons only go so far, and some are more helpful than others. In the end, words are only representations of the reality and we are constantly working to revise them make them more accurate as our information expands. We shouldn't resist improvements in explanations any more than we should get complacent that our current wordings are "final."

  • Episode One Hundred Eighteen - Letter to Herodotus 07 - "Images" - There's More To Them Than Meets The Eye

    Added thought:. I wonder if one of the analogies here too is a parallel between waht we presume must be nerve impulses traveling within our body and at least some of these images.

    I am not even sure what we think of these today:. Are they electrical impulses? Chemicals?

    Another question might be whether these impluses are "analog" vs digital" -. I presume analog is more likely? "Analog" would probably have more similarities to "images" retaining there "shape."

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