Posts by Cassius

Sedley's footnote 2 on page 97 of Lucretius and the Transformation of Greek Wisdom lists a number of sources and says "In the meantime, Arrighetti (1973) offers a comprehensive collection of the Nat. papyri, based on what at the time were the best available editions plus, in some cases, Arrighetti's own further readings.

No doubt that's not in English.

So that was apparently the situation in 2004 when Sedley published LATTOGW, and we need to know if that situation has changed in the last 17 years.

According to page 96 of Sedley's "Lucretius and the Transformation of Greek Wisdom," a bust identified as Zeno of Sidon was found in Herculaneum near the scrolls.

I have apparently been slack during my studies and I cannot identify any of the pictures I have saved as being that of the bust of Zeno of Sidon, and his wikipedia page does not have a photo either. This is a situation that ought to be remedied both here at EpicureanFriends (where we ought to feature photos of all known Epicureans) and Wikipedia.

Anyone know of a good source for this? My first googling does not seem to turn up the answer.

Yes Godfrey, by chance I pulled that out again this morning, remembering not only your comment but also Don's regular citation of how valuable this work is.

Chapter 4 of the book is devoted to "On Nature," and according to the table of contents you are correct - Sedley devotes some 40 pages and 13 sections to examining what we know about the book and its likely outline.

To this moment I still have not read anything but pieces of it but this looks to be a likely place to start for an overview of the situation.

As we begin to settle in to the Christmas holiday we should all remember that this is a tough time of year for many people - including our fellow fans of Epicurus. Most of us have grown up in predominantly Christian environments, and the first issue that arises is the effect of realizing that both the "Santa Claus" and the more religious aspects of Christmas are equally fabulous. When you combine with that the more personal disappointment that many of us feel when we consider how different the Christmas we experience today is from what we expected when we were younger -- the season becomes a period of special stress and cognitive dissonance for many of us.

For that reason this is a particularly important time of year to remind each other that there do exist many others like us who share our Epicurean worldview. We can experience that reminder in our various online locations, so if you are at all tempted to do so, be sure to reach out and post about your thoughts and experiences and emotions as you navigate through this time of year.

There are many of us online throughout the holidays. Online isn't the same as being there, but I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by the responses you'll get if you reach out to others in the Epicurean community at this time of year.

For the time being, enjoy the holidays, and let us know if there is anything you would like to talk about!

I think Godfrey your comment applies in a German way as well. The whole division into mental and bodily makes sense to us on a superficial level, bit it's harder to unwind when you dig deeper. That's much like the discussion of free will / determinism .

Maybe in fact it is much more important for us to have a coherent "big picture," even if on a "superficial" level, since that's the level at which we generally function day to day and moment to moment. Rather than worrying about using words technical enough to satisfy a lifelong scientific expert who understands all the mechanisms at cellular level.

I have more time now to expand..... I do think in addition to distinguishing with the Cyrenic views this is an important part of an Epicurean response to why we would not just sit in our caves and eat and drink and sleep.... Because there is such a large world of "mental" pleasures that simply can't be achieved unless we get out and work at them.

Yes but I would say "part" of the reason - not the whole thing. That's probably implicit in what you wrote though!

There are also significant passages in DeLattres "Les Epicurienes" which I have if someone can make use of it, but its Feench not in English.

Seeing how much progress that Eikadistes has made on collecting the various translations of the Principal Doctrines makes me realize that it would truly be a worthy project to work on collecting the surviving excerpts from "On Nature." The only form in which I understand them to be accessible is in articles by David Sedley and a few others, but I don't even have a list of those articles, much less the core excerpts cut and pasted into a usable list.

Of course we can't and should not try to duplicate those full academic articles, but it would certainly be useful to produce a collection of the translated excerpts, noted as to the article/source from which they come, and listed (as best we can tell) in the right order.

This thread and subforum can be used to make notes on that by anyone who is interested in helping with this, and perhaps at some point someone like Nate can perhaps produce a PDF with the collection in better form.

Episode One Hundred One of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. We have a special shortened edition today due to the year-end holidays, but we'll be back soon with our full length episodes.

Quote from Cassius

Right there is never going to be consensus on this point so it makes little sense to worry about differences in position so long as the core implications are protected. I personally look to what I see as the total thrust of all the texts, including not just Epicurus but many others, and from that point of view I find it inconceivable that he did not believe that they existed physically. But as I said everyone has to reach his or her own conclusion about that. The implications of the different positions are not nearly as significant as would be divergences on more core issues, because none of us think that these gods are supernatural or intervene in human affairs or reward or punish either during life or thereafter, and those are the "big" issues.

Camotero if you see a practical implication that you think would be affected by the choice, be sure to mention that and we can address it.

I woke up this morning thinking that I better clarify my statement about the "practical implication" of the issue. I often make general comments like that on this subject and I better clarify the context in which I am saying that.

Here are what I consider to be the big core issues that the EpicureanFriends forum needs to always focus on keeping very clear as a matter of community standards:

Any argument that carries on for very long too far afield from those key positions needs to be reined in and pursued elsewhere so as to avoid confusion to those who are less familiar with the issues.

The issue of the actual physical existence of the Epicurean gods does not seem to me to be essential to any of those positions. Someone might at some point convince me otherwise, but I am pretty sure that our core people here are unlikely to diverge, and most all would hold that the position someone takes on physical existence of the gods won't play a major role in their confidence on these core points.

But if someone wanted to take a much more rigorous definition of what the term "practical implication" means, I am sure that everyone on all sides of the issue sees down-the-line ramifications of the position someone takes on that issue. In my case, I think that a full treatment of the problem would require an exhaustive review of the Philodemus "On Piety" material, and especially of the "On Methods of Inference / On Signs" material. We haven't done that here on the forum, and most of us have done only a limited review of that material individually. I know myself that I would like to spend a lot more time with both.

If we were to do so, we'd have a lot more data that we would need to incorporate on the issue of the actual physical existence of the gods, so my preference for myself and for discussions here at the forum is that people (everyone on all sides) keep something of an open mind and a generous tone toward all sides of the issue.

Quote from camotero

? Because, Epicurus could've been talking about physical beings that don't exist now but are likely to exist as a product of evolution, from the way we see the universe is

I should address that point: given the infinite amount of time that has already passed, I do not think Epicurus would believe this to be a future hypothetical. While I don't think he would have said that everything that could happen has already happened at least once, I don't think he would expect that there is any reason to suspect that deathlessness has not already developed somewhere in the universe. And since he held the universe as a whole to be infinitely old, I don't think he would have held that there was a place and time when a "first" God (or first life) arose.

Right there is never going to be consensus on this point so it makes little sense to worry about differences in position so long as the core implications are protected. I personally look to what I see as the total thrust of all the texts, including not just Epicurus but many others, and from that point of view I find it inconceivable that he did not believe that they existed physically. But as I said everyone has to reach his or her own conclusion about that. The implications of the different positions are not nearly as significant as would be divergences on more core issues, because none of us think that these gods are supernatural or intervene in human affairs or reward or punish either during life or thereafter, and those are the "big" issues.

Camotero if you see a practical implication that you think would be affected by the choice, be sure to mention that and we can address it.

Camotero I think I need clarification on what you are asking.

My view is that Epicurus was very clear about at the very least a couple of things in this area:

(1) Epicurus was very clear that gods are physical beings and that the type of beings he is discussing really exist;

(2) The gods are so far away from us, and beyond our ability to perceive them through the five senses, and our only information about them comes from (1) mental processing of data about the nature of the universe and what we would expect it to contain, which involves anticipations. That's what I was referring to above. In addition as a source of knowledge is (2) the receipt of "images" directly by the mind, which are not registered through the five senses. There are lots of uncertainties about what (2) means, but it's very clearly in the texts, so if we are asking what Epicurus taught, information through "images" has to be part of the mix. I personally do not believe that the mind's direct receipt of images constitutes (is the same as) anticipations, but there's a lot of uncertainty about the nature of anticipations.

I realize that there are a lot of people, including some here, who think that Epicurean gods are simply mental constructs and that the don't really exist. That is not my position, because I think Epicurus was serious about what he wrote. I also think Epicurus thought that physical concepts such as isonomia and "nature never makes only one thing of a kind" plus and "eternal universe" and "infinite universe" all compel the conclusion that deathless beings exist somewhere in the universe, so I think he was very comfortable with this conclusion and did not consider it to be a stretch or lacking in reason to be firm about it.

I am not sure if what I have written addresses your comment but I would be glad to expand further if there's part you would like to clarify.

Yes I agree with Don. I think that Epicurus considered conclusions that derive from firmly supported principles (such that there is no life after death, or nothing exists except matter and void) to be reliable building blocks for a some basic conclusions about the gods. He didn't say that we can make out everything we would like to know based on this source of data, but I think it's fair and reasonable to conclude that certwin aspects of the gods (that they are not supernatural, that they didn't create the universe, that they would have no concern about humans) would be something that can be confidently determined through this clear data. We aren't just guessing, we have firm reason for our confidence about these important aspects of godhood.

Well this is bizarrre (if true).

Near the end of this episode we touch on a passage that follows Diogenes of Oinoanda's "shout" quote, and we discuss (around the 50 minuter mark) whether he is implying whether the classical virtues (including justice) do or do not apply to animals. One possibility is that he is saying that it is naive to suggest that, but another possibility is that he is saying something more generic (that virtue does not exist apart from the living being it benefits) or perhaps even both.

I think that's an interesting question (both on the merits and the details we discussed) but we did not have before us for the discussion the very bizarre report I am going to link below.

I don't know whether this story could possibly be real, or is some kind of sensationalism, but it might be another example where we could bounce off a real world observation to discuss whether justice (and other "virtues") exists in the animal kingdom.

Enraged monkeys kill 250 DOGS in Indian town

The horrific incidents have been reported in the villages of Majalgaon, where 250 dogs are said to have been killed by rampaging primates, and nearby Lavul.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Yes, these "old style" forums have long been replaced by Facebook and similar, but they remain powerful for just that reason - you end up building essentially a detailed hypertext database of information that is very hard to duplicate otherwise. Setting up a wiki is one thing but getting people to use it is something else, and this achieves a similar result.

I make no claim that listening to me on the Lucretius podcasts is tolerable, but over the last two years we have had a number of good panelists, and I am satisfied and even proud to think that while the podcasts may not be as academically deep as would be desired, we have succeeded in maintaining a friendly and supportive and respectful tone, and I think the tone that comes across is very reflective of the kind of friendly and supportive community we would like to grow here.

Yes it its it's portent that we adhere to the core principles, but everyone goes through a process of learning over time, and I think listening to the podcasts as we go through Lucretius should be a good way to pick up the core orientation and atmosphere of something well worth participating in.

Thank you for the background information. I have watched a video or two of his and while I am sure he would recognize that his approach is a little more eclectic than would be consistent with the goal here, he does seem to be a good natured and very good teacher.

And I have never heard of Ecosia but I am glad we are listed there!

I agree that seeing Seneca cite Epicurus over and over favorably is very interesting to those of us (me included) who started out admiring Stoicism and Cicero.

Welcome to Episode One Hundred One 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 move past the issue of the relationship between virtue and pleasure and we discuss several important corollaries of Epicurean doctrine.

We have a special shortened edition today due to the year-end holidays, but we'll be back soon with our full length episodes. For today, let's join Martin reading today's text:

[55] XVII. I will concisely explain what are the corollaries of these sure and well grounded opinions. People make no mistake about the standards of good and evil themselves, that is about pleasure or pain, but err in these matters through ignorance of the means by which these results are to be brought about. Now we admit that mental pleasures and pains spring from bodily pleasures and pains; so I allow what you alleged just now, that any of our school who differ from this opinion are out of court; and indeed I see there are many such, but unskilled thinkers. I grant that although mental pleasure brings us joy and mental pain brings us trouble, yet each feeling takes its rise in the body and is dependent on the body, though it does not follow that the pleasures and pains of the mind do not greatly surpass those of the body. With the body indeed we can perceive only what is present to us at the moment, but with the mind the past and future also. For granting that we feel just as great pain when our body is in pain, still mental pain may be very greatly intensified if we imagine some everlasting and unbounded evil to be menacing us. And we may apply the same argument to pleasure, so that it is increased by the absence of such fears.

[56] By this time so much at least is plain, that the intensest pleasure or the intensest annoyance felt in the mind exerts more influence on the happiness or wretchedness of life than either feeling, when present for an equal space of time in the body.