Posts by Cassius

I put "thanks" instead of thumbs up on some of these because I glad to see this discussion. Here are some responses:

Quote from JJElbert

What I cannot quite grasp is why an imperfect being (the human), arising from imperfect beginnings and employing imperfect means, must necessarily have as its aim something perfect.

I have a very important but somewhat tongue-in-cheek answer: "Because you are a MAN!" And you're not just ANY man, you're a Greek, you're a Roman, and you would be ashamed to be satisfied by setting a goal for yourself of ANYTHING BUT THE BEST! How dare you even SUGGEST that we use our lives to pursue anything but the best??

I see this as much the same message as those "Be All You Can Be" advertisements the Marines used to use. And in fact I truly see no problem with that attitude, even - or especially - as an Epicurean. We of all people take the position that we only have one life to live - no second chances, no reincarnation, no heaven after death. So for me, that has always been one of the most compelling observations of the philosophy: when you know your life is short and over for an eternity thereafter, how can you accept wasting a second of that time in failing to identify and pursue whatever is BEST? Now that probably wasn't the attitude of a lot of Epicurus' Athenian contemporaries -- there was probably a lot of simple "human pride" mixed in. But I do think that the "Why not be the best you can be?" attitude is sound reasoning, and in order to answer that question, the inquiring mind has to ask "Well, ok - What is the best I can be?"

Quote from JJElbert

but at my current level of understanding I slightly wish that he had cut down that argument instead of trying to supply an adequate solution.

I am afraid that the "cutting down" led in fact to part of our problem today. I firmly think that the Letter to Menoeceus, and the PD's, are both truncated and "outline-level" versions of Epicurus' full position. If we had more of the texts I feel certain that what we are discussing now (the view that the absence of pain limit is a response to this logical argument) would have been made amply clear. In fact I think that in the atmosphere of the philosophic schools of Athens everyone would have been taught that Platonic argument at the beginning stages of their learning about philosophy, and Epicurus and his contemporaries never considered or thought to deal with the possibility that this Platonic logical argument would fail from view, or that any of their future students would (like Don and me too until recently ) would fail to have read Philebus and be aware that it is necessary to deal with it. Surely we aren't the first to ask, and they in fact did ask: "Why did Protarchus and Philebus agree to back off and abandon their view that Pleasure is the highest good? Could they not have been better arguers? What should they have said?

And I think what we are discussing now is "What Philebus and Protarchus should have said to shut up Socrates."

Quote from JJElbert

Now I'm trying to better understand why he chose to take it. Since it recurs in almost all of the core texts, he must have felt that it was important.

Yes, not only important but essential given the knowledge of his students of the Platonic arguments, as discussed above.

Quote from JJElbert

I suspect that the answer has something to do with his conception of the gods; in paraphrase, 'they do not trouble us because their perfect happiness prevents them from wanting or needing to trouble us'.

See, I would not go in that direction except only to this limited extent: I think that the anticipations of the gods -- our ability to project the nature of their existence and what these "best" beings would be doing with their lives --- I think that aspect of human nature, that inborn faculty to look for "the best" -- is a large part of the driving force that compels us to deal with Socrates' question. It's our anticipations that lead us to recognize that there are such things as "better" and "worse" that we then devote out studies and our conceptual reasoning to in order to figure it out.

if we didn't have something within us that drives us to be "the best" then we might well be content to live in a cave on bread and water and air so long as our experience was filled with bread and water and air. But something drives us to "do better" than that form of existence.

Quote from Don

First, Epicurus's "limit" or "boundary stone" of pleasure seems eminently practical to me. If your mental and physical being is completely imbued with pleasure, by definition, you are feeling no pain. If you are feeling as much pleasure as possible with no hint of pain, there's no way that could be increased. You could feel different kinds of pleasure at that point, but you can't feel "more" pleasure if you're experiencing an absolute lack of any pain. This could be complete relaxation and calm or some other kind of all-encompassing pleasurable experience.

Yes - I agree with all of that EXCEPT the implication of the last sentence. When you're at the limit because your experience is completely filled with experiences you find pleasurable, then you're at the limit and there's nothing else you can experience - by definition. I would say tranquility is not BEYOND or IN ADDITION to that limit, but is part of the bundle of pleasures that you are experiencing that have taken you up to that limit -- but beyond that point you cannot conceptually proceed.

Quote from Scott

- if a favorite song comes on, or one's best friend whom was away for several months surprises and walks in, or any myriad of other pleasant things would suddenly occur, one's pleasure would increase, no? If those things happened to me, I feel certain I would experience an increase of pleasure. What am I missing here?

I think you're still not grasping the full significance of what Socrates is arguing. He is saying:

A life that's full of pleasure, but which can be made better by more pleasant things, is obviously not the best life you can conceptually achieve. The best life you can conceptually achieve cannot be improved. Socrates is accepting your premise, Scott, and using it to argue against you. Because Socrates is saying (in the full argument in Philebus) and elsewhere, that if more pleasure can always be added to your life, then you must recognize that "more pleasure" cannot logically be set as your goal -- you will always want more. And if you will always want more, Socrates will tell you, then you need to ask yourself "how do i know what else, what more kinds of pleasure, that I need?"

And Socrates will tell you "That Scott, is the function of WISDOM, and PRUDENCE and KNOWLEDGE." And if you admit that, as did Philebus/Protarchus, then you are quickly impelled to the conclusion that it is not correct to set PLEASURE as your goal -- No, the correct goal is in fact WISDOM/PRUDENCE/KNOWLEDGE!!!

And thus, Scott, Socrates would say to you, you must now join our fellow Platonists and Stoics on the road to search for WiSDOM (and the other virtues) which you have admitted to be more important than pleasure!

i am sure it exists somewhere, along with a video without the Greek subtitles. Matt do you have it readily findable? If not I will look and find it.

Thank you Matt! That brings back good memories!

Quote from Don

Not THE pleasure, but a pleasure.

And THAT, good sir, is the issue! Because that (tranquility as THE goal rather than A goal) is what Okeefe and those who write like he does are relentlessly asserting.

And as we've recently been discussing as to logic, if we're going to talk in terms of a "highest" goal, there can only be one such animal.

I would like to think that no one would be so foolish as to write off tranquility as desirable, or to think that any other reasonable person would do that. So I don't think I or any of us are in danger of actually becoming lulled into constant frenetic activity.

Are there any of those here? Please step up and name yourselves! I have a lot of projects I'd love to have some help with!

And in fact I think the danger is quite the reverse. A lot of very good people ARE in danger of looking only to "tranquility" - to "rest" - to passivity, and to other and more darker forms of resignation that border on "giving up" everything in life just for the sake of "absence of pain." The pressures of modern life, and the absence of good solid philosophic alternatives, drive a lot of people to the edge of despair. I would tag a lot of the problem with people strung out on meth and other drugs as being fed by the degeneracy of culture that Epicurus was fighting against. Fatalism, nonsensical virtue for the sake of virtue, imaginary heavens and hells, etc.

So I would say that if we had to rank those who swing from one extreme to the other, both of which would be wrong, there are a much higher number of people among those attracted to the O'Keefe version of Epicurus that are on the "passivity" side of that list.

And when I think about the energy and enthusiasm and vigor that I think is going to be necessary to re-establish Epicurean philosophy as a viable community and viable philosophic alternative, I think that passivity and withdrawal, and a designation that "tranquility" is our goal, is just about the worst poison pill for Epicurean philosophy that any Stoic could ever dream up.

I think Epicurus was engaged in what was essentially a philosophic war against the rival schools, and a war footing is probably where a good number of us need to be.

But rest assured, when my war is over, I'll be looking for more than a little tranquility!

I think Joshua that this is a function of the seductiveness of "logic" -- kind of a Spock-like Vulcan quality.

Many of the ancient Greeks saw our "rationality" as out distinguishing feature as humans, and if that is our distinguishing feature we have to pursue "logic" to its ultimate conclusions.

And I think Epicurus saw that we're surrounded by people like that in philosophy, and if we're going to work with them - if we're going to trap them from the errors of their logic -- we have to point out those errors in a way that seems "logical" -- and I do think that is possible. It's not sufficient, but it's possible. I suspect if we had more Epicurus texts we'd have a lot more warnings about that, but we already have a good number, I think, that show that he was fighting against this kind of Platonic "logic" orientation -- made even far worse, and carried to far worse extremes, by the Stoics.

Principle Doctrine #41, sort of deriving from a mashup of Lucretius and Lucian, which sometimes gets me in trouble, but applies whenever we have something important and useful to post about Epicurus, but we're not sure whether to post it:

"It's easier to get forgiveness than permission - and most of the time, if it helps strike a blow for Epicurus, better not to wait to ask for either."

You are welcome! I think over time this is going to be downloaded MANY times and will be extremely helpful in many ways.

I wouldn't be here but for Charlton Griffin's reading of Lucretius, and there will end up being lots of people (I bet) who finally have the light switched on in their minds about Epicurus' views on many subjects (not the least of which is the relationship of virtue and pleasure) by listening to you read Torquatus!

I think Matt probably observed that I waited about ten seconds between posting that "It's ok to post on Facebook right Don?" question before I posted it to Facebook -- without waiting for Don's answer I am glad I guessed right!

My first comment:

Thanks to Nate for finding and posting this link, and to Elli for her initial responses. This article will likely serve as a good basis for us to discuss once again some of the biggest divisions of opinion among those who are fans of Epicurus.

In general, I will say that articles and books by Tim Okeefe and James Warren contain lots of excellent citations to source material. They and others like them are professionals who have studied these issues all their adult lives and they have access to a wider scope of information, and academic resources, than do most of us who aren't professional philosophers.

That said, opinions such as are stated in this article are open to challenge and discussion no matter who writes them (including us). Regular readers of this group will know that there are opposing camps as to how best to interpret Epicurus' "tranquility" references. This article by OKeefe shows that he is definitely in the "Tranquilist"camp. Here his own words:

"So while it’s right to call the Epicureans hedonists, insofar as they believe that our goal is to live a life of pleasure, given their idiosyncratic conception of what pleasure is, it might be less misleading to call them “tranquilists.”

I would argue in response that Epicurus would have objected strongly to that changing of the focus from "pleasure" to "tranquility," and that attempting to do so mutates Epicurus' true teachings into a version of "Stoicism-lite." In fact "Stoicism-lite" is a theme that I think astute readers will find throughout Okeefe's article. interestingly enough, however, more so in the synopsis (written by someone besides Okeefe?) rather than in the details of the article;

"The Epicureans would do Christmas very differently than most people assume. ... But for them that didn’t involve lavish meals and copious amounts of drink. ... Instead, they emphasized the psychological pleasure of tranquility and the pleasures of friendship. They would be at home with Christmas gatherings and the practice of giving thoughtful gifts to loved ones. They could even stretch to celebrating Jesus Christ as a God, if that meant looking at him as a role model to aspire to, not as a source of salvation and guarantee of an afterlife, writes Tim O’Keefe. "

Whether or not Okeefe intends this to be a summary of his work, I would strongly object to the view that Epicureans didn't value good food and drink or that that they emphasize "tranquility" over pleasure as normally defined. Even in this summary there is contradiction - many of our most important friendships can hardly be described as "tranquil"! So which is it tranquility or friendship?? Thus are the contradictions that arise when we think that Epicurus decided to adopt a tricky definition of "pleasure." But to suggest that devoted classical Epicureans would celebrate "Jesus Christ as a God" - that's a suggestion that I suggest many centuries of ancient Epicureans would - and did - find offensive. One does not lightly celebrate the figures in whose name the ancient world and its ancient learning were forever (?) overthrown.

We'll be talking about issues raised in articles like this as long as we're reading about Epicurus in this group and other places. Just be aware: this "Tranquilist" viewpoint may appear to be, and may in fact be, the "Academic Orthodoxy." You may have to recite it back if you study philosophy in College.

But you don't aren't (yet) forced to believe the Tranquilist viewpoint. There are places on the internet such as this group and Epicureanfriends.com where that position does not dominate. As for me and the people whose opinions I most respect about Epicurus, if the "Tranquilist" viewpoint were in fact what Epicurus really taught, I would suggest you forget him immediately and go back to looking for a competent and truly life-affirming philosophy.

Elli's Second Comment:

"The Greeks were not teachers with the narrow sense of the meticulous and the poor-speaker. They never advised as the grumble old women do. Neither did they come down to the people as the agents of the Law and austere rulers, to play it as panaceas and the leading experts of the Earth.

Artists cautiously disheveled, night-time hearers and observers of the stars, bright speakers, improvised debaters on the sacred road to Eleusis, ephemeral athletes, life-long lovers and lovers of Eros. These were the Greeks at their base. They sacrificed in beauty, as the flowers sacrificing in the sun. I mean they stun the air with their colors and smells, and the next day they wilt.

The Greeks were generous in their poorness, cruel in their persistence, and happy in their melancholy. We find them to prefer the today's waste of time than to save for an ulterior motive of tomorrow. And here they are different from the Jews and other Orientalists of religions and dogmas.

A banquet rich of philosophical discussions, with drinks, food and players of pipes, the Greek did not exchange it for even nine months more time of his life."

(An excerpt of the book "Polychronion – Stoa and Rome" by Dimitris Liantinis).

https://www.facebook.com/groups/Epicure…56685981047003/

Elli's first comment:

IMO in a "test" written in this artice, there are some thoughts who is the genuine epicurean, and how he/she thinks and acts in real life. Let's examine this "test".

"The test would be, let’s imagine that your Christmas meal accidentally burnt up in the oven, and you had to break out some rice and beans from the pantry. Would you be upset, or would you laugh about it and enjoy the rice and beans?"
-------------------------------------------------------------

On the above question of that "test" the first thought that came in my mind was that quote by Menander:
- Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ. Γελάει ο ανόητος και αν ακόμα δεν υπάρχει κάτι το αστείο.
In english => The fool laughs even when there's nothing funny.

(Short sayings by Menander -Sententiae Menandri).

First of all, a genuine epicurean that is doing something pleasurable and joyfull (e.g. here we see that he/she cooks for a special occasion) is prudent, and PRUDENCE - in the basis of the experiences and the right measurement among pain and pleasure - is his/her guide for being careful to not burn a festive meal, as well as a genuine epicurean is not a stoic to laugh like a fool in every occasion.

But although IF an epicurean would burn up accidentally a meal that is for a special occasion, he will be upset for a moment and then thinking clearly, he will pick up the phone to order something special from a local taverna, since the genuine epicurean is not a stingy and sociopath man like the Cynics.

Thus, in the basis of responsibility, since a genuine epicurean is responsible personality, he will spend some money more buying something special for his friends, paying for his error and at the same time is helping the local store/restaurant/taverna and his local market, in general.

For this reason, and since a genuine epicurean is friendly with the others, the owner of that local taverna, when he would hear that his friendly epicurean has burnt up the festive meal in the oven, he will offer him and a generous discount, since the owner of that taverna wants to preserve and adding some good clients.

So simply a genuine epicurean passes a "test" in real life, and that's how he preserves the social coherence!

Thanks to Nate for finding this link and posting it at the Facebook group. Given the many problems I have with this article, I didn't want to post it here without seeing some responses to here it first, but now Elli has written on it (which I will paste below too) and I have some comments too. Here's the link:

The Epicurean's guide to Christmas | Tim O'Keefe

The Epicureans would do Christmas very differently than most people assume. Sure, they were hedonists, they were all for pleasure. But for them that didn’t…

iai.tv

OK I think I have it set up and linked correctly - if you see something you prefer changed, let me know. I'd like to keep some of the major stuff, like this and Don's Menoeceus and Josh's Torquatus, easily findable from the first page since they are so valuable. I've added a link to the "Core Document" page for the PDs too.

Did we talk about whether you might extend this at some point to the Vatican Sayings? Unfortunately I am not aware of nearly so many options.

And last but not least, if you ever had the time to really flesh it out as a handbook of all the lists, there's also the list of the "Twelve Fundamentals." I am only really aware of two versions of that: DeWitt's version, and also a list by Diskin Clay in his article on Epicurus' Last Will and Testament.

But those can come later I am sure what you've done already as you stretched as it is!

This thread is being set up for discussion of Nate's tremendously valuable work in compiling various translations of each of the Principal Doctrines, which can be found here:

File

KURIAI DOXAI, a Compilation of Translations by Nathan H. Bartman (2021)

This compilation contains 150 years worth of English translations of the "Key Doctrines" of Epicurus.

Eikadistes

May 3, 2024 at 11:14 PM

For the purpose of ongoing discussion of this work, including suggestions, corrections, proposed additions, etc -- please post those comments here in this thread.

Thank you to Nate, and thanks to all who assist in this project!

Don I am going to feature this on the front page. Also OK to feature on Facebook and elsewhere, correct?

Continuing to try to think through these issues, as I reflect on our past discussions about anticipations, I currently think:

(1) That the path most likely to be productive is going to be something similar to a "pattern assembly" and/or "pattern recognition faculty, without which we would not even recognize that there are commonalities between things that upon further thinking we find similar in ways we can name.

(2) The most important question in the analysis is not about the mechanism, but the related issue of "content." If you take the position that anticipations are "true" or "false" in the same sense as we consider concepts to be true or false, then you will inevitably end up with Plato's ideal forms. You will conclude that Nature has somehow created on its own, and likely from eternity, certain "ideas" that exist in some way external to us, that we can eventually "recognize" through the rational use of our minds. So the closer you get to thinking that anticipations are fully formed ideas (in other words, you translate anticipations as "concepts" as Bailey does) then the closer you are to Plato and thinking that certain ideas are somehow created or blessed by Nature for us to recognize and adopt.

(3) I think DeWitt is correct in taking to task Diogenes Laertius' description of the formation of anticipations through repeated observations. Repeated observations can be part of the process of refining our thoughts, but they can't be the starting point. Something had to be in place previously so that the first time you saw a cow, or an ox, you had a faculty of absorbing certain parts of the observation into connections, that you then over time developed, through thinking and repeated observations, into the word "cow" or "ox." But that part of the process is the conceptual reasoning process, in which you think about the various attributes and decide what is and is not essential to your definition of "ox" and "cow." The pre-conceptual part, the part which it seems to me Epicurus is pointing to as anticipations, must involve an automatic, pre-rational, faculty (like the eyes or ears) that are turned to assemble perceptual data in certain ways, but which are not themselves pre-loaded with "ideas" to be recognized.

And that gets back to the error in my statements above. Concepts are true or false as a result of reasoning about them; we say 2 + 2 = 4 by definition, and we can say an equation is true or false due to our definitions. But a faculty like sight or hearing (or presumably anticipations) is only true or false in the sense of "how much of the full picture of all the facts are these perceptions accurately conveying to our minds?" Because neither the eyes nor the ears nor the anticipations (presumably) deliver "conclusions" to us; they just deliver raw data that we then ourselves have to evaluate is pleasurable or painful or blue or yellow or a tree or a flower or whatever.

Don this clip is what I see as the real issue, and the part underlined in red is where I think DeWitt canNOT be correct. To me he is implying that an anticipation is an idea (by calling it innate), so to me the part I poorly expressed above is this; the question is whether an anticipation is an "idea" that can be right or wrong (not that some anticipations are right and some are wrong; I stated that exactly incorrectly, as if I were taking DeWitt's position here):

\

I am pretty sure DeWitt's footnote 40 there is a reference to Bailey (I will look it up and confirm) and there I agree with Bailey, and would say that innate IDEAS are incompatible -- but not innate "principles".

(Note: Yes the cite 40 is to Bailey's "Greek Atomists and Epicurus, section 557.1)

I think deWiitt is mainly just speaking loosely, as I have been guilty of myself above. His last sentence, for example "yet there is compelling...." can still be correct. just because infant behavior may be anticipatory of later experience, that doesn't mean babies have innate "ideas."

I think Haris' instincts are good; it's unfortunate that he doesn't seem to pursue some of the details with footnotes or sources and so some of it does come across as "assertions" that are needing justifications. But someone reading and looking for new avenues to pursue would likely find his views useful.

Quote from Nate

I just think his assertion lends weight to the proposition that ΠAΣAΝ ΦAΝTAΣTΙΚΗΝ EΠΙΒΟΛΗΝ TΗΣ ΔΙAΝΟΙAΣ (from KD24) is synonymous with the word ΠPOΛEΠΣIΣ.

Ok, but how do you relate the significance of that in English?

Don would you say that any anticipation of the gods or anything else can be "true" or "false'?

That is probably the starting point for us to be together on. The rest derives from clarifying that, i think.