Posts by Cassius

I am sure that this "release candidate two" probably still has some bugs in it, but I am thinking the big ones (misspelling Martin's name in particular!) have been corrected, so I will likely post this to the Facebook group and perhaps other places later this week.

Episode Ninety-Two of Lucretius Today is now available!

Quote from Don

So, Cicero really didn't like Epicureanism even with Epicurean friends.

I don't have the time sequence of the different books down in my mind other than that apparently a good number of them were written near the end of his life when he had been forced into retirement by the civil war and was not a happy camper. I also understand that the death of his daughter in this period (or nearby) further darkened his outlook. But it seems like more than anything else the recurring theme is that Cicero was a politician interested in the health of the state above all, and he didn't have the creativity to see how an expansive reading of "pleasure" could be made to be consistent with his goal of citizenship.

Quote from Don

– two expressions that are never attested in Epicurus’ Key Docrines, but only in later sources – does not amount to anything like a general a priori rule.

Yes indeed you can hear me cheering him on there....

And post number 5 above in general - the extended excerpt - is just outstanding. That's what I am referring to as the lead that Cicero could have used to thread together Epicurean views and the requirements of good citizenship - but he chose not to go that route and instead ended up with his head detached from his body without really putting up a fight, unlike Atticus who maintained friendly relations with both sides or Cassius who at least put up a strong fight before he exited the stage of his own volition.

I am in the middle of editing this week's episode and one of Don's comments immediately made me think of this song -- here in a form which makes me feel even older!

Release Candidate Two:

Thanks Martin! Revised version coming up in maybe an hour.

I see this first edition has annoying flashes between several of the initial slides. I will fix that and reupload.

Ok before I start circulating this link to the world and only afterwards find some fatal flaw, please have a look at Release Candidate One of the Propositional Logic video featuring Martin's presentation from September 20, 2021.

The formal presentation begins at 4:20. If you would like to skip the formal part and go straight to the conclusion and the panel discussion, skip to 44:00.

(See below for Release Candidate Two)

Ha as you know I use capitals a lot as a shorthand for bold rather than to imply shouting. This software though has a very easy way to do both bold and italics and I need to break that habit myself!

I don't think any of us are all that far apart, but I need to take a break before responding further to edit the latest podcast, and to get the video of Martin's presentation on propositional logic finalized, so I will use that break to reformulate my thoughts and return here as soon as I can.

Quote from Godfrey

Returning to my obsession with pleasure v desire,

Godfrey the thread is getting long and I don't remember - did you suggest a definition of those two words. I remember I think that Don did but I am not sure I remember yours.

Quote from Godfrey

I realize though that there are two agendas here: living the philosophy and promoting/defending the philosophy.

Yes, that's legitimate.

But in other words, Godfrey, you're refusing to argue with Cicero that you're not a cow?

As usual our opponent is Cicero, but also as usual he does us the favor of both preserving Epicurean texts and pointing out for us the salvos we must deflect and return fire against.

From Book 6:

Quote

He therefore cleansed men’s breasts with truth-telling precepts and fixed a limit to lust and fear and explained what was the chief good which we all strive to reach, and pointed out the road along which by a short cross-track we might arrive at it in a straightforward course; he showed too what evils existed in mortal affairs throughout, rising up and manifoldly flying about by a natural –call it chance or force, because nature had so brought it about – and from what gates you must sally out duly to encounter each; and he proved that mankind mostly without cause arouse in their breast the melancholy tumbling billows of cares.

We cross posted -- much of the answer to your question is in the "animality objection" in post 82 above.

Quote from Don

I thought the "All pleasure is good" precluded the ranking of pleasure.

That would be correct if we considered all pleasure is good" to mean "all pleasure is THE highest good" but it is by no means clear (at least to me) that Epicurus was considering "good" here in that absolute sense, rather than in the relative sense in which there are many goods, some better than others. That's the reason for the SUMMUM in the "summum bonum" I think.

Another way of stating the question is that if he had been consistent, as soon as Epicurus formulated his philosophy he should have retired to his cave and lived a subsistence existence totally apart from the crowd. But he did not -- he lived a life of relative material luxury and devoted much of his time to philosophical controversy. Why - one naturally would ask? And I think the answer has to be in part that he valued the pleasures that he chose to pursue more highly - much more highly - than the pleasures he would have achieved had he retired to the cave on bread and water.

He chose - not the life of a cow - but the life of a supreme philosophical warrior and veritable "savior" of mankind!

And I would say that what seems like the obvious answer to me is that he chose the pleasures derived from the life of philosophical study and writing and controversy as much more pleasant to him than the life of "grazing in the grass."

Our target, here, I think - at the end of the day - will include that we have a cogent and potent response to criticism that Epicureans would limit our ambition in life to "grazing in the grass" -- otherwise known as the "animality objection" - from Cicero and Aristotle and of course others:

Quote from Don

So, my contention is that a desire need not be grand. It need not be capital-D Desire. Just like pleasure doesn't need to be capital-P Pleasure. There are things that we desire because they're necessary for living, and only the living can experience pleasure.

Yes I think we all agree on that (I am not saying "Why did you bother to repeat it?" but rather. "Yes that is one of our fundamental presumptions.")

The next step though is significantly harder, which is the analysis of "ranking" pleasures not only on a necessary scale, but on some other scale, such as (1) natural, but also (2 ad infinitum) with words such as "intensity" or "depth of feeling" or "importance to 'us' as individuals, rather than just "us as human beings who have to eat, sleep, etc."

We can probably start with the "natural" because that is in Menoeceus and Torquatus, but I have always found that term significantly harder to apply than "necessary." I don't think the key either is "whether it has a limit" because necessary pleasures too have a limit (air, food, water, etc) so there must be some other factor than "having a limit" which distinguishes "natural." So one place to start is to try to get a grip on "natural."

But I don't think even those two give us the subjective element of "intensity" or "depth of feeling" or "importance to 'us' as individuals, rather than just 'us' as human beings" and I surely think that Epicurus did not deprecate those other than perhaps to the "necessary" in the sense that "pleasure has no meaning except to the living" and if we don't get the necessary pleasures we don't remain living very long.

Quote from Don

I'm going to duplicate my post from above on that phrase "most pleasant" so it doesn't get lost.

I am thinking it would it be helpful to go through and collect the posts specifically on desire vs pleasure and "copy" (as opposed to move" them to either a new thread or an existing one on the same topic. What do you think?

As is usual when we start talking about the natural and necessary analysis I end up thinking I am being too hard on it. I so think it is used as a justification for asceticism by those who are inclined to it for other reasons, but I think that is "their problem" and it is not inherent in the analysis. I think one can easily be oriented toward normal pleasure maximization (as I think Epicurus was) and use the observations simply as a tool of analysis for how much trouble to expect from any course of action. No harm in that UNLESS one has already bought into the goal of avoiding pain "at any cost.".

Yes Godfrey I see that in Nussbaum, but that is likely because she is strongly disposed towards the Stoics, and not because Stoicism was hiding in Epicurus' when he penned the doctrine.

We can go as far as we need to in analysis of this issue of how desire relates to pleasure, but let's not forget to come back to the reason we got into it: how does one analyze and determine what Epicurus' meant when he said not to choose which pleasure is longest but which is "most pleasant."

If we don't get back to it soon though I suspect we will have lost track of Philia and the reason for her posting the thread

Quote from Don

We feel pleasure and pain resulting from a specific desire being fulfilled.

But remember I think it is clear too that we also feel pleasure or pain independently of any desire -- thinks happen to us which we did not plan in any way. I think we are not veering into the discussion of "replenishment" theory of pleasure and similar, because the reason this comes to mind is that there is apparently a classical example of walking outside and smelling a rose or flower -- you in no way planned or anticipated or lacked anything prior to that moment, but when the fragrance came to your nose you experienced pleasure that was in no way related to a "lack" of anything. Or at least that is what I have read somewhere in philosophy writings.

Does it appear that perhaps we need to hyperlink the "Table of Contents" to the respective place in the text for it's easiest use as a PDF?

This is pretty clearly the most extensive listing of the alternate translations that I have seen, and this took a tremendous amount of work.

Nate do you have a website or some place you plan to feature this going forward? It would probably be very well worth producing an HTML or other version of this that people could easily access on their mobile phones (since so many people use only their phones for all internet access).

One thing I might like to do for us here would be to cut and paste each one into the "lexicon" feature here so that when someone clicks through to the doctrine they see the full set. Would that be OK with you?

But even after doing that, some method of distributing it so that it is easily accessible to the world on any format device would be highly desirable.

As you know I am a tech geek and one format that I don't use much, but always appeals to me, is the single-page HTML format that is available in the "Tiddlywiki" format. There are lots of customizations of its format I haven't figured out but this one might be interesting (Tiddlywiki For Scholars) or this one: https://thannymack.com/?page_id=14#Welcome! or maybe better this one that has a contents list on left: https://giffmex.org/stroll/stroll.html

Anyway thank you again Nate!!