Posts by Cassius

From the Facebook page, from R.S.:

A happy Winter Solstice to all! I am very glad to be able to take part in our community. I have learned a great deal and look forward to the New Year.

This time of year is a little difficult for me. I live by myself and all of my close family are dead. By choice I am as close to being a hermit as a person can be living in an urban environment. But my isolation is not absolute. Listening to the Lucretius Today podcast episodes and reading the comments on this Facebook group provides me with much needed companionship. Thank you all and once again happy Winter Solstice.

I understand your concern Don but I think it's a matter of individual preference. Those who wish to attend will do so, those who don't won't.

I definitely agree that many of these points apply to how we do the 20th.

But as to whether this would help or hurt a connection with the real Epicureans of the past, I think that the authentic ones of the Greco Roman period were likely immersed in each other's company most of the time.

As for those in the intervening centuries who saw the topic as one limited to being fit for writing and thinking about the subject - I don't see them as very worthy models for emulation. I would always have advocated that the goal be full restoration of a philosophical community and continuity.

If we find the philosophy inviting then it's something to pursue as strongly as possible, and if this helps only a few who want to invest more time in it then it's probably worthwhile for those.

One project I would like to see us tackle for 2022 is to have a weekly video Zoom meeting for our regulars here at the forum. Let's use this thread to brainstorm the possibilities:

1. Day and Time. At times in the past when this has been discussed, I think the consensus tends toward a weekday evening, probably Sunday through Thursday nights, and probably no later than about 8:30 or 9:00 East Coast USA time so that our friends on the West Coast have a reasonable late-afternoon / early-evening hour. Tentatively I would suggest Tuesdays at 8:30 for no reason in particular. Please let us know your suggestions for alternate dates and times.
2. Participants. I think the consensus is that we would like to use this to introduce new members into the group and talk about initial questions about the philosophy, so I suggest that we make the existence of the group public, but that we require some level of participation on the forum before invitations are extended. Conversations on the forum (and on Facebook) are visible to the public, so there's plenty of opportunity for people who solely want to lurk to participate in writing, and anyone interested enough in participating in a zoom meeting ought to be willing to say so on the forum so as to be sent an invitation.
3. Video / Sound. Unless someone has a special reason lets strongly urge each participant to use video, but not necessarily real names unless the participant prefers that on an individual basis.
4. Agenda / topics. We want to devote some time to questions and open discussion, but we don't want every session to turn into a general "bull" session. We can use the Principal Doctrines and Vatican Sayings as an initial topic list for at least some part of each meeting. It would also be good to ask participants to bring up for discussion any Epicurean books or materials that they are currently reading for discussion. And most of all I would like to see us devote time to what we are doing online (primarily in EpicureanFriends makes sense, of course) so we can coordinate our online activity there and in other locations. So that we are always focused on Epicurean philosophy, in general it would be best for discussion of books written by non-Epicurean writers to be limited to times when it's clear we have extra time on the zoom meeting. It also probably makes sense to have a time limit for the meetings, probably not much longer than an hour.
5. Moderators. If we go to weekly there are likely to be times when I cannot be present myself, though I hope that will be rare. For that reason we probably ought to have a moderation "panel" to lead the discussion in the event I am away (and this is a good idea even if I am present - we could rotate among panel discussion leaders from week to week but keep things on track by having a pre-planned agenda.)
6. Name: Maybe someone has something more creative than "The Weekly EpicureanFriends Zoom Meeting."
7. First Event: First week of January 2022.
8. Expectations: We have to expect that for the first weeks and even months we will have only a few people, but I suspect that over time we'll find that a certain segment of people on EpicureanFriends and even from the Facebook group will become regulars who prefer Zoom to posting in written form.

Corrected thank you! Too early in the morning!

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