Posts by Cassius

I remember thinking in certain sections of the Charleton Griffin version that his tone as a little too pompous and not quite compassionate enough, but I think his version is head and shoulders far about the other audiobooks that are available,

Yes! Many of Lucian's works are good for laughs in addition to sound Epicurean philosophy. I have to put in a word for my favorite of his dialogues -- HERMOTIMUS.

I got cut off and didn't really finish the last post.

Quote from Don

Epicurus's Garden sets the paradigm for Epicurean communities in that they are/should welcome all. Having a sectarian (in any form) group goes against the ecumenical, open, welcoming nature of the original Gardens.

I'm not really disagreeing with that as much as drilling down on the details. Just like over at the Facebook group, and even more so here, we do have rules about who and who isn't welcome, primarily related to the fact that if we're going to do our job / reach our target we can't allow constant disruptions and monopolizing of time or resources by people who are committed to opposing viewpoints. There's no evidence I am aware of that Epicurus or any other Epicurean group ever had "Stoic Week" or invited opposing groups into their homes for regular debating either.

A worldwide forum like this can and should, I think, have virtually no limitations other than those of doctrine such as referenced above. However I don't know that we can predict how local groups will develop in the future, and I would expect them to spring up based on location as much as anything else.

I think the interesting point you're raising is probably more a question of what the purpose of the group we're talking about would be. I agree that an "Epicurean Group" would first and foremost focus on Epicurus, so I'm probably being too broad in my language in that post you questioned. The context of discussing how stoicism has been brought into the "manosphere" groups also had me thinking about that. An "Epicurean Philosophy Night" at a local men's or women's club or children's club is probably more consistent with what I was thinking rather than something named and focused the other way around. Good catch.

Sorry that your welcome post is put of sequence Patrick - the system doesn't let me adjust the times of posts so since your posted first your official "welcome" comes after the first two posts in this thread.

Thanks again for posting - welcome again - and let us know in any way we can be of help.

Welcome Patrick !

This is the place for students of Epicurus to coordinate their studies and work together to promote the philosophy of Epicurus. Please remember that all posting here is subject to our Community Standards / Rules of the Forum our Not Neo-Epicurean, But Epicurean and our Posting Policy statements and associated posts.

Please understand that the leaders of this forum are well aware that many fans of Epicurus may have sincerely-held views of what Epicurus taught that are incompatible with the purposes and standards of this forum. This forum is dedicated exclusively to the study and support of people who are committed to classical Epicurean views. As a result, this forum is not for people who seek to mix and match some Epicurean views with positions that are inherently inconsistent with the core teachings of Epicurus.

All of us who are here have arrived at our respect for Epicurus after long journeys through other philosophies, and we do not demand of others what we were not able to do ourselves. Epicurean philosophy is very different from other viewpoints, and it takes time to understand how deep those differences really are. That's why we have membership levels here at the forum which allow for new participants to discuss and develop their own learning, but it's also why we have standards that will lead in some cases to arguments being limited, and even participants being removed, when the purposes of the community require it. Epicurean philosophy is not inherently democratic, or committed to unlimited free speech, or devoted to any other form of organization other than the pursuit by our community of happy living through the principles of Epicurean philosophy.

One way you can be most assured of your time here being productive is to tell us a little about yourself and personal your background in reading Epicurean texts. It would also be helpful if you could tell us how you found this forum, and any particular areas of interest that you have which would help us make sure that your questions and thoughts are addressed.

In that regard we have found over the years that there are a number of key texts and references which most all serious students of Epicurus will want to read and evaluate for themselves. Those include the following.

1. "Epicurus and His Philosophy" by Norman DeWitt
2. The Biography of Epicurus by Diogenes Laertius. This includes the surviving letters of Epicurus, including those to Herodotus, Pythocles, and Menoeceus.
3. "On The Nature of Things" - by Lucretius (a poetic abridgement of Epicurus' "On Nature"
4. "Epicurus on Pleasure" - By Boris Nikolsky
5. The chapters on Epicurus in Gosling and Taylor's "The Greeks On Pleasure."
6. Cicero's "On Ends" - Torquatus Section
7. Cicero's "On The Nature of the Gods" - Velleius Section
8. The Inscription of Diogenes of Oinoanda - Martin Ferguson Smith translation
9. A Few Days In Athens" - Frances Wright
10. Lucian Core Texts on Epicurus: (1) Alexander the Oracle-Monger, (2) Hermotimus
11. Philodemus "On Methods of Inference" (De Lacy version, including his appendix on relationship of Epicurean canon to Aristotle and other Greeks)
12. "The Greeks on Pleasure" -Gosling & Taylor Sections on Epicurus, especially the section on katastematic and kinetic pleasure which explains why ultimately this distinction was not of great significance to Epicurus.

It is by no means essential or required that you have read these texts before participating in the forum, but your understanding of Epicurus will be much enhanced the more of these you have read.

And time has also indicated to us that if you can find the time to read one book which will best explain classical Epicurean philosophy, as opposed to most modern "eclectic" interpretations of Epicurus, that book is Norman DeWitt's Epicurus And His Philosophy.

Welcome to the forum!

The understanding that Epicurus was strongly anti-Platonic is a key insight that will help you as you study Epicurus. That's one of the real advantages of approaching Epicurus through DeWitt, because he talks a lot about that and prepares you for the implications of it, while many of the other general books about Epicurus hardly mention it at all.

Thanks for writing in with the comment and I hope you'll make many more. It's very helpful to hear peoples' reactions as they start the study of Epicurus.

And as far as I am concerned, the fact that you are not academic or a philosopher makes it much more likely that you'll be able to see where Epicurus was going more so than otherwise!

I am not advocating those referenced but more expanding the point from geography to any other group of friends that makes sense to the people involved.

I certainly agree that Epicurean philosophy is for everyone every bit as much as any truth is for everyone. But there are natural divisions of geography, language, etc that may make sense to the people involved under their individual circumstances.

For example I would never want to see this forum limited by sex or race or geography or anything else, because we are working on the core truths that have the widest application. But we have subject forums and sections for geographic area, etc, and I wouldn't want to push away from here any group that sincerely wanted to study Epicurean philosophy.

I haven't even clicked the link but I expect all of your observations are right on point Don. You've already cited examples but I am sure there will be lots more. The only thing that would be surprising would be for those observations NOT to be true:

(1) The sacrifice of Iphegenia -- There you have it right off the bat - Stoicism is immersed in religion and/or virtue-ethics and everything takes second place to that. They choose their god - either divine (religion) or human (which trades under humanism) and EVERYTHING is made subsidiary to that goal. Well for the sake of consistency that is what they should do - choose their priority - but they choose things that Epicurus taught are simple mental inventions of mankind, rather than the faculties nature gave us. It would be hard to find a better way of focusing on the extreme and irreconcilable differences between Stoics and Epicurus, because to give up their false gods would be the end of stoicism. My god, they are almost "Christian" in their focus on sacrifice and pain as what they see as the meaning of life.

(2) Yes I observe the same embrace by the manosphere. Being one myself (a man) I don't have a problem with men having an understanding of the differences between the sexes, but I do (as for myself) insist that it be based on biology, on nature, on "the truth" - and not on invented gods and humanistic *virtue* ideals that have no foundation but arbitrary assertion. A truly effective "men's club" in the modern world would be an "Epicurean Men's Club" and I would have no more problem with that than I would with an "Epicurean Women's Club" or whatever other self-identified group thought it would be helpful to have a group devoted to their own unique circumstances of living -- "Epicurean Eskimos" etc!

(3) As to the split-personality aspect, yes there too. The majority of the moderns are focusing on cognitive behavioral therapy and similar psychological issues and they have a real schism from those who (rightly) seek consistency with the ancient Stoics. You can almost bet your life that early in their discussions the name "Martha Nussbaum" comes up, and "stoicism as therapy" is basically all they want to talk about. They seem to think that one can be happy simply by willing away the existence of pain, and not only is that wrong, but they really play games with the the definition of "happiness" because what most of the leaders mean is "meaningfulness" which for them is only a skip and a jump away from "virtue" -- and of course where they find "virtue" is in their own mix of social and political aphorisms. I would argue that Stoicism was - and is - an essentially political movement. Which is all to the good if you happen to share their "political" interpretation of life, but not very helpful (for YOU) if you don't happen to agree with them.

But it looks like Parker is not including the parenthetical "which the Greeks call the telos" so likely he's not being strictly literal either.

At least as of this morning I am only finding three translations: Rackham, Yonge, Parker. But at least that's two more than I had before.

Yes exactly. Many of these older translators (and maybe some not so old too) seem to be trying to effectively edit and change the teachings through choice of words - and that's where we have to drill down to get past that back to a more clear statement of what Epicurus was saying.

I was able to find and post two more versions above that I didn't have in front of me before. I see maybe that "agreeably" maybe started with Yonge and the older Parker version has it right. However I see the Parker version differs fairly radically from Rackham and Yonge so I don't yet have a sense of how to estimate the full effect of the Parker version. Parker puts the whole text as one long paragraph without paragraph divisions or numbers or anything!

Yonge version:

The 1812 Version by S Parker

OK I will be more plain: we need Don and Joshua versions of these three passages!

I have always been more than a little concerned with Rackham's translation, and the absence of many others to which to compare it. If others can find other versions (or want to make their own!) please post in this thread.

Look at this for example: In the final sentence the latin is jocunde - of which "agreeable" is one translation, but of the options listed at Perseus "agreeably' is probably the least appropriate. Since we are talking clearly about pleasure in this passage, why not use the more applicable "PLEASANTLY" or "DELIGHTFULLY" or "PLEASINGINGLY"-? See Perseus

Here is a link to the Latin at Perseus:

[40] Extremum autem esse bonorum voluptatem ex hoc facillime perspici potest: Constituamus aliquem magnis, multis, perpetuis fruentem et animo et corpore voluptatibus nullo dolore nec impediente nec inpendente, quem tandem hoc statu praestabiliorem aut magis expetendum possimus dicere? inesse enim necesse est in eo, qui ita sit affectus, et firmitatem animi nec mortem nec dolorem timentis, quod mors sensu careat, dolor in longinquitate levis, in gravitate brevis soleat esse, ut eius magnitudinem celeritas, diuturnitatem allevatio consoletur.

[41] ad ea cum accedit, ut neque divinum numen horreat nec praeteritas voluptates effluere patiatur earumque assidua recordatione laetetur, quid est, quod huc possit, quod melius sit, accedere? Statue contra aliquem confectum tantis animi corporisque doloribus, quanti in hominem maximi cadere possunt, nulla spe proposita fore levius aliquando, nulla praeterea neque praesenti nec expectata voluptate, quid eo miserius dici aut fingi potest? quodsi vita doloribus referta maxime fugienda est, summum profecto malum est vivere cum dolore, cui sententiae consentaneum est ultimum esse bonorum cum voluptate vivere. nec enim habet nostra mens quicquam, ubi consistat tamquam in extremo, omnesque et metus et aegritudines ad dolorem referuntur, nec praeterea est res ulla, quae sua natura aut sollicitare possit aut angere.

[42] Praeterea et appetendi et refugiendi et omnino rerum gerendarum initia proficiscuntur aut a voluptate aut a dolore. quod cum ita sit, perspicuum est omnis rectas res atque laudabilis eo referri, ut cum voluptate vivatur. quoniam autem id est vel summum bonorum vel ultimum vel extremum—quod Graeci τέλος nominant—, quod ipsum nullam ad aliam rem, ad id autem res referuntur omnes, fatendum est summum esse bonum iucunde vivere.

With links to word definitions:

XII

[40] Extremum autem esse bonorum voluptatem ex hoc facillime perspici potest: Constituamus aliquem magnis, multis, perpetuis fruentem et animo et corpore voluptatibus nullo dolore nec impediente nec inpendente, quem tandem hoc statu praestabiliorem aut magis expetendum possimus¹ dicere? inesse enim necesse est in eo, qui ita sit affectus, et firmitatem animi nec mortem nec dolorem timentis, quod mors sensu careat, dolor in longinquitate levis,² in gravitate brevis soleat esse, ut eius magnitudinem celeritas, diuturnitatem allevatio consoletur.

[41] ad ea cum accedit, ut neque divinum numen horreat nec praeteritas voluptates effluere patiatur earumque assidua recordatione laetetur, quid est, quod huc possit, quod melius sit, accedere? Statue contra aliquem confectum tantis animi corporisque doloribus, quanti in hominem maximi¹ cadere possunt, nulla spe proposita fore levius aliquando,² nulla praeterea neque praesenti nec expectata voluptate, quid eo miserius dici aut fingi potest? quodsi vita doloribus referta maxime fugienda est, summum profecto malum est vivere cum dolore, cui sententiae consentaneum est ultimum esse bonorum cum voluptate vivere. nec enim habet nostra³ mens quicquam, ubi consistat tamquam in extremo, omnesque et metus et aegritudines ad dolorem referuntur, nec praeterea est res ulla, quae sua natura aut sollicitare possit aut angere.⁴

[42] Praeterea et appetendi et refugiendi et omnino rerum gerendarum [p. 19] initia proficiscuntur aut a voluptate aut a dolore. quod cum ita sit, perspicuum est omnis rectas res atque laudabilis eo referri, ut cum voluptate vivatur. quoniam autem id est vel summum bonorum¹ vel ultimum vel extremum²—quod Graeci τέλος nominant—, quod ipsum nullam ad aliam rem, ad id autem res referuntur³ omnes, fatendum est summum esse bonum iucunde vivere.

Current "best version" in our Core Texts section: Cicero's "Torquatus" Presentation of Epicurean Ethics - from "On Ends"

Of all the remaining texts, Torquatus' statement at XII - 40 of Book One of On Ends might be the most clear, direct, and practical statement of the Epicurean view of the "ultimate good" - and how to achieve it - that survives to us. Until now I don't think we have a thread focusing directly on this passage so this is to serve that purpose.

It seems to me that almost every phrase of this formulation is packed with meaning, and it is well worth going through the Latin in detail. I will look for that an post it too. This is the Rackham translation from Loeb. [Cicero, M.T. (45 BCE). On Ends. Translated by H. Rackham. Loeb Classical Library. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA, 1914,1931.] One well-formatted internet presentation is here.

Raw English Text:

XII. The truth of the position that pleasure is the ultimate good will most readily appear from the following illustration. Let us imagine a man living in the continuous enjoyment of numerous and vivid pleasures alike of body and of mind, undisturbed either by the presence or by the prospect of pain: what possible state of existence could we describe as being more excellent or more desirable? One so situated must possess in the first place a strength of mind that is proof against all fear of death or of pain; he will know that death means complete unconsciousness, and that pain is generally light if long and short if strong, so that its intensity is compensated by brief duration and its continuance by diminishing severity. Let such a man moreover have no dread of any supernatural power; let him never suffer the pleasures of the past to fade away, but constantly renew their enjoyment in recollection, and his lot will be one which will not admit of further improvement.

Suppose on the other hand a person crushed beneath the heaviest load of mental and of bodily anguish to which humanity is liable. Grant him no hope of ultimate relief in view also give him no pleasure either present or in prospect. Can one describe or imagine a more pitiable state? If then a life full of pain is the thing most to be avoided, it follows that to live in pain is the highest evil; and this position implies that a life of pleasure is the ultimate good. In fact the mind possesses nothing in itself upon which it can rest as final. Every fear, every sorrow can be traced back to pain; there is no other thing besides pain which is of its own nature capable of causing either anxiety or distress.

Pleasure and pain moreover supply the motives of desire and of avoidance, and the springs of conduct generally. This being so, it clearly follows that actions are right and praiseworthy only as being a means to the attainment of a life of pleasure. But that which is not itself a means to anything else, but to which all else is a means, is what the Greeks term the Telos, the highest, ultimate or final Good. It must therefore be admitted that the Chief Good is to live agreeably.

Alternate Versions:

1812 Version by S. Parker

1853 Version by Charles Duke Yonge

1883 Version by Reid (Google Books Download link)

Yes I think both Joshua and i not only have the Humphries text but also the Charlton Griffin reading available at Audible and Amazon. I actually listened to it read by Griffin before I bought the book, and listening to Griffin read it was my very first experience of "Hey this material actually makes sense!" Prior to that point there was something about the text that I just found unintelligible.

Now that I have something of an understanding of what the story is all about, I can pick up most any translation and appreciate the differences, but until that point i found the combination of all these archaic Roman references plus the unfamiliarity of the philosophy to be an unpassable barrier to reading more than a few paragraphs.

I was infected with the Ciceronian "What is this praise of pleasure?" nonsense and the response never clicked until I heard Charlton Griffin read it to me - like a child needs a book read by a father figure, I guess.

Note: Martin's post there is referring to a preliminary edit, so when a version is posted to this thread the parts he is suggesting be taken out will not appear. I also note that while I do remove particularly long strings of "ahs" in the editing process, I don't attempt to remove them all in Martin's case because I find them a positive part of his German accent that actually adds to the full effect rather than detracts. If anyone has suggestions on how I can improve editing of the final released versions of this or the podcast please post or feel free to private message me.

I particularly thank Joshua for keeping me honest in this episode when I mis-attributed the "emended" reference to Cicero himself rather than to Jerome, and I slandered Aristotle as calling him an oracle-monger.

That's why studying and talking together is so helpful!