Posts by Cassius

For many years I hopped back and forth between many podcatchers, but in the last couple of years I've finally seen the telephone more as a tool than a toy, and I've settled down. Antennapod seems to do everything I need just fine.

Quote from JJElbert

So it works just fine, but possibly there are better options?

Is that apple or Android.

On Android I have gone to the open source and free AntennaPod - which works fine

Joshua thanks for the comments - So you have been able to search for and find the Lucretius Today podcast at Castbox without any issues?

I spent some time today looking at our entries in the google podcast and (after I finally found it (the apple directory) and the entries look decent but could definitely be improved.

One thing I see is that the Episode listings should not start with my personal intro or the podcast - it is sufficient for them to start with what the episode is about. I will have to go back and correct that at the Spreaker.com home base, and hope that flows back into the Apple and Google listings eventually.

I also would prefer - if possible - to add in the line numbers as we have been doing in the last several episodes recently

We certainly want to do that, at the very least, before trying to move them over into Youtube.

Let's use this thread to discuss any suggestions anyone has about how to improve the listings on the various locations where the podcast appears.

This is a thread to use as a pointer for updates on Michele Pinto's convention activities.

This is a thread for links to the annual Athens Seminar. I need to add here the upcoming dates as they occur. If I remember correctly this usually occurs around February of each year, in proximity to Epicurus' birthday.

Oh I like the word "finitors" - I'd like to see some ancient usage of that one!

Quote from Don

I just get antsy seeing the word "soul" bandied about.

You materialists have such low tolerance for poetry!

Yep I agree - "soul" just automatically conveys "immortal soul" to us today, so that's another chain of thought that has to get rewired.

Thus the living force of his soul won the day. On he passed, far beyond the flaming walls of the world, traversing the immeasurable universe through mind and spirit. (Lucretius Book 1, Line 62)

This passage makes a couple of points worth considering, starting with these:

1. "The living force of his soul" - Not his "reason" or his "logic," though those were no doubt part of the picture.
2. "Won the day" - Can be considered as a conqueror; definitely not a waste of time or ultimately futile.
3. "Far beyond the flaming walls of the world" - Presumably means his survey reached beyond "our world" (which the Epicureans considered to be our system of earth and visible stars, while thinking that that there are innumerable other similar systems beyond ours). The "flaming walls" is an interesting reference too.
4. "The immeasurable universe" - Regardless of what modern physics may or may not say about that, concluding that the universe as a whole is without end played an important role in Epicurus' thinking -- thus there are no supernatural gods "outside" or "beyond" it, because there can be no "outside" or "beyond" due to the conclusion that the universe is without end.
5. "Through mind and spirit" - Anyone who thinks that Epicureans were only concerned with filling their "bellies" ought to take stock of this comment.

OMG that would be VERY interesting. We'll have to see if we can track that down as I would be interested to know his perspective on Epicurus too ( tagging Martin to be sure he sees this)

Great link!

Well whenever I think about "evicting" someone I think about the Biblicists I'd like to evict from "our" homeland of Italy and Greece, so I guess that's why I associate the terms together

Well I think there are probably multiple things going on and they don't all resolve to the same point. I would say that clearly there are times when the End as a "boundary-mark" is definitely what is meant, especially in terms of things that can be, and things that can't be.

At other times the End as a "goal" is definitely what is meant, in the same sense as Cicero's "on the ends of good and evil."

We just have to be nimble-footed enough to go with the flow and see when one meaning is meant versus another, because both are important depending on the subject and perspective.

If we can keep our understanding clear that we are all made of atoms and void while at the same time seeing that that's no reason to fall into the despair of nihilism (quite the contrary, in fact) then we can help people see the multiple meanings of words like "end."

For some reason that calls to mind one of the areas I think DeWitt was strongest in, such as his article where he attacked and the confusion about "all sensations are true" and points to the multiple meanings of the word "true."

I suspect that this is a similar issue, and that there are other similar situations as well.

The prodigal surveyor has returned just as we were talking a lot about boundary-stones. We will halt the eviction proceedings!

Maybe that's why we also see the full title as "De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum" because too many people were getting confused and thinking that the book was about map-making

Ya think? I'm thinking that probably wasn't a big problem.

And of course you might even think of integrating this "purpose rather than limit" analogy with the opening of the letter to Menoeceus, when Epicurus talks about happiness (one of the appearances of eudaemonia?) rather than using the word pleasure again.

If so, the implication might be taken that even though "pleasure" is all that is desirable in itself, it is helpful for us humans to realize that the purpose of pursuing any individual particular pleasure is the attainment of happy living / happiness. Happy living / happiness is itself a direct function of the experience of individual pleasures, but needs a conceptual name of its own so that we can indicate it in our minds as the ultimate purpose, especially considering that we sometimes choose a temporary pain or temporarily avoid a pleasure in order to gain "the net final result" of the happiest (most pleasant) life possible.

As we analyze this it seems to me the key is to be sure that we avoid falling prey to the pitfall of articulating something that can be misrepresented as nihilism, which is what the "absence of pain" analysis falls prey to unless articulated properly.

Ok let's add THIS to the pot: Isn't the name generally given to Cicero's work -- "DE FINIBUS"?

And wouldn't it be fair to think that the connotation intended by Cicero (if in fact he used that title or term) was not primarily "boundary-mark" or "border" as much as it was "Ends in the sense of purposes or goals"?

My layman's observation is that most scholars tend to translate the title as "On Ends" rather than "On Boundary-Marks" or "On Borders"

And I think they intend their readers to think that the book ("De Finibus") is about the proper goals of life, rather than the art of land-surveying or map-making.

Perhaps this is one of those situations where the Romans of 50 BC had a slightly better command of the subteties of ancient greek than do modern dictionaries

What about the Greek, Don? I know the first thing that comes to mind is PD3:

If viewed in that way, this is pretty much mirror of what is stated in the letter to Meneoceus as:

Quote

The right understanding of these facts enables us to refer all choice and avoidance to the health of the body and (the soul’s) freedom from disturbance, since this is the aim of the life of blessedness. For it is to obtain this end that we always act, namely, to avoid pain and fear. And when this is once secured for us, all the tempest of the soul is dispersed, since the living creature has not to wander as though in search of something that is missing, and to look for some other thing by which he can fulfill the good of the soul and the good of the body. For it is then that we have need of pleasure, when we feel pain owing to the absence of pleasure; (but when we do not feel pain), we no longer need pleasure.

So if we focus on the "goal" or "purpose" aspect then PD3 is not to focus on what is the "highest" pleasure, or calling absence of pain the highest pleasure, but more like "The purpose of [the pursuit of ?] pleasure is the removal of pain...."

Which of course reminds us of the constant issue of how to characterize "absence of pain" - but that's not a problem when one keeps in mind the full picture of the philosophy, which includes (1) the true positive meaning of the feeling of pleasure, and (2) the issue that Epicurus would have wanted to combat the claim that the pursuit of pleasure can never be satisfied, which is the "limits" argument raised by Plato in Philebus.

I do think that the most damaging aspect of the modern interpretations of this is to equate absence of pain with the "highest" pleasure, and viewing this as a restatement of the purpose of pursuit of pleasure, rather than the "highest" pleasure, is probably an effective way of dismissing that argument. Especially when we continue to view all actions (including the pursuit of anything) as a tool to be evaluated in terms of whether it results in pleasure or not.

It would be natural for "purpose" to be a prime concern of Epicurus - probably so much so that "purpose" is primarily the first thing on his mind and all else is a subtext, since in the end he has concluded that our great need in life is pleasure/ happiness and you would never expect him to be very far from that premise.

In listening to this over today here's something I'd like to explore:

In the sections where Lucretius is talking about people not realizing the "limits of possession" (I need to find the quote) I wonder if th4re is not another shade of meaning rather than the "limit" referring to "how much is possible."

Don't some of the words for "limit" have the additional connotation of the "goal" or "target" of a thing?

In the context of discussing the "limit of possessions" I would think it would be more natural for them to be saying that people don't keep in mind the REASON FOR WHICH they pursue possessions in the first place. To me, the issue is not that people forget or don't think about calculating the optimum amount of possessions, as if there is some magic quantity -- they forget the "target" or the "goal" or the reason for having possessions in the first place -- which is pleasure. To me that makes it easier to understand the point - that you calculate the optimum amount of possessions to pursue purely by reference to whether the amount of your possessions optimizes your pleasures.

Which is closely parallel to how you judge the "virtues" or any other "tool" (which is what possessions are) - you calculate the optimum amount or even whether a thing is desirable or not by looking to the purpose for choosing in it or engaging in it. You're really not so much worried most of the time whether you are actually AT the "maximum extent" of a thing but whether it is helping you make progress toward that target.

And of course all this reminds me that the word "limit" as it is used fairly regularly in Epicurean texts is not a word that we today may be construing in the same way as they would. It seems to me that your normal ordinary person ALWAYS thinks of "limit" as "cap" or a "maximum" or a "restraint" - all words that have negative connotations. We don't normally use it today to mean the second definition here of "the utmost extent"

It would be interesting to look into the Greek and Latin words being used when our translators use "limit" to see if there are shades of meaning that might be helpful to explore.

NOTE: OK I see that in the Latin that is translated limit of possession what we have is FINIS - which is easier to see as "the END" in the sense of "the end of the activity is to achieve ______"

nimirum quia non cognovit quae sit habendi finis et omnino quoad crescat vera voluptas....