Posts by Cassius

I hope I haven't mixed episodes in my mind -- it might be 82 rather than 83 that is released today where you sing a brief "tone" to emphasize where Lucretius says he "sings" of things!

Great Work! It has long been a frustration of mine that we ought to have - but don't seem to have - a picture of the Vatican Sayings. I hope we can eventually find that!

in the Episode of the Lucretius podcast to be released today you'll hear a very short sample of Don singing. Pretty good actually, but why do I mention it?

By sheer coincidence I see today an article that there was a regional rock and roll band in 1966 in Iowa named - "The Epicureans"!

Linked below is the song and an article - the song is actually pretty good, if you like that genre (as I do).

Newspaper article

https://http://www.fairmontsentinel.com/news/local-news/2021/08/14/epicureans-to-be-honored-in-iowa/

Thanks for that reference Godfrey. Every interlinear version is helpful.

If in fact as the wiki translates there is a "GREATEST" qualifier in there I would still say that this is more than just a reference to the one-to-one relationship that all experience is either pleasure or pain.

Whenever we are talking about "limits" of any kind (as I would interpret "greatest") it seems to me that an important point of principle is being referenced, and likely in response to another school as a point of contrast.

So while this first point about the one to one relationship may be true to as one of several points being made I would expect that that is not the only or even the most important point.

all of these are tentative comments and i claim and allow everyone the right to revise and extend comments without limit

I say that to say that at the moment I don't find "at the same time the greatest good is created and enjoyed" as saying anything really meaningful -especially given what I think is the firm premise that pleasure is a feeling and I don't see Epicurus being concerned about whether we think about it or not.

Suppose it could be some kind of variation of the Plutarch statement about the greatest joy arising from escape from the greatest evil?

I just am not sure on this one, other than to reject any contention that it supports the "absence of pain is a full statement of the greatest pleasure" side. *who I am always on the lookout as lurking under every bed*

If this seems to be a dark saying, the obscurity is dispelled by viewing it as merely a denial of belief in either pre-existence or the afterlife.

I am with DeWitt on that, and to the extent that some of the others are using this as a reference to absence of pain= greatest pleasure I do not think they are on the right track -- and at the very least, the way that they would use it is a negative way.

Yes you can state by definition that we achieve the most pleasure-filled life by evicting the last ounce of pain, but that's not what these commentators are suggesting, and this kind of construction "The same time the greatest good is both created and ended." really makes little sense at all -- as dewitt charitably calls it it is "obscure"

So that "the same span of time being the beginning and end of the greatest good" would not necessarily mean that "life is the greatest good": but that - however we ourselves choose to feel our greatest pleasures possible to us -- that feeling will certainly occur between the points of birth and death.

And of course that hits on numbers of relevant issues such as not worrying about gods rewarding or punishing us, how important it is to seek pleasure while we are still alive, that there is no point of reference outside our lives by which to judge our goal of life, etc.

And there's still the issue that "good" can pretty easily be construed as "asset" rather than the next thing I am looking for that I already don't have."

You know, we have several times touched on the question of "how long is long enough" to live. Maybe the issue we are discussing now was addressed by Epicurus as part of that question - maybe he explored he issue that every calculation of pain and pleasure involves the two major components that seem to me to be the most intuitive - both (1) Intensity (the word we've debated most) and (2) time / extent of the potential pain and pleasure being considered.

I would think given our discussion on that issue so far, it's inevitable that to extend the thought process involves not only measures of "intensity" but measures of "time," with our expected date of death to be probably the most relevant of the potential end dates [limit] of any calculation of future pleasure.

i can see the possibility of arguing that every calulation of future pain and pleasure is logically conditioned on your expectation of whether you will be alive to experience that resulting pleasure or pain.

If for absolutely certain you were sure you would be dead in ten seconds regardless, it might then make sense to jump off the wall of the Grand Canyon to experience the thrill of flight for nine seconds - a calculation that would not ordinarily be valid.

Possibly the direction is just to emphasize that the standards of how to live can come only from the living themselves, not from "gods" or from idealized forms. In other words, and DeWitt points to this one to, there is the vatican saying that he thinks should be translated as "the same span of time is the beginning and end of the greatest good."

Always a translation rabbit to chace, isn't there?

But I think he is on to something, even if his thought is not fully developed. If only the living have any ability to receive Nature's guidance as to what to choose and what to avoid, you do have to view your assessment of pleasure and pain from the point of view of whether you are living to experience the expected pleasure or pain.

And sometimes we would in fact choose death if we can firmly project that living on would be too painful.

But I do think it is a good point to say that "pleasure and pain have meaning only to the living" so that overall context of life does need to be incorporated into the "big picture" somehow.

Quote from Don

pegged to a naturally-occurring phenomenon

I note you used the term "naturally-occurring phenomenon" rather than "pleasure" - but do we agree that "pleasure" or "the feeling of pleasure" is the ultimate meaning of the reference?

And I agree that drilling down into what is translated as jubilation would be highly useful.

Ok well are we seeing it the same way that he is saying that "good" must be identified with a sensation / feeling, and is not something that can be defined in terms of a particular set of abstract ideas?

I acknowledge that "the good can only be defined in terms of particular sensations / feelings" is itself an abstract sentence, but I think we'd be able to agree that it's about the closest thing you can get to saying something like "Don't look for a definition of "the highest good" (or "the good") - look in yourself for the strongest pleasurable feelings you can experience having."

What say you to that Sir Don?

Nate I haven't had time to go through the document in detail but I did notice the list of Epicurean communities. That topic gets raised frequently in terms of whether they constituted "communes" or how in fact they were organized (if at all, other than at least generally in regard to PD39 and PD40).

My question was that I didn't pay close enough attention to see if you were able to find documentation for the locations on the list. Is there any kind of cross-referencing of those locations to text references so that people using the document can track where the list came from?

I know how hard it is to do all the documentation that is desirable to do so if it's not there we can just add that to the future to-do list.

I think we are because I would focus on that fragment where Epicurus is reliably (it appears) quoted as criticizing those who walk around harping uselessly on the meaning of the word good.

I think that's Plutarch and maybe that's a fragment that would be well worth our examining the Greek in detail.

You know the one I mean? I need a better way to lock down the source but it appears to be;

Quote

Plutarch, That Epicurus actually makes a pleasant life impossible, 7, p. 1091A: Not only is the basis that they assume for the pleasurable life untrustworthy and insecure, it is quite trivial and paltry as well, inasmuch as their “thing delighted” – their good – is an escape from ills, and they say that they can conceive of no other, and indeed that our nature has no place at all in which to put its good except the place left when its evil is expelled. … Epicurus too makes a similar statement to the effect that the good is a thing that arises out of your very escape from evil and from your memory and reflection and gratitude that this has happened to you. His words are these: “That which produces a jubilation unsurpassed is the nature of good, if you apply your mind rightly and then stand firm and do not stroll about {a jibe at the Peripatetics}, prating meaninglessly about the good.”

This is an area where I think it is understandable why Cicero framed Torquatus' argument in the way he did, but I question whether Epicurus would fully endorse that interpretation, especially since Torquatus himself seems to be saying that he disagreed with Epicurus.

Those are two sources I would compare and contrast as a way to getting to this issue of the "highest good" problem -- and of course I also think deWitt's points on this are worth incorporating as to multiple meanings of the word good and how "highest" might not be the best way to look at things (at least without lots of explanation ) and --- that need for explanation -- is exactly the problem of "concepts not mapping to feelings' that we are talking about.

Now that I've finally seen the Instagram post long enough to absorb the text - ABSOLUTELY that is what we are up against. This calls to mind that passage in Nietzsche's Antichrist where he points out that this is what Epicurus / Lucretius had campaigned against even before Christianity emerged. It's a war to the very end and there is absolutely no hope of prevailing against it without returning to the essence of Epicurus and building cooperation, communication, and even organization on that foundation. And I also think that's why constantly following the eclectic tendency to blend aspects of Epicurus with other philosophers, rather than distill the core and work from the base, is the worst possible option and what dooms those "accomodationist" efforts to failure.

I agree that the analysis you're using is the right track - and I think the destination of those tracks is the realization that all words are concepts and ultimately concepts do not map one to one with feelings, and that nature provides us feelings, not concepts, so that no single concept can ever serve every use case.

I think that's what Epicurus was pointing to and those who insist on pegging a single abstract concept as "the good" are going to forever be at war with Nature and with Epicurus.

And since every single significant religion and philosophy other than Epicurus has "the good" as its goal (whether they admit it or not) - we need to get prepared to continue a very long war.

And that's why being an Epicurean is not for slackers or pacifists / passivists. There is no escaping that "they" will bring the war to us, because Epicurean philosophy is a challenge and offense to their worldview.

I would say there the "alleged" subjectivity of happiness, and I think Epicurus would say there is in fact an objective answer, best summarized in what remains of his texts through Torquatus (very close to the meaning of PD2, but with the implication stated rather than implicit):

Quote

"For since, if you take away sense from a man, there is nothing left to him, it follows of necessity that what is contrary to nature, or what agrees with it, must be left to nature herself to decide. Now what does she perceive, or what does she determine on as her guide to seek or to avoid anything, except pleasure and pain?

It appears to me from reading at least the early part of the doctors statement that he is pretty clearly in Aristotle's "good person" camp without entirely admitting it:

Quote

Eudaimonia is a tricky term. It goes back to Aristotle. People debate it in lots of different ways. But to me, it just means trying to grow and connect to be a good person. And so that’s a very broad description that could apply to a lot of different things that we might do. And how do we tell if things are eudaimonic or not? Well, we’ve come to the strategy of it’s eudaimonic if it makes you happier. If it increases your subjective well-being. And the reason we say that is that [for] almost every eudaimonic-type activity that we measure when people do it, it increases their subjective well-being. But again, we don’t think that’s the main thing. It’s just a side effect. But it’s also a very important side effect because if you start doing something eudaimonic, like you’re going to express gratitude, or you’re going to try to be a kinder person, it’s awesome if that behavior can be reinforced by good feelings.

He's trying to avoid what Aristotle eventually admits - that being a good person makes beging "good" the goal, and there is no objective meaning of "good,". It is my understanding that Aristotle is more honest and says in Nichomachean ethics that "good" can be defined only as looking to see what good men do, and so he ends up with a circular definition that answers nothing - except providing a means for an "elite" to justify their rule over the rest.

Ok now the luddites like me who don't have an instagram account will be able to see it. I am surprised that it didn't provide an error message or something - it just appeared to me as a totally blank post.

Actually I never signed up for instagram because I couldn't figure out the use case. What does it provide that Twitter and Facebook don't?