Posts by Cassius

Don is there a graphic in that first post in this thread that is referenced as "this is what we're up against"? Maybe it's just me who is not seeing it some reason but that would be strange if true. Could we try reposting it?

Seeing the Stallings version pushes me back in the direction of the ultimate implication being, as per Browne, that the result of the victory is that we live "as gods." That's what would be sanctioned by Epicurus suggesting we live as gods among men, and Lucretius himself comparing Epicurus to a god. I suppose I need to think generically about what it means to go "to the skies" or "to the heavens" but I am not sure I see other allusions in the Epicurean texts to "to the stars" or "to the skies" as being a reference to superior living, or excellence in general. Oops - isn't there a reference to the Canon of Truth being something that is almost fallen from heaven - maybe that's the example to look for heaven / skies?

Also, what are you guys seeing about the "victory" -- is it clearly "HIS victory" or a more generic reference to "victory over religion." It's not like he was Jesus whose work allegedly did the job for us - although he does show us the way to do it ourselves..

Don that "in turn" reminds me of the statement made earlier in the poem about a double-edged victory. It looks like its Book 3 around 510. Here is Bailey but I think it's more clear in some others. Maybe it's just poetic reinforcement by repetition, but this earlier passage makes me think there might be something about "doubling-down" in Epicurean thought.

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[510] And since we perceive that the mind is cured, just like the sick body, and we see that it can be changed by medicine, this too forewarns us that the mind has a mortal life. For whosoever attempts and essays to alter the mind, or seeks to change any other nature, must indeed add parts to it or transfer them from their order, or take away some small whit at least from the whole. But what is immortal does not permit its parts to be transposed, nor that any whit should be added or depart from it. For whenever a thing changes and passes out of its own limits, straightway this is the death of that which was before. And so whether the mind is sick, it gives signs of its mortality, as I have proved, or whether it is changed by medicine. So surely is true fact seen to run counter to false reasoning, and to shut off retreat from him who flees, and with double-edged refutation to prove the falsehood.

Munro:

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[510] And since we perceive that the mind is healed like the sick body, and we see that it can be altered by medicine, this too gives warning that the mind has a mortal existence. For it is natural that whosoever essays and attempts to change the mind or seeks to alter any other nature you like, should add new parts or change the arrangement of the present, or withdraw in short some tittle from the sum. But that which is immortal wills not to have its parts transposed nor any addition to be made nor one tittle to ebb away; for whenever a thing changes and quits its proper limits, this change is at once the death of that which was before. Therefore the mind, whether it is sick or whether it is altered by medicine alike, as I have shown, gives forth mortal symptoms. So invariably is truth found to make head against false reason and to cut off all retreat from the assailant, and by a two-fold refutation to put falsehood to rout.

Interestingly Brown does not highlight the "doubling" or "two-fold"

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[510] And since we see the mind can be made sound, and be affected by the powers of medicine, as well as a disordered body, this is a strong evidence that the mind is mortal; for whoever attempts to make any alteration in the mind, or offers to change the nature of any other thing, must either add some new parts to it, or take off some of the old, or else transpose the former order and situation; but what is immortal can have nothing added to it, or taken from it, nor will admit of any change in the order of its parts: for whatever is so altered as to leave the limits of its first nature, is no more what it was, but instantly dies. The mind, therefore, whether it be distempered, or relieved by medicine, shows (as I observed) strong symptoms of its mortality. So evidently does the true matter of fact overthrow all false reasoning, that there is no possibility to escape its force; and the contrary opinion is either way fully refuted.

But Loeb does:

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....so completely is the truth seen to combat false reasoning, and to cut off its retreat as it flies, and to convict falsehood by a double refutation.

Latin from Perseus (not sure exactly where)

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Et quoniam mentem sanari corpus ut aegrum cernimus et flecti medicina posse videmus, id quoque praesagit mortalem vivere mentem. addere enim partis aut ordine traiecere aecumst aut aliquid prosum de summa detrahere hilum, 515commutare animum qui cumque adoritur et infit aut aliam quamvis naturam flectere quaerit. at neque transferri sibi partis nec tribui vult inmortale quod est quicquam neque defluere hilum; nam quod cumque suis mutatum finibus exit, 520continuo hoc mors est illius quod fuit ante. ergo animus sive aegrescit, mortalia signa mittit, uti docui, seu flectitur a medicina. usque adeo falsae rationi vera videtur res occurrere et effugium praecludere eunti 525ancipitique refutatu convincere falsum. Denique saepe hominem paulatim cernimus ire et membratim vitalem deperdere sensum; in pedibus primum digitos livescere et unguis, inde pedes et crura mori, post inde per artus 530ire alios tractim gelidi vestigia leti.

Quote from JJElbert

That's a highly daring translation of the most dangerous line in a hugely subversive poem. It's no great wonder the translator remained anonymous!

Yes I agree. At first I thought daring in a negative way, but on quick second thought I think your point is that it doubles down on the as religious aspect, and I agree. I think I will have to add this to my mental list of examples where I think the Brown translator is more in tune with Epicurus and Lucretius than the later translators. I tend to think this is an example (especially compared to Smith) where we have moved further away from the meaning of Lucretius over the last 200 years rather than closer.

This is why when I come across a difficult passage my money is on Brown giving the version that is most in tune with the intended inflections.

Quote from Don

Sorry. I love digging in the weeds of language!

No reason for apology at all. As we have AMPLY seen, the translators - even in narrative form - cannot be trusted not to do their own editorializing by omitting or adding words/concepts. The only way to be confident in the final result is to check them.

I do think that we can form a generalized impression of a particular writer -- such as my own views which I constantly revise but that I will list here:

Munro tends to be highly literal but can be awkward to read; Bailey is a more polished version of Munro but is much less to be trusted in his interpretations because he is not ultimately a fan of Epicurus' views; Brown editorializes but frequently seems most trustworthy in interpreting Epicurusso; Smith has access to the latest and best scholarship but regularly editorializes and may be less trustworthy that Brown; Stallings has a good feel for the poetry but is probably not a reliable indicator on deep philosophy; Humphries has a good feel for the poetry but probably goes too far in some of his poetic flights ("the way things are").

Might actually be a good idea to set up a table of our impressions of the various translators. There will never be a way to judge them "objectively" but might be helpful to compare subjective opinions.

Does anyone have an opinion as to how the Latin Library textstacks up against Perseus or other online sources of the Latin Lucretius?

I don't think I have the resources to retype the whole thing so I will probably use the Latin Library text in my materials unless someone has a much better source?

Back to the issue of paragraph numbering, I've always wanted to be able to swap back and forth from section to section (almost like Joshua's interlinear) so that means that I may take the Loeb paragraph numbers and eventually find a way to get them into my text of the Latin Library edition so at least we can crossreference passages.

Any comment on that idea?

Note: I see that the Latin Library has line numbers every five lines.

1. Is there a way to consider that authoritative?
2. I presume that goes with one particular exemplar of the poem but that the others don't follow that?
3. So the Loeb is just making judgment calls on paragraphs and dividing the numbering that way?
4. I think for readability purposes it IS necessary to divide up by "paragraphs" but that surely leads to problems with line numbers. That's why I am currently with the Loeb system and will probably stay there, but any comments on alternatives would be appreciated.

142-foundations-005-by-his-victory-religion-is-trampled-underfoot/

Quote from Don

And since Lucretius puts nos first, maybe the emphasis should be on us, accusative or not. My understanding is that the first word is used to denote emphasis.

That is an example of the kind of homespun rules of construction that I think MUST be correct, and have to be important to follow.

My reasoning for that is that the Romans were not any better mind-readers than we are. They HAD to be able to make sense of a spoken sentence AS THEY WERE HEARING IT, and they could not wait until the end of some monumentally long line to find the "verb" and then reorient everything and understand it only after they had heard the last word, like we are taught to do today.

So i agree -- it may be helpful in some cases to move the words around so that we are more comfortable, but I think there is a good argument that we should leave them where they are and insert mentally whatever pronouns or gender or tense or filler concepts or whatever is necessary to make sense as written / as read.

If the Romans thought it was perfectly adequate in the order they used then we can make sense of it too.

Quote from JJElbert

Cassius , are you certain you have the translation right?

Thank you for catching that Joshua -- I am not sure where that came from! I will correct. As I write this I can't remember if I had a source for that particular version or just mashed them together in a way that seemed logical at the time.

That's part of the reason for my exercise in doing this because I'd like to check each one of the "slides" in this presentation and then use it for a systematic presentation of the philosophy.

So thank you!

I guess the vicissim opteritur is what I haven't drilled into far enough

Don what do you think about the "terror" / "fear" versions? Is there anything in the Latin to justify that or is that just more translator editorializing ?

Yes I agree that some form of "to the skies" is a good non-religious metaphor that makes the most sense.

As for the line numbers i will probably go to my grave never being happy with a numbering system. I've taken lately to using the Loeb numbers and I kept all this designated at under line 62 because Loeb doesn't give another line number until 80. I presume that these are just discretionary paragraph divisions so I think as a compromise from here on out I am going to make all my digital versions conform to Loeb paragraph numbering for the sake of some kind of ability to cross-reference.

Thanks for the commentary!

By his victory, the terror of religion is trampled underfoot, and we, in turn, are lifted to the stars.

Quare religio pedibus subiecta vicissim opteritur, nos exaequat victoria caelo.

This highly memorable line is a good one to review the Latin and alternate translations. Here are several renditions in English, and all of them make much the same point.

It appears to me that Munro might be the most strictly literal, with Brown and Humphries emphasizing the terror / fear of religion, while Bailey inserts "in revenge." Humphries' and Munro's "trampled" would seem to be a good rendition of "subjected to the feet."

However Loeb and Smith are particularly disappointing in choosing to deflect the blow against "religion" by inserting "superstition" in its place. While I think that is probably a defensible choice if one takes the position that the Epicureans considered their view of the gods to be "true religion" and the standard views of the majority as "superstition" - that editorial choice really does not seem warranted given that the Latin is "religio" and in our modern context the clear indictment by Lucretius and Epicurus was against what we today regard as "religion."

At any rate, anyone who seeks to soft-pedal Epicurus' views on the harm caused by standard supernatural religious viewpoints will be hard-pressed to deal with this passage.

Brown: And so Religion, which we feared before, by him subdued, we tread upon in turn. His conquest makes us equal to the Gods.

Munro: Therefore religion is put underfoot and trampled upon in turn; us his victory brings level with heaven.

Bailey: And so religion in revenge is cast beneath men’s feet and trampled, and victory raises us to heaven.

Loeb: Therefore superstition is now in her turn cast down and trampled underfoot, whilst we by the victory are exalted high as heaven.

Smith: So now the situation is reversed: superstition is flung down and trampled underfoot; we are raised to heaven by victory.

Humphries: Religion, so, is trampled underfoot, And by his victory we reach the stars.

I think you are illustrating the main point with your practical examples - the point being that while the word humanist carries a genetic implication that is benevolent enough, it also carries in philosophy some very specific connotations that can be very different, and the devil is in the details.

As you say it's not normally an issue to be concerned about except in dealing with people for whom the word holds a special meaning, and I think it is fair to say that the more a person cares about the word , the more they are likely to be caught up in the special meanings which frequently contradict Epicurean philosophy.

In that sense even to be small-s stoic can sometimes be the proper course, but the more one drills down to what is meant by Stoicism the more one sees that there are serious implications to erecting a philosophy around it.

Also in this thread I think it would be good to point out that Cicero's "On Duties" would be an important point of reference that will help compare and contrast the view I am suggesting is in common between Stoicism and Humanism against that of Epicurus. Don I cannot remember if you and I have discussed whether you read that. Years before I converted over to Epicurus, "On Duties" was one of my favorite classical works, and now in retrospect I think my affection for it made it a lot easier for me to come to terms with the dramatic difference between the "mainstream Greek" approach vs. Epicurus.

Although i don't recall that very much of it explicitly names Epicurus, views such as those of Epicurus are clearly the target. if I recall correctly you could pretty much characterize the whole think as "The Anti-Epicurean" almost as much as you could consider Nietzsche's "AntiChrist" to be anti-Christian.

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Now, among the many important and useful subjects in philosophy that have been discussed by philosophers with precision and fulness of statement, their traditions and precepts concerning the duties of life seem to have the widest scope. [4]Indeed, no part of life, whether in public or in private affairs, abroad or at home, in your personal conduct or your social relations, can be free from the claims of duty; and it is in the observance of duty that lies all the honor of life, in its neglect, all the shame. This, too, is a theme common to all philosophers. For who would dare to call himself a philosopher, if he took no cognizance of duty? Yet there are some schools of philosophy that utterly pervert duty by the view which they propose as to the supreme good, and as to the opposite extreme of evil. For he who so interprets the supreme good as to disjoin it from virtue, and measures it by his own convenience, and not by the standard of right, — he, I say, if he be consistent with himself, and be not sometimes overcome by natural goodness, can cultivate neither friendship, nor justice, nor generosity; nor can he possibly be brave while he esteems pain as the greatest of evils, or temperate while he regards pleasure as the supreme good. These things, though too obvious to need discussion, I yet have discussed elsewhere.1 Those schools, therefore, can, if self-consistent, say nothing about duty; nor can any precepts of duty, decisive, immutable, in accordance with nature, be promulgated, except by those who maintain that the right is to be sought solely,2 or chiefly,3 for its own sake. This [5]prerogative belongs to the Stoics, the Academics, and the Peripatetics; for the opinions of Ariston, Pyrrho, and Herillus1 were long since exploded, though they might fittingly have discussed subjects pertaining to duty, if they had left any ground for the preference of one thing over another, so that there might be a way open for the ascertainment of duty. In this treatise I shall follow the Stoics, not as a translator, but drawing from their fountains at my own discretion and judgment, as much, and in such way, as may seem good.

I can't recall at the moment whether the above thread makes reference to Cicero's "De Officiis," but i have started scanning that again in reference to a comment from Shahab about "Duties," and i think there is probably much in it, especially the opening part, which would be useful in drawing the parallels between Stoicism and Humanism.

Quote from Philia

It was the Stoics and Cicero who concocted and publicized the false report that Epicurus counted pleasure as the greatest good. This is mistakenly asserted in all our handbooks."

You will find that there is a lot of subtlety both in Epicurus and the way DeWitt presents Epicurus, much of which you'll probably appreciate no matter how far you get, and some of which you'll not accept - but having considered it will help you anyway, I would argue.

In this case, I would liken DeWitt's observation to his reference to the multiple meanings of the word "true" in the "all sensations are true" statement.

DeWitt wrote an article on the "Summum Bonum Fallacy" and you'll want to read that part of his book and consider it in detail. I think one way of interpreting what DeWitt and/or Epicurus was saying is that there are mutiple meanings of the word "good" / "greatest good" that have to be considered.

A phrase that I remember from DeWitt is something to the effect that "pleasure and pain have meaning only to the living" and I think that is a very valid point - that Epicurus knew (PD2) that being alive is a precondition even to experiencing pleasure or pain. If that's part of the point, perhaps the issue is that a good can refer to an "asset" (such as for example a house) such that your greatest "good" may be your house (in terms of money value anyway) while it's also understood that in a more basic sense your greatest good is your life or health that allows you to live in it. And there's also "greatest good" in the sense of a "goal" or a "guide."

It does seem clear that Epicurus was wrestling with the Platonists and Peripatetics over straining too much over the meaning of the word "good" as further referenced by that fragment about those who walk around endlessly prattling about the meaning of good.

I sometimes think that it is better to think of pleasure as a "guide" rather than a "good" -- and indeed there's a phrase in Lucretius that Don can help us with the latin on where Lucretius calls Venus / Pleasure what is translated as "divine pleasure, guide of life" (I think it's "Dux vitae, dia voluptas".) Book Two:

As i see it I don't disagree with Don's perspective and it is largely what I am trying to convey in my "both are true" comment. Yes I do think it is possible to generalize, but it is generalizing within a context, and the generalization is going to hold true only so long as the facts supporting it are true. And the main fact which is at the starting point is that there is no universalizing supernatural force or extradimensional ideal which can take the place of a contextual analysis.

I feel sure that people like Don and I would have no difficulty agreeing on many generalizations, and that have no issue with seeing the limits of our generalizations. But I think world human history shows that there is a great danger that these limits are very easy to forget, so my perspective is to stress the warnings that I think are even today very frequently needed.

And a large part of my view is influenced by some Latin that I used to think was exactly the right view until I saw it as the polar opposite of Epicurus, the part from Cicero's Republic which I think speaks directly to why we started discussing humanism. I believe this view was known to Epicurus and helps us see how his views are in opposition. Here is a version of the quote which I found at the link below, though I usually see it translated "True law is right reason in accord with nature...."

https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4104&context=ndlr

This below is the version I usually see, and to which I would point as the common thread of there being a "one eternal and unchangeable law [that] will be valid for all nations at all times." Of course Cicero wrote this long after Epicurus' time, but as Cicero fancied himself part of the "New Academy" I would think that some similar statement, or at least the seed of the idea, comes down from at least as far back as Plato himself.

It is almost as if the last ten PD's were written with the view of exactly refuting such a "one law for all people at all times" point of view.

More seriously, after laughing with Don -- I do find that (in my humble opinion) this is one of the hardest but most important issues to see through. We all have (and I think SHOULD have) our own personal views of what is the right way that we want ourselves and our friends to live.

But that's light-years away from taking the position that there is some justification (in the gods, or in idealism of some kind that is non-religious) that there is a set way for EVERYONE to live.

I think it's very possible and critical to understanding of Epicurean philosophy and the Epicurean view of the universe that both things can be true at the same time. If you don't hold fast to your own view of what is the "right" way for you to live, then you'll likely fall into nihilism or some other form of despair. But if you think that "your" view is the best for everyone, and that something gives you the right to enforce that view on everyone else, then you'll eventually fall into something that is (admit it or not) tyrannical in nature.

Quote from Don

Welcome to the club

LOL

Quote from Philia

I guess I still need to examine my personal hang-ups with the word "pleasure" that come from a protestant upbringing.

Yes that would appear to be the issue!

The terminology "life worth living" is heavily weighted with its own Platonic / Aristotelian / Stoic / Religous baggage, since it implies that you have to look outside Nature's faculties (pleasure and pain) for justification and guidance.