Posts by Cassius

Good catch Don and I completely agree that it is about as much contrary to Epicurus as one can get.

Epicurus touches on this in the letter to Menoeceus, and I would think it would be clear how un-Epicurean this point of view is, but I am afraid that some people see this as acceptable to Epicurus just like they see "Absence of Pain" as meaning that Epicurus wanted nothing in life other than to escape pain, as Plutarch argued.

This subject came up in 2018 in a thread that remains accessible in the Epicurean Philosophy Facebook group, and it's worth glancing at some of those posts. One in particular I made note of to illustrate the problem mentions Michel Onfray, who some hold in high regard:

One of my comments in response has some other references:

This list from wikipedia of groups who support antinatalism is a rogue's gallery in my view:

The teaching of the Buddha (c. 400 BCE) is interpreted by Hari Singh Gour (1870-1949) as follows:

Buddha states his propositions in the pedantic style of his age. He throws them into a form of sorites; but, as such, it is logically faulty and all he wishes to convey is this: Oblivious of the suffering to which life is subject, man begets children, and is thus the cause of old age and death. If he would only realize what suffering he would add to by his act, he would desist from the procreation of children; and so stop the operation of old age and death.[4]

The Marcionites believed that the visible world is an evil creation of a crude, cruel, jealous, angry demiurge, Yahweh. According to this teaching, people should oppose him, abandon his world, not create people, and trust in the good God of mercy, foreign and distant.[5][6][7]

The Encratites observed that birth leads to death. In order to conquer death, people should desist from procreation: "not produce fresh fodder for death".[8][9][10]

The Manichaeans,[11][12][13] the Bogomils[14][15][16] and the Cathars[17][18][19] believed that procreation sentences the soul to imprisonment in evil matter. They saw procreation as an instrument of an evil god, demiurge, or of Satan that imprisons the divine element in matter and thus causes the divine element to suffer.

Further, this:

I am surprised that wikipedia does not list THIS group, which is the place I've heard a variation of that view before:

For two-and-a-half years, the School of Shammai and the School of Hillel debated. These said, "It is better for man not to have been created than to have been created"; and these said, "It is better for man to have been created than not to have been created."

Talmud, Eruvin 13b

........

And yet, the sages of Shammai are of the opinion that man would be better off not to have been created—an opinion which the Talmud cites as a legitimate Torah viewpoint. Indeed, it is regarding the debates between the schools of Shammai and Hillel that the Talmud declares: "These and these are both the words of the living G‑d"!

http://www.chabad.org/.../2578/jewish/To-Be-or-to-Be-Not.htm

For this announcement thread I added the tag line "Make Sure It's Not Yours" to the tagline, because Don joins us this week on a short excursion into the land of Plutarch as we examine a criticism against Epicurus that far to many people accept as valid. Thanks Don for standing in for Joshua this week!

Post

RE: Episode 295 - Plutarch's Absurd Interpretation of Epicurean Absence of Pain

Episode 295 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. Today our episode is entitled: "Plutarch's Absurd Interpretation of Epicurean Absence of Pain." Thanks to Don for stepping in during Joshua's absence and contributing to this important episode!

[media]https://www.spreaker.com/episode/67447827/media

Cassius

August 19, 2025 at 6:33 PM

Episode 295 of the Lucretius Today Podcast is now available. Today our episode is entitled: "Plutarch's Absurd Interpretation of Epicurean Absence of Pain." Thanks to Don for stepping in during Joshua's absence and contributing to this important episode!

This podcast will be out either later today or tomorrow at the latest. One note I want to make before finishing the edit is that there is a particular segment that I think can be highly useful to us in future Zoom meetings, probably also on the twentieth.

Here is a segment from Non Posse 7, with the speaker sarcastically attacking the Epicureans:

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Have they not reason, think you, to value themselves for such things as these, and to talk as they are wont when they style themselves immortals and equals to Gods?—and when, through the excessiveness and transcendency of the blessed things they enjoy, they rave even to the degree of whooping and hollowing for very satisfaction that, to the shame of all mortals, they have been the only men that could find out this celestial and divine good that lies in an exemption from all evil.

There's more before and after this quote that makes it clear that Plutarch is trying to caricature the Epicureans for praising absence of pain so highly, and I think the proper response is to caricature him right back.

Plutarch thinks it is a persuasive argument to say that Epicurus held that the goal and best thing to do in life is sip a little water and nibble a bit of cheese.

That's hogwash, and Plutarch knows it.

The absurdity of saying that Epicurus taught this is obvious, but the even greater absurdity is that so many modern Epicureans have accepted this characterization as accurate.

Sarcasm can be used by all sides to this debate, and I am going to make it a standard part of my discussion of Epicurean philosophy to play act examples of this absurdity. Neither my life nor Epicurus' nor any other Epicureans' life is summed up in the act of nibbling cheese or sipping water, but to act as if it is will serve to illustrate the absurdity of it. For those who are willing to see the absurdity, caricaturing it by taking Plutarch's argument to its literal extreme --- whooping and hollering about the ecstatic experience of a sip of water or a bite of cheese -- will help break down one of the worst misrepresentations of Epicurean teaching.

Quote from DaveT

I don't think scientific endeavor used by mainstream scientists exploring and testing the boundaries of physics, have an agenda to prove there are mystical realms or that knowledge is impossible.

I see that as raising the same issue Bryan raised. Who has the authority to say what is "mainstream" and what is not? And if "mainstream" is defined as the majority position, then we are to follow science by majority vote? I suspect it was in a context like this that Philodemus made the aside that democracy is or can be the worst form of government.

Quote from DaveT

And even those scientists (thinkers and experimenters) who are exploring the degree to which human behavior is entirely mechanistic, I.e. biologically and environmentally determined,will admit that theirs is a minority opinion so far.

And in regard to this, that's a very important "so far" there at the end, and I it is my observation that tolerance of opinions which dissent from that which is proclaimed to be "mainstream" by the majority is declining fast. And that's an inherent bug (or feature) of the deference to experts in matters of philosophy vs. science. You're quite right that many scientists are not willing to state their personal beliefs as to where their opinions lead, so there's an inherent bias toward more and more accumulation of power by those who proclaim that they alone have the expertise to even ask the questions, much less answer them.

i wish I were overstating this problem and I want to keep a bright line against discussing modern politics, but we can find ample illustrations of this problem throughout history, even if we exclude the events of the last 200 years. I don't expect the devoted skeptics or determinists or mysticists to seriously entertain my opinions any more than I seriously entertain theirs, but history has shown that the Epicurean viewpoint is the minority, and the majority are always all-too-ready to enforce their opinions on "science" just as much as on religion or any other subject.

I'm glad there are (were) people like Daniel Dennet promoting compatibilist views, but it's a constant effort to keep the free flow of information and opinions going.

And that what takes us back to the central issue -- do we simply defer to "experts" and get out of their way when they proclaim that modern science makes Epicurean philosophy (except for the ice cream and friendship and tranquility part) totally obsolete? I'd say of course not.

Quote from Adrastus

Science isn't supposed to take into account the health of the soul when off discovering or theorizing in the same way Ancient Philosophical systems needed to more or less wrap everything up nice and tidy as to be a system of psychological health or attainment.

I think you're right that this is the general modern position, but whether that is an advancement or a regression is also a matter for debate.

Quote from Kalosyni

For Epicurus, contemplate/meditate would have meant to think about, study, and apply philosophy.

And that sense is absolutely appropriate, so long as it is understood that thinking and studying are not the only activities that must be pursued, and which are also desirable to pursue, and which are also of vital importance in human life. Nor would it be appropriate to say that *thinking alone* can get you anywhere in life, absent the evidence of the senses as a starting point and on which to base that thinking and apply its results.

Quote from Rolf

even when they have a higher degree of expertise than you?

I think the key is in this part of the question. I certainly admit that there are many people with more expertise in many subjects than I have. Doctors know more medicine, computer scientists know more programming, and so on down the line.

But despite their expertise in specific subject areas, claims of mysticism, radical skepticism, and total determinism are already adequately proved to be false. And there is no good reason to hold open a possibility in one's mind that they will ever prove to be true.

Proof of mysticism would require not simply proof of a force stronger than ourselves. In fact it's part of the philosophy that there are many living beings in the universe other than ourselves on earth, and that we expect some of them to be more technologically advanced than we are. There may in fact be intelligent forces in operation in our world now or in the past which we do not currently recognize. We will likely soon visit Mars and then eventually leave our solar system and visit other parts of the universe, and it is possible that others from other parts of the universe have already visited ours. But there are thousands of years of human experience (observation plus deductive reasoning) to establish that the forces of nature operate on regular principles which are consistent with having a fixed nature. There is no evidence or logical reasoning based on that evidence to postulate an intelligent force behind the universe *as a whole.*

Proof of radical skepticism would require evidence that *nothing* in the universe has a regular consistency that can be predicted. There is no real reason to argue this one further other than to observe that many things are in fact known and deserve to be considered facts of reality.

Proof of total determinism would be on the same order as proof of radical skepticism. Epicurean philosophy firmly holds that many things are in fact determined by purely physical factors, but the issue is that not *all* things are so determined. In our (and my), own experience we have held the ability to affect how our future lives will be lived, and that is sufficient proof of the point.

All of these are issues on which Epicurus had every reason to be confident in his day, and we today have 2000 years more evidence that confirms that he was right to be confident then.

But there is one more thing I would add to this analysis, and that is that experience also shows that there are people who are strongly motivated to push this issue for reasons that also have to be acknowledged to exist. There are no supernatural forces, and knowledge is possible, but because humans have free will they are free to postulate the opposite, and there is a lot of power to be gained and money to be made in doing just that.

The arguments made by Lucretius at the beginning of his poem about the priests spinning tales, and the arguments by Lucian in Alexander the Oracle Monger and the other citations go in exactly that direction. It is for that reason that the Epicurean approach is so important. Certain people will always find it in their self-interest to throw around fear, uncertainty, and doubt as a means of manipulating people who are not steeled against this by the Epicurean approach. It is not true that there are mystical forces, it is not true that all things are predetermined, and it is not true that knowledge is impossible, but it certainly is true that there are people who will make such claims, and it is therefore necessary to have a proper understanding of why they are wrong.

I know that there are questions as to how Epicurean we should consider Lucian to have been, but here are two citations from two of his works that have seemed to me to be relevant to this question. To me, they ring of the Epicurean attitude, not one of radical skepticism, in refusing to defer to "weird" claims whether based on mathematics or other claims of advanced knowledge.

The point here is not that there won't always be new discoveries of new facts, but that on the largest issues that concern us we already have plenty of facts to reach firm conclusions. And these areas where we have more than enough evidence include that there is nothing supernatural over us, that we can have confidence in some conclusions, and that we are not so tightly controlled by determinism that we have no freedom of will whatsoever.

These following selections aren't from Epicurus, but I would argue that Lucian was reflecting Epicurus' attitude towards claims of authority that contradict what we can gain from the sensations, anticipations, and feelings:

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Lucian's Hermotimus

Perhaps an illustration will make my meaning clearer: when one of those audacious poets affirms that there was once a three-headed and six-handed man, if you accept that quietly without questioning its possibility, he will proceed to fill in the picture consistently—six eyes and ears, three voices talking at once, three mouths eating, and thirty fingers instead of our poor ten all told; if he has to fight, three of his hands will have a buckler, wicker targe, or shield apiece, while of the other three one swings an axe, another hurls a spear, and the third wields a sword. It is too late to carp at these details, when they come; they are consistent with the beginning; it was about that that the question ought to have been raised whether it was to be accepted and passed as true. Once grant that, and the rest comes flooding in, irresistible, hardly now susceptible of doubt, because it is consistent and accordant with your initial admissions. That is just your case; your love-yearning would not allow you to look into the facts at each entrance, and so you are dragged on by consistency; it never occurs to you that a thing may be self- consistent and yet false; if a man says twice five is seven, and you take his word for it without checking the sum, he will naturally deduce that four times five is fourteen, and so on ad libitum.

This is the way that weird geometry proceeds: it sets before beginners certain strange assumptions, and insists on their granting the existence of inconceivable things, such as points having no parts, lines without breadth, and so on, builds on these rotten foundations a superstructure equally rotten, and pretends to go on to a demonstration which is true, though it starts from premises which are false.

Just so you, when you have granted the principles of any school, believe in the deductions from them, and take their consistency, false as it is, for a guarantee of truth. Then with some of you, hope travels through, and you die before you have seen the truth and detected your deceivers, while the rest, disillusioned too late, will not turn back for shame: what, confess at their years that they have been abused with toys all this time? So they hold on desperately, putting the best face upon it and making all the converts they can, to have the consolation of good company in their deception; they are well aware that to speak out is to sacrifice the respect and superiority and honor they are accustomed to; so they will not do it if it may be helped, knowing the height from which they will fall to the common level. Just a few are found with the courage to say they were deluded, and warn other aspirants. Meeting such a one, call him a good man, a true and an honest; nay, call him philosopher, if you will; to my mind, the name is his or no one’s; the rest either have no knowledge of the truth, though they think they have, or else have knowledge and hide it, shamefaced cowards clinging to reputation.

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Lucian’s Dialog “Icaromenippus, An Aerial Expedition:”

“Menippus. Ah, but keep your laughter till you have heard something of their pretentious mystifications. To begin with, their feet are on the ground; they are no taller than the rest of us ‘men that walk the earth’; they are no sharper-sighted than their neighbors, some of them purblind, indeed, with age or indolence. And yet they say they can distinguish the limits of the sky, they measure the sun’s circumference, take their walks in the supra-lunar regions, and specify the sizes and shapes of the stars as though they had fallen from them. Often one of them could not tell you correctly the number of miles from Megara to Athens, but has no hesitation about the distance in feet from the sun to the moon. How high the atmosphere is, how deep the sea, how far it is round the earth— they have the figures for all that. Moreover, they have only to draw some circles, arrange a few triangles and squares, add certain complicated spheres, and lo, they have the cubic contents of Heaven.

Then, how reasonable and modest of them, dealing with subjects so debatable, to issue their views without a hint of uncertainty; thus it must be and it shall be; contra gentes they will have it so. They will tell you on oath the sun is a molten mass, the moon inhabited, and the stars water-drinkers, moisture being drawn up by the sun’s rope and bucket and equitably distributed among them.”

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Lucian's Alexander the Oracle Monger

And at this point, my dear Celsus, we may, if we will be candid, make some allowance for these Paphlagonians and Pontics; the poor uneducated ‘fat-heads’ might well be taken in when they handled the serpent—a privilege conceded to all who choose—and saw in that dim light its head with the mouth that opened and shut. It was an occasion for a Democritus, nay, for an Epicurus or a Metrodorus, perhaps, a man whose intelligence was steeled against such assaults by skepticism and insight, one who, if he could not detect the precise imposture, would at any rate have been perfectly certain that, though this escaped him, the whole thing was a lie and an impossibility.

Unfortunately I am afraid that the general interpretation of "the contemplative life" you quoted above is very entrenched, so it's important to be careful in praising "contemplation" in contrast with words like "study" or "applying."

Quote from DaveT

suggest that none of us, (except perhaps Martin ) have any capacity to judge the credibility of those giants of modern physics you refer to above.

I think that Epicurus would reject that attitude even if he were here today. and especially if he were here today to see the effects of some scientists - by no means all - making similar claims.

It wouldn't matter to me if Martin or 100 people with more experience than Martin were to tell me that "modern physics establishes that there is a mystical realm, or modern physics establishes that knowledge is impossible, or modern physics establishes that human life is entirely mechanistic."

Despite my regard for Martin, I would nicely but firmly 100% reject each of those conclusions, and never lose a moments sleep concerned that any new discovery has already or would arise to prove the opposite. I think what we are discussing is very much the situation Epicurus found himself in 2000 years ago, and it will very likely remain the situation 2000 years from now.

Lots of interesting history in that wikipedia link. Just like I wouldn't take medical advise from a professed Christian Scientist, I might well entertain adopting the rule that before I admit any credibility in anyone claiming to be an expert in "quantum weirdness" I would first want to know the writer's personal position on mysticism, determinism, and skepticism. And if he or she wasn't willing to lay their cards on the table on these issues, that would be a major red flag.

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Many early quantum physicists held some interest in traditionally Eastern metaphysics. Physicists Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrödinger, two of the main pioneers of quantum mechanics in the 1920s, were interested in Eastern mysticism, but are not known to have directly associated one with the other. In fact, both endorsed the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Olav Hammer said that "Schrödinger’s studies of Hindu mysticism never compelled him to pursue the same course as quantum metaphysicists such as David Bohm or Fritjof Capra." Schrödinger biographer Walter J. Moore said that Schrödinger's two interests of quantum physics and Hindu mysticism were "strangely dissociated".^[11]

In his 1961 paper "Remarks on the mind–body question", Eugene Wigner suggested that a conscious observer played a fundamental role in quantum mechanics,^{[12][13]: 93}a concept which is part of the consciousness causes collapse interpretation. While his paper served as inspiration for later mystical works by others,^[12] Wigner's ideas were primarily philosophical and were not considered overtly pseudoscientific like the mysticism that followed.^[14] By the late 1970s, Wigner had shifted his position and rejected the role of consciousness in quantum mechanics.^[15] Harvard historian Juan Miguel Marin suggests that "consciousness [was] introduced hypothetically at the birth of quantum physics, [and] the term 'mystical' was also used by its founders, to argue in favor of and against such an introduction."^[16]

Mysticism was argued against by Albert Einstein. Einstein's theories have often been falsely believed to support mystical interpretations of quantum theory. Einstein said, with regard to quantum mysticism, "No physicist believes that. Otherwise he wouldn't be a physicist."^[16] He debates several arguments about the approval of mysticism, even suggesting Bohr and Pauli to be in support of and to hold a positive belief in mysticism which he believes to be false.

Quote from Rolf

While this is likely true in a literal sense, I wouldn’t underestimate the trend of “quantum woo” or “quantum mysticism”. I’ve encountered many people online who use their interpretations of quantum theory to argue absurd claims, such as the idea that there is some kind of higher level of existence we must escape to.

Yes I agree with that. Every time I hear the "weirdness" words i suspect also that that is what is meant, but I also know that many of them also insist that they are not mysticists themselves, so to keep the discussion civil and constructive I'll take them at their word until something otherwise becomes clear. All these issues of determinism and skepticism and mysticism are right beneath the surface, even though it might not be stated explicitly by the advocates. So the best way at the moment I can think of to handle the issue is to go right along that no doubt they have some interesting experiments, but to require them to spell out what implications do they take from those experiments. So long as those implications aren't skepticism or determinism or mysticism, I'm all ears.

Quote from Bryan

Any "science" that uses math to try to explain away the observable is doing something fundamentally different -- and this path can lead to any conclusion. Even such things as the universe just popping into existence, or that matter is not fundamentally physical.

That is a better way of getting at what I tried to approach in my last question before we ran out of time. There are now, have been for 2000+ years, and will always be people who advocate for a new kind of knowledge that is difficult of impossible for people who are not initiated in the specialty to understand. The rub comes when people use string theory or any other system of thought to argue against the basic ability of humans to have adequate confidence in the fundamental conclusions of their senses and the logical implications of what the senses have established. In our day, most of the advocates of quantum and other experimentation seem to be atheists, so they do not jump to arguing that their experiments prove that there is a "god," as the mathematics of the size of the sun issue was used in the past.

Today the advocates of these theories seem to be content to argue that their experiments prove that there is nothing that we should have confidence in. To my observation, they don't often state an explicit agenda of their own, and they seem satisfied to undermine the confidence of confidence of anyone else (anyone who does not participate in their theories) in anything else. They do this in the name of "science," without stating any more specific agenda for "science" other than that it is they (the scientists) who alone are objective.

Regardless of what quantum mechanics or what any other subatomic experimentation will eventually establish, there is every reason to be confident that what it will establish will be completely in line with a totally natural universe which has not prime mover, no master plan, and no intentional teleology for the way humanity should live other than that which we are given through pleasure and pain.

I am firmly convinced that most subatomic scientists are totally benevolent in their motivations, and if Epicurus were alive today he would be every bit as interested in their research as he was in atomism 2000 years ago. But I am also firmly convinced that there is and always will be a class of people who will attempt to manipulate the discussion, just as they did in Epicurus' time, to take advantage of the disparity in knowledge between "experts" and ordinary people. And I am convinced that the record shows that Epicurus was completely alert to this tendency and instilled deeply into his philosophy an antidote to it.

And that antidote is the understanding that all human sensations are to humans true, and there is no otherworldly or metaphysical standard of truth, no matter whether the person making the claim has a doctorate in theology from the Vatican or a doctorate in particle physics from M.I.T.

For those who understand the importance of the issue, the sun is, has always been, and will always be the size that it appears to be.

sorry to have missed you Patrikios -- we spent a lot of time on physics and you would have enjoyed it.

Thanks for letting us know Robert. Drive safe.

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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.

"Epicurus and His Philosophy" by Norman DeWitt

The Biography of Epicurus by Diogenes Laertius. This includes the surviving letters of Epicurus, including those to Herodotus, Pythocles, and Menoeceus.

"On The Nature of Things" - by Lucretius (a poetic abridgement of Epicurus' "On Nature"

"Epicurus on Pleasure" - By Boris Nikolsky

The chapters on Epicurus in Gosling and Taylor's "The Greeks On Pleasure."

Cicero's "On Ends" - Torquatus Section

Cicero's "On The Nature of the Gods" - Velleius Section

The Inscription of Diogenes of Oinoanda - Martin Ferguson Smith translation

A Few Days In Athens" - Frances Wright

Lucian Core Texts on Epicurus: (1) Alexander the Oracle-Monger, (2) Hermotimus

Philodemus "On Methods of Inference" (De Lacy version, including his appendix on relationship of Epicurean canon to Aristotle and other Greeks)

"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.

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Welcome to the forum!

Glad to have you Hubblefanboy!

I have been thinking since I read post #8 about exactly why I am not entirely comfortable with it.

Quote from Patrikios

The modern medical evidence strongly supports Epicurus' ancient insight that katastemic pleasure (stable well-being) represents our optimal biological state.

So another visual (instead of a jar) could be a flowing stream. Nature gives us pleasure to guide our optimal, healthy flow; and pain appears when we are flowing past our natural boundaries. This is not a perfect analogy, but a different way of guiding our thoughts and actions.

I think the reason I would not recommend this as a primary response to Cicero is as follows.

To go back to the beginning, Cicero's challenge was this:

Quote

Grant that to be in pain is the greatest evil; whosoever, then, has proceeded so far as not to be in pain, is he, therefore, in immediate possession of the greatest good?

And my elaboration was this:

From the context I think it is pretty clear that what Cicero is saying is something like "OK I will spot you that being in pain is the greatest evil, but I still challenge you on this -- just because I remove that evil, that does mean that i am in immediate possession of the greatest good (pleasure)?" So that challenge demands an answer, and I think the most persuasive answer has to include another visual analogy rather than just the assertion that "absence of pain is the greatest pleasure" or "when one has no pain one has no further need for pleasure."

So in that context, Cicero is appealing to the broad spectrum of people - the vast majority, I would say - who are confused as to how "absence of pain" can be seen to equal "the greatest good." And in common discussion, the "greatest" good is the thing that every other action is taken for purposes of gaining. And thus the question is "how can one identify the greatest good as absence of pain?"

And as a result, to say that "katastemic pleasure (stable well-being) represents our optimal biological state" is not an answer that most people will accept as reasonable.

And they will not accept it as a reasonable answer for reason given by Plutarch in our other recent discussion on "That Epicurus Makes a Pleasant Life impossible." "Optimal biological state" and "stable well-being" does not explain what the person is doing with that optimal state. To have it is nice, but can hardly serve as a description of the best life.

And so Plutarch very reasonably in my mind protests as follows:

"Oh the rare satisfaction and felicity these men enjoy, that can thus rejoice for having undergone no evil and endured neither sorrow nor pain! Have they not reason, think you, to value themselves for such things as these, and to talk as they are wont when they style themselves immortals and equals to Gods?—and [p. 168] when, through the excessiveness and transcendency of the blessed things they enjoy, they rave even to the degree of whooping and hollowing for very satisfaction that, to the shame of all mortals, they have been the only men that could find out this celestial and divine good that lies in an exemption from all evil So that their beatitude differs little from that of swine and sheep, while they place it in a mere tolerable and contented state, either of the body, or of the mind upon the body's account. For even the wiser and more ingenious sort of brutes do not esteem escaping of evil their last end; but when they have taken their repast, they are disposed next by fulness to singing, and they divert themselves with swimming and flying; and their gayety and sprightliness prompt them to entertain themselves with attempting to counterfeit all sorts of voices and notes; and then they make their caresses to one another, by skipping and dancing one towards another; nature inciting them, after they have escaped evil, to look after some good, or rather to shake off what they find uneasy and disagreeing, as an impediment to their pursuit of something better and more congenial."

All the talk about "stability" and "optimal biological states" in the world cannot respond adequately to this argument. Nor do I think Epicurus rested his argument by talking about "optimal biological states." I think writers on Epicurus today are guilty of vastly underselling Epicurus by ignoring how the Epicureans actually spent their lives engaged with philosophical arguments and experiencing normal active pleasures that are identified with motion, rather than just with 'rest." Joy and delight are far more motivational than living day after day in a state that can easily be caricatured as that of a potted plant. There are plenty of Epicurean texts and Epicurean examples that illustrate this, and so we should not stop before we give the full explanation.

As Torquatus put it to Cicero,

[40] XII. Again, the truth that pleasure is the supreme good can be most easily apprehended from the following consideration. Let us imagine an individual in the enjoyment of pleasures great, numerous and constant, both mental and bodily, with no pain to thwart or threaten them; I ask what circumstances can we describe as more excellent than these or more desirable? A man whose circumstances are such must needs possess, as well as other things, a robust mind subject to no fear of death or pain, because death is apart from sensation, and pain when lasting is usually slight, when oppressive is of short duration, so that its temporariness reconciles us to its intensity, and its slightness to its continuance."

When Cicero and Plutarch focus on "absence of pain" as if it were a full description of Epicurus goal (rather than a technical explanation of the philosophical limit) they strip Epicurus of the entire field of active pleasures, and thereby create a caricature that no regular person of common sense is going to accept as reasonable.

Of course I am not criticizing the quotations that provided in post 8, because that analysis has a philosophical context in which they are completely appropriate.

But in setting out to understand the completeness of Epicurean philosophy, we should not play into the hands of its worst enemies. We should not grant Cicero's and Plutarch's accusations that the phrase "absence of pain" suffices without elaboration gives us the whole story. Formulations that imply that Epicurus taught that action is desirable only for purposes of arriving at a "state" perpetuate just such a problem. Regardless of the scientific perspective on "optimal biological states," Epicurus didn't teach a particular choice of pleasure (even a "flowing stream" as a destination. Instead, Epicurus taught pleasure as the guide for every moment of the journey, both mental and bodily, during which we will at times deliberately choose pain, with the general feeling of "happiness" being totally in the eye of the person living that journey.

Flowing streams and completely full jars are useful philosophical depictions of conceptual issues. However the complete picture must explain how nature leads us to feel that variations in pleasure are also desirable, and how at times it is entirely appropriate for flowing streams to become raging torrents. If we are going to explain Epicurus' full teaching persuasively, we can't give in to formulations that make it look like Epicurus taught that that Nature is "wrong" in making both pleasures of action and of attitude essential components of the best life.

The topic for this week's zoom (after we finish new business) will be "All Sensations Are True"

The Major Doctrines Of Classical Epicurean Philosophy - Epicureanfriends.com

This page presents a summary of Classical Epicurean Philosophy . For additional citations to Epicurean texts, click here. Nothing From Nothing Nothing Can Be…

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