Along the lines of noting that "supremely good" may be circular and unhelpful, let me observe this:
there must be something bigger or more profound than the human mind in the universe
For the same reason "supremely good" doesn't advance the ball much, the words "bigger" and "more profound" also need further definition / articulation.
I know this is the form we are used to seeing in paganism and Abrahamic religions, but for me, “divine“ in no way equals supernatural, and does not need to.
I agree with you, but this is one of apparently many situations where Epicurean definitions may depart from common usage. In this case, if "divine" does not equal supernatural, we probably need to be aggressive in articulating what it does mean. But does this definition really help anything or is it just circular?
That's a new word for me! 
Ok yes that was what I was thinking was probably the case. I guess this is sponsored by a university or some institution that is concerned about publication rights, so that's understandable. In addition to that kind of program, I hope over time we can develop programs that are truly "free" to everyone.
for learning and for feeling affiliated with a group
Yes I have always thought that "feeling affiliated with a group" is an important enjoyable experience that we're lacking in, and need to work to cultivate.
because they can’t shake the feeling that there must be something bigger or more profound than the human mind in the universe.
Ok that's the profound issue with lots of ramifications. It can easily lead to a "supernatural creator" argument that would be irreconcilable with Epicurean physics on the nature of the universe, and yet it is clear the Epicureans saw a feeling of "reverence" to be a very legitimate part of their philosophy. There's of course all the discussion in Lucretius about the gods, in the opening of Book 1 and in the rest of the book two, and there's that saying to the effect of "Thanks be to blessed Nature that she has made what is necessary easy to obtain, and ... what is necessary easy to obtain, and what is not easy unnecessary."
Combined in that last saying you've got an attitude that is either reverence or close to reverence, combined with a word "blessed" that describes something similar, even if all of it is completely natural and absolutely not part of a divine creator of the universe.
We have not tended to talk about this much - I kind of associate it in my mind with the category of "images," which we also don't talk about much but which I think has great potential for being explored. With images, however, the issue is more plainly non-supernatural, in that everyone understands implicitly that the senses of sight and hearing and other things imply a movement of "atoms" across space (presumably from object to our eyes) that supernatural gods aren't necessarily involved in.
With the topic of divinity though (and eternality and infinity, which have some of the same issues) it's more important to keep the lines of distinction clear. I know not everyone thinks the same way about these issues or considers them to be important, but I personally consider the category something that I hope anyone interested in it will explore and post about. I think it's related to the "sense of being affiliated" feeling that is important to a lot of people to have, and important to cultivate if we expect to develop anything more than just a small group of isolated period in a small corner of the internet.
And all this is also related to the creationism arguments about "design" and how those should be evaluated logically. The issue of how organization can arise from non-organization is closely related to whether life can emerge from non-life. Even as I type this I have several tracks of mind about it. Living beings are surely made from non-living components. But that not the same issue as whether that process of life from non-life is ongoing and continuous (I think it probably is, but I'm not 100% sure how to express that). There's also the "infinity / eternality" issue, which presumably means that there's no way to go behind the issue that the universe (as a whole) is eternal and so living things have always existed somewhere just as has the non-living. Similarly, under Epicurean theory, were the individual gods at one point "born," or has there eternally been a "race of gods" that has always existed somewhere, just like there has been a spectrum of living beings existing somewhere eternally?
I personally don't think these issues are answered or made irrelevant by "big bang" or other physics theories indicating that "the universe" had a beginning point in time. That's because personally I think Epicurus took the "logical position" that the universe cannot possibly have an end point, so whatever "big bang" we are observing is "local" rather than "universal." The interplay between "logical position" and "local experiments and their interpretations" is very hard to sort out.
Going back to the recently quoted excerpt from the letter to Velleius, it seems clear that Epicurus did in fact seem more willing to accept a logical position in an area we today might find to be overreaching:
“Moreover there is the supremely potent principle of infinity, which claims the closest and most careful study; we must understand that it has in the sum of things everything has its exact match and counterpart. This property is termed by Epicurus isonomia, or the principle of uniform distribution. From this principle it follows that if the whole number of mortals be so many, there must exist no less a number of immortals, and if the causes of destruction are beyond count, the causes of conservation also are bound to be infinite.
All these are issues that i do not know the answer to, but I think that those who are interested in should pursue, and I would tell anyone interested in them to let's set up a subforum to post our thoughts and explorations over time.
Ok - thanks Michele. Just curious - is there a reason for that? I don't really travel in academic circles -- is there some reason that a professional who gives a public lecture, or an entity that sponsors a public lecture, would not want that available publicly afterwards? Some kind of concern for intellectual property or something?
Michele I am very interested in several of those presentations but I am worried that my schedule is not going to allow me to view this live. I am going to try to make at least part of it, but I would appreciate it if you could help me be alert to see if they are going to post anywhere links so people can view the presentations afterward. Thanks very much for alerting us about this! I know that I definitely am interested in most anything Voula Tsouna has to say about Epicurus, and I am looking forward to finding out more about these other lecturers.
Looks like THESE are the presentations:
Thank you Michele!
Yes there was some good teamwork there. That was back when we had Elli actively with us. Hopefully she will be back with us soon - she is a dynamo, and of course you know Elayne is too. Elli was reluctant to be on podcasts because of course her first language is Greek, but she's an incredible resource and a "hoot" to deal with
I will re-read it. I remember it ending on sort of a cliffhanging note, but I don't remember the rest.
To me, virtue is any deliberate behavior that leads to more pleasure than pain, for the individual. The actual behavior may not always be pleasurable at the time, but the overall results are, or we would not label it virtue. It's because of the pleasure that we have come up with this whole conceptual category "virtue"-- but there isn't any freestanding thing such as virtue.
I agree with you, but I think this is where we have a huge road ahead to articulate this in a firm way. I don't think people really even hear us when we contend that "virtue" is relative to pleasure rather than absolute. Possibly the best text material we have is the discussion in "On Ends" where the virtues are discussed as desirable because they produce pleasure, but that probably doesn't make it clear enough that it isn't virtue at all unless it produces pleasure. That's the next step in the chain reasoning that's essential to take and needs a lot more articulation.
This is the kind of talk that leads people to imagine Epicureans as vacuously grinning Moonies, handing out flowers to each other in the airport.
That's a great line, and exactly accurate I think!
In the last section, about the morality of the "involved" model of gods, her failure to clearly incorporate the nature of the "good" as subjective (not universal) pleasure has again led to a big muddle. That is probably worth a separate post.
Yes I would definitely like to see you expand that. Are you talking about the last chapter where he gives a speech denouncing religion? I really don't remember the details of that too well, and maybe the reason is because it is more a muddle than I remember. I remember it being a strong denunciation of religion, but I don't remember much more than that.
Please be sure to see Elayne's thread here: Problems in Frances Wright's "A Few Days in Athens"
I will have lots more to say about this but immediately wanted to say "thank you!" Elayne, this is excellent commentary.
It's been years now since I first read AFDIA and yes I remember having several reservations with it, but your comments are more detailed than I ever wrote down then or since then.
I remember I definitely thought that she was embracing determinism, and that her view of the Epicurean gods was misstating what Epicurus said (which is worse than disagreeing, to put different words in his mouth), but these points you are raising are at least as important as those.
I remember that my primary reaction has always been in "relative" terms -- that Wright was contrasting Epicurus with the Stoics and showing the inferiority of Zeno's approach, and that to an extent she was at least defining pleasure most of the time in a somewhat normal way.
I was so relieved to find someone who even seemed to "approximately" get him right that I was happy to find her.
But I agree with you that these limitations you are pointing out are major issues with the book in absolute terms, and they need to be pointed out so that any good parts are taken in this context and the bad parts are warned about..
I will go through and have more detailed comments asap.
Michele can anyone join that link, or can we distribute it to everyone who might be interested?
There is no doubt that there has been a lot of connection between people who are loosely defined as small-s skeptics and those who are Epicureans. The issue I think is that the Pyrrhonists are guilty of trying to have their cake and eat it too - they are willing to accept that they are able to gain sufficient data to act, but they deny (or imply) that the data sufficient to act constitutes "knowledge." This is one of the many areas where it is essential to be clear about the meaning of the words. The Pyyrhonists seem to want to assert that unless one has omniscience and effective omnipotence, then their opinion about what is "known" cannot ever reach a level where it should be considered as truly "known" under their view of the meaning of that word.
I interpret Epicurus as considering that to be a word game worthy of dismissal out of hand, and worse than that, as an affirmative obstacle to ever having the kind of confidence that is required to live life as happily as is possible for someone who understands the realities of the world. The reality of the world is that supernatural gods and omniscience do not exist, and it is foolhardy and a lie to assert that only such a being with those qualities is entitled to consider their opinions to be "known." Epicurus' epistemology is geared toward identifying a standard of certainty that is appropriate for reality, and for our reality as human beings.
There is a lot of this material in DeWitt, A_Gardner, that would be worth reading, because DeWitt asserts (I think correctly) that Epicurus put his finger on this as one of the worst possible philosophies to have., along with hard determinism, as they both guarantee that a person will be plagued with unnecessary doubts as to whether it is even possible to have confidence that happy living is ever possible. There are plenty of obstacles in the world that truly stand in the way of happiness without inventing word games by which confidence in being happy is by definition impossible.
The argument is fairly straightforward—if there's only one prime 'reality', and, further, if we assume that it's possible to simulate other pseudo-realities an infinite number of times within that reality, then the probability is that we live in one of the infinite simulations rather than the one non-simulation.
Probably if there were an Epicurean school somewhere, high on the curriculum would be a course on "spotting logical fallacies" so that when we get confronted with a series of "Ifs" like this we have plenty of practice in spotting exactly where the reasonable possibilities stop and the unreasonable possibilities begin.
In fact even in writing that sentence I suspect that it is phrased wrong -- the issue is probably not well expressed as "reasonable" vs "unreasonable" because today there is no necessary implication that "reasonable" has anything to do with reality.
Probably unpacking these problems has something to do with stressing and making clear to everyone that "reason alone" in the sense of syllogistic logic is a dramatically wrong place to start in analyzing these issues. It is possible to postulate all sorts of things that do not exist in reality, and then build tremendously detailed systems on these postulates, all of which have absolutely nothing to do with reality and no command for our respect whatsoever.
Finding ways to dramatize that observation, and then drilling that into people, would probably be first-grade material for the opening day of Epicurean Class at Epicurus College!
I had a minute to come back to this: I think the reason that defining the term is so important is that there's an "everyday" meaning of the word Skepticism in which it's fair to say that we all should be skeptics, and clearly Epicurus was one too. It's essential that we demand evidence for our conclusions and that we don't accept things on "faith" without evidence. In that ordinary sense of the word skepticism is totally the right approach (speaking loosely there).
But philosophical skepticism that no knowledge of any kind is possible is a very different animal, and it's my understanding that THAT is what philosophers are talking about when they are being precise, and it's pretty easy to see that that position is what Epicurus/Lucretius were aiming their argument quoted above to mean.
So we have here another situation that if we're talking to real people in the real work, "skepticism" means one thing, but to professional philosophers it means something very different, so we have to be clear what we're talking about.
Exactly the same thing goes for "dogmatism." Dogmaticism in general use has awful meanings, but if it is taken philosophically to mean that at least some things can be grasped with enough certainty to consider them "knowable" then Epicurus was certainly a dogmatist.
Yes A_Gardner, Epicurus definitely argued against skepticism, and this is a fascinating topic.
It would probably help to make the conversation better if you would elaborate on what you are specifically thinking right now in your mind as to the key issues that make up the debate. What is "skepticism" exactly? "Dogmatism" is a word with nasty connotations today, but what exactly do we mean by "dogmatism?"
In the meantime as food for thought and always good to remember, here is perhaps the most explicit statement in the surviving texts, from Lucretius Book 4. I usually start this quote with "Lastly, if anyone thinks that he knows nothing...." but by starting earlier it is easy to see that Epicurus/Lucretius both understood the issues with the senses but also affirmed that regardless of those issues, they are our key to "truth". This is the 1743 Browne edition:
"[421] Observe, when your mettled horse stands still with you in the middle of a river, and you look down upon the rapid stream of the water, the force of the current seems to drive your horse violently upwards, and hurry you swiftly against the tide; and on which side soever you cast your eyes, all things seem to be borne along, and carried against the current in the same manner.
A long portico, though it be of equal breadth from one end to the other, and reaches far, supported by pillars of equal height, yet when you stand at one end to take a view of its whole extent, it contracts itself by degrees to a narrow point at the further end; the roof touches the floor, and both sides seem to meet, til it terminates at last in the sharp figure of a dark cone.
The sun, to Mariners, seems to rise out of the sea, and there again to set and hide his light; for they see nothing but the water and the sky; but therefore you are not to conclude rashly that the senses are at all deceived.
To those who know nothing of the sea, a ship in the port seems disabled, and to strive against the waves with broken oars; for that part of the oar and of the rudder that is above the water appears straight, but all below, being refracted, seems to be turned upwards, and to be bent towards the top of the water, and to float almost upon the surface of it.
So when the winds drive the light clouds along the sky in the night, the moon and stars seem to fly against the clouds, and to be driven above them in a course quite opposite to that in which they naturally move.
And if you chance to press with your fingers under one of your eyes, the effect will be that every thing you look upon will appear double, every bright candle will burn with two flames, and all the furniture of the house will multiply and show double; every face about you, and every body, will look like two.
Next, when sleep has bound our limbs in sweet repose, and all the body lies dissolved in rest, we think ourselves awake; our members move, and in the gloomy darkness of the night we think we see the sun in broad day-light, and, though confined in bed, we wander over the heavens, the sea, the rivers, and the hills, and fancy we are walking through the plains. And sounds we seem to hear; and, though the tongue be still, we seem to speak, when the deep silence of night reigns all about us.
Many more things of this kind we observe and wonder at, which attempt to overthrow the certainty of our senses, but to no purpose - for things of this sort generally deceive us upon account of the judgment of the mind which we apply to them, and so we conclude we see things which we really do not; for nothing is more difficult than to distinguish things clear and plain from such as are doubtful, to which the mind is ready to add its assent, as it is inclined to believe everything imparted by the senses.
Lastly, if anyone thinks that he knows nothing, he cannot be sure that he knows this, when he confesses that he knows nothing at all. I shall avoid disputing with such a trifler, who perverts all things, and like a tumbler with his head prone to the earth, can go no otherwise than backwards.
And yet allow that he knows this, I would ask (since he had nothing before, to lead him into such a knowledge) from whence he had the notion what it was to know, or not to know; what was it that gave him an idea of Truth or Falsehood, and what taught him to distinguish between doubt and certainty?
You will find that knowledge of truth is originally derived from the senses, nor can the senses be contradicted, for whatever is able by the evidence of an opposite truth to convince the senses of falsehood, must be something of greater certainty than they. But what can deserve greater credit than the senses require from us? Will reason, derived from erring sense, claim the privilege to contradict it? Reason – that depends wholly upon the senses,which unless you allow to be true, all reason must be false. Can the ears correct the eyes? Or the touch the ears? Or will taste confute the touch? Or shall the nose or eyes convince the rest?
This, I think, cannot be, for every sense has a separate faculty of its own, each has its distinct powers; and therefore an object, soft or hard, hot or cold, must necessarily be distinguished as soft or hard, hot or cold, by one sense separately, that is, the touch. It is the sole province of another, the sight, to perceive the colors of things, and the several properties that belong to them. The taste has a distinct office. Odors particularly affect the smell, and sound the ears. And therefore it cannot be that one sense should correct another, nor can the same sense correct itself, since an equal credit ought to be given to each; and therefore whatever the senses at any time discover to us must be certain.
And though reason is not able to assign a cause why an object that is really four-square when near, should appear round when seen at a distance; yet, if we cannot explain this difficulty, it is better to give any solution, even a false one, than to deliver up all Certainty out of our power, to break in upon our first principle of belief, and tear up all foundations upon which our life and security depend. For not only all reason must be overthrown, but life itself must be immediately extinguished, unless you give credit to your senses. These direct you to fly from a precipice and other evils of this sort which are to be avoided, and to pursue what tends to your security. All therefore is nothing more than an empty parade of words that can be offered against the certainty of sense.
Lastly, as in a building, if the principle rule of the artificer be not true, if his line be not exact, or his level bear in to the least to either side, every thing must needs be wrong and crooked, the whole fabric must be ill-shaped, declining, hanging over, leaning and irregular, so that some parts will seem ready to fall and tumble down, because the whole was at first disordered by false principles. So the reason of things must of necessity be wrong and false which is founded upon a false representation of the senses."
Thanks for updating this thread Susan. Joshua, did you ever make any more progress on your work?
